TechMobility

The story of a Nokia N8 - Amazing hobbies #NokiaChallenge

2012-01-28T09:53:00.000-08:00

Well, a while ago I decided to do a stop motion video featuring the Nokia N8 I won in the Mapstronaut competition. When I saw that the folks from Nokia Connects were holding a #NokiaChallenge, I decided to hold on for a while, and the video fits this week's theme perfectly. Since I am a gadget freak and my favorite phone in the whole wide world is the Nokia N8, here is a video of the N8 presenting itself. Hope you enjoy it!

SymbianPaidApp #1 - Gravity

2012-01-24T03:17:00.000-08:00

Today I am starting another series of posts that will focus on Symbian paid apps. First app I'm gonna present you is Gravity.

Gravity was born as a Twitter only client, but over time it has evolved into a multiple social networks client. It now features Facebook, Foursquare, Youtube, Google Reader and many more. Gravity is one of the most straight forward and fluid applications I have ever seen. I think it's safe to say that it is one of the best social apps not only among Symbian apps, but among every social app for mobiles.

Gravity can seem to be a little expensive costing 5 times more than Tweeties for example or Facial, but it does have lots of advantages and here are only a few of them:

1. Very fluid user interface
2. Very fast
3. Custom portrait keyboard
4. Pull down to refresh (in next version 2.5)
5. Multiple social networks integration
6. Homescreen widget

That being said, watch the video review below for a more detailed analysis.

Gravity vs fMobi vs Facial - user interface technical comparison

2012-01-21T07:38:00.000-08:00

My job is Java programming, and my main expertise is user interface. I've been working in programing for 8 years, so I can say I've been there. Today I will start a series of posts where I will try to "shrink" mobile applications. I will try to objectively analyze those apps' user experience and the user interface design and concepts behind that user experience. So, I'm gonna kick this off with a comparison between paid Facebook clients.

Introduction
Before we go on to the comparison and video demonstrations I have to define some terms so you can better understand what I mean in the video demos.

Applications are usually composed of a number of threads or subprocesses. Each of those threads do something. One loads data from Facebook, another builds the user interface components that are about to be displayed, while a third one checks your paid license. This is just an example. These threads run in parallel. Well, not really, because Symbian phones have only one CPU, instead the CPU runs each of those threads by giving them priorities, and assigning different priorities for each thread during time, so the user perceives it as if those threads run in parallel.

The priority of a thread decides how much CPU power that thread can access when running. The highest priority means that while that thread with the highest priority runs, no other thread or process will access CPU power.

Analysis
I chose those three apps because each of them has a different approach when it comes to handling data and user interface, and they lead to totally different user experiences.

Let's start with fMobi. When starting up, fMobi loads you stream from Facebook, and that then shows you the feed. The images contained in the feed are loaded while the user interface is displayed and that generates some choppy scrolling until all those images are loaded.

Next is Facial. Much in the same way as fMobi, Facial loads the feed at startup, but it also loads the images from the feeds, before actually showing the feed. The result is a longer waiting time before showing the feed, and a much faster and smoother scrolling. That is because the app can focus on scrolling alone, having nothing else to load.

The last one, Gravity takes another approach. It loads the feed, but not the images. As long as something happens to the feed(scrolling up and down, expanding items) the images are not loaded. When the user stops and the application is idle, only then are the images loaded and shown. Furthermore, Gravity only loads images for the items that are visible, hence optimizing images load time and RAM consumption as well.

Check the video below for more user interface comparison details:

Next I want to show you how each of those apps handle data and Internet connectivity. Facial and fMobi both load the Facebook feed each time they are opened, hence the pretty long wait each time those apps start. However, Gravity takes a different approach, called caching. Gravity creates a cache of previously retrieved feeds, and shows them to the user, and only gets the new ones when the user issues a refresh command(Update now). How different are these approaches? Well, pretty different. First approach uses your Internet connection each time, and most times it may retrieve the same data again, hence draining your data plan without getting anything new. Second approach, gets only new items, and only once, hence keeping your data consumptions to as low as possible. Another issue is the battery life, the more times the Internet is accessed, the faster you battery drains.

Check the video below for more details on how each app handles data loading:

So the overall winner of this battle, which took both chapters of UX and Data handling is Gravity. That does not mean the other two are not worthy apps. fMobi is the most mature of them and has the most features, while Facial is the one who's the most RAM friendly. Keep all aspects in mind when you make your choice.

Nokia Maps - 360 Cities review

2012-01-21T07:37:00.000-08:00

It's time for another post about Nokia Maps. Besides free offline turn-by-turn navigation, Nokia Maps suite offers a great deal of other useful applications, one of which is Guides.

A new addition for the Guides application is the 360 Cities section. 360 Cities offers you something that really no other mapping or trip application does, and that is panoramic views of places near you, or any other location you can think of.

First of all we have the Near you section where you can see places near your location with panoramic pictures and all. The places are sorted by the distance from your current location. When you look at a certain location, you first see a portrait picture of the place itself, but if you flip you phone, then you can see the panoramic image I was talking about earlier. You can also move around the photos, but not the way you would think. You have to tap the image and three sets of controls will appear: one for moving around, one for zoom in/out and one for a shortcut to the maps. I know there's no pinch to zoom, or swipe to scroll, but remember the app is in it's early stages, and improvements are bound to happen.

Next you have the Editor's picks, which will show you the favorite locations of the Maps guys. Next is the Most popular where you can see the locations sorted by people's choice.

The Cities section shows you exactly what you think it means. You can see the cities and general panoramic pictures with the main points of interest in those cities.

The Businesses section shows you restaurants, hotels and other businesses. Here too, locations can have more images for you to enjoy.

360 Cities is a welcomed addition to the Nokia Maps family, and I hope it will grow fast. I will be using this feature along with the entire Nokia Maps suite, when I go to Rome in March.

SymbianFreeApp #1 - facinate

2012-01-11T23:45:00.000-08:00

Today I'm gonna kick off a new series of posts on this blog about Symbian free apps. I'm not going to post every possible free app, but only those I find worthy and use myself.

I'm gonna open the series with a much awaited and surprisingly free, app for Facebook named facinate. Facinate is written in Qt and it behaves more like a WP7 or MeeGo app than a Symbian app. Most things within the app are done by vertical scrolling or side swiping. For example, when you look as someone's profile, swiping left or right takes you to that person's wall or photos.

Facinate is pretty quick, but sometimes the scroll feels choppy(and my best educated guess here is that it is caused by the loading of the images in the feeds), but you have to remember that this app just appeared on the market and it came pretty full featured.

There are some things that I miss with Facinate, like pinch to zoom in the photo viewer, or downloading photos to your phone.

It's only at version 1.0 and the team behind it promise they will have an update soon which will bring the photo downloading feature and many more speed improvements.

The app has basically two views. One is for feeds(and here I include, info pages, wall pages, album pages, friends list, etc) and a second menu view, that takes care of the navigation between the first type of views.

The user interface is in line with the Nokia Belle UX guidelines and it even has a notifications reminder on the bottom right menu button. One thing I did not like about the notifications system, and I hope it will be fixed in the next release is the fact that in order for the notifications to go away, you actually have to click and view each of them.

Facinate also features a homescreen widget which works pretty well, but sometimes stalls and doesn't show anything else for a while. However, I have to say that this is a viable alternative for Nokia Social when it comes to Facebook. Don't get this the wrong way, Social isn't going away, you still need it for SN integration and easy sharing and stuff like that, but for your usual facebook-ing Facinate fills in very well.

Here is a quick UI tour of Facinate

You can download Facinate from Nokia Store.

Nokia Challenge - Amazing family and friends

2012-01-11T00:24:00.000-08:00

This is my entry for the Amazing family and friends Nokia Challenge. All photos were taken with my Nokia N8, the first two are taken with the front facing camera. Hope you like them :)

Here's me and my kid Rafi, trying our the front facing camera

This is Rafi's first lego airplane that we built together

Rafi is trying out his grandma's fur hat

Boy were we sleepy. Just woke up for the camera :)

Rafi meets his first Christmas tree

Rafi's first encounter with Santa

Rafi and his friend Matei checking out the washing machine

Washing machine still interesting. Mommy kissing the sleepyhead

Company's Christmas party plus a jolly surprise at work

So, this is my AMAZING EVERY DAY! My family, my friends, and my Nokia N8, which is right there as always, to capture the show.

Nokia Lumia 900 - Stephen Elop on Nokia's strategy for North America

2012-01-10T01:35:00.000-08:00

Well, it's been a while since Nokia stood up in the North American market, but today the games changes. Today, Nokia announced a device designed with the North American market in mind, the Nokia Lumia 900.

The Lumia 900 boasts a 4.3 inch ClearBlack AMOLED display, which is not pentile this time(it's RGB), so all that criticized the N9 and Lumia 800 can set their minds at peace. It also features a 1.3MP front facing video call camera, besides the (now usual) 8MP Carl Zeiss optics camera on the back.

Besides the Lumia 900, Nokia also launched the Lumia 710 and Lumia 800 on the North American market. On top of that, Stephen Elop's homeland, Canada, also got some Nokia love, with the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 being available for Canadian carriers.

Here's a interview from Nokia Conversations with Stephen Elop on Nokia's North American market strategy.

Nokia Situations - Automating your Nokia profiles

2012-01-05T22:20:00.000-08:00

This post is going to be about how your Nokia smartphone can help you in your daily activities by remembering to do routine things for you.

Nokia Situations practically a more advanced profile manager. It allows you to setup much more advanced settings for each of your existing an newly created profiles. We're all used to having ringtone, vibration, and many more things like that customizable on each profile. But Nokia Situations brings more to the table. It allows you to set the following options for each profile:

1. Theme - Yes, it can change the theme when you switch profiles
2. Enable power saving
3. Open a bookmark
4. Open an application(we'll get back to this one later)
5. Turn Bluetooth on and off

All these features by themselves are pretty cool, but wait to see how they fall in when used together.

The Nokia Situations app has another tab when you edit a profile, the Conditions tab. Once you have a condition set, you profile turns into a Situation. So, to show you what I mean, here are a few real life examples, some of which I use daily.

One profile that I've created it's the Night profile. I turn off the vibration, set the ringer volume to a minimum, turn off all other tones, enable power saving and I'm off to bed. But wait! Don't I have to switch to that profile? I used to, but not anymore. Nokia Situations takes care of that.

In the conditions tab, I've enabled the first condition, Time, and set it from 23:00 to 7:30. This means that Nokia Situations will switch my phone to Night profile at exactly 23:00 every day and set it back to General at 7:30 in the morning. How cool is that?

So, you get up and want to go to work. So you get to your car and jump in, put your phone in the car holder and you drive to work. Nokia Situations can now detect your car's Bluetooth system and switch to a Car profile that can actually launch an application, like Nokia Drive, or (for Belle users only) Nokia Car Mode. All you need to do is enter the car, and you're ready.

Another useful situation is when you get to work. Your usual ring-as-loud-as-you-can profile is golden in busy crowd, on the street or any other noisy situation, but at the job, you have to keep the volume down a notch. Nokia Situations to the rescue again. I, for one, have a predefined situation that detects my workplace Wi-Fi network and changes the profile to a low volume ringtone profile and no vibration, because I keep my phone on my desk at all times.

Same happens when I get home. The phone detects my home Wi-Fi network and turns off the vibration but turns the ringer to max volume because I have to hear the phone from everywhere around the house. You can even set it up to activate when you arrive at some GPS location.

With the amount of features present in this app, the possibilities are endless. This app can help you forget about profiles. You set your automatic profiles on, and Nokia Situation takes care of everything.

This is one must have app for your Nokia device. Besides working on Anna and Belle, it's also compatible with earlier S60v5 and S60v3 Nokia smartphones. Download it from Nokia Store.

10 things I love about the Nokia N8

2011-12-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

In case you were thinking of getting yourself a Nokia N8 for the holidays I will try to show you the N8's best features.

1. Camera

Most people who buy this phone buy it because of the camera. It is, without a doubt, the best camera in business. It has a 12MP sensor, auto-focus and it records 720p HD video at 25FPS with the stock software. However, Nokia provides an update that adds some neat features like 720p video at 30FPS and CAF(continuous auto-focus) for the video recorder. The camera is accompanied by a two stage camera shutter key on the right side of the phone. One of the best features of this camera is the Xenon flash. Unlike many other mobile phones that carry dual LED flash, the N8's Xenon flash lights up the room even when taking a picture in complete darkness. That is priceless for a mobile phone. The N8 puts my Nikon L14 to shame.

2. Unlock

The thing I like about most Nokia touch phones is that you can unlock it very quickly. The unlock knob does that. Just pull the knob and the phone unlocks. Pull it again and it locks back. No need for additional taps or swipes on the screen. But the N8 has multiple ways of unlocking it, unlike it's Android counterparts. The unlock know is just the easiest. You can also press the menu button or the power button and the unlock screen will appear and you're a tap away from unlocking your phone. Neat, right?

3. Charger

Nowadays charging your smartphone is a thing you do very very often. These suckers drain your battery like there's no tomorrow, so you better have spare charger to keep in your pocket at all times right? Wrong! You don't have to do that with the N8. The N8 charges through the Nokia pin hole charger or through any micro-USB chargers you may find in your way. The dual charging practically doubles your chances of finding a charger. If you can't find a Nokia charger you definitely find a micro-USB one. Plug it in your computer, or your car's USB port and you're safe.

4. Battery life

Battery life is a big issue with smartphones nowadays. Most smartphones don't get through the day on one charge, so you have to carry your charger or data cable with you and plug it in whatever USB port you can find. Well, the N8 doesn't have that problem. It survives two days of moderate usage or a full 24 hours on one charge with heavy usage. You can snap as many photos as you like and record video like crazy without having to worry about battery life.

5. 16GB of storage memory

Besides the iPhone, there aren't too many phones that come with this amount of on board storage. You can store an entire collection of photos, movies and music on your phone without any problem. The internal memory is complemented by a micro-SD slot which supports micro-SD cards up to 32GB, so if you're a geek like myself you can have 48GB of storage on your N8. How cool is that?

6. HDMI out

Since I got my N8, I forgot where I put the remote of my media player. The 16GB of storage come in handy when you want to watch a movie(or TV series in my case) on your HD TV set. Just plug the HDMI cable into your N8 and you've got a dazzling media player with full support for AVI HD files and subtitles.

7. USB On-The-Go

Ever found yourself in a position when a friend tells you he's got some stunning pictures or some kick-ass movie or music on their USB drive but you can't get it without a computer? Well, with the N8 that's no longer a problem. Just plug in your USB-on-the-go cable and plug that USB drive in it. Your N8 will mount that drive and you can copy anything from it in your phone's memory. It can even access other phone's memory trough the USB-on-the-go cable.

8. Maps and SatNav


Nokia Maps

There is one thing that Nokia delivers to it's users that no other manufacturer does: free lifetime voice guided navigation. Forget about buying expensive SatNav systems. Forget about paying for navigation software. Nokia gives it to your for free. It applies to the N8 too. Besides an amazing an accurate maps application, Nokia Maps, now you get Nokia Drive too.


Nokia Drive

Nokia Drive has an easy to use user interface optimized for in-car usage. The controls are very big so you can easily touch them while driving your car. All you need is a car holder and your can throw away your old GPS navigation system. The Drive application has both day an night mode. Nokia Maps works offline too so you don't need a data connection to navigate. Just download the maps you need on your phone and you're good to go. I'm sure gonna use it when I'll visit Rome next year. The maps application has layered view, so you can choose between three types of layers. Both maps and drive apps also have a 3D view which is very useful when driving or walking around, because it provides you better orientation.


Nearby - Check in - Guides

The maps suite also comes with a check-in application, a nearby application, a guides application and a weather app.

9. Ovi Sync

Calendar events, contacts and notes are some of the most important things to me, because when I receive a trial phone, I use it as my main phone for the duration of the trial. Here is where Ovi Sync comes in handy. Just start the Ovi Sync app, enter your Nokia account credentials and in a few seconds you have your contacts, calendar events and notes stored on your new phone. In case you need to sync your music and photos too, you can do that when your phone starts up for the first time. You can pair your Nokia phones by Bluetooth and in a few minutes you'll have all your content on your new phone.

10. Social integration

Social integration is an important thing nowadays. A phone without social integration is regarded as old-school today. The social client available on the N8 integrates with your phone contacts and pairs a contact from your phone with one from your social friends. Facebook and Twitter accounts are supported so far, but more services may be added in the future.

But the social integration doesn't stop here. You can share your photos or videos straight from the gallery application by hitting the share button. The N8 will upload and share the photos to your social networks in the background and you can continue using your phone as if nothing happens.

What do you think? Did I miss something? Let me know in the comments.

Mapstronaut Nokia N8 unboxing

2011-12-11T23:40:00.000-08:00

So, in case you didn't know, I won the first Mapstronaut contest and part of the prize was a brand new Nokia N8 from the nice folks over at Nokia Connects. Alex managed to get me a silver one(as I requested, thank you Alex) and it has arrived a few days ago. Needless to say that I was jumping out of my skin for joy, because the N8 is my favorite phone(along with the N9). I actually like the N8 a tad better than the N9 mainly because it's amazing 12MP camera.

I've been a fan of the Nokia Maps and I have the post to prove it(Touring Europe with Ovi Maps). I have to say that this is the first contest and prize I ever win in my life, which makes my joy even bigger. Don't forget to participate to the next Mapstronaut competition that is developing. Just visit the Nokia Maps Blog and you'll get a chance to win 1000 Euros to spend at your favorite place.

The entry that brought me the prize was Museo Etrusco Villa Giulia in Rome, Italy.

So, a big THANK YOU to the Nokia Mapstronaut, to the guys at Nokia Connects and last but not least to the Nokia Maps team for such an amazing maps experience.

So without further ado, I give you the Nokia N8:

Nokia N9 review - Disrupting your life

2011-11-25T00:42:00.000-08:00

When Stephen Elop said back in February that the N9 is a disruption I thought he was deluded. I have to say now after I tried it for two weeks, he couldn't have been more right.

N9 is indeed a disruption. It's a disruption on many levels. It's a disruption in the way you think about your smartphone.

It's a disruption in the way you use and interact with your smartphone.

It's simple, it's easy, it's natural. It's so natural that you won't be able to imagine yourself without it.

It's new, yet it feels familiar.

It's not your phone, it's your pal. It's your friend. You gently tap it to wake up, and gently brush it with your finger when you need something from it.

When you don't need something anymore, you just push it aside just as you do in real life.

Starting with the curved body that fits perfectly in hand, continuing with the curved display that makes swiping a pleasure, the N9 feels not like a phone, but more like a pet. Man's best friend is no longer the dog, it's the Nokia N9.

Swiping up and down the screen and tapping are a real pleasure and they get addictive. So addictive that I actually tried to wake an HTC Desire with double tapping.

The preinstalled software that comes with the N9 covers all the basics.

The N9 has very good Twitter and Facebook clients. These two are also integrated within the news feed homescreen, where you can see your friends status updates and tweets.

You've got multiple accounts integration with Nokia, Google, Twitter, Facebook, Skype, YouTube, Flickr, Mail for exchange and CalDAV.

The user experience is very smooth and I noticed one thing that I really appreciate: I restarted the phone only once since I've got it, and that was when I installed the software update. That is remarkable since nowadays you have to restart your smartphone almost everyday. With the new update you get swype input method which is a lot faster than the traditional method once you get used to it. Another nice touch is that you now have your music controls and your calendar events on your lockscreen. You don't even have to unlock your phone to interact with it.

What's in the box

The box contains the phone itself, a data cable which can be plugged into the included wall adapter to charge the phone, a rubber case, a headset and the usual Nokia booklets.

Design

Every detail in this phone has been carefully crafted with a level of detail that I've never seen before. Its like Nokia decided to make the Rolls-Royce of mobile phones. The phone has no imperfections as far as the body and design are concerned. It looks great and it feels great.

Despite the screen size and the general phone size, the N9 is very light probably because of the polycarbonate body. Polycarbonate has the advantage of being light and tough. Maybe not as tough as the N8 but tough enough to withstand most cases of accidental impact and then some. To make it easier to protect, Nokia added a rubber case in the same colour as the phone itself. I have to say that this us the first phone that doesn't look pregnant with a rubber case on it.

The front panel is dominated by the 3.9 inch ClearBlack curved screen. On the right bottom side you can find the front facing video camera. It's a weird spot, I'll have to admit it, but I encountered no problems using it. I never obscured it while it was in use. On top of the front panel you have an array of sensors very well hidden above the screen. You can see them only by looking from a wide angle in the sunlight.

The top of the phone hosts the Micro-USB port which is used for data connection, charging and TV-out too. Unfortunately the box does not provide a cable for TV out, which is a shame. Next to the Micro-USB port you will find the Micro-SIM card tray, that can only be open by sliding it over, but only when the lid from the Micro-USB port is lifted. That is a good security measure, but can be a little hard to comprehend at first. To the left side of the USB port you can find the 3.5mm audio jack port.

The right side of the phone hosts the volume rocker and the lock button, while the left side is plain.
In the bottom of the phone you can find a grid that hides the mouth piece and the loudspeaker as well.

The back panel is where the camera and the LED flash is located.

Build quality

The build quality is state of the art. I've never seen a phone as beautiful as the N9. Even the rubber case that comes with the phone sticks perfectly to the phone, giving no clue that it's an actual case.

The Clear Black Display used on the N9 has a pentile matrix, which means it has only 2 subpixel per pixel(usual OLEDs have 3 for RGB). That is sometimes visible, but most of the times it's not. However, there is one thing that I have noticed and I was actually stunned by it. When you look at the screen from it's sides, the items displayed on the screen seem like they are actually displayed on the top of the glass layer. I don't know how Nokia pulled that off but it's amazing.

Hardware

The phone is powered by a 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU coupled with a PowerVR SGX530 GPU on a TI OMAP 3630 chipset. The specs may not be the best in business, but MeeGo Harmattan is insanely optimized to run on this hardware resulting in a flawless user experience.

The connectivity is covered from all angles with WiFi b/g/n on board, USB 2.0 and Bluetooth 2.1. A-GPS is also on board and TV-out as well. NFC is also on board for easy tap to share.

The camera is a 8MP auto focus camera that supports 720p@30fps recording, with active noise cancellation.

Browser

The browser works very well but has a limited set of configurable options. The bookmarking is not handled by the browser itself as many would expect, instead the favorite websites can be pinned to the homescreen, giving you instant access without the need to open the browser and going trough a bookmarks list. In my opinion this is better than the traditional bookmarking done by every browser out there. The browser does not support tabbed browsing, but it does support multiple windows, which can be managed from the open apps homescreen.

The zoom in and zoom out is extremely fast, and I've noticed one thing that you can only do with Harmattan. While you're scrolling with one finger, you can put another finger on the screen and zoom in or out, and if you remove the last finger, it actually resumes scrolling. How cool is that?

Media

The media gallery interface is classic, and shows a three columns view of your photos. The experience is fast and very entertaining. I have to note here that browsing to the next photo can be done by swiping left or right even when the current photo is zoomed in, which removes the need to zoom back to the fit to screen view before navigating. You can easily share any photos trough the configured sharing accounts.

The video player can be configured to resume video playback or start from the beginning when a video is played. When you swipe a video away into the open apps homescreen, the video automatically pauses, a behavior that is also natural and intuitive.

