Not much to report recently, although this just caught my eye.

Highlights include:

• 13.5 hours of talktime
• Up to 3 hours of video recording at 720p (4.1 hours for D1)

In other words, the battery life in the final units will be seriously improved from the prototypes.

Another link into the mystery of what processor the OmniaHD uses, this one in Italian.  However, it’s pretty easy to understand, and says that the phone uses an OMAP 3440 running 800 Mhz.  The 3440 is capable of HD recording and playback, while the 3430 is not.

Something I noticed about the Nokia N86 versus the Samsung Omnia HD: Nokia’s handset has all of its connectors exposed, while the Samsung unit has caps for all of them.

While I can’t speak for Samsung units across all time, I can make statements about Nokia’s Nseries phones.  Except for the microSD slot, all the hardware “extras,” including the 3.5mm jack and the USB slot, are exposed.  This leads to dust and pocket lint getting inside, and well, it looks like of messy.

On the other hand, the Omnia HD’s 3.5mm jack and USB slot are both protected under a flap.

The really odd part is that my Nokia 6650, from AT&T, has everything under a flap—why does an expensive Nseries phone have exposed connectors while a $60 on-contract phone has things protected?

WANT!!!

I had my suspicions this would be true when I first read about what the i8910 could do, but this article seems to confirm it. The Omnia HD is powered by an OMAP 3 chip with a dedicated graphics processor.  Which kind of OMAP 3 is unclear—there’s a 3430, which is what the Palm Pre is using, and is the most likely candidate for the i8910—but regardless, this means the phone will be incredibly fast and responsive.  The dedicated graphics processor will allow all those fancy animations to render and process that much more quickly too.

You can see some of the cool animations and effects (that don’t exist on Nokia’s S60 5.0 devices) in this video:

Today Nokia “announced” its newest Nseries, the N86.  It has all the usual Nseries goodies including a 3.5mm jack, WLAN, GPS, and comes with some extras like an OLED screen and an 8MP camera—the first from Nokia.

But something is wrong with this picture.

The N86 looks out of place.  First off, it’s essentially no different from other Nseries devices.  It’s a standard dual-slide with a medium-sized screen and a T9 keypad (which looks almost identical to the SE W995’s keypad, for whatever reason).

The other thing is that it looks very similar to the N85.  Same 2.6-inch OLED screen, same dual slide, same camera configuration at back with a dual-LED flash.  The only change to the N86 is the bump from 5MP to 8MP.

While the phone is indeed the N86, it apparently wasn’t always if this video from the phone’s launch in Singapore is to be believed:

This proves that the pre-production name for the N86 8MP was in fact the N85 8MP, a similar tactic to when they replaced the N95 with the N95 8GB.  For all intents and purposes, the N86 should have just been an update to the N85 and not a completely new model, which in my opinion it doesn’t deserve to be.

The reason this is upsetting is because it shows that Nokia is seemingly uninterested in bringing an imaging-centric device to market.  They did so with the N95, which had the first 5MP camera, and again with the N82 which had the first Nokia Xenon flash.  The N86, despite being the first 8MP from Nokia, is not only a gimmicky update to a preexisting phone, but they didn’t even see fit to give the thing a proper flash.  Not only that but the N86 also doesn’t include face/smile/blink detection which 8MP phones from Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG already have.  And not only THAT, but it also is limited to VGA video recording, when all of its 8MP competitors can shoot at least D1 or WVGA.  It seems pretty obvious that Nokia is no longer interested in bringing out imaging-powerful phones, which would also explain why their “flagship” device, the N97, is stuck with a three-year-old 5MP shooter.

It pains me because I love Nokia.  I love the Nseries.  But it seems as though the Nseries is becoming—or has become already—decidedly mainstream.  Sure, mainstream products sell more.  But that was not the original mantra of the Nseries, which was to release the most advanced and powerful devices before anyone else and do it better.  That hasn’t really happened since the N95. In fact, save for the 3MP camera boost, the N86 is virtually identical, spec-wise, to the great N95.

Compare this—no, compare the N97—with the Samsung Omnia HD.  The N97, Nokia’s flagship, has a 3.5-inch resistive LCD touchscreen, a 5MP camera, VGA video recording, and TV-out.  The Omnia HD has a 3.7-inch capacitive AMOLED touchscreen, an 8MP camera, 720p video recording, and HDMI-out.  See the difference?  While both devices are good, the N97 could almost be considered midrange nowadays with those specifications, which is completely unforgivable for a top-of-the-range Nseries unit.

The N86 isn’t much more competitive.  Strip the touchscreen, add some more megapixels, and there you go.

Additionally, the N86 is purely a Me Too device—it exists for no other purpose than for Nokia to have something the other guys have.  If they cared only marginally less about competition, they probably wouldn’t have even developed it.

This N86 also signals what has been brewing in Espoo for a while.  Nokia is interested in becoming a services/networking company, offering Internet services such as Ovi and other things to bring its devices better communication and sharing packages.  So far, they’ve done well.  In fact, the services an online aspect is probably one of the best things about Nokia right now; it really is awesome when it all works together.  However, this has come at the expense of falling far behind in the hardware aspect, where other companies are seeming to strike a balance.  2009 shall be no different, it would seem.

