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Screen Brightness N95 vs N82 vs Blackberry 8310

I’ve been using Blackberry 8310 for a few weeks now. I got my new Nokia N82 and I was sure I’m going to forget about my BB once I start using it. Unfortunately that’s not the case. There are several reasons that make me carry my Blackberry along with my other handsets. This video has 3 phones playing the same video. N95-8gb on the top, N82 below that and Blackberry 8310 on the bottom. Well, the video does’nt show it that well but with naked eye, it is very obvious that Blackberry’s screen has the highest brighness and contrast levels and delivers the best video experience among all the three phones.

All these phones have 320 x 240 resolution and the screen sizes are slightly different. Assuming N82 with the smallest screen among the three, I expected it to deliver the sharpest video output, though it has disappointed me greatly because of a very low brightness. So, Blackberry 8310 is the brightest, N95-8Gb is the runner up and N82 is the loser.

I do watch movies on these screens at times but the conversion process takes a lot of time. Untill you use any tricks or third party software, the provided software need you to keep the phone connected all the time while your PC is converting the video. That’s insane.

Can somebody reocommend me a better software for such video conversion tasks?

Nokia’s Almighty Cameraphones’ Shutter speeds . . .

Nokia N95 and N82 have undoubtedly been best camera phones Nokia has ever made. Shutter speeds or exposureduration makes a lot of difference when taking photos in all light conditions. Due to different types of flash units on these two handsets, they have different shutter timings. Shutter is open for longer duration on N95 to capture all the information under its LED flash. On the other hand N82 has a very short shutter timing that gives real sharp pictures, thanks to Xenon flash on it.

Following photos show the difference. This fan was running as fast as it can. First shot was taken using N95-8GB.

This second shot was taken using N82. Yes, the fan was running on fastest.

Alot has been said to prove N82’s supremacy over all other cameraphones and above is my bit to add to it.

Turning my Phone into an OCR

I’ve found a great application for my Nokia N82 named MultiScanner. This allows me to read business cards and save them as contacts. In addition, now I can take photos of text and this software converts this photo to text that can be sent out as email, sms, mms or stored as a note.

How it works? Watch this video to see MultiScanner in action.

The software is intended to work on E71 and E66 but works just fine on N82 and N95-8gb for me. Pleas let me know on what other phones you succeed to run it.

Download MultiScanner

Special thanks to http://www.darlamack.com

Miniature Memory, Miniature Reader

Memory sizes have been reducing since their inception. All types of memory devices including hard disks, removable drives, memor cards, usb drives, all have been getting smaller and smaller. That is how they have been increasing their capacities in the same casing. Micor SD is an example of such miniaturization.

Today I’m goign to talk about a miniature memory card reader that I just got my hands onto. This card is almost as small as the memory card itself. More interesting part is, it looks as if its all plastic and gets inserted into a normal USB slot and works just fine. See for yourself:


You can see how small it is. And very interestingly, its not metal from outside.


Simply insert the card and you are ready to go.

Going Stereo using Bluetooth


My music gadget, a combination of my Nokia-N82 and a stereo bluetooth head-set Nokia BH-501. Not only the music player is great but the headsets take you into the music heaven without any wires in between. This does add to your speed when you are driving with a high-beat song being played, but I’m loving every bet of it. These headsets are good looking, easy to wear, fold well when not in use and most importan, the sound is ammmmazing!! Every single tiny twitter and all the bass you can digest, it plays it all with superb competence.

Simplicity of use is another plus. Only 3 buttons, two for volume and one for the rest of the stuff. Well, at times I do miss the play/pause and skip keys, but I can always use the phone for that. Fewer controls also leave my both hands free and concentration on the road while driving.

You can use these while jogging, driving, cooking, cleaning, in bed and wherever your ears need a music refill.

Only problem about these is, I cant live without it and carrying it everywhere can be a little difficult 🙂

Well, my friend’s got a Motorolla S9 and we both agree that the sound qualities match, though I’ve been a die-hard Nokia fan so cant live without it.

