The most important thing I can say about Nokia's N Series is this: The N93 is helping to usher in the citizen media movement in a major way. No one wants to watch grainy, out-of-focus, low-res pictures and videos. With the N93, you don't have to. It captures video as MPEG-4 files in a big, fat, gorgeous 640x480 display.
People are still getting used to taking video with their mobiles, and Steve Garfield points out that even ABCNews.com can't get it right.
Steve should know. He and Rocketboom's Andrew Baron (who showed me how to move clips from my N93 to my Mac laptop using Bluetooth) have been my main go-to guys about these devices.
I bumped into Steve at the recent Video on the Net conference and we compared our N93s. Said Steve: “It’s a great device for capturing and sharing a fleeting moment. Who wants to lug a camcorder around all day? This lets you capture events that you would have otherwise missed out on in our always-on video culture.”
I still have the bad habit of wanting to edit my video clips in a dedicated video editor, like iMovie, but Steve showed me how to use the N93’s built-in video editor (under Options / Edit). It took him less than 15 minutes, riding the train in Boston, to master the technique.
Zack Rosen shot this video snippet of me and Dan Gillmor talking about the recently launched Principles of Citizen Journalism project. And here's a video I shot of Britt Bravo on my loaner N93 at the Social Media Consensus gathering last month.
It's a little bit bulky to be carrying around all the time, a drawback Nokia will no doubt fix as its N Series line matures. And it doesn't handle low-light shooting situations very well for either photos or video. The interface also can be daunting -- I still don't know the easiest way to check my missed calls after it alerts me and the message goes away. (Nokia, take some words of widsom from Henry David Thoreau: Simplify, simplify.)
It's the Nokia N95.
As a member of the Nokia bloggers program, I've had fun over the past year testing out the latest cool toys that the Finnish company has dangled in the U.S. marketplace. Liked the N91 and N70. Found the N73 and N80 handy. Loved the N93 and N90. But I adore the N95, which sets a new standard for gotta-have-it mobile eye candy and rockin' features, even if its interface still needs work.
In the Silicon Valley circles I run in these days, I've begun spotting the N95 with increasing frequency. Dan Gillmor has one. So do videobloggers Andrew Baron of Rocketboom in New York and Steve Garfield of Boston.
I decided to pass on the iPhone because the N95 and my MacBook Pro meet my mobile wireless needs (for now), so I can't do a true side-by-side comparison. But here is how their features stack up:
Phone features
Nokia N95: You have a full choice of carriers, and the N95 supports 3G, which is a huge advantage over AT&T's Edge. The device is smaller and lighter than an iPhone (4.2 oz. to the iPhone's 4.8 oz.) and conveniently slips into a shirt pocket.
iPhone: You're locked into AT&T and its pokey Edge service for two years, a poor experience for downloading multimedia files. And it takes four to six steps to place a simple phone call.
Multimedia
Nokia N95: The N95 is helping to usher in an age of citizen media, with video captured in MPEG-4 at a big, fat 640 x 480 pixels. These videos look good! Here's my interview (taped indoors) with attorney Colette Vogele, done on an N95. It also takes good photos, especially outdoors, in 5 megapixels up to 2592 x 1944 pixels.
iPhone: You can watch video on its luscious 3.5-inch screen in glorious H.264 MPEG-4. But you can't shoot video. You can, however, take pictures with its 2-megapixel camera.
This is an edition of Ubuntu that is built specifically for Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs.) The goal is to provide full Web functionality including essential closed components like Flash and Java. The Ubuntu Mobile team is working on the best way to provide a system, UI, and user experience.What it is:
A handheld (not desktop or phone) Linux operating system.
Optimized for touch - usually with fingers instead of a stylus.
Geared for 4-7" touchscreens
Set to include optimized experiences popular Web 2.0 sites.
Sponsored by Canonical, working hand-in-hand with Intel.What it is not:
Desktop Linux. Don't expect to install Ubuntu Mobile on your existing systems and expect to get a real feel for the system's target device.
Phone Linux. It's made for secondary devices. While some devices will include 3G and WiMAX support, they are not intended to replace phones.
Hacker-centered. Linux can be built from a pile of source code, but Ubuntu Mobile wants to make the consumer experience paramount over hackability. While the system can still be hacked and customized, it won't always be as easy as editing /etc files. Check the bit on unionfs below.Tech facts:
Set to license media codecs to get around the Linux multimedia support problem.
Targeted to operate on as low as 2GB to 8GB embedded storage and 256M-512M RAM.
Set to include media-rich functionality with webcams, speakers/headphones/microphone, and OpenGL 3D.
Built to support WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and mobile data like 3G and WiMAX
Built to operate on a read-only and read/write filesystem combined with unionfs. This means that the core components of the system cannot be trashed by accidental Linux typos. The Asus Eee PC currently uses this method with their Xandros installation and Kevin Tofel of JKOnTheRun shows how fast a system restore can be with this method of operation.
Built with Hildon, Gecko, and other technologies tried and tested existing Linux installations and devices (Hildon is the desktop framework used on Nokia Internet Tablets)
Organized to create a fast and easy porting procedure for developers. The diffs between desktop apps and Ubuntu Mobile apps are very small.
Dan Gillmor raves about the Nokia E90 Communicator: Nokia E90’s Enormous Potential in Journalism.
It’s almost precisely what the Apple iPhone is not: a device designed with serious work in mind, where the keypad(s) are the data-entry systems and where multimedia creation carries a higher value than playback. ...
This device, not yet officially on sale in the U.S., has game-changing potential for journalism. If I ran a newsroom and could talk the money folks into it, I’d hand out E90s to some of my journalists and Web developers. I’d tell them to experiment like crazy, and to watch what other people are doing with these and other powerful mobile systems. I suspect they’d do some amazing things.
I haven't seen the device yet (though intend to). Offhand, though, this seems like a device more suited to journalists in new media operations and to business people rather than to most citizen journalists in the field, who are more likely to use lightweight camera phones and mobile video cams you can fit into your pocket.
