Video: The Phones Show Episode 100! Mythbusting special! (And a look at episode 1)

Huge congratulations to AllAboutSymbian’s Steve Litchfield whose The Phones Show (aka The Smartphones Show) has reached episode 100. Here’s to 100 more!

The very first Smartphone show was released in 10th January 2006! Check out the Pilot Episode, Smartphones Show 1 . Though Steve was already a natural presenter, he’s really improved a lot since then. (Does anyone know when the first episode was shot on a phone? I know it’s been a feature since N93….?)

You’ll need quicktime player to view episode 1. His show didn’t get to YouTube until episode 21, Jan 07. In August 08, from episode 64, the Smartphones Show became The Phones Show. Who’d have thunk it, but we got into the Phones Show recently with Episode 96.

Episode 1

In the first episode, Steve explains what a smartphone is, how the best OS at the time was Series 60. Bluetooth and 3G were pretty new then too.

It’s a brilliant watch as it’s a great snapshot back in mobile-geek time. In just 4 years, look how much has changed from what we think a smartphone and a smartphone OS/UI should be. Looking at navigation on the 9500 was giving me headaches!

Steve looks pretty different tooo :p

How odd that Steve talks about one hand phone operation is better as opposed to two hand with stylus as Nokia’s sort of gone back to that with their touch devices. (Well ok, stylus isn’t necessary, but in general, with QWERTY keyboards (across all manufacturers), physical or virtual we need 2 hands)

Onto Episode 100

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdDvy8yLw0o]

In the news Steve tells us about the (Hideous) Motorola backflip.   That’s not where the oddities lie. It has a trackpad…behind the screen! WTF!  Maybe I’m just not used to that paradigm.

Having said that, there are some cool things going on with this form factor.

• More space for keyboard
• Better as a stand (even has a special “stand” mode)
• Can flip the screen to use the main camera in self portrait mode

But that trackpad positioning is just insane and utterly stupid if you’ve already got a touch screen.

[YOUTUBE=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfuH5h-B9w0]

Mythbusting with Steve Litchfield

Steve also does a bit of mythbusting on issues such as neccesity of touch screen, capacitive screens, push email, and AMOLED screen.

I must say, those are the things I’d prefer to see in a phone. 3″New Age” UI of minimal swift movement, finger friendly touch UI’s need a feather touch capacitive screen. AMOLED makes colours appear more vibrant with those greater contrasts (and does it not also consume less power?). Push email maybe less important. I don’t know exactly what Nokia Messaging has, but it gets my email before Gmail does.

Megapixel war

Myth 6 is about the Megapixel war. In reality, we don’t NEED anything more than 3MP for what the majority of people do with their photos. 5MP is a nice sweet spot. Anything more is just for marketing wars. e.g. People getting impressed at manufacturers moving from 2-3-5mp but disappointed when Nokia stays at 5MP (until the N86). More of the MP numbers does not mean better (but if it helps Nokia push sales…:p). Unless the optics, sensors, processors have improved, you’ll generally get lower quality (larger file sized!) photos.

You Don’t need Xenon

I love myth 7 about “No need for Xenon”. Totally agree with Steve. As a N82 user, I will fly the flag for Xenon on mobile phones. [see here for some samples]

If you don’t need xenon, strip it off all the digital cameras and swap it for LED. Dual LED good enough? No not really, especially if you’ve been spoilt by the quality and consistency of N82 low light pics. (though it is better to have LED flash than nothing at all – *ahem…3 generations of iPhones* – plus you can use LED as a torch!)

If you ever need a flash to light up a scene, only Xenon will do (unless you’re lighting up macro photos). Xenon not only lights up a scene, getting you your accurate colours, but it also freezes that moment, eradicating most movement blurs.

Unfortunately there hasn’t been that many phones with Xenon flash and so the public aren’t appreciating just how good it is on a phone. Everyone’s stuck on the paradigm that phones generally take blurry photos, especially in low light.

Via The Phones Show

Tags: Episode 1, Episode 100, Smartphones Show, Steve Litchfield, The Phones Show

Category: Nokia