Wirelessnorth.ca

In which Michele introduces the The Hammer Metric, WirelessNorth.ca’s new method for evaluating mobile devices.

The Hammer Metric is measured by the strength of one’s desire to smash any designed tool (device, machine, system, etc) with a hammer in relation to particular aspects of design, functionality or use, especially as said usage relates to feelings of epic frustration or FAIL. As such, a low rating is desired, as it reflects a minimal urge for destruction based on what could be construed as user-centric antagonization on the part of the designer/maker.

Today we’ll be aiming our hammers at the newish Nokia E71 (now available on Rogers). This is Nokia’s fastest, sleekest, priciest, contender for the title of BlackBerry killer. This is a hybrid work/play device, for both the creation and consumption of content, whither image, video, web, office, email (yes, this is content) or music. Overall we’re going to give it 3 out of 10 hammers. This is pretty good.

The biggest value of this device is that it does a LOT OF STUFF and there is SO MUCH STUFF*, and that one can personalize almost every single aspect of functionality. However, the raw capabilities of the device are minimally hampered in the carrier-bound edition of the phone. More on that later.

The Good

Crystal-clear sound – while walking down a busy urban street, the loudspeaker quality = remarkably good conversation from both sides. Also the headphone/mic adapter is v v good. (1/10 hammers)

Connectivity for the E71 is the peppy 3G GSM, as well as the great option for WLAN when available (note: the author subscribes to Rogers’ 6GB plan, and with extended media streaming + normal use, I haven’t come close to the limit). (1/10)

The battery life is incredible, even with extended use of rich media applications, data, voice, email, etc – it lasts for days. (1/10)

The E71 has a pretty substantial memory of up to 8GB with MicroSD, 110MB internal memory, and the form factor is glorious, with the exception of the keyboard (comments below). Slim, substantial, the stainless steel back and trim are bonuses for grip and style. (2/10)

QuickOffice lets you create word docs, spreadsheets and presentations on the fly, and while formatting is a bit limited it’s still pretty damn good for sketching ideas out on mobile. The PDF reader is a pretty sweet addition as well. (3/10)

The GPS works well, with Nokia’s Maps application enabling navigation, positioning, trip distance, etc. (3/10)

Media tools include: voice recorder, video/image recording with a good suite of format/style settings, 2 music players (that would be one more than necessary thanks to the pretty terrible Rogers-branded player), podcast subscriber, a barcode reader, radio players, flash player (could use improvement), etc. Media transfer is enabled via Bluetooth, infrared or USB, and is simplified via a drag&drop protocol. Also, if you’re connected to the OVI platform you can save your content to the cloud and access/sync/share to your heart’s content. (Cool but E-series apps are sparse. Ovi may be much improved when the App Store launches in May 09) (3/10)

Aaaannnd speaking of apps, there’s a wide variety available via the Download Catalog as well as various other places on the web – it takes a bit more work to find them but there is an incredibly rich array of applications and services available. (4/10)

The Meh

The UI, while effective enough to use, still feels very much like a desktop… I feel like the practicality of this device came to the forefront, and while simplicity and accessibility is the +++ for the E71, a part of me wants a bit of playful glam. Where’s my mobile experience? While I don’t feel like I need to be an engineer in order to use it (a la Blackberry), I am hoping that the next iteration of the S60 OS will be a wee bit less desktop-centric.(5/10)

The Rogers branded web platform is… not very useful, and feels like it is getting in the way of what is already a great but potentially awesome smartphone. Thankfully the personalization workarounds that Nokia has developed allow you to bypass most of this. (5/10)

Web browsing is also at times a bit kludgey, and I’ve had the darn thing crash multiple times while browsing, precipitating a total restart. (5/10)

The camera, while bumped up to 3.2 megapixels, could use a better sensor and a WAY better flash, if only to prevent your subjects from appearing like pale, crazed vampirical maniacs. Given enough light though, video shot with the device looks and sounds *great* (try that on your iphone).(6/10)

The Ugly

No connectivity to the N-Gage platform, of yet (it’s primarily for the N-series phones…) Boo! The games that are pre-loaded are shadows of what is possible. (7/10)

The keyboard is no BlackBerry – straight rows of keys makes for somewhat awkward typing, also the QAZ keys are aligned with the far left edge, and the zero is found not below the number grid (that would be the space bar) but to the right. Little quibbles, as after a few hours of use typos are almost non-existent. Wish I could say the same for my laptop. (8/10)

Also, you can not tether the E71 to your other devices to share your 3G over wifi or bluetooth (haven’t tried the infrared). The Nokia fully enables it, but the carrier has fully locked out the capability on their version of the E71 (9/10).

