Speaking at the MobeyForum conference, Nokia's Anssi Vanjoki has reaffirmed the company's commitment to NFC (Near Field Communication) technology. Starting from 2011, Nokia's global Symbian smartphone portfolio will begin to include NFC functionality. However it may, or may not, be included in all country variants. NFC is a short range (~10cm), high frequency wireless communication technology; the major uses are likely to be in Bluetooth pairing, reading RFID tags (e.g. smart posters), mobile ticketing (e.g. London's Oyster system) and mobile payment (contactless payment).
As part of the invitation to spend a morning with the Nokia N8 (ok, quite a lot of N8s - in various colours and states of readiness) on Monday, I grabbed Damian Dinning, Nokia's imaging supremo, to chat about the device and specifically its media capture capabilities. See below for the video interview and accompanying notes - there are several interesting points which I hadn't appreciated before.
Zahir Mahmood is, I suspect, a big Phones Show fan, partly because he links to my video podcast, but also not least because he's come up with his own take on the idea of postulating a number of smartphone use cases and then delivering a winner (or, in his case, a winner, a mid-level alternative and a budget suggestion) for each. His use cases are 'Photography and media capture', 'Entertainment and games', 'Office and work' and 'Internet world'. So familiar territory for me then, but his choices are both interesting and very Symbian-relevant.
With the imminent arrival of both the Apple iPhone 4 and the Symbian-powered Nokia N8, I thought it high time to pitch the two head to head. In fact, while doing so, why not widen the comparison to include the other non-Nokia Symbian flagships, the Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung i8910 HD, both of which have similar specifications, plus throw in the Android flagship (in the UK) as well - the HTC Desire? The result is hopefully a comprehensive cross-section of the top end smartphones of 2010.
Steve and I were in London yesterday to get our first full hands-on with the Nokia N8, the company's first Symbian^3 phone. We'll be bringing you a range of coverage, including our detailed first impressions and some extra analysis, but to kick things off we have a 'first-look' hands-on video. The video offers a quick look through many of the key applications, demonstrating the single tap interaction model and other Symbian^3 UX changes. It is also an opportunity to get a feel for the responsiveness and performance of the device, although it is important to note that the N8 is still running pre-production software.
David Gilson brings the Nokia E72 story right up to date, giving his own review take on the device now that it has received the first two rounds of firmware updates from Nokia. What has been fixed, what's still broken and who can the E72 be recommended for? With links, photos and opinion, this is a definitive summing up of the E72, mid June 2010.
As well as the X5, Nokia also announced a new variant of the X6 at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore. The capacitive screened fifth edition device will now have a model that ships with 8GB of of storage for music and multimedia. Expected price is 225 Euros and should begin shipping in Q3 2010.
At the Nokia Connection event in Singapore Nokia announced the social messaging and music focused Nokia X5-01. It's an S60 3rd Edition handset in a vertical slider, with QWERTY keyboard, form factor, which gives it square shape when the slide is closed. The Nokia X5-01 is currently scheduled to be launched in Indionesia in Q3 at a price of €165 before taxes and subsidies.
In All About Symbian Insight 122, we share the best of the previous week's news: Expedia hotel booking in Ovi Maps, Nokia 5228, Nokia Notifications and Tesco's Clubcard application. Steve shares his thoughts on the visibility of various screen technologies in bright sunlight, including a hands-on with Super AMOLED, and Rafe explains last week's Symbian Baidu tie up. Finally, the team discuss the launch of the iPhone 4 and the high-end device landscape. You can listen to AAS Insight 122 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
As part of its promotional activities for the N8, Nokia is releasing a series of overview videos presented by Chris Bennetts, a Senior Product Manager at the company. The third video covers the Music application and the N8's HDMI out functionality; rather than just linking to it or embedding it, we've broken this video down in detail to offer you some insight into the N8's music software and HDMI-out feature. Read on for further details.
The Nokia 5228, a variant of the Nokia 5230 was launched in Germany yesterday, reports Symbian World. The 5228 has the same styling and design as the Nokia 5230 and broadly similar specifications. However it lacks the 5230's 3G cellular radio and integrated GPS. It ships with a range of Ovi services including Ovi Store and Nokia Music Store. The Nokia 5228 will be available in July 2010 at a price of €139 including taxes.
As part of its promotional activities for the N8, Nokia is releasing a series of overview videos presented by Chris Bennetts, a Senior Product Manager at the company. The second video covers the Photos, Photo Editor and Videos Editor applications as well as USB On-The-Go functionality; rather than just linking to it or embedding it, we've broken this video down in detail to offer you some insight into the N8's photo and video software. Read on for further details.
Nokia have published their “Sustainability Report” for their activities in 2009. As well as highlighting their position as a “World Technology Supersector Leader” by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, it draws attention to a reduction of CO2 by 12% since 2006, and achieving their energy savings target for 2012 three years early.
Around 36 hours ago, Apple unveiled its latest iPhone 4 to the world - excellent build materials on it, but I believe that they - and Nokia - and others - are missing an important trick: what happens when you take your oh-so-portable smartphone out into the world. A world where the birds are singing, the people are smiling and the sun is shining. And you can't see a blessed thing on your smartphone's display. Returning to a theme from exactly a year ago, I compare some recent device displays to prove a very, very important point.
It's not everyday that you learn something - I've known for a while that a) OLED displays are supposed to be more power efficient than TFT and that b) the brighter the colours, the more power is actually consumed. But I hadn't realised the scale of the problem until now, with hard evidence from a semi-official Nokia source. Read on for links and comments by me. Summary? On a OLED-screened smartphone, a pure white theme uses 14x as much power as a pure black one!
