Googles Nexus One Specification

Size and weight  

Height :119mm

Width :59.8mm

Depth :11.5mm

Weight :130 grams w/battery

100g w/o battery

Display

3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen

800 x 480 pixels

100,000:1 typical contrast ratio

1ms typical response rate

Camera & Flash

5 megapixels

Autofocus from 6cm to infinity

2X digital zoom

LED flash

User can include location of photos from phone’s AGPS receiver

Video captured at 720x480 pixels at 20 frames per second or higher, depending on lighting conditions

Cellular & Wireless

UMTS Band 1/4/8 (2100/AWS/900)

HSDPA 7.2Mbps

HSUPA 2Mbps

GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz)

Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)

Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR

A2DP stereo Bluetooth

Power and battery

Removable 1400 mAH battery

Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger

Talk time
    Up to 10 hours on 2G
    Up to 7 hours on 3G
Standby time
    Up to 290 hours on 2G
    Up to 250 hours on 3G
Internet use
    Up to 5 hours on 3G
    Up to 6.5 hours on Wi-Fi
Video playback
    Up to 7 hours
Audio playback
    Up to 20 hours

Processor

Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz

Operating system
Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)

Capacity

512MB Flash
512MB RAM
4GB Micro SD Card (Expandable to 32 GB)

Location
Assisted global positioning system (AGPS) receiver
Cell tower and Wi-Fi positioning
Digital compass
Accelerometer

Additional features

• Haptic feedback
• Second microphone for active noise cancellation
• SIM card slot
• Micro SD slot
• Proximity sensor
• Light sensor

Language support

Display
    English (U.S), French (France), German, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil), Korean, Japanese, Russia

Keyboard
    English (U.S), French (France), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese (Brazil),

Opera Mini browser in iPhone

Opera Inc announced that it would preview Opera Mini browser for iPhone at the Mobile World Congress show next week in Barcelona, Spain, where it will demonstrate the software to partners and reporters. And then it intend to submit the browser to the App Store.

Opera Min seems to be compatible with requirement for App Store and company chief development officer claims that their product is not from any excluded technologies. Its is a different kind of browser and may not see any conflict with any requirements in the App Store.


Their is no clue on Safari future plan if Apple rejected its Opera mini to be used in its iPhone. If Opera Mini gets in App Store, it could be more than competitive with Safari, as Opera's browser offers features that Apple's lacks, such as multiple tabs and "speed dial" access to frequently-visited sites. Opera Mini uses integrated compression technology, which is designed to reduce wireless network congestion by compressing pages at Opera-maintained servers before they're passed on to the browser. Its claimed that Opera browser is 10 times faster than Safari.

Overview on GSM Technology

GSM Technology

GSM is the leading mobile standard commercially used worldwide. GSM provides easy interoperability, international roaming operations. It operates through SIM (Subscriber Identification Module) card. Same handset can be used for different handset. More than one SIM can be used in a handset.

In 1987, 13 European countries signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a common uniform interoperable telephone standard lead to formation of GSM standard in 1990 and further on later period. GSM technologies were all digital and address most of tele communication requirement expected by consumers.

GSM Standard was further updated in 1993 to enable SMS communication between mobiles. Another update to GSM standards was done to include general radio packet services now called GPRS. This lead to advancement of mobile features by letting person to access internet through mobile while traveling. The 3rd major update to GSM standard was made to enhance data rates for GSM evolution called EDGE.


How GSM Operates?

As like cells collectively form a living being. The GSM which only could communicate within a cellular bordered area, soon covered with many such cellular station covered signal distance of very long range.  When user makes a call, the mobile phones at any location  first searches for the nearest cellular station of highest strength. While the user on move, the mobile will

automatically changes the communication station from one cellular border to another without disconnecting the call, commonly called handing over process.

GSM had some limitation to cope with second generation standards which to allow multiple mobiles to use same available spectrum. This let to adoption of new technique called TDMA (Time division Multiple Access). In this technique, the conversion of one user for small finite duration is recorded, encoded and transmitted in a burst that lasts much shorter than duration of a second. Though GSM could handle only one call at a time, the quick conversion, signal transmission lets a impression to users that their call is single continuous call. This signal processing is done within a given range of frequencies.

The maximum number of simultaneous calls a cellular station can handle is based on  length of finite duration of conversion by burst factors which in turn depends on station techniques and  efficient standards used.

As said that GSM operates within a given range of frequencies, this range is defined by government of each country or by communication governing bodies, in some cases association of tele communication private company itself. European networks operate at 2100 MHz while Canada and USA uses frequency range of 950MHz spectrum. The range of frequency the GSM operators use are termed as Operation frequency bands. Hansets operates more than one band specifically termed as TriBand, Quad Bang which operate in all assigned frequencies.
 

