Pseudonormicks Fab Phone Awards 2006

-- XeoN

2006 was a roller coaster ride in the cell phone arena as we saw better cameras getting built into handsets, fashion phones walking the ramp, GPS and Wi-Fi integration becoming more essential, and advancement in mobile networks exposing us to faster downloads for content. Scouring the latest mobile devices on the Mumbai market, special attention was paid to design, features, functions, as well as value.

Camera phones pushed into the 3-megapixel space with Sony Ericsson ™ and Nokia™ both launching 3G handsets that took best-quality snaps. The K800i edged in front of N73 in terms of ease-of-use, but what I appreciate is Nokia's integration with Flickr for uploading photos.
While LG™ introduced the innovative Chocolate KG800 phone, it's the company's clever marketing strategy -- to call a handset something that's instantly recognizable -- which is being imitated by others. Arguably though, Motorola™ got there first with the iconic MOTORAZR, which continues to be popular in all the iterations we've seen this year.

Windows Mobile devices tried their best to steal some of the enterprise market from RIM, with the introduction of push e-mail, but the Blackberry maker retaliated with the 3G-capbable 8707 and the Pearl, the first consumer-oriented Blackberry that features a built-in camera, expandable memory and multimedia playback.

Following the popular adage:” There is no right no wrong.” And of course” Beauty les in the eyes of the beholder” , we thought of giving out The Pseudonormicks Fab Phone Awards (PFPA) 2006 spanning across different categories chosen and analyzed by our brand new tech contributor XeoN.


Best camera phone of 2006 – Nokia N73

The hotly anticipated Nokia N73 camera phone has nearly every bell and whistle under the sun. With the Carl Zeiss 3.2 Mega Pixel lens, the N73 snaps superb hi-resolution stills with accurate colours and precise focus, letting users who want more control tweak a range of options to get pictures just the way they want them - including colour effects and red eye removal. Also, the large, high-resolution screen not only makes a great viewfinder but works a charm for browsing or viewing pictures you've already taken, which can also be shared and printed in all thinkable and unthinkable ways. Business users will also get a good companion in the N73 since it has Symbian OS 9.1 (S60 v3) & thanks to its many quality connectivity options as well as its ability to view documents in popular Office formats, decent scheduling capabilities, bundled mp3 player & FM radio & also 3D stereo speakers. It’s priced at Rs.23k in Mumbai.

Best Music phone - Sony Ericsson W810i

With the W810i, the act of navigating music has been vastly improved as the navigational pad now lets users easily skip forwards and backwards as well as play and pause music in a one-step process. As presented through the bright and crisp 1.8-inch medium resolution screen, the Walkman interface remains one of the best in existence for music management. Picking up where the W800i left off, the Sony Ericsson W810i offers improved music navigation in tandem with the same excellent music management capabilities and decent amount of bundled memory as its predecessor. Other musical tidbits worthy of mention include the ability to activate the well-performing stereo FM radio with RDS through a dedicated play/stop button on the left side of the phone is a handy feature. W810i is the phone that came closest to being an "iPod Killer". Priced at Rs.15.5k in Mumbai.


Most Ergonomic phone of the year - LG Chocolate KG800


Straight out of a Space Odyssey, LG's new KG800 (aka Chocolate) is a black monolith of a slider with an unusually stylish exterior. Joining a crowded space, the fashionable LG KG800 slim phone has its work cut out for it. At 95 x 48 x 15.2 mm and 83 g, it's slim, lightweight and undoubtedly one of the most stylish handsets I have ever seen. In fact, its front half is completely flush; flick the handset open, and 9 touch-sensitive navigational controls are lit up in bright red. While Motorola's RAZR still manages to trigger ultra-thin fashion clones, LG has moved in a different direction with the Chocolate KG800, an understated and stylish mobile phone with a beguiling design twist. Its priced at Rs.13.5k in Mumbai.






