In All About Symbian Insight 99 (AAS Podcast 163), we discuss recent news including Nokia's presence at MWC, Ewan's Le Web trip and recent Apple legal activity. Then there's discussion of the Nokia Booklet 3G and the future direction of such mobile devices and software platforms. Finally there some special Christmas related content making for a longer-then-usual podcast. You can listen to AAS Insight 99 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
As an experiment, I lent my Nokia N97 mini to All About iPhone's Matt Radford, to see what he thought of the device and its interface, coming from a staunch iPhone background. Embedded below is my ten minute catch-up interview with him, for your interest. A fuller textual report from Matt is in the works over Christmas, pudding and festivities permitting!
One would assume that with the Nokia N95, N96 and N97 having sequential product numbers, there would be a common aim for their use in the minds of Nokia's design team, along with a clear technical evolution. To be fair, you can see the former, in their focus on multimedia in conjunction with a decent camera. However, the latter isn't that easy to demonstrate, as I found when comparing the three Nokia flagships (from 2007, 2008 and 2009) head to head - it seems there are plenty of attributes for which the N95 wins and still more for which the N96 wins....
In this, part 2 of my Nokia E72 review, I look at its camera functions, multimedia handling and general applications, before rounding it up. Is it fully useable and does it measure up to the 2009 competition? See also part 1 of the E72 review, looking at its hardware and performance.
You may remember my 'choosing the phone that sucks the least' mantra from a while back? It seems that AAS-friend Ben Smith has come up with similar thoughts. In choosing an 'enterprise' phone (i.e. one optimised for getting work done and which an IT dept will support) to recommend to a friend or colleague, he manages in this article to dismiss just about all the current contenders. With all the current high end smartphone activity, it seems to use that no one model has got even close to being perfect...
In All About Symbian Insight 98 (AAS Podcast 162), we discuss the weeks news including closing Nokia Flagship Stores, Skype for Symbian Beta and Nimbuzz's Twitter integration. We also discuss some of the information that came out of Nokia's Capital Market Day, Steve's interview with Lee Williams (Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation) and offer insight into future Ovi Store developments. You can listen to AAS Insight 98 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
There are plenty of reports of firmware updates for Nokia smartphones over the last few days from various world regions, watch this space for more. New today (screengrab below) is v20.0.080 for the Nokia 5530 Xpress Music (you know, the smallest S60 5th Edition one), weighing in at 140MB via Nokia Software Update and rolling out Over The Air as I write this. All these Nokia devices should preserve all data, apps and settings, but an extra sync/backup might be a good idea, as usual?
The Nokia Booklet 3G, a 'mini-laptop' running Microsoft Windows 7, represents a new direction for Nokia and its expanding product portfolio. In part 1 of our Nokia Booklet 3G review, Rafe offers a short introduction and look at the overall design and hardware. Part 2 will examine the Booklet's performance and software, before considering the Booklet 3G's market positioning and drawing some overall conclusions.
It's tempting to look at the Nokia E72 as just a variation on the popular E71, but looking at it in detail, there are a surprising number of detailed improvements. With only a couple of software gotchas, and despite its necessarily-small screen, the E72 looks to be one of the most desirable candybar smartphones for 2010. Here's part 1 of my Nokia E72 review.
I'm repeatedly called a Nokia 'fanboy' in various comment threads by a small but determined set of Samsung i8910 HD-owning zealots*, and I'd like to respond with my own objective thoughts on the state of this Symbian flagship. Read on for what's good and bad about the i8910 HD (Omnia HD in some markets), along with a number of relevant links for further reading.
The Sony Ericsson Satio has received its first public firmware update, to version R1CA037 (from R1Bxxxx), which was released via Sony Ericsson Update Service (involving a Windows utility) in the last 24 hours. It's a 106MB update and addresses a litany of stability issues, including non-responsive touchscreen, media playback freezes, sub-par speaker sound and erratic camera. I'll be trying it over the weekend and will report back on the difference it makes. Comments most welcome from others who have applied this update.
Live this morning are The Phones Show 96, embedded below but of only tangential interest here perhaps, featuring an extended news, an introduction to the Nokia N900, a user story taking in iPhone, Nokia N97 and HTC Hero, and AAS's kevwright giving his Top 10 iPhone apps. Also live is Phones Show Chat 15, the hour long weekly audio podcast, in which Tim Salmon and I talk about our Nokia N97-centric (seemingly) universe(!), about Podcasting, about the Nokia E72 and about implications from Nokia's Capital Markets Day.
One of the big selling points about the original Nokia N95, N86 and 5730 XpressMusic (among others) has been that they have hardware music controls. So, while pocketed, or while in another application, or even with eyes closed in bed at night, you can still skip music tracks, pause podcasts, and so on. But with the new breed of touchscreen phones, you're out of luck in this department. Or are you? From (arguably) the "AAS dept of the bleedin' obvious", see my How to: Control music and audio on your touchscreen phone without touching it.
In All About Symbian Insight 97 (AAS Podcast 161), we discuss the release of Qt 4.6 and why it is important (Symbian and Maemo support, Qt Mobility APIs). We answer a range of user questions ranging from Ovi Suite for Mac, through N86 firmware and E72 software, to discussing what's the best current imaging phone. You can listen to AAS Insight 97 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
