The Nokia N900 Vs Iphone

Its been quite a while since my last post. There were a number of things which had to be taken care of. Since most of the things are taken care of i am thinking of updating my blog as much as i can.

The launch of the n900 has been very huge. I seriously did not expect it to be as big as it is. Anyway i congratulate nokia and maemo for their success and they truly deserve it.

I have quite a few friends who use the iphone. They have been blinded by apple's advertising skills. Although they are not as tech savy as they should be, they still just blindly follow what apple says. When i mentioned about the n900 and showed them the official promo videos, they were like so what apple has all these features long while ago and nokia is releasing them now!

So this post is dedicated to explain to them the differences between the two and how much better the n900 and maemo 5 compared to the current apple Iphone and its closed wall practices.

Nokia N900 Iphone 3GS

1. 3.5 inch touch-sensitive 3.5-inch (diagonal) widescreen
widescreen display Multi-Touch diplay
Resistive screen Capacitative Screen

Resistive screen has the advantage of point accuracy. This is good for hand writing because unlike apple, nokia is a all over the world so it has to cater to differnt popluations and some people espcially the asians prefer hand writing recognition for their myriad languages. But capacitative has the advantage of being more responsive. Although it has its side effects, being that it cannot be used with anything except your bare finger. This is really a pain especially for the North east states of the Us and Northern Europe in the cold climates. You cant navigate well with gloves. Another advantage of capacitative is that multi-touch so it is very useful in games and other actions like pinching etc. As far as i know this is the only advantage of the iphone compared to the n900 and of course the other being the app store. But both of these can be expected in the near future with more developers flocking to maemo due to its open nature.

2. 800 × 480 pixel resolution @ 225 ppi 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 163 ppi

This is one area where the n900 totally burns the iphone. Basically resolution means the number of lines you can see on the screen. For example most of the laptops are about 1280 x 800. Since it is very near to that resolution on the n900 you can view web pages just like on your desktop without much zooming and panning. You just open the web page and read no need to keep on fiddling with the text to read which makes web browsing very comfortable.

3. TV out (PAL/NTSC) with Nokia Video Connectivity Cable None

This is included within the sales package. What you can do with is that you can connect your phone to the tv using those 3(yellow, white and red connectors). Imagine playing games with your accelerometer on the big screen. It is fun. And of course you can directly play the recorded videos, images on the big screen. Here again the higher resolution helps by displaying the video on a bigger size and better clarity on the tv.

4. Micro-USB connector, High-Speed USB 2.0 Charging via USB to computer system
or power adapter

This is something again new from nokia. With this connector you can both charge the phone and also transfer data between your computer and phone. Even though the iphone can charge via the usb with a computer, it cannot transfer date other then with itunes. The problem with this is that you cannot transfer data from any other computer other than yours. Another thing is that nokia is going with industry standard connector which means you can connect any other device which uses a similar connector. Whereas the iphone connector can only connect with the iphone and it is not industry standard. In fact the most surprising thing is that my friend tried to charge his ipod touch with the iphone 3G charger and guess what it said "Incompatible charger" even after it fit the slot perfectly. Typical apple... make money wherever possible!

5.Bluetooth v2.1 including support Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
for stereo headsets

This feature is the same on both the phones. But with n900 you can send any file via the bluetooth. The iphone even though it has the hardware, deliberately clamps down that feature. The n900 supports tethering, meaning that you can use its data connection to connect to another device like a laptop. I heard even apple allows that these days... but also have heard that it is not possible on AT&T. So basically you cant do it on the iphone whereas you can do anything you want on the n910.


6. Integrated FM transmitter None

An Fm transmitter transmits the audio/video out from the device into radio frequency. So you can tune your car radio into that frequency and listen to the media on the phone wirelessly. Basically this removes the additional audio jack going out of the device into the tape slot of the car stereo. This is a great advantage for car owners. Since i do not have a tape player in my car i use a stand alone fm transmitter. The biggest problem i have with the stand alone transmitter is that it takes the charging port in my car and so i cannot charge my phone. Now no more wires and i can use the charging port to charge my phone while the fm transmitter does its thing.Although it is not listed there i assume there is also fm receiver also. You can listen to the local radio stations and also the fm reciever could be use for traffic updates to your maps application.

7. Up to 1GB of application memory 256 mb only
(256 MB RAM, 768 MB virtual memory)

The main advantage is that you could use your swap memory to open many applications simultaneously. Wheras in the iphone you have to have only one application at one time except for the phone and audio applications. This is just like your desktop. You can open any no. of applications and just switch between them. For example on the iphone if you are instant messaging some one and you want to just check something on the browser, the moment you press the browser window you are logged out of the chat. On the n900 everything is open and you are still logged in and you get a notification when you get an Im. You just need to switch widows and select what you want to do.

