Nokia BH-903 Review: Part 2 Keys, Performance and Conclusions

In my first post about Nokia BH-903, I talked about what makes this stereo Bluetooth headset unique among its competitors. To recap, it’s a 32-g headset with an in-the-ear style which is compatible with various V2.0 bluetooth profiles, comes with an OLED display and an internal FM radio, and provides more than 9 hours of music and talk time.

 

Keys

When you’re dealing with an ultra-light stereo Bluetooth headset, you should accustom yourself to its tiny keys and buttons, too. The BH-903’s keys can be found in two different locations. Music-related ones are located near the OLED display (that is at the end of two cables which connect the display unit to the earphones), and call-related ones and the microphone are on the small apparatus near the right earphone.

 

The OLED display and its surrounding buttons

The unit which is tightly attached to the end of the headset cables houses the display and a few buttons: IMG: Nokia BH-903 display and keys. Here Nokia engineers have tried to build the unit like a standard handset so as not to reinvent the wheel and make the lives of BH-903 users difficult. With this analogy in mind, if you take the main unit in your left hand, you’ll notice the Power button above the display (at the top of the unit). Holding it down for a few seconds switches the headset on, which is confirmed by a short beep heard through the earphones. To switch off the headset, hold the same key down for a couple seconds and you’ll hear a different beep to indicate that the system is no longer active. Also, the Power key can act as the lock/unlock key; that is, if you briefly press and release it, the headset is locked. To unlock the headset, you should do the same. The lock/unlock process is accompanied by two distinct beeps, and the OLED display helps you identify the lock/unlock status. At first, you might want to familiarize yourself with the display indicators, but the more you use the BH-903, the less you refer to the display.

The frequently mentioned OLED display is below the Power key and occupies about one-third of the attached unit. The display mimics the feel and look of a standard handset display as closely as possible. For instance, as you turn on the headset, the famous Nokia logo appears on the screen. By the same token, as you recharge the battery, the charging indicators can be seen there. When the headset is on but not used for about 10 seconds, the display goes to the power saving mode. In this mode, the display turns off for about 5 seconds and turns on for about 1 second at regular intervals. To activate the display when it is in the power saving mode, you should press any key.

Just below the display, a square area can be seen which houses several buttons. Most of these keys aren’t tactilely visible. The Previous/Rewind key is on the upper left side, and the Next/Fast forward key is located on the upper right side. These also act as the Scroll keys when the headset Menu is active. Just below these keys you can easily touch the slightly raised Selection key, useful when working with the menu. More interesting, however, is the touch-sensitive Volume key surrounding the Selection key. You should move your finger around the Selection key on the touch-sensitive area clockwise to increase or anticlockwise to decrease the volume, and the headset uses distinct beeps when the volume can no longer be altered either way. This is quite innovative and appeals to the style-conscious. The volume can easily be altered after spending a couple of minutes with the headset.

The Stop key is placed toward the bottom of the square area on the lower left side, and the Play/pause key is on the right side. The Menu key is situated below the square area toward the bottom of the main unit, and is useful when you want to access different functions of the headset such as the music player, the FM radio, recent calls and settings. By default, the headset turns on with the music player in the foreground and whenever you access music-related functions on your handset, the headset also switches to the music player. Just to clarify, the Settings option allows you to adjust the display brightness, manage Bluetooth devices, set the auto-keylock time, select a desired language and reset the headset. The headset settings can also be reset by holding down the Power key and the Answer/End key at the same time, and pressing the Selection key to confirm the operation while the headset is switched off. Finally, the charging socket is located at the bottom of the unit on the opposite of the Power button.

The call buttons

The small control near the right earphone houses the midget microphone on the back, the Mute key on the side, and the relatively bigger Answer/End call key on the front. When someone calls, you can press the Answer/End call key once to accept it, or twice to reject it. When no call is in progress, press the Answer/End call key twice to call the last dialed number. Pressing this key once ends a call during a conversation. The built-in microphone can also be used for audio-recording in spite of the fact that the microphone quality doesn’t match that of the handset microphone.

The FM radio

One of the benefits of a so-called cabled wireless stereo Bluetooth headset is that its cables act as the antenna for the built-in FM radio. To use this feature, press the Menu key and select FM radio. You’ll immediately hear the familiar sound associated with FM receivers.

