Nokia E71: Smartphone with Smart Simplicity
There are a lot of phones in the market today; we are not just talking of many but huge numbers of competing phones out for consumers to make use of. It’s pretty quite good having lot of choices available but choosing over which one perfectly fits for the consumer needs is a hard task. When it comes to business needs one noticeable phone in the market today is the Nokia E71.
The Nokia E71 is the successor of the popular Nokia E61 & E61i. Nokia had shrunken the E71 to just 57mm compare to E61i 70mm and trimmed it down to an amazingly 10mm thickness, an almost 4mm less thicker than E61i with 13.9mm
The display screen looks very sharp, which got narrower a bit at 2.36 inches (320×240 pixels) from 2.8″ with the E61. If there had to be a bit negative about Nokia E71, I say it’s going to be the keyboard, the QWERTY keyboard with the keys a little too crowded. However, it’s not bad at all since the keys more embossed so the user don’t easily hit neighboring keys. Another thing is that the number keys are at the center so you can easily type in single-handed. A fingernail-oriented user would feel more comfortable rather than thumb-oriented with the E71. The keys are enhanced by a nice back lighting which makes them very easy to read. The actual keys don’t actually light up but just the letters and symbols, which contribute to its clean and sexy exterior. Professional Design Trim and fitted with a full keyboard, Nokia E71 is impeccably tailored for business on the move.
The E71 features a business centric connectivity. The E71 includes A-GPS function, WiFi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, a microSD slot where you can add in an 8 GB of storage, a 110MB of built-in memory. Although the internal memory of 110MB is a little small considering the E51 has 130MB, but a dedicated 128MB RAM and ARM 11 369 MHz processor makes the phone woks express. There’s also plenty of software to take benefit for the quite-mature S60 platform. Really designed as a business device, the E71 comes with a full complement of office, email and PIM software, including a feature to switch on the fully between business and personal accounts, complete with separate mailboxes and home screens. It has two home screens that will allow you to choose between work and leisure modes. It enables you to choose application shortcuts to suit your schedule with message notifications on or off. The fast and easy access to messaging, including business and personal mail, without the complexity is a commendable feature of the Nokia E71.
However, one thing also that is not given much consideration with the NOKIA E71 is the 3.15 megapixel camera (2048×1536 pixels). The autofocus needs to be manually toggled each time you take the shot, a press on the “t” or “4″ key is necessary. Moreover, a dedicated camera button on the side is not available too, so one needs to use the middle button to take photos and videos. Video quality is limited to its maximum output at 15fps; nevertheless, a secondary front-facing camera for video calls is available.
Just as the E61 and E61i, the E71 houses a single speaker in the upper left of the phone. The audio quality is decent and sound volume is good. MPEG4 video playback is even and 3D tone is supported.
Choosing over many phones one will consider the battery life. With NOKIA E71, there should be no concern since it is fine. The BP-4L lithium polymer is rated at 1500 mAh. Nokia estimates a talk time of 10.5 hours. That’s pretty quite good. And turning off Wi-Fi scanning, one conserves more battery life.
With all these features, NOKIA E71 is considered one of the highly noticeable phones released in the market, a smartphone with smart simplicity!
Knol Beta Version: Publicly Launched by Google
Another useful tool had just been publicly launched yesterday, 23 July 2008, by Google, which they called Knol, on its beta version. The word knol stands for “a unit of knowledge.” It shows promising purposes and functions, which is to encourage people who know a particular subject write an authoritative article about it.
What do we mean by authoritative articles? It means authored are being highlighted with respect to their written articles. They said that books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names enough credit. They consider that having knowledge who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the core, a knol is just a web page; they use the word “knol” as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably.
(click image to see a clearer screenshot of the knol home page)
Knol is a well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page like blogger. But what’s the difference between Knol and Blogger? According to the Official Google Blog, one important difference between Knol and Blogger is that Knol encourages you to reveal your true identity. Knols are meant to be authoritative articles, and, therefore, they have a strong focus on authors and their credentials. We feel that this focus will help ensure that authors get credit for their work, make the content more credible. However, like blogger, Knol has simple web authoring tools that make it easy to collaborate, co-author, and publish. It has community features as well: The readers will be able to add comments and rate your article, and, if you want, they’ll be able to suggest edits that you can then either accept or reject. And, just like in Blogger, one can also choose to include ads from AdSense in the knols to perhaps make a little penny.
Knol opts to cover all topics, from scientific concepts, to medical information, from geographical and historical, to entertainment, from product information, to how-to-fix-it instructions. Moreover, Google will not serve as an editor in any way, and will not bless any content written by the author. All editorial job and control will rest with the authors. The best thing about knoll is that anyone will be free to write. They look forward that knols will include the opinions and points of view of the authors who will put their reputation on the line. They explained that there will likely be competing knols on the same subject for many topics. They shared the thought that competition of ideas is a good thing.
