Author: Rita

Nokia N8, The Initial List Of Fourteen Wins And Fails

The N8 (or Nate as I’m growing used to call it) is here. It’s been released, it’s shipping, and people all around the world are receiving their units. Finally, after too long a wait, I have an N8 in my hands, for a proper test and review. Following my “The N8 is Perfect, There, I said it” assertion, there really is very little I can say to top it up. Or can I?

The N8 landed in my hands 2 days ago, and while I still maintain that it IS the perfect handset for the photography and multimedia buffs, I had mentioned that it doesn’t target me, and I’m not particularly thrown towards buying one. So, over the last 48 hours, I’ve gone from awe to oh to ouch and back to awe several times with the N8 in my hands. Here is the compiled initial list of N8 wins and fails, in my book.

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Dear Nokia, If US Developers Don’t Come Now, I’m Afraid They Never Will

We all know that while there are a lot of cool developer houses in Asia, Europe and Africa, for whom coding for Nokia, and Symbian more specifically, is on the high priority list, there are still tons of amazing software companies in North America who would rather play the lottery by publishing their titles on iOS and Android amongst fierce competition by hundreds of thousands of other apps, than play The Wheel of Fortune and work on Symbian where getting any fame is almost a guarantee.

So why am I making the statement that if developers don’t come now, I don’t think they ever will? Well because of three factors essentially.

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10 Reasons The Nokia E5 Is The Best Affordable Social Smartphone

Nowadays, it is easy to get lost in a discussion about raw power, stellar hardware specs, and the high-end smartphone market. But what many websites and analytics forget is that the vast majority of people, worldwide, want a decent mobile that can help them in their everyday life without punching a ginormous hole in their savings account. The Nokia E5 is one of the latest smartphones that falls into the affordable category, while still managing to cram enough features to appeal to the most social nutcase amongst us. Here are 10 reasons the E5 is a perfect social smartphone.

1. QWERTY
Admit it or not, the social butterfly lifestyle comes with a pre-requisite: texting, emailing, connecting, tweeting, IM’ing, posting, commenting,… and a lot of typing is required on almost every level. A decent qwerty like the one found on the E5 is a godsend for such cases, with nice tactile feedback, large keys, and even predictive text on the software side of things.

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Nokia 6700 Slide Gallery, Out In The Nature

After unboxing the Nokia 6700 Slide, we were so much in love with its build quality and aluminum finish that gives it a classy elegant but simple look, that we decided to take it out in the wild for a short photo-shoot session. Here is the result.

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Update: Nokia Internet Radio Finally Comes To TouchScreen Phones

Update: a few minutes after I published this article, the application went live on the Ovi Store. It’s free, go download it here.

It’s been an eternity since Nokia started releasing touchscreen S60 v5 phones with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, yet one of their stellar home-brewed entertainment applications, Nokia Internet Radio, was never ported to these devices, to the dismay of many Internet Radio addicts.

Well, it seems the wait might be finally over, as I stumbled across a yet-non-legit version of Nokia Internet Radio today for S60 v5 or Symbian^1 if you prefer, that works perfectly well. It’s dubbed version 1.01(0) and it’s provided by Nokia so my guess is that it’s only a matter of time until we see this released officially by Nokia, since as of right now, the Internet Radio page only supports S60 v3. Continue reading “Update: Nokia Internet Radio Finally Comes To TouchScreen Phones”

MidRange Battle: Nokia E5 vs C5 Specs Comparison And Picture Gallery

The Nokia C5 and E5 are part of the relatively new Nokia line-up of devices, after the naming convention change. Both are middle class in their series, with the C5 being more a classic phone, and the E5 more an Enterprise phone, with a full QWERTY keyboard. Despite belonging to two different categories, both bare a striking resemblance, design-wise, hardware-wise, and software-wise.

On a hardware basis, the C5 has a 2.2″ transmissive screen at a 240×320 resolution with 24bit colors. It has a total volume of 56.2cc and weighs about 89g, with a 600 MHz processor and a 1050 mAh battery that can be charged both by the regular charger and microUSB. The connectivity options are limited to Bluetooth, EDGE, 3G and HSUPA, with no Wi-Fi on board. Storage-wise, it has 50MB of internal memory, 128MB of RAM, and comes with a 2GB hot-swappable microSD. As for the camera, it’s a 3.2MP EDoF camera.

