In a follow up to his popular series, from August 2008, investigating the practicalities of a S60 smartphone owner switching to an Apple Mac as the desktop counterpart, Steve Litchfield reports back after a couple of months of living the Mac life for real.
NB. It seems that some of the functionality below isn't applicable to Samsung S60 phones, e.g. The crucial Nokia Multimedia Transfer doesn't recognise a non-Nokia device. Fair enough, I guess, but something you should be aware of.
Nokia's Podcasting application is bundled with all new S60 devices in the Music or Applications folder. It includes a feature which lets you add web-based podcast directories so you can browse and subscribe to podcasts entirely from the phone, without the use of a computer. This tutorial shows you how to use an RSS feed reader application to create online podcast directories using the OPML format.
In contravention of the spirit of the age, Steve Litchfield finds himself unconvinced by a touch interface on a phone. And, for a change, there's survey data (see the postscript) to back up his crazed(!) opinions....
Over the last six months, I've tackled a number of phone camera-related issues head on and tried to draw conclusions, even though they sometimes fly in face of phone marketing. In this final part to the popular series, I'd like to provide an index to all the articles and also summarise some of the individual article conclusions.
Ovi Store has been announced, and many people just saw another smartphone applications shop. But it's actually a lot more than that, and its launch could be the most significant thing Nokia has done since entering the mobile phone business.
The strongest freeware contenders in the S60 world are quite well known. But, as you may know, there are certificate issues on occasion when installing this freeware (often created by Samsung-rival Nokia) on a Samsung INNOV8 or i7110 (etc.) There are also issues to do with differences in OS version (they use S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, which is new enough that not all software runs OK).
In this feature, I'm going to be looking at ten top picks that won't cost you a penny and are also guaranteed to install and work properly on your Samsung S60 smartphone. Think of them as a good and interesting selection for new users who don't want to have to go through some of the trial and error that I've been through!
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. Part 10 looked at the difference sensor and aperture size can make, for both stills and video.
In this, part 11, Steve looks at a specific positive from the presence of large numbers of megapixels and discovers yet another use for your smartphone.
Here are the parts in this Camera Nitty Gritty series for All About Symbian:
Part 1 - I looked at exposed camera glass on some phone models and investigated whether scratches really make a difference.
Part 2 - I investigated the pros and cons of LED/dual-LED/Xenon flashes in camera phones - does Xenon or dual LED flash make that much difference?
Part 3 - I investigated the fabled 'Megapixel myth' with an objective eye.
Part 4 - I focussed on the difference between good and poor optics (at the same camera resolution)
Part 5 - I pitched all the top smartphone cameras head to head, in detail.
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...
Part 7 - I returned with a look at the difference optical zoom makes and asked the question "Is it better to have optical zoom or just much higher resolution?"
Part 8 - I looked at phone camera video capture potential
Part 9 - I looked at video focussing differences in Nokia's Nseries.
Part 10 - I looked at the difference sensor and aperture size can make, for both stills and video.
Part 11 - I looked at ways of using high Megapixel counts for intelligent cropping of photos and for Megapixel Microscopy.
In this, part 12, Steve looks at whether any or all of Nokia's fancy scene modes and adjustments make any significant difference and works out which ones you should ignore and which ones you should remember....