The N86 will likely be a good phone, don’t get me wrong.  It’s just sort of a kick to the junk for loyal customers and for customers who wanted something a little more competitive.  Nokia clearly doesn’t believe the N86 is competitive at all, or they wouldn’t have chickened out and announced it halfway across the world from where MWC is being held.

Don’t let the title mislead you—when I say it’s 2006, that’s a good thing.  It was in 2006 that Nokia shocked the world when it unveiled the N95, a phone that even by today’s harsh standards is still a very good phone.

It was today, Feb. 16, 2009, that Samsung has announced the first phone that in my opinion is able to fully replace every aspect of one’s mobile life, just as the N95 did three years ago.

The Samsung i8910 OmniaHD is far more impressive than any other mobile presented at MWC thus far.  The only thing that can rival it at this point is the Sony Ericsson Idou, but that is just a concept for now and not a real competitor due to its far-future release.

The Omnia HD incorporates a gigantic touchscreen, frickin’ HD video recording, and—this is the part the impressed me—triband HSPA, which means it’s fully usuable in North America on the 1900 Mhz frequency band.  WOOHOO!

Let’s take a look at the complete spec sheet:

• Symbian S60 5.0
• GSM/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900
• HSDPA (7.2 Mbps)/HSUPA 900/1900/2100
• 123×58x12.9mm
• GPS/aGPS
• 3.7-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen @ 640×360
• 8/16 GB of internal ROM
• microSD slot up to 32 GB
• WLAN b/g with DLNA
• Proximity sensor/Accelerometer
• 8 MP (3264×2448 ) camera
• Face/Smile/Blink detection
• Geotagging
• HD video recording (1280×720@24fps)
• microUSB (with charging)
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• HDMI port
• Bluetooth 2.1
• FM radio with RDS/FM transmitter
• Digital compass
• 1500 mAh battery

In other words: I just jizzed in my pants.

I’ll have my full opinion on this amazing phone later, as well as updates for other phones.  Until then, salivate over those specs.

In an interesting move, Nokia has decided—at least for now—not to actually announce its 8MP camera phone everyone has been waiting for, instead choosing to officially unveil two new Eseries devices and two numbered sets.

Instead, Nokia leaked its N86 handset, which comes with an 8MP camera and apparently a Xenon flash at the back.

From the style of the device, we’re obviously looking at a slider with a non-touch version of S60.  The device looks very similar to the N85 but with just a hint of the N97.

What’s odd is that evidently the phone will be the “N86 8MP,” which seems like a needless marketing gimmick considering this is not the first 8MP phone and isn’t really that impressive anymore after Sony Ericsson showcased a future 12 MP unit yesterday.

Personally, this is about what I expected from Nokia.  I would have preferred their first 8MP phone to knock it out of the park, but since the N97 is the “flagship,” there are certain features that simply can’t be afforded to this new N86, a touchscreen being just one of them.

I love Nokia, but I think I’m passing on this phone.

UPDATE:

According to this image, the N86 has only dual-LED flash and NOT a Xenon unit as previously mentioned.

Nokia’s Download application has gotten a bit long in the tooth for some, so it’s a good thing today at MWC they announced their Ovi Store, which will facilitate both S60 and S40 applications.  The pricing seems to be set at whatever the developers of the programs want, so we could see anything from free to, as the picture suggests, 5 Euros or even higher.  Would you be willing to pay that much for a single application?  Time will tell.  Still, it’s great that everything will finally be combined into one location.

Today at MWC (well, technically a day before), Sony Ericsson announced their eventual plans to someday release a potentially great phone.

Sorry for the pessimism, but it’s just sort of odd that they’d showcase a phone they know won’t become available until the second half of this year—probably September-November, if I had to guess.

What’s odder is that the phone wasn’t actually announced, just showcased.  In essence, it’s a concept phone, similar to concept cars that you see at auto shows.  The Idou is an example of something SE could create, but its feature set and physical style may not exactly match whatever phone eventually makes it to the market.

The good news is that the phone looks does look great as it stands now.  It has a 12.1 MP camera with a Xenon flash and a touchscreen, all running atop the next generation of Symbian from the Symbian Foundation.

The codename stands at “Idou,” which is a change from what it used to be, namely, “Kokura.”  Perhaps Kokura was canceled and Idou is the successor to that project.  Either way, the phone certainly looks the part of a great phone, but my concern is what else it does.  What’s the video recording like (now that the Omnia HD has upped the ante considerably and only one SE phone records above QVGA)?  Is there a 3.5mm jack?  Given the fact this is a just a concept device, these questions may not even be relevant, and the final feature set may be completely different.

It’s an interesting tactic—showcasing a concept of a device with a massive spec list far ahead of the competition.  In one way, this is good because now SE will forever go down as the first company to show a 12 MP cameraphone, but to think they’re the only ones is foolish.  Samsung is known to have a 12 MP phone already, though it’s been held back.  LG will follow.  Probably Nokia too some day.  The thing is, the gap between announcement and release of the competitor’s devices will be much shorter than SE’s, and, for example, Samsung’s device may actually be on the market sooner too—just like how the C905 was announced first, but the i8510 was on the market first.

UPDATE: Idou, or whatever phone Idou becomes, will be officially announced (with all the specs made available) before summer.  The release is still set for the second half of 2009.