Camera

The camera is not the N9's strongest point. The shots taken in broad daylight a a real delight, but when the lights go dim, the LED flash shows it's limitations and the photos look washed out and noisy.

By default the resolution is set to 7MP wide screen, but you can easily switch it to 8MP 4:3 aspect in no time. Check out the photo samples below:

The camera user interface is very easy to use and has a lot of options that you can use to increase the quality of your photos. You can easily switch from photo to video recording mode, and also open the gallery. The camera supports tap to focus and has facial recognition too.

The 720p at 30FPS recording is very good, and the noise cancellation does the job really well. Take a look for yourself:

Sound

Since the Harmattan 1.1 update the in-call audio quality is much better, thanks to the active noise cancellation introduced in this update.

The audio playback quality trough the headset is top notch, but the loudspeaker performance leaves room for improvement.

The music player is probably the best music player I've seen so far, and since the last update, it gets lockscreen controls so you don't even have to unlock the phone in order to control the music player. The initial view of the application shows you an overview of you last played artists and a list of other views like categorized by Artists, Albums, a plain list of Songs, Playlists and a shortcut to Ovi Music.

Software

First thing you need to know about Harmattan is that is has a set of four links that can be accessed from anywhere around the OS by a short swipe from the bottom of the screen upwards and then holding on for a second or so. The default shortcuts are for Phone, Messages, Camera and Web. These shortcuts can be later changed with an app downloadable from the Nokia Store.

The Homescreen

The homescreen consists in three panels. The first panel shows you live feeds, social feeds, calendar events and weather information. The included weather app from Accuweather takes care of that. The feeds refresh automatically at specific intervals of time, but you can also refresh it manually by hitting the Refresh button provided.

The second panel is the applications grid, which is a classic four columns scrollable grid where you can see your apps and bookmarked websites as well. You can easily rearrange or uninstall your apps from this view by long pressing the screen.

The third panel shows the open applications. It also shows the order in which they were last used. Whenever you use an app, and then minimize it, you will see that app first in the open apps panel. This panel shows screnshots of the open apps, not plain icons like most mobile OS's out there. Long pressing on this screen switches to closing mode, where you can close each app by itself or close them all if you want so.

The Phone application

The phone application shares three views, the call log, the phone pad and the contacts list. Unfortunately the phone app does not support smart dialing which is not such a big deal, but can me useful when you dial a number while driving. Unlike it's Symbian counterpart, the call log panel shows an aggregate view of outgoing, incoming and missed calls, which is good thing. I'm gonna miss this one on Symbian. The contacts panel allows quick search and selecting a contact brings up a choice to call, message or email(where available).

The Contacts application

The contacts application basically shows you the list of contacts which is synced with your defined accounts. When you scroll down the list, a grey band appears on the right side of the list allowing you to easily scroll to the contacts that start with a certain letter. The app supports groups and favorites, favorites which kind of sweeten the pill of no smart dialing. The contacts support a lots of fields, and we have photo call support and custom ringtone support as well. You have a plain list view and a groups view.

A very useful feature when you have multiple accounts that sync contacts is the Merge contacts, which allows you to merge a Nokia Account contact with a Google Account contact for example. You also have an export contact function that can export your contacts into a file or to your SIM card(micro-SIM that is). The import is there as well, and it can import from another device, online service or SIM card.

The Messages application

The messaging application supports SMS threaded view and Google Talk and Facebook Chat as separate views. It's practically the messaging heart of your phone. Messaging is as easy as typing in text and hitting the Send button.

The Mail application

The emailing is covered by the Mail application that provides a hassle free client. The interface is clean and very easy to understand. You get the Inbox view, that can be changed from the folder icon at the bottom to whatever folder you like from your mail account. You have a new mail button in the shape of a plus sign, a refresh button, folder button and menu button. When you scroll down the list, a grey band appears on the right side of the list allowing you to easily scroll the list to a desired period of time.

In the message view you get a few options like Reply, Forward, Delete, Move or Mark as read.

The Calendar application

The calendar application can be synchronized to CalDAV accounts(yes that includes your Google account), and provides three views. The first view is the month view, where you see a screen split between the actual month and the upcoming events. The second is the today view, which shows all your events by hours and the third one, and the one I use the most is the agenda view, where you see all your upcoming events until the end of the year.

You also have a To-dos view accessible trough the context menu, where you see all you calendar events you marked as To-do. You can have multiple calendars, as well as a phone only personal calendar. Adding an event is easy and straight forward, and you can even attach a note to an event.

The Clock application

Well, adding alarms was never as easy as it just got with Harmattan. I was blown away by this little application. When you add a new alarm, and you can add as many as you want, you get a clock like panel, where you can drag two knobs across two circles just like you would set the time on an old wall clock. It doesn get easier than that. You can customize each alarm to use it's own tone.

The Nokia Store

The Nokia Store application performs extremely well, but unfortunately the application base is very limited for the MeeGo OS.

The Nokia Store interface is a very nice touch, and it brings smooth navigation and easy search. It has the Categories view, which is very useful, and most importantly the My Stuff view straight on the bottom bar. You also get update notifications on the bottom bar, and you can update all your apps with one click.

On a bright side, the N9 supports Linux like installation when you enable the third party applications installation, so you can install .deb files just like you would on a Debian Linux based desktop PC.

The Settings

The settings app is probably the most complicated application on the phone, but also the most useful. All the options are in plain sight and are pretty self explanatory. Maybe the initial list could have been done better and include more of the options that are hidden under one category or another, because at times you can get lost in the options while navigating three levels down in the options.

At the first glance you can setup your internet connection and screen brightness, but if for example you want to enable call waiting you'll have to go to Device options first, which is a little confusing, and could have been an option under a category called Phone for example. The NFC also is under the Device category and could have been better located along with Bluetooth under a Connectivity category. I mean, if the Bluetooth options are in plain sight, why is the NFC hidden?

The settings app also helps you synchronize the device with a computer or another device and can also help you reset your phone. Unlike Symbian phones where a reset clears the user data too, here there are two options in the Reset category, one for restoring factory defaults, and one for cleaning the device data, gallery and more. These options are most welcomed.

Under the Applications category you can find most of the options for the built in apps, and that can sometimes be confusing. You can clear your browser's private data from the Settings application, but not from the Web application itself. Weird right?

In the Notifications section you can configure your homescreen items, which feeds to show, enable and disable Twitter and Facebook feeds and so on.

The sound and vibration category changes system sounds, ringtones and levels of vibration for various actions.

The settings application is complemented by the configuration panel that pops up when you tap the top bar with the battery and operator name, and you can switch profiles, and turn off Internet, Bluetooth and set your online availability for your instant messaging accounts. The profiles are now reduced to three: Ringing, Beep and Silent, but that is to be expected from a minimalist OS like MeeGo. I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but hardcore Symbian users may not like it.

The Maps application

The Maps application is powered by the same engine as the Symbian version, but has been revamped for MeeGo. You can do search, find nearby places and get direction towards a desired location. You can easily find places by categories, where you can find, restaurants or local attractions, or places you've added to your favorites. The favorites are imported from your Nokia account.

The Drive application

The SatNav part of the maps is handled by the Drive app, which is optimized for using while driving so the UI elements are very big, visible and easy to touch. Just type in your destination and your voice guided navigation is ready to give you a hand.

The Accounts application

The Accounts application is the core of your phone's social and organizer skills. Here you can configure your Twitter, Facebook, Google, Nokia, Youtube, and Calendar accounts.

You can have your contacts synchronized with multiple accounts, for example a Nokia account and a Google account can live together in harmony.

Google Calendar users may be stupefied at first seeing that the Google account has not calendar synchronization. Fear not dear Google users, the Google Calendar is compatible with CalDAV. All you need to do is enter your Google email address and your password and gmail.com in the server field, and you're all set.

The Twitter client

The twitter app is one of the most complete Twitter clients you can find. It bares a striking resemblance with the official Android app, and that's a good thing. This is miles away from the Symbian WRT client. Another borrowed feature from Android is the pull down to refresh gesture which again is a good thing.

The twitter app has a timeline view, a mentions view, a direct messages view, search and a profile view. In the profile view you can find info about your profile, your favorite tweets, retweets and lists. Whenever there is a new tweet, mention or DM, the corresponding button from the bottom bar lights up in a blue color so you know that something's going on there.

The Facebook client

The Facebook app, just like the Twitter one, is complete in every way. It too looks like it's Android sibling, and considering the Social implementation on Symbian this is way way ahead.

The Facebook app brings you the News feed, profile, friends, messages, events and photos views, and a link to the messaging application for Facebook chat. Underneath the menu that pops up when you touch the top bar, there are two more links, one for notifications and one for settings. Whenever you have a notification, whatever that may be, you see a red icon, just like on the Facebook website, on the top bar of the application.

Both Facebook and Twitter client are seamlessly integrated into the Feed homescreen, which is a very convenient way to browse them. Both feeds are shown and posts and feeds are sorted by time. The only thing I don't like about the feeds homescreen is that it resets the scroll position when you navigate to the apps or open apps view and then go back to the feeds view.

The Calculator and Documents applications

The Calculator app is not much to talk about. A very basic calculator, missing all advanced math function. It doesn't even have a square root function. However I managed to find a free proper calculator app on the Nokia Store, but still I was a bit amazed about the very minimal approach the Nokia took with this app.

The Documents application shows you a list with all the documents that the N9 can read from your storage. I only had text files, but I guess office documents viewer and PDF reader are there.

The Notes application

Notes taking on the N9 is a bliss. It's so easy and the interface is so intuitive I think a monkey could successfully use it. But, and this is a big but, there is no Notes synchronization like you have it on Symbian, which is a shame. The app is too good to miss this very important feature. Maybe I'm a little subjective here, since I use note taking insanely while reviewing phones. I usually don't bother remembering stuff that I can write down.

The Weather application

The weather is covered by Accuweather which brought a top notch app to the N9. The weather app also integrates with the feeds homescreen, bringing you the current weather conditions in one quick look.

The application however is very complex. The Forecast view shows you the current conditions and a two weeks forecast. The hourly view shows you an interactive graph with the temperatures today, and if you tap on it, it will show you the forecast for that exact hour. You also have a maps view and a lifestyle view. The lifestyle view shows you some interesting stuff, like certain diseases risk, a BBQ forecast(yes you read it right), biking and beach and many many more activities forecast, which actually means that you can take a look at what activities you could do today. It may even suggest you some that you have thought about yet.

WiFi Hotspot & Trust and protect applications

As you may already figured out, this app turns your phone into a WiFi router, sharing your 3G connection with other devices. Very handy app when you're on the go and you need internet on your laptop.

The trust and protect application is a phone tracking and locking application. You create an account on their website and you can track your cellphone or block it if it gets stolen from you. You can see it's location on a map, share the location with the police, and even take a snapshot of the perpetrator with the front facing camera. A very handy tool indeed.

Games

Gaming is a pleasure on the N9, it's fast and smooth. The N9 has a couple of games preinstalled that can keep you busy for a while. You have Angry Birds with Magic, Galaxy on Fire 2, NFS Shift and Real Golf 2011. This last one has been keeping me busy ever since I received the phone :)

Conclusion

The N9 has it's ups and downs, but it is the first phone, that I could properly use out of the box.

There is one main disadvantage here and many may shake their heads: the application choice is very limited. For example, I missed the File Manager and Zip apps from Symbian and QuickOffice too, though Documents can get the reading job done. I would have expected though a document editor on a 600 Euros phone.

However, MeeGo is still a bliss. Everything Harmattan does has been designed to be simple and easy to use. Swiping is natural and the N9 is easy to use by geeks and non tech savvy people as well. The user interface is so intuitive that you don't need an userguide to use the phone at all. The user learning curve is so fast it's actually unbelievable.

That being said, take a look at the unboxing video in case you missed it:

Nokia N9 unboxing and first impressions

2011-11-15T00:12:00.000-08:00

I can honestly say that when I received an email from Paul at Nokia Connects about the Nokia N9 trial, I was the happiest man on Earth. And as it turns out, my expectations were actually surpassed when I finally received the device.

The N9 is a bliss. The user interface is much, much more than what I expected. The interaction with the phone is natural and addictive. Swiping applications away is as close to reality as you can get with today's technology.

Starting with the curved body that fits perfectly in hand, continuing with the curved display that makes swiping a pleasure, the N9 feels not like a phone, but more like a pet. Man's best friend is no longer the dog, it's the Nokia N9.

You gently tap it to wake it up, just like you would do when you wanna wake someone up. You push apps aside when you no longer want to use them, just like you do with things on your desk.

The three homescreens are spot on, with the events home where you can see all your news feeds, Twitter and Facebook feeds, missed calls, messages and calendar events.

Harmattan is just what the mobile tech landscape needs today. The Nokia N9 is the new iPhone. Just like the iPhone changed the smartphone landscape in 2007, the Nokia N9 can do it in 2011.

Only one word can characterize the N9 in all it's splendor: MAGNIFICENT!

Anyway, here is my unboxing and user interface tour:

Nokia 500 review - Symbian Anna's colours

2011-11-04T01:26:00.000-07:00

Today marks the end of the fourth week since I received the Nokia 500 from the nice people at Nokia Connects. After a coffee incident I was smartphone-less and I asked Paul to lend a hand. So he did, and a few days later I received the 500. At first I did not know what to expect from it. I knew a few things about. It was the first 1GHz Symbian phone launched by Nokia, but I also knew it was an entry level smartphone, so I was confused.

During the 4 week trial, I was impressed with the phone, and especially with the looks of the phone and even more with it's battery life. Even though it's a smaller battery, I got a lot of life out of it. But let's get on with the review.

What's in the box

The box contains the phone itself, a Nokia pin-hole charge, a micro-USB data cable, a set of Nokia hands free, the 1110mAh BL-4U battery and three interchangeable back covers(red, blue and black).

Design

The design of the Nokia 500 is reminiscent of the Nokia X6 design. It's also about the same size as the X6.

The front panel is dominated by the capacitive 3.2 inch TFT display, with the usual three buttons below: the Call button, the Menu/Home button and the End call button. On top there is the ear piece with the Nokia logo below it and the proximity sensor to the right side. The mouth piece is located just above the End call button.

The capacitive touchscreen is very sensitive, and the lightest of touches does the job well. This is probably one of the reasons that the portrait QWERTY keyboard works so well on such a small display.

The left side is clean because the SD card and SIM card housings are located below the battery.

The right side brings the volume rocker and the lock/unlock button. Yes, no more unlock knob, even though I for one have missed it(a lot).

On the top of the phone we can find the Nokia pin hole charging port, the Micro-USB port and the 3.5mm jack port. The 500 does charge trough the USB port too.

The bottom of the phone is also clean.

The back of the phone hosts the 5MP camera, the speaker grill and the neatly vertical aligned N9 style silver looking Nokia engraving.

Another design aspect are the interchangeable back covers that come with the phone. I got a black one, a red one and a blue one. I have to say that it's been a hard everyday choice to pick a cover to wear that day.

Build quality

The first thing that struck me when I first opened up the 500 box, was the looks of the phone. Moments before I picked it up I remember thinking "well, it looks gorgeous, but does it feel cheap?". The answer came quick enough. No! The back covers have a soft rubbery feel and they're not there just for the looks of the phone, but they also help with the grip. Whatever you do, the phone seems to be glued to your hand. No way of dropping this little fella.

The glossy plastic looks great and the buttons as well. The phone is solidly built, there are no squeaks or stuff to give away the all plastic build. The overall impression this phone leaves you with is... premium. You may think I am deranged, mad or lunatic, but yes, at this price point the Nokia 500 feels premium.

Hardware

The phone has a 1GHz CPU, but unfortunately Nokia left out the GPU chip so serious gaming is a no go on the 500. You get a decent amount of 256MB of RAM, which is more than enough for Symbian to dwell in.

With the 500 you also get a 2GB of internal storage and and a 512MB of ROM, which should be more than enough for the upcoming Belle update. There is of course the option to extend your 500's storage memory with an additional micro-SD card, up to 32GB. The micro-SD card however, is not hot swappable, the slot being located under the battery.

As far as connectivity goes, the usual suspects are all there, WiFi b/g (no n), 3G, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and A-GPS.

The battery is smaller than the batteries that ship with the S^3 big brothers. It's a 1110 mAh battery, but I have to say that it delivers two days of moderate usage on one charge.

Browser

The browser feels faster than on the other Symbian 3 devices I've tested, but at times, after a long time with no reboot, it started to be laggy and even unresponsive. A reboot would usually take care of that. I have to say though, that since the last update a few days ago the browser issue seems to have magically disappeared. So if you're using version 010.032 you're good.

The browsing experience is lacking flash support, but maybe that's a good thing. To be honest each time I receive a Nokia Symbian device for testing, I disable flash from the browser. The browser becomes faster and more usable this way.

With the Anna browser you get kinda-tabbed browsing(windows, not really tabs), and a fully compliant browser with HTML5 standards. Compared to Opera which encounters problems with complex websites, the Anna browser renders them perfectly. If Nokia would integrate the cloud into the Symbian Anna browser, the data consumption would be considerably lower.

Media

Camera

The camera is a 5MP camera, which shoots pretty decent photos, but it can't be compared with the N8's or C7's camera. It seems to be slower at taking photos compared to the big brothers mentioned above.

The camera supports VGA recording at 15FPS, which is not something you would expect from a Symbian 3 phone, but I guess you have to cut on some features in order to keep the price low. However, the VGA recording is something I can live with since it is pretty decent, much better than the same VGA@15FPS that you get with the E5.

The media gallery application now called Photos is a mixed experience. Some photos can be viewed in full resolution, while others are downsized, which is really annoying if you want to see some fine details of the picture.
Another thing that I find annoying is that the Photos application has some sort of inconsistent behavior. For example, it reads the pictures from the 2GB internal storage only from the Images and Videos folder, but when you plug in a micro-SD card, it reads all directories.

Sound

The sound quality of the speaker is acceptable, while the headphones provided in the package sound really good. The music playback is a comfy experience on the 500, and the good quality pack a decent punch.

The in-call volume is loud enough, but the loudspeaker volume is a bit low. I had no problems hearing people when I used the phone normally, but ran into some issues when I set it to loudspeaker and talked to someone while I was driving. The ambient noise interfered with the conversation, though the person on the other end of the line said I was loud and clear.

Software

The software pack is the usual Symbian 3 software, but Nokia left out the QuickOffice app this time. I don't know why, but I miss it. Check my Symbian^3 review and my Symbian Anna review to see what software is included.

The homescreen has three panes that can be filled with widgets and shortcuts. The homescreen loads very fast and the widgets become usable instantly.

Despite the fact that there is no GPU unit on board, the theme effects perform very well with no lag at all.

The menu is the same as on the rest of Symbian devices, the contacts application, messaging with conversations threaded view, and everything else besides QuickOffice. The task manager is also a very handy application.

On the downside, I had some issues with occasional freezes followed by reboots, but only after an hour or so of heavy use, and by heavy use I mean no standby for hours. It's most probably a software issue that will get fixed in future updates.

The new Nokia Store application performs extremely well, but unfortunately I could not find many apps that I really needed on the store. Probably because this is a new device and the software devs have to add compatibility with it.

The Nokia Store interface is a very nice touch, and it brings smooth navigation and easy search. It has the Categories view, which is very useful, and most importantly the My Stuff view straight on the bottom bar. You also get update notifications on the bottom bar, and you can update all your apps with one click.

Some software like SPB Shell started but was unusable, having flickering issues all over the place. Maybe the devs of the published apps should check compatibility with this device.

Conclusion

At the price point of the 500 (which is around 150 Euros after taxes) the phone is dirt cheap, and the features are hard to beat. Honestly. Imagine how the price will look like in a couple of months. For this kind of money you get the full Symbian experience, and more to follow. Nokia announced that they will update the 500 to Belle, so the 500 will look even more attractive then.

Here's my unboxing video in case you missed it:

Nokia 500 unboxing

2011-10-10T22:38:00.000-07:00

I was not expecting much when Paul from WOMWorld sent me the Nokia 500 trial agreement. Two days later, I received the package containing this little fella:

First I liked that it's very light, I think it's the lightest smartphone I ever held. On a closer inspection, I noticed the excellent build quality. The device feels premium, even if it is an entry level smartphone. The exchangeable back covers are covered in soft touch rubber, and improve the phone's grip.

The 1GHz CPU shows it's muscle everywhere around the OS, feeling somewhat faster than it's bigger brothers, C7, N8 and X7. Somehow, the E6 seems a bit faster than the 500, but then again, the E6 felt faster than any other S^3 device.

Anyway, here's the usual unboxing video. I will come back with a full review in a week or two.

Craiova City by Nokia E6

2011-10-02T22:54:00.000-07:00

I was lucky enough to test drive a Nokia E6 for three weeks, courtesy of the nice people at WOMWorld/Nokia, and I have to say that I was impressed. I also reviewed the Nokia E6 a week ago and the best phrase to describe the E6 IMHO is, "E6 - Connnecting two worlds". Why? Because this phone blends the business and entertainment worlds seamlessly. Now, anyone can see why the E6 is a great business phone. The outstanding QWERTY keyboard, Symbian 3 and a high resolution touchscreen take care of that. But the entertainment part may be unclear to some folks. So, I decided to film a tour of my home city, Craiova, Romania, and show it to you. The following video was shot entirely on the E6. The video processing was also done of the E6 Video Editor. Here's the result:

How Facebook killed the social dumb phone

2011-09-30T00:41:00.000-07:00

Well, once upon a time there was a Java application that could do miracles for people who didn't own a smartphone. This application was not only a great Facebook and Twitter client, but a Weather, Movies and many, many more.

This application was called Snaptu, and it worked on virtually every phone in the world, being a MIDP 2.0 application.

For those of you who didn't have the pleasure to meet Snaptu I have to tell you that it was more than an app. It was a platform on top of which small apps were running. The small apps got updated on the fly(yes without having to install some update) because of the genius idea behind Snaptu.

So, this application was growing fast, and people were using it and spread the world about it everywhere. So a big bad idea-stealing-youngest-financial-mammoth wolf caught wind of this app, and thought "Why don't I buy this app and kill two birds with one stone?"

And so he did. The big bad wolf bought Snaptu and killed it's spirit. It turned Snaptu into a Facebook only app, killing the Twitter client for the masses. Did the big bad wolf win anything from this? Maybe so. But this kind of move against Twitter is IMHO as low as you can go.

Ain't that right Zuckerberg?

Nokia cuts 1900 jobs by closing factory near Cluj, Romania - Who's fault is it?

2011-09-29T04:06:00.000-07:00

Well, Nokia announced that it will close the Romanian factory near Cluj, by the end of the year. The people who lost their jobs will get a compensatory retribution for 3 months pay. The syndicate from the Romanian factory have no one to thank to by their own government who cut all fiscal facilities for every major manufacturer that invested in this country including Nokia, Ford and many, many more companies.

By adopting the new Labour Code this year, the government practically allows any employer to fire any employee at their disposal. The biggest problem is not this, because every company in it's sane mind, wouldn't fire hard working people.

The main problem is that the once the world wide financial crisis hit, the Romanian government has cut all fiscal facilities that were granted to the foreign investors, including Nokia.

