Following on from our textual preview of the Nokia N78, here's a comprehensive hands-on video preview of the device, covering all the major areas using video and pictures from MWC 2008. The N78, as the entry level Nseries device, looks set to replicate the sales sucess of its immediate predecessor, the Nokia N73. Video (podcast 27) below the break.
It's Monday and it's time for our new Insight podcast. In number 15 (aka AAS podcast 63), we look at news, geotagging privacy concerns, recent handset designs from Nokia and Ewan reports on truly mobile software. Give it a listen on the way home from work. Here's the RSS feed if you want to subscribe regularly.
In times of inconsistent quality, it's good to reflect back on devices that have oozed quality, charisma or style, and sometimes even all three. In "Top 10 - Classic Smartphones", I count down the significant stars of the Symbian OS world from the last 7 years. Controversial? Biased? Probably. But I'll bet there are four or five of these on everybody's own personal top 10 from the same period! Comments and your own picks are more than welcome!
Rafe also spent a lot of time with the Nokia N78 at Mobile World Congress. Here's his detailed and illustrated preview. A natural evolution of the best-selling N73, despite the hardware improvements, it's the software and services improvements that really caught Rafe's imagination, taking Ovi and a much more rounded package to the mass market.
Over on All About N-Gage, we've just done an in-depth review and playing tips feature about Nokia's flagship N-Gage title Hooked On: Creatures Of The Deep, programmed by Symbian OS codemasters Infinite Dreams. Click on the link to find out whether it makes the grade or has to be thrown back in the sea.
It's not every day that you get direct feedback from the team behind a major manufacturer's software project. Following on from my Maps 2.0 preview, Nokia got in touch, answering some of my criticisms and giving more information about the future of the product. What's going to be added next to Maps, how to plan routes for free, why the satellite images aren't quite there yet, integration with Location Tagger and news of a future web-based map sync tool, it's all covered.
To complement his textual preview of Nokia's upcoming N96, Rafe has produced a comprehensive hands-on video about the device, covering each of its major areas with video (and photos) shot at Mobile World Congress. Rafe makes a compelling argument against actually calling the N96 a flagship, but its specs are still mightily impressive.
In this podcast we cover current developments around Nokia's Ovi strategy including Sync, Share, N-Gage, plus we chat about all aspects of the Nokia N96, following on from our hands-on preview. Finally, we rant and rave a little about Google's new native search 'client'. Here's the link: Insight no. 14, plus the RSS feed to sign up for the future.
One component of Nokia's Ovi which hasn't had quite so much attention is Sync. This just popped up on the main Ovi toolbar, trailing what Sync will offer. See below for the details.
The first batch of next generation N-Gage games has now become available through the public beta test, so we've started reviewing them. Our first ever Next Gen N-Gage review is Block Breaker Deluxe, an unofficial remake of the old classic Breakout.
Knuckle down for the real thing, guys and gals, AAS proudly presents Rafe's definitive hands-on preview of the recently-announced Nokia N96. From the DVB-H TV receiver to the new codecs to the music controls to the auto-geotagging of photos, it's all covered. Rafe spent quite a time with the N96 and it shows. Read the feature to find out how the N96 compares to the N95 variants and to the N82 - is there a definite flagship?
Tzer2 has been busy, over on All About N-Gage, listing 10 things that would be really cool on the new next-gen games platform. Do you think any of these semi-predictions will happen? Let Tzer2 know in the comments!
With the MWC and now GDC events under our belt, Ewan Spence draws from all the clues that Nokia has been dropping and comes up with a connected, converged epiphany into the future of gaming. The unification of smartphone functions, social networking and gaming is just around the corner, perhaps. Personally, I can't see any real showstoppers.
Google has released a native client for Google search for S60 phones. The application, available via the Google mobile site, places a shortcut to a Google search box on the Idle screen (unfortunately only for devices with either a 'Ctrl' or 'pencil/edit' key), but is also accessible via the usual application launcher on all devices. Typing in a query to the search box and pressing search opens up Web and takes you to the results page for that Google query in one go. It uses the new Google Mobile search service we mentioned a few weeks ago. Read on for more.
The 'Vase' is just a concept device, to be sure, but it got me thinking. Is this the way to handle a smartphone interface where there's enough functionality to overwhelm beginners? Maybe yes, maybe no, but it's a question that's good to ask.