Full Specs: http://europe.nokia.com/A41146123
This device is a nice balance between work and play. It doesn’t have the jellybelly sweetness of the iPhone, but it holds its own based on a quality platform, powerful hardware and specs, rich media and hyper-localized personalization. 3/10 hammers!

The E71 is 99.99 from Rogers on a 3year term, $399 on no term. Full retail and unlocked $569 at ncix.com. The later is less of a bad deal than you might think. There is little in the carrier platform of the phone that adds value. Rather more the opposite… Le sigh.

^{*or other words that rhyme with stuff}

From the official twitter blog:

Today we’re super excited to be activating full, two-way SMS service for Canadian Twitter-ers who are also customers of Bell Mobility. If you’re a Bell Mobility customer, you can update Twitter via SMS and receive updates from Twitter via SMS. There are no limits and no added fees (beyond your normal texting plan). If you haven’t already, you can activate your phone to Twitter over SMS. Special thanks to Bell’s enthusiasm and eagerness to make this happen.

Congrats to the folks at Bell for seeing the light, and a nice competitive PR spin for them, insofar as helping Telus and Rogers continue to look like total asses on this one.

Blackberry is MIA on new universal charger standard

The good news, several leading phone manufactures have (finally) gotten behind a standardized standard for mobile chargers. Here’s looking at you nokia, palm, sony. Bastards. The idea is, new standard should lead to lest waste, higher efficiency standards, some not-entirely-small carbon impact and a fight back against the infestation of black knobs clogging the besieged wall sockets of your home/office/motor-yacht/camper-van.

Mildly annoying, however, is the standardization on micro-usb instead of mini, the more-or less current defacto standard. So far on board are “3 Group, AT&T, KTF, LG, Mobilkom Austria, Motorola, Nokia, Orange, Qualcomm, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telenor, Telstra, T-Mobile and Vodafone”. Canadian carriers probably being not so large enough, or european enough, or GSM enough to warrant mattering just yet.

You’ll notice from the list that the likes of RIM and HTC are missing (users mini-usb standard, bless them). Missing too is Apple, but then where would the world be without a maelstrom of changing-every-other-year proprietary dock-connecting cable and media accessories?

But if they want to keep selling in Europe, North American phone makers should have to think about it.

Related ideas we’d like to see:

• Standardize other consumer electronics on micro usb too!
• Give us multi-head usb chargers that take up just one wall socket
• DC charging sockets in vehicles, houses, public spaces etc. (like Air Canada has usb charging today)
• Now after that standard we could figure out wireless charging, we’d really be off to the races. (And Tesla would be proud)
• Gentlemen, start your infomercials.

ps. paging industry hipsters, anything else as newsworthy happening at mobile world congress?

Last week, this intrepid reporter braved a heavy snowfall warning to attend the Canadian launch of the BlackBerry Curve 8350i equipped with a Push-to-Talk (PTT) radio, under Telus’ Mike brand.

The addition of the Curve adds up-to-date mobile email & web to Telus’ Mike lineup. Previously, the only BlackBerry devices equipped with the snazzy walkie-talkie-style function on Telus were the aging 7100i and 7520.

The 8350i made its North American debut on Sprint/Nextel in the United States last December 15th.

The PTT function, which boasts sub-1-second connection times between compatible handsets, uses Motorola’s proprietary iDEN technology, and not CDMA. In fact, the 8350i doesn’t have a CDMA radio at all, but it does add b/g WiFi capability compared to Telus’ standard Curve (the 8330). While PTT and voice calls stay on the iDEN network at all times, the BlackBerry will shift data traffic over to an available WiFi network when in range. That’s probably a good thing, since iDEN data throughput maxes out at a glacial 16 kbps, roughly 1/4 the speed of a dial-up modem (see footnote below). Otherwise the 8350i offers near-identical features: microSD storage, GPS, a 2-megapixel camera, and 128MB of internal RAM (96MB for the 8330).