Chic phone of the year – Nokia 7370

Trendy colours and a faux leather exterior combine with a solid, compact spinner design to render the Nokia 7370 a stylish contender with classic touches. A crisp and colourful 2-inch QVGA screen ranks as its most impressive feature, contributing to hassle-free navigation throughout Nokia's Series 40 interface courtesy of its high resolution - the latter of which joins EDGE in making WAP browsing a similarly pleasant affair. Keypad and navigation buttons are, for once, first-rate with regard to both looks and usability, proving text input needs not be sacrificed on the altar of style. A fully adequate 1.3 Megapixel camera with an intuitive interface has also taken up residence within the 7370, adjacent to 10 MB of memory. Available in Mumbai at a price of Rs.13.5k.

Super slim phone - Samsung D900

Samsung released the Black Carbon with the claim that it is the world's thinnest slider, and I couldn’t find anything thinner than the D900's half-inch (12.9mm). The phone has a glossy, fingerprint prone front with rubberized sides and backing. As a stylish slider, the Samsung SGH-D900 "Black Carbon" is worth a look, if you can overlook some imperfections. The menu system is very convenient, and the interface in general was a pleasure to work with. The 3-megapixel camera puts the phone ahead of the mass of camera equipped handsets, but the slow interface resulted in many failed shots, and the lack of good software on the PC means this camera phone is not for novices. This may make a great companion for those who want a sidekick to their larger digital SLRs, but don't toss your mid-range digital for this phone.D900 is available in Mumbai at Rs. 20k


Best smart phone for executives – Palm Treo 700p

The Palm Treo 700p Smartphone delivers everything you need without compromise. The Smartphone combines a smarter phone with broadband-like speeds and rich-media capabilities, all in one. This Treo phone brings Palm's world-class ease of use to the Palm OS Mobile platform. Connect with people in multiple ways: voice, e-mail, SMS, or MMS3. Your contacts are always reachable from any application on the 700p. Palm sees the Treo 700p as a phone first, and it shows in their tweaks. The Today Screen has a speed dial plugin with shortcuts similar to the Treo 650, and there's even a photo dialer (thumbnails of any contacts you wish) on the home screen. Simply tap the photo to dial that person. As with the Treo 650, you can also assign any letter on the QWERTY thumb keyboard to a contact for speed dial. Its available in Mumbai markets at a price of around Rs. 28k.



Best phone for e-mail – Nokia E61

The E61 does what Nokia does best: connects people. Its all-encompassing connectivity setup is exploited in full by a broad line-up of quality messaging, office and browsing applications which run in tandem with a superb screen and more than decent thumb board. HSCSD, GPRS and EDGE bring up the rear for data across quad-band GSM support on the go, while Wi-Fi 802.11b/g takes care of high-speed local connectivity. Add Bluetooth for use as a modem, synchronization, connecting headsets and printing; USB for synchronization and data transfers. Also with good handy utilities, good battery life and a compact form factor, and you end up with a very solid business phone contender indeed. Its available in Mumbai at a price of Rs. 19k.



Best Touchscreen phone – Sony Ericsson M600i
A number of factors combine to render the M600i an ideal device for enterprise e-mail, the most prominent of which is the unusual yet surprisingly well-working thumbboard - complete with a near 90-degree learning curve. Hot on its heels follows Exchange ActiveSync support, which can be configured either for true push e-mail or scheduled retrievals, while a scroll wheel and the brilliant screen chime in for terrific, thumb-driven e-mail triage. Reading e-mail attachments is a breeze with the built-in viewers for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Acrobat documents, and particularly so when the screen's landscape view is enabled. 3G and Bluetooth serve as a springboard for getting ones laptop online. It also delivers a solid impression in every other department, with the near-sole disappointment being its lack of a bundled USB cable and USB charging support. Add good battery life and nice touches such as a scroll wheel, stereo Bluetooth audio and a clever, agenda-style standby screen. Its priced at Rs.18.6k in Mumbai.