To search for radio stations, hold down the Forward or Rewind key for about 2 seconds. To stop the search, you should press the Stop key. When the headset finds a station, the station starts to play and the name, frequency, and signal strength of the station are displayed. According to the BH-903 manual, the station name is displayed only if the station supports the RDS (Radio Data Systems) technology. Anyhow, to save the station in the headset, hold down the Play/ Pause key, press the Forward or Rewind key to move to the desired memory location, and hold down the play/pause key. To move among saved stations, press the Forward or Rewind key repeatedly. To pause listening to the radio, press the Stop key, and to resume listening, press the Play/Pause key. Finally, to stop listening to the radio and exit the radio, press the Stop key twice. I’ve found the voice quality to be pleasantly acceptable.

It’s worth mentioning that using the FM radio requires the memorization of these functions for the visually impaired because the headset doesn’t offer an accessible interface when it comes to using the radio. The same can be said about accessing the Settings or the Recent calls option from the menu.

 

Concluding remarks

With all the details interspersed, you might be wondering if Nokia BH-903 is my desired headset. To be quite frank, it’s not. It’s true that with the BH-903 you get an FM radio, an OLED display and an ultra-portable unit, but I’ve never been a fan of in-the-ear headphones/headsets because I find this wearing style problematic, to say the least. Due to the fact that the headset uses small earphones, the audio quality it provides noticeably fails to match that of the over-ear Nokia BH-604 and Nokia BH-503. I’m bold enough to claim that the BH-903 isn’t for audiophiles; rather, it’s been designed to meet the needs of frequent commuters who want to carry as light and portable a headset as possible. Neither can it filter out surrounding sounds as efficiently as the aforementioned headsets. Also, as hilarious as it might sound, I’ve noticed that the BH-903 requires a pocketed shirt to house the display unit comfortably. Otherwise, the highly desirable OLED display would shamelessly move leftward and rightward when you take a stroll or you have to hide it under your shirt. Finally, I’ve found out that the BH-903 is quite sensitive to key touches; that is, the sound you hear through its earphones tend to lose or gain extra pitch as you press a key on either the handset or the headset. This also happens when the headset is connected to a compatible Bluetooth-enabled computer: namely my Dell XPS M1210 notebook which has Windows Vista SP1. All in all, Nokia BH-503 still remains my preferred stereo Bluetooth headset.

All said, I should admit that the BH-903 functions quite efficiently compared with other in-the-ear units on the market, and what I’ve mentioned regarding the BH-903 is typical of all in-the-ear headsets. Other than that, Nokia BH-903 has a high-quality microphone which is perfect for both telephonic conversations and audio recording. If your number-one need is a light headset with an OLED display, don’t hesitate to purchase Nokia BH-903.

 

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Comes with an OLED display,
• Offers decent battery life,
• Has an FM radio,
• Locks its keys manually or automatically,
• Allows accessing the “recent calls” list,
• Is highly portable,
• Appeals to fashionmongers,
• Enjoys innovative touch-sensitive volume keys,
• Uses distinct audible beeps and visual cues to indicate different actions,
• Comes with sturdy cables.

 

Cons:

• Its cables might get in the way sometimes,
• The in-the-ear style doesn’t provide a totally secure wearing experience,
• Offers average audio quality,
• Doesn’t have an accessible interface for the visually impaired,
• Would have been more comfortable with tactilely identifiable keys.

A Company with a Wide Range of Inaccessible Applications

While I was taking a look at a few applications to be reviewed on my blog, I came across X-plore – the famous file browser for 3^rd Edition handsets, produced by Lonely Cat Games. This application is totally inaccessible with Symbian screen readers. Neither can the TALKS Object Viewer detect its text fields, nor can you read a single character inside X-plore. Ashamedly, this is said to be the best file manager for 3^rd Edition handsets. At any rate, I was curious to see if the same is true about other applications produced by this company, and found out that LCG Jukebox which is a Symbian music player, SmartMovie which is a video player, Slick which is an all-in-one mobile messenger, and ProfiMail which is a highly popular S60 email client are all inaccessible. The more saddening fact is that I cannot find the company’s contact information on their web site to see if something can be done about this on their part. This means I didn’t have a good day today.

Update on the Status of Open Signed Online

Remember the online petition we managed to sign for Nokia regarding the inaccessibility of its Open Signed Online beta service? That petition got an amazing number of 86 signatures, and I made it available to several Nokia officials including head of the Nokia Accessibility Department. The process was smoother than I thought — courtesy of a good blog visitor, Per. Anyway, today a Nokia representative replied to my email concerning this issue, and you can read it below. I sincerely hope Nokia comes up with an accessible captcha system for all its web services soon.

