Kitchen Confidential - N96

I did get to handle one of these back in October with the N Series team at The Energy Clinic in Shoreditch, but was contractually obliged to not talk about it. However, now that its been leaked to the blogging media I guess its safe for me to talk about, but at the time I wanted to twitter that I'd just seen one as it looked and felt so nice.

I've had a real chance to evaluate the N95 a lot more since this post, and play with some of the apps that Nokia Beta Labs provide, as well as synch the unit with my Lenovo Thinkpad T61 to use as a PDA. I'm beginning to like it more as a business tool as it synchronizes with my office software. The improvements are mainly in the keypad which are poor on the current model, the flatter and wider screen which I thought was close to bleeding off the edge in the model I held, the user interface display is also cleaner on the N96 and I see there is a double flash now for better night time photography.

I've heard that the 'in-between' 8GB model doesn't reboot automatically and that its faster which are two of the main complaints with the first model but in principle the N96 is looking slicker and sexier. Here are the pics as supplied by www.ubergizmo.com

I still don't rate the camera as responsive enough on the current model. There's no point having 5 megapixels and Carl Zeiss lens if the shots are slow to set up. I speak as someone who does photography a fair bit. I hope that Rob is going to let me have a play with his client's Sony Ericsson K850i because I'd like to know how good the photography is on it.

Update: I'm not on contractually bound 'gardening leave'. You know, one where my former employers ensure I don't speak to client-conflicting future employers contractually. If I was, you can be sure I'd be the last to throw stones in glasshouses.

Communication Breakdown

One of my new resolutions is to reuse paper and plastic cups as often as possible. I thought I'd start with the Starbucks coffee downstairs because its no hassle to rinse their cup and reuse. I also thought I'd reuse the polystyrene cup that McDonalds use to serve their delicious morning coffee that I talked about over here. The first morning I indicated my intention to resue my cup, and the lady at the till said "No, no, no". I nearly broke out into "you don't love me and I know now" but it wasn't the time to be witty so I persisted and she called the manager. I thought the problem had been resolved but instead my breakfast was served like this.


It's not easy being green, I tells ya. Maybe the folks from Responsible China can help out or as the New York Times puts it so well. "Civilization will attain new heights when we all patronize McDonald's and Burger King with our own knives, forks, spoons and plates. Wouldn't fast food be even faster if we brought our own eating equipment and did our own dishes? But then such basic social skills as maintaining our own supply of cutlery and washing our own dishes are beyond most of us once we step outside our own homes.

Kokiriko Bushi