Rafe compares the key specifications of the Nokia 5250, Nokia 5230 and Nokia 5800 to see exactly what Nokia has cut out to get the price down. When it comes to the lower half of the smartphone market, price becomes the single most important factor in a consumer's buying decisions and even a £10 or £20 difference might sway a purchase.
Following on from the previous articles in his series looking at the sub £100 smartphone (namely the Symbian powered Nokia 5230 and the Android fuelled ZTE Racer), Ewan here turns his eye to the other major parts of the built in software - namely, PIM apps, music and media. How do the two budget smartphones fare against each other?
Nokia launched the 5250 today, an ultra-low cost S60 5th Edition 'music-focussed' smartphone. There's no microSD included, the screen's only 2.8" and there's no Wi-Fi or 3G or GPS, but it does come in at a price point of only 115 Euros (less than £100, expected on pay-as-you-go at £59.95 or similar in the UK), SIM-free, before taxes and subsidies, etc. You also get a free copy of Guitar Hero 5 Mobile. Photos and more details below.
In All About Symbian Insight 132, we start with a quick reminder that mobile data coverage is not universal, especially in rural areas. Rafe shares news of the V Festival application and the availability of the SugarSync client for Symbian. Ewan brings news of a new Foursquare client for Symbian, which leads to a broader discussion of location check-in services, Facebook Places and location availability. In the latter half of the podcast, David shares some final thoughts on the Nokia C6 and highlights the importance of battery life. You can listen to AAS Insight 132 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Having not mentioned the Nokia N8 for a while now, it's timely to see a great new official gallery of both sample 12mp images (some of which are stunning) and 'still life' press shots of the device in action. The low light 'Night out' one is impressive, taken with Xenon flash. (via John Wiegand-forson)
Here's a common scenario. You've acquired a spare battery for your smartphone, either by buying one on purpose or by inheriting one from another device. Yet, in order to charge each, you've got to power the device down and swap cells, effectively using the phone itself as the charger. If, like me, you juggle more than one phone and more than one battery for each, this can get very tiresome. Enter this latest mains battery charger from Mobile Fun, compatible with nearly every Nokia smartphone battery from the last few years and reviewed right here. Summary? It's a slam dunk.
Continuing his budget smartphone review mini-series, which is looking at the £100 ZTE Racer (powered by Android) when compared to Nokia's similarly priced 5230 (Symbian powered), Ewan evaluates the respective device's email and web browsing functionality. He finds that there's balance with plus and minus points on both sides. In part one of the series Ewan compared the relative merits of base hardware specifications of each device.
One of the most under-rated features of the Nokia N8 is its new email client, in the form of an upgraded version of Nokia Messaging. The Nokia Messaging team, in a blog post and video, talk about some of the key improvements, which include full HTML email support, improved device integration, easier set up and settings configuration, portal address lookup for GMail and Hotmail and improved performance characteristics. Also in N8 related news is the availability of N8 pre-orders through the Nokia USA web store.
In the third part of his review of Nokia's new C6, David Gilson considers the user experiences and examines the remaining applications. David concludes that, with a hybrid form factor and an increasingly attractive price point, the C6 has offers a compelling entry into the mid tier market. Part 2 of the C6 review covered the camera and multimedia software bundle. Part 1 covered first impressions and hardware.
In All About Symbian Insight 131, we start with new of a firmware update for the 5800 and 5530, which leads to a discussion on firmware change logs. Ewan talks about his recent Android experience, with the ZTE Racer (Rafe chips in with details of the Vodafone 845), which leads to a general discussion of Android in the low end. In the final part of the podcast David continues his C6 briefing, with details of the phone's multimedia capabilities. You can listen to AAS Insight 131 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
In the second part of his review of Nokia's new C6 (here's part 1), David Gilson looks at its camera and multimedia software bundle. Although there's little here that's actually new, what's surprising is the C6's speed - it seems that S60 5th Edition is now pretty well optimised in this regard.
In a followup to his previous introduction to this review mini-series, looking at the £100 ZTE Racer (powered by Android) when compared to Nokia's similarly priced 5230, Ewan looks at the base specifications of each. Which comes out on top and do specs even matter in this target market?
The N8 is now available for pre-order from Nokia's own web stores in France, Spain and Germany. The French store quotes a price of €459 (£380) and availability at the 'end of August', the Spanish store quotes a price of €469 (£389) and availability at the 'end of September', while the German store quotes a price €479 (£397) and availability in the 'third quarter'. The N8 is already available for pre-order in Italy at a cost of €469.
"So what's the best Symbian touchscreen phone to get these days?" is a question I get asked quite a bit. The person asking is unlikely to be a fellow uber-geek so I can't usually say the Samsung i8910 - and the Sony Ericsson phones are something of a mess in terms of usability. Which leaves good 'ol Nokia, famously plagued by problems producing a really high end S60 5th Edition smartphone (remember that the N8 is still - amazingly - still a month away), but who offer a pretty decent line up of add-ons, from Maps to Ovi Store to Music. After not a lot of thought, I'd whittled Nokia's current line-up down to two...
Nokia’s London Developer day has come under the microscope of Marek Pawlowski and he finds not only Nokia’s organisation of the day to be lacking, but also questions the whole idea of App Stores as a sustainable model for all. It's a constructive article, which I hope is taken seriously.