Dear Amir,

Thank you for your email and feedback.

I have forwarded it to relevant persons in Nokia.

Best regards

___________________________________

Nokia

Press Services, Communications

press.services@nokia.com

+358 7180 34900

www.nokia.com/press

Y-Browser Updated to V0.88

I’m wondering why the super-popular free S60 3rd Edition file browser, Y-Browser, hasn’t yet been updated to V1.0. Whatever the cause, Y-Browser V0.88 is now available for download, and this time it’s not a MOSH-only application. The update brings several bug fixes, provides FP2-compatibility and offers new features like file type associations and command shortcuts available via its Settings menu. In addition, the download page now offers updated V0.88-compatible plug-ins such as BtObex sender, Mail folders, Text viewer and Zip.

If you are a Symbian screen reader user, note that Y-Browser 0.88 doesn’t work smoothly with screen readers. That is, as you press Right to move to the list of files inside a folder and then press Up and Down to navigate among the files inside that folder, both TALKS and Mobile Speak tend to repeat the full directory path before reading the file name which gains focus. This is much more noticeable with TALKS as the so-called screen refreshes get announced in rapid successions — something for both screen reader developers to look at. I’ve used my N82 to test both screen readers with Y-Browser 0.88.

Open Signed Online not Accessible to the Visually Impaired

Nokia has launched a beta service which is called Open Signed Online. It allows users to sign their unsigned S60 applications for a specified IMEI number. On Monday the service received a major boost by becoming available 24 hours per day. Eventually it is supposed to help us sign SIS files without having a developer account on the Symbian Signed web site. This is because currently many S60 applications which have proved to be quite handy aren’t signed and the available self-signing mechanism is a headache, to say the least.

At any rate, this important service cannot be utilized by the visually impaired because both the registration page and the application submission process make use of a captcha system which offers no audio alternative. Simply put, the visually impaired have no way of accessing Open Signed Online other than asking a sighted person to read the visual verification code every time an application should be submitted.

If you are interested in removing this barrier, please comment on this post. Simply copy and paste the following sentence into your comment:

“Visual verification without an alternative audio captcha prevents the blind and partially sighted from filling out forms on the internet; as a consequence, I’d like Nokia to implement audio captcha for the Open Signed Online service.”

Everyone can sign this online petition regardless of whether or not they’re visually impaired. I’m going to send the comments to the Nokia Accessibility division as well as the Open Signed Online team. Thanks for your cooperation.

Google Mobile vs. Google Classic

As I want to start surfing the web, I face a strange problem. I’ve set my homepage to Google, that is, http://www.google.com. When I go to my homepage, Google displays its page using the “mobile” style because, true enough, I use the Nokia N81 or Nokia N82 to access the S60 web browser. Sadly, though, I don’t like the mobile style and, as such, select the link called “classic” to carry out my searches. I like the classic style primarily owing to the fact that it gives me more navigation options via the assistance of my S60 screen reader: Nuance TALKS. When you perform a search, for instance, Google classic displays each result in a heading and I can easily move back and forth around headings. This is totally missing in Google mobile.

Now you’re wondering what the problem is? Each time I go to Google, I get the mobile page not the classic page even after setting it to classic in a previous session. In other words, Google doesn’t remember my preference and always forces me to start with Google mobile. That wasn’t the case, but I’ve been fighting it over the past two weeks or so. Do you know any workarounds or solutions?

What is running in the background?

When S60 FP1 devices were being manufactured, everyone tried to make sense of what the Fp1 platform was to offer. The benefits are numerous, from faster reboot time to the availability of more RAM and a tweaked OS. However, one of the neat features of FP1 devices is related to how users can tell whether an application is running in the background without having to go to the “task manager”. This has become possible via the addition of a new icon to the menu. When an application runs in the background and you reach the name of that application on the menu, a new icon will notify you of its activity in the background.

What does this mean? It means that a screen reader like Nuance TALKS can easily label that icon, and users can also do it themselves. To do it, first press TALKS key+long 4 to activate the TALKS Graphics mode. Then go to the menu, open an app like Contacts, and press the Menu key to move to the Menu again without actually closing Contacts. You’ll notice that TALKS reads the name of 3 icons before it says “Contacts”. Now move to the Contacts app, close it, and move to the Menu. This time, TALKS just reads the name of 2 icons because Contacts is no longer running. This helps you become familiar with the icon name which is used to indicate if an application is open in the background.

