Nokia E66 and E71 to be officially announced on Monday

After months and months of leaks, the E66 (left) and E71 (right) are set to be launched on Monday, June 16th, at events in London and Singapore. Here is the excerpt of Eldar Murtazin's review of the E71 where I've first seen this information:

Expect extensive coverage of the E71 and the E66 here on Monday.

In the mean time, Boy Genius Report have a great video review of the E71. Check that out! I wanted to embed it, but the quite unreasonable width of their player breaks things.

[Image Source: GSMHelpDesk.nl]

Nokia N78 Hands on

Hands ons, actually.

Certain luckier than me folks have got their hands on the N78 and luckily for us unlucky folks (this pun might prove to be headache-inducing, I realize now), posted great walkthrough videos of their experience with the device.

To name names, the first two videos come from Zach over at SiMo and Boy Genius Report, and the third one is courtesy of Jonathan Greene, of atmaspheric | endeavors.

I know this might come as a surprise for some, but I'm drooling over the N78's looks. Yes, the keys look like a compromise but I'm a sucker for the fact that when the key lights are off, it almost appears to have no keys at all (thanks to the extremely flush design) except for the d-pad and those 4 'bars'. Very, very sexy if you ask me. Can't wait to get my hands on an N78 myself! Let's hope the WOM World chaps might help with this.

Enjoy the videos!

Hands on with the Nokia N78 from Zach Epstein on Vimeo.

Hands on with the Nokia N78, Again from Zach Epstein on Vimeo.

Nokia N79, N85, 6260 leaked? PLUS: New Nokia 5800 XpressMedia pictures and updated S60 Touch video

It's been all over the internets (I think I'll miss George W.Bush when he's gone). Interestingly, these 'leaks' showed up the exact same day Apple was announcing the 3G iPhone. Some say this is hardly a coincidence. If it actually isn't, all I have to say is "Way to go Nokia!". It was a smart move, even if at first glance it might not seem that way. One might argue that more attention would have been paid to this, especially by the 'mainstream' blogs, if it came on another day. The investors, however, might not agree. Nokia showed the world the fact that it has interesting things up its sleeve. And anyway, these were only leaks, not announcements. Announcing phones on the same day as Apple would have been a disaster. Samsung did exactly that with its i900. That was stupid.

Back to the leaks.

Problem is, in a way, deep down, I hope that these are not actual leaks. They don't seem to be Photoshop renders, so I can only hope that they were early prototype stages of other devices (like this N85 may have been to the N96). Because if they are leaks ...yawn... let's just say I'm not impressed (the 6260 is different, not that I'm overwhelmed by it or anything, but I see where that's going - more in the dedicated paragraph).

The N79

Um...This has got to be the ugliest Nseries I've ever seen! Seems cheap, overly cheap and has a design that is probably appealing to those in their early teens only. The screen doesn't seem to be bigger than the 2.4 inch ones found in both the N82 and the N78. I can only hope that this handset will bring something revolutionary (or at least interesting) spec-wise. Otherwise, it is sad in a way that Nokia appears to be going the Motorola and, more recently, Sony Ericsson way, as in releasing dozens of phones which are more or less the same thing. Again, here's hoping that's not the case...


The N85



Now...what is this? A while ago Eldar from Mobile Review posted some interesting information on their forums (no link for that, sorry). He said that the N85 will probably be the next video flagship device from Nokia, following on the footsteps of the currently aging N93. Expectations were therefore set high. But this... This looks like an N96 without all the gloss. Seriously. It apparently features a 5 Megapixel camera (soon to be dethroned in the megapixel race) with Dual LED flash. Sound familiar? I'm having real issues picturing this phone as a video flagship, and certainly hope this is nothing more than a very-early-stage rendering of the N96.


The 6260



As I said above, I see where this is going (or rather, aiming). It appears to be a slider version of the 6220 classic, has the same design language and presumably the same camera. Good move this, as it will further help pushing smartphones into the mainstream. Now a leak of such a phone may not be as exciting as that of, say, the N95 (back in the day), and surely devices like this will not get the blogosphere and media attention that the likes of the N96 and N82 get now, but that is a pity, really. For Nokia, the mass adoption of S60, made more and more likely by the 6120, 6220 classic and now the 6260, is more important in terms of prospective sales than any one flagship device. I know, it's the stuff no 'early adopter' wants to hear, but it makes perfect (business) sense. I can only wish for more 6220s instead of more N79s.


More pictures of the 5800 XpressMedia show up as well



First of all, people, please, pretty please, let's not call this the Tube anymore? That sounds disgusting. Kthx.

The first touchscreen device from Nokia (expected release: Q4) also popped up (again) during the infamous WWDC-day leaks. This time it sports Vodafone branding, which instantly leads to the question of whether or not it will be a Vodafone exclusive, like the 6124 Classic, for example.

Personally I look forward to the 5800's release. Even if a 'true touchscreen flagship' is yet to come (in 2009), this will undoubtedly be an interesting first-effort from Nokia in the touch scene.

However there is a certain element in the pictures above that I find very disturbing. I'm all for choice when it comes to input methods, but the stylus in both these pics just makes it look like it's 1999 all over again. If a stylus is there just to have a choice of input, fine. But stop picturing it! No one in their right mind (mind!) figures a stylus is a competitive edge anymore!

I obviously keep hoping that the stylus is not there because the interface is stylus-optimized, that, now that, would be a true catastrophe for Nokia. Luckily, judging from this updated video previewing the S60 Touch interface, that doesn't seem to be the case. Whew.

[Image source: MobileCrunch]

Nokia N82 gets a software update

It has been leaked a few days ago, and now it's available. Version 20.0.062, or apparently 20.1.062, depending on your region, is ready to download via the Nokia Software Updater for unlocked/unbranded devices.

