Somewhat eyeing up the OIS in the cameras of many of the Nokia Lumia smartphones, guest writer Keir Brython got to wondering how he could stabilise photos for extreme low light shots on his Symbian-running Nokia N8 and 808 PureView. His ponderings led him to the two titled Joby tripod mounts and his full illustrated review is below.
The market for sports trackers is increasingly competitive, with the freeware (and eponymous) Sports Tracker leading the way, perhaps. However, the actual cost of the application is rather irrelevant in this market. With applications that are going to accompany you, hour after after, up hill and down dale, what matters is how much they fit what you want them to do. MeeRun is certainly a polished application and is available for both Symbian and Meego here. The highlights for me are the efficient UI and the integral power saving lock screen.
It's fair to say that ViewRanger has come a long way in seven years, since my initial 2006 review on a sub-QVGA device and I can only apologise to all concerned that we haven't updated our coverage of it on All About Symbian since then. The first versions concentrated more on the unique 'panorama' and photo sharing functions, but it's fair to say that ViewRanger is much more of a general GPS and off-road navigation tool now. Best of all, it's now much more Internet aware in terms of getting new maps as and when needed.
It's all very well having 'Voice recorder' built into every Symbian smartphone, but there's not exactly a lot of choice in terms of settings (quality can be 'MMS', 'standard' or 'high') and there's a one hour limit hard coded in. What if you want to record in higher quality? Or for longer? Or using a different codec or sample rate? That's where Audio Recorder Pro comes in, offering all of the above. Here's my assessment, complete with audio samples to check out.
Transparent, waterproof pouches that enable us to use our tech in the pouring rain, down the beach or even, in extreme cases, underwater, have been around for a while, of course, I looked at Proporta's Beach Buoy last year. And now we have E-Case's eSeries 9, with smaller overall form factor and higher window-to-bezel ratio. Here's the eSeries 9 submersible case in action with a couple of likely candidate handsets. Summary? We have a winner...
Symbian's Music Player is now pretty good for most people, it has to be said, producing decent playback with very little hassle, and with an intuitive tabbed interface. However, real music afficionados might want to go further. Fancy gapless playback? Fancy playing back Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files as well? Fancy integrated, fully working cover art, lyrics, and artist bio downloading? Fancy a full 10 band parametric EQ with additional bass and treble customisations? Fancy comprehensive genre-based playlist construction? You'll be wanting QuasarMX then. Read on...
You know me, I'll jump at a special offer or, in this case, an out and out bargain. What would you say to a robust, well designed and well made 'tough' case for the Nokia 808 for an all-in price that other accessory providers would charge merely for 'shipping'? In this case the (white or) red Cellapod TPU Gel case for our favourite PureView phone - it fits beautifully, feels great in the hand, protects wonderfully and costs (£2.95 including shipping) less than a large coffee at your local restaurant. What's not to like?
It's a fair cop, Nokia Car Mode has been available for a while, and has been gradually introduced to more and more Symbian-powered handsets via the Store. But it's something that I'd never really used for more than a few seconds, it's something that AAS has never covered in depth, and when I came across a comment on the site wondering where our review was, I thought that revisiting this much-underused Symbian application was definitely in order. If, like me, you spend a fair amount of time in your car then you might find that Nokia Car Mode simplifies your interactions with your phone for the better...
Credit to 10tons for releasing their new smash (geddit?!) title on both iOS, Android and Symbian (still the three biggest mobile platforms by far in terms of active users, mind you) at more or less the same time. Whoever said Symbian never got the best games? The quirkily (but aptly) named Tennis in the Face sees you helping a disgraced tennis ace smashing balls around to try and knock over various opponents, all seemingly in the pay of the evil Explodz corporation. It's a physics-based game and has a number of similarities with the wildly successful Angry Birds, yet is at the same time completely different. See below for my illustrated walkthrough and verdict.
File this review well and truly under 'Really? This app is still going?' - ChessGenius has been around the Symbian world for many years, we even looked at it in 2006 briefly, on S60 3rd Edition. Wow. Seven years ago. Making it all the more remarkable that ChessGenius has not only survived well into the era of nHD screens and Symbian^3, it's fully compatible with the latest Belle FP2 phones and had even had updates in the fairly recent past. And, with that seven year gap in mind, here's a 2013 review of ChessGenius on the Nokia 808, powered by the fastest processor in the Symbian world. Taking on the game's chess engine under these circumstances was more than a little daunting...
