Nokia N97 Phone (First Touch-Screen Nseries Phone)

Well, this is a rarity. For the first time in a long time, Nokia launched a surprise announcement with the latest Nseries handset, the N97. Already the first Nseries touch-screen phone, the N97 also packs in a slide-out/tilt-able QWERTY keyboard (can someone say arc slider?) and the usual badass Nseries features.

There’s definitely a lot to like with Nokia’s second official touch-screen handset. Unlike the cheaper 5800 XpressMusic, the quad-band N97 is all about the high-end, with the looks and features to match.

For starters, it’s not a small handset. Measuring 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm, the N97 also weighs in at 150 grams - that’s 5.3 ounces. Compare that to the original Nokia N95 (120 grams), and the current Xperia X1 (145 grams). Expect some heft with this phone, although not as much as the Nokia N90 aka “the brick.” (173 grams)

So first up in the feature section is the touch-screen, which is a generously-sized 3.5 inch, 640×360 widescreen (16:9) display. It’s impressive despite the fact that the screen is resistive rather than the more sensitive capacitive.

The camera is the high-end industry standard 5 megapixels, with Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash, TV-out, and 30 fps video to boot. With 32 gigabytes of internal memory plus expandable memory that supports up to 16 more gigabytes, my guess is that you won’t be running out of space any time soon. Compare that to last year’s N81 which I believe had a grand total of 5 megabytes of internal memory. Phones have definitely come a long way.

Music features are pretty much what we’ve come to expect from Nokia. Stereo speakers, A2DP, and even the 3.5mm jack.

Battery life, at least on paper, looks good. The N97 uses a 1500 mAh battery, which is good enough for 6.6 hours of talk time (GSM) or 5.3 hours (3G). Sweet.

There’s always a huge drawback when it comes to this much awesomeness, and the drawback in this case is the wait. The N97 ain’t comin’ out until the first half of 2009, which is damn long time. There might even be an Xperia X2 by then. Don’t forget to add +5 months to that date if you live in the USA.

Finally, expect the N97 to be priced at 550 euros, or $698 USD.

Nokia E63 Phone (E71 Clone)

The Nokia E63 takes the E71 a step sideways.

Today Nokia dropped an E-bomb on the world with the (completely random) announcement of the E63 smartphone. Essentially it’s a budget E71, with the exception of a couple nice features aimed towards the consumer market. Since it’s an Eseries device, it still retains business-y features such as the ability to switch work/personal modes. More details inside.

In a nutshell, here’s the differences between the E63 and E71:

Nokia E63

Size 113 x 59 x 13 mm
Camera 2 megapixel camera
Audio Jack 3.5 mm standard audio jack
Talk Time 11 hours
GPS No


Nokia E71

Size 114 x 57 x 10 mm
Camera 3.2 megapixel camera
Audio Jack 2.5 mm audio jack
Talk Time 10.5 hours
GPS Yes


-”Better” features are highlighted in bold.

The E63 isn’t what I’d call a step forwards or backwards, even though it loses the GPS and the higher pixel count camera. It’s more or less a step sideways. The way I see it, Nokia is just starting to recognize the trend towards Blackberry-ish devices with full keyboards. Look at the success of recent Blackberry models as well as the Palm Centro, a phone that I personally think has a horrible shape and design:

Three Vertu Ferrari Phones Hit the Streets

Nokia’s uber-expensive Vertu line of non-smartphones now has an uber-expensive name attached to it: Ferrari. And Nero, Rosso, and Giallo.

The Nero is a limited-edition Vertu, and besides being obscenely priced, it’s the only one of the three with an overlaid red sapphire crystal earpiece. There will be a mere 2,009 Ferrari Nero Vertu phones sold, so get yours before they’re gone.

All three phones share PVD-coated ceramic battery covers that resemble Ferrari car hoods, Ferrari-specific themes and ring tones featuring the exclusive Ferrari engine sound. No word on actual features, but we’d expect private access to the Vertu Concierge and Vertu Bunker (Fortress). And possibly 3G and wi-fi, if the previous Vertu Signature is anything to go by.

Get the lowdown on the Vertu Ferrari Ascent Ti collection at Sybarites.

Nokia’s 5800 XpressMusic Starts Shipping

The 5800 XpressMusic is shipping...to select countries.

Originally code-named the Tube, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touch-screen midrange smartphone has officially started shipping to select countries, according to a Nokia press release. It’s part of the XpressMusic line, which generally means a lot of music-oriented features and plastic, but in all honesty the device is one of the few affordable touch-screen phones out there.

How affordable is affordable, you ask? Try 279 Euros ($359), unsubsidized.

Unfortunately, the list of countries actually getting the 5800 is rather…random. Included are Russia, Spain, India, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Finland, but a previous article also mentioned Indonesia and the U.A.E. Of note is the lack of most European countries, excluding Nokia’s own native Finland. A previous article by Reuters suggested that Nokia’s strategy might be to focus on the more emerging markets rather than the established ones first.

Nokia 2608 Phone (CDMA-ified 3555)

Continuing Nokia’s time-honored tradition of releasing dumbphones aimed at the CDMA market, the Nokia 2608, at first glance, actually looks like a slick phone. It’s very similar to the 3555, complete with the seamless back, although the keypad more closely resembles a Nokia N90 than anything. And it looks extremely thick.

In terms of features, however, the 2608 is pretty lacking. There is the standard integrated loudspeaker, “quick-press” flashlight, FM radio, some LED indicators for missed calls (something I wish was on every phone), and voice recorder. Nothing really out of the ordinary, except “quick touch access to one’s PC”, which I’m still trying to puzzle out. Is it VNC? Or simply a USB cable connection?

