Rafe compares the key specifications of the Nokia 5250, Nokia 5230 and Nokia 5800 to see exactly what Nokia has cut out to get the price down. When it comes to the lower half of the smartphone market, price becomes the single most important factor in a consumer's buying decisions and even a £10 or £20 difference might sway a purchase.
Ewan takes a look at 'a new Internet experience' on his smartphone, in this case Webwag Mobile, from the Nokia Ovi Store. A service aggregator, this experience may well be a new one, but the clunkiness of the user interface and poor use of the information entered means that it's not an experience anyone's likely to enjoy or come back to...
Yesterday Nokia and Intel announced the establishment of a joint research centre, based at the University of Oulu (Finland). The lab, which will have around two dozen researchers, will focus on mobile user experiences, with a particular emphasis on 3D experiences and technology. Likely research areas include 3D virtual worlds, 3D user interfaces and immersive gaming.
Presenting part 2 (of 2) in my Support catchup. Thanks to my kind editor at Smartphone Essentials magazine, he's let me republish a truck load of my Q&A mini-articles from 2008 and 2009's issues right here on All About Symbian. I've been adding these to our Support section and a summary of the questions in part 2 of my big update is listed below, with links. All part of keeping AAS a definitive resource!
Some interesting numbers over at the Online Journalism Blog on mobile web uptake in the UK. Looking through the internet section of the latest Ofcom report, they’ve found the significance of mobile access, with 23% of the UK population using a mobile browser to access the web.
Following on from the previous articles in his series looking at the sub £100 smartphone (namely the Symbian powered Nokia 5230 and the Android fuelled ZTE Racer), Ewan here turns his eye to the other major parts of the built in software - namely, PIM apps, music and media. How do the two budget smartphones fare against each other?
Thanks to my kind editor at Smartphone Essentials magazine, he's let me republish a truck load of my own Q&A mini-articles from 2009's issues right here on All About Symbian. I've been adding these to our Support section (what do you mean, you didn't know we had one?) and a summary of the questions in part 1 of my big update is listed below, with links. All part of keeping AAS a definitive resource!
Nokia launched the 5250 today, an ultra-low cost S60 5th Edition 'music-focussed' smartphone. There's no microSD included, the screen's only 2.8" and there's no Wi-Fi or 3G or GPS, but it does come in at a price point of only 115 Euros (less than £100, expected on pay-as-you-go at £59.95 or similar in the UK), SIM-free, before taxes and subsidies, etc. You also get a free copy of Guitar Hero 5 Mobile. Photos and more details below.
Here’s a quick example on how the open nature of Symbian OS and the mechanisms put in place by the Symbian Foundation actually work. Sebastian Brannstorm submitted his request to alter the UI of the app launcher (namely a long tap on an icon would bring up an option to remove/delete the application). That feature has now been prototyped and is likely to make it into handsets. More links below.
29% of developers support Symbian, says Millennial Media, with 100% of them supporting iOS. While that sounds like a bad statistic for Symbian, it’s worth examining the data to conclude that this is healthy for a huge number of mobile operating systems. More below...
In All About Symbian Insight 132, we start with a quick reminder that mobile data coverage is not universal, especially in rural areas. Rafe shares news of the V Festival application and the availability of the SugarSync client for Symbian. Ewan brings news of a new Foursquare client for Symbian, which leads to a broader discussion of location check-in services, Facebook Places and location availability. In the latter half of the podcast, David shares some final thoughts on the Nokia C6 and highlights the importance of battery life. You can listen to AAS Insight 132 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Another calendar quarter, another golf game, another chance for Steve to wallow in handheld golf nostalgia? Or maybe not, this time - let's keep this one a straight Ovi Gaming review. Let's Golf! has been well received on other platforms, notably on the iPhone and iPad, and here we have a Java version optimised for Symbian-powered touchscreens. How much of the experience has been compromised in the port to Java and is Let's Golf! (in the Ovi Store) actually any good?
In our latest (and shortest?) Ovi Gaming review, Ewan looks at MotionSpeed, perhaps a modern equivalent to Whack-a-mole. The title comes across well, though it's best played using a device with capacitive screen, which in the Ovi Store world means just the Nokia X6 at the moment. Read on...
Having not mentioned the Nokia N8 for a while now, it's timely to see a great new official gallery of both sample 12mp images (some of which are stunning) and 'still life' press shots of the device in action. The low light 'Night out' one is impressive, taken with Xenon flash. (via John Wiegand-forson)
Bookatable, a European-based restaurant booking service, has been added to Ovi Maps. As with other Ovi Maps integrations (TripAdvisor, TimeOut, Expedia, Qype), the service is available via 'More' from the main Ovi Maps menu. It gives rapid access to a mobile optimised, location aware, version of the bookatable.com service, which runs within, and is connected to, the Ovi Maps application. The aim is to offer a superior user experience to the typical restaurant-phone-around to check availability and book a table.
