Samsung just made their pitch for the Symbian top-end with the announcement of the Omnia HD (a.k.a. the i8910). This features a full touch interface running S60 5th Edition, a 3.7" AMOLED display, plus a camera unit with 8mp capture and full 720p HD video recording. Photos, comment and specs below.
Not launched from the stage but merely leaked out by press releases were the 6710 Navigator and 6720 Classic. The first features pre-licensed Nokia Maps (of course), a dedicated navigator key, plus a 'touch area for easy zooming'. The 6720 Classic is a candy bar design and its innovation is 'active noise cancellation' for voice calls, a S60 first. Both devices have the usual 5mp camera and S60 spec level, including TV out. More details and photos below.
The Ovi Store, announced by Nokia today at MWC, is the Finnish entry into the rapidly growing market for on-device software stores. Promoting their reach of 50 million devices and a simple route to market for developers, Nokia's presentation hit all the right notes. The revenue split of 70% to developers was also clearly announced, along with publish.ovi.com, which is open for developers to register from today (and upload from next month). More thoughts below.
Possibly the most leaked (not by us, though) Nokia smartphone ever, the E75 finally got official just now after being introduced on stage at MWC, priced at 375 Euros. Billed as the best messaging smartphone ever and a direct descendant of the 9300i, the E75 has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard beneath a standard Eseries frontplate. Official images, videos, comment and details below.
Here comes a month of standby time, with the Nokia E55. Put alongside an incredibly thin profile and Nokia's new compact keyboard, placing two letters on each physical key, the E55 is aiming for those travellers with “a business state of mind.” Expected availability will be in the summer for around 265 Euros Sim free. More thoughts, details and pictures live from MWC after the break.
Sony Ericsson has laid out a proposition for their customers at MWC. Entertainment Unlimited is their name for “the true fusion of communication and entertainment” that the partners have been working on since 2001. It's a statement that makes clear their corporate direction of smartphones, and as such is a good marker to remind journalists what Sony Ericsson want to do. Coupled with their concept smartphone Idou announced yesterday, this is a line in the sand drawn by the Swedish company, answering the obvious question of “what now after UIQ?”
Sony Ericsson has just unveiled 'Idou', a 'concept' Symbian Foundation Platform phone with a 12.1 megapixel camera, Xenon flash and 16:9 aspect ratio, 3.5" touchscreen. The Idou will go on to become a device, but it is considered a concept because it is at an early stage in its development. Sony Ericsson will release more details, and a launch date in the summer. Read on for more details and our first hands-on impressions.
Someone in Barcelona will be going round all the stands at this years Mobile World Congress (starting on Monday) to see how big the displays are, how much floorspace is being used by each company, how large are the parties... in short, how much money has a company spent on their presence at MWC?
The Chinese MMORPG Anrufen is now available in an English-language beta version for Symbian S60 3rd Edition phones, which can be downloaded from the official Anrufen website. There's also an official forum for reporting problems with the beta.
Beginners to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic may not know that Web on S60 phones is based on exactly the same 'Webkit' core code as Safari on the Apple iPhone. With the relative popularity of the iPhone, a lot of direct support for the system has been set up on mainstream web servers. And now that the 5800 XpressMusic has touch as well, this means that you can enjoy the full 'whizzy', interactive iPhone Facebook experience but on an S60 phone for the first time.
"To compare or not to compare? That is the question." Nokia has protested many times that the 5800 XpressMusic is not an iPhone competitor, but rather a lower-priced alternative - and I agree in this detailed editorial over at All About iPhone. There's no doubting that the 5800 was influenced by Apple's flagship, but the differences in functionality and emphasis run pretty deep, as is obvious as I run through each device's strengths and weaknesses.
We-Fi, the free software networking system that helps you find free and open Wi-Fi hotspots, has now been sanctioned by Nokia and is included in many device's Download! catalogs. We-Fi's a great idea - if it doesn't appear in your S60 phone's Download! then you can also grab it from here. It's also available for Window Mobile, Windows and Mac, by the way, and it's truly international. Can you get involved and help expand We-Fi's hotspot knowledge in your area?
Tzer2 has been at it again, exploring the Nokia 5800 in great depth and showing beginners how to get the most from it. In two new tutorials featured here, we have How to change the ringtones, vibration alerts, and ringing volumes on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, plus How to download and install applications and games. Enjoy! (You can see a complete listing of our 5800 tutorials by clicking here.)
It's the 14th of February again, and in its honour you might want to download some themes for your S60 device. Pizero has a rather splendid "Valentine 09" available for both S60 3rd and 5th Edition devices (so that includes the 5800), while Babi has a theme simply called "Lovely" available for S60 3rd Edition. Those of you with the N-Gage versions of DChoc Cafe Solitaire or DChoc Cafe Sudoku should pop into your cafes today to see them decked out in Valentine's day decorations. (And if you've recently bought a 5800 and want to know how to install themes, check out our newly-written theme tutorial.)
On the Nseries Innovation News Desk, an official blog on Nokia's Nseries.com website, there's a teaser post with a photo taken by a Nokia device. Closer examination reveals that the image is 2448 x 3264 pixels, that's around 8 megapixels, suggesting that Nokia will be releasing a new Nseries device at MWC with an 8 megapixel camera. We'll have to wait until Monday to find out more though.