8. 32 GB internal storage 16GB or 32GB flash drive
Up to 16 GB of additional storage None
with an external microSD card

This is again a big win for the n900. The micro sd helps to both expand the memory and also another cool feature is that you can clone your Os into the sd card. So you can boot from various images on the card or the flash memory. Just like multi-booting on your desktop. There are other alternative os like mer, nitdroid, debian etc. you can set up your n900 to boot to other os on the sd card. Also Sd card can be used to transfer movies, songs etc from another source when you dont have your connectivity cable. Another cool feature is to directly use the micro sd to shoot pictures and videos with a digicam and just insert it directly into the n900. Basically you are negating going back to your house and connecting to your pc and then transferring to your device which is a real comfort.



9. Full QWERTY tactile keyboard Only on-screen keyboard.
Full QWERTY onscreen keyboard

This is really one of the best features of the n900 over the iphone. The best thing about the keyboard is that it saves screen real estate. Already the screen is tiny and imagine half of it covered with a keyboard. Once you use the keypad and its comfort you will understand the importance of it. Other important functions of the keyboard are the hardware keys can be configured in various games unlike the iphone where all the games have to be on screen controlled. The problem with screen controlled games are that there is no tactile feedback and also you are blocking your view with your fingers. Of course the keypad is very reliable in typing and the keys can be used to access the special characters very easily. This is a very big win for the n900.

10. Quad-band GSM EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS/HSDPA (850, 1900, 2100 MHz) WCDMA 900/1700/2100 MHz GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

There only huge difference here is that the n900 has 3G bands for t-mobile USA whereas the iphone has only bands for At&T 3G. So it is good news for t-mobile and bad news for AT&t users because they will not have 3G but only edge. Nokia most probably will release another version considering that nokia releases additional versions a little later.

11. Integrated hands-free stereo speakers Mono speaker

Stereo speakers means that there are 2 speakers on both sides of the device giving a more comprehensive sound. Since there are 2 speakers it is great for listening to songs in a group and also podcasts and videos just like you would listen to stereo speakers on your tv or laptop. The sound also should be very loud and more importantly more clear.

12. Internet calling None

This means voip calls can be made using the n900. For example skype, gtalk etc. This can considerably reduce the money spent on international calling. Even the iphone has gtalk and skype but the major problem is with multi tasking. If you are on a skype call you cannot use the phone for anything else. Infact if you are waiting for a skype/gtalk call you have to keep the app open and not try to open any other part of the phone. On the n900 you can just keep them open while you do your work and you will be notified of a call or im when you get it.Also there is a webcam for video calls. I could make phone to phone video calling if the other person is on gtalk on another n900. Full video calling will be soon coming.

13. Maemo browser powered by Mozilla technology Safari without flash.
Adobe Flash™ 9.4 support

This browser renders pages just like your desktop. You can directly go to the youtube page and watch videos and respond to comments just like you do on the desktop. No need for additional clients. This is specially useful for many of the flash video sites. You are no longer cramped by only youtube with a client... you get everything. Also another advantage with flash 9.4 is that there are millions of flash games which are browser based. you can take advantage of all those games which are free and load directly on the browser. Then there is java script which allows to see the desktop version of all google services like gmail, calender etc. No need for any mobile versions.

14. Pre-loaded Ovi Maps application None

With Ovi maps the maps are pre-loaded and so you dont need to have an active connection to use the gps for routing. Also ovi maps are heavily integrated with various parts of the os. This is specially useful for location aware applications. Ovi maps also includes local weather and the weather is updated using the gps location to show the current weather in your current location.

15. 5 megapixel camera (2584 × 1938 pixels) # 3 megapixels Autofocus
CMOS sensor, Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens
3 × digital zoom
Dual LED flash

Here again there is really no comparison. The dual led helps to capture good clarity photos even in low light conditions. I dont know if there is zoom on the iphone but the n900 has 3x digital zoom. Then there is photo tagging which is useful for tagging pictures.

16. Video recording at up to 848 × 480 pixels VGA(640x480) up to 30 fps with audio
(WVGA) and up to 25fps

The n900 records at a higher resolution although the fps is low.