Most anticipated phone for 2007 – Nokia N95
While it was hard to stick to Nokia’s mantra that their new N-Series are not phones (they're "multimedia computers”), we can't argue with the raw power of the N95.The size of a small slider phone, the screen on the N95 is bright and clear, perfect for the incredibly smooth interface. GPS features are striking, especially the 3-D mapping. Based on the rendering of the 3-D map, the N95 looks to have some graphical prowess -- at last, a phone that seems capable of true 3-D. Movies are bright and clear on the QVGA (320x240) screen, though a wide-screen ratio would have prevented the letterbox bars on movies that made them look small. The N95 sports a 5-megapixel camera and a video recorder capable of VGA (640x480) recording, all of which can be stored on microSD cards, as well as a TV-out port and speedy HSDPA data support. Set for release in Indian markets in 1st quarter of 2007,the pricing is yet to be announced.

* Prices quoted are approximate, verification of the same is highly recommended.
** The views and opionions quoted are solely the author's and are subjective.
copyrights reserved by Pseudonormicks.

Glimpse of Modd Indigo '06

If you are a fest enthusiast and you walk into day 2 @ MI then there’s very little you can do on the participating front as most of the elims happen on day 1. But if you got there just to maaro lukkha then there’s more than just one thing to do.

MI just keeps on getting bigger and better every year and this year it brings to us the Indian Raaga. I heard of them bagging a huge sum in sponsorship and it got clarified on the face the moment I entered the main gate @ IITB. Everything at IIT seems to have a worth be it the trees, the lampposts, the walls , the main gate and even the urinals (see pic) as each of these flaunted at least one big commercial banner on their chest (Mr. Buffet,guess I have a tip for you)

The most brand draped venue is the Convo Hall where most of the informals happen .The comic strip exhibition by Shreyas was simply kickass and so was the rangoli exhibhition (see Sarkar rangoli pic) .

Makrand Deshpande’s play Sa Hi Besura was almost a house full at least at the beginning, but don’t know what happened after I walked out within five minutes . A Shabhaas India kinda stunt was seen where this man pulled a Tata Indica with his teeth.A gallery full of XBOXes was available for the junta to juggle with the joysticks.

A new event that’s come in is “The Reality Show” which asks the participants to organize an event on the final day of Mood Indigo. The folks, who get short listed by a 100 word synopsis of their event idea, have to stay on campus for all 4 days . Winners will be bagging Xboxes, iPods, Goa trips “and of course some cash’- as they put it. Overheard a few guys talking:” Yaar yeh to puri Roadies khila rahein hain , bus XBOX mil jaaye yaar”

JAM this year had an exhibition showing of the best JAMmers (IIT alumni) who like sticking to the campus every year.” We like hanging around IIT and we always ask them (MI organizers)to allow us in (JAM). So this year they decided to have a JAM exhibition finally”, said Zuzhe ,an alumus.

The ballroom dance finals @ LT was packed to the core! Couldn’t even get a glimpse of the dancers but the crowd said it all: I missed something great.

The queue outside the SAC kept on growing as the Popular Nite came close and so did KK’s performance.The crowd management wasn’t all that smooth , but the show made for it. It began with the hindi band finals “Mantra” which showcased a band from Delhi “Zingaro” (strangely they sung a track on their band name Zingaroo-o-o-o-o-o Zingaro –o-o-o-o-o the folks behind me went ‘ho ho ho’) and a few bands from Mumbai too. ‘Mukti’s fab vocalist became a cult figure thanks to his versatile voice spanning over tracks by Kailash Kher, KK and Atif.

Just before KK arrived, the crowd was exposed to an eccentric light show customized for Mood Indigo 05 & 06.
Then came the man himself and the OAT with approximately over 12K junta gave an uproar and the stage literally was set ablaze. It had a couple of goblets of fire and outlets for firecrackers and which shot rockets and confetti as the man rocked the junta to the core.

