Our Thinking

Published Dawn Lifestyles Supplement, Nov 20th, 2009

Mobile phones already empower people to readily connect to others and things they care for the most, enabling the freedom and excitement of the connected lifestyle, where communication & sharing is instantaneous, entertainment options abounds & power is in the palm of your hands. The new mobile phones launched this year promise to build upon this even more, with ever greater integration into our lifestyle and technology that revolves around our every need, fitting our life like a glove. Which features are right for you? Take a look.

For The Fashion Divo & Diva

Mobile phones have now become every part the fashion accessory perhaps even more than jewelry, watches or shoes. This is why mobile phone manufacturers are sitting up and taking notice of the desire for style to match substance and why some of the world’s leading fashion and design houses have added an extra level of class to the phones this year.

After delighting the fashion world with the Giorgio Armani phone in 2007 and the Emporio Armani “Night Effect” in 2008,

Armani has fashionistas in a tizzy looking out for the Samsung Giorgio Armani B7620, a latest by the famous house. Designed by GiorgioArmani himself, the phone features a side-sliding QWERTY keyboard and a 3.5-inch touch-sensitive screen which utilizes AMOLED technology. Additional features include a 5-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, 8GB of internal storage space and a microSD slot (supporting cards of up to 32GB in size). It’s only available at selected outlets and if you find it, expect to pay in excess of Rs. 90,000 for the phone. Have we commented how lovely it looks with those Armani Suits.

For mere mortals, looking for style without having to amputate a kidney however, look to the Nokia SuperNova line of fashion phones and stylish accessories like red & pink covers and bluetooth headsets. The 7310 (Rs. 11,200), 7510 (Rs. 14,200) and 7610 (Rs. 15,300) feature good looks and exchangeable covers with mirror finishes to the screen, very handy for lipgloss lovers. The star of the series the 7610, is a slider which matches your mood and never misses a beat, gliding effortlessly into clutch bags. It also sports a decent 3.0 mega pixel camera and 2 GB space for your music.

Also perfect for fashion-forward customers, Jabra accessories are all the rage and if you’d like something special, try the Sennheiser VMX 100 Headset (Rs. 7500).

For The Social Butterflies

Most of us now view our cell phones as the key to our social life. Take it away and it feels as if the threads connecting our social life have been cut or at least worsened substantially. This is the reason is why companies spend so much money on catering to the continuously connected consumer lifestyles.

One of the best phones to incorporate a complete set of messaging features includes RIM Blackberry Curve 8520 aka Gemini(Rs.25,000). A full QWERTY keyboard makes typing and sending messages easy and comfortable, whilst the bright screen displays over 65,000 colors, providing a great viewing experience. With BlackBerry App World, you can also get breaking news and the latest scores, stay on top of Hollywood gossip, enjoy live radio or just play games. The phone also allows you to take photos or videos and upload them to photo sharing sites like Flickr or social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace . You can also send these to friends through MMS, the BlackBerry Messenger or other instant messaging apps. The same features can be found in other messaging phones like the Nokia N97 (Rs. 50,000) but at a much higher price.

For turning heads, look to the Samsung Star (Rs. 14000) also known as the poor man’s iPhone, which offers a 3″ WQVGA touchscreen with Samsung’s widget-enabled TouchWiz and a 3 megapixel camera with smile detection. It can handle microSD cards up to 16GB and with DNSe technology it’s a music player in its own right. The document viewer doesn’t hurt either. Samsung’s announced a WLAN version of the phone which will be available soon too. Nokia’s tried to answer Samsung’s Challenge with the 5530 Xpress Music but at a much higher price.

For The Technophiles

Photography, music and internet are so 2008. Now there is a need for something revolutionary, that caters to the fact that the cell phone is becoming our new form of entertainment provider with both gaming and watching videos being on the rise on the phone and natural linguistic interfaces.

There are many phones which are aiming for taking the innovation lead in the mobile world especially the Samsung Omnia HD (i8910) (Rs. 55,000) with its 3.7″ OLED capacitive full touchscreen, 600 MHz ARM Processor, an 8 megapixel camera that should be able to humble even some digicams and of course the HD video recording in 720p – does it really get any sweeter. There’s also Samsung Jet with its 800 MHz processor.

However, even then our heart still beats faster by the iPhone 3GS, which is still smoother, faster, and more reliable than any of the phones out there. The phone features faster performance than its predecessor iPhone 3G, a video camera, voice control, and GPS maps with compass. Apple this time has supercharged the CPU, jacking up the processor numbers from 412MHz to 600MHz,doubled RAM from 128MB to 256MB and has swapped out the previous graphics chip for a new version — dubbed the PowerVR SGX — which adds support for more robust visuals via OpenGL ES 2.0. The 16GB version of this sweetheart is priced at Rs. 65,000.

However for a more price-performance value equation phone, nothing beats the more powerful version of the N95, the Nokia N86 (Rs. 39,000). The phone is fully loaded, featuring an 8-megapixel camera that takes excellent pictures and include advanced options, such as a wide-angle lens and variable aperture. It’s also a capable smartphone and offers Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS, and 3G support along with entertainment options whilst delivering on quality.  A must-mention in this category is also LG’s Renoir (Rs. 34,500). This touch screen phone, features a super-sharp 8 megapixel camera with a list of features which are only found on extremely high-end standalone cameras, such as Schneider-Kreuznach certified optics, a Xenon flash, auto and manual focus, sensitivity up to ISO 1600 and geo-tagging.

For The Professional Lifestyle

Gone are the days of traditional office workers tied to their desktop PCs, ready to clock in their typical eight-hour workdays. Now the shift from the predominantly deskbound workforces to enterprises full of roving employees is a budding reality and phone makers have launched phones catering to these knowledge workers.

At the extreme end of this category are the HTC Touch PRO (Rs. 64,900) and HTC Touch HD (Rs. 71,000) phones. The HTC Touch Pro line brings together elegant touch screen response with the direct precision of keyboard entry, delivering a powerhouse   communication tool in a beautiful, compact design. Both phones feature HTC’s rich, touch-responsive interface, TouchFLO™ 3D, which provides a stunningly intuitive way to zip through common tasks like messaging, calendar checks or making calls.

The 2.8-inch VGA touch screen in PRO provides four times the resolution of most smart devices, making email, documents and web pages sharper and easier to work with than ever before, whilst the Pro HD version sports a 3.8” WVGA screen on which you can enjoy music videos, films and streaming like you never thought possible on a mobile device.

For most professionals however, RIM’s Blackberry range of phones especially the Bold & Pearl are still where it’s at. At the lower end, Nokia’s line of Enterprise Edition phones such at the E75 and the E62 are also worth looking into.