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Recent Editorial Content

Meet Bing Translate: the new online Symbian translator in 2022!

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Guest author Michael "Mivas Greece" brings us another interesting post! He writes: It’s been 10 years since Nokia released the legendary 808 PureView, the last Symbian device, and 8 years since the Nokia Store stopped accepting new apps until it finally closed. However, third party stores, such as SIStore and AppList, took over and they are still functional nowadays. The release of new Symbian apps has been on the decline over the years, yet some motivated Symbian developers continue releasing/updating apps, and now that Jtube's developers have struck again, we have a new Symbian app in 2022!

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments

So long and thanks for all the fish...

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Twenty years of mobile coverage, almost 25,000 articles across (at times) up to five sites, half a dozen writers, Symbian through Meego and Windows Phone operating systems, then cross-platform to iOS and Android for the last couple of years, Rafe Blandford’s ‘All About’ sites have had a good run. And most of it is still accessible and will hopefully remain so for a while. But I do have an announcement...

# Posted by Steve in News || Comments

The laptop in your pocket

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So yes a bit of an experiment. Writing about the laptop in your pocket ON a laptop in my pocket. In this case the Microsoft Surface Duo 2. No corrections or additions were made on any other device. It has been the dream of every mobile enthusiast for three decades to have a workable laptop, for Office, email, and so on, in a pocketable form. Think Psion, think Nokia Communicators. This is the latest attempt, in 2022! 

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments

Review: UGREEN Travel Organiser Bag

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While utterly generic, I have a soft spot for 'gadget bags', as I call them. My go-everywhere briefcase has been filled in recent times with a myriad of cables and adapters - and this £17 UGREEN organiser bag arrived for review at exactly the right time. See the photos below - my wires have never been so easy to find and hard to lose!

# Posted by Steve in Reviews || Comments

When classic smartphones become collectables

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When a smartphone falls out of use in your life, there's a temptation to find a good home for it. Often a family member, often a second hand market like eBay, but sometimes - just sometimes - the phone is special enough, is unique enough, in fact is downright collectable enough, that you might like to hang onto it. Not necessarily just for pecuniary reasons, but perhaps sentimental reasons as well. As an example, I've picked out a dozen smartphones from my own collection that fit this bill. Classics one and all...

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments

JTube - a new client for Youtube on Symbian heading into 2022!!!

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Guest author Michael “Mivas Greece” contributes: "It’s been years since the Ovi Store for Symbian phones stopped accepting new apps and eventually shut down, however, thanks to the Symbian community, Symbian users have continued receiving new apps once in a while since. And now we have a new client for YouTube that works with not only most Symbian-based smartphones from 2006 onwards, but also a wide variety of generic phones - in fact, anything that supports Java.

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments

The Astro Slide 5G saga approaches two years

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Back in March 2020, so just under two years ago, Planet Computers launched the Indiegogo campaign for the Astro Slide 5G, the follow up to the Gemini and Cosmo Communicators, all with full mechanical QWERTY keyboards. While the latter two were more akin to the old Psion palmtop or Nokia Communicator form factors, i.e. clamshells, the Astro Slide 5G is similar to the classic 2010 Nokia E7 (on Symbian), with an external full touchscreen that slides out of the way when needed to reveal, in this case, the famous QWERTY key layout. We've been getting drip fed news from the Planet team over the last 12 months, so here's my round-up and summary.

# Posted by Steve in News || Comments

Pixel 6 Pro - imaging hardware that's finally worthy of study

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For years people have praised Google's 'HDR+' (and then 'Pixel Camera') image handling and processing. Originally designed for Google Glass, to make a terrible, tiny camera produce good results, the multi-frame algorithms worked wonders on many phone cameras too, even by side-loading onto generic Android hardware. The system was much copied by all other phone makers, so that multiple frames per image is now commonplace. However, Google's imaging hardware has been lacklustre, even poor, in the last year, so it's a great relief to see all that good software now paired with genuinely competitive camera hardware. So, ahead of my various review tests and comparisons (versus iPhone, Sony, and yes, Lumia), I thought I'd 'focus' in on what's under the hood in my review Pixel 6 Pro...

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments

Head to head: Lumia 950 XL vs Sony Xperia 5 iii

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Last year's Xperia 5 ii (read as 'mark 2') was almost a perfect match in terms of specs and expectations for a classic 'Nokia/Windows phone' user - excellent audio, excellent imaging, not too large or heavy, fully water and dust proof, and so on. But we now have the brand new Xperia 5 iii, sporting internal upgrades plus (nominally) the same dual-focal-length telephoto camera from the Xperia 1 iii - let's hope it performs better at its upper zoom factor than the flagship did! Here's the specs breakdown, anyway. [Note that this is cross-posted to AAS as well, as it's a modern equivalent to the best of the old Nokia Nseries, I contend...]

# Posted by Steve in Features || Comments

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