I didn't have to think too hard about how to apostrophise the headline - after all, Nokia was using the term smartphone for its Symbian-powered devices a full five years before Apple and Android came along and the American tech press decided that the word needed reimagining. However, both approaches - which I've commented on before - are valid, and I thought it worth assessing where we've got to as we head towards the end of 2012. Was Nokia's definition right all along? Or is a modern 'smartphone' much smarter after all? I look at the two ultimate exponents of the two definitions, the Nokia 808 PureView and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
It's arguably one of the dirty little areas in the Nokia and Symbian world, something that you'll get burned by if you're not very careful. I've alluded to best practice several times in article comments but it's now time to spell things out loud and clear. I've ranted about the importance of having a replaceable battery before, but where on earth do you get a new battery from? There are so many charlatans wanting to sell you something cheap... here are a few pointers and rules.
It's a fair cop - that's one heck of a provocative headline. More accurately, this feature should be called 'How to use Google services with your Symbian smartphone', but that sounds a hundred times more boring! We all love our Nokia hardware and probably a fair number of great Symbian applications, but the lure of Android and the seamless Google integration becomes stronger and stronger each year. Yet there are things you can do to bring a lot of this Google goodness to Symbian - today.
Walking almost hand in hand with the age of Symbian (roughly 2000 to 2012), the term 'Nokia Communicator' is still a term that commands a degree of respect from many tech fans. But what did Nokia mean by this, which devices down the years have deserved the term, which was the last of the breed, and is the 'Communicator' now dead in the water?
As I mentioned briefly back in my review (part 2c) of the Nokia 808 PureView, the Camera interface has been completely rewritten - amidst the changes are a wider selection of Scene modes and for the casual user I really do think they bring the best out of the 808's camera hardware, giving access to a massive amount of flexibility with zero danger of messing anything up. Here's my guide to the options available.
Yes, the Nokia 808 is undoubtedly the most powerful and feature-packed Symbian handset ever created, I'm not disputing that and I love mine to bits. And, in a straight fight, the 808 tops its predecessor under most criteria. Yet I also wanted to acknowledge that the N8 also has a place, even in the modern smartphone world of 2012, that it offers ten things that the 808 does not, and that the typical '808 vs N8' comparison is not all one way traffic...
The Nokia E6 has been around for a year now - the Motorola Pro+ for about six months. Yet this is the first time I've had both in the same place for direct comparison, and one which is still very relevant since both offer the rather rare (in 2012) qwerty candybar form factor, with always available keyboard and full capacitive touchscreen. I think it's fair to say that both devices are somewhat compromised, though there's an interesting tussle between the E6's higher quality components and the Pro+'s larger display and faster processor.
One of the very first things I did when getting the Nokia 808 PureView was to check availability of spare batteries. Nothing. And I still can't find a decent source for the BV-4D online, reducing the advantage of having a 'replaceable battery' to being able to pull it out if there's a problem. But a comment to yesterday's story about the N97 mini got me thinking. What existing Nokia batteries might fit - and work - in the 808? Might I already own a number of spare batteries for it?
Following our review series on the Nokia 808 PureView, here's the first in a series of brief tutorials, showing how to get the most out of the smartphone's stunning camera module. Here, I show how to shoot 'bokeh', photos enhanced through deliberate use of depth of field to ensure that part of the shot is out of focus, for artistic effect.
This is the fourth in a series of articles giving real world, honest feedback from Symbian users of varying levels of expertise who have tried moving to Windows Phone in general and the Nokia Lumia 710 in particular. Here uber-power user James Honeyball, despite generally being very open in terms of mobile platforms, finds a few showstoppers for him, at least, with many astute observations along the way. Here's his attempted move from Nokia N8 (and then 808) to Windows Phone on the 710.
