Before I went to KL, I received an email from Felicia and an SMS from Supriya saying I won a contest that I took part with Text 100 at the Nokia Connection 2008. As Nokia Connection 2008 saw the launched of Nokia E71 and E66, the first thing that comes to my mind is that I might have just won either of the mobile phones. Few minutes later, Felicia sent me the 2nd email and told me that I won SGD$300 Takashimaya Vouchers. I was like WOW.

I have not won anything since my polytechnic graduation dinner and dance draw which I only won a SGD$50 Converse voucher. This is the biggest prize I have won so far, but nevertheless, I still don’t believe in lucky draws or contests =p

I would like to thank Felicia, Supriya and Liyi (in no particular order) from Text 100, Nokia Communication Team for the prize. Thank You!

I am going to get myself a leather shoes and perhaps get one for my brother as well.

SGD$300 Takashimaya Vouchers

Today, went down to Bugis’s Singtel Hello! store to get a Nokia N78 as my grandfather line contract has expired and Singtel has kindly sent a voucher to my grandfather. I can choose to get the Nokia N78 with a SGD$100 discount or any Nokia 3G/3.5G phones with a SGD$30 discount. Wanted to get the Nokia E71 but it is quite expensive (SGD$400+) after the SGD$30 discount. End up getting the Nokia N78 for SGD$298 (after SGD$100 discount).

My mom told my grandfather that I wanted the phone and hence she traded with him the older Nokia 7610. If not my grandfather will either bring the phone to China and sell or give it to some China man (no idea whether he got tricked or cheated into doing those).

Anyway, I will keep the Nokia N78 in the meantime and once my dad is back I can passed it to him to use and hence his old Nokia N73 will become a spare phone.

Nokia N78

My M1 line will expire on 24th August 2008 and after that, I will definitely switch to Singtel as M1 can’t be bothered to retain their customers and hence I can’t be bothered to stay with them.

I was invited to the event, Nokia Sharing Experience held yesterday at MILK Studio located at 11C Mount Sophia, #02-16. In the RSVP image that was sent to my email, it only states that Nokia is introducing their latest devices as well as Share on Ovi. The first thing that came to my mind when I saw the words “latest devices” is N78 and N96.

The place was a little difficult to find if you have not been to Mount Sophia before (like me). I need to climb up a long flight of stairs before reaching Mount Sophia. Being the usual me, I was there early. My name was always in the early bird draw for almost every Nokia event, but unfortunately I always didn’t win!

Caught up with a couple of Text100 personnel like Felicia, Liyi and Carolyn, finally I can put the face to the name whom I contact with via email. I realized most PR personnel are all girls (except for Dinesh from Nokia and Aaron from Text100). I also talked to several people from Nokia like Angela, Annette (who used to stay 2 levels above me), Keith, Sueanne and a few others whom I did not get their name cards. I am bad with remembering names, better not type it here if I am unsure of it.

The event started off with the press release of Nokia N78, Nokia 6220 Classic and Share on Ovi by the GM of Nokia Singapore, Grant McBeath. Tips on how to use your mobile phone camera to take great pictures by Olivier Henry who is a French Photographer was up next and lastly Keith who is the head of games in Nokia talked about Ovi and Nokia latest devices.

After the talk, there was a mini competition where each and everyone of the invited guests can get to choose either a N78 or 6220 Classic to capture 2 creative images using the device and submit it to Share on Ovi. Being the Nseries fan myself, of course I choose the N78. I took a picture of an Exit sign for the object/people category and a Road Arrow for the landscape category. The winner of each category will get either a N78 or a 6220 Classic, and again unfortunately, I didn’t win.

I must say that whenever there is food in a Nokia event, the food is always good or rather personally I like it! This one is no exception.

I left there at about 7pm as I need to rush off to my Dad’s birthday dinner at Outback Steak House.

Nokia N78
The Nokia N78 will be available in Singapore next week and the RRP for the phone is SGD$808 without any operator plan. I just love the geo tagging feature for this phone. As you all may know this phone came equipped with a GPS so that the location of your photo shot can get tag by the GPS coordinates. In the event of the lost or no GPS signal, the mobile phone cellular signal will kick in and your photo will still get tagged. I was really amazed by this feature. In Singapore where it is a small country, there is base stations almost everywhere and hence the cellular signal tagging can be as accurate as the GPS tagging.

I did asked whether the cellular signal tagging will come to existing Nseries devices in future firmware upgrades and unfortunately the answer is no as the support for the cellular signal tagging is more of a hardware issue rather than a software issue.

I played around with this phone and somehow all the animations in FP2 looks nice but there is a 1 to 2 seconds delay because of the animation. Of course the animation can be turned off easily.

The keypad of the Nokia N78 needs a little getting used to as the Menu button and the Clear button is on the side rather than at the top.

Nokia 6220 Classic
Didn’t get a chance to play with the Nokia 6220 Classic. But it will be available in Singapore in June 2008 with a RRP of SGD$728 without any operator plan. According to Keith, it will be the cheapest 5 megapixel camera phone with Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics out there in the market. Imagine this phone as a N82 but running FP2.

Share on Ovi
With unlimited number of media in any channel, Share on Ovi beats Flickr hands down. Flickr only allows 200 photos for the “free” membership. Share on Ovi also beats Facebook as Facebook only allows 60 photos in an album.

You can upload photos, videos and even powerpoint slides to Share on Ovi and share it with your friends. It supports up to 100+ file extensions.

In order to seamlessly upload photos or videos from your Nokia mobile phones to Share on Ovi , you need to download Share Online 3 which is under your Download Folder in your menu.

And best of all, it is free! I almost wanted to pay for the “pro” membership in Flickr but now I think I shall stick to Share on Ovi.

Here is the widget that I embedded from Share on Ovi:

You can check out my Share on Ovi Profile too.

Nokia N78

Website: Official Nokia N78 Site
Gallery: Official Nokia N78 Press Photos
Specification: Official Nokia N78 Specifications
Press Release: Nokia N78 Press Release
Source: The Nokia N78, in European and North American flavors

Nokia N96

Website: Official Nokia N96 Site
Gallery: Official Nokia N96 Press Photos
Specification: Official Nokia N96 Specifications
Press Release: Nokia N96 Press Release
Source: The Nokia N96 redefines “high-end”