The Brand Evangelist

Editors Note: This is a sponsored post

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A work of art and a beauty to behold. That is how I will label the Nokia N9. I have had a trial unit courtesy of Nokia Connects for a few days. The unit I have is Blue.

 

What prompted me to trial this device is what I have heard about Swipe being addictive. After using it for a few days, I can tell you how addicted i have been to Swipe. I tend to Swipe each time on my Nokia N8 too.

I will not go into details of listing the specs of the Nokia N9. If you want to read all the specs, you can find them here and some expert review from Mr Mobility. I can quickly tell you that the Nokia N9 runs on Meego OS, not Symbian. The camera is 8MP and shoots close up macro shots. It comes in 16/64Gb storage with 1GB RAM.

How does the Nokia N9 measure up?

 

If I try to cover the whole Nokia N9 review in this post, I will end up with a book. I will tell you about is looking through my own lense. How do I see the Nokia N9?

It gets my work done—emails, text messaging, social media (Facebook, Twitter), messaging via Gtalk, Facebook and Skype was uber cool (Although I miss not having Whatsapp on it), Photography (Macro shots are possible) and taking screen shots. I am not a gamer and I am not huge with Music. I will touch those aspects slightly though.

Email

You can set up email easily on it. Just go to the email icon on the menu by Swiping and you can enter the parameters for your email.

Messaging

I find the Messaging integration of the Nokia N9 very fascinating. The design of the sms UI and the speed with which the OS responds makes me want to keep texting. The touch keypads are well spaced and very responsive also.

Some awesomeness about the messaging integration are;

- When you sign in to Facebook, Gtalk, Skype and twitter, you are given an option to integrate your contacts with the contact on your phone. When you do, it makes it a very easy task for you to message them directly from the traditional messaging app.

- You can easily click on the tiny messaging icon by the bottom right corner and you’d be given an option to see all your contacts that are online and the methods available that you can start chatting with them immediately.

Using Skype, Facebook and Gtalk chat feels like you are chatting using an iPhone. It is fast and clean.

                                                           

Photography

The camera is Okay. It gives a better production than what is obtainable on the Nokia E7. It shoots macro shots—you can shoot close up photos without getting blurry images.

 

Straight from the box, there are applications that are bundled with the phone. Many of the apps are apps many use daily, like;

- Facebook

- Twitter

- Skype

- Gtalk

- Wireless Hotspot – That will allow you to share your mobile internet with other wireless devices

- Angry birds and a few other games

- Note app and some others.

I had to log in with my Nokia Store account to access the store and download some apps that I normally use but are not bundled.

In order to do this review, I will need to take screen shot. So, I looked in the store and saw a screen snap app called; Screen capture. The app is free. It worked just fine. I also downloaded Foursquare app. If you are a huge fan of Foursquare, it is available for free too.

The app I miss not having is Gravity app. The awesome twitter app for Symbian designed by Jan Ole. I also miss not having Opera Mini. The week I got the phone, a beta release was made available for Opera mobile. However, I found the native browser more capable and usable.

The Native browser

The native browser is HTML5 enabled. If you sign in to Twitter, you will get the mobile web app version of twitter.

                                                    

The browser is equally fast. When reading an article, there is an option to share directly to your connected accounts—Twitter, Facebook, Text message and Email. This is missing in the browser for Nokia Belle on my Nokia N8

The Battery

If you know the Nokia N900, a Meego powered phone from Nokia, you will k now that the phone has serious battery issue. This is not the case with the Nokia N9. I got a full day use after charging it full. I connected to Internet only when I needed to use the web via my mobile internet data.

If you are looking at using your phone for for emails, messaging, social media and mobile browsing. You’d love having the phone. Coupled with the fact that the phone is fast, responsive and beautiful.

The limitation I see with the phone is the lack of a wide range of apps available for it. If you are an app-centric person, you may have to look elsewhere. Gravity app, an app I enjoy on Sysmbian is not available on Nokia N9.

The Nokia N9 does not get the same promotion with Nokia Lumia range. I don’t see any rapid improvement happening to the phone. This is what I am most discouraged about. However, there is a new upgrade to the OS

                                                     

which shows that Nokia still going to support it. The question is; will developers develop for this beautiful phone that seems to be dead on arrival?

There are limited supply of this phone. So, I see it as a collectors items. I don’t see Nokia producing more of it. The design has already been ported to Lumia 800. The Lumia 800 has the same polycarbonate body like the Nokia N9.

Will you be picking a Nokia N9?

Some more screenshots and photos

P.S. I shot all these photos with my Nokia N8

It is a self defeating attitude or mindset to conclude that it is late, I am old, or I have failed.

Steve Jobs was outsed from a company he founded. Did he feal defeated? No! He went ahead and founded NeXT, a computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations. The company was later bought by Apple and the innovative products can be found in Mac OS X.

It is worthy to note that Jobs was called back to Apple and made a huge comeback in growing the company, lauching the iPod, iPhone and iPad range of products that became huge success.

It's never late to start something new, you're never too old. It's over only at death. If you're feeling despondent at this moment, gather strenght from this tiny story of success, start something, make it better. Failure is a process that toughens you up for greater success.