17. Video playback file formats: Cannot play wmv, .avi formats.
.mp4, .avi, .wmv, .3gp;
codecs: H.264, MPEG-4, Xvid, WMV, H.263

Since maemo is open source you could install mplayer for free and play additional formats like divx, flv and other formats. Iphone can play only a few apple supported formats. This is a big deal because most of the videos can be downloaded from the internet directly and played without any conversion. Unfortunately for the iphone you cannot save the videos directly. You need to save them using your pc then convert them and transfer them for later viewing. This is a PITA!

18. Background pictures None.

Since the n900 has a panoromic desktops with support upto 4 active desktops, you could have different cool backgroud wallpapers for each desktop. Since the app icons are always present on the iphone there is really no use of the desktop and you can only have one desktop wall paper.

19. Widgets on your desktops None

Widgets are really good for real time updates. You can have as many widgets as you want on mutliple desktops. you can have gtalk widget with real time online status. Rss widget with real time updates, internet radio widget, weather widget etc. Widget help you check the latest updates without opening the application. for example if you need to check what are your upcoming applications.... on the iphone you have to go into the calender application and then check it... wheras on the n900 you just have a glance at your desktop and you see your calender. This is very useful.

20. Intelligent contact shortcuts None

Here again you can directly place a contact on one of your desktops and with one single click you can call or email the contact. Wheras in the iphone you have to go to contacts ans locate the contact and then initaite the call. Same goes for sending an email or sms or internet call.

21. PDF reader Safari handles pdf

The inbuilt pdf reader is really useful for documents. In the iphone safari handles pdf but again it is not as good as the pdf reader on the n900.

22. Sketch Application None

This is again one of the advantages of the resistive touch screen. This is one of the favourite feature for the kids. just open the sketch program and they will keep quiet. Similarly there are options for games like numpty physics which take advantage of the sketching with the stylus.

23. Removable Battery None

This is a huge advantage especially considering that it has a very power hungry processor. Changing the battery just takes seconds and within minutes you can have a fully charged mobile. Great during traveling.

24. Kick stand.

The kick stand can be used to watch videos especially on the plane. It is a minor addition but is huge in usability.

25. Open source operating system.

Off all the features the apple iphone will never be able to beat this one. Most of the applications are free to download and use. Anyone can work on anything and submit their application. There are no restrictions of any kind.

I am sure there are many more..... ill update them as i find more.

Ever wanted to know how the earth looks from space? Well think no further. Sandra Magnus gives us this wonderful view of the earth passing through a night from the International space station. She observes thunderstorms, night lights and satellites. Her narrative is very interesting giving you a feeling that you are right there aboard the ISS. Read for yourself!

http://spacebook.mst.edu/2009/03/waiting_for_night_to_come_in_a.html

Iphone os 3.0 preview on march 17th

As many guys think this is not the launch of the firmware, just a preview.
The internet is abuzz with all sorts of requests.
Some of the most common ones are:

1. Copy and paste. Apple calls the iphone the most advanced phone but is still cannot do some basic tasks like copy & paste. If they don't release it this version, many people will be genuinely pissed off.
2. Video camera. Again this is another basic function. My 5 year old 6670 with a 1.3 mpx cam could do it without breaking a sweat. Well i guess "Most Advanced" has a different definition in cupertino! Even if they don't release it i wouldn't care because with 2 mpx the video is gonna be crappy.
3. MMS. Same story again. very basic stuff.
4. Bluetooth tethering. This i believe will be a definite component. I want to see AT&T's response. Will the jack the data plan even more? I can do this with my 15$ media net using my n95 8gb whereas iphone customers pay 30$ and still cant do it!
5. Bluetooth stereo. This has been with smarthphones since last 2 years. I guess it wont be in the next firmware also
6. Multi-tasking. This is by far the most important of them all. I am sure apple will not release this yet. If they do release it, i would like to see the performance of the apps after multiple apps are open. In fact this is one of the most important functions of a smart phone. What is the point of having thousands of apps if you cant use them simultaneously?

Well these are only some of the requested features. But i want to point out that all these are already in all of nokia's N series phones.

Should be interesting. Lets watch and see!

Happy Birthday World Wide Web!

Wow what a day to start my blog!

Today is the 20th birthday of the internet founded by Tim Berners-lee a scientist at CERN. Interestingly the world wide web was first used by Tim and the other employees in CERN to be updated with the research going on in different countries.


Anyway going back memory lane, my first tryst with the internet was somewhere in 1998 when i was in junior college. At that time two things were very popular: Internet cafe and Billiards. We use to spend many a weeks chatting and playing billiards. I still remember rediff and yahoo messenger which i don't use anymore after the advent of Google. The internet has been a major part of my life since then.