So suddenly Nokia found itself paying 16% more for the same profit, which inevitably leads any company, not just Nokia to trying to find cheaper workforce. That cheaper workforce is found in Asia, and so another big company leaves Romania. Maybe if Ford will leave too, the government will come into their senses and try to attract foreign investors again.

So, is this Nokia's fault? In my opinion, No!

Nokia Store running on Nokia E6

2011-09-28T22:02:00.000-07:00

So, yesterday I checked out a video from Mike Macias showing the new Nokia Store running on the Nokia N8. I quickly went to the Nokia BetaLabs website to download it for the E6 I got on trial(courtesy of WOMWorld). But I saw the E6 wasn't on the supported phones list. I was a little disappointed to see that, but I hit the download link anyway, expecting to see a "Sorry, this is not available for your device" message. Instead, the website somehow detected the phone as a X7(probably because of the X7 I got for trial last time), and allowed the download.
So the app installed without a problem, and works flawlessly(except for D-pad navigation). The application is much faster now, and has fixed some of the annoying bugs from the Ovi Store app. It has an updated user interface, in line with the current Symbian Belle user interface. So here is a video with the app running on the E6:

Nokia E6 review - Connecting two worlds

2011-09-26T02:45:00.000-07:00

It was a while back that I received my first Nokia candybar Qwerty phone from the nice people at WOMWorld, the E5 and it quickly turned me into a fan of the form factor and of the phone's itself. Today however the game changes. Don't get me wrong, the E5 is still very close to the E6 at the top of my list, but there are things that the E6 can do that the E5 or any other Qwerty phone cannot.

Some of these things are the screen resolution 640x480 pixels, which is the highest available on this form factor, and most important, the camera. HD recording and 8MP photos are hard to come by in this class. I sometimes miss the soft keys of the E5 but I think this is just a matter of adjusting.

Another thing that makes this my favorite Qwerty is the fact that it combines business class with entertainment to a level I've never seen before. This phone has played back every video file that I threw at it, and, you can play Angry Birds on it too.

On top of the phone you can find the power key, the 3.5mm jack port, and (strangely) the SD card slot. On the left side we only have the USB port. On the right, we have the volume rockers, the voice command key, and the unlock knob. On the bottom we have the Nokia pin charger hole.

The phone has a VGA front facing camera for video calls, which is visible on the top of the front panel, next to an array of sensors.

The E6 screen in protected by a layer of compressed Gorilla glass.

The phone is equipped with a 680MHz ARM11 CPU spiced up with a 2D/3D GPU. On the RAM side, it has 256MB, fully capable of running Symbian 3 without breaking a sweat. The OS is hosted on a 1GB ROM, leaving enough room to install upcoming Symbian iterations.

The 8MP camera is based on EDoF technology, also known as Full Focus. The pictures are snapped very fast, and they are very well balanced. It's a bit hard to take a steady shot, because of the form factor. The camera records HD video of 1280x720px at 25 FPS.

Unfortunately the social client is not very well optimized for D-pad navigation, but there's always Gravity around if you're willing to pay for it, or Socially for free. You can also choose the official Facebook client, and use a different software for twitter, like Tweets60.

The hardware shortcut keys can be configured to launch 2 apps each(except for the home key) so you can easily have 6 of your favorite apps launched in a heartbeat.

The hardware keyboard is excellent. I rarely had a mistype. I have to say that if you are used with a non touch Qwerty bar, you're gonna have to get used to do things without softkeys. You'll have to use the touchscreen instead. I love touchscreens as well as Qwerty bars, but there is one thing that I absolutely detest about touchscreens: they're useless while driving.

However smart the voice recognition software is on touchphones, there is still some glitch that drives you up the wall. I have to stop all the time and take a call, or call my wife. But, just as the E5 before it, the E6 comes to the rescue. You can call someone without even having to look at the screen. You just use the unlock knob, start typing the name you want to call, and press the call key. It's that easy. This was one of my favorite thingies on the E5 homescreen, and I am glad the E6 inherited that one.

The voice command key is lower than the volume rockers, so you won't confuse the volume keys. Also it helps locating the voice command key easier.

A very neat thing that I noticed was that along with the keyboard, the volume rocker and voice command keys light up too, so they are very handy in the dark. Unfortunately the E6 does not charge from the USB port like it's Symbian 3 brethren, and that can be a hassle if you're on the go and can't find a Nokia pin charger(highly unlikely though).

However, the battery life is excellent. I went 2 full days on a charge with heavy use. I guess it's because of the smaller screen that doesn't eat up that much power as a 4 incher for example. I found the ambient light sensor a bit too sensitive, changing the backlight instantly even when not necessarily needed. There may be a setting for this sensitivity, but I could not find it.

The E6 has a split personality, in a good way. During work hours it works as a perfect business phone, and when at home it becomes a perfect family man phone with it's 8MP camera and HD video recording. I do not know any other phone that can do both this tasks in this price range. Most people that need a business phone carry two phones, one for business and another personal phone, but the E6 fills both roles successfully.

Symbian Anna seems to be a perfect fit for the E6. I did not experience any lags at all in the two weeks I had this phone with me. Nokia managed to modify the homescreen so that it shows three fullsize widgets alongside the system widgets for Profiles, Clock and Notifications.

There is not much to say about the software, pretty much everything is the same as the Nokia X7 I already reviewed, besides the games. The E6 has no games preinstalled whatsoever. Being an Eseries phone it is somewhat expected. That doesn't mean you can't install our own if you want to.

There are user interface changes because of the non-standard resolution of the E6, but every app looks like it's running in landscape mode(which is exactly what happens), so for those of you who are familiar with Symbian 3, you should feel right at home.

The web browser acts better than it did one the X7, so there is no need now for Opera Mini as a substitute browser.

The phone has 8GB of memory onboard, which should be enough for most people, but if you like to record HD videos a lot, you should consider a bigger SD card to expand your memory. The HD video tends to eat up the available memory pretty fast.

So, if you're looking for a business phone that is small enough to carry in your pocket, that can shoot a decent picture and record HD video, this is the phone for your. On top of that you can also play touch games on it, even if it will feel weird the first time.

This phone is a very well deserved upgrade for E5 and E72 lovers.

Why "Connecting two worlds"? Because the E6 combines touch and hardware QWERTY seamlessly into one package. Because it connects the business world with the entertainment world.

P.S. I have to mention, that again, just like I did with the E5, most of this review was written on the device itself.

Nokia E6 unboxing

2011-09-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

When I received an email from Paul back at WOMWorld/Nokia I could hardly wait to get my hands on the Nokia E6. A few days later when it arrived, I was thrilled. I have repeatedly admitted that I am a full QWERTY candybar fan, with the Nokia E5 being my favorite till now.

Why I like the E6 better? First of all, because it has a touchscreen. Second, because it has twice the resolution of the E5, and third and most important, because of the camera. HD video and 8MP snapper is hard if not impossible to find on this form factor, but the E6 has got it.

Using the E6 this past few days I remembered how to use the unlock knob(I love unlocking my phone with such ease), how to search my contacts from my homescreen by simply starting to type a name, how to use hardware call keys, aaahhhh, what memories.

The phone is very snappy, and I would have expected it to be less snappier than it's big screen brothers, because this little guy has a higher resolution.

The display is crisp and clear, and the sunlight legibility is just amazing. I wasn't expecting to find so many apps for the E6, because of the resolution, but my doubts quickly disappeared when I started Ovi Store. Most apps are there, already adapted for the E6. Not all of them, but the vast majority is there.

So, here's my unboxing and a brief user interface tour video:

Motorola Milestone - How to make the best of it - What really matters

2011-09-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought that my last post about custom ROMs for the Milestone would be the last in the series, but as you can see it is not. The custom ROM I have installed led me to another problem, low RAM that is. So while I recommended to everyone to keep their launchers in memory at all times, I realized that you can't take full advantage of the low RAM of the Milestone in this case. So I sought out a resolution to this problem. After giving up some stuff like homescreen widgets I finally managed to achieve a setup that will allow you to take full advantage of the RAM.The homescreen widgets are memory hogs, and not just that. They also cause slow start on any homescreen I've tried so far. My goal was to have a homescreen setup that will allow the homescreen app to load very quickly after it has been closed. So now my setup is the following: two or three pages of the homescreen with only contacts and shortcuts.

NO WIDGETS! Very important to remember. So I use either the default MM homescreen or LauncherPro. LauncherPro was the only homescreen app that loaded in 2-3 seconds with this setup after it's closed. I do not have the launcher locked in memory, because I found some apps(Angry Birds Seasons and some others) that need more RAM than it's available. So now, after I run some memory intensive app, the launcher gets killed, but when I return to the homescreen I have it up and running in maximum 3 seconds. As I said before my goal was a very fast loading of the homescreen application, and not how much RAM the app eats while running.

A fast start of the launcher cancels the need to have a low memory homescreen, because now it can be killed at any time and load very quickly when needed. Now I don't know how much RAM LauncherPro eats up, and I frankly no longer care. I am very happy with this setup and have been using it for some days now. I replaced my Twitter and Facebook widgets with shortcuts to the full fledged apps.

Microsoft Apps for Symbian will be available for Belle devices

2011-09-11T10:33:00.000-07:00

Well, just when every thought that Symbian is dead and buried, Nokia came up with Belle, which radically changes the user experience of Symbian smartphones. But two days ago something else happened, something that made me rub my eyes a little. Nokia and Microsoft announced that Microsoft Apps will be available for Symbian Belle devices. The applications will be available in two stages. The first stage will come in Q4 or 2011 and will include Microsoft Lync 2010 Mobile, Microsoft PowerPoint Broadcast, Microsoft OneNote and Microsoft Document Connection. The second stage will come in 2012 with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint being some of them. This is kind of bad news for the QuickOffice team, since they will most likely lose a great deal of their Symbian customers. Even though Elop announced the death of Symbian, this bunch of much needed apps, seems to say otherwise. I honestly hope that sometime in the near future, Mr. Elop will get up on a stage and announce that they will continue developing and supporting Symbian. The Belle update and these Microsoft apps seem to confirm that Symbian still has a huge user base that just can't be ignored.

Samsung releases 3 new Bada 2.0 phones

2011-08-29T23:29:00.000-07:00

So, for those TouchWiz fans out there, Samsung just announced three new Bada phones.

Bada 2.0 that is. Bada 2.0 has finally brought along multitasking, NFC, WiFi-Direct, HTML5 support and voice recognition. The SDK(standard developer kit) was also launched recently.

Samsung Wave 3

The first one is the Wave 3, a successor for the high end Bada Wave 2. This one packs quite a punch coming with a 1.4GHz single core CPU. The Wave 3 sports a 4 inch WVGA(800x480) resolution, a 5MP LED flash autofocus camera that can shoot 720p video, all packed in a 9.9mm Anodized aluminum thin package. The internal storage is 3GB, expandable to 32GB trough the micro-SD slot. It also features a front facing VGA camera.

Samsung Wave M

The second phone is a mid-range handset named Wave M that sports a 3.65 inch HVGA(320x480) TFT LCD touch screen display made of tempered glass. It's 12.2mm thick with a 823MHz CPU and a 5.0MP LED flash autofocus camera. This one too has a front facing VGA camera. It's internal storage is just 150MB, but it is expandable to 32GB trough the micro-SD slot.
The Wave M bares a striking resemblance with the Samsung Galaxy Ace, but with a slightly bigger screen.

Samsung Wave Y

The last one is a low tier phone, the Wave Y, with the same CPU as the Wave M, and the same resolution, but a smaller 3.2 inch display. It also has 150MB of internal storage, expandable to 32GB trough the micro-SD slot.

All three phones have Bluetooth 3.0 onboard and WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n, USB 2.0 and assisted GPS.

Samsung seems to finally put some decent effort behind Bada, the previous crop of Bada phones having serious gaps between high end and low end that were never filled. Now, Bada lovers finally have a serious choice.

Symbian Belle comes with 3 new devices

2011-08-24T05:20:00.000-07:00

Minutes ago Nokia officially launched Symbian Belle. Belle came accompanied by 3(three) new smartphones: Nokia 700, Nokia 701 and Nokia 600.

Belle comes with a completely redesigned homescreen much like Android's homescreen or like SPB Shell. It also includes a new pull down notification area. The widgets also have notifications counters like iOS when you get new message, miss a call or say have a new WiFi in range.

All these devices have 1GHz processors and come equipped with NFC chips.

The Nokia 700 has a 3.2 inch clear black display and it's supposed to be the smallest smartphone in the world. It packs a 5MP camera with EDoF, and a 2GB internal memory. The device is capable to record HD videos too. The 700 will retail at 390 USD before taxes.

Nokia 700

The Nokia 701 is practically a C7 with a 1GHz CPU, though there is no mention on GPU. The display is a 3.5 inch ClearBlack AMOLED display. It packs a 8MP camera with EDoF, just like the older brother, the C7, and an 8GB internal memory. The device is capable to record HD videos too, and also has a front facing video camera. The 701 will retail at 420 USB before taxes.

Nokia 701

The Nokia 600 is labeled to be the loudest smartphone in the world. It packs a 5MP camera with EDoF, and a 2GB internal memory. The device is capable to record HD videos too.The 600 will retail at 260 USD before taxes.

Nokia 600

It is not yet clear if any of those devices will have a GPU like the older brothers.

UPDATE: The developer pages for the new devices confirm that all of them have dedicated GPU's, which means the overall speed should be a lot better than the old Symbian^3 crop.

Also each device boasts a respectable amount of 512MB RAM which should be more than enough for Symbians to come.

Stay tuned for more info on these new devices. Meanwhile you can see a preview of Belle on video:

Symbian Belle coming to town

2011-08-23T01:36:00.000-07:00

Something teasing appeared on Nokia's Facebook page the other day. A countdown to "Something new on Symbian". At the time of this post there are still 28 hours left until the uncovering.

However, the flash movie from Nokia's website was kind of a spoiler. They named it something like "Belle teaser", so you can imagine the surprise coming tomorrow.

Nokia will surely officially announce Symbian Belle, most likely with a new device. There are rumors that the new device will be the Nokia 700, a 1GHz Symbian powered phone.

However, don't get too excited, the new device will probably be available after a few months, and by that time the Belle update would probably be available for the existing army of Symbian phones that include the C7, E7, N7, C6-01 and the newer X7 and E6, and maybe even the announced 500.

Belle is supposed to really close the gap between Symbian and Android in the user interface and performance department. The new Belle homescreen can accommodate resizable widgets. The text only software buttons will be replaced in Belle with graphical buttons that are more intuitive. The back button will be placed on the left side of the screen instead of the right side as before. The new Belle browser will also have a revamped UI that will now accommodate more useful soft buttons on the bottom bar.

If Symbian Anna was still in the evolutionary stage and felt more like an incremental update for Symbian^3, the Belle is more like what we all expected from Symbian 4 a while back.

Nokia has also embraced the pull-down notifications area which is so popular on Android and has been adopted by iOS too lately.

One thing can be said about Nokia that cannot be said about many handset manufacturers. They have learned from their S60 mistakes, and are now releasing updates like crazy. First Anna, and now Belle make me believe that Symbian is far from dead, and I do think that Nokia will realize what a mine gold they have here and not give it up just yet.

For those of you who have not already seen what Belle brings to the table, here's a video of a leaked Belle firmware running on a Nokia N8.

Symbian Anna available worldwide

2011-08-18T23:26:00.000-07:00

Nokia has been working for the last days at releasing the Symbian Anna update for the Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia N8 and Nokia E7.

Symbian Anna is available in most countries worldwide trough OTA and trough Ovi suite.

Symbian Anna brings lots of new features, like portrait QWERTY keyboard, improved icons, improved user interface speed, and a lot more new features in a great deal of on-board applications.

The most notable feature however, is enabling the NFC chip on the Nokia C7, so you lucky C7 owners, can now pair your phone with your NFC enabled Bluetooth devices, by a simple touch.

Nokia promised the update to August 2011, and it seems they delivered. Next, we'll be waiting for Symbian Belle which already leaked for the Nokia N8.

Symbian Anna was already available for the Nokia X7 and the Nokia E6 since they were launched, and now the whole Symbian^3 devices range can benefit from it.

Motorola Milestone - How to make the best of it - Custom ROMs

2011-08-16T01:05:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been waiting quite a while to write this post. Many asked me to write a post on how to install a custom ROM. My answer until today was, I won't. Why? Because there was no custom ROM that was as stable as the stock ROM. CyanogenMod has been the closest ROM to stock stability-wise. It had it's pros and cons. The biggest con it had was the video recording bugs. Even with the phone clocked at 1GHz, the video would freeze half a second here and there while recording. I was following CyanogenMod 6 for the Milestone, until it was abandoned by it's maintainer, nadlabak. He concentrated on porting CyanogenMod 7 for the Milestone, which I think is way too much for the Milestone to handle. Maybe now that Google owns Motorola, we'll finally get an unlocked bootloader, and with swap enabled, we would be able to run CM7 too. But until that day comes, CM6 is my custom ROM of choice.

Lately, milaq has got the handles of CM6 for Milestone, and he will be maintaining the ROM for the time being. He just released a new update, namely CM 6.3 for the Milestone. This is the most stable ROM, and for my 4 days of use, I found no bugs whatsoever on it, besides the camcorder nag. So I thought I would check out the differences between CM6 and the stock ROM regarding the camcorder. And I struck gold. I found that in an attempt to improve the camcorder image and audio quality, the CM6 developers changed the default media profiles to use the h264 encoder instead of the m4v default. Also the audio was switched from amrnb to aac. So I tried various combinations and tried to keep the video quality and audio quality on balance, but unfortunately the Milestone has a hard time keeping up with the new codecs. So I switched them back to the Motorola ROM defaults, and guess what? It works!

Another step I took to make the CM6 ROM worthy was to keep the CPU clock lower than the CM6 default. 1GHz is too much for the Milestone because it gets too hot, and eats battery life like crazy. So I clocked it at 700MHz, which is only 100MHz higher than what the ARM A8 CPU was intended to run, namely 600MHz. So now, the Milestone is cool even after playing games for a long time. The 700MHz keep the UI snappy and I could not feel the difference between 1GHz and 700MHz, to be honest.

So, if you want to apply these changes, you need to apply my patch after installing CM6 on your phone.

Let's go trough the steps needed to install CM6 on your phone:

1) First you need to override the bootloader of your phone. Download the update.zip file from here and place it on your SD card root.

2) Second, you need to install RSDLite on your Windows machine(download here) and the USB drivers unless you already have them installed (from here).

3) Now you are ready to flash the Vulnerable Open Recovery to your phone. Download this SBF file to your computer

4) Now you need to power off your phone and boot in the bootloader mode. To do that, first power off the phone and then slide open you keyboard. Now you need to press the arrow up on the D-pad(as you are looking at your phone in landscape mode), keep it pressed and press and hold the power button. When the Motorola logo appears, keep both buttons pressed for 2-3 seconds and then release power button. When the bootloader screen appears, you can stop pressing the arrow button. You are now ready to flash Open Recovery.

5) Connect your phone to your PC and wait until Windows installs the drivers. After the drivers are installed, open RSDLite. Click the "..." button next to the Filename text field and browse and select the SBF file you downloaded earlier. You should see the device in the list below as Model A853. Now you need to press the start button, and wait until the progress finishes. Your phone will reboot in the process. DO NOT UNPLUG YOUR PHONE FROM THE USB CABLE! YOU WILL BRICK IT!

6) Next you need to download the latest CM6 from here. Go to the end of the first post and download the ROM file and the Google Apps file.

7) Turn off your phone again. Now you need to enter Open Recovery. After the phone turns off(the USB cable should still be plugged) slide the keyboard open and press and hold the X key on the keyboard. While holding the X key, press and hold the power button. Do not let go of the X key! Keep the X key pressed until you see a list on your screen. Now we have two cases here: first, you can find yourself directly into the Open Recovery menu(a menu printed in red color) or you can find yourself in the Motorola recovery menu(printed in blue). In the second case you need to navigate(with the D-pad) to the "Apply sdcard: update.zip" option (second option) and click the D-pad center button. Now the Open Recovery mode should be available(the menu printed in red).

8) Navigate to USB Mass Storage option and press the D-pad center button. Now you are in mass storage mode, and your phone should appear as a memory card on your computer. Browse the sd card on your phone and go to the root folder, and then to the OpenRecovery folder and then to the updates folder in it. Copy the CM6 file and the Google Apps file downloaded at step 6 here(sdcard:\OpenRecovery\updates). If you want to apply my patch, you have to also copy it here. Now you can click "Disable mass storage" on the phone.

9) Before installing CM6 you need to wipe the data on your phone because CM6 is not compatible with the stock ROM. Just to make sure in case something goes wrong, make a Nandroid backup. Use the Nandroid menu -> Backup -> Backup all.

So after the Nandroid backup is done, wipe your phone by using the following options from the Open Recovery menu, in this exact order.
a) Wipe Data / Factory Reset
b) Wipe Cache Partition
c) Wipe Dalvik Cache

I'm not sure if you need all three actions, but just to make sure, do them all.

10) Navigate to the "Apply update" option in the menu. Here you will see more than one option. First choose the update-cm6.X.X-Milestone-signed.zip and then confirm the update.
After that is done, you should also apply gapps-hdpi-XXXXXXX-signed.zip update, in order to have the latest Google Apps installed. If you want to install my patch, you need to apply it here too.

Now, use the Go back option to return to the main menu. Now use the Reboot option to restart the phone.

Congratulations, you are now using CyanogenMod 6, patched my yours truly!

Enjoy!

UPDATE:
Some things I forgot to mention... First of all, to get more RAM out of the CyangogenMod 6, you must disable the JIT compiler. To do so, go to Settings->CyanogenMod Settings->Performance settings and uncheck the "Use JIT" checkbox. Reboot your phone and you're done.

Another thing worth mentioning is the launcher. Michael Bentz, the man behind Zeam launcher managed to get some magic working and now Zeam Launcher eats 10-12MB of RAM with 3 homescreens full of widgets and shortcuts. I prefer it over the default ADWLauncher.

And the last thing... In order to avoid the homescreen restart every now and then, I checked the "Lock homescreen in memory" option in CyanogenMod Settings.

Why Apple should keep they mouths shut and get a life!

2011-08-11T07:03:00.000-07:00

Well, somehow, Apple managed to get an injunction for the upcoming Samsung Tab in Europe(except Netherlands). A German court, ordered Samsung to delay the launch of the next Tab in European Union, at Apple's request. The reason was not patent infringement, but design rights. Apple claimed the the Samsung Tab copies the iPad design.

Why is this outrageous? Because Apple claims that it has design rights over something they did not design, but copied.

WOW! You may exclaim, who and when designed a tablet that has the same design as the iPad?

Well, a company called Knight-Ridder(no joke here), came up with the Tablet Newspaper back in 1994, saying that it will be the newspaper of the future, providing dynamic content to users.

While Apple's vision of the table was as in the picture below, the Knight-Ridder company, came up with a design that has striking resemblances with the current iPads.

So, here is how the Tablet Newspaper looked like:

So either Apple designed the iPad 15 years ago, or they blatantly copied the Tablet Newspaper design, and now claim they own it. I tend to believe the latter.

Either way, Apple is in for a big loss in this Samsung trial, and I for one hope they will get buried once again, because all of these insane and countless lawsuits. This time, we're not talking about licensing patents and stuff like that, we're talking about Samsung losing tons of cash because of Apple's insane claims.

