Red Dot Design Museum

This is the 2nd and final part to the Nokia Remix 2008 event. The party starts at 7pm and is held at Red Dot Design Museum. I was there with Li Xiang. We have a blogger meeting at Pacific Coffee also at 7pm where we get to play with the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 for quite a long time. I took a video of the Internet surfing experience and the gaming experience using accelerometer and will be uploading to YouTube.

About 8pm, we proceed on for the buffet dinner and followed by the Music Performance. By the way, the food catered by Nokia is as usual very good. Thumbs up for that.

There are a total of 4 music performances namely, Plain Sunset, Astreal, Andrew Macdonald and Lifehouse. The first 2 bands are from Singapore, the Andrew Macdonald is from Australia and the last band Lifehouse need no further introduction. And of course it is Lifehouse which gets the party going and I think Lifehouse has put up the best performance of the night. They will be performing at St James Power Station later on in the day (it has past 12mn). The MCs for the day is The Muttons featuring Justin Ang and Vernon A from 987FM. I think they did a great job at hosting the event and their jokes are awesome! Thumbs up!

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Internet Surfing/Browsing:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Gaming:

Here are some of the pictures that I took:

Nokia Remix 2008 Singapore was held today at 9am at Odeon Towers, Supper Club. Supper Club is a beautiful place the huge sofa chairs are so comfortable that I almost fell asleep. I knew pretty much everything that Nokia is going to announce thanks to the pre-media briefing yesterday.

My Media Pass

I have finally got the chance to take a video of the user interface of the XpressMusic 5800 and I have uploaded it to YouTube. Nothing is new here, for more information, you can check out the post below this or check the specifications at http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic.

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 User Interface:

As usual, sorry for the out of focus digital camera video recording, but I don’t mind a sponsor for a dedicated HD video recording camcorder, any takers?

“Nokia Come With Music” service is also announced. Let me summarize it in points so that it is easier to digest.

• It is a pre-paid service that is bundled to Nokia mobile phones. Currently on the 5310 XpressMusic, N95 8GB and 5800 XpressMusic.
• You need to pay a little bit more for the bundled phone. Price for Singapore is still unknown at the moment.
• You get 1 year of unlimited music downloads through Nokia Music Store. 18 months option are coming in 2009.
• The music you downloaded, you get to keep it after the 1 year. Nokia spokesperson keep emphasising this.
• Like it or not it is DRMed.
• If I am not wrong, the format is WMA and not MP3.

Personally, I am not in favour of DRM and WMA. I don’t mind paying a little more for non-DRM and MP3.

Here are some of the pictures that I took:

It is now 1am Singapore Timing and my NDA has ended. Now it is time for me to talk about Nokia XpressMusic 5800 aka “The Tube”. I was invited by Text 100 (Thank You Supriya!) to the pre-media briefing of the Nokia Remix 2008 at Marina Mandarin. The media pre-briefing is held simultaneously with the Nokia Remix 2008 event in London and hence the weird timing of having it at 9pm last night.

The press release conference will happen later on at 9am and followed by a party at night at 7pm where I will be going with Li Xiang.

There will be 3 parts to this post, I will post the brief details about the Nokia XpressMusic 5800 which is in the PowerPoint presentation (full specifications will be out later), followed by my 1st impressions after playing it and lastly the pictures I taken at the pre-media briefing using my Canon iXUS 860IS.

Nokia XpressMusic 5800 “Tube” Press Shot

Brief Details on Nokia XpressMusic 5800

• Incredible Big Sound experience: High performance built-in stereo surround speakers
• Superb 30fps VGA quality video recording and playback on 3.2″ 16:9 nHD widescreen display (640×360, 16 million colors)
• Great music experience: 8GB MicroSD included, 35 hours playback, FM RDS Radio, OTA Podcasts
• Freedom of choice: 3.5mm audio jack, support for the leading digital music formats (MP3, eAAC+, WMA, M4A)
• Easy to side-load (USB) and download (OTA) using the new Nokia Music PC Client or the new Nokia Music Store user interface
• Key device for “Comes With Music” Service
• Direct Access: One-click media bar for quick and easy access to all your media
• TV-Out
• GPS with A-GPS
• Multiple input methods:
  • Stylus, plectrum, finger
  • Handwriting recognition
  • One-handed portrait usage (ITU-T)
  • Two-handed landscape usage (full QWERTY)
  • Tactile Feedback (vibra)
  • Copy/Paste functionality
• Automatic screen rotation using Accelerometer
• Running on Symbian OS 9.4 S60 5.0 aka S60 5th Edition
• RRP: €279 = SGD$558.20 (before subsidiaries and taxes)
• 3G version to be available in 4th Quarter 2008, GSM850/2G version to be available in 1st Quarter 2009
• Sales Package:
  • Nokia XpressMusic 5800
  • Extra Stylus
  • Stylus Plectrum in Wrist Strip
  • Protective Carrying Case
  • Portable Stand
  • MicroUSB Cable
  • TV-Out Cable
  • Charger
  • 8GB MicroSD Card
  • Battery
  • Stereo Headset with Remote Control
• For the full specifications, check it out here, http://www.forum.nokia.com/devices/5800_XpressMusic

