The battles between Nokia's three Nseries flagships have raged on and off across the Internet for many months. Steve's used each of the N95, the N95 8GB and the N82 as his main device for long stretches of time and here presents a real-world summary of attributes and differences. Is there a winner? Only just. Comments welcome if you've also used all three or just have an opinion!
The Nokia N95 8GB just got a firmware update, to v20.0.016 (from v15). Apart from a few bug fixes and optimisations, the main changes are the addition of Automatic Screen Rotation (driven by the accelerometer, as on the N82) and support for more Bluetooth headsets. See below for details and comments.
In Smartphones Show 57, I challenge Stavros at Position Art (unsuccessfully - but then he is a genius), I cover Google's native S60 Search utility and there's an in-depth video review of the Samsung i550 business smartphone. Here's the main Smartphones Show 57 page, the high res YouTube version, and the QVGA (low res) and VGA (high res) RSS feeds.
In the latest of my semi-definitive (is such a term an oxymoron?) series of case reviews, I look at solutions designed to carry and protect the Nokia N82, from silicone sleeves to holsters to in-situ flips. If you own a case which you think performs better or have spotted something on the web that you think might fit the bill, please comment!
I'd been bending the ears of Nokia's Eseries team for ages about signing up with WOM World to handle buzz about their products and to manage triallist programs. And now it's happened, although my nagging was probably only a small part of the process(!) Here's the new, generic WOM/Nokia home page for you to keep track of via RSS. There will probably be an official statement along soon, too, hopefully with the announcement and trial-availability of at least one new Eseries smartphone.
Without wishing to harp on about the Nokia N93 too much(!), it was interesting to see the N93 get equal 'billing' with the N81 and N95 8GB in the title screen of Nokia's Mobile Games Innovation Challenge. Graphic proof below the break. I wonder if this actually means something? After all, we know that N-Gage support for the N93 is on the way...
Samsung has shown off a new S60 3rd Edition smartphone at the Tele-Vision fair in Nieuwegein. The L870 is a quad-band slider with GPRS and UMTS support, FM radio, 3 megapixel camera and USB 2.0. The L870 is, notably, only 13.5mm thick, thin for a slider smartphone. Picture below.
...Although not by me (sob). I've got my own thoughts and opinions, which will have to wait until the black N82 arrives at AAS towers. Until then, kudos to Daniel from Sweden, who has unboxed (seemingly) the very first black N82 out in real world shops. Some photos below, plus a link.
I've been comparing the audio quality in recorded videos in a selection of top Nseries smartphones. What differences are introduced by the move from stereo to mono and by re-using the main phone microphone? What about mike component quality? What about differences in automatic gain control?
That's User Data Preservation to you and I. This nugget is from a normally reliable industry insider, mik3, over at My-Symbian. We already know that new firmware v20 is coming for the Nokia N95 8GB, bringing screen auto-rotation, but mik3 makes a point of mentioning UDP. I'm guessing that v20 will bring the UDP code, ready so that UDP happens properly for the next firmware update after that. If you see what I mean...
Users of non-network branded Nokia E90s should check NSU right now. There's a new firmware update, v200.34.72, with Flash Lite 3, a new Quickoffice, and more. More details below. No idea why they should jump from v7.4 right up to v200, though! Read on.... [Updated: the update seems to have been pulled]
Having had a bit of a re-jig of some of the attributes in my all-singing, all-dancing interactive smartphone-choosing Grid, I proudly present it to the masses on AAS for approval. And yes, by plugging in different profiles, I've managed to get it to pick everything from Apple iPhone to Nokia E61i. See what it now picks as your best option. Did it pick your current smartphone? Your next intended phone?
It's black, it's a candy-bar with pencil-thin keys, it's got Wi-Fi, a GPS and everything else but the kitchen sink. And yet it's not the (black) Nokia N82, we're talking Samsung and their new SGH-i550 reviewed right here. Does it match up to Nokia's N or Eseries? And, with generic S60 on board rather than an extended-for-their-own-use Nokia variant, does the i550 suffer?
This Samsung SGH-i550 image gallery is a teaser ahead of our full review (now published above). The i550 is Samsung's top of the range S60 phone. It has a candy bar form factor and features a large 2.6 inch screen, a 3.0 megapixel AF camera, WiFi and HSDPA connectivity and an integrated GPS.
After much expectation in the user community, the Nokia N95 just got its Flash Lite 3/Web runtime firmware update. Although not as big an update as v20 was (which introduced demand paging and transformed the speed of the device, remember), v21.0.016 is still a major firmware and well worth installing. More details and screens below...
