N800 vs ipod touch

I’ve now had an ipod touch for a couple of weeks. Here is my comparision of the ipod touch with the N800. Rather than compare the two feature for feature, I have attempted to compare their capabilities for some common usage patterns.

Music Player: The ipod touch is so far ahead that there is no comparision here. The ability to organize music on a PC through itunes and sync automatically has no parallel on the N800, where you need to manually manage your music. Most of my listening involved podcasts and there is no better solution than the ipod for podcast management. Period. Verdict: ipod touch

Video Player: Viewing video on a portable player is a much more involved exercise due to the plethora of formats and limited horsepower of these devices. The first thing is to get videos onto the device. The ipod has more capable hardware and can handle higher resolution/bitrate/framerate videos than the N800. However, its support for video codecs is limited with only H.264 and mp4 support. This means that most videos need to be transcoded, just like on the N800. The N800 has an extremely slick free transcoding solution provided by Nokia (Internet tablet video converter), I’ve found that to be a better solution than the various third party solutions for the touch (I use a program called Videora). Once the files are on the device, I find the experience to be comparable with the N800 having a slight edge due to the larger screen and built in speaker. I also like the fact that it has a stand, this makes for a more pleasurable experience. Verdict: Nokia N800

Browsing: The ipod touch has a Safari browser while the N800 has a Firefox based browser. Both are full fledged browsers and can display web pages just like on a desktop rather than the modified mobile phone version. In terms of performance, the touch Safari browser feels snappier and more responsive than the Firefox browser on the N800. However, I’ve not found a huge difference in the overall time taken to render the pages. The N800 can play flash content which the touch lacks. On the other hand, a lot of websites have iphone/touch optimized versions which makes the overall experience better for those sites. On the whole, I think the experience is comparable and I’d rate both devices equal for browsing. Verdict: tie

Youtube: The ipod touch has a dedicated youtube player, while the N800 can play youtube videos through the web interface. Youtube videos on the N800 were jerky and took much longer to load. I found the performance of the touch youtube player to be far superior and the experience to be much better. It is without doubt, an ideal youtube player. Verdict: ipod touch

Email: The ipod touch client offers support for Gmail, Yahoo and a number of other email services. In addition, with the 2.0 firmware, it offers support for Exchange. The N800 on the other hand, has a plain IMAP/POP3 email client. I’ve never bothered to use this, but I’m hooked to email on the ipod touch. Verdict: ipod touch

Applications: The App Store is one of the most important developments for the iphone/ipod touch family of devices. The store opened just 3 days back and the number of apps already greatly outnumbers the N800. With the number of iphones sold approaching 10 million and probably an equally large number of ipod touches, the gap is only going to get wider. Nokia has a good platform and an extremely competent device, but it has never moved beyond niche status, hence the apps available for it will continue to be limited. On the other hand, due to the open nature of the device, there are applications available on the N800 that will never make it to the touch (e.g. VOIP, GPS apps like Maemo mapper). Still, this doesn't affect the healthy lead that the touch has Verdict: ipod touch.

So, ipod touch wins the comparision 4.5 to 1.5. The margin is unfair to the N800, which is a very comptetent device in its own right. If I had to make a decision on which of the two to buy today, the choice would be clear, it is the ipod touch. But, since I already own both these devices, I will continue to be a happy user of both the platforms.

ipod touch 2.0 software

I was really looking forward to the iphone 3G launch last Friday, mainly for the added functionality it would bring to the ipod touch. Like the millions of Mac faithful, I started checking sites on Friday morning for pointers to when the software would be released. I soon discovered that Apple had launched the itunes store in India and was able to create an Itunes account by entering my credit card details. But, there was still no sign of the new ipod touch software. It finally became available on Friday evening, coinciding with the launch of the iphone 3G in the US. However, the update experience was anything but smooth. Over the next few hours, I encountered a variety of errors, ranging from “Itunes store is unavailable” to “Your version of ipod software (1.1.4) is the latest”. Disappointed, I gave up and decided to try again the next day.

The experience was completely different on Saturday morning when I tried again. This time, I got the notification about the update and quickly got through the payment formalities and started the download. The update was 223 MB in size and downloaded in just over 20 minutes at an average speed of almost 1.5 Mb/s. The entire process of updation was completely automated with no interaction required from my side. The longest part was the backup and restore, which seemed to take forever. I guess transferring over 20 gigs over a slow USB connection to a flash based device will always be slow.

