Guest writer David Gilson talks about his switch from Windows to Linux (Ubuntu) and his (successful) struggles to keep his desktop-S60 connectivity going, from PIM data to music to backups to tethering. Could you make the same switch? Are there any showstoppers for you? Comments welcome.
Following up on their promise at launch to involve their customers in business decisions, Giffgaff have started a discussion about pricing on their blog and forum. Their initial thinking is for a simple per minute and per text charge, but the community aren't so sure. And there are even more option about charging for data after the first six months (where everyone gets free data from launch).
Just popped up in the Nokia Ovi Store are two new, free ZingMagic games, both based in the same genre. 'Alpha WordSearch' and 'Starts with WordSearch' are free to play, with no restrictions, I've included some screenshots below. There are also a batch of six new themed, bigger Word Searches, available as commercial titles. Details below.
Spotify, the music consumption service, has made another move into the mobile space. Following on from their iPhone app (and tantalising hint they are working on a Symbian version) their next move outflanks Nokia and their plans for music yet again. The launch of a monthly tariff and handset (HTC Hero), which has Spotify bundled, is going to be attractive to music lovers – not because it's better than Nokia's Comes With Music, but because it is more loved online, so the passionate users will do the evangelising.
Revising and adding to my feature from March 2009, I proudly present the All About Symbian Top 25 freeware applications for S60 5th Edition. Why risk infesting yourself with Hannah Montana screensavers or get disappointed by re-download behaviour in the Ovi Store when you can just use freeware to get the job done? No cash needed, no DRM, no issues giving to friends, no license manager, no hassles.
In All About Symbian Insight 91 (AAS Podcast 153), Steve expands on his N97 camera and GPS experience from last weeks podcast. Rafe and Steve then discuss Nokia's Q3 2009 result in details, before Steve asks Rafe about his initial N900 versus N97 impressions. Our final topic is Steve's experience with Ovi Suite 2.0. You can listen to AAS Insight 91 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
As ever, you'll recognise Tim Salmon's name: he's a regular round here and he's been through more smartphones than me. Which is saying something! He's now spent a month with the HTC Hero, running Android, and has relaunched his own personal blog with a detailed look at all areas of functionality, pointing out where each platform/OS scores. Worth a read!
I can't imagine why I haven't done this exact same head to head, but AAS-favourite Rita el-Khoury has taken the time to pitch the cameras in the Nokia N82 and N86 8MP directly against each other, concluding that the N86 is a viable replacement, despite the lack of Xenon flash. [Steve wanders off muttering about the N82 still being King down the club or disco....]
The BBC has announced that its old RealMedia radio streams, still bookmarked/used by some knowledgable S60 phone owners to listen to the BBC's network of stations, are to be phased out at the end of March 2010, to be replaced by iPlayer/Flash solutions. The decision isn't without controversy, as you'll see from the extensive comments thread - if this affects you then I suggest you get involved.
Ahem. My monthly update to the 'Do It Yourself' Smartphone-choosing Grid sees new devices and new criteria. Pick your priorities and the page will pick you a winner from currently available smartphones... As usual, accusations of bias comments welcome!
Mobile Jorge has uncovered another useful new entrant to the Java/S60 software scene, in the form of the strangely named J1CK.Tweet, a Java-based Twitter client that works flawlessly on S60 3rd and 5th Edition phones and which, from the screenshots, appears to be challenging the commercial Gravity client, with Twitpic support, multiple accounts, trending topics, and more. Well worth a look, seeing as J1CK.Tweet is (beta) freeware.
In which I review one of Nokia's cheapest ever smartphones - and yet one that's reasonably up to date and with 90% of the functionality of its bigger brethren... At Nokia's RRP of £230, the 5530 XpressMusic isn't a 'must buy'. But at a street price of £140, depending on the deal, the 5530 will bring S60 5th Edition and smartphones to a whole new market. The ultimate cost? No 3G and no GPS. Here's my full, illustrated review of the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic.
At first I thought it was just me. But all week, trying to view the N-Gage 'All games' catalog in the on-device client has resulted in an error message 'Out of internal memory. Close some applications and try again (Error -4)'. Not terribly helpful, especially on an (e.g.) N96 with 80MB of free RAM and now verified on numerous other devices. What's clearly happened is that adding the latest game to the online catalog has broken some internal limit within the client ("How many games shall we allow for in our array? Pick a number..."), but it's a crying shame that such an error has been allowed to exist for so long, especially around the launch dates of three new titles.
OK, I'm mainly jealous because AAS's review Sony Ericsson Satio has singularly failed to arrive, but I would like to present quick links to Rita el-Khoury's excellent series of opinion pieces on this new S60 5th Edition camera super-phone: 7 Things I Love, Unboxing Video & First Impressions, 7 Things I Hate, Software/Interface Video Walkthroughs and Hardware & Design. Good stuff. See also the new Satio blog, run by one of the device's official product managers.
There are plenty of interesting user comments about all smartphones, but with special focus on the pros and cons of the Nokia Nseries and Eseries over on the BBC site at the moment (in reaction to this), with BBC registered readers chipping in with their own smartphone experiences. Worth a read.
