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.
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?
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...
After travelling across the West of England over the last four days, the disconnect between the hype at the cutting edge of the smartphone world (where a phone or system gets blasted because it 'only' offers 6Mbps downloads, etc.) and the reality for normal people has never been more evident. I know I've ranted in the distant past along similar lines, but the situation's getting worse, not better, with time.
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.
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.
This is the third 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 Stephanie Brear, admittedly a user quite far from the Symbian cutting edge, finds that the 710 is a 'massive improvement' from her 5230 - perhaps not surprising, but a good example of the type of user upgrade that Windows Phone is perfect for.
I commented the other day that the Rich Recording in the Nokia 808 PureView has the potential to change the way we capture our lives, digitally - i.e. when no scene, no noise environment is off limits and everything comes out accurately, why be restricted by the technology, why not go for it and shoot anything you really enjoy, anything you love. The same applies just as strongly to the PureView zoom - add the two together and your smartphone becomes the ultimate phone for the Digital Creator, whether now on the Nokia 808 on Symbian, in the near future on Nokia Lumias on Windows Phone 8, or on another manufacturer's implementation of similar technology in a year or two.
Cloud storage is becoming ever more popular. Thanks to the rise of Dropbox, both Google and Microsoft felt the time was right to launch their own solutions, which also include tools to edit files as well as just storing them. While cloud storage gives us the ability to access our files anywhere, and instantly share them with anyone in the world, it comes at a cost - and not just a financial cost.
It seems that Laurie Garratt is not the only teenage Symbian fan out there. Guest writer Vedhas Patkar, 15, also writes in with his assessment of his Nokia 808 PureView, with special focus on the operating system rather than the camera, unusually. In his eyes, Symbian is not only a necessity for this 'PureView' device, it's actually an advantage. Good to see there's a whole new generation of Symbian fan on the rise!
