Christopher Rydberg reviews Ashen, the latest Nokia-branded first person shoot-em-up for the N-Gage and Series 60. Read his blood-curdling account here.
The Symbian Expo 2004 was the place to be last week. Everywhere you turned, there was a new and interesting face, or an old friend to meet. Of course Ewan being Ewan, he couldn't write a simple straightforward review. Nope, that'll have to wait. For the moment, here's his Thoughts on The Expo. And yes, there is a lot of irony in this article, so be careful...
With the new P910, Arima and BenQ UIQ powered devices, Symbianware have updated Tracker for hardware compatibility and the new button layouts on the devices. It's also got 33% off the registration price for all of October.
Ventox from Jacado is probably one of the most useless pieces of software that we have ever seen. Ventox is a virtual cooling fan. The authors claim it can virtually cool you during the summer and one of the features is variable fan speed. We think it is a turning fan on the screen of your phone. At least they only want $2 for it... I wonder if virtual dollars will do?
Kryptext allows you to encode and decode SMS messages so you can send them in encrypted format so that no one can read them. Of course you need this program on both ends so unless all your friends have this program you are unlikely to get much use out of it.
Sky Hunter from Tendbeyond uses the new X-Factory game engine. The game is a scrolling shooter with aeroplanes. You work your way through different levels - desert, jungles and tundra - battling against different kinds of intelligent enemies.
There are some scary N-Gage owners out there. Here is a classic exampe: the pinky furry N-Gage mod. I am sure this well be setting off a whole new trend for furry friends.
Steve Litchfield has added a page of Series 80 freeware to the popular 'Symbian Freeware' section of the 3-Lib site. The idea of this page is to help you find software that's free, of course, but it's more than a simple matter of keeping costs down. Using freeware means you can share it around as much as you like and it means not having to worry about requesting new reg codes when you swap machines.
In case you haven't spotted it yet, there's a new generation of Quickoffice out for UIQ users. Quickoffice Premier contains all the stability improvements from the version bundled with the P910, including the extra PowerPoint module. Highly recommended. More info over at www.quickoffice.com
One of the stars of the Expo (partly because it was free) was the newest Dummies Booklet for Symbian OS Smartphones. So like any good product, it's time for us to review it!
Explode Arena one of the best selling Series 60 games is now avilable for UIQ. Explode Arena by Infinite Dreams is a bomberman type game. With multiple gameplay modes, extended levels and Bluetooth multiplayer it delivers value for money along with excellent game play and great sounds and graphics.
ACCESS have announced a new version of their Series 60 browser NetFront. The browser includes Smart-Fit and Rapid Render techonologies to fit pages to the small screen size and to render pages progressively respectively. Version 3.2 delivers the ability to read Adobe Acrobat files and improves download and scrolling performance. NetFront works on all Series 60 phones and will be shipped with the Nokia 6670.
Nokia will unveil the Nokia 7710 media phone in Monaco next month (reports Reuters). The networks (allegedly) were worried about the size of the original device, but the shots we've seen of the 7710 suggest a sleeker and more style concious device.
Do the manufacturers give too much control of the look and feel of their phones to the carriers? That's something The Feature is asking. With the Operators asking for more customisation, and services such as Club Nokia being closed down, are the networks asking too much, or are the manufacturers backing down to get the sale?