KK performed songs like Aap ki dua, Hum dum, Dus Bahane, Tu hai aasmaan mein , etc. But the crowd went crazy when he came with his version of Summer of 69 :”…Me and some guys fromVersova….. Nobody Quit and evone got married….. Those were the best days…” .
But when he came onto Pyaar ke Pal, the OAT was quite a scene. It went all dark with over 10K cell phones swaying with karaoke under the moonlight.

Sriram Emani, the very hospitable Overall Coordinator of MI ’06 was extremely glad when we expressed how much fun we had , after all it’s blissful when your efforts pay off well.Kudos!



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Tryst with Paper Dance

Microprocessor and Microcontrollers(MP) is just three days away, and yet I go to this alumni reunion of my school, well I had to just because I’m onto its OC. So what’s the big deal with Mp? Umm.. nothing much, just that its a core electronics subject which had more than 30 chips (not wafer chips...those computer processing chips my friend) and expects the student to know them in and out for him to build up an intelligent device. An intelligent device is one that performs its stipulated function and responds to any external interrupts that are high on priority. I started pretty late for the event with my guilt eating half of me and the other half being eaten by my apprehension over the crowd turnout. Well, both my halves were eaten up successfully as the guilt peaked looking at the mediocre crowd turnout. To top it all, the a/cs went out for some reason and folks started cribbing. Most of them preferred staying out of the banquet as it was cooler. The guilto meter(GM) alarm blew.

One of the OCs intervened the "Even-I'm -the-bollywood-badshah" DJ ,who dint have the courtesy to accept the crowd's response while turning the tables, and announce the start of the most sought after game on the party: "PAPER DANCE".

All the wannabe kids let out a roar (believe me none of these roaring 'lions' came down to play).
This cousin of a close friend of mine came up and dragged "cute-looking" Sid who was chatting with me. Some time later she came back and tried to drag me for a friend of hers... but hey girlie me ain't as light as your partner. I went away as my guilt-o-meter had reached almost fsd (full scale deflection) and on top of it I was supposedly the organizer: naah I cant really play eh.

Finally she managed to convince me and to my WXYZ-ment the girl knew me already (guess I was popular in school). So here begins the plot:

We are supposed to dance on a piece of a broadsheet daily which folds every time the music stops and yeah its my first time on the game.

Partner(P): You know to dance na?
BL: (to himself:) WTF.... (to her:) Well I don’t think you need to dance in this game, do you?
P: (giggles)
BL: So what do you do?
P: Me? A li'll bit of salsa...
BL: err, I meant in life...in general?
P: Oh! I’m in the third year and I’m preparing for my MBA. What about you?
BL: Well I’m doing my engineering in Electronics.
P: Engineering! I thought so.
BL: Great (Wonders what made her think like that...to his rescue the music begins)
P: Hey make sure you are on the paper .. I don’t want to lose the game.

The music stops and its time for the first fold:
The situation is manageable. BL is not concentrating on the game thanks to status of GM. Suddenly something strikes: Man, I dint ask the girl if she was comfy dancing with me!(like I do every time)=> GM almost at FSD.

Music stops again. BL wonders how to manage on a quarter of the broadsheet.
Suddenly it strikes: Hey it was she who wanted to dance with me... so she might be comfy.
Guilt reduces. GM pointer turns to the left. Confidence is back. GM pointer reduces again.

BL :Ill stand on the paper you keep you right foot between mine and the left foot on my foot.
P: Does some movements.
BL: Nah your right foot between mine not your left.
P: Hey that’s my right foot only.
BL: Holy Christ! This is your left foot.
P: Does engineering does this to you. THIS IS MY RIGHT FOOT!
BL: Umm.. err.. yeah actually. so dumb of me. that’s your foot to MY RIGHT ..hehe (BL feels like a moron...GM reading rises.)

