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Nokia 9000

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PCQ Bureau
New Update
  Nokia

9000 Communicator With Enhanced Software:


Standard GSM cellphone integrated with

Internet-ready 386 PDA running GEOS 3. 8 MB RAM

(2 MB free), 640 x 200 grayscale LCD, plus 3-line

phone LCD. CD-ROM with apps and PDF

documentation. Mobile Internet access for e-mail,

Web, telnet, terminal dial-up; graphical browser

with SSL support, IrDA and optional serial

connection, calculator, converter and other PDA

utilities. POP3, SMTP and other standards

supported. A well-integrated, Net-ready PDA.

Though bulky for a cellphone, great for e-mail

and fax on the move, with the occasional Web

access. Useful utilities. Tiny keys take some

getting used to. Price: Rs 49,995



Mfr & Vendor:
Nokia, 5th Floor, Radisson

Complex, NH-8, Mahipalpur, New Delhi-110037 Fax:

6132838/984 Tel: 6134257, 6134300
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This is a personal

digital assistant built around a Nokia cellphone.

It’s an Internet access device, a Web and e-mail

client, and it can send and receive faxes, all over the

GSM cellular network. It’s also packed with little

organizer utilities: scheduler, notepad, conversions, et

al
. The original year-old version was a whopping Rs

110,000. The model we tested has enhanced software, and

costs Rs 40,000. Its new name is a mouthful: "The

Nokia 9000 Communicator With Enhanced Software".

We’re low on space here, so I’ll just call it

the 9000.

The 9000 integrates

cellphone and PDA functions well, though each has its own

keyboard and display. The computer is an Intel 386 (how

come this doesn’t say Intel Inside?), and it runs

the GEOS 3.0 operating system. Of the 8 MB of memory,

half is taken up by the OS and apps, 2 MB kept for data

storage, and 2 MB free memory for programs to run in. The

640 x 200 display shows eight grayscale levels

(there’s a separate phone LCD).

As a cellphone, the 9000

is bulky but capable, with most of the functions

you’d expect in a high-end handset. It really comes

into its own in speakerphone mode, where it’s loud

and clear, and doesn’t sound like a speakerphone or

cellphone to a caller. Even Vivaldi’s Four Seasons

sounded good on it, playing off a CD into a land-line

phone at the other end. It worked quite well as a

hands-free speakerphone in a car.

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Internet access is standard.

A command to fetch a Web URL or your e-mail initiates a

connect. The dial-up is disquietingly silent. This is

digital, so no reassuring modem tones to tell you

what’s happening–so you have to keep staring at

it while it dials. It would have been really great to

have some audio feedback. And then you confront

VSNL’s TCP/IP login screen–which, believe it or

not, shows up in 3 point text! A so-called zoom key

expands this to about 5 points.

The big problem with the

original 9000, an inflexible automated login which did

not work with VSNL, has been "tackled" in the

9000 by making the login manual. So no scripts, no

automated login. This is a real bother. After years of

being used to PCs and notebooks logging in on their own,

I had to painfully enter a login, password, and a

"ppp" command at every mail fetch or send. This

one needs an urgent fix.

E-mail access is

simple and effective. The 9000 supports standard

protocols: SMTP, POP3, MIME, IMAP4. With airtime so

valuable (especially at 9600 bps), you can choose to pick

up just the headers of the messages in your inbox. You

can then select specific headers, and press Fetch to get

the mail. Simple–how nice if the Eudora genre on our

PCs could do this. You can also choose Fetch New, where

it’s going to fetch everything since your last

access. You have to go through the Fetch Headers process,

by the way, even if you want to ultimately pick up all

you mail.

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Sending e-mail is equally

easy. You write your message in a notepad, and enter the

recipient’s address (or pick it up from an

addressbook). You can choose to send the message

immediately, or queue it for sending on demand. When set

to "Send during next connection", it sends and

picks up mail in the same session. After you queue the

mail, you’re prompted to save the message

(there’s no separate outbox for sent mail). Forget

Websurfing: e-mail is the top reason to own the

Communicator. The only bother is the VSNL manual logon

each time.

We tested the Nokia 9000 on

Essar Cellphone’s network in Delhi, using a

connection (and SIM card) with voice, data, fax

and SMS enabled.

Data and fax is not popular yet

across the GSM networks in India, with less than

a third of one percent of subscribers taking it

up. Blame it to high cost, high airtime charges,

and low focus on this service by Indian GSM

networks. Not only is the monthly subscription

cost stiff, there’s also airtime charged at

full voice rates, which does not lend well to

hours of surfing or mail access. (Incidentally,

most subscribers who have take in up are using it

along with a notebook PC and data-ready

cellphone, rather than with the 9000

Communicator.)

All the services

worked smoothly on the Essar network, though VSNL

connectivity took the expected time, made worse

by the lack of audio feedback during the

9000’s connect attempts. Essar COO Andreas

Schelling told PC Quest that the company would

consider a direct Internet access service further

down the line.

 

If you do need to

access the Web, you can do it simply by entering a URL or

choosing one from the Hotlist, and pressing Fetch. The

9000 goes through its login, and fetches the page. The

display shows text and 8-level grayscale images, and you

have to vertically scroll to see a standard page. You can

quickly save and go offline to read a page in detail, and

go online again to go to another link or page. All this

is very well thought out, but impeded by having to

manually log in between pages (what a way to save

airtime!). A few sites are "Communicator

friendly": shorter pages, quick loading. The

accompanying CD even has a whole manual (in PDF form) on

designing Web pages for the Communicator.

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You can also use the

Telnet utility or the Terminal dial-up applet to connect

to a BBS or VSNL’s shell account or a PC. Again, you

have to ready some really small text, though you can zoom

in a bit.

The bundled CD has a

number of applications, both for the 9000 and for your PC

(such as Intellisync, et al). The utilities for

the 9000 can be installed from a notebook with a CD-ROM

and a compatible IrDA port, or via the optional serial

cable. More important, the CD has extensive documenation

in PDF files, including the 9000’s detailed manual

itself. The IrDA port also lets you print to a similarly

equipped printer, like a DeskJet 340 or LaserJet 6P.

There are some neat little

applets, including a measurements converter that does

currency, length, weight, temperature, etc. And a musical

composer which actually shows you the notes being played

(in musical notation)–a nice way to learn.

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Battery life is

reasonable. There’s a small Li-ion battery, which

powers the entire device for over a day, voice/data calls

and all. The charger is light and fast. You can also buy

an optional battery charger unit, if you buy a spare

battery.

Fax works very well; you

can send and receive with standard fax machines or fax

cards. Graphics show up very well, though you have to

scroll, of course. However, try sending a WinFax cover

sheet with cute graphics, and you have several mintues of

airtime adding up.

As with most GSM cellphones, SMS is

supported, and in fact the Nokia 9000 is a great device

for this. SMS–GSM’s "short message

service"–is mostly used in one direction, to

inform cellular subscribers about received voice mail.

You can subscribe to SMS, but composing messages with a

standard phone keypad is a bother. It’s easy with

the 9000, and worked very well.

All in all, this is a

great prototype product that points to the future of

PDAs: a thoroughly connected, integrated device. For now,

it’s too little of too many things. It’s bulky

for a cellphone, and expensive and a bit fiddly for a PC.

There’s no direct land-line or PC Card modem

support, which would have helped make this a primary mail

device (try spending an hour a day on your mail on

airtime). E-mail is a great reason to own this device,

for a person really on the move. As for me, I’m

happy with a regular sub-notebook, along with any great

little data-ready IrDA-equipped cellphone like

Nokia’s 6110...

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