I have failed myself many times, but never see myself as a failure, rather I have kept learning and getting better. I feel tired too, no one is imune against it, but I never tire out. Success is celebrated when achieved, but there are lot's of work, sweat and trying times that went into it.

Get up, dream again and go to work on your dream. Is it a startup? Keep working and learning.

Find people who will support you and give you strenght in the dark days. (For startups, look for innovation hubs to partner with)

Most of all, you owe it to yourself to never give up. Remember Steve Jobs.

Good morning ~ We may think our best is not good enough, so we put doing it off till when we're capable. Being capable is rather in doing it even when we're not so good at it, we get better with time.

As an enhancement of  the existing web platform  – www.nairatweets.net – a crowd sourcing, social engagement   service available to Nigerian Businesses and Twitter Users – Nairatweets has  launched its  Digital Content Store.

The aim of the Store is to provide digital content (music, mobile applications, themes, etc.) for twitter users.  The store will cater for organizations and individuals who are ready to offer their products and services for free or for sale at very affordable prices. The Store will bridge the  gap  between digital content providers and  mobile devices users  for free flow of  relevant and interesting contents, and particularly among Nairatweets users.

Nairatweets Store will help Nigerian Developers and Publishers of Digital Contents to share and spread the use of their apps and even monetize them. Nairatweets Users can use their  Earnings on the  platform to pay for contents from  the Store while  other users can make use other optional payment systems available on the platform.

“Nairatweets  Store will give  Mobile App Developers and Brands  the  opportunity to create engaging  content for the online community and also offer a platform to monetize the content" said Fehintolu Olaogun, a co-Founder at Exolve Technologies Limited.
The store is available on all mobile devices, and allows users to have access to digital content 24/7 and can be accessed by visiting http://www.nairatweets.net/store

About NairaTweets.Net
Nairatweet.net is  Nigeria’s largest Twitter marketing platform; a  Crowd Sourcing, social interaction marketing application helping Advertisers to reach over  500,000 Nigerian Twitter Users with their products and services and the number is still growing. Its approach to marketing is direct and gives real time feedback from its users.
Visit www.nairatweets.net for more details.

Yesterday was second day outage and blackberry users spent some time without access to the web. I can't imagine how awful I'll feel without having access to data on my mobile devices. The bulk of my work and play take place on my mobile.

The server outage of RIM created a rift in the valley. Many relationships--business and social--are built on BBM or access to the web via a blackberry phones. Except for those on the enterprise service--BES--most of the services on BIS wasn't working in Africa, Middle East and Europe. (Updated The America, US and Canada were eventualy affected too) For those who depend on Blackberry to do their business or connect with friends and family, they must have asked; How long will this last? What other options do I have? Is their any other device that can work as effectively?

I will try to help out with a few answers. The outage is due to the Blackberry (RIM) server servicing EMEA (Europe, MiddleEast and Africa). RIM is working to fix it though. The best answer I have is that RIM and there group of engineers are working on it but do not have a time announced that they would fix it.

What other options do you have?

Most of the services used and preferred by Blackberry users are also available on other devices. Some of the preferred services are Blackberry Messenger (BBM), Social Media integration (Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and LinkedIn), and Email--although there are those who own a BB just for the social connectivity.

I own a Nokia E7, E71 and 500 currently. I can do all you do on a blackberry except for BBM. But I can do Blackberry kind of messaging with BB users, iphone and Android users by installing Whatsapp. Not as intuitive, but it gets the job done. You may want to pick a Nokia Device running the current Symbian Anna Operating system like; Nokia E6, N8, C7, N8 and some others. The apps are available in the Nokia Store for your use.

Android is another option. It is an Operating system developed by Google, used by Samsung, HTC, Huawei, Sonyericsson, LG and some other phone makers. If you want and Android device you can pick any of the phone makers above. There's the Android market (Application store) where you can get lots of apps for games, social and business. Whatsapp works on Android too. So you can keep in touch the BBM way at least. How much can I get an Android device? Depends on the one you choose. There are low end and high end Android devices. You can get an Android phone from Samsung and LG that's about N29,000.

The last option I want to mention is the Apple option. iPhone is a great device. That can be very simple to use and smart in executing stuffs. If you're new to touch and the Apple platform, you may have a few learnings to do.

One of the beauty of the Blackberry is the data subscription--BIS. Once you pay, you're covered for the month. You don't have that luxury with other Operating system (Androids, Symbian, Windows and iOS). You'd subscribe to a mobile data plan that has a limit. Depending on your need, there are 100mb, 150mb, 500mb, 1Gb, 3Gb, and 5Gb options across all the Nigerian Networks.

The plus you have when subscribing for mobile data plan on non-Blackberry phones is, you can turn your device to hotspot and connect it to other devices that have WiFi like an ipad, your PC or your friends phone. You can share the dat on your Blackberry even if you want to.

Blackberry devices are fine, though it can't suit my own needs for now. The information I shared here can help you in making your decission to switch if you're looking for an alternative.

Are you a Blackberry user? How did you feel when your Blackberry service stopped functioning? I will like to hear from you in the comments.