Well I thought I lost some photos at the recent airshow due to a card writing error. Errrr, turns out it was an id10t error. The good news is I have the images I took of Dominque Sachsa. Dominque is our local NBC news anchor, who was at the airshow signing autographs.
At long last! The housing for my Nokia 9300 has arrived! Sadly, it beat my old roommate's E71 housing that he ordered about a week before I did mine, but that said... hopefully his will turn out much better as a result of it's longer ship time. However, I'm getting ahead of myself by saying such things- let's dig in!
This is how the package arrived. Note the customs declarations from Hong Kong listing the contents as an "adapter". Who knows where these odd descriptions come from, but whatever, I couldn't be bothered. What did intrigue me was the packager's rather unusual method of sealing the package... poking a whole (not even with a hole punch!) and then using some sort of purple string to bind the top shut. I'm actually amazed this made it all the way to me- what was stopping someone from simply undoing the not, taking whatever was inside, and then tying it back up again!? Gotta love USPS I suppose!
The method of keeping everything from getting crushed was, well... basically nothing. A sandwich made of styrofoam (bread slices) is basically all that it is. Inside is a faceplate, keypad, inner-LCD frame, keyboard, bottom housing, and battery cover. I decided to dig in with the transplant, and take picture before-and-after instead of the entire process. Don't worry though, because...
The new pieces didn't fit! As you can clearly see from this picture, the mold used was smaller than the actual, original pieces, and thus the components didn't actually fit in the housing. I've sent an email to the seller asking for a replacement... we'll see what happens from here.
(Photo Courtesy of Nokia)
Have you heard the news? Nokia's N-Gage is officially biting the dust. After an initial hardware release, which flopped, followed by an updated model, which also flopped, followed by a much better revision into a software-only take of the gaming concept (which apparently also flopped), N-Gage services will be transferred to Nokia's OVI store. From what I've read, it seems like the service is going to be taking down the online-multiplayer component which made certain games such a hit, however in honesty I can't say it will be too missed. If Nokia had only made the N-Gage platform available for more handsets, they might have had a winner on their hands. But in the light of the iPhone's radical success, and the iTouch's surprising gaming popularity, I can easily understand the reason for the system dying off. After all, N-Gage games were of the quality that one would want to play them on their televisions, not on the little screens built into their cell phones. And with the rather short A/V cable given to only a few high-end handsets (and not even the N86!), it's really no surprises there.
What is a surprise, is the development of games for the Zune HD! Released today are a few very detail-intensive 3D games for the device. They supposedly take advantage of the built-in Tegra chip to extents I can't even begin to imagine, and I honestly cannot wait to give them a shot! From what I've read, these games give the iTouch/iPhone a real run for their money, something which I feel I need to see to believe. I can tell you one thing, though... side-by-side, the Zune HD makes my iPod look like a piece of junk. It really does.
More fun in the studio. First there was Magmortar, now here is Beautifly.
Why is there a giant-font link to ZOMG its Cj at the top of this post? Well, because I owe them a bit of an apology. I used a photo I found via Google Images search, and theirs popped up. Needless to say, I couldn't pinpoint the owner and so I just went forward and used the image anyways. Thankfully, the sharp eyes at ZOMG its Cj spotted the image and, instead of getting mad about it, gave me a (very friendly) little nudge to let me know it belonged to them.
So, without further wordiness, I'd just like to say, "Sorry guys, my bad. Always been a big fan of your reviews, and I owe you a big apology for ripping you off. Thanks for not yelling at me!"
I got the chance to play with a friend's Zune HD for a while... and so I naturally snagged the opportunity to give the thing a go. I won't lie, I'm still having trouble grasping exactly what the thing is... I mean, I'd used touchscreen MP3 players before the iTouch and never really liked them. The iTouch was the first that I liked, but even then there was a bit of a learning curve. But with the Zune HD, the entire experience has been something else entirely.
My first reaction to the device was something along the lines of, "Dang... can they possibly make this thing any lighter?" Seriously, when someone tells you that the Zune HD is light because of it's aluminum chassis, believe them. This thing is light like an iPod Nano, not very wide like an iPod Nano (current generation, of course), and thin like an iPod Nano. Next to my iPod Touch, it feels inferior, as it's smaller and lighter. (To give you an idea, my iPod Touch feels like it's a slab of glass or basically just very dense. The Zune HD feels disconcertingly hollow and yet also very strong.)
