Spotted recently over on Nokia's web site, both pertaining to the upcoming 9300i smartphone, are an official newsletter and a comparison matrix (to their other business smartphones).
Porting arcade games is tricky, but SkyForce has been a big hit on both Series 60 and UIQ, which arguably have the form factor for an up-the-screen shooter. So a conversion to Series 80 was always going to be tricky. Steve reviews the Communicator version of Sky Force and finds a twist makes this a classic.
Steve Litchfield ponders the significance of reset holes and their absence from Symbian OS-powered devices. How much confidence do you have in your smartphone?
There's a new release of Nokia's all-singing, all-dancing PC Suite on the loose, v6.7, here's the download page. Version 6.7 adds the ability to manage your text messages and phonebook easily with File Manager, automatic notifications when a new version of PC Suite is available and improves the back-up and Image Store features. Support for the new Eseries and Nseries phones is also added. Read on for more information.
DataViz are offering a limited time discount on Documents to Go for Series 80. You can read our recent review of Documents to Go here and download a trial of the program here. Use the code 4526B4F8 in the basket or this link to add to the discount directly to your basket. This offer expires at the end of December.
Ewan tells how he relies on the Nokia 9500 Communicator for email, telephony, blogging and just about everything else while travelling the world. Does the Communicator live up to its name and what tips can he pass on for others?
Monday night's Gadget Show on Channel 5 in the UK (5 Dec 2005) hit viewers with a barrage of Symbian-powered smartphones. Topics covered by the show included getting online using GPRS/3G and TV on your mobile. The Nokia 7710 mediaphone, in particular was given a lot of close-up coverage, playing back video segments and shown streaming live TV. Also spotted were the Nokia 6680, 6630 and even the Series 80-powered Nokia 9300. Plus there was quite a bit of footage of Symbian's 'Smartphone Show'. What else did you spot? Comments?
Steve Litchfield reviews DVDPlayer as part of his quest to find a really decent video player for the wide-screened Series 80. With an OpenSource PC-hosted front end, DVDPlayer comes closer than any other solution yet to a video picture that fills the screen.
Just a quick plug for the Symbian Q and A Knowledgebase, which I've doubled in size and categorised so make things easier to find. It covers common support questions for Series 60, UIQ and Series 80 Symbian smartphones. Hopefully worth bookmarking at the very least!
TomTom have posted a big update (5.20) to their MOBILE 5 navigation system. Main changes are: "Support for more devices; Better support for 3rd party Bluetooth GPS; Increased number of POI categories to 40; Improvements in address search". Full details of how to update to 5.20 are given here
Released today is v4.0 of Fairway, the golf game for Nokia 9300 and 9500. Changes include modern opponent names, improved gameplay and visuals and even more realistic physics. Fully working shareware, details here.
Nokia has just announced the Series 80-based 9300i smartphone in New York. As previously rumoured, the main hardware changes are Wi-Fi (802.11g), a larger battery and predictive text input on the cover phone. There's a huge software bundle, mainly aimed at businesses. Read on....
In addition to the already established freeware SkinInstall, for automating skin switching on the Communicator, there's now Skin Wizard S80, also freeware, for creating your own skins in the first place. The Nokia 9300 and 9500 will never have looked so good!
