Basically, the Mini Olympics is a little Fun to pay Tribute to the actual Olympic Games that take Place right now in Vancouver, Canada! (waving over to Mr. Tom Hall, hows it going over there my Friend?) WOM World has named a Team Captain for every Country participating, for the winning Team of Austria, I’ll be the Team Captain. Each Leader had Time over the Weekend to recruit a Team of 3 – 5 Members, and basically, we’re set to go!

Beginning today, WOM World Nokia sends out a Mobile Game every day, which will be this Day’s competition. Over the course of the day, each time will play the game and twitpic the highscores on twitter! WOM World will do a leaderboard and post the best results. The winning Team will be getting medals (and who knows, maybe something else?!) I’m looking forward to this, really, although i’m not a Mobile Gamer, i’m sure we’ll score the big Victory! :p

Team Austria consists of 5 Members by the Way, all ready to rock’n'roll:

• Grand Duke Roman Schweigler – S60 Inside
• Earl Marco – S60 Inside
• Baron Chris von Stobbs – Nomads Nirvana (honorary Member of Team Austria)
• Lord Markus G. – works for Calista – Mobile Internet Solutions, and is a good Friend!
• Team Captain: Emperor Michael von Hell – yours truly!

oh and of course, not to forget:

• her Highness, Queen Lid Millet – as the official Mascot for Team Austria!

The Teams are slowly getting ready, so this should be great Fun. Lots of prominent Names, so some cool Battles and Trash Talk are guaranteed:

CJ (from zomgitscj.com): @xMichaelSFx omg we totally have snow somewhere in North India. Gets tropical as you go south We HAZ ALL THE WEATHERZ #miniolympics PWN!

Me: @clintonjeff you should “totally” ask zac efron to join your team :pppp #miniolympics #teamaustriaFTW

CJ: @xMichaelSFx only if you allow Bruno to join yours #miniolympics #TeamIndia PWN !

So as you can see, the Stage is set, everyone is ready, so let’s get the Game started! If you wanna follow us, adjust your Search to #miniolympics on Twitter and have Fun while supporting Team Austria!!

So if you wanna see what two motivated, young Indians have to say about the Nokia N97, check out the Links below and tell them what you think! Writing a first Review is always something very exciting, giving your Best to impress the People you’re talking to and writing with. My Opinion? Job done Boys, very nice Work!!

32GB|5MP Carl Zeiss|nHD3.5″- The Grand Nokia N97! by Arun

Nokia N97 Review by Siraj

So without further adue, check out my Interview over at Nokiausers.net and let us know what you think about it!

Nokiausers – An Interview with Nokia Enthusiast – Michael Hell

Jon took this really serious it seems, i guess it was he just knew that those Guys know what they’re doing. Check out the latest Episode of Phoneage to get a nice Wrap-up of what happened so far at the Mobile World Congress so far – and check out my Appearance near the End of the Video!

Source: SEMC Blog

Source: SEMC Blog

I was skeptic, had no Idea what to think about it, but i wanted to get to know the Booklet. My very good Friends of WOM World Nokia have contacted me recently and gave me exactly that Opportunity – giving me some Time with the Nokia Booklet 3G and see what it’s all about. Keep in Mind, I’m far away from being a Computer Expert. I learned over the Years how to burn a CD, but please don’t ask me deep technical Details, i just don’t know. With that in Mind, i spent two Weeks with the Booklet (Thanks again to Nokia Austria for helping out with a Euro Charger Cable) and here’s what i have in Mind about it:

Hardware

Straight out of the Box the Booklet looked incredibly well. A shiny black Top Finish on the Display Part with a silver Nokia Sign on it starts off a very well-built Netbook, and the Build Quality continues to impress. The whole Body of the Booklet is made of Aluminium, it feels solid, durable and very high quality – i’m a big fan of that. With something around 1.25 kg (according to Nokia), the Booklet is not too heavy and can be easily carried around all day on the Road. I actually did that when i spent a Day in Vienna recently and never felt like my Shoulder was about to fall off. Measuring  264 x 185 x 19.9 mm it is also very suitable for Shoulderbags like i’m usually wearing .. oh, and the Size is very attractive to Girls lol.

