Spending time at the Mall of Asia with the Nokia E71 and Apple iPhone

Yesterday, I got to spend some time at the Mall of Asia with my wife who went to the Graphika Manila 2008 event. Graphika Manila was an annual event of graphic designers in Manila. The sort of get together annually to talk about what’s happening and some of the things that they have done in their professions. It’s one of those events that my wife didn’t want to miss off to Mall of Asia we went.

While waiting for her, decided to go around the gargantuan Mall of Asia to look around. It was a sale weekend so the place was packed with people looking around for bargains aside from the usual mall-strolling popular among Filipinos.

First thing I did was to go to the Nokia store to try out the Nokia E71 and Globe Telecoms (authorized Apple iPhone distributor) to take a look at the Apple iPhone.

This is sort of a follow-up to my previously posted an article about “Which is best: Nokia N71, Apple iPhone 3G or HTC Dream with Android?”

At the Nokia store, I had a look around the shop but didn’t find an E71 demo available so I talked to one of the staff to ask for a demo unit of the Nokia E71. She responded politely and asked me to wait while she got the demo unit from the drawer. Seeing that the unit was out of power, she took me to the nearest socket to plug in the unit so that she could show me some of its features.

She started to demo the unit. One of the very first things that caught my eye was the bright 320×240 screen (more on this later). The display looks crisp and good. I could see the usual top icons and list of items below it that you’d usually find in a Nokia S60 mobile phone. After some talk, the staff handed me the phone to have a look around it.

The Nokia E71 was very slim. You’ll find the usual power button on top of the mobile phone and on the left side the earphone socket plus volume control.

I quickly tried out the keyboard which is one of the features I was interested in because these days I have been spending more and more time with the keypad on my mobile phone rather than the usual calling. At first I thought that the keyboard was a bit small due to the small size of the Nokia E71. It’s acually a lot smaller than it’s predecessors so I wasn’t sure if it will feel good with my rather big fingers.

On the contrary, the Nokia E71 keyboard was great even with the smaller keys. The design was such that the keys bulging enough to make it easier to use them at the smaller footprint. Pressing each key was easy and I could easily press a key without having to erroneously press the surrounding keys.

The metal case of the Nokia has been a topic on the Net due to it’s smudginess and I must say that it’s very true. It’s a fingerprint magnet. But I can live with the easily smudged surfaces of the E71 and have a sturdier and slimmer case because of the metal frame. After all the smudges can be easily removed with a cloth.

When I read about the Nokia E71 still having the usual 320×240 resolution (albeit landscape display), I must admit that I was a bit turned off as I was expecting Nokia to have at least a 416×352 display. Looks like Nokia is still having problems extending power life on higher resolution screens. It would have been great if it was a 416×352 screen in the Nokia E71. GSM Arena has post a story of the leaked Nokia E72 and E75 mobile phones — I hope they’d have better screen resolutions than the E71.

Having the 320×240 resolution on the Nokia E71 has it’s advantages. For one, the landscape resolution provide more horizontal space for web browsing and messaging. The landscape mode also allows for better viewing of video on the mobile phone.

Web browsing was fast on the mobile phone. In fact the Nokia E71 was quick and responsive due, in all probability, to the fact that it has a 360Mhz cpu underneath. And of course the fast wifi connection in the Nokia shop. Navigating the E71 was quick. One click messaging responded quickly with the Text Messaging window. Typing on the keyboard didn’t produce any noticeable lag on the unit.

I got a quick try of the Nokia E71′s music player and it sounds good even without a headset. Of course it was better with the headset. I wish I had brought my Motorola HT820 bluetooth headset to test bluetooth stereo via A2DP.

Playing games on the unit was great because of the big 2.36-inch display and the fast processor. Another worth noting feature was the ability to change from a “business” to a “personal” interface mode which provides some nice functionality for business users.

Although the unit only comes with a 2GB microSD flash, the Nokia E71 supports up to 8GB. It comes with a leather sleeve with the package to provide added protection to the mobile phone. Plus the standard charge, earphones and USB cable of course. Would have been nice if a 3.5mm plug adaptor was also included.

The Nokia E71 was on sale at the Nokia shop in Mall of Asia and was priced at 22,000 pesos instead of the usual 25,000 pesos for two days but a quick look around the shops and I found one that was priced at only 20,800 pesos for the gray finished Nokia E71.

Wanting to be able to take a look at the features of the Apple iPhone, I head on to the Globe Telecom shop to check if a demo unit was available. Arriving at the shop, I told the reception staff that I was interested in the Apple iPhone and if there was an Apple iPhone demo unit that I can check.

The guy pointed me to where it was. Looks like I have to wait a bit ‘coz there was about 5 people in the line waiting to take a look at the iPhone. I didn’t mind being the last in the line so that I could take my time looking at it when it was my turn to check out the Apple iPhone.

The guy at the reception handed me out the pricing of the Apple iPhone so while waiting for my turn, I had a look at the pricing. The iPhone costs approximately 38,000 pesos with a Globe Telecom prepaid line. The price drops to a range of 29,000 pesos to a free unit depending on the Globe Telecom mobile phone subscriber plan that you have.