Here is the Tablet Newspaper demoed (jump to min 4:36 to see the Table Newspaper):

Nokia X7 review - The phone from outer space

2011-08-05T00:00:00.000-07:00

When the Nokia X7 arrived to my home, courtesy of the nice folks at WOMWorld, I wasn't there to receive it as with almost every package that comes with my name on it. So my wife received the package. I usually ask her to open up the package and plug the phone into the charger so I can use it fully charged when I get back home. When I get home I usually find the phone still connected to the charger lying on the kitchen table. So, I go and grab the phone and start playing with it. The day I got the X7, I had a "WTF?" moment when I got home... The phone wasn't there where all phones are left my wife for charging. So, I scratched my head, and I asked her where it was. She told me that the battery was almost full, and she didn't plug it, but she used it the entire day, shooting photos and videos of my kid, and playing Angry Birds on it. My jaw dropped! It was the first time I've seen my wife being so enthusiastic about a phone. And a touch phone none the less! She's a sworn enemy of touchscreens. She completely ignored the C7, E7 and N8, but she could not resist the X7. And after I held it in my hand I understood why. It has something, that just attracts you to it. it may be the design, it may be the way it feels in your hand. Bottom line, it's a joy to behold.

I usually shoot an unboxing video for every phone I receive, but I barely got 15 minutes of use of the X7 that day, and shot the unboxing next morning while my wife was still asleep, otherwise I might have waited for a few more days.

The X7 doesn't have the camera that the N8 has, doesn't have the sliding keyboard, the Clear Black Display, or the front facing video camera, but it has personality, and it's just a beauty. It's sleek, and I'm talking SE Xperia Arc-like sleek, but much stronger and much better build quality than the Xperia. Because of the design of the phone, the screen seems to be even bigger than it actually is. And the design, makes it look like something from outer space, which made me wonder which planet did the DHL guy came from :P

No one can accuse Nokia of lacking originality and innovation when it comes to design. These days Apple sues Samsung because of "rounded corners with one button" phones. They should take a look at what Nokia does design-wise and innovate instead of wasting time and money in courts.

Back to the X7. The phone is equipped with the same EDoF 8MP dual led flash camera like the C7 and E7. It cannot be compared with the 12MP AF camera of the N8, but still holds it's own, even indoors.

The phone has an unbelievable balance between size and weight. It feels solid, and just fills the palm of your hand.

The display is very bright, but the X7 does not have ambient light sensor. Maybe it was meant to be that way since it's an entertainment phone and most of the times you'll be holding it in landscape mode, and the light sensor may get covered up by your hand.

So, the X7 doesn't have all the bells and whistles of the E7 or the N8, but it quickly became my favorite.

Another thing I liked about the X7 was, and you're gonna think I'm out of my mind, the fact that the touchscreen is not insanely sensitive like the E7's. It does not register a click after the slightest of touches. On the E7 I got a lot of accidental clicks, but with the X7 it never happened. Maybe this is one of the reasons I favor it over the E7.

I got a lot of WOW's at work when I showed up with the X7. And for good reasons.

The picture quality is good, not best, and the HD video recording is very good, as I was expecting from a Symbian^3 device. But the device really shines when you're playing games. It's a whole new experience. The phone seems to be designed to be used mainly in landscape mode, held with both hands. Angry Birds just got better on the X7's screen.

The gaming side is enforced by the two games that come preloaded, Galaxy on fire and Asphalt 5. Both play very well on the X7.

Unlike it's S^3 brethren, the X7 does not have any internal storage, but it has an SD expansion slot and it comes with an 8GB SD card preinstalled. You might think about getting a larger SD card if you plan shooting HD videos a lot, because they tend to eat up your SD space.

HARDWARE

There's not much to be said about the hardware, it's about the same as on every other S^3 device, besides the screen and keyboard.

GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Resolution: 360 x 640 pixels, 4.0 inches
Gorilla glass display
Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
Memory: 256 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM
Expansion: microSD, up to 32GB, 8GB included
Size: 119.7 x 62.8 x 11.9 mm, 85 cc
Weight: 146 g
Stereo speakers
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth v3.0 with A2DP
microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support
Camera: 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, EDoF(full focus 40cm to infinity), dual-LED flash
Video: 720p@25fps
OS: Symbian Anna
CPU: 680 MHz ARM 11 processor, Broadcom BCM2727 GPU

The box comes with a micro-USB charger, a first for Nokia Symbians. The X7 uses only the micro-USB port for charging, being the first Nokia that does not use the classic Nokia pinhole charger.

The box also contains a micro-USB data cable, and a set of earphones.

On the top of the X7 you can find the micro-USB port, the 3.5mm jack port and the power/unlock button. Unlike previous Nokia touch phones, this one does not have an unlock knob, the only to unlock it is by the unlock touchscreen button. This is more in line with modern smartphones, even though I have to say I miss the unlock knob.

On the right side of the phone you can find the volume rocker and the camera key.

On the left side you have the SD card tray and the SIM card tray.

On the front of the phone you have the ear piece with the proximity sensor, the large 4 inch touchscreen and the classic menu button. There are no dedicated call and hang up keys. The menu button is nicely located in the middle.

On the back we have the 8MP camera with dual-LED flash.

The grids on the bottom corners of the phone hide the stereo speakers. The phone only has 2 speakers, not 4 as it may seem, the top grids being there for design only.

SOFTWARE

The X7 is powered by Symbian Anna, with the additional games I mentioned above. The Symbian Anna review I wrote was done on the X7.

So, how good is the user experience? Well, think about this: It turned my wife who's a touchscreen hater, and who could not use an Android phone if her life depended on it. She loved it, and now she wants one for Christmas. Hope it'll get cheaper by then.

Here is my unboxing and video tour in case you missed them:

Symbian Anna review - How does the game change?

2011-08-02T01:19:00.000-07:00

Well, Symbian Anna is an evolution of Symbian^3. It fixes most of the things that were annoying in Symbian^3 and also adds new features that were missing.

UPDATE: This review comes to complete the in depth review of Symbian^3 I did a while ago. It looks at the aspects that have changed and improved in Anna. If you are not familiar with Symbian^3 please read the original review. Also note that this review was conducted on a Nokia X7 and the upcoming update for devices with smaller screen size like the Nokia C6-01 may not bring for example the portrait QWERTY.

The biggest improvement that is very noticeable is the overall speed of the new Symbian. The previous iteration used to lag here and there making it a mixed bag from the user experience point of view. Most of the lags are gone now, and the user experience is more fluent than any touch enabled Symbian available.

The text input

One of the most expected and needed updates is the text input. The Symbian^1 alphanumeric keypad was inherited by Symbian^3 without notable improvements, but Anna finally changes that. A full QWERTY split-screen portrait and landscape keyboard is available now, and it is used by most of the applications. There are times when you find yourself in the same situation as with the original S^3, in a full screen input dialog, but that one also has the portrait QWERTY enabled. I'm sure it's just a matter of time, before all apps will use the split screen keyboard.

The full QWERTY is not the best in business, but it does have some features that other QWERTY keyboards are missing, like the editing menu, or the arrow keys for moving the cursor around.

The icons

Another big change is the icon theme, which is the same icon theme used on MeeGo, where icons are square with very well rounded corners. The icons for folders are more visible, and things are not as confusing as the were with previous iterations. The folder icons are filled with a single color and have suggestive imprints over them. In other words it's almost impossible to mistake a folder for an app with the new Symbian Anna.

In the settings menu, and most of the apps provided by Nokia, the list icons are now monochrome, bringing a more minimalistic look to the icons.

The homescreen

Another big improvement is the speed of the homescreen and the way the widgets are refreshed. The swipe gestures on the homescreen lead to immediate homescreen slides compare with the old version where you used to swipe left or right and after a fraction of a second, the homescreen would scroll over.

Th widgets show a loading circle when they are refreshing so you know what happens with them at all times, as opposed to the old way where you had no idea a widget was refreshing until it actually finished.

And the improvements do not stop here. Some applications got notable updates, and here they are.

The Calendar

The calendar display includes the events for the current day as well as the full month view. A nice touch is that now the month view has pinch to fullscreen. When you pinch in, the full month view shows on the entire screen, and if you pinch out, the month view also shows the today events too.

The calendar got another improvement in the form of the new event dialog. It's now easier to add and configure a new event than it was on the previous version.

The file manager

The file manager was pretty good to start with, but now it has a new feature, that was very much needed, the mark multiple items. The file manager switches the view to checkbox selectable items, and you can mark as many items as you want by just touching them. The file manager still misses the range mark ability, but it's still very usable. In other words you may not need an alternate file manager again.

The email client

The email client got a big improvement in the speed chapter, and scrolling trough your email list is now smoother that it ever was on Symbian. The email view is also faster, and the email client seems to be now suitable for all email needs.

The camera application

The camera application also got a boost, and now the settings view is better organized, closing the gap between the old camera app, and the best camera applications in business.

The browser

The browser got a huge update. Nothing about this new browser reminds you of the old Symbian browser. Even if the user experience is still a bit clunky, the browser is far better that it ever was on Symbian. The speed of the page loading is better, the address bar is new, and the menu is better organized. You have a soft back button which is very helpful in many situations, and you can open a new window whenever you like.

The contacts application

The contacts application was also updated, and the search trough contacts is done now by typing on the QWERTY keyboard instead of the old alphabet that was popping out on the old version. This kind of search seems more natural than before.

Additions

In addition to the usual application package, Symbian Anna comes with the topApps application pre-installed. The topApps application gives you a hand in deciding which apps you should download to your phone, have three categories, Featured, Staff picks and Reviewed. The user interface is similar to the Ovi Store interface and it is a good place to start when you're looking for applications.

All in all, Symbian Anna brings more background changes, in terms of optimization and speed, than user interface changes. It removes most of the nags that Symbian^3 inherited from Symbian^1, and if you compare Anna to S^1 they don't seem to be from the same planet.

It's pretty clear to me that Nokia is preparing for Symbian Belle later this year, and by the looks of it, it will change the way we perceive Symbian in a big way.

Good job Nokia!

Microsoft to save Nokia or is it the other way around?

2011-07-25T05:50:00.000-07:00

Well, I've seen so many people comment on how Nokia is sinking because of the deal with Microsoft. That's just bogus. Why? Because first of all, Nokia had a healthy Microsoft money infusion even before it started developing the first WP7 phone.

As you could see from the SeaRay preview Elop showed to the press, Nokia is there way sooner than anyone ever thought.

WP7 in my opinion offers a very strong user experience, and has a brilliant future if backed properly. What WP7 did not have, but now does, is a manufacturer that is full-time behind it. And that manufacturer is Nokia.

I have to say that dropping MeeGo would be a grave mistake for Nokia, but WP7 is not something to be overlooked. I did not hear one person, one person in one year to be disappointed with their WP7 handsets. And I know a lot of people who own WP7 devices.

Every manufacturer has waited for others to start promoting WP7 before they took a chance with it. Everyone was waiting for Samsung to be the first to blow the horn, which did not happen. Then silently, WP7 devices dropped their prices to nearly half the launch price.

Everyone showed off their Android devices but no one bothered with WP7 devices. Everybody knows that you get Google Maps navigation with Android, or Angry Birds, or whatever attracts the customers more. There are alternatives for WP7 too, but no one is putting any significant effort behind promoting them. And that's why many people who are looking to buy a smartphone never heard of WP7.

With Nokia being the primary WP7 manufacturer, things are going to change. There are a few things that Nokia does better than anyone else on the planet.

1) Build the best hardware, no doubt
2) Market their products like no one does. They have contests, they offer trials(trough WOMWorld) and many more such ways.

So the question is who's saving who here? My guess is Nokia is saving Microsoft's WP7 with it's existing network of advertising, manufacturing, and most important selling.

Photos taken with the Nokia X7

2011-07-25T01:38:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time for the X7 shots. Here are some shots I took with it this weekend, starting with some really cool clouds seen from the top of my office building, continuing with some indoors shots of some kitchen furniture, and then some shots of my kid.

I have to say that when it comes to landscapes the X7's EDoF camera really shines.

Nokia X7 unboxing

2011-07-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Well, the Nokia X7 arrived yesterday, courtesy of WOMWorld/Nokia. My wife received the package, since I was at work, and I asked her to charge the phone.

So she opened up the box and when she saw the phone, one thing came to her mind, and I'm quoting her on this one: "This is the only touchscreen phone I would like to own". My wife deeply hates touchscreens, but this one has a different story. She got to play around with the C7, the E7 and the N8 I've reviewed, but the X7 is the only one she wants. And I can understand why. The phone feels great in hand, it's like it's been designed to fill the palm of your hand. It looks great, it feels great, and with Symbian Anna it also behaves good(Anna still has some catching up to do). Anyway, so guess what my wife is getting for Christmas? That's right, an Nokia X7.

I was planning to shot the unboxing video yesterday evening, but I could not take it out of her hands. I tried believe me. I shot the video this morning while she was asleep :)

Here goes the unboxing video:

And an UI video tour too:

Short Nokia history told by Nokia Maps

2011-07-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought I'd make use of the Nokia Maps 3D once again, because I really enjoyed it the first time around back when it was branded Ovi Maps.

This time I thought I'd share a little Nokia history, seen trough the Nokia Maps 3D.

In 1865 a mining engineer called Fredrik Idestam established groundwood pulp mill in the town of Tampere, Finland, and started manufacturing paper.

Tampere, Finland

In 1868 Idestam built another mill near the town Nokia, 15km west of Tampere, by the Nokianvirta river. In 1871, with the help of his good friend Leo Mechelin, Idestam renamed and transformed his firm into a share company known since then as Nokia Company.

Nokia, Finland

The company went through a series of transformations that included manufacturing of rubber boots, galoshes, electronics business, tires and footwear.

In 1970 Nokia became more involved in telecommunications, and the production of network equipment was separated into a company called Telefenno, jointly owned by Nokia and by another company owned by the Finnish state. In 1987, the state sold all shares to Nokia, and in 1992 the name of the company was changed to Nokia Telecommunications.

In 1992 the first GSM phone was launched by Nokia, the 1011. The model was named after it's launch date November 10th.

Nokia eventually build new headquarters in the town of Espoo, Finland near Helsinki, known as the Nokia House.

Nokia House, Espoo, Finland

Since February 2011, Nokia announced a partnership with Microsoft and the new Nokia CEO Stephen Elop started to think about moving people to Silicon Valley. A natural move for the world's biggest phone manufacturer. So the new USA Nokia headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, CA, USA.

Nokia, Sunnyvale, CA, USA

The company also have a research center in Palo Alto, CA, USA and another one near the Berkeley University.

Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto, CA, USA

Innovation is something Nokia clearly does not lack, so opening up new research centers in the heart of Silicon Valley can only be beneficial for the Finnish giant.

Almost 19 years passed since the launch of the Nokia 1011, and the Nokia N9 and it's WP7 brothers can breathe new life into the Finnish company, maybe just in time to celebrate 19 years from the launch of the first Nokia GSM phone. Wouldn't it be nice to have the SeaRay on November 10th 2011? It would mark a new beginning for Nokia.

Candybar or slider QWERTY? Sandy beach challenge: Nokia E5 vs Nokia E7 vs Motorola Milestone

2011-07-18T01:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I've been away on vacation for the last two weeks and of course, I had to stay in touch with the world. So my only weapon of mass messaging was the Motorola Milestone.

Normally the Milestone does the job pretty well, even if it's keyboard is below average. But when the Milestone meets the sand of the Black Sea beaches, that's when the trouble starts. It got sand everywhere. And with my hands all moist with sunscreen, I had a very hard time using the phone's most basic functions. So that's when I started thinking, "What phone could perform in these conditions without a hassle?".

Two phones that I've used and reviewed in the past came to mind. The first was the Nokia E7. The pop slider of the E7 would have spared me the trouble of grinding the phone against the sand every time I needed the QWERTY, but would I be able to use the touchscreen as I needed it? The E7 would have probably been rendered useless by the sunscreen as the Milestone was. You can read my full Nokia E7 review here

So here is the winner of the beach messengers, the Nokia E5. No touchscreen means no greasy hands on the screen and the candybar QWERTY would have avoided the getting sand everywhere inside the phone's mechanics. You can read my full review of the Nokia E5 here.

So, ladies and gentlemen, the winner and champion of the sandy beach is.... Nokia E5.

Nokia N8 review - A smartphone with character

2011-07-05T07:17:00.000-07:00

When I first heard from Paul at WOMWorldNokia about sending me a Nokia N8, I frankly didn't know what to expect. It was the phone that started all the Symbian 3 hype, but I already tested and reviewed the bigger and meaner E7 and the cheaper C7(Without the 12MP though), so I said to myself, How can the N8 surprise me? And boy, was I in for an answer!

You can look at the N8 from two angles: first is from the normal user POV where it performs exactly like the C7, with Symbian at the helm. The N8 however did get an updated QuickOffice, now able to edit office files.

The second POV is the photography enthusiast POV. Here is where all he fun starts. Here is when you realize you can't stop clicking the damn shutter key.

Oh, and I forgot... the phone is just beautiful... It's built like a tank, but the feeling you get while holding it in the palm of your hand is priceless. You can't help but love it.

Now I don't want to come across like a Nokia fanboy, because I'm not. I love Nokia hardware, but when it comes to the software I have my doubts. But I could not help myself with the N8. It is just soooo..... N8.

In my opinion the N8 is the original flagship, and still stands tall. Even if it's flagship position is threatened by the likes of E7 and X7, I have not yet seen a Symbian device to match the character of the N8.

I have to say that this is the first time it happens to me to start reviewing a phone, and actually get so close to it that I'm at times considering it my personal phone.

To be honest, I started reviewing the device and ended up reviewing and greatly enjoying it's camera.

I already reviewed Symbian 3 to it's core so I won't start over again, since not much has changed. I will do a full review when I get a hold of an Anna device.

And now, on to the thing that makes the N8 have a league on it's own: The Camera.
The camera is addictive, you can't stop snapping pictures. You snap pictures of everything... You snap and snap and snap, and then go to bed, and the wake up, and snap and snap and go to bed again.

I own a Nikon Coolpix LP16 digicam, and I have to say that it doesn't hold a candle to the N8. Besides it's optical zoom, it is surpassed by the N8 on every possible chapter. Starting from the time it takes a picture, on with the quality of the pictures and finishing with the resolution(only 7MP compared to 12MP on the N8).

You can give away your pocket digicam if you own an N8, you won't need it anymore.

Everyone who expects a detailed technical review from me, you'll have to excuse me, but I could not do it with this phone. You can only understand that after you've held it in hand and used the camera for a while. I actually pulled it out of my pocket every few minutes just to look at it. It's the second time this has happened to me, the first being when I bought my first touchscreen phone.

In broad daylight the N8 captures great details and it's just a joy to use. In low lighting conditions it does suffer from motion blur at times, but I have to tell you that the pictures taken in low lighting conditions were of people dancing, so the motion blur is only normal.

I have to say that I did miss one thing, the recording light. Since the N8 comes with a Xenon flash instead of the dual LED flash found on the E7 and C7, it cannot provide this function. Still, the videos shot in low light conditions look great. I would trade LED video light for Xenon flash any day.

A good thing I noticed in the Ovi Store is that there are lots of free quality games that you can download for Symbian 3 devices, which include Assassins Creed, Angry Birds Seasons, Angry Birds Rio, Fruit Ninja, Galaxy on Fire, Farm Frenzy, Climate Mission and many other titles.

This is one device I am heartbroken over.

N8 stars in: Party Romanian style

2011-07-03T12:16:00.000-07:00

So, Monday I'm gonna send the Nokia N8 back to the WOMWorld guys, and I thought I should give it a last run, at a party. It was the baptism of a little kid, Razvan Costin, and this is how we celebrated it. Here goes a little photo gallery followed by a few short films.

I have to warn you first that we had a shipload of whistles, and we were not afraid to use them.

So here is how we do El Meneaito:

Here is the locomotion:

Next is the moving bridge:

And last, but not least(we were at a kid's party after all) the Duck Song:

Crazy Friday, Follow Friday, Thank you Nokia

2011-07-02T01:25:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday was a day like every other Fridays. I left work and went to do a little grocery shopping, and then I got home. Little did I know about the surprise that was waiting at home.

First of all I quickly noticed around 30 new emails in my account, and my first thought was "well, another wave of spam mail", but then I saw all the mails were from Twitter. Imagine my surprise, when I saw I was mentioned in a tweet by @nokia itself.

I was honored, but I had no idea of what actually happened, so I went online and checked my mentions. And here is what I found:

So it was a follow Friday tweet, but it was no ordinary tweet. This was the biggest follow Friday tweet ever, written on a wall, with graffiti and everything. And it was all for me and two more guys, nkumar_ and adityasinghvi. I'm the one in yellow and green. Check it out below.

So my first reaction was to just stare at the picture and could not believe it. Second reaction was to pinch myself in order to wake up, but as you can see, it was no dream, it was real. Then I couldn't speak for a while, and when finally I put myself together again, I experienced an accomplishment feeling that I didn't experience in while. Only my son and my wife can make me feel like that.

Nokia, you made my day. I still can hardly believe this actually happened to me. Of course the image is now my twitter wallpaper, my desktop wallpaper, my phone's wallpaper and when I get to work on Monday my work computer's wallpaper.

I don't know what I did to deserve such an honor, but I greatly appreciate the effort the guys at Nokia went trough for this FF tweet, and I am deeply impressed.

Thank you Nokia!

Photos taken with the Nokia N8

2011-06-30T04:16:00.000-07:00

Well, the camera is the feature I tested the most on the Nokia N8. What can I say, it's addictive. You keep shooting and shooting and ... And you just can't stop.

Here are some pictures I shot with it, some of my son, some from Craiova's rainy skies, even this morning's coffee, and some close ups.

Enjoy!

Samsung confirms it will make the next Nexus phone

2011-06-28T06:44:00.000-07:00

Two hours ago Samsung confirmed trough the official cSamsung Mobile Romania tweet account, that it will be the maker of the next Google Nexus phone.

Here is the original tweet:

The translation is simple:
Exactly as you already discovered and then the link which leads to an article about Samsung being the maker of the next Google Nexus phone.

The link inside the tweet: http://fb.me/QLGZA7ol

Touring Europe with Ovi Maps

2011-06-28T05:32:00.000-07:00

First of all I had to share a place from my home city Craiova, Romania in Ovi Maps, a place that brought both ecstasy and despair to the people of this city. I live nearby the biggest city stadium, the Ion Oblemenco stadium, which is home of the Universitatea Craiova football club.

You can see it here on Ovi Maps: The Ion Oblemenco Stadium
The U(short for Universitatea) Craiova club is legendary in Romania, being the first Romanian team to ever reach an UEFA Cup semifinal. The team that achieved this performance was called Craiova Maxima. This performance was never followed by the next generations. Now U Craiova plays in the second Romanian league hoping to go back to the fist league next year.

Ion Oblemenco Stadium in the evening

So, to go further, since I am a football fan, and never quite had the chance to leave the country, I decided to visit Barcelona and the Camp Nou Stadium, the home of FC Barcelona. It was not it in the Ovi Maps 3D landmarks, but after some searching I found it, and it is gorgeous.

