Steve's dug out his old 6630 and has been trying Road Angel Mobile for S60 2nd Edition, a warning system for speed cameras, schools and accident blackspots. Here's the review. Note also that the developers offer free sign-up to the service before the end of October.
Just a note to remind everyone of our Support knowledge base. This was set up earlier this year as a replacement for the old FAQs and contains hundreds of common (and not so common) questions and answers for devices from all Symbian platforms. Here's the Support front page. If anyone would like to help me maintain/add to this, let me know!
Nokia has announced a range of new music accessories, befitting their status as 'the world's largest manufacturer of digital music players'. Included are new stereo headphone sets, mini-speakers and new (mono) Bluetooth headsets. The full press release and details below...
Ewan installs Blackballer, designed to block unwanted calls and messages, and sets off round the world (again) - does it work and who is it designed for? Here's his review.
Maybe it's because I still feel S60 3rd Edition device owners are starved of good games that I've gotten excited over the release of the freeware S-Tris 2 by Elements Interactive. It plays well, doesn't use up huge amounts of RAM and is available for every other mobile device under the sun...
Nokia and Microsoft today announced that Microsoft's Live Search results would be added to Nokia's Mobile Search application. Microsoft will provide search results for web results and for other advanced services such as Encarta Instant Answers, stock quotes and movie times. Mobile Search is a web service client application that runs on the most recent S60 phones.
Steve reviews Bar Billiards, bringing this olde worlde pub game of skill to a smartphone near you. For S60 2nd Edition, with a 3rd Edition version in development. Summary: best played with two!
The Russian website mforum.ru has done a rather astonishing durability test of the Nokia 5500, and it did rather well. They put the 5500 in a vacuum cleaner, buried it in a garden, bathed it in milk, bathed it in beer, held it under a tap, dropped it from a height of 2 metres, then 4 metres, then 6 metres, and finally ran it over with a car. It survived the lot, and only broke when they ran it over with the car a second time. The site's in Russian but the pictures and videos speak for themselves.
Thanks to this week's Carnival for pointing me towards one of the best articles on smartphone convergence I've read for ages, posted by Tomi in "The year the i-Pod died". Highly recommended reading.
In support of the international 'talk like a pirate day' (no, really), AAS's own krisse explores the world of ScummVM, the emulator that makes classic games like Monkey Island possible on any Symbian OS device, and reviews a couple of the most legal games.
Ewan reviews the classic strategy puzzle, Super Miners, here in its latest S60 3rd Edition incarnation (but applicable to all other Symbian OS platforms). Summary: classic puzzle, superbly implemented.
Spotting the new range of yes-you-read-that-right flight simulators from Warelex, I decided to take them for a spin around the sky. Summary? Fun and Frustrating, both at the same time, though the second 'F' should be lessened when the developers get a large-screened 3rd Edition version out the door.
Thanks to Darla for spotting that Nokia are having a bit of a clearout - the RAM-challenged 6680 and the Linux-powered and utterly niche 770 'Internet tablet' are now available as a bundle for less than £400. A bargain bundle, I guess, but sorry guys, we (he mean I, see comments - Ed) didn't want to buy either of them in the first place...
Nokia and EA have announced an agreement that will see EA create games for both current and future Nokia phones. The agreement encompasses both Java Games, which will be distributed using Nokia's Content Discoverer, and Nokia's next generation gaming platform.
Shameless self/site promotion again, but I've been updating my (hopefully definitive) table of S60 smartphones and their attributes, with new models and more mini-reviews. Presenting S60 device history.
