The sad state of Download! has been a topic of discussion in Symbian S60 circles for quite some time. Other consumer device platforms from Nintendo's Wii to Apple's iPhone have managed to show how successful software and content download shops can be if they're easy to use, so why can't this happen on Nokia's Symbian devices? We've taken a look at the latest version of Download! on S60 5th Edition, on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, to see if it's any improvement...
In part 1 of this series, Steve Litchfield looked at exposed camera glass on some phone models and investigated whether scratches really make a difference. In part 2, he investigated the pros and cons of LED/dual-LED/Xenon flashes in camera phones - does Xenon or dual LED flash make that much difference? In part 3, he investigated the fabled 'Megapixel myth' with an objective eye. In part 4, he focussed on the difference between good and poor optics (at the same camera resolution) and in part 5, he pitched all the top smartphone cameras head to head, in detail. In part 6, AAS guest writer Dirk Snoyt took up the theme of camera phone flash research and got all technical on the theme of colours... In part 7, I returned with a look at the difference optical zoom makes and ask the question "Is it better to have optical zoom or just much higher resolution?" Part 8 looked at phone camera video capture potential and part 9 looked at video focussing differences in Nokia's Nseries.
In this, part 10, I look at the difference sensor and aperture size can make, for both stills and video.
Here's the scenario. You've shot a video (or two) on your Nokia Nseries smartphone, at VGA quality through a Carl Zeiss lens and up to 30 frames per second. And you want to be able to show it to the world in your blog. YouTube is the obvious choice, but how can you ensure that people see your clip to best advantage?
What happens when you have regular releases, and everyone expects a game on a certain day? You have a good feeling building around your platform. Will Nokia continue the regularity of the N-Gage game releases in 2009?
Steve Litchfield explains, for beginners, how to get hooked up to a wireless keyboard and dramatically increase the speed of text entry on your phone...
While we wait for the phone that can stay on-line all day, Ewan has some thoughts on why it hasn't happened yet and what designers need to be careful about.
