Touch artistes

As a portable media player, the Creative Zen Vision W is solid and durable, but rather bulky. Available in 30GB and 60GB capacities, it measures 5.27x2.95x0.86 inches and weighs 276gms. Apart from screening AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, MJPEG, XviD and DivX videos on its 4.3 inch, 262,144 colour, 480x272 pixel display, it can also play MP3, WAV, WMA and protected WMA music formats. The bright 16:9 widescreen LCD renders a resolution of 480x272 pixels. It looks and works great indoors and doesn’t hurt or tire the eyes even after continuous viewing for hours. The viewing angles are excellent. Outdoors you feel the need of a brightness control, which is sadly missing.

http://in.creative.com [Price: Rs29,999 (60GB)]

Nokia 6110 Navigator

This 125gm slider with its 2.2-inch, sharp, bright 320x240 QVGA pixel Active TFT display that offers 16 million colours, analog light sensor, twin cameras, media handling abilities, 3G, GSM/EDGE quadband (850/900/1800/1900MHz) with WCDMA and HSDPA has all the trappings of a good communications device. But the Nokia 6110 excels more as a second-generation GPS cellphone than anything else.

A one-touch navigation button provides easy access to the GPS function. Satellite acquisition times and tracking with the 6110 are excellent—especially when compared with its heavyweight siblings, the N95 and E90. The phone usually takes under a minute with a cold start (searching for satellites for after a long interval) and less than 25 seconds for a warm start to lock on. Blanket cloud cover doesn’t impede functioning and neither does even going indoors to a certain extent cut you off. This is the result of coupling Navteq (a digital map and automotive navigation systems developer that Nokia has since acquired) and Route 66 (a geographic information systems firm) offerings with the 6110’s firmware. However, for driving, especially in cities, a GPS device is only as good as its well-annotated maps. And unfortunately, as far as the India maps on this phone go (though much improved from what was available on previous Nokia’s), they are lacking—not in cartographic drawing of roads, etc., but in labelling details. So you can’t type in exact addresses and expect to be guided from one to the other. Not yet. Audio guidance (in Hindi and English) is very lucid, but forewarns that since the roads are not digitized, directions may be inaccurate.

It features two integrated cameras with a dedicated capture key, lens protection slider and panorama picture capture mode. The results of the 2MP main camera are passable at best. The phone has a stereo FM player and the music player sings MP3, MP4, M4A, AAC, eAAC+, and WMA. The sound quality, especially over the inbuilt speakers, is very good. Voice calls too are crystal clear. In cellphone mode, the battery is just adequate, but when using GPS, battery goes fast and furious.

As a GPS device, notwithstanding the small screen, the 6110 works beautifully. If you are going to use it in India, you’ll need better maps. As a cellphone, though it doesn’t look very impressive, it responds fast and offers everything that you want from a mobile and more.

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