The Nokia 2608 hasn’t been priced yet, but the official bulletin board press release states that it’s the cheapest CDMA phone around. Expect the phone to hit select markets (not including the USA) some time in the first quarter of 2009, when it’ll be overshadowed by the release of the N97.

The Nokia “Aeon”

The “Aeon” seems to be your “typical” razr-thin candybar form factor cell phone with no actual buttons. No, it’s not the next generation of Nokia’s L’amour Fashion Collection. The bottom half of the prototype pictured here is actually a touch-screen display that can change (I might be going out on a limb here) into any kind of menu, button, keypad, whatever. It’s so damn cool that I’m almost speechless. I mean, yeah, the touch screen method brings up a ton of quirky problems - like causing damage to the display with those pointy thumbs of yours, among others - but it’s also so innovative and (brilliantly simple) that I can’t even associate it with the Nokia name. What happened to those super thick oversized fatso phones that Nokia keeps churning out?

So the Aeon got me pretty excited about what’s coming in the future of wireless technology. Of course, by the time this phone actually comes to market (if ever), I’m sure Motorola will have similar devices available, all with those really annoying vowel-less names that nobody wants to pronounce. I really hope their next set of phones are called KRPR or something. It’d be more fitting.

A side note on technology , feasibility and the New Product Development process.

As a trained brain innovator for now over 50 product innovation brainstorming sessions in the past 15 years, I am amazed at the fumbling that goes on AFTER the session is over. Most innovation sessions end up with hundreds of potentially great product ideas, which are then filtered down to maybe a dozen really good, viable new product concepts. The best of course, are based on the application of new technological solutions to the problems at hand.

Immediately after an innovation session is over, most marketing groups run out to test the viability of the concept in the “marketplace” via VoC (Voice Of the Customer) research or focus groups before they even know if the product is technically feasible: They try to get a feel for whether the market will buy it and under what conditions. I have seen way too many products come back from focus groups “good to go”, beloved by the customer, all featured up, before they have been thought through from a technical and engineering standpoint. The marketing group comes back to engineering with a big smile on their face and a big “thumbs up” saying “OK, the customers love it, now go build it.”

If engineers know anything, it is that almost anything can be built, but at what price and what misery. So the marketers and builders of “business cases” ignore at least four of the six significant areas of feasibility in this rush to Market Feasibility testing: They miss Technical (Engineering) Feasibility, obviously; Manufacturing Feasibility -if you don’t know the technology and the engineering, how the heck do you know if and how you can build it; Pricing (part of the Financial Feasibility), like duh, how much can I charge for it or more appropriately, how much will the customer pay for it; and Patent Feasibility - if you don’t know the technology how can you know if you can protect it or, more importantly, are you infringing on someone else patent. (That only leaves Distribution Feasibility- which means do you have channels in which to get this thing to market untouched.)

The most logical approach, an approach that is from my standpoint cheaper, both in time to market and sunk cost, in the long run, is to look into the technological feasibility of the product, BEFORE you start showing wild ass NPD concepts to the market. If you try to build something to test its technological feasibility, to prove that from an engineering standpoint you can build it, you will by default come up with: 1) A notion of how and if you can manufacture it . 2) You will also get a guess at what it might cost along with what the feature set will cost; 3) You will no doubt go to the patent archives to look for ways of solving the problem, since one of the best ways to solve a problem is to find out how people have solved it in the past. So by going straight to the technological feasibility exercise, you will reduce uncertainty (which is what this feasibility thing is all about) much quicker than if you simply go to the market research first.

A lesson in point: after a brainstorming session a customer brought a focus group “annoited” product to us and said “OK, now they want this thing and we want to use this motor on it, the thing is absolutely feasible with this motor at this cost!” We looked at it for a while and snickered back: “It’s really good that you could do this with this motor, but what about the transmission of the power into the device?” They had based their belief about the feasibility of the product on cost of the motor, without looking at how they were going to get the power into the device”. If they had gone down a path to see if the thing could be engineered and prototyped, to look at its true technical feasibility, they would have more seriously understood where the uncertainty, the risk, was really.

Sometimes, we base our belief about the feasibility of a product on the LEAST important part. If companies would do a little technical feasibility homework BEFORE they take it out for a drive at the church of consumer evaluation, they would save themselves big heartache latter. So remember, GET PHYSICAL FAST!

WiFi Tablet PC Designed for Medical Professionals Saves Time, Money

The latest innovation from Motion Computing is a Tablet PC for medical professionals aimed at saving time, effort, and money. They project that it can save doctors and nurses from as much as 60 minutes of paperwork per day.

The Intel and Motion Computing folks spent a full 18 months observing and gathering feedback from doctors, nurses, and clinicians. That homework is evident in the presentation and the features list.

The C5 is a Vista- or XP-powered portable PC that is filled with medicine-friendly features, among them a barcode scanner, RFID reader, digital camera, and 802.11 wireless connectivity. All of these things make it a solid alternative to the deskwork and paperwork that fill so much of doctors' and nurses' days. It is also, most importantly, disinfectable.

The guts of the matter are an Intel Core Solo U1400 processor, a 10.4-inch touchscreen, up to 60GB hard drive, and even Bluetooth. AIt weighs just 3 pounds and has a top-mounted handle for easy transport. All of this together will set you back US$2,199, which we're guessing isn't a whole lot when you start to factor in the hassles you'll avoid. Do keep in mind, though, that the battery life is only four hours at most.