The biggest change and the most expected feature of the 2.0 software was the App Store. Frankly, I was a bit disappointed with the app store, as most of the good apps were paid ones. I wanted to wait for a few days before purchasing any software as I am not sure how it will work for India (exchange rate etc). There are quite a few free apps but very few of them are any good. Though I installed quite a few, I don’t see myself using them on a sustained basis. So, for me atleast, the biggest feature of the update was a bit of a letdown.

The other feature that I was really looking forward to was the Exchange support. I had a few issues setting this up, mainly because I did not have the required information to set up the VPN to my company’s network. But once I got that, it was extremely straightforward. Checking my official email has now become a quick and simple exercise. The mail client is not very full featured and this is mainly useful for monitoring email and sending out quick replies rather than lengthy emails.

Other than these two features, I didn’t see anything else of note. There’s the Mobileme, but I’m not going to pay 4000 rupees a year for that functionality. There are still quite a few features that I didn’t find. Here is my top 3 wishlist

- Itunes store: I stopped buying CD’s a while ago because I found it to be a complete waste of resources, as I was just using them once, to rip them to my computer. I would love to have the ability to download legal mp3 at Rs 10 per song. I can do it today through Soundbuzz or mobile companies stores, but they are completely locked down with DRM. I understand our music companies reasoning that it will lead to widespread piracy. However, I don’t think they should worry about piracy, as pirated mp3’s of their songs are available everywhere on the Internet and on every street corner. If they only opened up their closed thinking, they will find this to be a very good revenue stream

- Ability to download podcasts over the air. As the touch has a wifi connection, I should be able to manage my podcasts from the device rather than from my computer

- Enhanced video file support (esp .avi files and the xvid codec): I was initially very thrilled about the video viewing experience on the touch, but I’ve cooled down a bit. The first problem is the restriction on the video format and codec support. This means that I have to transcode most of my videos before I can watch them. The second issue is my Nokia N800. Quite frankly, I find the video viewing experience to be better there as it has a bigger screen and a comfortable stand to seat the device. The one advantage that the touch had over the n800 was the higher capacity, but I’m getting a couple of 8 GB SD cards, which should make it a non issue. For now, I think the N800 is going to be my primary video device.

ipod touch

I lost my beloved ipod nano last Monday during my trip to Delhi. In some
ways, it was a fortuitous as I got to replace it with an ipod touch 32
GB. I purchased it from JJ Mehta, a Mumbai based camera store, for 21500
rupees on the Internet. I can't remember the last time I bought
something other than travel tickets on the Net. It was an imported gray
market item as the MSRP for the ipod touch in India is 24700+tax. I was
apprehensive initially, especially with respect to the warranty, but
this store has got a lot of good reviews, so I decided to go ahead with
the purchase.

One of the main reasons that I went for the Touch rather than a
replacement Nano was for the video capabilities. A couple of years ago
when I got my first video capable phone, I was wondering how anyone
could watch video on such a small screen. But, having experienced it
over the past few months, I am hooked and find it difficult to watch it
on a PC or laptop anymore. I think the combination of portability and
comfort is hard to beat and when you're watching from 8 inches away, the
screen size and resolution does not matter that much.

Once I started using the Touch, I was floored by the interface, not only
was it gorgeous to look at, the way you interact with it is something to
be experienced. It makes other touch screen devices look pre-historic in
comparison. I spent 3 hours downloading album art for all my CDs from
the internet just so that I could browse them through the Coverflow
interface.

I was expecting to be disappointed with the Safari browser given the low
screen resolution, but the zoom capabilities make it surprisingly
usable. Also, given the popularity of the iphone, a lot of websites have
tailored their design to the screen making for a very usable experience.

The one standout app for me is the Youtube viewer. Searching for youtube
videos has never been this easy and I have never seen their videos look
as good as they do on the touch. I can easily see this becoming the no 1
use case for me.

My #1 reason for buying this was for viewing videos. Frankly, I was a
bit under whelmed, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I already have a
N800, which is as good when it comes to picture quality and portability
and has the advantage of a slightly bigger screen/resolution. Secondly,
the range of codecs and file formats that are supported in the touch is
limited, so I need to transcode most of the videos before I can watch
them, like in the N800. Given these factors, the experience of watching
video on the touch is just a little ahead of the N800, but not the light
years that I was expecting. So, I think I'll end up using the N800 for
watching movies at home and take the ipod on the road, giving me the
best of both worlds.

