NMT welcomes the Varun, editor in chief, from FoneArena. FoneArena is great site which handles all types of mobile news, running stories on blackberry, windows mobile, android, and off course our beloved Nokia’s.
Tell us a little about your background and what lead you to start blogging about Smartphones?
My first phone was a Nokia 6230 , not a smart phone though . It was very expensive back then in 2004. I wanted to know what’s so special about smart phones. I got interested in mobile specs nokia in particular, which is very popular in my country – India. Almost 7 out of 10 phones in India are Nokia. But back then there was not a single site talking about mobile phones available in my country. So I started writing about them. And now there are tons of blogs and sites talking about mobiles all over the world.
Tell us about your team, I see it’s quite diverse?
It’s a small team. Originally it was just like my personal blog focused on mobile phones. From there it has grown to a widely read mobile blog. I should thank all my Co-Bloggers for the same. Currently, we have more than 5 bloggers and the team is evolving all the time. The main reason I encourage multiple authors is for diversity. Even then it’s practically impossible to cover all the news happening in the mobile world on a daily basis. I am still looking for bloggers .
What are your thoughts and wishes for the newly created Symbian Foundation?
Symbian has improved a lot of over the years . It’s a very popular OS and the OVI Store is going to bring us a lot more apps. I wish Symbian becomes a faster OS .I wish them the best of luck in their new venture.
What are you thoughts on Nokia’s other competitors ie. Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Android
Blackberry rocks when it comes to corporate email users. Nokia Messaging looks like a bold attempt to compete with Blackberry. But Blackberry fails as an all rounder phone.
Windows Mobile is a good OS. I had a chance to play with the HTC Touch Pro recently and it was nice.But only problem is that I found the interface not that easy to use. Probably WM 6.5 and 7 might pose tough competition to Symbian.
Competition is always good for the consumer. It means we can expect more innovative devices from Brands. Just like the iPhone sparked off the Touchscreen War.
What are your top 5 favorite applications and why?
Shozu – best for image uploads
Gmail – Email on the Go
Google Maps – Free GPS
Gravity – Best Twitter Client for Symbian
Nimbuzz – for chatting on the road
What advice can you give new bloggers in general?
My main advice to bloggers is that they should not bring just plain news, but also add some nice editorial touch too it, like a personal rant or reference to an old post. It makes your blog more interesting.
You should be part of the community. Make friends with other bloggers, stay in touch with each other.
What are you two favorite Nokia Smartphones of all time and which smartphone are you looking forward to use?
E71 – Nothing can beat this one. I also love the 6630.
I’m looking forward to the N97
What are the most seen or visible Nokia smartphones in your country or region?
Right now E71, E63 and 5800 are very popular. Previously it was the N-Series – N72, N73
N86 or N97 what is gonna be, or perhaps both, hmm, share some insights?
N86 with 8MegaPixel Camera sounds great for a phone. Would have been nice if it had a Xexon Flash. I really like the N82 . It clicked great pics even in bad light.
After using the 5800 Touchscreen. I was dying for a real keypad. Touchscreen is cool but does not do justice to all applications. N97 seems to be really interesting device . I can’t wait to try it out next month.
What role do you see Samsung taking with new Symbian releases, has the gauntlet been thrown at Nokia?
Competition is heating up. I’m looking forward to the Omnia HD, too bad they did not announce the winners of the bloggers contest yet.
Till now each handset maker was using a different OS on its phones. Its nice to see Nokia opening up Symbian. Samsung using Symbian is cool.
Mac or PC what kind of guy are you?
I use Windows on my Primary PC, carry a Macbook and the site runs on a Linux server 
What’s your favorite color, sport, blog(not related to Nokia), movie, PC Operating System, and music band.
Black is my favorite color. I love Cricket and F1,boingboing.net is a cool site. Matrix is the best movie I have watched so far, I like Windows and I love listening to the Beatles
Varun thank you for feedback, it was great
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