1st Impressions

• THICK! Due to the built-in high quality speakers.
• No Multi-Touch. Due to different technology being used.
• Tactile feedback is something innovative and I kinda like it. Beats touching on a normal screen.
• VERY RESPONSIVE. Even though it is just a prototype that I am playing with, it is more responsive than the Apple iPhone and definitely much more than the Samsung Omnia.
• Love the “One-click Media Bar” that can be accessed by pressing the button on top of the screen (NOT phone)
• The main screen will allow you to add 4 favorite contacts where you can see your history calls, SMSes, etc to him. Think of it as Facebook friend feeds.
• I love the multiple inputs that this device can handle ranging from T9 keypad to full QWERTY.
• 3 buttons at the bottom, Call, Menu and End Call respectively.
• I love the sales package, lots of stuffs inside there especially the cool “Stylus Plectrum in Wrist Strip” and the nice looking “Carrying Case”
• The buttons are generally big and easy to press on, accidental press on other buttons have not happen to me yet.
• I would love to see how Nokia can evolve their touch technology next year. Perhaps a new Tseries?
• Symbian S60 5th Edition is used, 4th edition is skipped because Chinese believed that 4 is an unlucky number. S40 OS and S60 3rd Edition will still be maintained.
• Applications and games built for S60 3rd Edition is backward compatible on the S60 OS 5.0 although it may not be optimal because of the screen size.

Exclusive Pictures/Videos

Here is a video of the video playback on the XpressMusic 5800:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 User Interface:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Internet Surfing/Browsing:

Here is the video of the XpressMusic 5800 Gaming:

PS: The video recording is a little blur due to my digital camera focusing. I apologized for that.

Had an informal gathering with Nokia, Text100 and several bloggers at The Straits which is located at 31 Pekin Street, Far East Square. At first when I heard of The Straits, it was referring to the The Straits Kitchen located at Hyatt Hotel. Luckily the full address is given, if not I will be going to the wrong place. The last informal Nokia event was held on the 13th June 2008. How time flies, 2 months just passed like that.

We get to play with the Nokia N79, N85 as well as the long due N96. I would like to say that my views are PURELY based on the prototypes as N79 and N85 will not be launching that soon. For the N96, it is quite closed to the final as it will shipping next month (September 2008) and the RRP for it is SGD$1258.

Nokia N79
The first phone that I got to play with is the N79 and it is the successor of N78. It is the smallest Nseries device that is built by Nokia so far and indeed it is small. The build quality of it is solid, similar to that of my N82.

As you all may know, the Xpress-on cover is back. I have not heard of that term for a long time. This time instead of paying separately for the covers, Nokia has decided to bundle 2 other colors cover within the package. 2 colors of the N79 will be available, Canvas White as well as the Seal Grey. The Canvas White will come with the the cover color of “Olive Green” as well as “Light Sea Blue” and the Seal Grey will come with the cover color of “Coral Red” and “White”. Both sets of the N79 will come with a default cover color which is Espresso Brown.

I am quite impressed by the Xpress-on cover. For example, if you change the cover to Olive Green, your S60 OS’s theme will also change to Olive Green. There is a chip located below at the back of the cover that does the magic.

The shutter speed for the N79 has been increased and hence it takes lesser time to snap a photograph an hence when taking a slow moving object, it will not be that distorted anymore.

Nokia also added Nokia’s Widsets to the phone. WidSets is a clever service that brings the Internet to your cell phone. You can have your Twitter, Friendster, Flikr, Digg, Wikipedia, etc services within the application.

The N79 also has an accelerometer and this time it can rotate any screen within the OS itself (even the main menu). Just rotate the phone, and the screen will be rotated as well. It is much better than my N82 when they first introduce the accelerometer where it can only rotate certain screens.