After several minutes, it was my turn to check out the Apple iPhone. But upon reaching for the mobile phone, it looks like I have to wait for several more minutes as the iPhone gets charged.

At last, I took the iPhone from it’s charging dock. The charging doc was a welcome thing for such a mobile phone in it’s class. Something that would have been nice to have on the Nokia E71 mobile phone. The Windows-based HP iPaq that my wife uses also has a phone dock and these mobile phones are more or less of the same class.

When I first looked at the Apple iPhone, my first thought out word was — SIMPLICITY. Single button below, ear-piece at the top, one big screen and that was it. Holding it feels good like the NoKia E71 — more curves and less sharp edges. They were more or less the same size for all practical purposes in my opinion (although the Nokia E71 is precisely smaller and thinner).

The next thing the was simply amazing with the Apple iPhone is the user interface. It is simply the most user friendly interface that one can imagine to use. The combination of the touch screen and the navigation was great. Gestures made life easier using the mobile phone. No wonder a lot of people swear by it.

Being a skeptic about touch screens and keyboard-less mobile phones, it was one of the very first things I tried out. Just how easy was it to use a device without a physical keyboard? How would it feel without physically touching a key and pressing on it to create to tactile feeling together with that all too familiar click?

I went on to create my first sms message on the Apple iPhone to get access to the virtual keyboard. When the keyboard got displayed, I looked at it and said to myself. It’s too small and it looks like I’m going to have a hard time typing my message. But upon using it, I quickly realized that this is what it’s all about — the Apple engineering prowess. It didn’t take me long to realize that the software for the touch screen keyboard was able to make adjustments and deduce which key I was actually trying to use.

It also displays a “call out” box (for the lack of better term) of the key it detected that I was trying to press. What makes it more usable, if it was the wrong key, is that if you don’t release your finger from the touch screen and sort of slide your finger to the correct key and then release you won’t have to make any typing mistakes. This functionality I must admit is something that sorts of compensate for the fact that it’s not actually a physical keyboard. It also allows you to have a smaller keyboard. For people who have used Palm and Windows PDA/phones, you would really like this feature a lot. It beats the hell out of having to carry a stylus around your device.

The sound click produced by the Apple iPhone is a welcome replacement to the physical click on an actual keyboard and sorts of gives your senses a trigger that you have pressed on the key.

After that, I am actually convinced that touch screen keyboards is the way of the future especially if research on incorporating “tactile” sensors into the touch screen have been making waves. It’s not going to take long before we find ourselves using less and less of the physical keyboard. It also sorts of make it easier and a lot flexible to make a programmable keyboard look the way we it.

The screen resolution is no doubt better than the Nokia E71. The Apple iPhone has a higher 480×320 resolution and of course it’s touch screen. Browsing on the Intenet is such a great pleasure with the bigger screen and higher resolution. If only for this, I would choose the Apple iPhone over the Nokia E71.

The Apple iPhone has the same finger-print magnet metal case as the Nokia E71 but Apple was more service oriented enough to include a cleaning/polishing cloth in the package.

Although the Apple iPhone 3G doesn’t come with an external memory slot, it does come in 8GB and 16GB storage versions which should be ample space for your personal media use for the day. If you’re an iPod user, you know that it’s very easy to manage your music and video once you get your device into the dock.

By now, the iPhone was out of juice again so I had to put it back into the charging dock. After a longer wait, I picked up the iPhone and went on to play some music and video. I didn’t expect anything about this because I love the quality of the music and video from the iPod. And how easy it was to use an iPod. The iPhone was no different.

Next thing I decided to quickly try is the camera before I ran out of power on the iPhone again. I took a quick shot and tried comparing what I had from the Nokia E71. And they look more or less the same in terms taking photos in average lighted places. The Nokia E71 has a flash though and autofocus functionality. No auto-focus and lower pixel resoluton (2-megapixel against 3-megapixel for the Nokia E71). Before I got to try out video, the power ran out again.

If I get the Apple iPhone, one thing I’d definitely miss is playing with J2ME mobile games but more and more games for the iPhone is becoming available so it shouldn’t take long before some of the games I like would be available. I thnk Sun is also working on making the Java platform available for the iPhone.

At this point, I must admit that I just love the Apple iPhone hands down against the Nokia E71. The Apple iPhone outclassed the Nokia E71 in the features that I am interested in — user interface, keyboard and large screen.

I think that the Nokia E71 belongs more to the class of Samsung Blackjack’s, Rim Blackberry’s, Motorola Q’s, iMate / HTC windows mobile phones. The Apple iPhone is just a class on it’s own. There are LG’s, Samsung, Motorola and Nokia phones available and soon to be available but I don’t think that they would come near to what the iPhone is.

HTC with Google’s Android is hoping to change all that with the upcoming HTC Dream which should be out several days from now. They’re even coming out with the same $199.00 price point for the unit. I guess I can only wait. But with what I’ve seen with Apple’s iPhone, they have their work cut out for them.

The iPhone is just too elegant, simple and easy to use. The iPhone still proves that Apple is a symbol of craftsmanship, engineering and good products. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why everyone who owns an Apple product and not just the iPhone swears by it.

I think, I’m just about decided what my next mobile phone is going to be.