The round goes amazing and BL is on a high. Now its half of the quarter! Only BL can stand barely fitting on the paper.
BL: Well, what do we do?
P: Lets stand each on one foot and hold your partners other leg to balance.

BL tries and succeeds in failing. Looks at Sid who had his partner in his arms several feet above the ground. Looks at P. Thinks. Thinks again. Chucks the idea due to his sprained biceps.
P insists on her idea but then BL doesn’t like failing again and moreover that style put BL in an awkward position.

BL gets innovative and asks P to get on his back (Vikram Betaal style) but sadly BL finds that the dimensions of his feet are such that they dont fit on the paper.
BL and P walk out patting each other :"Hey it was a nice game!"

Now that I have The guilt-o-meter (GM) At Null deflection I have written about it calm and cool.
Scrolling up I feel guilty again for writing so much for you to read (Gm pointer moving to the right....BL clicks "publish" before FSD)

The New Year Prank

KK came down from Bangalore and so did KaKhe from Pune for Diwali, so it was ideal to meet all high school buddies and other IIT prep class buddies in the form of a new year outing.

KaKhe and me joined KK,Nik, Tanveer and Archak at Toss n Grill and on our way to Carter’s CCD the chirpy Hitesh joined us. The scene was pretty cool as Hitesh started of taking Nik’s case joined in by Archak and KK. Nik bragged about his hardware know how and the keedas that he could do with his cell a Nokia 6630 as we discussed life in the open air seating . the best thing about CCD Carter’s is it’s open air seating arrangement that gives a cool view of the promenade and the happening lane next to CCD .

KK and Hitesh were constantly checking out the chicks around us and rating each of them as I tried to block the rays from the setting Sun trying to figure out what Nik was bragging about to Archak . AceNik (his BT name) was transferring loads of .cis files (software) to Archak via Bluetooth as I cribbed to him about the inability of my phone to execute .cis files as it’s a MOTOSLVR that runs on a JAVA environment. BLUETOOTH the divine platform showed a few gals online to AceNIk which lit a bulb first in his brain and then in mine. He jumped up with excitement with an idea to chat with them over BT without revealing his identity and I was struck with an idea to change my nik to “Pretty Angel” and continue what Hitesh had started: Tke Nik’s case … Royally!

“Hey look at this , this one is surely a gal : Pretty Angel others have Niks which can be that of guys, lets chat with her!”, said AceNik to Archak who just nodded.

But I realized that MOTOSLVR doesn’t have the ability to send/receive .txt files over BT , so I switched over to MOBILUK a BT chat software that has around 20 ready to use templates that get customized with the reciever’s nick nameand custom messages can be typed also.

“Toothing? “ , I sent

Nik got fully excited “Hey ive got a message, this gal wants to chat with me!”

“ Hi AceNik, why don’t we meet up together and talk.”

Nik did not expect this, he looked around for the source saw me fiddling with my cell and doubted, but I calmly made up in the guise of sms-ing my girlfriend.

“No Im not interested.” Nik replied (this was the first and last message of Nik’s that I accepted the others were simply rejected as I knew what they were)

“Listen dude don’t act funny or I’ll ruin that Cream shirt of yours with my Mochachillo!”

Nik did not buy this . He knew it certainly is a guy but was concerned as this person was able to see him. NIk changed his seat and sat next to Archak and tried to spot this BT person but to no avail.

Now I knew that my job was to convince him that it’s a gal so I typed:

“Ok dude at times I get a bit wild, but I find u vry cute and so jus wanna tlk to u pls don’t say no.”

That’s it, he bought in! But now he was puzzled, he did not know what to do. There was an element of fear as this person could see Nik while he couldn’t .

SO I used the next template:” Free ur mind Ace Nik”

He was startled to know that Pink Angel Knows he is scared!

“The Matrix has you.” Was the next template msg sent to Nik.

He laughed at this one and replied a lighter msg.