The N79 will have the common stuff such as 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

The only thing I do not like about N79 is the menu key as well as the clear key. The left and right screen key as well as the answer/hang-up key are “popup” but on the other hand the menu key as well as the clear key are flat and hence it is a little harder to press the menu and the clear key or worst still you will press the wrong key like me. I tested it and when clearing my message, instead of pressing the clear key, I pressed onto the right screen key.

Nokia N85
The Nokia N85 is the direct successor of N81 and N81 8GB. It is built for playing N-Gage games similar to the N81. The N81 is a normal sliding phone but the N85 is a dual slider phone.

The N85 spot a new OLED screen never seen before in the Nseries. With this screen, whatever is displayed on the screen is brighter, sharper and consume lesser power. You can definitely notice the difference.

The keypad on the N85 is very flat and hence it is very difficult for me to press. I have to press the menu key quite hard for it to recognize my action.

Similar to the N79, it also have faster shutter speed, Nokia’s Widsets, accelerometer, 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

A lot of people are saying N85 is the N96 killer as N85 has better screen and much better battery life. You can read about the comparison here.

Nothing to say much about the N96 as I have discuss it many times. I personally think that it is a long due phone since February 2008, it has been more than 6 months and finally it will be launched next month. If Nokia were to launched it before June 2008, I think it would be good as I think that the N85 will eat into the market share of N96 as they are very similar and DVB-H is not ready in Singapore.

Nokia N79 and N85 will launched sometime in October 2008.

Once again, do note my views are still based on early prototypes and some of this problems may get solved before the actual release.

PS: I forgot to bring my Canon iXUS 860IS as well as my Nokia N82 and hence when I use my iPhone to take the pictures of the phones, it turns out to be crap and hence I did not upload it. iPhone camera really not up to standard.

Nokia today held a media event at House @ 8D Dempsey Road at 2pm to officially announced the launch of Nokia N79, N85 and N96. Unfortunately I have to attend my first tutorial, if not I will definitely attend the event.

Basically Nokia N79 is the successor or Nokia N78 and Nokia N85 is the successor of Nokia N81 as well as Nokia N81 8GB. You can also say that the Nokia N96 is the successor of Nokia N95 8GB, but personally I think it is own rather than successor of anything.

Read More (727 More Words, 7 More Images)

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.

This article is dated 4 days ago and posted on Nokia Conversations.

Here is an excerpt of it:

ESPOO, Finland - There is no doubt, now that the product has been launched officially, that the Nokia E71 takes the crown as the most leaked product I have ever known at Nokia. And, with such distinction in mind, now is a good time to discuss product leaks, their impact, and hopefully get a discussion going that benefits all of us.

I don’t want to turn this article into a whining-fest, nor point blame at someone. The whole history of some product leaks in the past few months is a mixture of dumb moves, broken NDAs, maybe some thievery, and possibly someone with best wishes.

I’ve written about this on my internal company site, and it generated lots of comments. It was interesting to see that the comments I got pretty much reflected my own feelings about the subject. Indeed, I give Nokia the benefit of the doubt and stick to the company line: we do not discuss products that are not officially launched publicly.

Read the full article: Product leaks just lead to trouble & headaches for all

I was invited to Nokia Connection 2008 which is an annual event. It is normally held just before Communicasia. This year it was held on the 16th and 17th June 2008. The first day was held at the Singapore Recreation Club while the second day was held at Mandarin Oriental. This year Nokia Connection saw the launch of two new products, the Nokia E66 and the Nokia E71 and the introduction of Share on Ovi.

My Lanyard

Read More (1,282 More Words, 15 More Images, 2 More Videos)

Dad’s Off To Vietnam4
My dad’s flight is 10am on Singapore Airlines to Vietnam. He will be there for 6 months and coming back on the 17th December 2008 I think. He told me that if everything is good, he may get to come back 3 months later for a short period.

Reached the airport at 8am and saw my dad check in. After a while, his colleagues came along and we parted. My mom, brother, Huimin and I then went to Swensens for breakfast. The breakfast is good and value for money. Should have that more often.

Now whenever I am at home when it comes to 6.30pm (my dad used to come home at this time), it feels a little different, much quieter. The feeling is also weird as for 24 years, my dad is mostly with us. Even though I am a guy, I am proud to say, I miss you dad! I know he will be reading my blog at some LAN cafe in Hanoi, Vietnam.