Here it is, as seen on Ovi Maps:

Camp Nou Stadium

Next, I decided to make a quick stop in Milano in Italy to check out the San Siro Stadium, or Giuseppe Meazza, as it is known today, home of Internazionale Milano and A.C. Milan football clubs. I looked a bit for this one too, but here it is:

Giuseppe Meazza(San Siro) Stadium

Well, enough with the stadiums, let's see some historical sights. For that we go to London. First of all, let's see the place that was on fire a while ago with the wedding of price William and Kate Middleton, the Westminister Abbey. This is the place were all the kings and queens of England have their weddings. It's an important milestone England's history, both old and modern.

Westminister Abbey

Since I was in London I decided to "drop by" the guys from WOMWorld located on Windmill Street near the Piccadilly Circus.

1000Heads/WOMWorld London Office

Nice to finally see where all those Nokia goodies have been coming from.

Thank you Ovi Maps!

Nokia N8 unboxing

2011-06-23T22:26:00.000-07:00

Well, the day has come that I finally got my hands on a Nokia N8. The nice people at WOMWorld sent me this N8 for a two weeks trial.

The phone is solidly built, it feels very good in hand, and as a very nice surprise, it is very light. The camera takes amazing pictures(I'll get back with another post on that one) and to my surprise, it takes them fast. Very fast. The phone seems to love to take pictures.

I found myself pulling the N8 from my pocket each 5 minutes just to look at it. I still do. As I write this post, it's sitting next to me and I find myself staring at it for a few seconds once in a while.

What can I say? Do I want one? Definitely. Can I afford one? Ask my kid, he'll say "na na na na".

But enough with the chit-chat, here is the unboxing video:

Nokia N9 uncovered. MeeGo is beautiful

2011-06-21T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well, in my previous post I said that Nokia made a smart move with the N9, and that it will open up some new opportunities for Nokia phones. I take that back. The N9 doesn't need a ported OS. MeeGo is beautiful. When I saw MeeGo getting demoed I could not believe it! It is what I've been looking for in a smartphone. Everything is well organized starting with all notifications in one screen, all apps on another, and finishing with the superb open apps manager.

I love the idea of a phone with no buttons, and what Nokia has done with this idea I call art. MeeGo is so natural, I can hardly believe that Nokia, the same people who did Symbian, developed it. I think this can be the third horse in the smartphone race, and if Mr. Elop dumps MeeGo, he's an idiot, or a Microsoft trojan-horse.

Just take a look for yourselves.

Nokia N9 - a smart move by Nokia

2011-06-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Well, June 21st is coming up next week, and everybody is eagerly waiting for Nokia to announce the N9/N950.

The phone is supposed to run MeeGo and have a 12MP camera just like the N8. The slider keyboard is for those heavy messaging people and the 4 inch screen, expected to be ClearBlack, should be more than enough for anyone.

I think this is a great move by Nokia, one that will assure everyone that Nokia has not abandoned MeeGo. Furthermore, this new device, running a Linux based OS opens up the possibility to have Android on a Nokia device. It happened before with the N900, but this time we're not talking resistive 3.5 inch screen, but a real 4 inch contender.

Even though Nokia did not adopt Android as a smartphone platform, they can't ignore it's potential. I believe Nokia will release this device for two purposes: first, to test the waters withe MeeGo and see how it pins itself against the smartphone big boys, and second, to see how well Android can run on it. There will be people who will start porting Android to the N9, and hence spare Nokia the efforts of doing it themselves(if they haven't already).

Call me a dreamer, but I will love to see Nokia releasing Android phones in the future, even if they have already stated out loud that they will concentrate in Windows Phone. I'm sure that if the N9 and it's MeeGo brothers will succeed on Android, we may see a shift in Nokia's vision of the smartphone future.

What can I say, I can't wait to get my hands on one.

eBuddy for Android - must have messenger

2011-06-16T01:31:00.000-07:00

Today we review the seasoned eBuddy messenger solution for Android. If you're tired of using Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger and Facebook and AIM(and so on) dedicated clients separately on your Android device, eBuddy brings them all into one convenient place. One login, all accounts available.

Why an all in one messenger? Well, first of all, RAM consumption. Having 3 or 4 messengers opened at once can quickly eat up the memory of your phone. Second, installation space: why waste precious phone storage to install 3 or 4 messengers when you can do the same thing with only one. You may ask why eBuddy? Well, besides being a well done and easy to use app for Android, eBuddy is available for all major platforms, iPhone, Android, Symbian and most phones who support Java. You can quickly download eBuddy for any new phone you may purchase, and with one login you're set.

The interface is easy to use and very clean. It has very good support for emoticons while all the ongoing chats are grouped under a separate tab in the interface.

Head over the market and give eBuddy a try. You will need an eBuddy account that you can obtain straight from the application itself.

Motorola fails it's customers again

2011-06-10T03:27:00.000-07:00

This post is addressed to whom it may concern within the Motorola company.

So, Motorola, you are lying to users once again... Now it's unlocked bootloaders, now it locked. Well, in my country the Constitution guarantees the right of ownership. We also have a law on Consumer Protection. The Consumer Protection law states that the manufacturer of a product must provide a solution in a timely manner to a problem that a customer encounters. It also states that if a solution is not found, the manufacturer is obliged by law fix, replace the defective product or to return the amount of money spent by the Consumer when purchasing the product, without causing prejudice to the Consumer. Right now I have not been given a solution by your Romanian counterparts or by your forum experts. My Milestone is practically a brick. I updated to Froyo when it came out and I was told by your people that in order to revert to Eclair(which was working properly) I will lose all my data. That is what I call prejudice. In order to preserve my data I have to stick with the defective software, or lose my data to get a working phone. Furthermore, the multitasking that was advertised as working on this phone is not working as a fact, probably due to the lack of RAM available on the Milestone. The fact that the Motorola engineers were not able to get Froyo, a newer and more optimized version of Android than Eclair, to run on the same amount of RAM and provide the same functionality as with the original software is a Motorola problem and not a customer side problem. Never was it mentioned in your warnings that if I would install Froyo, I won't be able to run 2 apps at the same time on my Milestone. The only warning was that I should run less apps in parallel. Less apps does not mean only one.
When you announced that you will revise the locked bootloader policy I mistakenly assumed that it would apply to existing customers too, since we still have rights as Motorola customers. How wrong was I....

So the first issue we have with your Motorola is that you do not allow us to use our owned hardware as we want it, to it's full potential by limiting our choices with a locked bootloader. That I see as a breach of our constitutional rights of guaranteed ownership(property). This would not have been a problem if you would have provided a viable software alternative or an unlockable bootloader.

The second issue we have with you Motorola is false advertising which is also punishable by law.

The third issue we have is the prejudice you cause us when we want to get our phones in an usable state again, loss of data that is.

Me and a fairly large community of Milestone users from Romania are strongly thinking of forming a class action against Motorola here in Romania, where I assure you, YOU WILL LOSE THE LAWSUIT! You have to understand Motorola, we have no other choice. You did not offer us a viable alternative to your faulty software. You never had such a large disgruntled user base with the Droid because it had an open bootloader and people have given up on your software and installed custom better ones. We do not have that choice. You have taken it away from us. Bottom line... Unless we are given a solution to this issue, there may be legal actions.

Anyone who would like to support the Motorola Milestone users having these issues with Motorola, please share, tweet or retweet this post.

Nokia E7 review

2011-06-07T22:24:00.000-07:00

Well, two weeks ago the nice people at WOMWorldNokia have sent me the latest Nokia flagship, the almighty E7. Why almighty? Because when held in hand you find yourself staring at it and only one word comes out of your mouth "WOW".

The huge 4 inch display dominates the front of the phone, along with a single menu button. The blacks of the CBD(Clear Black Display) are outstanding. I honestly could not see where a gradient that ended in the black color ended and the display bezel started.

On the left side you have the unlock knob, while on the right side you have the SIM card housing, the volume knob(yes knob) which replaces the traditional volume rocker, and the dedicated camera key. On top you have the micro-USB port which serves for charging too, the HDMI port and the power button.

There is no SD card slot(not that you'd need one anyway) and on the down side, the battery is non replaceable because of the unibody design.

The anodized aluminium case is as strong as it can be on a cell phone, and the Gorilla glass covering the display should prevent scratches from deteriorating the 4 inch screen.

The phone feels solid(and probably is) and the sliding mechanism is very easy to use once you get the hang of it. The first time you open the keyboard you feel like the phone is ready to snap out of your hands, like a wild horse. But once you get familiar with it, it's actually a very nice feeling.

The keyboard is the best I have ever seen. The keys are comfortably placed and spaced, and pressing them is as easy as can be.

The SIM card is not hot swapable, the phone reboots after the SIM card is changed.

The build quality overall is excellent, but there's just one thing... the menu button. It seems a bit fragile, but I guess it can leave that impression compared with the rest of the hardware.

After using and Android phone in for some time now, I have to point out one thing that Nokia phones, not just the E7 have that droids do not: Wake up on alarm. This means that if you have set an alarm clock and the phones is turned off, the Nokias will power up and ring while the Android phones will not. It is a very important feature to remember when buying a new phone.

As usual on Symbian^3 devices, a full range of video codecs is supported including avi and divx files, which, along with the 4 inch screen can mean you can even watch movies on it while traveling.

HARDWARE

2G Network - GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network - HSDPA 850 / 900 / 1700 / 1900 / 2100
Dimensions - 123.7 x 62.4 x 13.6 mm, 104.9 cc
Weight - 176 g
AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Size - 360 x 640 pixels, 4.0 inches
- QWERTY keyboard
- Nokia ClearBlack display
- Multi-touch input method
- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
- Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
- Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display
Loudspeaker, 3.5mm jack
Phonebook practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records - Detailed, max 30 days
Internal - 16 GB storage, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM
No card slot
GPRS - Class 32
EDGE - Class 32
3G - HSDPA, 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA, 2 Mbps
WLAN - Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth - v3.0 with A2DP
microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support
Primary Camera - 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, fixed focus, dual-LED flash, geo-tagging, face detection
Video - 720p@25fps, video stabilization
Secondary Camera VGA
OS - Symbian^3 OS
CPU - 680 MHz ARM 11 processor, Broadcom BCM2727 GPU
Messaging - SMS (threaded view), MMS, Email, Push Email, IM
Browser - WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
Radio - Stereo FM radio with RDS
GPS with A-GPS support - Ovi Maps 3.0
Java - MIDP 2.1
- Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
- Digital compass
- TV-out (720p video) via HDMI and composite
- Dolby Digital Plus via HDMI
- MP3/WAV/eAAC+/WMA player
- MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player
- Voice command/dial
- Document editor (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
- Video/photo editor
- Flash Lite 4.0
- Voice memo/dial
- Predictive text input
Standard battery, Li-Ion 1200 mAh (BL-4D)
Stand-by - Up to 432 h (2G) / Up to 480 h (3G)
Talk time - Up to 9 h (2G) / Up to 5 h (3G)

SOFTWARE

I'm not going to do a full software review, as I've already published a full review of Symbian^3 and unfortunately, the E7 does not come with Symbian Anna update yet, so I'll only mention the apps that are specific to the E7.

First of all the E7 comes with a full QuickOffice license unlike the C7 I previously reviewed, and a full license of Adobe PDF.
Another software difference is the Communicator software installed on the E7, and that is expected in a business device such as the E7.

Overall, the software experience is smooth, but some apps are better optimized than others, so the user experience is not as consistent as it should be. However, things should change once Symbian Anna will be available for the E7, which is gonna happen in the following months.

Now, I have heard a lot of opinions about the E7. Some say it could have been more than it is. Others say it's more that they could have expected. I think that if you want the level of customization of Android, this phone is not for you. But if you want a reliable business phone, which can also entertain your while traveling(and I mean movies, games and so on) then you should seriously give it a go.

The 8MP camera takes very nice pictures, and it's very very snappy, because of the EDoF technology used. It's a full focus camera, and landscapes are just a pleasure to shoot. Folow the link to check the quality of the photos taken with the E7.

Here is my unboxing and hands on in case you missed it:

File Expert for Android - All you need to manage your files

2011-06-02T04:38:00.000-07:00

I used to be a faithful user of Astro File Manager and ES File Explorer to do my daily file managing stuff. Now, each one of the aforementioned had it's pros and cons and I would have so much liked to frankenstein both of them into a single app. No I no longer need to use both of them, as there is an app in the market that does what I need and more.

File Expert by Geek Software Technology Inc is a file management software and much more rolled into one beautiful and easy to use app. An iPhone-esque interface that is just beautiful shows off most of the features you need on day to day use.
This app gives your the opportunity to also browse network drives from your local intra-net, as well as share your files the same way, via network share or web server.

You can exclude folders from media scanning, and you can even enable the root mode(in case you use a rooted phone) so that you can modify the system files freely. The application is skinable so you can download more skins if you don't like the default one.

The app also allows you to batch uninstall multiple apps and also to mount your local filesystem in read/write or read only modes.

One thing that I appreciate about File Expert is the lack of ads. They put up a popup first time you open the app where you can donate to them if you choose, and after that you won't see any ads or nags again.

This is one of the best apps I ever came across for Android.

Download it from Market and give it a try, I guarantee you it's worthed.

Pictures shot with the Nokia E7

2011-05-31T04:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures I shot with the Nokia E7 that the kind folks at WOMWorldNokia have sent me.

Enjoy!

SD-Booster for Android - Speed up your SD card

2011-05-31T00:05:00.000-07:00

Are bugged by how slow your Android phone opens up the Gallery? Does it take forever to see your picture's thumbnails?

Well, XDA developers member Akusari just released version 1.0.2 of his SD-Booster application. This app allows you to change the read ahead speed of your SD card. By default that speed is set at 128KB, so if you have large files on your SD card, they will be read 128KB at a time. If your images are say 1.5MB large, then it takes Android 12 to 13 read operations to get the file into memory. When you use SD booster to set the read ahead to say 512KB, Android will only perform 3 read operations to get the file. This app does not increase the reading speed of your SD card, it will only reduce the number operations involving the SD card.

This does not translate into higher speeds when reading files, but less reads mean longer SD card life.

You will need a rooted phone in order for this app to work.

Go ahead and give it a try. Download from Android Market

Nokia E7 unboxing and hands on

2011-05-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, finally the Nokia E7 came by, courtesy of the nice folks at WOMWorldNokia. The phone feels rock solid and taking into account the materials used, it's say it is rock solid. And it has the scars to prove it(two little bumps from a previous fall his former owner had). The ClearBlack display is gorgeous, indoors I cannot tell where the contour ends and where the display starts. You'll see in the video what I mean.

The slide out keyboard(pop up keyboard or snap out keyboard more likely) is the most comfortable keyboard I've used on a mobile phone. The keys are spaced perfectly, the press is not too sensitive, nor too hard, but just right. In short it's a pleasure to write on.

So here is the usual unboxing video with some hands on action included.

Evernote for Android - Share your notes anytime, anywhere

2011-05-22T23:02:00.000-07:00

Taking notes is a very used feature on any phone, not just smartphones. People write down anything they need to remember into phone memos, on paper even on the palm of their hands :)

Evernote comes in handy by organizing the note taking part on your Android smartphone. First you need to create an Evernote account. They also have a paid Premium service which allows you to upload 1GB monthly to their service. For most users, the free account will do.

What is the deal with Evernote?

Well, Evernote is not just an app for Android, they have an app for whatever OS you can think of, even Symbian and Palm. There is an iOS app, there is a Windows app, Mac OS app, and even a Web app to access you notes an files whenever you want to.

Evernote is organized in notebooks. Each notebook contains notes, and each note can contain text, images, PDF documents and many more.

The Android app integrates with the sharing feature of Android so you can share anything from your device with the Evernote app as a note.

Another cool thing is the browser plugin which allows you to send web clips to your Evernote account.

Head over to the Market and give Evernote a try, it's free and worth your while.

Here is a video with the features added in the last version of Evernote for Android.

Nokia N9 finally surfaces - MeeGo on 12MP sounds good

2011-05-17T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like Nokia finally decided to let us see what the N9 is all about. The 12MP camera is no surprise, probably the same as the N8, but this baby has a sliding keyboard like the E7, and runs MeeGo!

Why all the excitement? Well, believe it or not, even if they sided with Microsoft by adopting Windows Phone as their primary smartphone platform, Nokia isn't that dumb to let the customers that wanted them to switch to Android get away. Running MeeGo means that the N9 could easily run Android, so here it is... WP7 on one hand, MeeGoDroid on the other... Keep everybody happy. I think this is a very good move. It's like when computer manufacturers load up some crappy linux on you new laptop. They know you'll install something else on it, but it has be sold functional, so...

I'm not saying MeeGo isn't good, but right now, Android has a 200.000 app base behind it.
Here is a teaser video of the upcoming N9.

Motorola Milestone - How to make the best of it - Part 3

2011-05-14T04:57:00.000-07:00

Well, in the 1st and 2nd parts of this Milestone experiment, I've shown you how to improve your phone's responsiveness and overall speed, while still running a stock Froyo. In this post I will show you how to fine tune the performance of your system so that it will improve your user experience, and provide more battery life.

Memory management

A further improvement you can do so that your apps can start faster, is to reconfigure the Android memory manager. By default, Android lets pretty much every app reside in memory, and only in very low memory situations, starts killing these apps, in order to free memory for another app you may want to start. This is in generally a good idea, and it allows you to better multitask because the more apps allowed to run simultaneously, the more apps that can multitask together. But that comes with at the price of new apps launch speed. Every time you start an app, the system frees RAM so that app can run properly. Next app you run gets the same treatment.

So basically an application start time looks like this:


AppStartTime = AndroidFreeRAMTime + AppLoadTime;

This happens almost every time.

What I will be trying to accomplish with the memory manager tuning is to remove the AndroidFreeRAMTime, by providing more free memory at all times. This means that you won't be able to run that many apps at the same time as you did before, so if you're heavy on multitasking, stop here, this tutorial is not for you. You can jump to the CPU tuning section instead.

So, first of all you need to grab an application from the Market called MinFreeManager. This application configures the memory management parameters for Android. Remember, you need root access to do these things.

The default system values provided were the following (you can always access them using the preset Default):


Foreground app: 6
Visible app: 8
Secondary server: 16
Hidden app: 20
Content provide: 22
Empty app: 24

the values I currently use are the following


Foreground app: 6
Visible app: 8
Secondary server: 16
Hidden app: 24
Content provide: 32
Empty app: 48

What are these values you may ask? Well, each value provides a free RAM threshold from where Android will start killing certain categories of apps. For example, it will kill the foreground app (the currently running one) if the free memory gets below 6MB of RAM. Visible Apps are apps that run in the background and so on.

You can use the Menu->Apply option to apply the values on the spot, and Apply at boot to apply them each time you start the phone.

The effect of these settings are constantly more free RAM, and so application load times are much lower. Android will still be killing apps in the background if the memory thresholds are crossed, but it won't influence your application start time. Now we practically removed the AndroidFreeRAMTime and we're left with:


AppStartTime = AppLoadTime

No more lags, translate into a snappier phone.

CPU tuning

If you choose to overclock your Milestone, this chapter will provide you a way to increase your battery life and speed the phone up a little.

Normally, Android uses CPU scaling so that when your phone is idle, or not doing much processing, the CPU clock is set to 125MHz by default. When the CPU is needed, the CPU clock is automatically set to 550MHz and stays that way until the CPU load is back to low values. Now I have overclocked the Milestone to 900MHz using a vsel of 63 in Milestone Overclock, so in my case the clock goes from 125MHz to 900MHz.
Even with this overclock, sometimes I felt a little lag when trying to do something. That was because the CPU took a little while to get from 125MHz to 900MHz. This is the performance part of the problem. The battery problem is that even if the phone is idle, if there is an app running with mid CPU load the CPU will stay at 900MHz until that app finishes. Now, you don't need an app that runs while your screen is off to finish as quickly as possible, right? So we need a way to tell the CPU to run at lower speeds when you don't need it.
Here is where SetCPU comes in handy. SetCPU allows you to specify the minimum CPU frequency and the maximum CPU frequency. It also allow you to define profiles with these 2 settings for various situations like when charging the phone, of when the screen is off, or even when you're low on battery.

In the main screen I've set the main online profile to have a minimum frequency of 500MHz and maximum of 900MHz. I have defined a profile for battery under 30% where I set the CPU to 125MHz up to 500MHz, another profile for screen off from 250MHz up to 500MHz, and another profile for charging where I set the CPU just like the one for screen off.

So basically, I managed to improve the speed of the phone while I'm operating it, because the minimum speed is now 500MHz and the switch from 500 to 900 when needed is much smoother than from 125 to 900. The screen off profile helps me conserve battery power when the phone's screen is turned off, the charging helps by lowering the time taken for a full charge, and the battery less than 30% helps when your baterry is low and you still need to operate your phone.

Super Task Killer 2011 for Android - Take control of your apps

2011-05-12T06:06:00.000-07:00

Many of you may ask yourselves how many memory do I have free on my phone? Or how many applications are running? How can I stop an application, it doesn't have a Quit or Exit option?

Well most of the times, the Android OS takes care of the RAM management and closing applications. But every now and then, it's good to know if some application that I rarely use, is always running. Some manufacturers include task managers into their ROMs, but most of them don't.

So here is where Super Task Killer 2011 comes in handy.

Super Task Killer allows you to kill a batch of applications, see how much memory they consume, and how much memory there is free on your device. It can also add a notification bar item, for faster access.

You're gonna ask me now, why would I want to know how much RAM my apps are using? Well, for a device with less RAM these, an application that is used often such as the homescreen has to be light on memory. So you need this kind of software when you're testing out various apps from the Market to compare their memory consumption. Same goes when you have to choose a Twitter client, or whatever other side by side comparison you can think of.

Head over to the market and download Super Task Killer 2011.

myHome lite for Android - Homescreen for low memory phones

2011-05-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

Well, a few days ago I wrote a post about what I was using as a homescreen replacement, namely Zeam. The Motorola Milestone I am currently using has only 256MB of RAM, so you can imagine I am a little restrained when it comes to resident apps. I noticed a tweet today about beta testing myHome launcher and decided to give it a go.

To my surprise I found myself staring at Super Task Killer in wonder. The myHome launcher ate 9 to 10 MB or RAM? I couldn't believe it! I loaded up my homescreen as usual, and still it stayed there, just under 10MB. The thing that will amaze you further is that this thing has skins. Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Sense and even the old Donut. Even though they don't work quite as you would expect, the devs behind it promise to fix these small issues in the future.

Give it a try, it'll be worth your while. Head over to myHome lite at the market and get it.

QuickPic for Android - blazing fast media gallery

2011-05-06T00:03:00.000-07:00

Well, many of you may be sick and tired of the standard Gallery application. It's slow, it's unintuitive and the bling Google added in Froyo was at the expense of performance. Most manufacturers include their own media gallery applications.

For those of you who have to use the standard Gallery app(and I mean most people who use custom ROMs), here is some good news.

There is an app available in the Market that will change the way you browse photos in a very good way. QuickPic is a complete media gallery replacement.

It's very quick, loads photos incredibly quick and you can easily setup your albums just the way you want them. You can also hide unwanted images, like those downloaded by various apps for widgets or god knows what else.

QuickPic can do multiple selection, cropping images, sharing and so on. Head over to the Market, download QuickPic and start enjoying your photos.

