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Saturday October 3, 2009
Mobile Internet Device Primer
By TAN KIT HOONG
THE smartphone market has exploded in recent years and with so many devices coming out on the market, it’s often a little difficult to separate the rice from the padi husk, so to speak.
Just to help make sense of the plethora of devices, this week we’re giving you a quick rundown of some of the devices available on the market today — each has its own strengths and weaknesses, and it’s up to you to decide which one best suits your purposes.
Nokia S60 Symbian
The S60 Symbian operating system that currently resides in a large number of Nokia smartphones was originally created by Psion plc, a British company that produced one of the first PDAs (Pocket Digital Assistants), most notably, the Psion Series 5.
The S60 operating system is now wholly owned by Nokia and has since evolved from the original EPOC operating system on monochrome Psion PDAs to a full, multi-tasking, full-colour operating system.
Nokia smartphones with S60 are probably the most popular consumer mobile phones around, and as such the number of applications available, from mobile instant messaging, GPS navigation and even games are quite numerous, although there hasn’t been a centralised store in which to get these applications until the recent introduction of the Nokia Ovi Store.
Unfortunately, there is no localised version of the Ovi Store yet and although local users can access the international version of the store, all transactions there are in Euros, and the price of applications may be a bit hefty after conversion.
Nevertheless, the proliferation of S60 devices here means that there are other avenues of getting applications on a S60 device and many of them, such as ones from Google, are free.
Nokia devices come in a variety of shapes and sizes, some with slide-out Qwerty keyboards and others with regular alphanumeric keypads so there should be one for just about anyone.
BlackBerry
BlackBerry devices from Canadian company RIM are the darlings of the mobile e-mail world as they offer a secure push e-mail service that’s well-suited for business users.
Originally based on two-way paging technology, the early BlackBerry devices were the one of the first to offer an always-on push e-mail service.
Since Malaysia had largely dropped paging technology by the time the original BlackBerry were introduced, we didn’t see any BlackBerrys till RIM switched to regular GSM, EDGE and eventually 3G technology in its later models.
The BlackBerry supports push e-mail by having the BlackBerry Enterprise Server installed and running on top of an organisation’s existing e-mail system, which relays all e-mail from the company e-mail server to the device.
While early models did not have many applications beyond the default ones shipped with the device, new models now have the option to install consumer-friendly applications such as Facebook, Flickr and Window Live Messenger.
However, being essentially a business device, the number of installable applications for the BlackBerry is still not quite as varied as on other smartphones.
The second big advantage of the BlackBerry is that most models have a very usable Qwerty thumb-keyboard which the company pioneered — some users still swear by the BlackBerry because of its easy text input method.
Google Android
Android phones, most notably from smartphone giant HTC, have been making an appearance in our stores lately.
These phones, which run on an open-source flavour of the Linux operating system customised for mobile phones by Google, promise a more powerful and stable operating system for smartphones.
However, while the operating system holds a lot of promise, current devices are of limited use largely because the Google Android Marketplace, the applications store for the operating system, is not yet officially available here.
This makes installing applications via legal means a little difficult for the average user.
Nevertheless, Android-based devices (such as the HTC Magic) have many of the features that rival Apple’s popular iPhone. This includes a nearly full-featured web browser, a relatively stable operating system and, with the newer devices, a multi-touch capable screen that recognises the famous “pinch-in, pinch-out” gestures for zooming in and out of images.
Apart from HTC, some other companies are also getting in on the Android action, most notably Motorola, which is due to release an Android-based smartphone soon.
Right now, though, users interested in getting an Android phone should wait till the licensing issues for the Google Android Marketplace have been resolved and a localised version of the store finally opens here.
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile has been around for many years now and at one time, devices with Microsoft’s operating system for mobiles were the first choice when a user was thinking of getting a smartphone.
In fact, Windows Mobile phones still offer a very robust operating system with many advanced calendar, e-mail and office applications re-installed.
Being a Microsoft product, Windows Mobile devices all come with the Mobile Office suite, which nowadays includes Word Mobile, Excel Mobile and PowerPoint Mobile, not to mention the Outlook mobile e-mail and messaging application.
Windows Mobile devices generally sport some of the most advanced hardware specs on the market, with Bluetooth, WiFi, fast HSDPA wireless data and GPS being the norm on most devices.
Unfortunately, Microsoft has been rather slow to respond to major interface changes introduced by its main competitor, the iPhone with its multi-touch interface and popular Apps Store.
As a consequence, while the Windows Mobile operating system itself is still very powerful even by today’s standards, the user interface is starting to feel a little clunky by comparison.
This has prompted major hardware makers such as HTC to “skin” their Windows Mobile devices with a better-looking and easier-to-use interface.
Microsoft has since introduced the Windows Marketplace for Mobile (similar to Apple’s iTunes Apps Store) and is currently hard at work on its next-generation Windows Mobile 7 device, which will give a much needed overhaul of the current interface. It is due out sometime next year.
For now, some devices are coming out with the interim operating system, Windows Mobile 6.5, which does go some way in simplifying the interface for consumers and business users alike.
Nevertheless, current Windows Mobile devices are still attractive for business people who need push e-mail (all devices come built-in with Microsoft Exchange push e-mail support) or need to use Microsoft Office applications on the go.
Apple iPhone
It’s pretty amazing when you consider that the Apple iPhone has sold over 20 million units worldwide since its introduction two years ago.
Part of the reason for this is the device’s ease of use, multi-touch interface and an extremely active community of developers creating games and other applications for the Apps Store.
While we don’t have the benefit of the iTunes Music Store here, there is a localised Apps Store available and most applications and games found in the US store are also found here. Most games and applications sell for extremely reasonable prices that range from US$0.99 (about RM3.50) to US$9.99 (about RM35).
There are literally millions of applications in the Apps Store, from social networking to medical and even true 3D-rendered games — a user is truly spoilt for choice here.
Add to that an interface that’s extremely easy to use, built-in GPS and a mobile browser that’s second to none, it’s no wonder that the iPhone is so popular.
Although it’s obviously consumer-oriented, the iPhone does have a number of business-oriented features, such as Microsoft Exchange push e-mail support and, via various third-party applications, support for editing and viewing Microsoft Office documents.
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