Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Review - Nokia 6235


The Nokia 6235 is one of the latest offerings from the Reliance stable and is a welcome change from the usual dull and boring handsets they had on offer till now! It looks sleek and professional is a vast improvement over my old LG mobile that I've had for about 10 months now! Here's a blow by blow review of the main features:

Screen and User Interface
The screen is a 65k colour TFT LCD. Very colourful indeed but somehow seems a little dull compared to a few other phones I've seen. The 5-way joystick is pretty useful but takes a little time getting used to. The other thing is that it seems way too tight and can be painful sometimes!


Keypad
The keypad buttons are separated horizontally by what I can best describe as vertical dividing strips. The keys are at the same level as the front panels on the phone and not raised like in most other phones. This makes it slightly difficult while typing messages but shouldn't be too much of a problem as the keys are soft. On the whole the tactile feel is good but could have been better.


Power
The battery was a major consideration when changing my handset. My old RD 2130 used to last just over a day during the last few weeks. So far, the battery backup on the 6235 has been decent. It usually lasts two whole days and some. The maximum I've got is two-and-a-half days with medium usage. Charging usually takes about an hour and a half (I could be wrong about this as I haven't measured it accurately!)


Audio
The sound quality is good both with and without the hands-free kit. I've had no problems even when travelling on the road with the usual traffic noises all around. Haven't used the FM radio too much but from what I have I can tell you that it sounds very good indeed! Speaker output too is loud enough I guess.


Camera
The camera captures pics. at 640x480 pixels. So far, pictures I've taken have turned out pretty decent. Quality is good when light is adequate but is very pixelated in low light conditions. The only way I managed to transfer pictures to my PC before I got the DKU-2 cable is thus: Sent images via IR to a Nokia 6600 and from there to my PC using Bluetooth!


Connectivity
The phone can be connected to a PC using a DKU-2 USB cable that costs around Rs 1600/-. Installed Nokia PC Suite first and then connected the phone my comp. The phone was immediately detected and the device registered. Transferring images from the phone was a breeze and the pics. once transferred seemed in good shape too. Setting an image on the comp. as the phone wallpaper is also a pretty simple task. The image cane be scaled and lot of other effects can be applied before you set it as the background. Other things you can do include manage your contacts, set ringtones, organize multimedia content like video and recordings, manage schedules, install applications etc.


Miscellaneous features
On my old LG phone, whenever I added a new contact from either a received message or a call, the recent call list and the message recipient would get updated to show the contact name instead of the number. However, on the 6235, the call register and the message recipient don't change immediately. Its only the next time a message or a call is received that the contact name is shown. Guess its the same with all Nokia phones...

Another nice feature on my RD 2130 was the facility to set multiple alarms. I could set upto 3 alarms at a time which was quite useful particularly whenever I travel. Here, the only option is to change the alarm time which could be dangerous if I forget to change it back to the original value !


My experience with this phone so far has been reasonably good. It looks sleek and also has a professional touch to it. Its two shade grey colour is quite well suited for the workplace as it isn't too flashy.

Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Gajini - Review!

You might all be surprised when I tell you guys this - I went to see Gajini on saturday! I kinda liked the movie, considering the fact that I hardly see any Tamil movies (that too in theatres!). It was sloppy in quite a few places, but on the whole the movie seems to have been very professionally done. Surya in his role as Sanjay Ramaswamy, has done a really good job and fits into his part quite well. The high point of the movie were the action scenes that were neatly choreographed. There are a few gory scenes, specially the one where the heroine (Asin) is clubbed on the head with a metal rod, but thankfully they are not too protracted.

As I said, there a few glitches that the movie it could have done without. There is one particularly silly dialogue where a police officer, upon seeing phone numbers tatooed on Sanjay Ramaswamy's body, remarks "All these numbers are in 10 digits . Must be cell-phone numbers!". Almost everyone in the theatre burst out in laughter on hearing that! There are a few more scenes in the film that don't make too much sense, but I guess I'll leave you guys to see them for yourselves!

Nayantara's character is totally senseless. She is initially shown as a shy medical student. Then comes this show where she's performing a dance routine and you wonder whether its the same person! The costumes border on vulgarity but fortunately they get more decent (relatively!) as the song moves on! The song is a total misfit in the movie and I wonder why they had it in the place. She does some pretty stupid things in the movie which I won't even comment on.

The other songs are pretty good with Kannviddithu Sopnam Kanden being the best. Bombay Jayshree is simply great in this song! The other song Oru Maalai is also quite nice. The background score throughout the movie is very good and suitably rendered according to the situation on-screen.

The story about Sanjay Ramaswamy and Kalpana (Asin) is very light-hearted and romantic. It seems pretty believable and genuine unlike some other stories. Surya looks really handsome and seems to have added some bulk for his role. All in all, I quite liked the movie. Most people here seem to share my sentiments 'cause tickets were and still are hard to come by. Shows are sold out for days together!


Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Back after quite some time!


When I started off with this blog I was really excited about having a blog of my own and expected to write some stuff daily. Sadly, I never managed to put up another post after my first (which wasn't all that great either!) till now. This was mostly due to the fact that I became caught up with work and had little time to even think of anything else! However, the more probably cause, I guess (though I hate to admit it!) is that I put off writing anything as I believed I had nothing worthwhile to post.

On the insistence of my friends and my own urge to do something to escape my monotonous existence, I have resolved to become more regular with my posts! I will hopefully be able to keep up this resolve. So, watch this space for more in the coming days!

In the meanwhile, here's something for today. I got mails from quite a few people informing me that today was "World Stealing Day"! You have to reply back telling the person what you would like most to steal from him/her. What a cheezy way to get people to mail you! Just goes to show what imaginative gimmicks people come up with when they have no useful work to do!

Let me know if there're any topics I could write about...

Thursday, January 27, 2005

My First Post!

Hi! This is my first venture into the world of blogging!

On my blog you can find random thoughts on a plethora of topics (mostly techy stuff but also anything under the sun!) as and when they flow through my head! Please visit often to find out "Aks Ke Vichar" (Thoughts/opinions of Aks). Also, do not hesitate to comment on my posts - Tell me what you think!