Twitter and Facebook are a cinch on Symbian, thanks to a multitude of clients. Ditto Linked In. But Google+, a rising social star and Google pride and joy, doesn't have a public API, so there's no way to write a client to access it properly. Thankfully there's a (well hidden) HTML5 version of Google+ that works rather well in Symbian^3/Anna/Belle's web browser. Here's how to get to it and a walkthrough of the interface in use.
I've had surprisingly many requests to include the Nokia N86 in my upcoming Nokia 808 PureView camera comparison review part, comparing the native 8MP with the 8MP PureView mode - and I was preparing to disappoint the requesters, since my comparison phones were the N82, N8 (i.e. staying with the Xenon blood line) and HTC One X. However, never one to let the side down, I popped out just now and shot a sequence of test shots, analysed below. Summary: keep the N86 if you're into snapping flower macros, otherwise the 808 blows it out of the water.
A month ago, I put the (then upcoming) 808 PureView against the (also upcoming) Galaxy S III in tabular, opinionated form. And, having now used both smartphones, reckon I got the verdict spot on. However, the SGS III is a monster form factor, with 4.8" screen, so I thought I'd cast around for something current and cutting edge that's more the Nokia 808's size. Aha - the HTC One S, with almost identical specs to the flagship One X, yet within a more conventionally-sized phone form factor. Read on for my head to head.
We've featured the Nokia E6 quite a bit on All About Symbian since its release a year ago (most recently looking at the Belle upgrade) - despite a lack of love from the mainstream phone world, it remains something of a unique device and a form factor that's becoming increasingly rare in 2012. All the more reason to keep it in the public eye, at least here on AAS, with a look at solutions to one of the E6's biggest drawbacks: visibility of content on its 2.4" screen.
It's now coming up to 21 months since most of us got our Nokia N8s (and other Symbian^3 phones shortly after) - that's a long time in the smartphone world. And there's a good chance that your N8 has been from Symbian^3 to Anna to Belle and has also had all manner of demo software, patches and updates thrown at it. Unsurprisingly the result can be something of a software mess and there comes a point where you're fairly low on system disk space and strange hesitations in the OS become a regular occurrence. You may wish to do what I did and spend a happy hour or two rebuilding your N8 (or C7 or whatever) - in case you don't feel confident about getting everything back, you might like to take note of my workflow below and bookmark it for your own checklist?
Storing files online is finally approaching critical mass with all the big players in the tech world offering some sort of solution or another. The dedicated services, Dropbox and SugarSync, served to hook everybody on the idea of storing and sharing files online, but since then Microsoft and then Google have rolled out their own offerings. All the services offer free storage, with paid options for increased quotas. An obvious benefit of storing files online is being able to view and edit files on a mobile device while you're out and about. This list looks at the relative merits of the options available for Symbian users.
You'll remember guest writer Ow Kah Leong bringing us just about the first unboxing and first impressions of the Nokia 808 PureView, from Singapore, where the device went on sale first? I wanted to catch up with him again and find out how he was getting on with the 808 after almost a couple of weeks. Here are his notes.
OK, so not so much of a fight, since there can only be one winner, but I did think you'd be interested in some direct comparisons between shots grabbed in sometimes light-challenged conditions on the N8, still the best camera-toting smartphone in much of the world, and identically-taken shots from the 808 PureView, available for over a week now in parts of the world. The examples below, plus some of the anecdotal useage comments, come in conjunction with AAS guest writer Mark Wilkinson, working in China.
This morning's news from Nokia was bleak, with 10,000 job losses and a revised financial outlook that will see the company's key Devices & Services division report losses of several hundred million Euros for Q2 2012 on the 19th July. Media coverage has understandably focused on these key points, but a number of important strategy changes were part of today's announcement and these are worth examining in more detail.
The Nokia N8 was the first Symbian device released as a sealed unit and with non-replaceable battery. This enabled the designers to create a striking design, but power users were out of luck if they wanted to get inside their device. Besides replacing the battery, another reason to open your N8 is to replace the antenna cap, for which there is a trend to break over time and come away from the screws securing it. Sure enough, that's just what happened to me. So, if you can't bear to be parted from your Nokia N8 while it's at a repair centre or your warranty has expired, here's my guide on how to replace the Nokia N8's antenna cap.
