It's all very well having huge screens, hundreds of thousands of applications and even virtual and physical qwerty keyboards, but there's plenty you can do without typing a single character using Google's humble new Mobile App on a vanilla, cheap S60 3rd Edition phone. Here are a few ideas....
One of the big selling points about the original Nokia N95, N86 and 5730 XpressMusic (among others) has been that they have hardware music controls. So, while pocketed, or while in another application, or even with eyes closed in bed at night, you can still skip music tracks, pause podcasts, and so on. But with the new breed of touchscreen phones, you're out of luck in this department. Or are you?
We currently have the strange situation where Google show their new voice-driven 'Mobile App' when m.google.com is browsed by a S60 5th Edition phone - and then during installation we're told that this phone is 'not compatible'. However, with a slight (and trivial) adjustment, it's quite possible to use this handy tool on a Nokia 5800, N97 or compatible.
Guest writer David Gilson talks about his switch from Windows to Linux and his (successful) struggles to keep his desktop-S60 connectivity going.
Are bulging App Stores overrated? Could you manage with only three third party (i.e. add-on) applications? And if so, which ones would they be? Steve Litchfield conducts a spot survey!
So my white Nokia N97 was returned to me after Ewan's extensive video diaries and after Tzer2's Finnish experiments on it. It's a little battle scarred in places, but hey, phones are designed to be used(!) I'm well aware of all the N97's pros and cons, but was relishing a chance to really get to grips with some of its - ahem - quirks, a couple of months on from my initial look. Read on to see how to set up and optimise the N97.
Steve Litchfield explains his power arrangements when heading out into the wild.
Rafe explains how you can create your own shortcut widget for the TouchWiz-powered idle screen of the Samsung i8910.
No, no magic involved - just care to use the right charger with the right device!
