Nokia 3589i First Impressions ...
psylent,
<< More fodder for the GSM/gprs vs. 1X debate >>
Well, it's an interesting and fun debate. It will get even more interesting when AWS implements EGPRS (EDGE). While I haven't gotten to much into its packet data handling capabilities I'd like to offer up my initial impressions of Nokia's new 1xRTT offering which required less referencing of "the manual" than any mobile phone product I've ever used despite the fact that it is deceptively powerful ...
After an absence of 9 months or so since the highly reliable Nokia 3285 cdmaOne inventories were exhausted, Nokia product is back on Verizon shelves and their initial product offering at $49.95 or $99.95 (net with contract after rebate) looks like a hands down winner to me.
I purchased and had the "tri-mode" 1xRTT 3589i activated on a 1 year contract renewal - $149.99 before $50 rebate - on my wife's mobile number and our America's Choice family share plan at the local Wilmington, DE corporate store early this afternoon. They started product activations this morning and had done several before I arrived. I was in an out of the highly trafficked well organized store that serves close to 1 million POPs with a fully activated phone and rebate form in hand in less than 15 minutes - 50 minutes round trip from my office.
The 15 in-store minutes included a few minutes of conversation before departure with the store manager that sold me my QCP-800 back in April 97 and later the KYO 6035 I still use a few days after its release. He commented on clamshell's v. candy bars thus:
"Real men don't eat quiche and real men don't carry clamshells."
He added that the most frequent complaint his sales folk encountered from serious mobile users about the current Verizon product line was the over abundance of clamshells and the paucity of candy bars.
The model I had activated for "she who must be obeyed" has a navy blue frame and clear side plate with a silver/white face plate with the obligatory but tasteful black and red Verizon logo complementing block lettered Nokia in black. Overall, an attractive package that suited her taste even though she wasn't expecting me to bring home a new phone. She wrinkled her nose when I mentioned alternative Xpress on covers or a leather glove. I astutely elected not to mention the glow in the dark variations and the firefly or jellyfish versions with lights front and back.
For those that favor a block form factor rather than clamshell as I do, she does, and many others do as well, the 3589i has NO competition whatsoever at Verizon. It is the only block design phone with color display that Verizon Wireless is currently stocking and it is also the least expensive Verizon model with color display.
As for price the Audiovox CDM8600 after rebate costs $50 more than the 3589i and the trouble-prone LG VX440 (no rebate) and the Motorola T730 (after rebate) are $80 more. The Samsung SCH-A530 and LG VX6000 w/camera but dual-band with no AMPS are $100 more.
AMPS is still an important consideration here in the States at least for me. Even though Verizon has done an excellent job with its digital buildout and 1xRTT implementation there are many rural areas where only AMPS carrier is available and I frequent some of them including a golf course just across the Maryland border from here where one is on 1xRTT on the front nine and AMPS on the back (and PCS coverage doesn't exist).
After exercising the new phone for most of this afternoon the 3589i appears to me to have excellent acoustical RF properties at 800 MHZ and very good reception indoors and out, although I haven't been in AMPS area yet with it and there is no 1900 MHz Verizon coverage anywhere near here. Receiving side callers say that the call quality on their end is excellent. No question but that extending the phone's almost hidden antenna makes a difference in signal strength (it's supposedly a 3db gain). Some users of the 3586i/3588i have commented that the audio volume at the ear piece is a tad low. Initially I thought the same and I couldn't find a volume adjustment. Turns out it's easily and conveniently adjustable with the left and right scroll keys and is plenty loud when adjusted up, eliminating what at first I thought was a knock-off.
Although it lacks a speakerphone, voice dial, voice commands for menus, voice memo record, stopwatch, alarm clock with snooze, calculator, calendar, PIM, and 2-way SMS with EMS all seem to work extremely well and the 46 ringtones (16 MIDI) and 5 customizable profiles (Indoor, Outdoor, Meetings, Silent, etc.) provide plenty of variety. Booting up and catching carrier and powerdown is amazingly quick - the fastest I've ever seen on Verizon by far - although being unfamiliar with Nokias I had to reference the manual to find the flush mount on/off switch on top of the phone.