A special thanks to Tim for this wonderful thing called world wide web!

20 Things you didnt know about TIME

Every month in discover magazine there is a column "20 things you dont know about..."
This time around it is time. I really love the things in there. In fact that is one of the first things i read in the magazine. So here it goes,

1 “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so,” joked Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Scientists aren’t laughing, though. Some speculative new physics theories suggest that time emerges from a more fundamental—and timeless—reality.

Did any one watch that movie? It is absolute crap. One day i was just browsing through my channels and decided to watch this movie. If you haven't seen this u are lucky. It is somewhat similar to the fifth element, only a little more crappier

2 Try explaining that when you get to work late. The average U.S. city commuter loses 38 hours a year to traffic delays.

Yeah those traffic signals are really frustrating. How many times i have stopped the urge to run over a red light! And many more times i wanted to be in my village without no signals of any sort. Oh sorry i forgot the buffaloes!

3 Wonder why you have to set your clock ahead in March? Daylight Saving Time began as a joke by Benjamin Franklin, who proposed waking people earlier on bright summer mornings so they might work more during the day and thus save candles. It was introduced in the U.K. in 1917 and then spread around the world.

I personally think that DST is a brilliant idea. Although it sounds valid, recent research shows that there is nothing gained in energy consumption even after following DST!

4 Green days. The Department of Energy estimates that electricity demand drops by 0.5 percent during Daylight Saving Time, saving the equivalent of nearly 3 million barrels of oil.

This was proved to be wrong by recent studies. Guess it has something to do with my sleep cycle. I still wake up 1 hour later irrespective of the DST

5 By observing how quickly bank tellers made change, pedestrians walked, and postal clerks spoke, psychologists determined that the three fastest-paced U.S. cities are Boston, Buffalo, and New York.

6 The three slowest? Shreveport, Sacramento, and L.A.

7 One second used to be defined as 1/86,400 the length of a day. However, Earth’s rotation isn’t perfectly reliable. Tidal friction from the sun and moon slows our planet and increases the length of a day by 3 milli­seconds per century.

8 This means that in the time of the dinosaurs, the day was just 23 hours long.

I wonder how many hours each day an average dino slept?

9 Weather also changes the day. During El Niño events, strong winds can slow Earth’s rotation by a fraction of a milli­second every 24 hours.

10 Modern technology can do better. In 1972 a network of atomic clocks in more than 50 countries was made the final authority on time, so accurate that it takes 31.7 million years to lose about one second.

11 To keep this time in sync with Earth’s slowing rotation, a “leap second” must be added every few years, most recently this past New Year’s Eve.

Yeah i remember reading that this new year's Eve!

12 The world’s most accurate clock, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Colorado, measures vibrations of a single atom of mercury. In a billion years it will not lose one second.

13 Until the 1800s, every village lived in its own little time zone, with clocks synchronized to the local solar noon.

14 This caused havoc with the advent of trains and timetables. For a while watches were made that could tell both local time and “railway time.”

15 On November 18, 1883, American railway companies forced the national adoption of standardized time zones.

16 Thinking about how railway time required clocks in different places to be synchronized may have inspired Einstein to develop his theory of relativity, which unifies space and time.

17 Einstein showed that gravity makes time run more slowly. Thus airplane passengers, flying where Earth’s pull is weaker, age a few extra nano­seconds each flight.

18 According to quantum theory, the shortest moment of time that can exist is known as Planck time, or 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 second.

19 Time has not been around forever. Most scientists believe it was created along with the rest of the universe in the Big Bang, 13.7 billion years ago.

I wonder what was there before time and space?Anyone have an explanation feel free to leave it in the comments section. I would love to know!

20 There may be an end of time. Three Spanish scientists posit that the observed acceleration of the expanding cosmos is an illusion caused by the slowing of time. According to their math, time may eventually stop, at which point everything will come to a standstill.

I hope not in the next 3-4 months. I need to give my exam and i would be gutted to know if that happens just before my exam :)

My first post.

Well, last night i was in bed thinking about my evergreen dream to publish a blog and decided that i will do it first thing next morning. Fortunately this has started to be a reality unlike many other things i decided while going off to sleep. A good example of other things i would have thought of but never yet managed to follow is "Study". Of course that i guess is common with everyone.
Anyway, i intend to blog about three of my major passions: science, technology and sports.
I will try to keep my blog as updated as possible, but with my exams and other stuff i may not have the time to update as much as i would like.

So lets get started.........