The E5, on the other hand, has a larger 2.4″ transmissive screen at a 320×240 resolution with only 18bit colors. It weighs much more at 126g and has a larger volume of 75cc. It features quick access to a torch and a bluetooth toggle, and has a dedicated Messaging button. It also comes with a 600MHz processor and a much optimized 1200 mAh battery that can also be charged by a regular 3-pin or microUSB. Its connectivity options are the same as the C5, but it adds support for WiFi. As for storage, it has a whopping 250MB of internal memory, 256MB of RAM which should both guarantee a problem-free usage, and a 2GB non hot-swappable microSD. It has a 5MP EDoF camera. Continue reading “MidRange Battle: Nokia E5 vs C5 Specs Comparison And Picture Gallery”

The Nokia N8 Is Perfect, There, I Said It

If you’re a BMW car fan and you go ahead and buy a Mercedes Benz car because of one cool feature, then expect it to act like a BMW and get mad because it doesn’t, you’re an idiot. Stick to BMW, or accept the different approach. The same can be said about phones. You don’t buy a Blackberry and expect it to be 100% like an E71, you don’t get a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and blame it for not having the iPhone’s multitouch. Every brand has their strengths, their weaknesses, their approaches, their concepts, their target audience.

That’s why, my friends, the Nokia N8 is perfect. I know well enough to accept that it’s not perfect for me because I like physical keyboards and I want medical applications. It’s not perfect for the iPhone/iOS hundreds of thousands of apps afficionados. It’s not perfect for many. But that doesn’t mean “it’s not perfect period”. It is. For its target audience, for those who adhere to the Nokia approach, to the touchscreen-only build form factor, to the slowly growing Ovi Store, those who need top-notch multimedia playback and recording features, those who take a picture of everything and anything in their life. The N8 IS perfect.

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Dubai At Night Through The Eyes Of The Nokia N8

I was recently invited to the pre-launch of the Nokia N8 in the Middle East, which took place in Dubai, and while it was my first time handling the N8 and I came away pretty impressed, one thing I wanted to do was be able to test the camera. We were in Dubai, Nokia was launching a 12MP cameraphone, and they didn’t think it’d be smart to give us each an N8 to take photos, you know, to convince us of how cool their phone is! They only had 4 or 5 N8s for us to test, hooked to an alarm-triggered table, inside the conference walls, with awkward lights around them. Not cool. Especially when you think that with Xenon flash and the largest sensor for a cameraphone, the N8 is basically made for night photography.

Lucky for me though, I was able to snatch one prototype from a Nokian (insert evil laugh) and get loose around Dubai for a few minutes before having to hand it back reluctantly, not forgetting, obviously, to bluetooth the images I took over to my N97 Mini. Continue reading “Dubai At Night Through The Eyes Of The Nokia N8”

Nokia C6-00, C6-01 and C7 Full Specs Comparison

At Nokia World today, Nokia announced the C6. Wait. Isn’t that already available and just right now getting into the hands of people? Yes. But you see, that was the old C6, or C6-00 if you want, with Symbian^1 and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The new C6, or the C6-01, is a Symbian^3 phone with no hardware keyboard. Confused?

Err, yes, so am I. For the record, I simply do NOT get this new naming convention. I thought they changed from their 4-digit 6230 kind of names to avoid confusion. Well, they reached new levels of confusion all-together with this!

Anyway, after the E7 vs N8 specs comparison table we brought you earlier, we thought it would be appropriate to show the differences between the two C6s and the other new Cseries device, the Nokia C7 (or C7-00 I think). Oh well. The full table is below with green highlights for the device that beats the others in some aspects. Continue reading “Nokia C6-00, C6-01 and C7 Full Specs Comparison”

Nokia E7 vs Nokia N8 Full Specs Comparison

Announced just today during Nokia World, the Nokia E7 is being presented and perceived by many people and bloggers as essentially a Nokia N8 with a Qwerty minus the awesome 12MP camera. And to some degree it is, but to some other degree it isn’t. See, Nokia always likes to complicate things, so we had to go spend more than an hour digging around Press Releases, Images, Spec Sheets to pinpoint every single difference between these two new Symbian^3 beasts.