Having recognized the name of that icon, open an application from the Menu, return to the Menu without closing that application, locate the application you’ve opened, and use the TALKS Object Viewer, TALKS key+long Select, to locate and label that icon. Alternatively, if you own an N82 and want to make use of this feature without labeling that icon, just post a comment and I’ll send my labeled N82 icons to your email address. For your information, when you send a comment to my blog posts, I receive an email which tells me what your email is.

N82 firmware update is a milestone

Yesterday I managed to update my N82 firmware to V11.0.117 10-12-07 RM-313 Nokia N82 (23.01). The update size was 98.4MB and with a 256KBPS ADSL connection it took less than 150 minutes to grab the update. It also took about 4 minutes in order for the firmware update to be transferred to the handset.

As updating was over and the phone restarted, TALKS started reading the phone screens immediately. In fact, neither was I forced to set the date/time, reinstall my applications, re-adjust the menu structure, restore my contacts, and so forth. This is “user data preservation (UDP)” in full swing.

I call this a milestone because the N82 is the first cell phone in general and the first Nokia handset in particular to have implemented user data preservation. Moreover, this is also a welcome change for Symbian screen reader users who won’t be forced to reinstall their screen readers if UDP finds its way into other Nokia handsets. Kudos to Nokia!

How does “accessibility” fit into Nokia’s strategies?

These days, thanks to Symbian S60 screen readers, we’re allowed to use cell phones and take advantage of the latest enhancements which companies like Nokia incorporate into their cell phones. However, apart from the features screen readers provide, do you think Nokia is playing a constructive role in making the situation better? I think the answer to this question is at least partially manifested in a web site called Nokia Accessibility.

Set up by Nokia, this web site outlines the features Nokia incorporates into its handsets to help people with various types of disability. Under the section titled Vision, Nokia provides a list of features which have been either designed or tweaked with the visually impaired in mind. They are:

• Text-to-speech,
• Nokia PC Suite,
• Nokia Audiobooks,
• Nokia Conversation,
• Message Reader,
• Product manuals in alternate formats.

While Nokia deserves our praise in this regard, in my opinion a lot more should be done to improve the aforementioned items and features. For instance, the TTS engine Nokia ships with many handsets is inferior to commercial ones. Just take a look at how the Nokia TTS sounds when used with a screen reader like Nuance TALKS. True, some Nokia handsets have RealSpeak voices, but this is not the popular trend to equip each and every top-selling handset with an engine like this. Moreover, recent releases of the Nokia PC Suite are poorly accessible to say the least, and Nokia simply provides the following instructions to make using the PC Suite with Windows screen readers a smoother experience:

• Disable the autorun when PC Suite is loaded. (You can’t use JAWS or a screen reader with autorun on any of the devices.)
• To disable the autorun, press and hold the shift key while the CD is being recognized. Then choose “manually install” PC Suite with help from JAWS.
• When PC Suite finishes installing, connect the phone to the PC, go to Explorer, and find the third-party text-to-speech software installer.
• Install the text-so-speech application.

Yes, the typo also comes from Nokia! At any rate, I’m sure many of you have noticed that even installing Nokia PC Suite with its graphical buttons which must be labeled first is a pain in the neck.

Nokia Audiobooks and Nokia Conversation are new concepts whose material applications are not, currently at least, totally compatible with Symbian screen readers. Also, the PDF files Nokia provides for its products are accessible to Windows screen readers; however, they make use of graphics rather than text blocks to mention keys and hot keys, thereby preventing visually impaired users from reading them.

At the end of the day, I hate to be called an “accessibility hawk” by you. I’ve been using Nokia handsets for years, and I truly believe in what Nokia has done to help people with disabilities, and compared with other companies, it’s well ahead of the game. However, it shouldn’t stop here. As for software issues, I think Nokia’s Accessibility department should work with screen reader developers so as to release a product with fewer accessibility glitches. As a case in point, when 3^rd Edition Nokia handsets were made available, visually impaired users lost the ability to use their screen readers on a call, and it took more than a year for screen reader developers to fix this glitch, partially at least. And currently Nokia Search is inaccessible to all Symbian screen reader users. Here the bottom line is that screen reader manufacturers shouldn’t start work on a particular handset when it just reaches the market. In the first place, how long did it take for Nuance and Code Factory to release their products for 3^rd Edition cell phones?

What else do you think should be done to alter the current situation?