Wednesday, October 29, 2003
Nokia's First Touchscreen Device
Posted by Janak Parekh in "THE COMPETITION" @ 12:00 PM
Nokia yesterday announced the 7700, their first handheld with a touchscreen device. It's running Nokia's Series 90 touchscreen-enabled operating system, based on Symbian. Is this going to be the Pocket PC Phone Edition/Smartphone killer?
After reading a number of sites and their opinions on the subject, here's one from a Pocket PC Phone user: I don't want it. Here's why.
First, as a phone: Gizmodo confirms today that you would have to hold the phone sideways to your ear, like the N-Gage. If you don't know what I mean, you should see Sidetalkin.com, a humorous take on the subject. (From the news reports I've heard, the N-Gage is not flying off the shelves for a variety of reasons; I'd imagine the difficulty of using it as a phone must have an effect.) While it has Bluetooth and you can use Bluetooth headsets, there are always situations where you need to put the device up to your head. Handspring, Microsoft, and Sony Ericsson all realized this with their touchsensitive devices.
Now, as a PDA: the unit does have a 640x320 screen, and that is its most attractive quality in my opinion. The gameable controls are also a nice plus. However, no other device out there has this screen configuration. As far as I can tell, this means I'd have to get Nokia 7700-customized "versions" of all my Symbian software. Second, and perhaps this is just because I haven't seen a shot of the device in a hand, I don't quite see how to hold this device in one hand effectively -- a property you really need to be able to use a stylus with another. To me, the device more closely resembles the "top half" of a handheld PC... but HPCs are useable with a keyboard, and this is not. The one application this configuration seems well-suited for is web-browsing, and perhaps that's how Nokia will position it... although tools like Thunderhawk on the Pocket PC are capable of turning it landscape when appropriate.
In conclusion, I'm not going to write off Symbian -- Nokia's Series 90 could be a huge hit. But not with this device. This feels like a second-generation N-Gage to me -- and maybe it will therefore be popular with one segment of the crowd -- but for a "phone-enabled organizer" device, give me my Pocket PC Phone (or, barring that, a Smartphone or a SE P900) anyday.
After reading a number of sites and their opinions on the subject, here's one from a Pocket PC Phone user: I don't want it. Here's why.
First, as a phone: Gizmodo confirms today that you would have to hold the phone sideways to your ear, like the N-Gage. If you don't know what I mean, you should see Sidetalkin.com, a humorous take on the subject. (From the news reports I've heard, the N-Gage is not flying off the shelves for a variety of reasons; I'd imagine the difficulty of using it as a phone must have an effect.) While it has Bluetooth and you can use Bluetooth headsets, there are always situations where you need to put the device up to your head. Handspring, Microsoft, and Sony Ericsson all realized this with their touchsensitive devices.
Now, as a PDA: the unit does have a 640x320 screen, and that is its most attractive quality in my opinion. The gameable controls are also a nice plus. However, no other device out there has this screen configuration. As far as I can tell, this means I'd have to get Nokia 7700-customized "versions" of all my Symbian software. Second, and perhaps this is just because I haven't seen a shot of the device in a hand, I don't quite see how to hold this device in one hand effectively -- a property you really need to be able to use a stylus with another. To me, the device more closely resembles the "top half" of a handheld PC... but HPCs are useable with a keyboard, and this is not. The one application this configuration seems well-suited for is web-browsing, and perhaps that's how Nokia will position it... although tools like Thunderhawk on the Pocket PC are capable of turning it landscape when appropriate.
In conclusion, I'm not going to write off Symbian -- Nokia's Series 90 could be a huge hit. But not with this device. This feels like a second-generation N-Gage to me -- and maybe it will therefore be popular with one segment of the crowd -- but for a "phone-enabled organizer" device, give me my Pocket PC Phone (or, barring that, a Smartphone or a SE P900) anyday.
