Well, not quite, but it's a fair indication. According to the eagle-eyed Jay (who has thankfully scanned the appropriate table), the Europe-wide Carphone Warehouse has listed its top selling pay-monthly phones - the Nokia 5800 is number 1, with the Apple iPhone at 2 and the Tocco Ultra feature phone at 3. As Jay notes, it's really not surprising, given that the 5800 started free on £15 a month contracts, undercutting the iPhone by a factor of around two, while out-speccing it in many departments (the exceptions being screen tech and size of app store).
What's in a box? Quite a lot if you are a collector. And that's why the move to digital distribution is robbing the gaming world of one of its prize assets. The collectiblity of the box that the game comes in. Ewan explains why the Magpie in him needs something more from Nokia. He also (in a timely fashion) refers to the problems of not being able to take purchases onto a new phone, or even back onto the same phone after a hard reset. Read on...
Just.... as us normal-coloured geeks start to get a glimpse of SIM-free Samsung i8910 HD phones, guest writer Stuart Clark reports on his first week with the bona fide, Orange-crippledbranded version. What has Stuart loved about the i8910 HD so far and what has he hated? And, more importantly, what's he had to do in order to get some of the lost functionality back?
[updated - 23 June 2009] In which I report on a usually forgotten feature of all modern Nokia smartphones - their stereo speakers. Why are these important (to me) and what sort of variation is there in volume and quality? I think you're going to be rather surprised - I know I was, the cheapest devices were the best! I looked briefly at the Nokia 5800, N95, N86 and N97... and have now added Nokia E90, E75, N96 and 6220c, plus the Samsung INNOV8 for good measure.
There's something outrageously different about the Nokia N97 (or is it outrageously the same?) that utterly polarises opinion, on both sides of the world. The Really Mobile Project's Ben Smith and James Whatley seem completely divided here on video (and embedded below), while Engadget Mobile's Chris Ziegler and Thomas Ricker seem equally polarised in print, right here. Sigh. Whatever happened to peace and love? Or maybe the N97 is a 'Marmite' smartphone that you either love or hate?
It's a hardware spectacular for The Phones Show 83, now out, with news of new Symbian OS smartphones, a long video review of the HTC Touch Pro, with head-to-head section against the Nokia N97, plus a demo-focussed tour around case makers Proporta, down in Brighton. If you want to pick the show up via RSS, here are the QVGA (for phones) and VGA (for desktops) feeds.
I'm not sure if The Gadget Show's Jon Bentley has been watching my Phones Show, but in his own video review (embedded below in HQ) of the Nokia N97, he seems to have picked up on many of the same complaints, including the diminutive keyboard and the still immature S60 5th Edition interface. Yet, overall, he concludes it's still "one of the best phones you can buy". I'd concur, with the rider that Nokia need to get cracking on firmware updates and that the 'b' in 'Buy' is in capitals - £500 is still a sizeable sum!
Rafe's been sending back some pictures and thoughts from the UK launch of the Nokia N97 and N86 in the Nokia store on Regent's Street through both Twitter (@aas) and Flickr (RafeB). No huge queues at the store, but plenty demo units, augmented reality units and he's wondering if the N86 is getting lost in all the lust for the N97.
The Nokia N97 and Nokia N86 will launch tomorrow, Friday 19th June, in the UK. Nokia's Regents Street flagship store will open it doors at 10am. They are advising customers to come in, if possible, and pre-order a device, ahead of tomorrow, to avoid disappointment. You can also order the N86 and N97 via Nokia's online store. Other UK online stores will also start selling both devices and they will become available through select operators in the next few weeks.
EA's mobile phone version of the classic board game Cluedo (aka Clue in some parts of the world) rejigs the traditional gameplay into a limited-turn logic puzzle game with an extremely slick graphical interface. Ovi Gaming has reviewed Cluedo for Ovi Store, and we also provide our usual gameplay video and selection of screenshots.
Promised some time ago, N-Gage games have finally been made available through Ovi Store, in the form of free trials which can be unlocked into full versions through an in-game purchase or rental option. Although Ovi Store and N-Gage remain separate brands right now, it might make sense for Nokia to merge them, as discussed below.
In All About Symbian Insight 75 (AAS Podcast 135) Steve, Ewan and Rafe discuss the release of the Nokia E72 and 5530 XpressMusic. There's also discussion of the latest Ovi Maps for mobile release, updates fro Rest Generation and early reaction to the N97. The podcast concludes with Rafe sharing his first impressions of the Nokia N86. You can listen to AAS Insight 75 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
