Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mobility Weekend: Including the Samsung i8510

Hope everyone had a great weekend.  With the weekend almost over with, I'm a ready for the week.  Who am I kidding.  I'm ready for the next weekend.


Weekend wrap up:  Here at Onxo, we dove a wide range of topics.  We were happy to share our tips with readers maximizing the battery life on their mobile devices.  We mentioned mobile entertainment in the form of Internet radio.  We were surprised by TechCrunch's bold open-source initiative to produce a $200 Internet pad.  


We got into a bit about virus protection for everyone (we finally resolved our virus issue at work).  Then we discussed a bit about what we like to see for mobile warriors:  HomeApp (app environment for mobile apps), iMobile (iLife for mobility), 


Today, I did some field investigation on the effectiveness of mobile apps that allow location-based mini-blogs.  


This leads into what we'll be talking about this week.  Mobile apps.  I'll be doing a review on the different types of mobile apps out there in the iPhone and what we expect to see with version 2.0 of these apps.  Also, where in the world is Google in the mobile realms?  We'll use the Google mobile app as a launching pad for criticism/analysis and what we're likely to see when Android finally launches.  Somewhat connected to this Google issue is mobile blogging (I will try not to badger Google's lack of mobile solution for Blogger).  Also, what is white space?  We'll get into that and its potential and progress so far. 


Other mobile wrap-up:  We were graced with a a video of the Blackberry Bold browsing experience. Most shocking news of all was an analyst declaring a merger beween Symbian and Android. And 15 days and count, Apple has yet to fix the MobileMe issue. And Verizon has reported approved the first device for their open network: a modem. I did know about this earlier in the week. I didn't mention it because...welll, good job, V. Atta, boy.  


Also, look for this baby, Samsung i8510 (More details at Engadget. Press Release.) Some highlights:

  • Runs on Symbian 9.3 - power efficiency, security, fast performace
  • 2.8" screen
  • 8 MEGAPIXEL - that's right 8MP camera; video recording (including video editing)
  • S60 apps, DIVX support, H.263, H.264, WMV, MP4
  • Connection:  WiFi, HSDPA, A-GPS, Bluetooth (supports stereo headset), FM radio
  • Up to 16GB
  • Talk Time:  3G - 300 min, 2.5G - 510 min
  • IMPACT ON MOBILITY:  I think this is going to turn a lot of heads.  A year from now, a lot of these features should be standard on all smartphones.  But will we see that happens?  Let's mark our calendar and see.  The ripple will be felt soon enough.  It's too early to tell if this will be a hit
The i8510 is likely to do well but is not going to burn a lot of pockets.  Why?  Because if you can afford this, you're money in the literal sense.  N95, hey, you had a good run.  Nokia will upgrade you soon enough, we hope.  What sells me on this is the multi-media support.  16GB is nice.  I like to see 32GB soon.  

There will be some who will wonder if this is the next iPhone killer.  Again, I don't understand the obsession with killing off the iPhone.  The king of smartphones is still the Blackberry.  But you can see something that may happen with mobile convergence:  a pure entertainment device on one spectrum as represented by the i8510 and the Blackberry on the other end, particularly with an eye on corporate users.  Somewhere in between, maybe the iPhone?



Here's a video review of the N95 so it will give an idea of what to expect from the i8510.