Below you’ll find this full table comparison, highlighting in green the areas where one of the two beats the other. Continue reading “Nokia E7 vs Nokia N8 Full Specs Comparison”

QWERTY Battle: E5, E71, E72 Extensive Table & Pictures Comparison

The Nokia E71 was (and still is, in many person’s opinions) the king of candybar QWERTYs from Nokia & Symbian. But the E71 is now 2 years old and has been replaced by a new iteration, the Nokia E72, and surprisingly another design, the E5. From the looks of it, the E5 is to the E72 what the E63 was to the E71 (no, this isn’t an IQ test question), a cheaper version that compromises on some aspects while still trying to retain the charming points of the original.

Below, is a point-by-point table comparison à-la-Steve Litchfield, between the E72 & E5, with the godfather of the two, the E71, thrown in for good measure. You can click on the image to access a slightly larger version. Continue reading “QWERTY Battle: E5, E71, E72 Extensive Table & Pictures Comparison”

Nokia E5 Hardware Tour Gallery

We recently got our hands on the Nokia E5, Nokia’s latest Eseries device after the E72. The E5 came alone in an envelope, so we couldn’t really unbox it, but we’ve taken it for a spin to show it to you from all angles.

The E5 bares a lot of resemblance, hardware-wise and specs-wise with the Nokia E72. It’s a candybar qwerty, and anyone who has used an E71 or E72 will find himself at home with the qwerty keyboard. It’s the same texture as both of its predecessors, with the same rounded keys, and a nice feedback to them. On top of it is a 2.4″ screen, 256k colors, with a light sensor and the ear piece.

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MobileFun Universal Car Phone Holder Is A Bargain

When it comes to placing your phone securely in your car and being able to access it easily while driving, there are hundreds and thousands of solutions. Many of them are dedicated to one phone and have to be replaced when you change it, and many are incredibly expensive. But if you want a cheap universal car holder, you can’t go wrong with the Universal Car Phone Holder from MobileFun.Co.Uk.

This 7$ car holder comes with an air vent clip as well as a sticky pad, so you can attach it to the air vent in your car, or the windshield. It’s small enough, black, so it fits with most car interiors and doesn’t look cheap. The right side is also adjustable, so you can fit a phone as small as the Nokia C5 or expand it to fit something as wide as an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Here are a couple of shots from the Universal Car Phone Holder fixed on my Mercedes C230’s air vent, with the Nokia C5 and my iPod Touch used for reference as to what you can fix on it.

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How To: Get Dropbox On Nokia/Symbian, Natively

If you love having a cloud-ready storage solution accessible from any of your devices, be it multiple computers, mobile phones, iPod Touch… then you should have heard of Dropbox, one of the most famous services with a free 2GB account. Unfortunately, Dropbox works on almost every platform out there except Symbian. You could access it through the m.dropbox.com mobile site, but that’s just not the same. Well, just today, I came up with a solution to get it working on my Symbian/Nokia phones using the SugarSync Symbian app, another cloud-storage solution.

Note: this method isn’t perfect, it’s limited to S60 5th Edition currently, and it’s somewhat ugly. But it works. If you’re not really attached to Dropbox, I suggest you simply use SugarSync instead. It’s basically the same.

Step 1: Create a free SugarSync account

SugarSync offers a free 2GB storage solution, as well as paid 30GB and more storage options. If you’re good with 2GB, head over to this page and sign up for a new account and make sure you activate it.

Step 2: Download SugarSync on your computer

Whether you have a Mac or a PC, head over to the SugarSync Downloads page to download it on your computer. Then open the app, sign in and set up your computer.

Step 3: Integrate your Dropbox folder into SugarSync

There are two ways to integrate Dropbox into SugarSync. By now, I’m assuming you already have a Dropbox account and have it set up on your computer.

The first way is to go to Manage Sync Folders on SugarSync and add your current Dropbox folder to the sync’ed ones.

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Facebook Integration Shines On The Nokia C5

When the Nokia C5 was announced, one of the features it claimed to have was full integration between your Contacts and your Facebook friends, going as far as showing you the latest status updates from your friends when you browse through the contacts. This feature seemed to be forgotten as we moved on to more device announcements, especially the Nokia N8, but as the Nokia C5 was finally dropped off for us to review, the first thing we set out to discover is if this Facebook integration claim was right. Right it proved to be, and here is the detailed feature explanation.

How to activate the Facebook social phonebook features
After transferring your Contacts to the C5, you won’t notice any out of the ordinary option related to Facebook. You have to head into your Application folder and look for the Facebook application, open it, sign in and hit Settings. From there you get to pick if you want to activate the Social Phonebook option and how frequently it should look for new status updates from your friends.

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