How and when does Android record my location data

2011-05-04T00:29:00.000-07:00

The last week we've all seen the havoc wreaked by the guys that uncovered how Apple tracks your location data. The funny thing is that Apple records the cell tower and WiFi data even if you turn off location services. Another "bug" in Apple's iOS is that it never stops recording the data. Now whenever something like this happens to Apple, it is their established policy to steer focus away from their problems. It happened with the antenna-gate scandal, when they started to showcase other cellphones that dropped signal when held a certain way. So people started talking about Android having the same issues. Now here is what I found after I started digging into this assumed problem.

First of all I installed an app called Android location cache viewer from the Android Market. This app requires root access, so don't bother installing it on an unrooted phone.

So the first question is how does Android record my location data? Well, the answer to that is this: It records the last 50 cell tower locations, and the last 200 WiFi locations.

The second question is when does Android record my location data? The answer to that one is: When you allow it to.

When I first booted up the Android I currently use for the first time, it asked me if I wanted to use the Location services. I didn't want to use them and so I unchecked the location services checkbox.

Now when I ran Android location cache viewer here is what I got:

So, rest assured that if you do not want the location services, there won't be any location data recording with Android.

Zeam Launcher for Android - Lightweight, fast, stable, must have

2011-04-29T06:48:00.000-07:00

Well, if you're tired of the dull default Android home screen, you have a wide choice of replacement launchers on Android Market. Zeam, by Michael Bentz, is one of them. What makes Zeam special? Well, it's speed and low memory footprint.

The speed of this thing is incredible, and after all launchers I have tried, this one managed to keep 5 homescreens filled with widgets and shortcuts in under 20MB or RAM. For people with low memory phones (256MB or even less) this launcher is a must have. Scrolling is smooth as butter, it is very easy to configure, and it gets updated periodically. The last update, however, dropped the scrollable widgets support, not that I ever used it, but it seems some users are missing that feature.

It also features a scrollable dock, and Sense-like homescreens preview.

Head of to the application thread at XDA developers or get it directly from the Android Market.

Notification Toggle for Android - A must have for stock ROMs

2011-04-27T23:27:00.000-07:00

For those of you who use Android stock ROMs and have drooled over the notification bar toggles of Samsung's TouchWiz or the later LG phones, here is a piece of software developed by j4velin that comes to the rescue. Notification Toggle shows you a notification in the pull down bar, with the toggles you've selected when you run the app. You can see the status of your Wifi, Bluetooth, Mobile data, and so on, right there, in the notification bar. Once you push the notification, a popup appears that allow you to toggle those settings. You can choose from a variety of settings toggles, as well as add apps to the same popup.

It's does not exactly replace the Touchwiz toggles, but in the long run, I think it's even better. I gave it 5 stars.

Head on to the Android Market and download it.

Motorola Milestone - How to make the best of it - Part 2

2011-04-27T00:12:00.000-07:00

Here we are with the Motorola Milestone again. In my previous post, I have tried to tweak the stock Froyo ROM for the Milestone in order to get the best performance that it can deliver.

So after the previous post, I had a Milestone with stock Froyo, rooted and overclocked. Also, the homescreen application was locked in memory so it wouldn't reload like crazy.

Everything was fine and dandy, but even though I overclocked the CPU, I was still a little unhappy with the overall speed of the system, and kept looking for improvements. And I found some more tweaks that made the phone a lot snappier and I actually managed to get 105MB or RAM free at some point.

The first thing I did was to install an app called Sysctl from the Market that tweaks some kernel parameters. The defaults work wonders, so I advise you don't meddle with them.
After installing Sysctl the system seemed much more responsive than before.

So the easter came, and of course I installed Angry Birds Seasons, which has grown a new easter episode. I didn't have any problems with any of the Angry Birds editions before, but this one managed to eat a lot of RAM, and once again, killed my homescreen. So I started to look for something that optimizes the RAM consumption, but I was unable to find anything. So I remembered that with the original Eclair ROM I managed to get 90MB of RAM free at some point, and so I started to check the differences between Eclair and Froyo. The two main features Froyo added were the Apps2SD that allows apps to be installed on the SD card and JIT(Just In Time) compiler. What JIT does is precompile some of the Java code, in native code, and so the apps run faster. The downside is that it eats more RAM. I never managed to get more than 80MB of RAM free on the Milestone with JIT enabled. So I thought I should disable JIT and see what happens. And guess what, once I disabled JIT I managed to get 105MB of RAM free. The 25MB increase worked like magic, and the Milestone was running smooth once again just like the old Eclair, but with even more free RAM than Eclair used to deliver. The Quadrant Standard benchmark scored a lower result than it did with JIT enabled, but in real life I didn't feel any speed difference. Angry Birds Seasons ran once again without killing the homescreen, and I also noticed that every app seem to start faster than before, and I guess that is because of more free RAM. In order to disable JIT you have to edit the build.prop file located in /system. The /system partition cannot be accessed directly from the OS, because the /system partition is read only. So what you need to do is copy that file to the SD card. The following command copies the file to the SD card(you need to go root first):


su
cp /system/build.prop /sdcard

After that, you have to connect your phone to the computer in "Memory card access" mode, so you can edit the file. I have found some more tweaks that can be applied to increase the performance. One is the VM Heap size which is 28m by default, and I switched it to 32m instead:

So you need to find the line that reads:


dalvik.vm.heapsize=28m

and change it to:


dalvik.vm.heapsize=32m

That should take care of the heap size which will make apps that require more memory run faster.

Next I have added the following lines at the bottom of the build.prop file:


dalvik.vm.execution-mode=int:fast
windowsmgr.max_events_per_sec=60

The first line disables JIT, and gives you more free RAM, while the second line makes the UI snappier. Make sure that you leave an empty line at the end of the file after these options.

After changing the file, save it and now we can replace the old file with the edited one. In order to do that you have to enter recovery mode. Turn your phone off, slide your keyboard open and press the X key. Now press the Power button while keeping the X key pressed. Wait until the phone enters recovery mode and the warning sign appears on your screen. After you entered recovery mode, press the volume up button and the camera key at the same time. You will be prompted with a menu. Select "Apply update.zip" from this menu. After the update.zip is applied you are prompted with the Open Recovery menu. Go to the "Console" option. Now you need to run the following commands so that you can replace the old build.prop file with the edited one. First we need to mount the /system partition in read/write mode:


mount -o remount,rw /dev/mtd/mtdblock4 /system

Now the /system partition is mounted in read/write mode. Now on to copy the edited file:


cp -f /sdcard/build.prop /system/

Now you can type exit to return to the Open Recovery menu. Now reboot your phone and you're done.

UPDATE
I just found an app called A2SD GUI - Darktremor that seems to enable/disable JIT and also set the WM Heap size

I have to say the the phone is so snappy now that I did not need to overclock it anymore, and so I have managed to squeeze more battery life out of it.

However, I don't understand why Motorola did not add an option to enable/disable JIT, because for a device with low RAM such as the Milestone, the usability is greatly improved by disabling JIT.

Motorola Milestone - How to make the best of it

2011-04-15T01:19:00.000-07:00

A week back I got a Milestone from someone. This guy was running Android Eclair 2.1 on his Milestone, and wouldn't upgrade to Froyo because of the bad stuff he heard about it.

The phone was barely usable even withe Eclair, so the guy comes to me and asks me to do something about it. I blackmailed him into leaving his device with me for a couple of weeks so I would give it the full treatment.

The main problem was that he had his phone all cramped up with applications, and had no more free memory on the phone's storage.

First thing I noticed that really bugged me, was the homescreen. Almost every time I opened an app, when I returned to the homescreen th homescreen restarted. Weird right?

So I search some forums trying to find something to fix this problem. And I did. The problem was that having just 256MB of RAM, the system was running out of memory and started closing apps. Unfortunately the first to go was the homescreen. So the solution was to set a higher priority to the homescreen. In order for that to happen I had to root the phone. Eclair is pretty easy to root, so I downloaded z4root and ran a permanent root on it.

I had to enable USB Debugging first, in order for z4root to work. To enable USB debugging you need to go to Settings->Applications->Development and there you can find the USB debugging option. Next thing I did was to edit a file located on your phone. The file is /data/local.prop.

First I installed a terminal emulator from the Android market. When you start the terminal you need to get root access, so you run this command:

su

This command elevates your user rights to root level. Press Allow when the Super User application asks. So now you can access any file on the phone. Next command is to copy the file to your sd card:


cp /data/local.prop /sdcard

Now you need to edit the file, but unfortunately the Milestone does not have an integrated file editor so you need to install yet another software from the Market. This time you need Astro File Manager. After installing, open Astro an go to you /sdcard folder. Here you will find the local.prop file(you might not see the extension, but if you find a file called "local", that's it). Long press the file and select Open As. Next, another popup will appear where you need to select "Text File" and then Text Editor or File Editor. Anyway, you are now editing the file with a text editor. Now add the following line at the end of the file:


ro.HOME_APP_ADJ=1

This line practically tells Android that the homescreen has priority 1, which means it's going to be probably the last application killed in case the RAM runs out. You could set the value to 0, but I wouldn't recommend that because the homescreen will never close, and that may lead to forced quits for memory hungry applications. The only time the homescreen restarted on me was when I was downloading/installing about 10 apps at the same time from Market and was still searching for more. And it only happened once.

The homescreen problem was fixed so th next big problem was the internal storage. Since Eclair didn't have the capability to run apps from the SD card I had to upgrade to Froyo. I didn't want to install some custom ROMs on it because the owner is not tech savvy so having a custom ROM would only get in the way. After upgrading to Froyo using the Motorola Software Updater, I lost root, but it wasn't a big deal, because the local.prop file I edited was still there, so the homescreen caused no trouble at all. I eventually switched from the classic homescreen to Zeam. Why? Because it offers a scrollable dock, and it's more RAM friendly than the default home. I found that out using Super Task Killer 2011. While the Home app ate up to 20MB of RAM, Zeam never got over 14MB with the same number of homescreens, the same amount of widgets and shortcuts. I disabled Zeam's app drawer animation (looked silly to me to be honest).

So after all this searching and tweaking I had an unrooted, totally usable Froyo. I moved a lot of apps to the SD card and the overall system speed improved a lot.

The Milestone has a 600MHz A8 Cortex CPU, under-clocked by Motorola to 550MHz. As you can imagine, on a high resolution screen running Froyo, the low speed CPU lags from time to time. If you're a casual user, you won't care about that, but if you're a heavy user like I am, it will annoy you. So I decided to go forward with the tweaking and see it I can squeeze some more performance from the Milestone.

Now, if you don't want any warranty problems with Motorola, you should stop here. Pay attention! THE FOLLOWING STEPS WILL VOID YOU WARRANTY! I won't be held responsible if you choose to continue.

What I've done so far did not involve any flashing, because as you remember we rooted Eclair with z4root, which does not work on Froyo. So first you have to flash vulnerable recovery on your phone, and root your phone. If you don't know how to do that yourself, here's a tutorial:

Root your Milestone Froyo

After gaining root access, you can overclock your Milestone. As I said before these procedures may harm your phone, so continue at your own risk.

First download an app called Milestone Overclock from the Market. When you run the app first, you will notice that you're unable to overclock the phone, at least for the moment. Press the "Load module" button. Now you can clock you phone to 600MHz, 800MHz, 1GHz, and even 1.2GHz. However, the highest stable frequency seems to be 800MHz. I don't recommend you use the custom presets because I somehow managed to enter an infinite crash/reboot loop that I was only able to fix from the recovery by manually deleting Milestone Overclock. Stick with the defaults and it should work without a hassle. I ran the phone for a week at 800MHz and I had no problem whatsoever with it. Check the "Apply at boot" box if you want to overclock your phone on boot.

After clocking the Milestone to 800MHz, I noticed that the scrolling lags have disappeared, also the phone no longer choked when in-app advertising popped over Angry Birds for example. The phone ran smoothly. One thing that still bothered me was the fact that the apps were starting almost as slow as before, so I started searching again for an answer. And again I found it. The problem was not a related to the apps startup in itself, but with the starting and closing animations. So I disabled the animations, and everything seemed much faster. After a while though I started missing the animations so I turned them back on. I found an app called Spare Parts on the Market that allows you to tune-up the animations and many other things. I installed and ran it. I choose the Fast speed on all animations, and the phone seemed much snappier than before, with animations and all.

So that's kind of it. Let me know if you have any thoughts on this.

Nokia E6 officially launched

2011-04-12T01:21:00.000-07:00

It seems they come in waves! The Nokia E6 was just announced too. The 5 homescreens are confirmed.

Here is the presentation videos:

Nokia X7 officially launched

2011-04-12T01:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, one minute ago Nokia officially launched the Nokia X7.

I was saying in my previous post that the X7 was spotted running 4 homescreens, but the official photos show only 3. They may be customizable. It looks
Nokia official X7 launch

Nokia Update service broken. PR2.0 coming up?

2011-04-12T00:08:00.000-07:00

As I write this post the Nokia update service is offline. Usually this means there is something in the pipeline. Nokia could be preparing the update service for the PR2.0 update we've all seen leaked, and drool over.
The lucky users of Nokia Astound have already tasted the PR2.0 update, but that's just for the North American market.
As it looks, Europe and the rest of the world is also going to enjoy the PR2.0 goodies soon.
The "Unplanned service break" you see in the above image, may not be "unplanned" at all.
Hopefully the update will roll out for all Symbian^3 touch devices. The update may include the new icon theme everyone was waiting for. The updated homescreen however is not confirmed by the Nokia Astound firmware, but it is said to come over the air until this fall.

Upddate
Just got word from @ jonjongoco that Nokia E6 with PR2.0 will get 5 homescreens, and the new Nokia Pure font.

However, I don't know if all Symbian^3 devices will get those 5 homescreens. It makes sense for the E6 to have 5 homescreens because of the small screen and small number of wigdets available on each scree, but it's very possible since early leaks of the X7 showed 4 homescreens instead of the traditional 3.

Nokia X7 sneak peak

2011-04-11T00:48:00.000-07:00

So, it finally looks like the Nokia X7 is here. This is one device I can hardly wait to get my hands on. The video below offers a sneak peak of the new Symbian improvements that the X7 will bring. It may bring flexible homescreen widgets too(keep your fingers crossed), and it will surely
have a more polished version of the split screen keyboard we've been waiting for so long. Hopefully that beautiful keyboard demoed in the video below will be available in third party applications as well(fingers crossed here too).

Nokia T7 leaked! Photos inside

2011-04-03T23:26:00.000-07:00

The rumored Nokia T7 has finally appeared on photos. It looks like an exact clone of the N8 at the first glance.

It has the usual 360x640 resolution expected on a Symbian^3 full touch device, an aluminium uni-body design, but it drops the one thing that made the N8 famous: the 12MP camera. Instead we get an 8MP shooter, hopefully with auto-focus.

The HDMI port has unfortunately been removed, so the price will probably be much lower than the N8's. The CPU inside will most likely be an ARM11 clocked at 700MHz, with a dedicated GPU supporting OpenGL 2.0.

The sticker on the back shows Nseries, but as you can see it's just a sticker, and the phone is in prototype phase, so we can't know for sure that this is going to be the final configuration. Anyway, by the looks of it, this device will have to compete with the C7, because I believe the price will be closer to the C7's than the N8's.

Is this downsized N8 a good idea? Maybe. I hear a lot of people saying "I love the N8's looks, but I hate the price", so those people will certainly be into this device, if it ever hits Europe, that is.

Nokia BH-905i bluetooth headsets review

2011-03-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

Today we will review the Nokia BH-905i headphones the nice people at WOMWorld have sent me.

The BH-905i is Nokia's headphones "flagship" without a doubt. The plenitude of features is just amazing. At the first glance, the device looks nice, but gives little to no clue about the beast within.

The headphones measure just 190mm x 140mm x 35mm and weight 167g. They are very well balanced, sturdy and have a good grip. The finish and materials used are top notch. The feeling is premium as it is the price.

I used the headphones for every purpose I could think of, voice calling, listening to music and playing games (they were wired at the time). The accessories contain adapters for VoIP calls and a 3.5mm iPhone compatible AV connector.

One blazing feature of the BH-905i's is the multi microphone active noise control (also known as noise cancellation) that eliminates pretty much every ambient noise.

What is Active Noise Cancelling?
Active Noise Cancelling reduces the ambient noise using multiple microphones. The microphones capture the ambient sounds, and then play them back inverted(out of phase), which cancels the initial noise out.

The carrying case is a pleasure to hold, has a carrying dongle, and a nice leather like(may actually be leather, I couldn't tell) material bag for the accessories. This bag avoids spreading the wires all over the place and keeps things nice and clean.

The headband is very easily adjustable with very soft and gripping ear pads. The shape of the head band gives the headphones a very subtle classy look, unlike most premium headphones, who'll make you look like a jet pilot when you wear them.

The outside of the left headphone is pretty clean, with no controls on the side at all. On the bottom however, is the Active Noise Canceling (marked ANC) switch, and the Nokia standard charging port.

The noise cancellation works like a wonder with these headphones, and gets a lot of help from the digital signal processing (DSP).

On top of the headband there is the Nokia logo carved on a metal plate.

On the bottom of the right headphone there are the volume keys and the 3.5mm audio jack port. The jack port can be used with the included cables so you can use your headphones in pretty much every situation you can think of(excluding scuba-diving and bungee-jumping of course).

The Active Noise Cancelling works in any situation, but you must be careful to switch it off, because otherwise it will stay on and drain your battery. It would have been nice if Nokia included some standby timeout to switch off the ANC when the headphones are not in use.

On the side of the left headphone are the media controls and the power button. The media controls include fast forward, play/pause and rewind buttons. The power buttons is kind of a multi purpose button because it has different functions depending on what you do. First of all it works as the power button if you long press it, it can be used to answer and end calls, as well as to turn on the bass boost.

The bass boost has 3 stages. Initially it's turned off, but if you press the power button slightly you will hear a beep. That means stage one of the bass boost. Press the power button again and you will head two beeps, which takes the bass boost to stage two. You can guess what it does if you press the power button again right? Stage three, which is also the loudest.

If you want to turn the bass boost off, press the power button again. Remember that to turn the bass boost off you have to get to stage three first.

The bass boost works only via Bluetooth, so it's not available while being wired in.

The bottom of the headband is covered in a nice leather-like(again, it may actually be leather) material which feels very nice and soft when you wear the headphones.

As I said before, in the unboxing post I am a freak when it comes to listening music. I'm not the kind who likes it louder than hell(well, maybe sometimes I do), but rather the type who wants crystal clear sound. And this puppy fits right there. The cleanest sound I have ever heard on a pair of headphones.

Pairing the headphones with a phone is as easy as pie. Just hold down the power button until the led glows blue and then pair it with your phone.

The call quality is great, I could hear the incoming calls loud and clear, without any problems. On the caller's end, they did hear ambient noise, but still heard my voice crisp and clear. The headphones include support for answering, ending and rejecting calls, redial last number, voice dial support, call mute and switch calls between headset and phone. This may depend on the device you use, all I can say is they worked with the Nokia E5.

I managed to squeeze about 15 hours of battery life on one charge, mostly listening to music, and some phone calls. That happened over Bluetooth with ANC turned on.

My conclusion is this:

Don't be fooled by the welcoming aspect of the headsets: there lies a beast within. With these headsets, I have seen the largest contrast between what they can do, and what they look like. I've seen headsets that looked like Marshall stage speakers with a headband that could not raise to the BH-905i's level.

Are you an audiophile? If yes, the Nokia BH-905i is for you. Use it as you wish, it will bring home the bacon each time. The price may seem a little high, but I assure you is well worthed. Just test a pair and you will be convinced. The balanced midrange and treble performance is a must for any audio freaks such as myself, and the fact that it works both wired and wireless takes the cake. I don't think there is a single audio device in the whole wide world that you can't connect with the BH-905i. The array of adapters included in the package covers them all.

Here is the unboxing video again, in case you missed it:

Nokia E6-00 leaked again! Photos and videos inside!

2011-03-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

Well folks, the unannounced Nokia E6-00 is here again! This time with covered properly with photos and hands on videos.

The touchscreen is confirmed. Even though I originally thought it won't have a touchscreen, it does. I don't see the point of a D-pad in this case, but whatever.

Here are some photos:

This leaked material confirms some of the features that were presumed for the E6-00. First of all, there is the 8MP camera with dual-led flash and EDoF, 720p video recording, just like the C6-01, C7 and E7. The OS is an adaptation of Symbian^3 for 4:3 aspect and what looks like 640x480px resolution.

Here are some hands on videos too from the source of the leak. I must warn you though, they are a bit blurry:

Still no details on the release date or price, but the best guess is somewhere around the price of the N8.

Nokia promissing new Symbian devices in the GHz+ range along with OTA updates to the new UI

2011-03-29T01:38:00.000-07:00

Ever since Nokia announced their partnership with Microsoft, and the migration towards Windows Phone, they keep pushing Symbian forward. Elop announced at MWC 2011 that Nokia plans to ship 150 million Symbian devices in the next years. It looks like Nokia is going to support Symbian even beyond the transition to Windows Phone, or at least in selected markets, where Symbian has a strong grip on the market. They also encourage developers to sharpen their Qt skills for the upcoming wave of Symbian high end devices. Nokia may be referring to the ever eluding X7 that may or may not see the light of day, as well as the most recent leak, the T7, which is at the moment in the rumor mill. The Nokia E6 may be part of the future arsenal as well.

The VP of Nokia Forum and Developer Community, Purnima Kochikar sent an open letter to the developers, encouraging them to keep Qt-ing in preparation for the upcoming wave of Symbians that she said will arrive throughout 2011 and 2012.

Symbian is the leading smartphone platform in China, India, Russia and Turkey, and these markets will probably get support for Symbian long after the Windows Phone migration. These markets may encourage Nokia to take another chance with Symbian, and Meego practically out of the picture, they may have more time for Symbian.

The software running on the Nokia Astound (the North American version of the C7) will most probably arrive on world wide this summer, with the next major update that may include the new homescreen and overhauled UI scheduled most likely this fall.

Nokia BH-905i unboxing

2011-03-24T23:39:00.000-07:00

Today we're unboxing the Nokia BH-905i bluetooth headphones, that the guys at WOMWorldNokia sent me for a trial. As you may have seen in my video presentation, I am a fan of these headphones.

They are truly state of the art multi purpose headphones. You can use them to make quality calls, you can use them to listen to music, you can use them to video chat all day long, and you can use them the traditional wired way.

They have a full set of playback controls that you can use when you're connected to your phone, or your music player, over bluetooth that is.
The sound quality is amazing. When it comes to sound quality, I am a freak. I want clear sound, no distortions, no fuzz or noise. I like my music perfect. I have to say that when I went an bought myself a pair of headphones over 2 years ago, the guy at the store nearly broke down. I was over there for 2 hours testing headphone models, until I found a set of Watsons that I liked. That being said, the BH-905i are simply better than my wired headphones, and they're wireless, which comes in handy most of the times.

Anyway, here is the unboxing video:

P.S. I'll come back in a week or so with the full review.

