Another fortnight, another show - Smartphones Show 59 just went live, with hands-on reviews of the Communicator wannabe, the Asus M930, and the Black Nokia N82. Plus how to add photo overlays to your smartphone-shot video footage on an Apple Mac.
How good were the good old days? Over on the ‘Obstacles can Kill’ blog, Eric has put away his N95 8GB and switched to his old N-Gage QD for 24 hours to see just how well it would compare to today’s feature packed phones. The result is mixed; while the gaming experience was still unsurpassed, the improvements in the S60 interface render the QD’s v1 interface lacking massive number of tricks and tweaks he has come to rely on.
Anathema, over on the Vodafone Betavine site, has a bare bones Last.FM client for S60 devices. Rather than let Last.FM know which tracks you have played on your phone (so that Last.FM can use these to build up a profile of what you like), blastfm allows you to stream music from Last.FM, including a stream of music that Last.FM thinks you will like. I’ve been waiting for the ability to do this on my phone for some time.
Nokia has released another new 'v200' software update for the E90 Communicator, available now for unlocked devices on Nokia Software Update. The new version is v210.34.75 and this installed fine on my E90 using NSU [under Windows Vista in XP SP2 compatibility mode, but still...] More below...
Yep, it's all in the latest All About Symbian Insight podcast, number 25. Specifically, we look at the Asus M930 vs the Nokia E90, the Cost of SMS and a discussion around messaging costs, Maps on Ovi, Nokia's new Music PC application, and some top software picks.
A few black links for you: PiZero has released a great set of new SVG themes, all based around the colour black - plus his stealth theme is apparently imminent, which will be even blacker! And Al over the Nokia Blog has published an insightful look at his first week with the new Black Nokia N82. More blackness at The Symbian Blog, where Vaibhav has put up a detailed head to head between the black Nokia E90 and N95 8GB. Phew, someone turn the light on, please....
In this feature article on location based search services and software (also known as searching the world around you) Steve gives a round up, with real world examples, of the current state of the market. With options from Nokia, Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Yell he asks what software or service options performs best? Read on to find out.
A combination of 3G, 3.5G, Wi-Fi and flat rate phone data charges provide lots of possibilities for internet gaming on the new N-Gage platform. Take part in our new poll and let the world know which kind of online gaming you most want to see on N-Gage, or even tell us if you don't want online gaming at all.
Nimbuzz, the all-in-one communication software which we mentioned a few weeks ago, has now formally launched. In addition to its own network, Nimbuzz supports instant messaging and voice calls for Skype, Google Talk, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AIM and Jabber. Recent additions include support for true VoIP when making voice calls on S60 devices. The functionality is used when you use NimBuzz to make a voice call to one of your IM contacts. Read on for screens and more.
Just a short note that we've heard that Nokia Software Update will be down for 24 hours, as from 19:00 GMT tomorrow (Saturday). Presumably it's something to do with fixing Windows Vista compatibility, let's hope for a problem free solution on Monday!
With the concept of over-the-air syncing hotter than ever (e.g. GooSync), thanks to the guys at SMS Text News for the scoop that Vodafone just bought Zyb, another of the top SyncML hosts on the 'net. Keeping your PIM data in the 'cloud' is obviously something Vodafone now gets and for which it has got plans. Good news for everybody.
You've got to admire some developers for the way they manage to release their titles across the range of smartphone platforms, in this case at least five varieties on Symbian OS. Attila Katona has been reviewing Herocraft's new Hexxagon Labs strategy game (think Othello but six-sided) on S60 and comes away quite impressed.
Around a year ago, I first reviewed the Nokia E90 Communicator. I was quite positive though others in the industry (famously) weren't. Amazingly, it's still picking up first time reviewers today in 2008, with Ricky Cadden getting his first hands-on this week, in his regular video podcast (MP4 link). He's generally blown away but misses support for USA 3G frequencies and misses some of the 'Nseries-only' extras from his N95.
For UIQ 3 users who fancied using the alternative contact manager DreamConnect 3 (see our review here), there's a new version available (3.60) which adds extra touch support, plus feature and performance enhancements which make the already intuitive DreamConnect 3 even more user-friendly. Read on for more info and screens.
Guest writer 'Snoyt' takes us expertly through the wonderful world of music compression, to explain how you can get thousands of music tracks on your smartphone, efficiently and in CD quality, using the eAAC+ codec rather than bog standard ol' MP3... Who needs an Apple iPod?