Just like blogger, knol is a promising site. Those who wanted to be a contributor of knowledge you can create your own knol at this address http://knol.google.com.
Lenovo Y410 T5550 Laptop
It’s been almost a month now since I had my purchase of my first laptop. Choosing on what laptop to buy was not an easy decision for me to make. There were two strong reasons: first, I was a first time buyer of a laptop; second, I had a limited budget.
With a budget range from Php 40,000.00 (US$ 930.00) – Php 50, 0000.00 (US$ 1, 163.00), with exchange rate US$1 = Php 43.00, my hunt for an all purpose laptop was quite tough. I was looking for a laptop that can be used in almost all purposes – for photo and video editing, for gaming, for entertainment, for personal and business use, in other words, I was considering an all purpose laptop. If my budget was big enough, this could have been easily solved by purchasing superior laptops with high prices. But things were different; I had to find a laptop within the range of my budget. My hunt for a laptop started with price canvassing in local stores and in some online stores, keeping in mind my budget. Then, I had read several reviews of the laptops of the laptops that fit my budget range. After thorough readings in magazines and different review sites, finally, I had decided to choose Lenovo Y410 T5550. I purchased in a local store the Lenovo Y410 T5550 for Php 44, 450.00 (US$ 1, 034.00). I was lucky to have a discount since the original suggested retailed price and even the online price, is Php 49, 995.00 (US$1, 046.00). The complete specifications and features of Lenovo Y410 T5550, which I had purchased, are the following:
- Intel Centrino Core2 Duo T5550 1.83GHz Processor.
- Intel PRO / Wireless 3945ABG.
- Intel X3100 256MB Shared Display with Dual View & TV-Out.
- 14.1″ WideScreen WXGA with VibrantView.
- 2.0GB DDR2 Memory.
- 160GB SATA Hard Disk Drive.
- Slot-In RAMBO DVD±RW/DL/RAM Super Multi Drive.
- 100Mbps LAN, 56K Modem, Firewire, Bluetooth,
- Webcam 1.3 Megapixel, with VeriFace Technology
- PCMCIA & Card Reader.
- 2×1.5W Stereo Multimedia Speakers & 1×2W SubWoofer Speaker.
- Support Dolby® Home Theater™ Surround Sound.
- Shuttle Control & Shuttle Centre.
- Audio-DJ Control Panel.
- Weight: 2.3kg include 6-Cell Li-Ion Battery.
- It comes with a Lenovo Carrying Case and with One Year Warranty!
The Lenovo Y410 features one of the most innovative login methods. It makes good use of the built-in 1.3 megapixel Webcam combined with the VeriFace face recognition software. With these, your face is your password. The technology works fine, however, I have to honestly say that you need to login using your password at dark rooms or places since it cannot authenticate your face when there is no enough lights.
The Lenovo Y410 is packed with a Dolby Audio System. It has an outstanding surround sound with subwoofer for a better multimedia experience. I agree in some point, the quality of sound, indeed is excellent; however, the full volume isn’t really that loud. When you are watching a movie or listening to a song and when vehicles pass by especially if your home is situated near the roads, I guess you need supplementary speakers. I don’t have any problem with this; I have my Altec Lansing Speakers, which I bought 5 years ago, now I used them well. But, oops, it’s not really that low that you really can’t hear, in fact when having an online talk with my brother who is working abroad, I even don’t use any extra speaker and I can hear him clearly. Also, with regards to its built in microphone, it’s excellent since my voice is clearly heard by my brother. He was even surprised during one of our chatting sessions when he saw me at the web camera without using any headphones and a microphone, when in fact he is using one with his Acer laptop.
Although, this is my first laptop but this is not my first use of a laptop. Several laptops I had used before had uncomfortable and hard to press keyboards. However, with Lenovo Y410 T5550, I feel very comfortable with the ergonomic keyboard designed with outstanding feel and durability.
Lenovo is also featured with Shuttle Key. You can easily control your volume with equalizer presets for your favorite sound. I love this orange key which you can find at the upper right corner of the keyboard.
It is also ready with what they call Audio DJ where you can control and play CD’s without having to boot up the system. I find this feature fantastic.
Although, I have not experienced of a crashed system, but I don’t have to worry since Lenovo has a OneKey Recovery to recover the system at the touch of a button. But you must take in mind that in the event of failure, hitting the recovery button will reload the system to its factory default state. Since there might be tendency not to save all your personal data and files, following good backup practices is suggested and using the OneKey Recovery as a final option. You can use DVD for backing up files since Lenovo comes with a Slot-In RAMBO DVD±RW/DL/RAM Super Multi Drive.
I have been using the Lenovo Y410 laptop for almost a month now and I haven’t encountered any problem yet. The 2-4 hour battery life, depending on usage, works fine with me. I am using this laptop for an different purposes, an all around purpose. With experience, I say I have not made the wrong decision in choosing Lenovo Y410 T5550 with over other laptops available in the market.
