> There are quite a number of Nokia GPRS handsets due to hit the market
> before and around Xmas this year. IIRC the first one to come is a 5xxx
> or 6xxx with GPRS, then a GRPS version of the 82xx and I think there was
> also talk about a new communicator with GPRS next year.
8310 with GPRS hit the stores about 2 weeks ago. It has been a reasonable
success with the target group so far, the people who want to have the latest
and greatest, and the people who want nice, small and stylish. The stores
report that corporate customers are already queuing for the 6310. Some of
the optional covers for the 8310 are pretty weird, but maybe oriental people
will like e.g. the pink versions ;-)
8310 is definitely not a "whhoa!!!" phone. It feels less plastic than 8210,
pretty much the same size and weight. The stand-by/talk times feel improved
and there's something funny about the reception, it works in the garage
where 6210 didn't. There's plenty of small improvements and changes in the
menus and features, perhaps more intuitive than the 6210 although e.g. the
calculator is more difficult to use unless one uses the menu-6 shortcut.
If you shake the phone, the volume buttons will make some noise (the buttons
are part of the changeable front cover, including the keypad). That
"tinkling" was pretty bad with the prototypes. Some users will be more
confortable with the new dual headset, included with the phone. The blue
LCD(*, like 8850, is very nice and the dimming blue light over the keypad is
a definite cool factor.
WAP over GPRS will make a difference. I'm quite positive that if the
magical "Mobile Internet" doesn't hit the streets before GPRS is widely
available on consumer phones, WAP over GPRS will increase the use of WAP
quite a bit. But the more you try WAP services the more you wonder if the
user interface people have been asleep when designing the services.
This leads to using GPRS from Windows PC or PDA. Nokia's implementation is
somewhat different from Motorola or Ericsson where you have a PPP session to
the phone that does NAT to the GPRS network. With Nokia you have a PPP
connection directly to the GPRS network and with the Windows' persistance
for "OK" dialogs, it can be pretty painful if you loose the connection
often.
The big problem is the web sites. They have been designed for corporate
desktops, broadband cable TV and DSL connections and frequently require some
plug-ins in the browser. On the average even a simple page will be a few
hundred kilobytes in total size. With GPRS that will not only cost you a
great deal of money to download but it will take too much time.
So even if we finally get someone to make a great GPRS phone with big,
bright color screen, we need the web sites that don't expect desktop
screens, desktop browsers and desktop bandwidth. Ok, fine, maybe a bit
bigger screen would start the revolution but as no one is doing it, there
must be some difficulties obtaining those valuable LCD displays..
Petri
*) A new "must have" on the mobile phone list, the first was no visible
antenna. I would probably prefer a B/W blue LCD over a poor color LCD,
there are some pretty awful, almost useless color LCD devices on the market.
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Received on Thu Oct 11 15:44:43 2001