Sony Ericsson have slipped to fifth place in the handset sales market (reports SMSTextNews) with LG replacing them. The report, from Gartner, puts LG on around 8% of the market for sales during Q1 of 2008. Nokia are still number one, with 115.2 million phone sales, and there's also a global increase on all handset sales from Q1 2007 of 13.6%.
In AAS Insight 27, the latest All About Symbian podcast, we talk about some recent firmware upgrades for a number of devices before moving on to a wide ranging discussion from topics out of last weeks S60 Summit. Areas covered include the future of user experience, Samsung and the S60 platform, the future of software development and widgets and WRT.
One of the most well received projects in the demo area of the S60 Summit at Barcelona this week was Shaker Racer - a radio controlled truck using not the regular RC sticks, but the accelerometers in a Blue-tooth-connected S60 handset. I had to find out more, in our special video report.
Whoever thought this would happen? The presumed-forgotten Nokia E61i just received a firmware update from v2.0633 to v3.0633.69.00 (for unlocked Euro versions anyway, yours may vary slightly). [update] The E51 just got an update too, to v200.34.36, so NSU is most definitely your friend (E51 tip via the Symbian Blog)]
Although there are no real production units of the Sony Ericsson G900 up for looking at yet, it's been interesting to read the early reviews of the prototype around the web. Unwired View reckons the G900 should be great for people who need normal phone functions first and smartphone functions second, while Mobile Review says that the G900 presents one of the finest offerings in terms of the price/quality ratio.
Today, at the S60 Summit in Barcelona, the Samsung SGH-L870 was publicly unveiled. The L870 is a S60 phone in a slider form factor and has a 3 megapixel camera, FM radio and 3G connectivity. It runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (the first Samsung device to do so). This takes the total number of S60 devices to 79.
Wednesday morning sees the start of the S60 Summit in Barcelona, with Rafe and Ewan in attendance, more from them as it happens. See below, though, for photos and information on so-new-it's-almost-vapour Nokia N100 - the ultimate S60 smartphone? Plus my thoughts on Nokia's design strategies - maybe some of these will be taken on board by the manufacturers represented at the summit?
The long awaited firmware update for the N95-3 (US version) is now available according to Symbian-Guru (sources from Howard Forums and N95Users). The update brings the US version of the N95 up to speed with its world siblings. It adds demand paging, Flash Lite 3, Web Run Time, Idle Screen Nokia Search and significant performance improvements.
In AAS Insight 26, the latest All About Symbian podcast, covers opinion on new devices (HTC Touch Diamond, Apple iPhone 3G, Blackberry Bold), looks ahead to the S60 Summit, gives a first impression on the Nokia N78, the N-Gage games transfer issue and the launch of Nokia Maps 2.0.
In its latest hardware feature, All About N-Gage takes a brief look at the N95 as a games machine. It turns out to be actually rather good, due to N-Gage and S60 games working in horizontal mode, and being able to use the multimedia controls as N-Gage gaming buttons. Those new to the N95 should also see the links to AAS's review of it as a general phone, which are at the bottom of the page.
Perhaps the clearest photos yet of the new, tweaked Nokia E90, with the lower profile keyboard, have emerged at the Swedish site Daily Mobile. Scroll down its page for the all-important revealing side shot. Apparently the keyboard is retro-fittable for existing owners complaining of screen damage caused by key contacts - although comments so far indicate that the new keyboard is even harder in operation... (Thanks to kflyer)
The Finnish online electronics shop Verkkokauppa.com has started shipping its first Nokia N78 smartphones to customers, with a sim-free unlocked pre-tax price of 367 euros (the Finnish price behind the link is 448 euros which includes 22% local sales tax). The price includes a 1 year subscription to Nokia Maps Navigation for the Nordic region. It shouldn't be long before the N78 rolls out to other countries too.
The hugely popular Nokia N73 has another new firmware update available. v4.0812.4.x was released released yesterday via Nokia Software Update and includes support for mobile TV (when used with Nokia's SU-33W receiver) and Express Mail clients, plus updates and improvements to Nokia Maps and improved Java support.
In the third part of his review of the Samsung i450, Ewan reckons that devices like this are key to the future of S60 - with the technology becoming both less visible and incumbent in low to mid-tier phones. He also looks at the standard application set and at third party application compatibility.
The N-Gage platform aims to usher in a new age of high quality connected phone gaming. However if you upgrade to a new phone, you cannot transfer any of your N-Gage games from the old phone. In a special feature article All About N-Gage looks at why this is such a damaging policy for N-Gage, what the unintended consequences are, and a number of potential solutions. Will Nokia change their minds on this issue? Update: Looks like Nokia has indeed now changed their minds, their official blog has announced a game transfer system is on the way! Read the Nokia blog's statement.
