T-Mobile UK are having a one day sale on their range of PAYG (Pre-Pay) mobile phones. As a result, the Nokia 5230 is available for £79.99. As part of the package you'll also get an 8GB microSD card and six months of Internet access. The 5230 is also one of Nokia's Ovi Maps free navigation phones, so you'll also be getting worldwide free sat-nav too. We think this represents fantastic value for money for those looking for a low cost smartphone or for a backup phone. But you've only got til midnight. More analysis below.
Two years ago the Nokia N95 8GB was on top of the world, the N96 was the newest offshoot, the E61i was the best bet for the common man in the business world, and their 2.8" screens were deemed massive. And, the oddity of the E90 notwithstanding, we were happy. Weren't we? These phones did all we asked them to and the the world was good. And yet, less than 24 months later we find the smartphone world dominated by 4" screened, touch-only devices that bear little resemblance to the champions of 2008. Is it all the iPhone's fault, or is there more to the change? And where do smartphones go from here?
Here and Now has formally graduated from Beta Labs and is now available for selected devices. Here and Now finds weather, movies and restaurants (etc) around you and has been in an extremely long Beta Labs test, but has now been released for S60 5th Edition and selected 3rd Edition smartphones via Ovi Store and Software Update, restricted because of the version of Web needed. Wider device compatibility in the future is promised. Some details below.
Nokia continues to lead the mobile handset market in the UK (reports Mobile News). Over the Christmas period, the Finnish company kept its share at just over 30%, reclaiming the top spot from Samsung, who dropped back to a 21% share. Third place went to Sony Ericsson.
In a departure from traditional All About Symbian conservatism, Steve Litchfield goes exploring the world of firmware modding, specifically looking at the Samsung i8910 HD, a flagship smartphone in terms of specifications that has been under-curated by its manufacturer. Can a third party, armed with no source code whatsoever, really mess around with the files in the firmware to produce a better device? Short answer? Yes. Four times the free disk space on C:, focussing in video capture, and more. Here's the tale of how the i8910 HD gets transformed with HX 3.17...
Shazam announced today that its music recognition application has been downloaded by over one million Nokia users from the Ovi Store since its launch in August last year. The Shazam app has been downloaded in more than 200 different markets onto over 40 different handsets. Read on for further details, a video interview and a demo with Shazam's Iain Dendle at MWC 2010, together with some additional App Store commentary.
What's super-simple to understand, super-addictive to play and available right now in the Ovi Store? Phit Droid is the answer and has been giving Ewan some serious puzzling fun on his recent travels. The only negative is the unpolished opening menu, but otherwise it's positives all the way in this 80%-scored review here on AAS's Ovi Gaming.
Simon Wardly, Software Services Manager for Canonical, is a strong advocate of distributed computing – the mythical cloud that exists in the modern web world – and he’s spent some time on his personal blog to go into some depth about the current “state of the cloud.” While not directly relevant to Symbian it makes for great background reading over your mid-morning coffee.
Mobile Documents was one of the star performers at today's DEMO conference. Richard Bloor takes a first look at this mobile email and documents solution from Sweden’s Visiarc. The application implements patent pending “cherry picking” technology, which promises a better way to manage email and their attachments on your mobile device. Read on, in our feature article, for more details.
If you've been following my continuing review of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz, you'll know that it has a small but perfectly formed body and a great camera/camcorder. But what about its new custom homescreen and media suite? It's pretty enough, but I look at all the options and weigh in with opinion on what Sony Ericsson could have done better. Could the Vivaz have presented a more unified user interface? Here's part 3 of my Vivaz review.
In All About Symbian Insight 110 (AAS Podcast 174), Rafe and Steve share news of the arrival of Ovi Map's free navigation on the N86, and the release of the Silverlight for Symbian Beta. Steve tells us about a community firmware release for the Samsung i8910 and introduces a discussion on the death of Wayfinder; Rafe talks about Navteq True (next generation digital mapping data collection) and shares some initial thoughts on Windows Phone 7 Series. You can listen to AAS Insight 110 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
You can rely on Tomi Ahonen to tell it like it is - in this case musing on the appalling economics in the iPhone app world (there's a summary quote below), talking about the sheer numbers mean that even if you do a great app and are moderately lucky then you'll still lose your shirt. Comments welcome as to how much of this applies in the world of Symbian - Ovi Store, Play Now, etc. - I've a feeling there's a common argument that could be aimed at Symbian app development. Of course, the solution is a) to be insanely good and b) reviewed/feature here on All About Symbian...
Some say he can light a fire in the wild just by staring. Some say his favourite food is sprouts. All we know is he's called Ewan Spence. Part 6 of a series of short videos from Ewan is embedded below, along with some of his 'diary' commentary, as part of his gaming and blogging spring trip to San Francisco (GDC) and Austin (SXSW). We set him a series of challenges (also known as a real world test of the Nokia 5230/Nokia Nuron), all delivered by the Stig. In part 6, Ewan answers all the questions that have been either emailed in or left in the comments for previous videos.
OK, so Steve has a new favourite theme - and it seems that PiZero is experimenting with new ways of distributing his excellent themes: Earth is a new addition to the Nokia Ovi Store and appears for S60 5th Edition (touch) phones only. It's artistic and yet lightweight, with default icons to save RAM. Worth a look - there's a graphical preview below.
The Compact-qwerty-equipped Nokia E55 just got itself a firmware update, available widely for all unbranded handsets, taking the E55 from v31.012 firmware to v33.002. It's a 3.8MB update Over The Air and there's the usual full retention of your data and apps. No changelog has surfaced yet, so comments welcome if you spot something new (or better!) Maps 3.3, it seems, is the biggest addition, i.e. the free navigation version is now built-in. It also seems that the E52 has received the same update.
