Are the stereotypes right? What your phone says about you!

[slitchfield]

You walk into a meeting with device X. You ride on the tube with device Y. You stroll around the park with device Z. What impressions will others have - and will these impressions be accurate? In the editorial below I give a few examples but would welcome extra real world anecdotes and data points!

Read on in the full article.

[Tzer2]

That's quite a technophile list of gadgets on the chart! :-)

I think most people would probably buy something much cheaper.

For example the 6120 Classic would probably be the most "consumer" device on the chart, because it's got a low price (about a third of any of the devices on that list) and because it looks much more like a normal phone.

[snoyt]

Hi Steve, a article and there certainly is truth in it. Though the categories are a bit skewed and I'd rather see a bit more discrimination. Between what kind of 'image' it has and what it actually can do. Also I'd see the consuming, creating and organizing aspects as three independent vectors not as mutual exclusive options. I still await the one phone that is awesome in all aspects...

Let me play the 'troll' a bit and let me say the Iphone is for wanna be creatives but are not, so they want too flash with Apple's design. In short too much money, not tech-savy and really not creative but absorbing. Apple in generally asks twice the amount for adding a slick outer shell in their products. Making Apple consumers fiercely loyal since they would never admit to spending their money on shiny happyfeel products.

The Nokia (media creative, rather unibranded corner, no viewty and such?) are the tech-savy with a big creative streak, but also a bit hardheaded because who else would take the time to wrestle through all the menus? Lacking friends and social life because they can spend time on Nokia betalabs products and AAS for the latest 'life-enhancing' software.

The workers? Mostly unimaginative people who accept what is given to them by their IT-department and just use the bloody thing for making phone calls, because they don't have time to figure out the rest.


I should also say that the the mediafunctional E90 and E71 deliver quite functional media capacities for document photographing and other office 'fun'. I could/would not trade my N95 for a E71 but, for the class of device, the E71 is the most sexy available. No-one would want to be caught dead with the mid-sixties design of the E90 front, looking like an encased smaller cell phone. Unless of course you have it in stylish black and are in the undertaking buisiness. Still for some people the inside matters most, as is the case for most caskets B*)

[ramzez]

Number of Megapixels have nothing to do with picture quality. And c'mon the time takes for N95 making a picture is shocking. My 4 year old 4Mp Minolta outperforms Nokia in every aspect.

iPhone gives people ease of use, the price is ok, no more then Nokia 8800.

But yes, there are stereotypes and for every device there is a market for surely, but i think people should be free to choose what they want and not be judged by others.

Umm, so you are saying that I need a phone for meetings (to look professional) and a phone for the train (To not look an idiot).

So why have a 2 phone solution? In order to cover all the bases it would seem you need to look at a 3 box solution -
a Phone for looking professional and not an idiot
a generic MP3 player
an Asus Eee type Laptop (UMPC?) for the ability to send emails (as the dumb phone will not be comfortable enough to type and send emails)

Come on, if a phone is going to be the way you are perceived in meetings or on the train then
1. Don't get your phone out in the meeting, even turn it off or at least put it on vibrate! - you might be better respected and you will not be rude when you leave the room to answer it.
2. Don't get your phone out on the train so that no-one thinks you are an idiot listening to music on a huge brick.

At the end of the day, these iPhone people and those with E90's etc are using them a "look at me" symbols and I am sure not many could care a less about how they look as they think they look great to start with.

And in anycase look at the iPod everyone had theirs out at first, then stories spread about how they were a target for muggers looking for the earphones now almost everyone has theirs in their bag/pocket. The iPhone will go the same way, it will lose it's status and just become another consumer device stuffed into bags and pockets.

This whole phone business is turning into a bizare circus. I am going to chuck away my N95 and get a Nokia 1208 and a Moleskine. I guarantee it won't adversely affect me in any way. On the contrary.