The last message and the arrival of the Balaji Telefilms gang behind us got Nik back some confidence. I had to curb this level of confidence. Suddenly Hitesh looked over and figured out that it was me, but then Hitesh was the most appropriate one to know about this prank as he helped me remove Nik’s confidence. Sooner KaKhe also became a part of the prank. But I deliberately kept Archak out of it to retain an element of authenticity.

“dont try to locate me .its a waste but talking isn’t” I typed and a gal walked upto NIk (his friend) and started a short conversation. What an opportunist Hitesh was, he tried to convince Nik that she is Pink Angel, where as KaKhe and me did not allow him to rule out the possibility of the hot gal sitting behind us in the pink halter top.

“Walk up to de promenade and we shall talk there and do nothing else”

“Why should I come ther, u come up to my table if u can see me”, replied Nik.

“Lisen, I find u cute and want to talk 2 u n don’t lk ur friends who hv bn giving me those stares.” This added a bottle full of authenticity to the plot as most of us were staring .

Some how we pumped up courage into Nik to walk upto CCD’s gate where we hypothetically spotted many gals in pink and I sent him this message:

“I see u AceNik do u see me?”

He was fully convinced that this was true and the fact that we pointed out to him a few gals that he wouldn’t like missing out on was enough reason for him to cross the road to the promenade.

Now good ‘ol Nik walked up and down in search of Pink Angel as we sat by.

After five minute of search I sent him the curtain raiser

“ luvarien here! Had fun?” and we all could virtually see the Bakra cap on his head as Nik gave a sigh of relief. Archak was told why he was kept out.

Nik tried to defend himself but then we all know that he walked into it and fell for it.

A gr8 Beginning of the New year : For Nik atleast!!

Happy new year folks!!

Project Pure Diwali

So Diwali is here finally!!

Like every year well be doing the routine Diwali chores :

Umm some cleaning/tiding up . shopping, arranging for sweets and dry fruits ,some decoration, calling ppl, sms-ing, bursting crackers

Aha there it comes. BURSTING CRACKERS.

Well why do we Burst crackers??? Any idea??

I know one story, which says that Lord Rama came back after winning over Ravana after 14 years of exile. To welcome him his subjects celebrated Diwali by lighting up the kingdom and bursting crackers.

So Diwali, since then , has been celebrated for the homecoming of Rama (attributed by a myriad of +ve characteristics and Lakshmi) as the festival of lights.

So where does sound and smoke come from??

Its from our minds primarily!

What began with paying a tribute to the Lord has now taken many faces like showing of your gut to burn money in the form of a huge ‘ladi’ or look fwd to Diwali to burst crackers in the name of some shagun…and the list goes on

We all we all know what happens when we do it: sometimes we don’t realize and at other times we forget.

So I thought of taking a little step to revamp this awareness and remind those who have forgotten:

What I’ve done is simple- made a set of greetings (unconventional) that u cud copy from here and fwd to your kith n kin in the form of sms, Orkut scraps, offline messages, IM messages, emails etc

Or may be get innovative and have your MSN ncks , Orkut nicks et all to say something like this.

Yeah the smses would cost a few bucks to fwd, but then you’ll be doing it for a cause isn’t it?

So here are some of the messages:(in sms lingo)

Dis tm I wont trble Mom Nature on the homecoming of Father Rama. What abt u? may u hv a pure n xhiliratin xprience dis Dwali.

Fr a chnge lets burn pollution dis tm cause brsting crkrs is out!May u hv a pure n xhiliratin xprience dis Dwali.

Sound and smoke swell in a discotheque but stink in Diwali. Lets rev upto smthng innovative dis tm. Wishing u a prosperous Diwali.

I don’t need de fire to have a blast on Diwali, do u ? Let there be just lights.

May u hv a blissful xprience on Diwali.

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Dengue, malaria n cholera hv spread already. Lets nt spread pollution!

Just light up and enjoy! Wishing u a healthy n happy Diwali.

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