Photo taken by Ms. Jen with a Nokia N97.
Project52 : Week 4
Mon. 01.25.10 – Late this morning the Nokia 3G Booklet arrived from the folks at WOMWorld/Nokia for a two week trial review period. I am quite excited about this, I do love to tinker about on a new computer, especially one as lovely and beautifully designed as the Nokia 3G Booklet.
It is cute! It is tiny! It is solid! It is light in weight! It is well-made! Did I mention it was beautifully designed and cute?!?
And then….
I turned it on and I was confronted with the… evil blue background with the light waving Windows logo. Gah.
Fifteen minutes into my new love affair with #37, I had to turn her off and put her back into her wrapping and two boxes and then put her box under my bed, because Windows 7 had so elevated my blood pressure that I was ready to call DHL to take #37 back to London and then write a scathing review of how F*cking Evil Windows is and How it is the Worst Possible Decision… blah blah blah… all because I spent 15 mins trying to figure out how to change the damned Windows background into something more eye pleasing. Big, deep breath.
So, I returned to the work project that is on deadline for tomorrow and then surreptitiously searched Google for ‘Nokia 3G Booklet Hackintosh‘, ‘Nokia 3G Booklet Ubuntu 9.10 USB live boot‘, etc. Yes, I spent most of the rest of the afternoon deep in dual work mode and researching my options for a USB live boot of a real OS, an OS that keeps one’s blood pressure at normal.
Which computer or mobile operating system one likes is not just a matter of brand preference, or what your friends like, or what you have already spent the time to learn, it is also about a mental metaphor and mind map. And that mental metaphor / mind map may still be uncomfortable even after learning how to use a system. Sometimes, one just has to give up an operating system that does not fit one’s mental processes and move on to one that does. After reluctantly using Windows for years, I happily and with abandon switched over to Ubuntu Linux and Mac OS X about 4 – 5 years ago and have never looked back.
I gladly pay the Apple Tax to get lovely, well designed hardware and OS. I am also happy to pay the Nokia Tax to get kick ass mobile cameraphones, even if I continue to be bewildered by Nokia’s hard-on for all things Windows and how their Symbian mobile OS is mapped to Windows and its metaphor. One of the reasons that I am so excited about the Nokia N900 is that its OS is Maemo which is a lovely mobile version of Linux.
All of this adds up to, right now I just can’t open up #37 the lovely Nokia 3G Booklet again, until I have time to create a USB stick with a live boot of Ubuntu or Moblin for the Booklet.
I just can’t look at Windows 7 Starter and struggle when time is of the essence this week. I don’t have the time to get mad at Nokia for their continuing support of the broken down jalopy of OS’s. It is especially bewildering when the Booklet costs a couple of hundred more dollars more than the average cheapo netbook.
It would make more sense to put a beautiful OS on a beautiful machine for the extra money or at least give folks the option to choose a Booklet with Ubuntu 9.10 or Maemo 6 for Booklets at time of purchase.
For the folks whose mental maps do well with Windows and prefer it, they may be happy to order the Windows 7 version of the Booklet and then to upgrade from Starter to Home Premium or Ultimate for an extra $80+ fee. But I am not and when my work deadline is over, Linux live boot here I come then I will be able to write up a review about the Booklet that won’t be an anti-Windows rant. I would like to separate the wheat from the chaff before I start.
Given that most of Nokia’s products sold in the US are not subsidized by the carrier & that one does have to pay full price, and that the folks most likely to pay full price in the US are the same folks who already prefer to purchase Apple computer products for their design excellence, one would think Nokia would kick up their game a few notches and cater to the customers that who are willing to pay full price for great design and a great operating system rather than customers who love the cheapo world of Windows PCs. Nokia’s marketing tactic for the US has baffled me for a couple of years now, as the folks I know who purposely buy PC/Windows products never want to pay premium for great design & hardware, where as the Apple folks are willing and the Linux folks are gadget hounds who will try anything new & lovely.
Rant over. Hopefully by Wednesday, I can report to you on how the Booklet runs on a Linux USB live boot. In the meantime, here is Robbie and Chris of WOMWorld playing a game of “Guess Who” with James Whatley video’ing:
Robbie, what about the Booklet, #37 in fact, with a dark gray & black background and a Phoebe in the title? ;o)