Nokia 9500 review: Communication expert

Office

A mobile device whose main aim is to make user's work easier has to unconditionally support Microsoft Office applications. I did not pamper the communicator providing tests in relatively complicated Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. To make it absolutely real I sent the testing files into the communicator via email.

Text editor

I tested Nokia by using Oskar press news with a massive graphic heading. I also added a table and a few pictures to the document. Its final size climbed up to 255 kB.

At the beginning it takes Nokia approximately 20 seconds to switch the document to its internal format. Then I find out the graphical heading has gone. Its letters were white so now with the background being white nothing can be seen. Even though paragraph formatting seems to be problematic for long gaps appeared in several parts of the text, as a whole the rest of the text is readable. The Bold and the Italics did very well as well as the inserted pictures. The table opens in a reference format; by clicking on it it opens in a new window. As a result the document has passed the test for it is readable enough.

Conversion • Word document on the communicator's display

The table appears in the preview • a click makes it bigger

Picture inserted

Now I am going to create a new document on Nokia 9500, send it to the computer and try to open it in the desktop Word. I appreciate the fact that the editor gives me various possibilities when setting the font size - I am not limited to three levels as it happens in other applications. I have applied fonts and copied a sentence using the Box. I have tested italic, bold, a different font and size; I have inserted a table, a picture and a graph. And finally I have sent the whole document via email straight from the text editor.

But what is going on? Word on the PC denies opening the file. That is because I have forgotten to apply the option SAVE AS and select a Microsoft Word format. Yet finally not even does this tip help me. Even though I have spent several hours playing with various export options, I have not come to a solution.

Update 08 Dec 2004: The Word and Excel incompatibility was in fact a problem with the Czech version of Windows XP SP2. The users with other versions of Windows should have no such problems.

Spreadsheet editor

I am opening a spreadsheet with reviews and evaluations of the communicators. It has several pages, various types of formatting and long figures. I have to once again wait for the conversion to get accomplished, which takes about five minutes this time. Well, the file was more than 500 kB…The table finally comes out, but it is obvious that the communicator is overwhelmed. I have overdone this test and I am happy Nokia has not frozen completely. I manage to close the file at least.

I am trying a smaller document now. Nokia is reading it much faster. Again I can freely change its size. A relatively big table is getting opened on the internal display. The image is equivalent and communicator keeps the original formatting. After a detailed inspection though I notice that the converter has used values instead of the complicated functions; the table has lost some of its value and has practically become a statistic document without structure.

A relatively big number of cells can be viewed on the internal display

I created a table with a function in the communicator and saved it in Excel. I failed to open it in Microsoft Excel on the computer though.

Saving the table in a different format

Presentation

I gave up the origin idea to send the communicator a 2 MB presentation from PowerPoint. I did it with a smaller and simpler file. The communicator did not manage to open it though. At least I was successful with opening a document created in Nokia in a PC program for the first time.

To sum up: Nokia reads documents in Word and Excel. Yet files created in the communicator were not possible to open on PC, which is strange because the old communicator used to manage this task without a problem. Anyway I am going to do more testing with transferring documents between the communicator and the PC.

Organizing time

Time organizing applications in the communicator are among the most important ones as well. They rely on data synchronizing with the computer. I was glad to find out that Nokia uses the same version of the program package PC Suit for a all its new products - shall they be common mobile phones, smartphones or the communicator in this particular case. So I came to the computer, connected it to Nokia through Bluetooth , started PC Sync, set up synchronizing parameters for the first time and just in few seconds I had all contacts, the complete calendar, all tasks and emails transferred to the communicator. Unfortunately notes do not get synchronized and it is not possible to exactly map each file.

Note: The 9500 model disposes of an application Data transfer, which allows transferring data from the old communicator into the new one.

A basic part of the organization process is the clock and the alarm clock. The latter has a repeated sound; it is multiple and can be named. World time set is a part of this application as well.

Clock and alarm clock

The clock is followed by a calendar in a combination with a to-do list. The calendar is just brilliant. It synchronizes not only appointment's name, but also notes, alarm notice and other important details. Data can be browsed from different points of view. Moreover this particular application opens really quickly - all you have to do is press a key and you see your tasks right away.

A basic view • Agenda • Task detail

Everyday view • Yearly view

Weekly view • Weekly planning view

Anniversary • Task list

The address book is just as good as the calendar. It is detailed, fast and allows a quick look up by consecutive writing of the names' first letter. Again you could synchronize whatever you would like to.

The address book with contacts (on the left) is different from the telephone one, but they both use the same database.

Name detail • dialing a telephone number

The call records are very detailed