All About Symbian - Feature Articles - N-Gage

Features - N-Gage - Hardware

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Symbian's Five Forgotten Form Factors

Maybe I'm turning into a sentimental old codger, but despite Nokia's efforts with the recent E7 (and N97 before it), the majority of modern smartphones are turning into either large screened tablets or tiny-screened thumb qwerty affairs, with a side branch of low end numeric key-driven devices, effectively for the feature phone market. It occurs to me that five of the very best form factors of the last decade, all of which debuted on Symbian, have been (sadly) forgotten, despite their proven advantages. A quirk of providence? Or negligence on behalf of the manufacturers? Here are the form factors which I'd like to see revived, with modern software and services on-board.

# Posted by Steve in Comment, Hardware at 22:17 UTC, Dec 12th || Comments

The fastest smartphone in the west? Text input speeds compared

Steve Litchfield directly compares speeds of text entry on a range of PDAs and smartphones and draws some conclusions about design and general form factor. [original article 2006, updated 2007 and June 2009]

# Posted by Steve in Comment, Hardware at 6:42 UTC, Jun 8th || 42 Comments

Hands-on Preview of Nokia 5320 XpressMusic (retail version)

The Nokia 5320 XpressMusic has finally gone on sale, and we've got hold of one of the first retail units. This is the actual phone as it is now in the shops. The review should be coming soon, but hopefully this will keep those interested happy until then.

# Posted by Tzer2 in Comment, Hardware at 13:10 UTC, Aug 1st || 28 Comments

Top 10 - Classic Smartphones

Steve Litchfield proclaims the ten smartphones from the Symbian OS world that have made the most impact in terms of innovation, style and functionality.

# Posted by Steve in Comment, Hardware at 8:59 UTC, Feb 28th || 46 Comments

2007 - the year in review

Rafe takes looks back at the happenings in the Symbian world in 2007 on a month by month basis.

# Posted by Rafe in Comment, Software, Develop, Hardware at 20:05 UTC, Jan 8th || 11 Comments

TV Out on the Nokia N95 - Part 4: What retro computers have become?

So, you've got a 332 MHz top-of-the-range smartphone from 2007 with 3D graphics acceleration hardware and a 16 million colour screen. What do you do with that? Obviously, you'd use it to emulate 8-bit home computers and consoles from 1982!

# Posted by krisse in Comment, Software, Hardware at 13:15 UTC, Aug 13th

TV Out on the Nokia N95 - Part 2: The N95 as a games console

The Nokia N95 (like the N93 and N93i) has a TV Out feature, which lets you connect it to any television. Krisse examines how S60 games look on the big screen, and how the big screen may affect gameplay.

# Posted by krisse in Comment, Software, Hardware at 12:59 UTC, Aug 3rd

TV Out on the Nokia N95 - Part 1: Will the smartphone eat the PC? (+ How to connect N95 TV Out to TV)

The Nokia N95 (just like the N93/N93i) has a TV Out ability which lets you plug the device into any television set. If you add a full-size Bluetooth keyboard, you get something resembling a desktop computer, both in appearance and function. In the first of a series of articles, AllAboutSymbian looks at whether the N95, or indeed any smartphone, can replace the PC.

# Posted by krisse in How To, Comment, Hardware at 17:00 UTC, Jul 31st

Probably The Best Little Failure In The World

Nokia's marketing team have a lot on their plate with the upcoming Next Generation Mobile Gaming Platform. Can the name 'N-Gage' be overcome? Ewan takes a look at the mountain ahead...

# Posted by Ewan in Comment, Hardware at 9:57 UTC, Jul 27th

Are non-portable games systems doomed?

Home consoles and home computers have played such a big part in the history of gaming, it seems inconceivable that they would ever disappear. But is gaming about to become 100% mobile?

# Posted by krisse in Comment, Hardware at 12:07 UTC, Apr 9th

Nokia Next Gen: Learning the lessons from N-Gage

How can Nokia make its Next Gen games platform a commercial success? What lessons has it learned from its experience with the original N-Gage?

# Posted by krisse in Comment, Hardware at 12:58 UTC, Feb 6th

2006 - the year in review

We take a look back at some of the major events in the Symbian world in 2006.

# Posted by Rafe in Comment, Develop, Hardware at 19:52 UTC, Jan 1st

Predictions for 2007

Rafe once again gazes into his legendary Crystal Ball.

# Posted by Rafe in Comment, Hardware at 18:50 UTC, Jan 1st

Nokia's Next Generation gaming platform, the future of N-Gage

The Nokia Next Gen gaming platform, successor to the N-Gage gaming smartphone, will launch in the first half of 2007 across a range of Nokia's Symbian S60 devices. What will it be like?

# Posted by krisse in Comment, Software, Hardware at 13:41 UTC, Oct 19th || 3 Comments

Gotta have QWERTY?

Steve Litchfield continues his exploration of the world of text input and observes that the presence of a useable QWERTY keyboard can actually change how you use a smartphone.

# Posted by Steve in Comment, Hardware at 6:22 UTC, Aug 6th