AAS regular Dirk Snoyt experienced the failure of his beloved Nokia N95 a month ago, as you may remember, following a long road trip. Dirk's now put up a long, interesting and fairly convincing article explaining why he's replaced it with... an N82. The change in form factor, plus smaller screen, is compensated for by the extra RAM, better GPS and Xenon flash.
In the fourth and (probably) last part of my series investigating whether a Windows-using S60 user should consider switching to an Apple Mac, I look at tethering, installing applications, backing up and updates. I also sum up my Mac experience and end up perched in a painful position right on top of a fence...
More on StyleTap, for those of you still longing for a way to bring your critical 'vertical market' Palm OS apps into the modern age, over at Symbian Guru, where Rita rejoices in the amount of thought that the StyleTap developers have put into getting Palm OS 'into' S60.
It may not be a full production, boxed unit, but you won't believe how much detail Rafe has been able to get into in this, his hands-on with Nokia's latest and greatest, the N85. Look out in particular for the comparison photos between the N85 and other recent Nseries handsets - including the N79.
Forum Nokia has published the official tech specs for the upcoming Nokia N79 and Nokia N96-3 (which is a variant of the N96 for the Americas). Oddly they don't list free RAM for either device, but that's possibly because the release firmwares aren't finished yet. You can also see the tech specs for the original Nokia N96 too.
Thanks to Rita for pointing all of us to Wapedia, something I'd totally forgotten about but which seems now to be much better and really useful. It's a low bandwidth, regularly converted version of the full Wikipedia site and it works really well in a mobile browser. Here's the full write-up by Rita over at the Symbian Guru site.
Following on from the launch of the N85, Ewan mulls over the use of a consistent design language in the N81/N96/N85/N78. It may not be to everybody's taste, but he reckons that it'll help a lot in the High Street, with quicker recognition of the brand by potential purchasers.
The gradual roll out of Ovi.com and Ovi services continues. Newly available is Ovi Sync which syncs contact, calendar, to-do and notes between your handset and the Ovi.com web site. The front page of Ovi.com is now personalised to show synced information and, optionally, images streams from Flickr and Share on Ovi. Read on for more.
S60.com do like giving away themes occasionally and it's reassuring to know that they'll have been checked exhaustively rather than thrown together in 5 minutes. And in this case, their Windmill theme is available for all S60 handsets, from Nokia 6630 to N95. It's the latest download in their Exclusives section (needs free login first)
Utility developer Warelex has produced Wi-Fi enabled versions of its popular Mobiola Screen Capture, Mobiola Web Camera and Remote Control applications, claiming that the new connection method is "much better for presentation and frame rate". In addition, there are two new applications that I'd not heard of: Mobiola Headset and Mobiola Headset for Skype which (as they sound) make use of a S60 phone as a PC headset. Also worth noting is that Warelex is now part of SHAPE Services, another established Symbian OS developer.
T'Zer takes a look at the latest N-Gage release, but isn't at all impressed with what's on offer. It's not as good as The Sims: Pets that's also available on the next-generation N-Gage system and it's "possibly the worst game on the platform." Why? Read the review to find out.
With the influx of a series of new S60 phones from Samsung, there are serious questions to be asked about software compatibility, both intentional and unintentional, from the viewpoint of Nokia, S60, Samsung and the many third party developers. Richard Bloor has taken four of Samsung's latest handsets and tested their compatibility with a typical 'power user' set of applications. The results make interesting reading, especially so for the companies involved. Many challenges ahead, methinks....
S60 followers in virtual world Second Life might want to visit the Nokia Island today as the August edition of the 'Nokia Connected Worlds' virtual meeting is being held at 11am SL time (7pm UK time). Running for three hours this month, with a discussion of various social networks opening the event, followed by the Virtual Business Panel, with music from DJ Ren Diqui for the final hour and after part.
The Nokia 6650, previously a T-Mobile (EU) exclusive handset, is headed to the USA and will be carried by the operator AT&T. The AT&T variant supports the 850/1900 WCDMA bands and features AT&T Navigator and Music services. The 6650, which we reviewed here (T-Mobile variant), has a 2.0 megapixel camera, cover screen UI, integrated GPS and a high capacity (1500 mAh) battery.
Samsung's stream of S60 devices continues with the camera-centric G810, complete with optical zoom. Andew Galpin and Steve each take a week with the device in order to assess whether it can triumph over Nokia's N95 8GB and N82. And does it matter that it's 'not a Nokia?'