Looking at the left Side of the Booklet, we have several Connectors for HDMI (which works okay if you do light work), 2 USB Plugs, 3,5mm Audio Jack and one of 2 built-in Loudspeakers. While the front Side remains empty, the right Side contains the Charger Plug, a third USB Plug, SD Card and SIM Card Slot (this is what the 3G stands for, you know), the On/Off Button and the 2nd Speaker. All in all, the Booklet’s Connectivity is pretty good, i never felt i miss something there. Of course, one can always wish more (a eSATA plug f.e.), but if you stay with the “on the road”-spirit of the Booklet, you certainly will NOT have an external HDD with you. 120 GB of internal HDD should be more than enough to have all your important Documents, Songs and Videos with you – wherever you go.

Opened up, the Booklet reveals a 10.1″ Screen with a 1280×720 Resolution. The Display is hidden behind a Glass Frame, so it’s hard to damage, another Sign of a well-done Build Quality. Above the Screen is a 1,3 MP Webcam, that has no Application to fire it up. I have no Idea why, but it is like it is. I tried and it gets recognized by Windows Live Messenger etc, but if you wanna snap a quick Picture, you’re lost. Since i don’t do it that often, i didn’t search for a 3rd party app, but i’m sure there are some out there.

Underneath the Screen is the black Keyboard. Very nice buttons in my humble opinion, typing on them was a lot of fun. The feedback was okay, the spacing was just right, even some of my friends with larger fingers were flying on it. The only Problem i had, which made me freak out literally, was the “Fn” Button, on the far left Side of the Keyboard. Get used to hit CTRL+C for the past 13 Years and then have a Keyboard that has the Buttons switched. You’ll know what i’m talking about. The Trackpad, underneath the Keyboard works nice, even having a slight touch of multitouch – like pinch for zooming in a website, worked well in both, IE and Google Chrome, my new favourite Browser.

Battery Life

I’d like to give this a separated Mention, as this was really important for me. Although the Booklet isn’t exactly a Powerhouse (more on that down below), the absolute best feature about the booklet is it’s Battery Life. Although it does not reach the promised 12 Hours in my Case, it worked well for about 8 1/2 Hours, connected to WLAN. Very impressive Score i must say, easy to get through your whole Day without any Needs for Power. Very well done Nokia!

Software/Performance

The Booklet 3G is “powered” by Windows 7, Starter Edition. Which is already the weakest Point of the whole Experience. While my first Try of 7 was a pretty nice one, and i can imagine using it on my Laptop/PC, it was a different Story combined with the Booklet’s internals. Looking through the Specs Sheet (Intel® Atom Z530 with 1.6 GHz and 1 GB RAM), this might already indicate that this is no Powerhouse by any means, and well, to make a long story short, the Booklet is HORRIBLY underpowered. The 1 gig RAM is NOT expandable, which means there is no Hope for a bit more Power, you’re stuck with the current Setup.

My normal Application Setup when i use a PC/Laptop is: Tweetdeck (Twitter), Thunderbird (Mails) and Google Chrome (Internet browsing). I know Tweetdeck is not exactly a RAM-saving Application, but i just love to use it, and lets be honest – What is the Point of a Netbook, when you can’t use your favourite Applications on the Go!? As if this wasn’t enough, Things get a lot worse if you wanna do Stuff additional to the above mentioned Programs. Try listening to Music, Windows Live Messenger and maybe watch a Youtube Video besides. At least one of those Things will horribly lag, and you will also notice that the Apps take a really long Time to open and be ready to work on. Speaking of my favourite Video Service, Youtube HD (720p) does not work fluently, it stucks a lot and eventually, you want to throw the Booklet on the Wall get frustrated. So much for HD Video Playback. I didn’t try with .mkv-Files but something tells me that it won’t work well either.

