New interest

Last year, I eagerly waited for the release of sonyericsson's K850i mobile phone. I had expectations on imaging capabilities of this phone but it turned out to be complete disappointment. Images taken with K850i are not even comparable to its predecessor, it couldn't even reproduce actual colors of the scene and the images had that washed out look. Well, this made me to look elsewhere and found I-Mobile 902. It has sony's 5mp CCD sensor and it interpolates images upto 8mp. It also has the same sensor which is being used in some Canon digital point and shoot cameras.

Initially, I just wanted to have a phone which has a decent camera and can be taken everywhere without the need of carrying dedicated digital camera around. I wanted such mobile phone which could document my life in pictures but slowly with excellent image quality of i-mobile 902 my interest changed from documenting things to creating pictures.

I seem to have found new interest but photography is darn expensive. Only if K850i wasn't so disappointing camera phone, otherwise i wouldn't had discovered my passion so soon through I-Mobile 902. Anyhow, i must thank sonyericsson for making such a crappy imaging flagship phone, which led me to the realization of my interest for photography. I think, I've out grown I-Mobile 902 and i need better camera and lens for the kind of pictures i wish to capture. I should also keep learning from excellent photographers on flickr & internet.

How crazy are we about iPhone???

Well, i almost fell off my chair when i saw this below item for sale!. Some seller selling unlocked iPhone for whopping Rs 59,990 (around $1460) at rediff shopping website and apparently this seller claims that it's retail value is around $1950. Recently, Apple has reduced the cost of iPhone with 8gb memory from $599 to $399 and here is the guy selling it at the cost of a laptop with decent spec!. Well, so much for unlocked version, specially when we can get free software hack from iUnlock Reloaded and others.

I don't understand why people think its worth a fortune and are crazy about it, when it is just a fashion phone as noted by Elder Murtazin in his excellent unbiased review1 and review2. I think some people are just influenced by glitter & hype created by a product. I personally prefer features of LG's KU990 (Viewty) or Samsung F700 over an iPhone.

Now, we have to see if we have any desperate & foolish buyers here in India for a phone which costs around $1460+ (with illegal unlock & which is yet to be tested on Indian carriers) and also which provides only 10 to 15 days vendor warranty?. Do they care that with any new firmware update, iPhone will be locked again???.

Where are you Sofia?

I've been waiting for a decent 5 megapixel camera phone for sometime now. Last year, LG has introduced KG920, but its camera is slow and also i don't like it's design. Last month Nokia has introduced N95, which runs on symbian. It's design is excellent and has all connectivity options that one can consider (USB, Infrared, Bluetooth, GSM, WCDMA, HSDPA, WLAN) & also integrated GPS. It prides of using Carl Zeiss Optics, but the quality of the pictures & videos are okay and not exceptional, at times it produces pictures with purple hue, and also it has poor battery. This leaves me with Sony Ericsson's K850i(code named Sofia). However, SE has not even acknowledged Sofia's existence till date. I and others like me, hoped that Sofia will be unveiled at CeBit 2007 but that was not the case and now rumors are going around, that it might be announced in the middle of April and available in June/July. Let us hope this may be the actual date, if not, then i've to prolong this wait with dejection!!!. After using K750i, I've reason to believe that Sofia's camera might be the best when compared to other phones, and also below 3rd photo supposedly taken with Sofia looks promising. However, Sofia may not be a smartphone like N95 but that is not my consideration. Moreover SE phones are slightly faster than Nokia and have better battery life.

Sofia's photoshop Pic Courtesy of deuxani and thecoolsha

According to Nielsen Media Research, some groups are more attracted to certain brands than others:

• Nokia : Family-minded / Middle aged managers / Balance seekers / Health conscious.
  

• Motorola : Fashion conscious / Under 24 / Fun seekers / Individualistic.
  

• Sony Ericsson : Ambitious young men / Professionals / Success driven / Individualistic.
  

• LG : Favourite of mums / Stay-at-home parents / Success driven / Harmony seekers.

• Samsung : Young women / Career focused / Success driven / Fun seekers.