Rafe excels at these annotated photo galleries, and his Nokia N86 Gallery is his biggest ever. Pore over the N86 8MP with him and see why both he and I think it almost perfectly formed and a spiritual successor to the N95 Classic. Yes, the screen's only QVGA, but it's perhaps the ultimate in the keypadded dual-slider form factor. And the camera's not bad, too. 8-) Note that a full N86 review is coming very soon, don't go away.
The ubiquitous BBC have weighed in on the subject of the Nokia N97, with two videos, one in which Rory Cellan-Jones pitches it against the iPhone 3GS (also embedded below) and one in which Dan Simmons reviews the N97 on its own. Both seem fairly positive about it, though Rory rightly comments on the high price, also shared by the new iPhone, of course.
In All About Symbian Insight 75 (AAS Podcast 135) Steve, Ewan and Rafe discuss the release of the Nokia E72 and 5530 XpressMusic. There's also discussion of the latest Ovi Maps for mobile release, updates fro Rest Generation and early reaction to the N97. The podcast concludes with Rafe sharing his first impressions of the Nokia N86. You can listen to AAS Insight 75 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
I can feel the onslaught of accusations of bias already - but I don't care. In this feature, I present a hands-on head to head of the Nokia N97 and HTC Touch Pro 2, two tilt-screened qwerty smartphones with almost identical form factor. In theory a good match for each other, in practice the fight turns into a runaway rout, as you'll see. Summary: the N97 is imperfect. The Touch Pro 2 is so far short of perfect that it has disappeared over the horizon....
After ditching the notion that a perfect mobile phone can exist and lugging around a slew of devices, can the new N97 finally convince guest writer Justin Berkovi that the perfect phone DOES exist? In light of the Palm ‘Pre’ and new iPhone 3GS how does the N97 match up?
Nokia today announced the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, a music-focused, touchscreen phone running S60 5th Edition. It will be available from Q3 2009 at a cost of €200. It has 2.9 inch (640 x 360) touchscreen, 3.2 megapixel camera, accelerometer, 3.5 mm audio jack, FM radio and will ship with a 4 GB memory card. The homescreen features a 20 person contact thumbnails carousel with communication and conversation history just a touch away. The drop down media bar gives fast access to key phone functionality including music, photos, video, web and share. Effectively the 5530 is a cut down version of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic with a smaller screen, no 3G connectivity, and no GPS. Read on for more.
Today, at the Nokia Connections Event in Singapore, Nokia announced its latest Eseries device - the Nokia E72. This is an updated version of the Nokia E71, which was launched a year ago. The Nokia E72 has an updated version of S60 (3rd Edition Feature Pack 2) and improved messaging software suite. There are a number of small hardware changes, including a camera upgrade to 5.0 megapixels, a tweaked keyboard layout, an Optical Navi Key (trackpad) in the centre of the D-pad, and a 3.5mm audio jack. The E72 will be available from Q3 2009 at a cost of €350 (before taxes and subsidies). Read on for more.
ZOMGitsCJ.com is reporting that the Nokia N79 has received a firmware update to v30.011 which apparently includes improved stability and tighter Ovi integration. The update should be available OTA (type *#0000# on the standby screen) or through the Nokia Software Updater application.
On the official Nokia Conversations YouTube Channel there's a promotional video [update: temporarily withdrawn] for the presumably imminent Nokia E72. The device is a follow up to the popular Nokia E71, it shares the same form factor and basic design. However it has an updated keyboard with a redesigned control cluster area and redesigned layout for the bottom row of the QWERTY. There is also a 5 megapixel camera (up from 3.2 megapixels) and it runs an updated version of S60 (S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2) with the latest version of Nokia's messaging and email software. We're expecting an official announcement shortly and will post more details at that time (update: now officially announced).
In the second part of our multi-part, multi-author review series on the Nokia N97, I look at its multimedia functions, including camera (superb in daylight), camcorder (super for landscapes...), video and music playback, radio and Podcasting (all good). Are there any weaknesses left in this Nseries flagship? And what happened to Internet Radio, UPnP and a TV out cable? By the way, see also Part 1 - First impressions and overview.
Nokia's 8 megapixel N86 smartphone is now shipping according to Nokia Press Bulletin Board. Outwardly similar to the N85, the N86 features a slightly redesigned casing, kick stand, non-flat chunky keypad, and of course an 8 megapixel af camera which is the highest resolution on any Nokia device so far. Our camera expert Steve will be examining this hardware in detail of course, but just to give the official specs the N86 has a variable aperture for low-light photography, a fast mechanical shutter and automatic blur reduction. The N86 runs Symbian S60v3 FP2, is compatible with N-Gage and Ovi Store, and comes with 8 gigabytes of on-board memory as well as a separate microSD card slot for extra memory. (via ZOMGitsCJ)
Three years ago I wrote an article comparing text input speeds using various devices and form factors from the PDA and smartphone world. Here's the update, with some modern devices (including the iPhone 3G, HTC Touch Pro 2 and Nokia N97) included and tabled, plus a rogue's gallery showing Communicator keyboards through the ages. Am I obsessing too much? Is raw text input speed that important to you? Comments welcomed.
Should anyone be in a hurry for this (as if...), the YouTube version of The Phones Show 82 is now up and embedded below, with my video review of the N97. There's also a news section with shots of the iPhone 3GS in action, plus a no-doubt-controversial June 2009 'Top 5 phones'...
In All About Symbian Insight 74 (AAS Podcast 134) Steve, Ewan and Rafe round up recent news from the Symbian world including ST-Ericsson's SMP demo, Google's 'new' S60 Mobile App, the commencement of Nokia 5630 shipping and more. In the second part of the show Steve gives a few N97 impressions and the team answer a few listener questions. You can listen to AAS Insight 74 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Still regarded by some (including me) as the best smartphone for heavy email/office users, the Nokia E90 has received a major-versioned update to v400 firmware. Because the phone gets wiped as part of the upgrade process (no UDP here), it's difficult to measure the improvement in overall performance, so comments from users welcomed. Some screens below...
