This is a big month for smartphones, arguably three of the decades biggest smartpones have launched in the past 1 week. The Palm Pre, Apple iPhone 3GS and the Nokia N97! Whle the Pre promises to revive Palm and put new life into the once very innovative handheld maker, Apple unveils its fastest iTouch device ever with a major OS update and Nokia looks to make that punch in the touchscreen segment with its N97.
So which one of these are you buying? Waiting for reviews comparing them? Well IMO, its stupid comparing these 3 devices amongst themselves. Each one of them appeal to a different user and has its own strong points and ready buyers. N97, Pre and the iPhone; all three have a different structure, different OS and a different market. Lets have a look at each of them individually:
Palm Pre (Jack of all, master of some): Palm’s ‘Pre’ is a much better attempt at the smartphone market, than the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G. If only they had this launching 6 months back … anyways, the Pre for me appeals to Blackberry users who are in love with iPhone. iPhone has its own charisma as we have repeatedly said here, it attracts people, gets natural attention and is wonderful gizmo. But the iPhone fails in some very common things and that makes a switch for some Blackberry user, Treo fan (like me) or an ordinary cellphone user very difficult. The Pre packs in a physical QWERTY, brings in Multitasking and a great UI with multitouch. Its the best of both worlds. I bet there are millions who want a iPhone+Blackberry mash and Pre does it better than the Blackberry Storm. No I don’t mean to say Palm banks on that Blackberry users loving iPhone formula to buy Pre; but lets be frank - Touch devices are buzzing and its a wonderful way to use any technology. Pre gets the best of touch and physical with an amazing OS/UI. As I blogged before, Pre for me is like Superman Returns.
Nokia N97 (Communicator in the N-series): Nokia N97 though a Nseries, reminds me of the communicator. Certainly an attempt by Nokia to tap the touch market and indeed make this a iPhone killer. N97 packs in extreme features with a 32GB+16GB storage, 5MP camera with DVD quality video recording and live widgets on the homescreen to offer better web experience. At the same time a sideways sliding QWERTY resembles the E90 design once open (though the mechanism is as seen in SE Xperia). But as I said before - Features alone done make a good gadget. So not a very little phone, bulky, studded with features and a sideways opening keyboard that is much more inconvenient to use (on the go) than a Blackberry, Palm Pre, E71 or even an iPhone. This is a business phone made for media lovers. Basically trying to stop the touch devices from stealing Nokia users on their side. While the 5800 did extremely well on the price point, the N97 is Nokia’s attempt to serve the power users. All in all, the N97 retains the Nokia users … giving little competition to the iPhone.
N97: Though this doesn’t fit here, I must mention that Nokia makes the same error it made with the N7710. It was a full featured device in its time with FM, Touchscreen, handy design, nice camera etc etc. However the processor was so slow that the usability was horrible. With 128MB ram and 434Mhz processor on a king size smartphone like the N97 makes me wonder of the Symbian OS will handle the power users efficiently?
iPhone 3GS (Its an iPhone!): Apple redefined the smartphones with 2 things. 1) Multitouch / full touch interface 2) The App Store. These were 2 masterstrokes in 2 years. Super hit, no doubt! We love the iPhone - amazing audio/video, mobile internet like never before, again a great swift OS+UI and the Apple touch in every corner. With Jailbreaking and App Store apps its hevan. Apple manages to offer a unique powerphone feel with the iPhone, its own charm, own followers! But here is where the iPhone goes down and down badly. Regular smartphone users would find it mighty difficult to adapt to Apple’s style. No Bluetooth transfer, no USB mass storage, no physical keypad/qwerty, no camera flash, proprietary chargers, cables etc. However with an amazing OS v3.0, superb games, hardware bump, video recording and even stronger web integration with wireless goodies, Apple manages to attract its media lovers. iPhone is a beautiful and fast phone. Business users would feel the iPhone as their girlfriend whereas the Blackberry as their wife!
All three of these that we just saw have their own targets nicely chalked out with little room for fighting with each other. I just can’t answer someone who comes and asks me which one of these is better. For one mans food is others poison!!
I realise that I have left Android out of the above equation, however I feel as the Android OS develops we would see it as a competition in all segments of the market - with differnet manufacturers targetting different structures.
Similar Posts:
- Nokia shifting gears, trying to make smarter smartphones
- Palm reveals the next gen device: PALM PRE
- Palm Pre Vs iPhone Vs Blackberry Storm Vs Android G1
- Palm working on Pre Mini? Out by year end?
- Palm Pre to be priced $150, N97 at $980!?
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