iPhone Won’t Rule the World. Yet.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave, you already know about the Apple iPhone, which happens to be the most anticipated launch of the year. A lot of ink (and bytes) has been devoted to the subject, so I’ll be brief:

• It’s way too expensive. $500! No way! The iPhone is not going truly mainstream until it drops to the 350 mark.
• Competitive market: Nokia, Moto, Sony, etc. aren’t going to roll over and play dead. This is not the mp3 player market of 2001, with little competition, catering to uber-geeks or those with patience for a big learning curve. Already, Sony has the excellent Walkman series of phones out there and Nokia has the N Series that is doing well. Video is supported on mobiles
• Innovation: With the iPod, Apple bought iTunes to the table.
• Teething problems: Did you buy a 1st Gen iPod? Neither did I!

Since it’s easy to bitch and harder to deliver, here’s something for Mr. Job’s to chew over:

• Aim this at the Video market. Let this be the only Widescreen iPod on the market, which makes Video an altogether more pleasurable experience. Release an unlocked version, without the WiFi and other fancy features (just Phone + Widescreen iPod) for those who don’t want to be tied into Cingular and want a simpler video capable iPod phone. Add more video content to iTunes and market this as the best (and sexiest) option to play video on the go. One more thing, the cheaper version should go for abt $550 unlocked and $300 with a contract.

Of course this is Apple and the iPhone will DEFINITELY sell out. But Apple seriously needs to do the above if it wants to get a large chunk of the market and not remain a niche player. Steve Jobs has said that they want 1% of the market by the end of the year, and they just might get it (thats 10 million phones), but the going will get harder after that unless they have a cheaper model which has a definitive advantage over other phones (video + iTunes).

The Holy Grail

Knights had their swords, horses and armour. The business person (and sometimes, the connected student) only has his mobile phone, more often than not while on the road. Hence, it makes perfect sense to invest in a great mobile phone which can do much more than merely make calls.

I have used a lot of smart/PDA Phones, but the holy grail has always been finding one with the right size, weight, functionality and features, all in one package. And now, dear reader, I think I’ve found it. But first, some history.

My O2 XDA IIs was too clunky, but the screen was incredible.

The Nokia 9300 lacked WIFI (although the 9300i incorporates that), a touchscreen and looked really, very old (almost enough to qualify as retro).

The O2 Atom doesn’t have a Qwerty keyboard

Most phones from Dopod, O2, HP, Nokia (Communicator series) and Sony (the P9xx series) are either too thick or they lack a feature I need desperately (mostly, WIFI or a QWERTY keyboard get the axe).

Introducing the Champion:

The Nokia E61 (click for review) has it all. WIFI, check. Thinness? Comparable to the RAZR. Screen? brighter than most. QWERTY? fully. Blackberry? Yes.

From Wikipedia:

Manufacturer	Nokia
Type	smartphone
Connectivity	WWAN quad-band GSM, UMTS/EDGE/GPRS/HSCSD/CSDWLAN Wi-Fi 54 Mb/s 802.11gPAN Bluetooth 1.2 (723.1 kb/s); infrared and full-speed USB
Retail Availability	from 2006
Operating System	S60 platform third edition on Symbian OS
Media	MP3/AAC
Input	46 keys QWERTY thumb keyboard, five-way joystick
Power	1,500mAh lithium-polymer battery, 5.7V 800mA power supply
Memory	64MB miniSD card
Display	Landscape QVGA 320 × 240 LCD screen 24 bits (16 million) colors

Of course, there is always a trade off. Nokia dumped the camera, but really, a good compromise to keep the profile so thin and yet feature rich. I must also commend the excellent build quality. Doesn’t come with a dock though And finally, a half-baked, over-hyped pretender:

The RAZR was great, a true engineering and design marvel. The Moto Q doesn’t cut it for me. No WIFI, bad bluetooth implementation, slow roll-out and way too much hype. In my opinion, Motorola dropped by the ball by promising too much (albeit, implicitly) and delivering too little, too late. Goes to show that the tenets of old business still matter in new business.

I am generally discussing the GSM versions of these phones.