PC Show 2008
Left the airport at 8.45am and the 3 of us excluding my mom dropped by Li Xiang office to pass her, her handphone as she left it at my house. After that we proceed on to Suntec City to wait for the PC Show 2008 to open as we are too lazy to come home and then leave the house again. We waited for about 2 hours as it opens at 12pm and we are there slightly before 10am.

Meet up with the guys at Frro, David and Michael too.

Before the door opens, you can see tons of people outside gathering. Once the door opened, everyone rushed in like they are going into a gold mine. As usual, you can see parents pushing prams which personally I HATE THE MOST. Seriously they think this is some sort of family outing but they didn’t realize that their selfish act always caused inconvenience for serious buyers and buys who bought big bulky object. Bringing kids is still quite understandable as sometimes no one is there to look after them at home, but for fuck you push prams along?

I seriously think that the organizer should do something about it, like set the minimum age limit to 12 or even charging a $2 entrance fee. A simple $2 entrance fee will not deter serious buyers. Hardware Zone Forums always suggest the organizer something about it.

I always try to boost the economy by helping others to buy when it comes to such exhibitions.

• Helped my uncle wife to get a 250GB Western Digital Portal HDD (Passport Essentials) for $129.90, a 4-ports USB hub for $9.90.
• Helped my mom to get Canon ink for her office Canon printer MX700 for $52.90.
• Helped Li Xiang to get Sepom photo A4 paper, 5 packets for $28

My brother and I wanted to get the Razer Lycosa Keyboard. But as predicted by some fellow HWZers, there is no promotion to it and on top of that there are selling it more expensive. They are selling it for $129 whereas you can get at some places for just $119.

My mom bought for me a Samsung 2043BWX Monitor for $315 and asked me to give my old Sony 17 (SDM-HS73) to her to replace my brother old Philips 17″ CRT. At first I was asking her to buy a LCD monitor but end up she ask me to buy and give her the old one. Thank you mom!

The Box

2043BWX Monitor

The Monitor On My Study Table

David to himself a Samsung Monochrome Laser printer for $98 and an internal 3.5″ 320GB HDD (not sure about the price), whereas Michael did not get anything. lol.

We have just injected more than $733.7 into the Singapore Economy!

We ended our day at about 2.30pm and headed home. The usual impatient me, the moment I went home, fixed up my new monitor, swapped my old monitor with the old CRT monitor and everything works per normal. Luckily there is no dead or stuck pixel on my new monitor. Phew

Nokia @ Molly Malone
Left home at about 5.30pm and reached Molly Malone’s Irish Pub which is located at 56 Circular Road, Singapore 049411 for an informal Nokia meetup with Nokia Staffs (Angela, Annette, Cherie, Desmond, Luanne, Loretta and Wen Dee), Text100 people (Carolyn, Liyi and Supriya) and several bloggers (Mr Brown, Coleman, Sheylara, Preetam, Ben and his wife). Do forgive me if I miss out any names or the name typed is incorrect!

Cherie who is a product manager demonstrated many of the Nokia prototype phones like the N78, N96, 6220 Classic, 6210 Navigator, XpressMusic 5320 and there is one more XpressMusic phone which I can’t remember the model name, but I think that will be the first XpressMusic phone to run S60 OS, currently all XpressMusic phones are running on S40 OS.

Desmond who is also a product manager demonstrated to me the N96 and the N78 prototypes. All Nseries devices after N78 will have the NaviWheel feature, just imagine the click wheel scrolling of the iPod. There will be light emitting from the NaviWheel every now and then to show that the phone is “alive”, they called it the breathing light. It is much better than the old school blinking LED lights at the top of the phones.

I played with the N96 and I think it is quite sluggish as it is still a prototype. With all the NDAs flying around Nokia, they can’t say anything at all with regards to unannounced phones like the XpressMusic 5800 “Tube”, N79 and the N85.

There will be an upcoming event on Monday and Tuesday which I will be attending called the Nokia Connection 2008. I can’t seem to find a link to that. Nokia Connections is held every year and is a hands-on showcase of the latest Nokia devices and services including: Nokia Maps, Nokia Music Store, N-Gage and Share on Ovi.

I got a feeling they will officially announced the Nokia E71 and E66 there as definitely there will be new phones announced.

By the way, the food at Molly Malone is good especially the Fish and Chips which cost $16 and the portion is big. The spicy chicken balls and the button mushrooms are good too.

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.