[slitchfield]

.... always fun to provoke debate on a Monday morning. 8-)

Personally, I couldn't care how I look or am perceived, but I thought Michael's observation was interesting and worth expanding....

[Tzer2]

iPhone gives people ease of use, the price is ok, no more then Nokia 8800.

You have got to be joking, the 8800 costs a fortune!

[doonit]

I work in the film industry and the beginning of last year I began working on a small, low budget movie. About the same time I had to send my laptop in for repairs. It was no big problem for me as I only need the laptop for working out my budgets with Excel, sending letters typed up with Word and generally sending and receiving emails. I made sure all my templates were loaded up with Quickoffice on my old E70 and went about my business as usual.

Other crew members saw me fiddling with my phone all the time and I was asked by a lot of people why I was always so busy with sms, or was I playing games? I felt I had to show everyone what I was actually doing and that it really was work. One or two people were impressed with what could be achieved on a little cell phone but most thought I was wasting my time and wrote it off as a "Loony-Toons" kind of show-off mission.

During that job I managed to drown my E70 in water and bought an E61 as a replacement. Immediately I found that people were taking what I was doing on the phone more seriously. The E61 (Nokiaberry) just looks more business-like than the E70 which, in closed mode, just looks like a regular phone. The funny thing about the E61 is that no-one ever asks me if I'm playing games or sending sms.

[bartmanekul]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

You have got to be joking, the 8800 costs a fortune!

They are nokias iphones, but even worse value for money.

Still, its not like your spoiled for choice if you want a nokia

[Jaggz]

Of all the phones in recent years, I would say that the Nokia N95 has played least to stereotypes. Certainly here in the UK they seem to be used by just about anyone - from college students to tax advisors - the demographic is broad to say the least.

[buster]

It's all very well saying that the E90 is a "passable music player", but if I'm not much mistaken, the music player app on the E90 is identical to that of the N-series devices; if that's the case, what's the difference? After all, many S60 devices do not have dedicated music controls. And anyway, if you use Bluetooth stereo headphones, which you can't yet do with an iPhone without using some kind of adapter, then you can avoid embarrassment by keeping you phone in your pocket...

And to the guy who said that E90 owners use them as "look at me" symbols, I suspect that's not true in most cases. I got my E90 simply because I wanted a phone that could do the things that I wanted, had a QWERTY keyboard and was *not* WM powered. Am I pleased to have an E90? Yes. Do I like what it can do? Yes. Do I care what anyone else thinks? Couldn't give a s**t!

[christexaport]

Steve, I loved this article. Excellent insight. Thank you.

Now let's discuss how I and other Nseries using Symbian Freaks perceive users of certain devices in certain places. I can go on forever about that!

[wampyre]

I do agree that people gets stereotyped after their phones.

Personally I find that I can mostly do the same on my N82 as on any other E-series devices when it comes to typing office documents or doing some own accounting on excel.

It will of course not look so nice as there is no querty keyboard there, but it works.

Taking this further I could have dragged out a Nokia SU-8W keyboard and then pressing away on that while looking on the screen of the N82.

There are indeed very much overlap, but the "lines" between the phones are advertising-based especially on how the manufacturers want us to see it.

What I do like about the N-series is in fact the multimedia properties, combined with the power of office working in one little package.

If I really need a big screen and more power I rather drag my laptop along with me.

And c'mon the time takes for N95 making a picture is shocking.

If you've got firmware released in the past 8 months, it's as fast as any digital camera.

Granted, there's the option of focusing which takes a little longer than a cameraphone that can't focus at all, and red-eye reduction with flash also takes a little longer than a cameraphone without a flash.

But it's a damn sight quicker at making video than the iPhone, which unless you're doing freezeframe Wallace and Gromit style gif animations is, um, next to useless. But I'm sure the Apple Fanboys can tell me that "video is just something you don't need". Like I didn't need 3G. Or GPS. But now I do apparently. Amazing how quickly these things can change - anyone would think it was all smoke and mirrors!