And if you say its not safe driving? Well, who cares?


Using a Bluetooth Headset

Another item out of my goody bag is a Nokia BH-902 Bluetooth Headset. I’ve always been using headsets especially while driving with all my cell-phones, but this time its different because:

  • I’ve always used a stereo head-set that serves both for music and calls and fits in both my ears
  • I’ve always used a wired headset that keeps tangling while driving
  • I’ve been using smart-phones all the time, they need more attention when used, so they’ve been complicating things when being used while driving.

This new headset is great because:

  • One of my ear is free and I’m more in touch with the voices around me while driving
  • There are no wires messing things up. (I wont accidentally pull a wire to throw off my phone etc.)
  • Things stay simple while driving. I dont have to dig down the menus on a cell phone to make a call, don’t have to look down to read something on the phone screen to reply to a missed call. This headset is more of a sub-phone in a sense. It provides recent calls on its own mini-screen and you can dial, reply even voice dial someone, right from the headset.
  • Thankfully, as I am a user of 2 cell-phones at a time, this headset will connect to both (one at a time) and switching is as simple as a button press. So my phones stay away from my ear, I have both my hands free and my headset rests on my ear.

Well, what happened to the music and stereo? I cant listen to the music on this for sure, but I think its better for calling while driving, keeping your one ear open. (& yeah, i’ve got another toy for my music needs, I’ll write about it later).

I did not expect it to be that way, but I’m falling in love with BH-902 🙂


Save water, save electricity

To manage the current energy crisis in Pakistan, we need to save electricity. If the load-shedding has disappeared all of a sudden, does not mean that we have enough energy to spend. Why did load-shedding end all of a sudden is another question, but when you are at home, what you can do to save electricity in general?

There are common practices to follow. Use only those electricity applicances that are needed. Turn the lights off when there’s no one in the room. Switch off the TV if you are not watching it etc. And then there are installation related tips like replace older bulbs with energy saver fluorescent bulbs or tube lights, replace older fans, use motion sensors switches, make sure your AC, Freezer and Fridge has a correctly working thermostat.

One aspect that is usually forgotten and overlooked is the consumption of water. No-matter you are using river water, tube-well water or its coming in a water tanker, you have to save water. In urban areas where you never have to go to the well or pond to fetch water, we stop realizing that how tough it is to have access to clean water. In addition, we keep wasting water without thinking that it is actually going to waste electricity. In most of the cases water is pumped to the utilization tanks and home reservoirs using electric motors, and they make a major percentage of your electricity bill. More-over, if your water supply is coming in a truck/tanker, you are making someone burn some fuel to bring that. Yes you are paying for it, but you will pay less if you waste less water.

I’m not going to preach how you can save water, you know that better. The bottom-line is to save the resources and use them for a better purpose.

N-Gage One review


I just downloaded One on my N-Gage and could not live without writing about it here. It’s an amazing game with crisp and clean 3D Graphics, amazing music and sound effects and a game play that is simply a breeze. One has proved to be a star in all aspects. Game-play, 3d Graphics, Characters, backgrounds, music, sound effects, menus and ease of use.

You can play and download the demo for Free. You can play the demo game in 3 different venues against 7 possible opponents. You have all the basic options like turning the sound on/off, optimizing game by changing graphics options and changing controls.

When starting a game you can select your opponent, your venue, number of fight rounds, duration of each round, difficulty and whether the game is ranked or not. While fighting the round, you will enjoy every moment of the fight. There are no hick-ups, no lags and a very simple two button fighting control. You can capture screen shots during the game. Yes, the shots on the right are taken on my N-82. You can not only change the controls during the game but you can also change the language and can set the music and sound volume.

In short its a great addition to the n-gage family of games. I will try to find an n-gager to try a multiplayer on bluetooth to evaluate that aspect as well. Till then, go! n-gage One.