I have to end by comparing the touch with the N800. Somewhere, I'd read
about the ipod and the N800 being competitors for the other pocket, i.e.
not your phone. I'm finding it difficult to really compare the two, as
they are two different devices. The N800 is really a miniature computer,
extremely open with a wide variety of apps, but a mediocre media player.
The touch is a fantastic media player with quite sophisticated general
computing capabilities. I wouldn't give any of them up for the other.

But, I hear Apple is launching the 2.0 firmware in a couple of weeks. If
that delivers on the promise and makes the touch a truly extensible
platform, I can see the N800 gathering a lot of dust...

Long day yesterday

I flew to Delhi for a day trip yesterday for a meeting with a prospective client. For that, I woke up at 4:00 am. I'd planned to take the bus from Hebbal but once I reached there, decided to ride all the way to the airport. Just as I reached the airport, the Activa started giving some problems. I hoped that it was just overheating and would sort itself out later and boarded the flight. Incidentally, I had no complaints about the flying experience from the airport.

The meeting in Delhi went really well. I was done by 2:00 pm and had 5 hours to kill. The meeting was at Pitampura right next to the Metro station. I had heard a lot about it and decided to check it out. I went to Palika Bazaar, which was very impressive in its day, but has now become a seedy place full of shops peddling pirated DVDs and smuggled electronics. Rather than take a taxi from CP, I took the Blue line to Dwarka and took an auto to the airport. Overall, I was very impressed by the Metro, it is clean, cheap, fast and comfortable. If our Namma Metro is anything like it, it will revolutionize Bangalore like nothing else.

Our plane was late and landed close to 11:00 pm. As I had feared the scooter's problems were bad. The clutch was slipping and the engine was cutting off as soon as I went past 50 kmph. As a result, the trip back home took a long time and I finally reached home at 12:30 am, making for a very long day.

Iphone 2.0 impressions

It was inevitable. Such was the hype that the reality was always going to be anti-climactic. I don’t see anything hugely different from the original iphone, the main talking point is the 3G radio which is useless in India. The GPS is nice, but it will be a battery killer and I find that the triangulation offered by Google Maps good enough for most purposes (it was able to locate my position in places like Dharmapuri and Kaveriatnam).

There are still quite a few big items that give me reason to pause, the lack of a keyboard, no video recording, no removable battery being the chief irritants. On the positive side, it is a wonderful media device, especially for video. Plus with the opening of the app store, it will become one of the pre-eminent app development platforms, with a number of fantastic applications. We've already seen a preview with the jailbreaked apps and the licensed apps will be even better.

I hear that Apple is going to offer it for the equivalent of 199 dollars around the world. At this price, it is obviously subsidized, I wonder what the price in India is going to be, I don't think the subsidy model is going to work here. I expect it to retail at around 16K for the 8GB and 20K for the 16 GB models. At that price, the likes of Nokia and Sony are going to be hit really hard.

The next few months are going to be really good, there are a lot of really interesting phones coming out, like the Nokia tube, Sony Xperia and the many variations of Google Android. With the iphone unlikely to come to India till later in the year, it will give me enough opportunity to evaluate these before making my choice.

Petrol price hike

With oil prices headed to 150 $ and beyond per barrel, the need of the hour is for our petrol and diesel prices to reflect that, so that people will adjust their consumption and when demand falls, prices will fall too. That's how the market works.

Instead of taking the decision, our politicians, including our so-called economist prime minister keep procrastinating, thus ensuring that we pay a much higher price for the indecision in the future.

Flew to Mumbai

I flew to Mumbai for a day yesterday for a training program. This gave me my first experience flying from the new Bangalore airport. It was not pleasant, got up at 3:30, called a cab at 4:30 and reached the airport at 5:45. All this for a 6:50 am flight.

The return flight was almost 45 minutes late and finally took off at 9:30 pm. We landed at Bangalore around 11:00 pm only to be greeted with a comical situation when the plane reached the aerobridge. Apparently the airport staff was unable to find the keys to attach the aerobridge. This caused a 10 minute delay and we finally set off at 11:15. By the time I reached home, after dropping my colleague off, it was 12:45 am.

The real shock will be the taxi fare. They charge 15 Rs/km and 50% more if it is between 9 pm and 6 am. The total bill for both journeys was around 2400 rupees!!! This is going to drive people flying on their own expense crazy.