We all know and love Gravity as a Twitter client par excellence - and most of us probably had an idea that it could 'do' Facebook too. But, following my look at the top standalone Facebook clients, I was curious as to how far Gravity went, in terms of covering the same functionality. Surprisingly far, as it turns out, though there are still Facebook core functions which you'll need a separate client for. Read on for my walkthrough and summary.
Here's how to get a Symbian smartphone that's useable and competitive, in terms of hardware and software, in 2011 for significantly under £100. Perhaps the last S60 5th Edition smartphone to receive the 'Pimping' treatment from me, the X6 still has lots to recommend it, with insanely good speakers, a capacitive touchscreen, bright display, long lived and replaceable battery and a decent 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss-lensed auto-focus camera, here with dual LED flash. You can now pick up the X6 second hand or in fire sales for less than £100, making it a real bargain. Here's how to pimp it for 2011.
Large reference texts have long been something ideally suited to carrying around in electronic form and I've had several requests for a round up of ways to take the Bible with you. It has, in fact, been something I'd been meaning to research for ages, so here goes. It's true that Bible options on Symbian^3 are somewhat more limited than on other mobile platforms (even than on earlier Symbian versions, e.g. S60 3rd Edition), but that's no reason to lose faith in the idea....
Sharing content from a Symbian phone has never been a straightforward process. It was streamlined thanks to PixelPipe's Send and Share application, which integrated into Symbian's native Send menu. Pixelpipe can simultaneously post to a vast range of services. Unfortunately, that application is no longer available, even though the service is still available via email uploading. Therefore, here is a round up of the other options for Symbian sharing. Read on to see how the All About Symbian team push content from our phones.
A new version (7.3) of the Web application ships with Symbian Anna and is also available for selected older devices, via firmware updates. The UI updates are easy to see, but what about the performance improvements from the updated browser engine and other under-the-hood changes? In this feature article we look at how much faster Web 7.3 is compared to Web 7.2 by sharing the results of some comparative browsing tests between the Nokia C7 and the Nokia X7.
The AMOLED (used in all of the new Symbian^3 and Anna phones, apart from the E6) bottom line is that, because every pixel provides its own light, a bright/white display uses up to fifteen times as much power as a dark/black one. With battery life being a big issue with modern smartphones, you'd have thought that factors of fifteen would make OS and application designers sit up and pay attention. Alas, no. Here's a look around the Symbian world at what has and (usually) hasn't been done to take AMOLED's characteristics into account.
Cloud Computing is, of course, the new big thing. At least if you listen to the Silicon Valley crowd. And, being an advocate of Google Mail, Google Documents and Dropbox, I seem to have moved much of my own workflow into The Cloud too. But that's mainly from the desktop, i.e. with access primarily from a big-screened, broadband-connected computer. To what extent is The Cloud relevant to smartphones, what are the pros and cons, and in what state is Symbian access to this new world of online data and services?
This is the biggest and most comprehensive - and last - in my series of "Pimping" features - for S60 3rd Edition smartphones. And as such, I've saved the best until last, as they say. The Nokia N86 featured here is one of my all time favourite phones and the ultimate incarnation of the original N95 dual slide concept. Just read the list of unique selling points below and you'll see what I mean. Can the N86 still 'cut it' in 2011? It depends what your smartphone needs are, to be sure. Certainly it's a great second hand bargain these days and hopefully this feature will show any new users some tricks and tips for setting it up.
Guest author Nick Anstee here. I'm on the crossroads of deciding whether to continue with Nokia devices or make the transition/leap to Android - I like the idea of using Google for Contacts and Calendar, etc. But before making the transition to Android I thought it prudent to take a few minutes to properly analyse and consider what I would need to replace in an Android world, at the same time it made me think just how amazingly efficient the Symbian homescreen really is. As my current device is a Nokia N97 (classic), there is only one homescreen, so it is important to extract maximum functionality out of every ounce of the screen real estate. I believe I've done this and hoped readers here might be interested in how I've set things up.
