We all love phone comparison pieces. I love writing them. You love reading them. And then the world and their dog love arguing until gone midnight about why the comparison is valid/invalid/pointless (delete as applicable). Below, I'm mulling over both sides of the argument, pitching a Nokia N82 against the 5800 XpressMusic and the Apple iPhone 3G to try and make a serious point.
Not wishing to sound too much like a 'fanboy', but in anecdotal praise of Nokia's build quality and following on from my own brush with death (oh, ok, a pavement), we have a bunch of crazy Russians trying to destroy a 5800 XpressMusic (long text version here) and CJ's 'dad' hammering an N95 for a year. Just rounding off 2008, you know...
In this, part 10 of my (ahem) long running series, I look at the difference sensor and aperture size can make in phone cameras, for both stills and video. As real world examples of both good and bad, I use the Nokia N95 8GB and the 5800 XpressMusic. See below for links to other articles in the series.
Engadget has been reporting that Nokia and fellow Finnish company Polar, a 'leading brand in sports instruments and heart rate monitoring', are planning to get together to integrate phones and Bluetooth aids such as heart monitors. Sounds good to me and a match made in heavenFinland.
I finally found time to take my Smartphone Choosing Grid into 2009, adding devices like the Nokia N96, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, HTC Touch HD, Blackberry Storm and T-Mobile G1 into the mix. As usual, simply tick your preferences and have your perfect smartphone picked for you! How accurate is it now? Feedback welcomed below...
Here's the scenario. You've shot a video (or two) on your Nokia Nseries smartphone, at VGA quality through a Carl Zeiss lens and up to 30 frames per second. And you want to be able to show it to the world in your blog. YouTube is the obvious choice, but how can you ensure that people see your clip to best advantage? Here's my intermediate-level 'How to'.
In much the same way as most GMail users also run the Java-based GMail client on their phones, there's now GCal, a Java-based Google Calendar client - except that this one's not an official Google product. It's also still early alpha status, but looks rather promising for those that want a lot more than Google's existing web-based Calendar view.
Just a quickie - Nokia's prolific Beta Labs has just launched itself in Beta - that's right, a whole new site layout for you to... errr..... test drive. Go on, give 'em some feedback, after all the freebies they've plumped our way this year.
Steve and Ewan round up the last of the news before Christmas turns up in the latest All About Symbian Insight podcast. We talk about the beta labs image Exchange, how much to charge a user for Web 2.0 services in 2009, Resident Evil on the N-Gage, ask where Rafe is, and finish with a musical number from Geoff Smith.
I just squeezed in a last programme of The Phones Show before Christmas. No 72 includes a video demo of YouTube in Web on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, News, Conclusions from my AAS series on phone cameras, hands-on thoughts on the Samsung Omnia, plus a demo of installing an app from the Android Marketplace.
Congratulations to Mark from The Nokia Blog for his engagement, live blogged via Ping.fm, which now has a mobile client (ping.fm/m/login/). What this gives us is a way of updating a mountain of social networks (Twitter, Facebook, etc) by filling out one mobile form, which is pretty cool and worth bookmarking.
After a little downtime and turnaround, Share on Ovi seems to have had its login system well and truly integrated with the generic Nokia Account system used in some other parts of Ovi. There have been some glitches of course - at least one reader emailed in with a story of woe and I've had some Apache server errors - but things generally seem to be working. Interestingly, on the Account page, there's a section on 'Subscribed Services' (screenshotted below), showing the integration between Ovi (Maps, Contacts, Calendar, Files), Share on Ovi, Friend View, Nokia Chat and My Nokia.
In a splurge of activity over at Nokia Beta Labs in the last day or so, here's a roundup of news: Nokia Email has graduated from Beta Labs to become Nokia Messaging, though the full announced functionality (e.g. IM) still isn't in place. Nokia Communication Center 2.0 has graduated and is now part of the latest PC Suite (7.1.18). Finally, Enhanced Calculator has been 'archived' and will at some point be reworked and brought into devices - meanwhile you can still grab it as-is if you like.
In AAS's latest beginner's tutorial, I explain how to use Mobitubia, a popular third party video tool to archive your YouTube favourites for later offline viewing and as part of a long term archive. You'll never be bored on a train journey again...
Roll up, roll up, for the last Carnival of the Mobilists of 2008...