A mobile user could find two uniqueness in their device. One is uniqueness of SIM card number and other is the unique number found in handset itself which is used for security reason (just to track down its origin, usage, locality definition etc..).  This handset number is called International Mobile Equipment Identification (IMEI) number. Encryption of the signal is also possible based on the IMEI once phone is authenticated by the base unit.



We will look at CDMA technology in next post.

Second Generation phones

                 By end of year 1980, digital telecommunication standards were developed. These system standards enabled  better voice quality with higher capacity and low cost.  Mobile systems in 90s are called 2G mobile phones.

Second Generation mobile technologies were different because of their use of digital circuit switched transmission. New advancements were made quickly to prolong the call for long time and to longer distance. The tele connection was quick and reliable compared to 1G mobile technology. It gained huge popularity both in developed, developing and under developed countries to great extend.
As there were more advancement introduced in the way the call was made and quality was increased, there were also remarkable increase in mobile phone compactness, simple, portable and handy. Which then made to one of fashion gadget by the end of 90s.

2G digital standards was launched in Finland in 1991. In 1993 “Short Messaging Service” SMS was sent in Finland from person to person cell phone. Its been a glorious days from then for mobiles developments. GSM is the leading popular telecommunication technology used. The second generation mobile telephones had several advantages over 1G items. These included SMS messaging, which initially became possible on GSM networks & eventually on all digital networks. Apart from private sector advancements in this sector, many other tele communication standards were developed to facilitate high data transfer possibilities..



Even with many developments, 2G had some issues compared to 1G's analog signals, 2G's digital signals are very reliant on location and proximity. If a 2G handset made a call far away from a cell tower, the digital signal may not be enough to reach it.  While a call made from a 1G handset had generally poor quality than that of a 2G handset, it survived longer distances. This is due to the analog signal having a smooth curve compared to thedigital signal , which had a jagged, angular curve. As conditions worsen, the quality of a call made from a 1G handset would gradually worsen, but a call made from a 2G handset would fail completely.

As 2G is more commercialised, the demand of its operation and expection from mobile was further increased from consumers. This lead to introduction of even higher data transfer standards and services which was names as 2.5 generation mobile standards and  technologies.

        When we discuss developments in 90s in telecommunication sector, we need to release advancement in both mobile features and network developments. While network operators increased their data transfer quality and quantity with new standards, mobile hanset providers gave exuberant additional features to their phones than its just a calling device. 

We will see each of all those technologies in detail in subsequent posts.

Zero and First Generation Phones

Mobile phones, also known as cellular phones or cell phones, are possibly one of best thing since 

the invention of wheel. Origin of phones goes with the development of radio. Initially, it was two way  communication radio point,  which could call each other but cannot call fixed line phone. Fixed line phones were generally used than wireless technology phones, since these phones were bulky, weighing ten of kilograms and was mostly used in vehicles and ofcourse in military bases.

      After many attempts, 1945 gave light for the problem. An experimental system was tested where a single base station transmitting a powerful signal covered far mentionable distance. Operating only one phone at a time, it  was still with major drawback. Further developments were made around 70s when frequency sharing was defined. The mobiles based on those technologies are considered to be Zero Generation or 0G phone. Actually  no commercial application was developed using 0G generation mobile technology.


Phones in the days of 70s and 80s are now referred to as first generation (1G) mobile phones. These are the wireless telecommunications based on 80s standards.

           The first phone was released by Motorola DynaTAC 8000X in 1983. That was a bulky, heavy hanset   compared to todays mobiles.   Phone with battery attached measures 19.5cm high x 4cm wide x 8cm deep. Antenna is 20cm long. Weight of package is 0.9kg. 

              Great days of mobile phones started from 90 decades with the introduction of cellphones. Cellphones are based on small wireless coverage network commonly called cell coverage.   There were lot of disadvantages to these technologies and cost of the call is set very huge.

Only people of high standard had one. And  many even at top of the society ignored because of the inconvenience faced in handling the device.

Then, subsequent models were released with reduced size, more functions added to the existing device functions. The wireless cell phone device which offered mainly very basic function of talking are reffered to as 1G generation phone. "First Generation" phrase got popular more when subsequent generation technology devices came into existence.

1G mobile phones were more popular in countries like japan, US and Scandinavian countries. 1G mobile phone were analogue and voice signals was not encoded but modulated to higher frequency.

I will blog on next rocking 2rd generation technologies in subsequent blogs.