Location based services are the latest buzz-phrase in mobile marketing, and the next tranche of Nokia devices will come with software to help you access local information from your mobile. The Nokia Beta Labs are giving S60v3 users a chance to see an early version of Here and Now.
In this Insight, Rafe, Steve and Ewan talk about the Nokia N86, a visit to Symbian, N-Gage Games (Dance Fabulous and Pinbusters) and general reaction to the N97.
Well, not quite, but it's a fair indication. According to the eagle-eyed Jay (who has thankfully scanned the appropriate table), the Europe-wide Carphone Warehouse has listed its top selling pay-monthly phones - the Nokia 5800 is number 1, with the Apple iPhone at 2 and the Tocco Ultra feature phone at 3. As Jay notes, it's really not surprising, given that the 5800 started free on £15 a month contracts, undercutting the iPhone by a factor of around two, while out-speccing it in many departments (the exceptions being screen tech and size of app store).
What's in a box? Quite a lot if you are a collector. And that's why the move to digital distribution is robbing the gaming world of one of its prize assets. The collectiblity of the box that the game comes in. Ewan explains why the Magpie in him needs something more from Nokia. He also (in a timely fashion) refers to the problems of not being able to take purchases onto a new phone, or even back onto the same phone after a hard reset. Read on...
Forum Nokia’s Calling All Innovators competition closes to entries on 30 June, next Tuesday, so if you have not got your entry in yet you should be getting a move on. Remember, this is not only an opportunity to win cash prizes, but also to get your application unprecedented exposure within Nokia and with Nokia device users worldwide.
Just.... as us normal-coloured geeks start to get a glimpse of SIM-free Samsung i8910 HD phones, guest writer Stuart Clark reports on his first week with the bona fide, Orange-crippledbranded version. What has Stuart loved about the i8910 HD so far and what has he hated? And, more importantly, what's he had to do in order to get some of the lost functionality back?
"Oh dear. Spore as a gaming brand is close to a legend. Created by Will Wright, and released last year to great critical acclaim, you'd think that popping the genetic engineering life-sim onto a mobile would be a sure-fire hit. Err, no." And so begins Ewan's review of this latest N-Gage title here on Ovi Gaming. Spore Origins includes all the elements needed but fails miserably in its basic gameplay and interface.
[updated - 23 June 2009] In which I report on a usually forgotten feature of all modern Nokia smartphones - their stereo speakers. Why are these important (to me) and what sort of variation is there in volume and quality? I think you're going to be rather surprised - I know I was, the cheapest devices were the best! I looked briefly at the Nokia 5800, N95, N86 and N97... and have now added Nokia E90, E75, N96 and 6220c, plus the Samsung INNOV8 for good measure.
There's something outrageously different about the Nokia N97 (or is it outrageously the same?) that utterly polarises opinion, on both sides of the world. The Really Mobile Project's Ben Smith and James Whatley seem completely divided here on video (and embedded below), while Engadget Mobile's Chris Ziegler and Thomas Ricker seem equally polarised in print, right here. Sigh. Whatever happened to peace and love? Or maybe the N97 is a 'Marmite' smartphone that you either love or hate?
In this photo-centric review Rafe performs a group test of some of the heavyweight S60-powered cameraphones. It's the Nokia N86 8MP versus the Nokia N97, Nokia N82 and Samsung i8510 (Innov8). That's some test and Rafe tries each out in a range of conditions and settings. Summary: The N97 disappoints, but the new kid on the block, the camera-specialist N86 8MP delivers in spades.
Last week Samsung Mobile Innovator announced that the Samsung Innovation Quest 2009 would be about widgets for the home screen of the S60 based Samsung i8910 HD. Adobe also provided hints that its BrowserLab would cover mobile browsers and Digital River expanded its e-commerce offering to enable application sales to mobile devices.
It's been in every S60 phone since the first 7650 came out of Espoo... and it's still delivering for Nokia. Has Java really saved Nokia, asks Ewan Spence? From N-Gage support to bedroom coders, Ewan's clearly on a big Java high!
It's a hardware spectacular for The Phones Show 83, now out, with news of new Symbian OS smartphones, a long video review of the HTC Touch Pro, with head-to-head section against the Nokia N97, plus a demo-focussed tour around case makers Proporta, down in Brighton. If you want to pick the show up via RSS, here are the QVGA (for phones) and VGA (for desktops) feeds.
I'm not sure if The Gadget Show's Jon Bentley has been watching my Phones Show, but in his own video review (embedded below in HQ) of the Nokia N97, he seems to have picked up on many of the same complaints, including the diminutive keyboard and the still immature S60 5th Edition interface. Yet, overall, he concludes it's still "one of the best phones you can buy". I'd concur, with the rider that Nokia need to get cracking on firmware updates and that the 'b' in 'Buy' is in capitals - £500 is still a sizeable sum!
Rafe's been sending back some pictures and thoughts from the UK launch of the Nokia N97 and N86 in the Nokia store on Regent's Street through both Twitter (@aas) and Flickr (RafeB). No huge queues at the store, but plenty demo units, augmented reality units and he's wondering if the N86 is getting lost in all the lust for the N97.
