With the sheer number of people now receiving the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic around the world and eager to show off how it all works, note that Warelex have updated their much-respected Screen Capture utility to support S60 5th Edition. Note that this is not just fixed screenshots, you can capture video of what you're doing on the device, for uploading later to your blog or YouTube. Connections between PC and the 5800 can be via cable, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi. v3.0.7 is the version you want, currently only available from the Warelex product page.
Nokia India has kindly released a number of free applications for their new 5800 XpressMusic, good to see this getting off to a fast start in most markets. SMS Timer and Smart Guard should work on all 5800s, while Marble Maze, Wave Secure, Touch Card Match and Touch Maneuver are regionally restricted to those with an India SIM card. Some of these applications, along with a few additional ones, are also available for the Hong Kong market.
You remember the Nokia E63, which I started to review a couple of days ago? UK residents might like to note that it's the subject of one of Expansys lightning sales today. Between 11am and 4pm, it's £180. Which, for a qwerty-driven S60 phone is definitely good value. Part 2 of my review will be published on Sunday.
In a move that should be regarded as sound business sense from one of the largest companies in the world, Google will be closing the Jaiku and Dodgeball services in the near future. While I don't want to dwell on those specific cases (although both have been sidelined by the Mountain View company since they were purchased), it's an interesting warning signal for those of us who wish to live in the clouds and rely on hosted web services.
Following in the footsteps of the N79 Active comes another N79 variant, the N79 Eco, which is available for pre-order through Nokia's UK online shop and ships without a charger. Customers are expected to retain the charger from their previous Nokia device. The concept is part of a trial to save energy and reduce waste and is part of Nokia's power of we: strategy. Read on for stats and the full scoop.
It's good to see Resco active again in the Symbian OS world. And even better to see that their latest, the game Resco Bubbles, is both original, addictive and has a superbly crafted learning curve for a mobile device, or so reckons Ewan in his review. Note that it does require a Nokia N95 or N82 though (both of which have an accelerometer and graphics hardware/compatible 'sensor framework')
Nokia's having a productive 2009 so far on the firmware front. v300.34.56 is now available for some product codes (previous was v220.34.37). No idea on changes at this stage, comments welcome. And usual backup/sync precautions apply, the E51 does not have UDP.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is now supported by the Nokia Software Update service. The currently available firmware is v11.0.008, which will not be new for most users. However, if you purchased your 5800 in the first half of December you may be running v10.x firmware. The update is relatively minor, but does fix a number of annoying bugs.
[updated] Nokia PC Suite version 7.1 (v7.1.18.0, to be exact) is now 'official', in that every man and his dog is being reminded of its existence via normal PC Suite update checks. Version 7.1 includes the following extra functionality: arranging the contacts on your phone into contact groups, starting a phone call to a contact, and having full access to your phone's Calendar in a special new view. If the auto-update doesn't work for you, here's the download page.
Fujitsu and NTT DoCoMo today announced they had localised the FOMA F905i handset for the Taiwanese market. The F905i, which runs MOAP on Symbian OS, is the first such handset to be made available outside Japan. The phone will be available on Far EasTone Telecommunications' (FET) network. The F905i features a 3.2 inch WVGA screen, 3.2 megapixel camera and allows input via the Traditional Chinese character set.
Nokia, in a strategically significant move, has announced that it will add a LGPL 1.4 (Lesser General Public License) open source licensing option for the Qt UI and application framework from the release of Qt 4.5, which is scheduled for March 2009. The new licensing is more permissive as it allows the use of Qt for proprietary commercial development at no cost, thus offering greater flexibility to developers. Read on for more.
Nokia has announced the N79 Active, a "healthy twist on Nokia's smallest Nseries". The standard N79 is being bundled with a Polar Bluetooth WearLink heart rate belt, arm-band case, and a brand new version of Sports Tracker (which will also be released independently). The N79 Active is expected to ship shortly in "selected territories".
How many of you have heard of the Sectera Edge smartphone? It runs Windows Mobile, it's made by General Dynamics (the people behind the F-16 Falcon fighter) and it's about to get a whole lot of publicity. Why? Because the feature set is perfect for one smartphone user – Barack Obama. But what can the President of the United State's choice tell us about the mobile market?
Nokia's subscription music service, Comes with Music, seems to be struggling to pick up momentum. The major problems are around educating users in the details of the offer and the limited availability in terms channel availability and handsets. However worthy of note is that Carphone Warehouse has reduced the price of the Nokia 5310 Comes with Music Edition to £82.18.
The Nokia E63, at £200 (SIM-free), is one of the cheapest S60 phones (at RRP) on the market. With its QWERTY form factor it looks, at first glance, very similar to the popular, but more expensive, Nokia E71. In the first part of his Nokia E63 review, Steve looks at the hardware and explains the differences between the two 'sister' devices, before covering the Nokia Email experience and discussing highlights from the on board applications.