The Nokia N8 gets the PR 2.0 treatment

2011-03-24T00:49:00.000-07:00

A week ago, we saw the Nokia C7 running a PR 2.0 update, and then a few days later we saw another PR 2.0 C7 running an improved browser. Well today is the N8's turn to get the PR 2.0 treatment. It looks like it has it's upsides and it's downsides, but overall it is certainly an improvement over the current version.

Nokia decided to include the Chat application in this release, which was long awaited and needed. They also included the latest version of the Ovi Maps, but as you'll see in the video, the new version is slower than the current one. Keep in mind though, that this is not a production version, but just a pre-release. It doesn't even have the fast browser demoed a few days ago on the C7, so most likely, by the time Nokia releases the update, these speed bugs will be removed.

Watch the N8 PR 2.0 get demoed in the video below:

Symbian^3 PR 2.0 gets faster browser

2011-03-21T02:10:00.000-07:00

Last week, we caught a C7 running a PR 2.0 firmware in the wild. At the moment, the web browser seemed to run way too slow to be usable. However, things have changed in this new leak we have seen today.

Pinch to zoom is still slow on heavy pages, but what browser isn't slow on such a page? Anyway, check out the video.

Nokia BH-905i presentation

2011-03-20T12:05:00.000-07:00

The nice people at WOMWorld have sent me a set of BH-905i headphones. I told them I would make a special presentation of the headphones, even before they had arrived. The truth is, I've used a pair of BH-905i's a while ago for a month, while I borrowed them from a friend. I have to say I loved them, and was very sad when I had to part with them, so imagine my joy when I heard another fresh pair is heading my way :)

So, I kind of kept the WOMWorld guys in the dark about this. These guys were the only ones who trusted me, to send me test devices to review. I had no background in the industry when I first asked, but still they took the chance.. So, this is may way of saying THANK YOU WOMWORLD, an to all the wonderful people there, the Tom's, Paul, Cecilia, Robin, Tim, Denise and Andre (sorry if I've missed anyone).

And, after 3 days of working on the video(even on my b-day yesterday), here is the presentation video I made for the BH-905i's.

P.S. I will be making an usual unboxing within the next days.

Nokia Symbian^3 device to be announced at CTIA for USA

2011-03-16T05:32:00.000-07:00

Nokia is planning to launch a Symbian^3 device for the United States at CTIA on March 21st in Orlando, Florida.

It is not certain which device will be launched for the North American market, but there are two strong candidates.

The first candidate is the Nokia X7 for AT&T rumored a while ago, and who popped up a few days ago once again. It is, however, not like Nokia to announce a handset for North America before it is announced for Europe. However, I wouldn't mind Nokia making us a big surprise and launching a brand new device to the USA.

The second is the last few days C7 who was showcased running PR 2.0 update of the Symbian^3 OS. The handset is not new, but certainly packs a different software punch than his European sibling, but as we saw yesterday the European C7 is quite capable of running the T-Mobile version of PR 2.0.

Furthermore, the carrier that will launch the new device is a mistery because the X7 was supposed to be AT&T bound, while the C7 seems to be T-Mobile bound (as leaked from Navifirm).

Maybe there will be one of these, maybe both.

Nokia C7 running S^3 PR 2.0

2011-03-15T04:33:00.000-07:00

The YouTube user vgplabs managed to flash the latest Symbian^3 PR 2.0 firmware, available only for RM-691 models, on his Nokia C7 RM-675 model. He took the a chance and it worked. He took a big risk here, because if it wouldn't have worked he would have ended up with a beautiful piece of paperweight, or "brick", as modders like to call it.

So here's a video he shot of the C7 running PR 2.0 update.

There are lots of improvements that can be seen from this video, like the overall speed, the homescreen customization, and many more (just watch the video). Unfortunately, the web browser got just an UI update, still lacking in the performance chapter, as can be seen from the video.

Nokia X7 leaked again

2011-03-15T01:09:00.000-07:00

Nokia X7 is somewhat of a grown boy's dream. It looks good enough to sleep with it under your pillow, and should carry enough punch for heavy mobile gamers. Four speakers, 4 inch screen, 8MP camera, what more can you want?

The X7 looks like something out of a Sci-Fi movie for sure, it was rumored to be released in February 2011 at MWC, but after the Nokia-Microsoft partnership, it looked like it was abandoned. It may prove that it actually is, and these new images are just a prototype unit that's going to stay a prototype forever.

The 4 inch display is most likely Nokia's latest and greatest ClearBlack display. If would be a shame if this beauty never saw the light of day, but nothing is certain now with the Nokia preparations for Windows Phone for the end of this year.

Here's a short video demoing the X7. Isn't it everything you'd ever want in a phone?

Nokia Diexie: Evolved input method for Chinese

2011-03-15T00:50:00.000-07:00

There are many input methods available on Nokia devices for Chinese speakers, most of them third party apps. However, none of them are as fast as what you're about to see.

Nokia Research Center, Beijing released a new beta application called Diexie, that helps Chinese speakers write entire sentences without having to pause between each character.

Check out the presentation video below:

This app was designed to be used on smaller screens too.

"As you begin writing the next character over the previous character, the previous character begins to fade away, creating an overlapped visual, allowing you to concentrate on finishing the next character."

This is not an actual input method, it's full blown application that allows you to copy the text written and past it in whatever application you need it. Depending on the feedback, Nokia will probably turn it into an input method for Chinese speakers, or leave it as it is.

You can download it from here. Leave your feedback with the Nokia team so they'll be able to improve this app.

Nokia Shoot & Tag beta

2011-03-14T08:09:00.000-07:00

Creativity is on the roll again in the Nokia house, this time shooting videos gets to be a real pleasure. You remember the Nokia Video Cuts? This is much better.

The Nokia Shoot & Tag is an app that recognizes different scenes while you're shooting a video. it analyzes the background of the video and detects if the scenery has changed. It then creates a chapter for each scene. When you play back the video from the video gallery, you can easily jump between scenes. No more fast forward, then backward, the forward again, and so on...

Come to think of it, it resembles the video player from Samsung Wave 8500, but I'm not sure if the Bada player was splitting videos based on scenery change or just fixed amount of time.

Here is the official presentation:

Symbian^3 PR2.0 revealed

2011-03-12T08:22:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we saw the PR2.0 update of Symbian^3, available on Navifirm. Also, yesterday, Nokia held an event called NokiaTalk in Austin, Texas.

The new Symbian UI improvements were shown off. Some rumors were confirmed, like the split-screen keyboard, and some were dismissed, like the revamped homescreen. It will be available though, at some point in the future.

As you can see from the above image, the icon set was completely redone by Nokia and it has an iPhone-ish look to it now. We'll have to see how well the new icons blend in with the various shapes and colors from third party apps.

The new keyboard looks a lot more comfortable to use and uses the split screen technology for both portrait and landscape modes, a thing long awaited and deeply needed by Symbian.

Here is a video from the Austin event and a preview of the PR2.0 update:

Nokia C7 PR2.0 update arrived! T-Mobile version only

2011-03-11T04:11:00.000-08:00

The long awaited PR2.0 update is finally here. The T-Mobile version was spotted on Navifirm (a software that browses the Nokia firmware repository). It's only for the RM-691 phones, which I guess are only on T-Mobile.

We will most likely see the update released for RM-675 phones shortly, but for now, all we know is that it's going to be here, sooner than we expected.

I can't wait to see what goodies come with this update.

Nokia E6 wanted!

2011-03-10T00:38:00.000-08:00

A leaked photo of the upcoming Nokia E6 has been wandering on the web the past week. The info for this new device was leaked from Nokia XML.

This new device is supposed to have a 2.6 inch screen, but whether it's touch enabled or not is still unknown. The resolution is going to be a healthy 640x480 pixels (four times more than it's predecessor, the Nokia E5). The connectivity is dully covered with WiFi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0 and GPS, while the business part will be handled as usual by QuickOffice.

The E6 will be powered by Symbian^3 OS and will feature multiple homescreens, an absolute first for a QWERTY bar phone. If there won't be a touchscreen, then we'll have another premiere, the first non-touch Symbian^3 device.

The camera is said to be the same 8 Megapixel fixed focus camera available of the Nokia C7, C6-01 and E7.

The E6 has a tough job laid ahead for it, as it must walk into the footsteps of the E5, the best and sturdiest QWERTY bar business phone(in my opinion) released by Nokia to this day. But as the days of Symbian^1 are numbered, Symbian^3 QWERTY bars must close the gap. Read the Nokia E5 indepth review here.

Nokia shows it's commitment to the Symbian^3 platform once again, with devices now covering a wide range of form factors and price range.

All I can say is, I can't wait to get my hands on one of these puppies and take it for a ride.

Nokia X1-00: Boombox in your pocket

2011-03-09T02:15:00.000-08:00

If you're still wondering what Nokia X series is all about, here comes the X1-00 to clear things up. It's about MUSIC. LOUD! music in this case. The Orange color screams, "LOOK AT ME", while the built in speakers actually do "scream", with a rating of 106phon (Quote from Nokia: "a phon is a measure of perceived loudness – 106 of them is enough to rattle your window frames, apparently"). Nokia claims that the frequency response has been tweaked so you'll be able to hear clearly even at high volumes.

The device is meant to be another best seller in the low range. This device will set you back only 35 Euros, but most likely you'll find it for free on a contract.

The phone has three dedicated play keys, and features a single-key playlist creator. It also supports MicroSD cards up to 16GB and includes an FM radio.

The X1-00 bonds with his low end brothers from the 110X series by sharing a common feature, something I never thought I would see in a mobile phone again: a torch.

The battery is rated at 61 days in standby, but in real life that would probably mean about 2 weeks of normal phone usage, or a maximum of one week when playing music most of the times.

An unusual feature is the capability to support up to five phone books. Don't ask me why, because at this price sharing the phone between family members just doesn't make any sense.

The X1-00 is powered by the Series 30 OS with a pimped up music player app (it is an X series after all). It measures 112.2 x 47.3 x 16mm and weighs 91g, and it comes in blue color too.

What else can be said, China look out, Nokia's coming to get ya!

Nokia Photo Browser experiment concluded (application available on Ovi store)

2011-03-08T03:19:00.000-08:00

Nokia started some time ago to publish an experimental application called Photo browser. For those of you who don't know about it, it's an evolution or better said a revolution of the Nokia photo gallery application. The app was experimental, meaning it could turn into a beta, or not. It seems that even though the experiment has ended, Nokia did not let go of the app. Instead, they plan to integrate it into the Gallery application available on Symbian^1 phones. This comes as good news, if you consider that the current Gallery application (excepting that of the C6-00) is unbelievably slow at generating thumbnails and navigation trough pictures.

The Photo browser, as it was available on the Betalabs page, had no chance of becoming an independent product in itself, due to the lack of file managing options. So, as it seems, Nokia decided to take parts of it and integrate them into the Gallery application. Combining the two may end up in S^1 users actually having a decent photo browser on their phones.

Why you should still be interested in Nokia and Symbian

2011-03-06T23:32:00.000-08:00

This morning I saw this tweet from what seems to be a Nokia fan that lost interest after the Microsoft-Nokia partnership announcement.

"My huge interest in Nokia has been dramatically reduced since Elop's announcement. Where is Europe heading to in terms of Technology ?"

My guess is that this tweet is based on the fact that everyone interpreted Elop's affirmation that Windows Phone will be Nokia's primary smartphone platform in the future, as the death of Symbian. Now, Symbian's death is closely related to the user adoption rate of the new Symbian^3 OS and devices. The fact is that Nokia will release a major update of the Symbian^3 platform, something unprecedented in Nokia's history. Unlike the Symbian^1 platform, which was kind of dumped by Nokia, Symbian^3 will get from the first major update, things that S^1 users never had, nor will they ever. Nokia will change the homescreen, menu and general look and feel of the new OS.

Now, this update will have consequences, good consequences I believe, because in terms of user interface, it will bring Symbian closer to it's competitors Android and iOS. The old style user interface of Symbian^3 is the major complaint everyone had in the reviews I've read over the web(one of which I have done myself). So updating the user interface will clear Symbian's path to not only old time Nokia fans, but new users too.

The only way Nokia will be able to still sell Symbian is to get rid of the "Symbian will die" label that has be put on Nokia's forehead by the press. I believe they will do that when they will release further updates for Symbian^3.

So, if Symbian keeps selling like it did, Nokia will surely not drop it, and keep it running in parallel with Windows Phone. I mean, no company in the whole wide world would drop a selling product.

Bottom line is this: Nokia's sales may drop a little after the MS-Nokia announcement, but after the PR2.0 update for Symbian^3 devices, they will surely get back on top. Just wait and see.

Soundtrckr updated to version 1.2

2011-03-04T01:37:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't already heard, Nokia Betalabs just updated Soundtrckr to version 1.2.

What is Soundtrckr?
To quote the Betalabs website:

"Soundtrckr is the first Geosocial Internet radio. Soundtrckr has the largest fully licensed music catalog for Internet radio in the world. 8M tracks to create and share station with any artist, any genre, any language. Soundtrckr is social listening and discovery, where friends share stations and listen together in real time. Soundtrckr is also hyperlocal listening and discovering allowing users to tune into nearby stations created by other users, play what’s hot around the city."

Soundtrckr is developed by the company with the same name. It is a Java application, but I have to tell you that is sure doesn't feel like one. Part of the speedy and flawless integration with the operating system may be the fact that in order to run it you have to install the latest and greatest Java Runtime 2.1 for Symbian, which is also available on Betalabs.

So, here are the changelogs:

"New features and bug fixes for Symbian^3 and S60 5th Edition (Java Runtime 2.1 and 1.4):

Facebook Integration. You will be able to post on your wall what you are listening to and invite your Facebook friends to join you on Soundtrckr
Remove auto-capitalization
Performance and various bug fixes
Proper handling on log-in and connection errors".

T-Mobile users must keep in mind that for now they can only use Soundtrckr via WiFi. The guys at Soundtrckr are working on the issue and they promised to get it working in the next update.

Why am I recommending this app? Because to be honest this is the second application(first was Opera Mini 5) that I did not realize was written in Java. Usually Java apps are so slow that you can pick them out of 100 others. This one is different. It's fast and it does the job very well.

Layar for Symbian is here!

2011-03-03T06:43:00.001-08:00

Who would have thought that Layar would ever implement a Symbian version? I sure didn't. I used to think that there won't ever be an augmented reality application for Symbian^3, but Symbian^1? How about that.

For those of you who don't know what Layar or augmented reality is, here's the Wikipedia definition::

"Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or an indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input, such as sound or graphics. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real-world with a simulated one.
Augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, working at Boeing.[1]"

So, to put it plainly, you open up the AR application, point your phone's camera to a building, restaurant, park or anything else, and your phone tells you what's there and other points of interest. It practically puts a layer(hence Layar) of information over the live image.

Why is this useful? Because when you go out of town and stroll around a foreign city, you get hungry. So you see a restaurant, and you want to see if it's worth eating there. So you open up Layar, point the phone's camera at the restaurant and voilla! you have all the information you need about that restaurant one tap away.

You can download Layar for Symbian here.

And here is the official announcement.

Well, this puts the apocalyptic vision that roams around about Symbian's death into perspective doesn't it? Now, why would a company like Layar invest into a Symbian version if the they would think that Symbian is dying? They wouldn't. I for one believe that there is still hope for Symbian, and that Nokia will see it's success and will keep developing it as a secondary OS, just like they do with S40.

Nokia N8 PR2.0 update closer than ever

2011-02-28T06:28:00.000-08:00

Another video demos the new supposed update for the Nokia N8, and I guess for it's Symbian^3 fellas as well. This one is a more recent version than the one from last week. This time it seems the browser has got the new window(or tab) ability we've all been waiting for. It still lags pretty much, but I guess that by the time it gets released to the public audience it won't be so unstable.

It also seems that the QWERTY virtual keyboard is a bit more polished, but not too much. Also the email client has got some new functionality and bling.

The icon theme seems to have changed across the whole UI, but that can be just a theme the guy who demoed the update may have installed, so don't start jumping up and down for joy before you see it with your own eyes.

Well, I guess we'll know in a short while if the update will be every Symbian fanboy's dream or not.

Nokia E5 in depth review

2011-02-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

So, I finally finished the E5 review, E5 which I got courtesy of WOMWorld (thank you guys), and here it goes. As you may have seen in my previous reviews, I like to split the review into categories, and same goes with the E5's. But first, I'll let you know the general impressions the E5 left me.

QWERTY keyboard is very nice to feel and works hassle free. I like the fact that the phone turns into a flashlight even if it is locked. The bluetooth can be toggled by a long press on the Sym key and the silent profile can be toggled by a long press on the Ctrl key.

The large amount of RAM allows you to keep a lot of apps running without worrying you may get a memory full error. This comes quite handy as you can let an app like Socially run in the background and get live notifications from your social networks.

The Ovi store unfortunately does not give access to many of the great titles avaiable fos S60v5, but you can find java replacements for most missing apps. I'm only saying this because java apps run smoothly on this device, unlike Symbian touch phones.

One of the nicest surprises this phone has to offer is the fact that the user interface speed is constant despite the fact that it's running 10 apps at the same time. This is mainly because of the speedy CPU and the large amount of RAM. Yes, I said large, because S60 phones have got 128MB of RAM(yes, even the almighty E73) until this puppy. So the double amount of RAM, in my opinion, accounts for the high performance this phone provides.

Battery life is decent for a smartphone. It lasted me three days of heavy usage being WiFi and 3G enabled the entire time. Also, the screen brightness was at it's maximum value the entire time. Actually, 90 percent of this review was written on the phone itself, because once you get used with the hardware QWERTY, it's very easy to type on.

The only thing that I miss from my touch phone is the lock/unlock knob. The only way to lock the E5 is to go to the homescreen and press the left soft key followed by the right one, which adds another keypress(the home one) if you are inside another app at the time. I'm used to running an app, locking the phone right in the middle of it, and unlocking and pick up where I left of, and I can't do that with the E5. Not a deal breaker though.

The phone connected to every WiFi I threw at it without issues. I wrote in the previous review of the Nokia C7 that it did not connect to every WiFi network, but as it turns out, that was the router and not the phone.  The email client allows viewing of HTML emails, and can be set to show the unread email status, along with a preview, on the homescreen. However, I updated to the latest version available from Betalabs.nokia.com(the built in version was 2 and the new one was 3) and there was a very welcomed speed improvement of the email client.

 Even though, at times, the OS looks and feels outdated, this is a very capable OS packed with lots of features, for any kind of user, from business, to social addicts. Unlike the S60v5, the built in apps integrate well with each other.

One killer feature, that all touch phones wish they had is the ability to use keyboard shortcuts for operations such as Copy, Past and Cut, just as you would on your desktop (Ctrl+C for Copy, Ctrl+V for Paste and Ctrl+X for Cut).

If you want to see the contents of the box and the phone layout, check out my unboxing and first impressions post.

HARDWARE

CPU ARM11 600MHz
Memory - 250 MB; 256MB RAM
2G Network - GSM 850/900/1800/1900
3G Network HSDPA 900/1900/2100 HSDPA 850/1900/2100
Dimensions - 115 x 58.9 x 12.8 mm, 75 cc
Weight - 126 g
Display - TFT, 256K colors, 320 x 240 pixels, 2.36 inches
Input - QWERTY keyboard
Sound and Alerts - Vibration, MP3 ringtones, Loudspeaker, 3.5mm jack
SD card slot - microSD, up to 32GB, 1GB included
GPRS, EDGE - Class 12
3G - HSDPA 10.2 Mbps; HSUPA 2.0 Mbps
WLAN - Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP & DLNA technology
Bluetooth - v2.0 with A2DP
USB - v2.0 microUSB
Camera - 5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, fixed-focus, LED flash
Video - VGA@15fps
OS - Symbian OS v9.3, Series 60 rel. 3.2
Radio - Stereo FM radio with RDS
GPS with A-GPS support
Java - MIDP 2.0
Battery - Li-Ion 1200 mAh (BL-4D)

As you can see, the phone is pretty well geared up, now let's see how well it does on the software side.

SOFTWARE

The S60v3 FP2 edition is a mature OS with very good cross application integration, but I have to say that at moments I felt like the UI looked old, very old. It is stable, fast and does whatever needs to do in no time. The OS never crashed on me in about 2 weeks of usage, and I did not restart the phone during this period. Even so, the phone is as snappy as it was the day I took it out of the box.

The homescreen

The E5 homescreen has 5 available themes, the Active one, which is in fact a dual theme, with a Personal mode and a Business mode, the Contacts bar theme, which shows you up to 20 favorite contacts, the Horizontal icons, which is basically the same as the Active one but without the 2 mods or the clock on the left side, and less configurable, the Vertical icons and the basic theme.

Besides the basic theme, every other theme shows important information like the email notifications, the calendar events, 6 shortcuts, WLAN scanner and many other useful things. The homescreen functions include two soft buttons, which are set by default to Menu and Contacts, but can be changed to anything you may want. The hardware home button doubles as both Home button and Menu button, so if you want to change the Menu button to something else, there is still a way to access the menu easily.

The menu

The menu is the same menu you may have seen in all Symbian devices, from S60v3 to Symbian 3. I'm not saying that is a bad thing, because many OS's nowadays are struggling to incorportate this functionality. However, the wide choice of applications included with the E5 make the menu a little hard to figure out. You can get lost in all the subfolders of each folder, but you get used to it pretty quickly. If you don't you still can find everything easily using the search application.

The search application

The search application can help you find almost anything on your phone (I almost typed computer here, but if I would have, I wouldn't be far off). It searches application names, documents, emails, contacts, everything. If there is something you need from the E5, and you can't find it, this app will bring it to you. This app got me out of trouble many times during the 2 weeks I spent with the E5.

The contacts

The contacts app is pretty much the standard app for Symbian, allowing you to define loads of details for each contact. The app integrates best with the homescreen, where typing something searches your contacts for matches.

Selecting a contact from the matches, gives you various options like calling, texting or emailing that person without having to enter the dedicated contacts app for any of the operations(this feature is missing from S60v5).

The calendar

The calendar application but it is basically the same as seen on the older S60 versions. It has 4 views: Day view, Week view, Month view and ToDo view. You can easily add an event and set an alarm for it.

The calendar app is automatically synchronized with the Ovi account, so migrating to another phone is painless. The calendar app is linked to the homescreen calendar notification that shows the upcoming events for the current day, as well as the next week.

Ovi Maps

The maps application is the usual Ovi maps, which is pretty good, and gives you the ability to download maps when using WiFi and using them offline for navigation. It also offers current weather conditions for your location and a short forecast, and you can check the conditions on your destination too. The Events function shows you Events near your location, but for my city there were only Movies available. I guess in bigger cities there would also be more than that.

Ovi maps also integrates Lonely Planet country guide which can be useful if you are touring. The HRS hotels provides information about nearby hotels and you can book a room right from Ovi maps. Ovi maps also provides integration with Trip advisor which can recommend you places where you can stay, eat or just visit. You can share your location with your friends, center in on your position or search objectives on the maps.

File manager

As usual any Symbian device comes with an integrated file manager, that allows you to easily do file operations around your system.

This is one of the Symbian’s strongest points because there are not many phones out there that have a good file manager, not even smartphones, and this one is state of the art. You can sort files, move them around, order them, pretty much whatever you can do with a decent desktop file manager.

