Despite some glitches at Nokia's end, telling me the N78 was already up to date and that the firmware version available was the same as the current one, v12 - hey, I 'updated anyway'. And lo and behold the N78 comes up with v20.149 firmware after all. Something screwy obviously present there, but worth a good look over-the-air or via Nokia Software Update if you own an N78. Do a backup anyway, but in theory all your data and apps should be safe.
During a conference call discussing of Q4 results Nokia's CEO, Olli Pekka Kallasvuo mentioned that in the last 30 days of the quarter Nokia had shipped slightly more than half a million Nokia 5800 handsets. During this period the 5800 was only available in limited markets. Today it is the turn of the UK, the device also known as 'Tube' will be available from the Regent Street Nokia flagship store from 8am. See my Twitter stream for live blogging and my Flickr stream for live photos of the queues and experience. Read on for more including our PDF download.
Phil Lattimore, over at (usually, but not always) respected tech news harbinger The Register has put together a very fair and objective look at Nokia's first S60 5th Edition phone, the 5800 XpressMusic, coming to much the same conclusions as we did. Great minds, etc?
The Nokia N95 8GB has now had its v31 firmware update, too. This (the full ROM, around 130MB) went live today for unbranded phones. Estimated changes are noted below the break. The usual backup and sync precautions apply - the N95 8GB does not have UDP (user data preservation).
In All About Symbian Insight 56 (AAS Podcast 109) Steve, Ewan and Rafe discuss the news of the two N79 variants (Eco and Active), touch on the LGPL license option for Qt before discussing hands-on experience of the Nokia E63. In the second half of the show we talk about the issues around music DRM and consider the perfect mobile user experience.
According to a report on mobiletoday.co.uk, Sony has refused to let Sony Ericsson use the PlayStation brand on its phones. Sony Ericsson (a separate company jointly owned by Sony and Ericsson) apparently asked Sony for permission to use the "PlayStation" name as a sub-brand on their devices, in much the same way they have already used Sony's "Walkman", "Cybershot" and "Bravia". Sony said no, allegedly. (via Eurogamer.net)
In Part 1 of my Nokia E63 review, I covered the hardware, the UI and Email. In this, part 2, I look at the E63's multimedia capabilities, I look in detail at how the bundled Files on Ovi subscription works in practice and I sum up the device - never has the term 'workhorse' been so accurately applied to a smartphone. The E63 is terrific value though, at the end of the day, with the cost considerations dominating our opinion of it.
Following in the footsteps of the N79 Active comes another N79 variant, the N79 Eco, which is available for pre-order through Nokia's UK online shop and ships without a charger. Customers are expected to retain the charger from their previous Nokia device. The concept is part of a trial to save energy and reduce waste and is part of Nokia's power of we: strategy. Read on for stats and the full scoop.
Nokia's having a productive 2009 so far on the firmware front. v300.34.56 is now available for some product codes (previous was v220.34.37). No idea on changes at this stage, comments welcome. And usual backup/sync precautions apply, the E51 does not have UDP.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is now supported by the Nokia Software Update service. The currently available firmware is v11.0.008, which will not be new for most users. However, if you purchased your 5800 in the first half of December you may be running v10.x firmware. The update is relatively minor, but does fix a number of annoying bugs.
Fujitsu and NTT DoCoMo today announced they had localised the FOMA F905i handset for the Taiwanese market. The F905i, which runs MOAP on Symbian OS, is the first such handset to be made available outside Japan. The phone will be available on Far EasTone Telecommunications' (FET) network. The F905i features a 3.2 inch WVGA screen, 3.2 megapixel camera and allows input via the Traditional Chinese character set.
Nokia has announced the N79 Active, a "healthy twist on Nokia's smallest Nseries". The standard N79 is being bundled with a Polar Bluetooth WearLink heart rate belt, arm-band case, and a brand new version of Sports Tracker (which will also be released independently). The N79 Active is expected to ship shortly in "selected territories".
The Nokia E63, at £200 (SIM-free), is one of the cheapest S60 phones (at RRP) on the market. With its QWERTY form factor it looks, at first glance, very similar to the popular, but more expensive, Nokia E71. In the first part of his Nokia E63 review, Steve looks at the hardware and explains the differences between the two 'sister' devices, before covering the Nokia Email experience and discussing highlights from the on board applications.
In All About Symbian Insight 55 (AAS Podcast 108) we look at the UK launch of the Nokia 5800 MusicXpress, talk about the 'Curse of Silence' vulnerability (stops SMS messages from being received on some S60 handsets), before discussing our first impressions of the Palm Pre. You can listen to AAS Insight 55 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
A major firmware update for the Nokia E71, version 200.21.188, is now available. The new firmware adds the Internet Radio and My Nokia application, adds two new themes, adds a number of usability improvements and contains a large number of stability and functionality updates including improved WLAN support, more power efficient 3G and improved camera performance.