Another bad Point is the Starter Edition of Windows 7. Would we ask too much if we want Home Premium? Hell, we can’t even change a frickin Wallpaper on the Starter Edition. Aero is  missing, which is a feature i really like on Vista, and now i have to miss it on the Booklet. Maybe it hasn’t enough Power to run the Taskswitch smoothly? Who knows..

To continue with Things that are missing, where exactly is Nokia on the Booklet? I mean, we have the Nokia Sign on several Spots, but software-wise, i missed the Nokia Touch. I’m not sure if my Booklet was maybe used already – I read on Mark Guim’s The Nokia Blog, that he had Ovi Suite installed already – no matter where i looked, all i found was the Nokia Social Hub Application. Nokia Social Hub collects all your Data and puts it into one Place for you. Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and even your SMS messages are collected. The Idea itself is pretty good, but very basic for now. Since i use all the Services myself i actually like the Idea, i just think it needs a few more Features to be good enough to get me away from Tweetdeck.

What do i get and what does it cost me?

• Nokia Booklet 3G
• Nokia Computer Battery BC-1S
• AC/DC power adapter
• Quick setup guide
• Nokia Headset WH-205
• Nokia USB charging multi-cable CA-126
• Cleaning cloth

Another major Downside of the Booklet 3G is the insane price tag. I just had a look at Amazon.de and the Booklet still costs around € 750,– here, which in my Opinion is as much overpriced as it is underpowered. Nokia, my 16″ Acer Laptop (2 GHz dual-core, 4GB RAM, ATI HD 4570, 320 GB HDD) has cost € 699,– a year ago. And it works. fast. powerful. fluently. 50 euro cheaper. I mean, yes the Hardware is extremely well-built, but from the User Experience you get , 750 euro is waaaayyyy too much. The only Operator that already sells the Booklet is A1 (Vodafone) and they still charge € 399,– for it PLUS a 24 months contract! The pricing is ridiculous and is FOR SURE one of the main reasons why a lot of people will turn away from the Booklet. Let’s face it, there are better Netbooks out there, for less Money. I hate to say this, but that’s exactly how i feel and the People i talked to about the Booklet.

Conclusion

The Nokia Booklet 3G is a mixed Bag of Nuts. Nokia did a very nice Job in choosing the Materials for the Chassis, the Booklet feels VERY solid, thanks to the Aluminium used on it all over. The Battery Life of more than 8 Hours also deserves a Praise, but from there, it goes downside unfortunately. The Specs are an enormous Funkiller, you can feel from the Moment you put first Apps on it, that it’s extremely underpowered. Having a few Apps opened already results in laggy Software, not even the Transitions in the Ovi Suite run smoothly. I gave the Booklet to some random People to try a bit and the Results were pretty much the same – it’s too slow. way too slow. 4 of 4 People would not buy the Booklet – and to be honest, while i love the Size, Build Quality and Battery, i wouldn’t buy the Booklet either – It’s just too expensive for the bad Performance. Still, i’m looking forward to future releases, let’s see if Nokia can do it better with upcoming Booklets, so that i can get one for myself too

In a hot tub.

Using an Android Phone.

If you go by Verizon’s recent “Droid is for Men, Pre is for Women”-Video, the Devour is the next Men Phone. Line of the Day came from Phonearena, who said it’s too bad that the Phone doesn’t come bundled with Fox! lol. well, for your viewing pleasure, here comes the Commercial, enjoy:

Recently, Jon has had some health Problems, and as you could see in his Apologies-Videos, he certainly had a hard Time. Good News is, he is back on Track and everything’s running like before. In the Meanwhile, yours truly and little Marie-Sophie on the Picture left, had prepared something very nice for Jon, and well, i’m proud we were mentioned in the Video. iPad, Nexus One, Hitler and Marie-Sophie, what a Mix!! lol  The Pictures were fun doing, cause little Marie desperately tried to destroy the Paper. We were lucky to snap at least some Pictures – check out the Video below and of course, let Jon know what you think