The push-to-talk function is enabled through a menu option, or (more conveniently), using the yellow button on the side of the phone. Two-way calls can be initiated by selecting a contact and sending a notification, which “chirps” the receiving party’s handset, or simply by holding down the yellow key and speaking, which broadcasts your voice to everyone you’ve added to a group list. There’s also an option to “beam” your PTT contact info to another user. And though we weren’t able to obtain tester units, a Telus rep assured me that contacts’ PTT numbers (which are different that the 10-digit telephone numbers) sync seamlessly with Outlook and other PIM software.

The Mike product line is marketed primarily to the construction, manufacturing and transportation verticals, for whom push-to-talk across North America and into Mexico (through roaming agreements) might be a key advantage. Worth noting, however, is the fact that the iDEN coverage footprint in Canada is far smaller than CDMA coverage.

There are also questions about the long-term viability of the iDEN network itself. After acquiring Nextel’s iDEN infrastructure in 2005, there have been on-again, off-again rumours that Sprint is trying to unload the network. At the same time, Sprint launched two new PTT handsets that run atop its speedier EVDO-RevA infrastructure, bypassing the legacy iDEN technology altogether. Verizon, now the largest mobile carrier in the US after its acquisition of Alltel last month, also markets a push-to-talk product which, like Sprint’s, runs on EVDO and not iDEN.

In its most recent quarterly report, Telus reaffirms its support for its CDMA and iDEN services “for the foreseeable future” (p. 17) despite its commitment to building out an HSPA infrastructure by 2010 as an interim step on the way to LTE. In the same report (p. 3), management blames lower voice ARPU in part on “lower Mike service ARPU”. Given the commercial viability of the PTT product, and the fact that mobile web and email drive demand for data and hence growth in data ARPU, one can’t help but wonder why RIM elected to saddle this otherwise competent smartphone with an iDEN radio and not a quicker CDMA one.

Footnote/Additional reading:

A Telus rep informed me that though iDEN throughput is 64 kbps, only 16 of that is reserved for data, with the remainder apportioned to voice and the direct-connect functionality.
Motorola announces speed improvements for iDEN (from 2003): Data speeds on next-gen iDEN (aka WiDEN) could reach 132 kbps, comparable to 1xRTT.

Alek Krstajic, CEO of “BMV Holdings” announced the launch of their new brandname Public Mobile in Toronto this morning and placed the first public call on Canada’s new wireless spectrum. BMV/Public doesn’t quite have their official spectrum certificates just yet. But with the help of a provisional license (sadly this was not a pirate radio demo which would have been exciting) and a little help from Nortel to set up a single base station downtown, we had our demo.

Before you get too excited, let us recap what this all means. [see: BMV’s bets big on bargain spectrum ] Public owned a relatively narrow slice of slightly oddball “G band” spectrum, for a very cheap cost, just to the right of the main AWS band in this past year’s auction. They own this spectrum from Windsor to Quebec City.

They are rolling out CDMA. Everything about BMV is targeted maintaining very low costs and they are aiming straight for the very bottom end of the wireless market. Talk and text only. But a good deal on talk and text. $40 all-in all you can eat talk and text – as long as you are in the coverage area. (Don’t count on too much roaming or long distance).

And this is good. This is great! for what it is.

But talk and text is clearly not the future of mobile innovation. Talk and text doesn’t anybody for mobile content, mobile content distribution or anything really cool you can imagine doing with a truly connected population.

For very basic telephony, for cell phone service circa 1999, Public looks like they’ll do a fine job. We wish Alek and his investors all the best.

But the fact that they may well be quite successful with such a model, is much more a symptom of Canada’s failure in wireless leadership than any part of the solution.

In the Q&A, Alek rightly praised Industry Canada for their efforts to open up the market to new wireless competition.

However, if all the rest of the new entrants go this way, then it will time for Industry Canada to go back to the drawing board.