Ovi sync

Ovi sync works as usual, synchronizing the Contacts, Calendar and Notes data with Ovi, which can prove very useful when you lose your phone or switch to another phone. The synchronization only requires an Ovi account, and can be set to synchronize itself with Ovi manually, daily, weekly and so on, as well as whenever the data changes.

The social networking

Facebook

Now, on to the social part. The phone comes with a sleek Facebook. It has 4 tabs, Home, Profile, Friends and Inbox. Each tab is pretty self explanatory so I won't go into details.

The Facebook client integrates with the Contacts application allowing contacts synchronization and viewing your friends' statuses right in the contacts list. You have to run a match contacts operation from the Facebook client settings panel for that to happen. You can also set the matching to occur automatically after a specified time interval.

Chat

You also get an integrated chat client that can connect to any service you may need. This is a nice surprise since the E5's S60v5 brethren have no such thing(the WRT chat client available for S60v5 is useless). The chat client allows multiple accounts and shows each of them in separate tabs. Above the contacts list, you can see your current conversations.

Left in the background the Chat application provides live updates and sound notifications.

Unfortunately, there is no trace of Twitter integration, but there are plenty of clients out there, many of which are free. Some of them are Snaptu and Socially, that you can see in the images above. Both are great social networking clients. Socially provides live notifications for your social networkings, while Snaptu is much more than a social networks client, it is practically an entire apps suite with Weather, News, Movies and many many more.

The business side

Quickoffice

Being a business class device, the E5 comes with a Quickoffice license, that unlocks the full potential of the Quickoffice suite. You can edit and create Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations with ease. You can edit font size, style, paragraphs and all things needed in an office suite.

The QWERTY keyboard and D-pad come in handy especially when editing spreadsheets, unlike S60 touch devices, where every touch triggers the editing of a cell instead of scrolling down. Bottom line is this: Office suites are for business phones, and the E5 proves that.

The Settings

The settings application can be a bit confusing for someone who did not have anything to do with Symbian before. It is not very intuitive but with if you dig in a little, you'll discover it brings customization to a whole new level. You can edit profiles, visual themes, phone settings, calling options, manage applications and connectivity.

For a profile, you can set the usual options, like ringtones, vibration and many more options. The theme customization includes changing the visual themes, and the call image.

If you want to change the background of your homescreen, you can do so for each of the 3 homescreens using the Options button. The application manager allows you to setup additional options like internet access point, and other security options for applications that support that, and also uninstall unwanted apps. The calling options include the usual Calling options, Speed dial, Call mailbox, Call divert and Call barring options. You can enable things such as on-call details, summary after all and many more.

The Connectivity covers the Network settings, WLAN settings and scanning, Bluetooth, Data transfer which includes Ovi Sync to synchronize your Contacts, Calendar and Notes with the Ovi services, Video sharing and FM transmitter settings.

The Application settings allows you to set default applications for photos, music, videos and web pages, setup your SMS messaging options, video streaming options, call log settings, voice recorder settings, camera, search and calendar. If you find too many options it confusing, just use the Settings wizard to get some help.

Web browser

The web browser is the basic S60 web browser, and besides flash support it doesn't offer much. The flash support works well with pages lite on flash, but heavy flash websites render the browser useless. Tabbed browsing is nowhere to be seen and opening a link in a new window cannot be done unless the link itself has the target attribute set.

That being said, I would recommend you grab Opera Mini which is free on the Ovi Store. There are moments when Opera and the native browser complement each other, like some download links that the native browser opened as text files but Opera Mini downloaded them as it should have, and there were situations when things were the other way around.

The Gallery

The gallery is pretty useful, but I found it lagging when it contained large amount of images, so that's not very good considering the CPU and RAM on the E5. That can only make me think it's a software problem. Anyway, the gallery is presented in a horseshoe shape and most of the times works well.

A very good thing is that the gallery supports multiple selection, which most of S60v5 devices don't have. This function allows you to easily send multiple files via bluetooth or message.

Video

RealPlayer takes care of the video side of the gallery. Unfortunately there is no divx support out of the box, so you'll need to install a third party software to take care of that.

Radio

The radio application allows you to tune in to your favorite radio stations, and you favorite internet radios. In order for the FM tuner to work, you need to have the headsets plugged in.

Music player

The music player is the basic S60 music player, but it takes care of the job. It can sort your tracks by Artist, Genere, Compose and Album. You can create your own playlists easily, and you can even follow podcasts.

The music player has the ability to change the equalizer settings, having 6 predefined settings available. Whenever the music player is actually playing a song, the homescreen music notification becomes active showing you what track is playing.

Ovi store

The Ovi store unfortunately is the same client, that looks like a web based rather than a stand alone application.

It has sections for Recommended item, Applications, Games, Audio and Video, Personalization and a tab called My stuff. All tabs have filters for free content and paid content.

The My stuff tab shows you all the stuff that has been downloaded from your Ovi account, which is a good thing if you need to change you phone, and you don't remember what you had previously installed.

Messaging

The messaging department is packed with anything you may need. Composing a new message is as easy as can be, and that is mostly thanks to the QWERTY keyboard that is a bliss for any heavy texter outthere. You can easily add as many recipients as you wish by selecting them from your contacts checklist. You can also choose to send an SMS to an entire group.

You get the usual Inbox, Sent, Drafts and Outbox folders, as you would expect, and you can create your own folders under the My Folders option, so you can freely move your messages around.

The Email client

Email client supports full HTML emails, sorting, search emails and much more, and moves very fast too. HTML email Message settings The email viewer can expand and collapse headers information, can show or not the images by default.

You can open links straight from the email client. In the settings dialog you can setup your mail client to download images automatically, and to sort email, or better said group them or not by days. You also have quick actions available on each email, by pressing the right D-pad key. Your email account is shown on the homescreen in a widget that shows the name of the email account and the number of unread emails. It can also be configured to show a popup with the last emails when the widget is selected.

Call log

The call log is available when pressing the green key when the phone is on standby unlocked and it is split into 4 tabs, missed calls, received calls, outgoing calls and packet data.

It would have been nice however to have them all in one screen, well at least the calls, in maybe a fifth tab of the call log app. The logs are kept for maximum 30 days, not that you would need more than that.

Camera

In the camera department, the E5 is not something extraordinary, but it does the occasional snapper job well, with the 5MP camera. The camera quality is pretty decent even in low light conditions. The video recording on the other hand, lacks framerate, recording only VGA resolution at 15fps, which is a complete mistery to me, since the 5230 I used to own, had a slower CPU(only 434MHz compared to the 600 on the E5), a lower quality camera(only 2MP) and half the amount of RAM, and still managed to shoot VGA at 30fps. I guess only Nokia knows why. Anyway, here are some sample pictures:

The camera can shoot videos with using the LED flash as video light, but the flash can also be turned on or off, or just to reduce the red-eye effect.

Notes

The Notes application is the same reliable note taking app, that has a very nice look thanks to the Nokia White theme. The notes are synchronized with Ovi if you use Ovi Sync. This app has helped me troughout this review. With it I wrote the most of the review.

Active notes

The active notes are basically the usual notes available on any Symbian device, but with the ability to add media objects to them. This is pretty cool, but for those of you who are using Ovi Sync to synchronize your Notes, keep in mind that the Active notes are not synchronized with Ovi.

Clock

The clock app lets you see your upcoming alarms on the same screen as the clock. An additional screen is available that lets you see all your alarms in a list, along with useful data about them (such as day and time).

You can add as many alarms as you like. Each alarm can be set o act only once, or can be repeated on a daily basis or only on work days. It also has a world clock tab, where you can setup as many cities around the world as you like.

Application manager

The application manager allows you to uninstall the existing apps, as well as set up various parameters, depending on each application. For example, for Java apps you can set the internet access point and access to phone user data. One thing that I didn't like about the way the E5 manages the access points of the Java apps, is that once you set an access point, there is no fallback access point in case the set access point is removed, so you find yourself unable to connect to the internet from java apps without an apparent reason.

The calculator

The calculator app is pretty basic and allows simple operations such as adding, multiplying, and the most advanced operation seems to be the square root. However, I found the app useful when I needed fast calculations, and to be honest, I never found myself needing to compute the sin or cos of something ever since I started using cellphones back in 1998.

Dictionary

The E5 also has a Dictionary application that includes only English language by default, but can download more languages if needed.

Other applications

The converter includes currency converter and other units converters, but unfortunately does not have live updates for currencies.
The device manager app, is practically a status app, that gives you detailed information about your phone's software and hardware versions.

The GPS data gives you detailed information about your location and upcoming trips.
The landmarks applications allows you to save landmarks for later usage, just like you would use bookmarks in a web browser.

The Message reader reads your SMS messages out loud when you are not in a position to read the message on your phone, like when you're driving.

The voice commands application helps you quickly launch an application, or call a contact, using a simple vocal command.

The 3D tones app allows you to make your phone ring with a cool 3D like effect.
Share online helps you share any kind of content from your phone with your online communities.

The Shazam app gives you access to the online song recognition service. You can simply record a song from an source like your car's stereo, or anything else, and it will recognize the song and let you download it if possible.
The Voice Recorder app provides audio recording. It saves the files in aac format and can record files up to 1 hour long.

The Encryption app allows you to password encrypt your phone's memory and your SD card too. The memory can still be used with the phone, but won't be able to be read by outside source unless they provide your password.
The intranet explorer gives your phone access to an intranet network, by connecting to a WiFi router.

The media sharing application allows you to sync you media content with other compatible devices. The E5 is DLNA enabled, so if you have a DLNA device at home, they will gladly work together.

The YouTube app is the official YouTube client for S60 that allows you to view YouTube videos on your phone. You can sign in using your username.
The podcast app gives you access to your favorite podcasts on your E5.

My Nokia app, keeps you in touch with your My Nokia account, or if you don't have one, it helps you sign up for one.
The music search app, is a voice recognition app that recognizes the name of the artist and song, from your voice input(all you need to do is say the name of the artist and the name of the song), and finds it for you.

Bottom line is this: this phone is a very good value for money phone. It will pleasantly surprise you.

Symbian^3 PR 2.0 update will bring a lot of goodies

2011-02-25T04:21:00.000-08:00

It seems that the presentation made by Nokia in China, is being implemented as we speak. The following video demonstrates what seems to be the next update for Symbian^3 devices.

The notable changes include changes to the Calendar application that now includes a short view of the events for the selected day (actually looks a lot like what's on the Nokia 5800 and 523X),and the most welcomed and expected, split screen input method. As seen on minute 1:28 of the video, there is a alphanumeric keyboard popping up when typing a message. At min 1:45 you can see the portrait virtual QWERTY in action. FINALLY! It is a welcomed change and a needed one. The keyboard looks a bit primitive, but it will probably be polished and will most likely look at least as good as the Swype keyboard does.

Another welcomed update is the Web browser, which can be observed at minute 3:05 and has now a more modern look and a top address bar like any other browser of today. It seems that it still lacks tabbed navigation, but Nokia is on the right track.

So, Symbian^3 users, you can start rubbing your hands for joy because the wait seems to be over.

New UI updates for Symbian^3 coming up

2011-02-24T00:56:00.000-08:00

It seems that Nokia is serious about keeping Symbian alive as Elop said at the MWC 2011 this month. In the next image you can see Jo Harlow presenting a slide with some goodies for the Symbian^3 homescreen.

As it looks, Nokia plans to add various size widgets to the S^3 homescreen. We also notice a redesigned top bar, have a more modern look and occupying a lot less screen estate. Also, the bottom buttons are redesigned. It looks better, I have to say, but as far as functionality goes, I for one was pretty content with the S^3 homescreen functionality. The large size widgets are welcomed of course, as would be the ability to add more than 3 homescreens on your phones.

As you see in the above image, Nokia plans more devices running Symbian^3, and as I recall, Elop mentioned something about "Gigaherz" at MWC. So, we should expect more powerful devices running S^3 in the near future. I have to say that I did not find the 680MHz CPU slow at all the 2 weeks that I had the Nokia C7 for the review. However, it's every boy's dream to have a "Gigaherz" in your pocket, so why not?

Nokia also plans to improve the performance of existing devices trough OTA updates, and it seems they already started, by launching the PR 1.1 update for all S^3 devices. Qt's future is still an enigma if you ask me, because Qt's survival is strongly related to the survival of Symbian. However, if Nokia plays it's cards right, Symbian may turn out to be a hit, and may be continued and used in the mid to low end smartphones. I still think that porting Qt to WP would be beneficial for both Nokia and Microsoft, but that's a different story.

An update of the Symbian menu is on the roll as it seems. It's been a long long time since we've seen any news in this department, so a refreshing change would mean a lot.

It also looks like the top bar may be getting some much needed pull down functionality that may easily expose notifications and connectivity features, and combined with the redesigned bottom navigation bar brings breaks the Symbian 2 buttons bottom bar habit(in a good way).

That being said, let's hope, for all the Symbian fans out there, that these new changes will lead to at least the survival if not the ascension of S^3.

Nokia E5 review coming up soon

2011-02-23T04:36:00.000-08:00

Last week, I posted the unboxing and first impressions on the Nokia E5 the guys at WOMWorldNokia have sent me.

I said then that I will follow up with a full hands on at the end of the week. As I dug deeper into the phone functions and software, I realized that a hands on will not do the phone justice, and I decided to proceed with the full in depth review instead.

The fun part(for me at least) is that part of the upcoming review (almost 90% of it actually), will be written on the phone itself. It is an experiment I am trying to do because I just loved the hardware QWERTY keyboard and I really want to put it to the test. So, later or this week, or early on next week, I will have a detailed review of the E5 posted.

The review won't be the traditional review of the stock software, because it will include software updates, beta software and third party software that in my opinion greatly improve the usability and speed of the phone. I'm not talking about paid apps, I'm talking about free apps, that anyone can have access to, and that drastically improve the user experience of the E5.

Stay tuned for the full review.

Nokia E5: Unboxing and first impressions

2011-02-16T11:36:00.000-08:00

The guys at WOMWorldNokia were kind enough to send me another Nokia device, this time the full QWERTY E5. To be completely honest, I did not know what to expect from this kind of phone, my experience with QWERTY phones is very limited. I thought I would miss the touchscreen, but as it turns out, I hit it off with his phone from minute one. So, my first experience with a QWERTY bar was very pleasant. The E5 is snappy, thanks to the 600MHz CPU and the 256MB of RAM.

First of all let's see what's in the box:

So, to summarize, we have the handset itself, the battery, the short USB cable, the headset, the user manual, and I found a 1GB card plugged in the phone. I don't know if that's part of the retail package or not, but that's the way the phone arrived to me, and that's how I'm showing it to you.

After one day of use I was pretty impressed with two things: one is that I did not miss my touchscreen, and the second is how well balanced this phone is. I mean, it fits perfectly in the palm of your hand, it's not very heavy, while the build quality I have to say, it exceeds the C7's. A very solid feel. I like the white color and the keyboard is very comfortable and easy to use, I had no trouble at all getting used to this phone. Here are some first impressions:

I also have some photo samples taken with the 5MP camera:

And here is a video sample, shot in VGA (640x480) format:

I will be back later on this week with a full hands on and user interface preview, I just have to discover it myself first :)

Nokia and Microsoft thoughts

2011-02-14T03:53:00.000-08:00

Well, Friday, Nokia and Microsoft announced their strategical partnership. Nokia announced that they will adopt Windows Phone as their main smartphone platform. Nokia's services like the Navteq powered maps will be integrated into the core of Bing maps and many other reciprocally beneficial aspects. Now a few days after, when the dust finally settled this partnership raises a couple of questions in my mind:

1) What happens with Symbian now?
Stephen Elop said that Symbian remains in focus for the time being and will get updates and new content as promised. Well, since Nokia develops Symbian^3, and their WP integration developer force will be probably minimal, it makes sense. Still the future of Symbian is unclear, because right now, Nokia itself don't probably know if they're going to drop Symbian or not. It would be a bad move to run the Symbian ship aground at this stage before the MSNokia ship sets sail. First the WP Nokia phones must gain some traction, and only after that the future of Symbian will be decide.

2) What happens to Meego?
Well, the line is blurry at best here. Drop it or not? Nokia said they won't drop Meego, but they won't use it in the mainstream. It's a shame though, after so many developer force and time allocated, Meego will only be an experiment. Oh, well, that's life.

3) What happens to Qt?
Nokia said Qt won't be dropped, and will continue to grow. Somehow I doubt that. What Nokia is basically saying here is that devs should continue embracing Qt but prepare to maybe drop it in a year or two. No dev on his right mind would continue developing apps in a SDK that will surely die, in the mobile industry, in a few years. It's a shame Nokia and MS don't consider integrating Qt in WP. This integration would be beneficial to both Nokia and MS because there are devs out there that hate .DOT's guts, and would prefer to write apps in a C++ based SDK. Merging the developer base of Qt with the developer base of WP, would only lead to more apps for the new OS. Dropping Qt for Mobile would only lead to devs dropping Qt and every Nokia related SDK. Why? Because Nokia told 2 years ago to developers who were writing apps in Symbian C++ to learn Qt because that's the future. Now, they say that Qt has no future in the mobile industry. So those devs were screwed once when they were told to learn Qt, and now to add insult to injury, they are told to move to another entirely new platform, because Qt won't have a long life on mobile. I think that's a bad move. It's clear to me that Nokia had to adjust bearings, but to throw away something that's good, seems reckless. Porting Qt on WP would have brought benefits to the Symbian platform too, more apps in Qt, more apps for Symbian users. Maybe powered by Qt, Symbian would have risen at the top of the OS food chain. Who knows? It would have been worth a try.

These are the first thought that came to mind after the partnership was announced.

Nokia C7 review

2011-02-08T11:02:00.000-08:00

The Nokia C7 flat out impressed me from since I first unboxed it. It has a very solid feel, even though the body is made of plastic and only the battery cover is made of metal. It feels very good in hand, a bit slippery at times, but it looks much better than some more expensive phones I came across. The display is very bright, and sunlight legibility is incredible, even though it's not a ClearBlack display. The ambient light sensor adapts very quickly to the lighting conditions and improves the user experience a lot.

Here are the technical specifications:

Hardware

Dimensions - 117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5 mm
Weight 130 g
Screen type - AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
Screen resolution - 360x640pixels, 3.5 inches
Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
Multi-touch input method
Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate
Memory - 8 GB storage, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM
Card slot - microSD, up to 32GB
2G Network - GSM 850/900/1800/1900
3G Network - HSDPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100
EDGE - Class 32
3G - HSDPA 10.2Mbps; HSUPA 2Mbps
WLAN - Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth - v3.0 with A2DP
USB - microUSB v2.0, USB On-the-go support
Camera - 8 MP, 3264x2448 pixels, fixed focus, dual-LED flash with geo-tagging and face detection
Video - 720p@25fps, video stabilization
Secondary video - VGA(640x480)
CPU - 680 MHz ARM 11 processor
GPU - Broadcom BCM2727
GPS - A-GPS support; Ovi Maps 3.0
Java - MIDP 2.1
TV-out - Standard Definition
Digital compass
Active noise cancellation with dedicated mic
Battery - Li-Ion 1200 mAh (BL-5K)

On some websites I noticed that a Gorilla glass display is mentioned, but I think they got it wrong, or at least the unit I tested had no such thing.

Software

Symbian^3 OS
MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player
DivX/XviD/MP4/H.264/H.263/WMV player
Quickoffice document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
Adobe Reader
Flash Lite 4.0
Voice memo/dial/command
Predictive text input

I am not going to cover the OS in this review, I have already covered it earlier on in an in-depth review.

The box contains the phone itself, the battery, a short USB cable(maybe too short) and the charger. Unlike the other S^1 touch phones, the C7 charges trough the USB port too, as well as from the Nokia standard charging port available on the left side of the phone.

On top of the phone we can find the power button, the USB port and the 3.5mm jack. The phone can output video in standard definition trough the 3.5mm jack with a dedicated cable. Since there was no such cable in the box, I could not test that ability. On the bottom of the phone we can find the mouth piece. On the right side we have the volume rockers, the voice command key, the lock knob and the dedicated camera key. These keys are very comfortable to use and do not stand in your way when you don't use them. On the back we have the 8MP camera, the dual LED flash and two speakers. On the front we have the 3.5 inch screen, the ear piece and three hardware buttons for answer call, menu and end call.

The C7 covers every connectivity you may need, from Bluetooth 3.0 to WiFi n and the new Nokia technology USB-on-the-go. Unfortunately there is no micro-USB to USB cable provided in the box, so you'll just have to purchase one. Although I could not test this, it seems a very interesting feature, minding that many of the potential users, may find this useful quite a few times.

The WiFi manager worked like a charm, even though not with all WiFi routers I threw at it. It can prioritize connections and save you quite a buck when there's a WiFi available. Every time you connect to the internet, there is a popup that tells you which connection is used.

The SIM card has a nice press and release mechanism unlike the S60 edition phones where you needed a stylus or something similar to remove the SIM card.

The micro SD card slot is located under the battery cover and you actually have to remove the battery in order to slip in your card. That's a pitty, but considering that the phone provides 8GB on onboard storage I never found myself needing an extra card.

A long press on the menu button shows the Symbian task manager, while a long press on the end key triggers the end data connection action.

The touchscreen is very sensitive and the slightest touch triggers the action you intend to do. There are two types of capacitive touchscreens, the kind that make you wish you'd have a resistive one, and the kind that makes you wonder how could you live without one. The C7 falls into the second category. I've have used a capacitive screen before, on a Samsung, and haven't been too happy with it but, the C7's really kicks ass.

The 8MP camera is very handy and takes pretty decent pictures, with very good quality, especially in good light conditions. The camera doesn't dislike poor lighting conditions either, just don't expect the dual LED flash to act as a dedicated camera flash. Here are some photo samples:

There are a variety of fine tunings that can be applied by default to photos, and some helpful functions too. Here they are:

Face detection
Self timer
White balance
Exposure
ISO - Automatic/Low/Medium/High
Sharpness - Hard/Normal/Soft
Colour tone - Normal/Sepia/Black&White/Vivid

There are also four options for the flash: Automatic, Red-eye reduction, Always on and Off

Pressing the settings button you find some more options like the Geo-tagging (Save location info) and the image quality settings.

The HD (720p) video recording is really smooth at 25 frames/second, and even shot indoors in poor light conditions look pretty good. Here are some samples again:

These videos were shot in poor lighting conditions but they are still very very good. The compression applied to the movies is not extraordinary so if you plan to shoot a lot of videos you should consider getting a bigger SD card, because 2-3 minutes of HD recording ate up around 500MB of storage.

The video light helps when filming in poor light conditions, but not very far due to the limitations of the LEDs so don't expect to shot videos from the distance at night.

The camcorder provides fine tuning as well, plus some more useful options. Here's what's available:

Video light On/Off
White balance
Colour tone
Video quality
Save location info (Geotagging)
Video stabilisation
Audio recording On/Off

Bottom line is this: if you're looking for a smartphone that can take decent photos, record HD video and has neat social integration, the C7 is a strong choice. At it's price tag, there aren't many phones that can record HD (well, there's the HTC Desire, but we all know how it fragments the HD recording).

Here is the hands-on video again for a short preview of the C7 user interface.

So, a family guy such as myself, can really appreciate this phone even if it does not run the smartest OS available today. The phone provides a lot of high-end features and a very good camera, for a price smaller than what you would have to pay for another phone with similar features.