I'd call the 5-line display adequate, and excellent indoors under all types of lighting (or no light other than backlight) but with 96x65 pixels this phone won't be used for much web surfing in this family although I don't think the wife is ever going to be doing much of that and she sure won't be using it as a modem for laptop. Neither will I at current Verizon Express data tariffs.
The 3589i has dimensions and shape virtually identical to the year old Kyocera 2235 that it replaced in our household, and at 4.1 ounces is 2/10ths ounce lighter, so it was an easy adjustment for my wife particularly since the Nokia Series 30 UI is very easy to master. She was pretty attached to the cool blue back lighting on her Kyocera display and keys, but her preference for color display and bright white backlighting on the 3589i keys was instantaneous. She also likes the "large digital clock" screen saver which takes up half the display and alternates top and bottom. No need to shop for another one.
Rated talk time of 3¼ hours is comparable to the mono screen Kyocera but standby time of 8 days is a few days more.
Regulation (non-exploding <g>) Lithium-Ion batteries are modestly priced and if I were using this phone I'd probably purchase an extra and throw the spare in the brief case if I were travelling.
Another poster on the HowardForums board made these comments about the Nokia 358x series:
The Nokia 35xxi certainly has some good things going for it including outstanding RF performance. It tops my Motorola Timeport T270c and I have carefully compared it to a V-60i. It is real close to an Audiovox Vox CDM9500 as well. First you will notice that this phone connects to the network faster than any other phone out there, typically under 4 seconds. Audio quality is clear and well balanced. There is no white noise (hiss) during conversation, sidetone is sufficient, and it sounds great to your caller as well. The phone does not wander off into analog in good digital areas either. When it does go to analog, it will return to the digital network when the signal returns. The backlighting on the screen and keypad are brighter than you will ever need. Batteries are not expensive and it uses a standard headset jack.
I started using BAM (now Verizon) CDMA in early 1997 after 5 years of BAM analog fixed car phone service, and with the exception of one very good Audiovox "tri-mode" (the CDM9000) we have since always used Qualcomm or Kyocera products. Switching product obviously requires new accessories for an increasingly unwired household that has never had a Nokia, to maximize utility and convenience.
The local Verizon store is not stocking accessories for the 3589i yet but they can all be ordered from Verizon's website except for the DKU-5 USB Data Cable which supports the comprehensive Nokia PC Suite which in turn is a free download from the Nokia USA website. I just ordered the cable and driver from wirelessphonegallery.com at $42 delivered and ordered the car charger and the handsree-headrest mike and speaker combo from Verizon. My wife walks a few miles each day for exercise as do I, so I'll probably buy her the headset with FM radio for Christmas and "borrow" it for my own walks.
Supposedly this is the first Verizon qualified phone to use 1xRTT data rather than circuit-switched data for BREW "Get it Now" (GIN) downloads. I am candidly not sure at this stage whether this is a fact and if GIN transport is packet data on this phone.
Global Mobile is a pretty reliable source and their comment attributed to Jerry Flynn of Verizon and supposedly made at Qualcomm headquarters that a packet offering hasn't been possible until now because available chipsets couldn't accommodate it was really interesting to me.
I haven't exercised BREW enabled Verizon GIN on the 3589i to any degree yet. I will say that in accessing a few GIN portals today that there was considerable latency.
No games are incorporated into the Verizon 3589i (Verizon strips them from the standard 3586i and the PCS 3588i version) so I'll have to download one or two for the fun of it, even though neither I or my wife are particularly interested in games as a time-killer.
