It's not often that Krisse struggles, but there seems to be a dearth of Easter themes around. For our article, we've only uncovered four Easter themes of varying relevance - can you help Krisse by suggesting other themes that fit this holiday better? Comments welcome!
Nokia's Official N-Gage Blog has now confirmed that the "First Access" beta testing phase will end on the 27th of March. It's unclear exactly when the full version of N-Gage will launch, but it should be "in the next few weeks". Nokia's also started a survey about the beta test and will give away the next gen version of Mile High Pinball to all beta testers who respond. You can also now sign up for SMS notification of the launch. Click on the headline for some important details.
EMI has confirmed it's in talks with Nokia to offer its portfolio of songs as part of the upcoming "Comes with Music" program, scheduled to become available later this year with selected devices. The world's largest music label, Universal, signed up for the program last December. (via IntoMobile)
Over on AAN, we've taken a look at the N-Gage platform's first card game, the Texas Hold 'Em title World Series Of Poker: Pro Challenge. Read our review to find out if this is a flush or a pair of twos.
A large screened S60 slider, 5 megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3.5G data - it's got to be the Nokia N95, right? But actually no, I just came across this recent video (see below) of the Samsung G810, which also adds a stainless steel case and genuine 3x optical zoom into the mix. Looks very good from here, we'll get one for review when it appears in the real world, never fear.
At the risk of inducing N82 overload, I noticed that there's new content up on Nokia's web site, with a flash front end introducing arty videos for the black N82, the Urbanista diaries and Nokia Sports Tracker. The diaries link is worth clicking through if you haven't yet played with the rather nice graphical widget that lets you see which roving blogger took which photo (with the N82) where. Sports Tracker seems groomed, from the video, to also take on geotagging of photos - comments on how this is supposed to work welcomed. Maybe it's artistic license?
Ewan's been the perfect use-case for ShoZu, the media uploader, while he's been away on his 'Seesmarch' - lots of photos and video, flat rate data and a desire to share stuff with the world. Here's his report/review of the new ShoZu version 4. Suffice it to say that the application scores very highly indeed, with only a few small caveats.
I said at the time of Nokia's "Comes with Music" announcement ("all you can eat" music included in the price of a new handset) that if Apple had made the announcement then it would be like the second coming on the blogs. The FT reports today that Apple are negotiating just such a deal - but also reports a rumoured price of Nokia's offer... $80 per handset, distributed by market share to the labels.
In Insight #17 (AAS Podcast 66) Rafe, Steve and Stefan talk around Apple's recently announced SDK and Application Store and what Nokia and Sony Ericsson do in this area. We also talk about our favourite form factors where we recognise that device robustness is the most important factor.
No, no, not the v21 firmware for the Nokia N95, we're still waiting for that. But Nokia has officially unveiled the black N82, with availability quoted in 'weeks' and with a price of 400 Euros (300 pounds) before sales taxes. For the N82, the colour change from silver is not just cosmetic. The black finish solves the huge usability problem of white key legends on silver background, plus it should reduce the fingerprint problem quite a bit. Read on for pics etc.
You've got to love high end comparisons like this - Abul over at Symbian in Motion has put together a great photo shootout between the Nokia N82, the N95 and a Casio Exilim (also 5 megapixels). The shots are selected well, there's apposite comment and there's even a linked Flickr gallery with many more comparison photos.
The Widsets 2.0 beta (update: now live on main site too) site recently went live which means you can now download and test the latest version of the Widsets client. New features include better integration between Widsets and the rest of the device including the ability to initiate a phone call or open a browser window. Widsets is a way to get web content on your mobile via widgetisation. Read on for more.
In Download! on most Nseries devices there's: a new games catalog 'Try for free', a collection of fairly decent native [or at least ported through a runtime] S60 games from 3D Arts; Shockwave Minis, mini-games across a variety of genres; a new catalog of Jamster games (probably all Java); SNAP Arcade, in-house Java game creations from Nokia; 'Just for Laughs', a 'fun' video player and downloader. Can you spot something else new in your device/market? Lots of screenshots below, by the way.
Out today is another free VoIP solution. OctroTalk works on all S60 3rd Edition phones and is an Instant Messaging application with full VOIP and peer-to-peer file transfer. You can connect to GoogleTalk, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo, AIM and ICQ (though not Skype). OctroTalk claims to use a low bandwidth codec and can be used with GPRS/EDGE networks.
Take a real mobile power user (Leon), with years of Windows Mobile expertise behind him and a top of the range HTC Athena. Now give him a Nokia E90 and give him a few months to really get to grips with it. This post over on the XDA Developers forum goes into detail about Leon's real world findings. Find out how the Symbian/S60 communicator fared against the behemoth of the Windows Mobile world.