Back before I joined Mobhappy, Andy Abramson of Comunicano was kind enough to ask me to join the Blogger Outreach Program that was
his conception and supported by Nokia. For those of you that haven’t heard about this, what they’ve done (besides make a number of bloggers very happy) is provide top end Nokia phones (right now the N90 and N70 phones are being circulated) to bloggers of some notoriety. They’ve asked us to use the phones the way that only hard core mobile phone addicts will use phones and then to blog about our experiences; be they good, bad, indifferent, or extraordinary. While those of us participating are making those comments on our own blogs, Andy has established a site in conjunction with Nokia - The N90 Bloggercom site, which is also collecting those posts and putting up the headlines and links back to the bloggers original posts wherever they may be.

This was a big risk on the part of Nokia and I wanted to applaud their bold move - and confidence - in embracing Andy’s vision and for giving people who arguable spend more time thinking about and using mobile devices than any other folks anywhere a chance to experience these unique phones as well as providing them with an even larger platform than our individual blogs. Bloggers, and especially bloggers that have achieved some prominence tend to be a highly opinionated lot. Giving us all a bunch of phones is a dicey proposition. Giving us a bunch of phones and a microphone takes heuvos grande.

Personally, I have been having a blast with the N90. The phone did something totally unexpected in my case; it changed me. I was never the photo guy or the film stuff guy. I have a nearly eidetic memory so I take snapshots of my world all day long. The last thing I thought I’d want are a bunch of images to mess around with. Plus I HATE having my picture taken. But what I discovered with the N90, which takes pictures so superior to any other camera phone I’ve tried that it’s like comparing surfing Sunset in Los Angeles to surfing Sunset in Hawaii, (for you non-surfer types this is a REALLY BIG DIFFERENCE) is that it is TAKING the pictures as much as actually having the pictures that has become enjoyable. Plus, when you end up with images worth keeping or worth sending to friends or family it’s a total plus.

To put it in perspective, as much of an early adopter as I am, it wasn’t until I got this phone in November that I bothered to sign up for Flickr. As someone that is always lugging stuff around - computers, phones, books, other gear, I just couldn’t see adding a camera to the mix and I am certain that a lot of people share the sentiment as the incredible popularity of camera phones in general will attest. The thing is that most of them are basically toys as far as the camera is concerned.

The still camera is really only half the picture though. The N90 sports a video camera that in my non-expert opinion, but as a guy that has seen his share of camera’s and mini DV recordings can attest this is once again a cellular phone that is capable of making recordings that would be expected from a quality dedicated digital camera or mini DVR. Here’s a sample from a New Year’s Eve program. Keep in mind the difficulty inherent in filming in the dark now add the difficult associated with filming something that is moving quickly. Add to this a videographer with limited experience. It’s a recipe for very poor quality video, isn’t it? Now check this out: FireWorks Video

Not bad. Not bad at all if I don’t say so myself. The first few seconds were only shaky because I needed to stabilize my arm. The noise is someone speaking Thai.