Personally I'm rather hopeful that Verizon will qualify the Nokia 6225 with integrated VGA camera, 128x128 pixels color display, MMS, FM radio, Java, WAP 2.0 microbrowser (or Verizon's substitute) and infrared connectivity. When (if) they do qualify it that will probably be my next phone despite the fact that the weight drops to 3.4 oz (98g) which is a bit light for my taste and I'll have to drop back to the Palm Vx in the briefcase for short business trips when I'm not carrying laptop. If it is qualified, I'll probably add the full installed car kit into my own vehicle although I'm interested to see how the headrest gizmo works out.
Wireless message board buzz indicates that Verizon may add the compact entry level monochrome display, 3.5 oz (99g) Nokia 2285 in a matter of days or weeks although that is totally unconfirmed ....
One interesting aspect of Verizon qualification by long timer ex-NYNEXer Lou LaMedica's stringent NJ conformance labs that are often considered to be the toughest in the business, or at least in the US, is that, so far as I know, they have never qualified a product that relies strictly on an internal antenna. Both the 6225 and the 2285 do not have external antennas - at least as described in preliminary specifications. Assuming that the 6225 and the 2285 are being qualified at Verizon - which is not a given, it will be interesting to see if they are released without external antenna or if alternatively there is a model with antenna.
Bottom line of all this is that Nokia is certainly serious about CDMA2000, and rather obviously has no need whatsoever to rely on chipsets of other than those of their own design. They may be a bit late to market with 1xRTT but it looks like they are catching up fast and will move quickly to higher integration and direct conversion technology now that they have stabilized their protocol stack.
As Nokia has moved up the product range ladder from their initial low end 1xRTT product which started delivering 15 months ago to Leap's "Cricket" which was 1900 MHz only, 1xRTT voice only, mono display, they have added 1xRTT data, Java, MMS, 4096 colors display (with 65,000-color coming soon), and incorporated a full GPS receiver for US AGPS E911 and LBS when LBS applications become available, and they have successfully coded Qualcomm BREW.
They have chosen to market everywhere CDMA is implemented other than Japan and Korea where there are high barriers to entry and/or proprietary implementations with little carryover benefit, and they are doing so very successfully with China Unicom product coming on line this quarter to supplement product delivering in the US, Canada, Latin America, Australia, India, and New Zealand.
From what I can ascertain from various wireless message boards the various Nokia 1xRTT products which started shipping a year ago this last summer are performing reasonably well, perhaps VERY well, and quite competitively on virtually all CDMA networks worldwide outside of Korea, Japan, and (soon) China. I am aware of only one rumored but unconfirmed small scale recall (Metro PCS with the original 3585 last December) in an age where recalls or constant and consistent flash patching are commonplace.
Although Verizon has dropped many public hints, I really didn't expect full 3589i qualification and nationwide Verizon stocking in retail stores as well as their fulfillment centers much before Thanksgiving. I now have no doubt that the claim by American Technology Research a few days back that Nokia may be the recipient of the largest single mobile phone order in CDMA phone history from Verizon Wireless has basis in fact. The highly scalable Nokia 1xRTT protocol stack is pretty mature, as is the 3586i model and it's PCS (now Verizon) variation and the product is robustly accessorized. No other company has the capability to ramp product, support the product, and manage the logistics of a huge nationwide rollout on this scale like Nokia. No manufacturer has the capability to use marketing dollars to supplement a product campaign for a reasonably priced product while maintaining bottom line margin like Nokia, and no other manufacturer has brand pull close to Nokia.
It sure will be interesting to see what the Nokia CDMA product range and their market share looks like a year from now.
Although Nokia doesn't reveal a lot about their chipset architecture, focusing instead on end user benefits and handset capabilities, I suspect we'll see ARM11 and separate modem and applications processor in Nokia product before we see it in Qualcomm based product. They delivered ARM9 powered product well ahead of Qualcomm.
Unlike its predecessor Symbian OS v 7.0S is capable of supporting both WCDMA and CDMA2000 so I suspect that we'll see a 1xRTT implementation with Series 60 (or is that 70) UI and hopefully the new gen Series 80 (or is that 70) Communicator.
Best to you,
- Eric - |
