I'll admit that Nokia's DT-29 phone stand, as shipped with the 5800 XpressMusic is somewhat more professional than my own paper clip version. Aaron, over at the N82 blog has put up a gallery of photos and comments on how well it works propping up his N82 for video watching and capturing - I think he's right and Nokia should market this as a standalone accessory. [Updated: see below for the PDF template to Make Your Own]
Don't get too excited, as this isn't a commercial product yet, but Nokia have shown off Locate Sensor, a tiny gadget that can be attached to anything precious and then which communicates with your S60 phone. If the aforementioned gadget then gets separated from you, you can track it down (direction and distance) up to 100 metres away. So perfect for keys, laptop, etc. There's a reverse mode, too, which can act as an anti-theft device. See Electric Pig for more info and photos.
Programme 73 is now live (and also via iTunes, as usual, in QVGA and VGA formats), mainly featuring a monster video review of a production sample of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. As per my AAS review, it's littered with both pros and cons, but there's no doubting that it'll find its very own market.
With CES currently in full swing, the future of two of our tech world memory card formats has been announced. First and foremost, SDXC has been launched, the successor to SDHC. The 'XC' stands for 'eXtended Capacity' and allows cards of up to 2 Terabytes (that's roughly 2000 GB) and up to 104MB/s for read/write speeds. Presumably 'micro' versions of SDXC will also appear at some point, for phone use. Secondly, the M2 cards used by some Sony Ericsson UIQ 3 smartphones are set to be superceded by 'Memory Stick HG Micro', also promising up to 2TB and with 60MB/s transfer speeds.
At the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas Nokia has announced that the Nokia E63 will shortly be available in the US. The Nokia E63 is a QWERTY-equipped S60 phone and is effectively a budget version of the Nokia E71. It has a 2.0 megapixel camera, WiFi and 3G connectivity, and runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. It will have an esitmated retail price of $279 (unlocked) and will be available in the 'coming weeks'.
Ewan finishes his look at Nokia's OLED-screened N85 by taking it online. He also sums up his impressions, concluding that "underneath these colours is a thoroughbred". He does concede that some of the software in the N85 is "old" but recognises that this also brings maturity and stability. There are plenty of positives in the N85's package, it seems.
Probably a quick bug fix (in view of the numbers sold) to make darned sure that noone gets caught out by the 'nuisance' CurseSMS bug in S60 3.1, but N95 'classic' owners should try Nokia Software Update: v31.0.017 is available for unlocked devices in many countries.
Nokia's first S60 touch device, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, also known colloquially as the 'Tube', will go on sale in the UK on Friday 23rd January for £249 SIM Free (includes VAT). For the first week, it will be available exclusively through the Nokia Flagship Stores in Heathrow Terminal 5 and Regent Street. From Friday 30th January, the Nokia 5800 will then become available through Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile UK, Virgin Mobile, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U. You can now also pre-order the 5800 from Nokia's online store.
In the first AAS Insight (54) of the year we look back on 2008 and share our hardware highlights, rant about our lowlights, make a few daring predictions and waffle on our favourite pieces of software from 2008. You can listen to AAS Insight 54 here or, if you wish to subscribe, here's the RSS feed.
Steve continues looking at the Samsung i7110, this time turning his attention away from the performance and onto the software and user interface. With the caveat that this build is still an early version, he finds a lot to be impressed by, but it still needs a little bit more polish before the i7110 can really shine.
Tomi T Ahonen has penned a very interesting essay on how Nokia is now the world's biggest computer maker with 14% market share, as evidenced by 2008 sales. Tomi takes time to fully justify the inclusion of top end smartphones in the 'computer' category - some great reading here, including nuggets such as the Nokia N82 being as powerful as the Cray 2 supercomputer.
We all love phone comparison pieces. I love writing them. You love reading them. And then the world and their dog love arguing until gone midnight about why the comparison is valid/invalid/pointless (delete as applicable). Below, I'm mulling over both sides of the argument, pitching a Nokia N82 against the 5800 XpressMusic and the Apple iPhone 3G to try and make a serious point.
Many people are now reporting that the North American variant of the Nokia N96 has now got its own v12 firmware update (see here for our earlier post), including, according to Gearlog, compatibility with the new Mail on Ovi service. Can anyone upgrade and report back on how this works?
Not wishing to sound too much like a 'fanboy', but in anecdotal praise of Nokia's build quality and following on from my own brush with death (oh, ok, a pavement), we have a bunch of crazy Russians trying to destroy a 5800 XpressMusic (long text version here) and CJ's 'dad' hammering an N95 for a year. Just rounding off 2008, you know...
In this, part 10 of my (ahem) long running series, I look at the difference sensor and aperture size can make in phone cameras, for both stills and video. As real world examples of both good and bad, I use the Nokia N95 8GB and the 5800 XpressMusic. See below for links to other articles in the series.