Once powered on, I was a bit confused. The interface is simple enough, and I would go so far as to say it's more simple than an iTouch, the only exception being that the Zune is limited to media playback (there are some apps...) for the most part. The display comes right up to the borders of the unit, and reminds me of my first impression of the original iTouch when it first came out: "...there's no way this is real." Only difference being that I believe the Zune HD is real, so it's not really a shocker.
The display itself is quite vivid... I feel like the demo video was created specifically with extra vivid colors to try and help up-sell the unit. It's a bit corny, but hey, it works. Without getting into details, web browsing could use a lot of help. It's a lot better than Windows Mobile from what I remember (although a lot of the feel is the same), and at first I thought it was displaying things wrong when I noticed that no, the edge of the AMOLED is actually that close to the end of the actual device and the lack of a status bar at the top had caught me by surprise. I hope Microsoft has a firmware in the works that will get this thing an iPod Touch-worthy web browser... or better yet, a Nokia S60 one..
That all said, I've barely held this thing in my hand for 30 minutes. Time to dig deeper!
Got an email last week that said one of my photographic Heroes, Joe McNally, would be in town for a workshop on lighting. FREAKIN' AWESOME! I've followed his blog and read all his books. He's such a cool guy too. It really was cool seeing his workflow on creating an awesome photo out of nothing. Of course, he did have some pretty spectacular models too. In any case, it was good to see that a Pro of that level has the same problems I do when the lighting gets complex or the wireless TTL system isn't cooperating. See all the photos here.
My friend Aida's little sister was graduating next year and wanted to get her Senior photos taken. Of course, she's familiar with my shooting style as I did their Christmas photos last year of just the sisters. I thought the photos turned out really well and Gabi loved them. See the rest here.
(Photos from Symbian-Guru found here.)
Whoa. Now, when I decided I wanted an N86, I was pretty sure I was going to go for the black/blue version. The screen would "pop" a bit better, and it would look a bit more professional. But after seeing this, I'm sold on white, even though it's gonna cost me a significant chunk of change more than the black version. (I just read it's technically sold as "Indigo".)
My previous post alluded to this one, and here's that I'm thinking. I want to get one of these devices at some point. If I keep trying to get the next best thing (aka Craigslist swapping), when I eventually get one I'm going to be disappointed to find myself surrounded by very-similar yet not-good-enough devices that I no longer use. If I keep what I have and save up, I'll get to keep much more different (and therefore much more usable) devices and diversify my gadget collection without cluttering into one category. And by category I mean cell phones. And in this specific case I mean multimedia-oriented handsets.
The N86 is showing good signs of following in the footsteps of the E71 in terms of build quality, and then throwing everything the N85 had going for it in for good measure. Then that 8MP camera (with variable aperture!) should be a blast. Question is... if I got one of these before my Japan trip, will I still bring my D40? I'm hedging yes, but then I have to ask myself why I would do such a thing...
Enough drooling. It's time for bed. Hope everyone had a great weekend!
(Photo From: ZOMGitsCj.com) (Thanks for speaking up! ^_^)
I'm beginning to see OLED-equipped devices popping up all over the place. While it's true my NEC L1 e949 (basically a dead device at this point) had a very nice OLED display in it, it's taken a long time for the technology to take hold. Especially since, I'm assuming, it's taken a long time for the size/cost/capability ratio to even out.
Since that point, OLED technology has matured greatly. The market is littered with AMOLED displays (don't ask me why some people say AMOLED and why others leave it a simple OLED), if you only know how to spot them. One such device, the Samsung Impression, caught me off guard. Here's a device, rather plasticky and "cheap", that is equipped with the coveted screen technology. As a phone itself, it's rather novel, with a pretty good build, a very usable keyboard, and adequate hardware/software for it's target audience. (I'm actually looking into picking one of these up for cheap sometime.)
Now it seems like OLED devices are beginning to be found everywhere. Cell phones, televisions, car stereos, MP3 players (I'm working on getting myself a Zune HD by the way). While I've yet to find a case in which there are two OLED-equipped devices that are similar enough to compete with one another, I think it's only a matter of time before I do. And I hope that it happens soon, too, because I really want to see some more choice for people like me who see this technology as being promising and therefore a desirable attribute.
And you know how eInk/LCD hybrids are starting to show signs of *maybe* coming into production? Why hasn't an eInk/OLED come around? I mean think about it... the diode when off is black. So that darkest part of each eInk pixel/ball-bearing could be the exposed diode. The pixels might show significant signs of separation but I almost see this type of hybrid as being vastly more efficient than the LCD variant.
On a side note... I've decided to lay to rest my plans to acquire another high-end handset via craigslist. You'll see why in a new post in a minute...