This update brings:

• Flash Lite 3 (read:Flash video support in the browser, a.k.a. YouTube and the likes)
  
• WRT (Web RunTime, a.k.a. Widgets)
  
• GPS Location Tagging integrated as an option in the camera interface (don't worry, it's turned off by default)
  
• camera exposure improvements
• improvements to Bluetooth headset interoperability
• the usual bugfixes and performance improvements

Remember, the N82 has User Data Preservation, however I strongly advise you to back up your data before upgrading, just in case anything goes wrong. You can backup to a memory card or to Nokia PC Suite.

[Source: All About Symbian]

Still nothing on N-Gage

Disclaimer: I'm not a 'gamer'. I never was. Not on the PC, not on consoles. Not on the mobile phone.

But I was really excited about N-Gage. And still am. Not that I should be, at least not now. It's more about the long-term capability to influence the market, than it's about the present five games. Yes, five. A grand total of five games, that's what the official launch of N-Gage Arena, N-Gage 2.0 or whatever you'd like to call it, brought.

Since I'm not a gamer, I wasn't as excited with the games as I was with the social element of N-Gage. Online multiplay and so on. Which is all nice in concept, but in practice the app is slow and setting up a game is a pain. And you have five games to choose from.

Ok, I wrote two paragraphs about N-Gage, wow...but that's it. There's nothing else I can get myself to write. I will post more on N-Gage when a decent number of games will be available. In the mean time, I advise you to read:

• How to replay your N-Gage First Access games [All About Symbian]
  
• How to install the new N-Gage app to the N73, N93 and N93i, which are not officially supported yet [Symbian Web Blog]
• Why Devin Balentina is not impressed with N-Gage [The Nokia Guide]
• The official Press Release.
  

Dolby comes to Nokia S60 smartphones

At CTIA Dolby Laboratories showed off Dolby Surround support on the Nokia N95 8GB, dubbed Dolby Mobile.

Wait. What?

What is this, China? Are more-than-two speakers on a phone hitting mainstream?

No. It's an app, developed by Dolby Laboratories, that runs in the background and, I have to quote this, "takes plain, old stereo sound and give it a 3D feel and increased depth" (from IntoMobile).
According to the blogosphere (and especially the guys over at IntoMobile, who got some hands-on time with this at the Mobile World Congress in February), it's really useful and all.

I just can't believe this. An app that 'magically' turns stereo into surround, 3D sound? I remember now, I already have such a thing on my N95! And it's 100% useless! So hopefully the Dolby app will be better.

And now let's put this into perspective. Samsung have been constantly pushing dedicated Digital Sound Processors (developed by Bang & Olufsen) in their recent high end phones, including their S60 lineup. And according to Eldar from Mobile Review, one such Samsung smartphone, the i450, produces the best sound on the market right now.
And this... is... Nokia's... answer?! An app?

[Source and Image source: IntoMobile]

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Are the tablets consumer-friendly devices? (Thoughtfix edition)

Ahhh...Daniel a.k.a. Thoughtfix just wrote a post full of ideas I had for the last post on the N810. He obviously didn't employ any telepathic mumbo-jambo, and therefore it appears that I'm not the only one thinking what I'm thinking.

Don't get me wrong, I love the N810, but I really can not be convinced that the average consumer would. More on my thoughts will follow in a few days, after I decide on what to write that Daniel hasn't already mentioned. Maybe I'll do a post focusing on why I agree with what he wrote, and why I don't, where I don't (there are such parts, but very few).

More posts are coming on the N810, there won't just be one more post.

In the mean time, click here to read Thoughtfix's... thoughts.

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Nokia N810: Customizing the appearance

Themes

The default OS2008 theme is nice, but there are at least two alternatives: the Nuvo Pearl theme and the LCARS PADD (Star Trek) themes. You can find them here. In case you want to install the Star Trek themes, be sure to read the detailed instructions first.

You can always switch between installed themes by clicking on Home->Set theme on the standby screen.

Wallpapers

Interfacelift is one of the best known wallpaper sites. Recently (after Ricky Cadden of Tablet Guru suggested this), they have added support for the N800/N810 (and Asus EEE PC) resolution of 800x480.

Click here for Interfacelift's wallpaper collection.

To change the wallpaper, while at the standby screen, click on Home->Set background image. Then click "Browse" to locate the folder where you have downloaded the wallpaper(s).

Note:
Needless to say, all these themes and wallpapers are free.

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Nokia N810: Video, part 2. Solutions

This is a first for me. Having to contradict what I've written in a previous post. Well, not all of it. Still somehow I don't feel bad about this, I'm happy I found a few solutions for the things I had issues with.

Now, I'll say this again, I normally can't be bothered to convert anything into anything else. Especially not video. My reasoning is quite simple, conversion usually takes more or less the same amount of time it would take to actually watch what I'm converting. And since my computer is not exactly top-notch, multitasking while a conversion is in progress is painful.

So the whole point of my N810 review(s) was to look at it from an 'average consumer' perspective. I have to tell you that I've never done this before, so hopefully my take on the Video capabilities of the tablet from this perspective was accurate.

Problem is, I couldn't let it go. I turned back into the usual me after writing that piece on Video. So I began digging, and digging. This post details my findings. Since it's clearly off the 'consumer perspective' path, there won't be any silly question answered at the end of it.

Here goes.

First, the Internet Tablet Video Converter. I was harsh, yes. Then I tested it some more. Got the conversion time (at "Better" quality setting) down to an hour for a ~700 MB .avi XviD file. Just conversion time, copying is a different story. An hour for converting what presumably is an hour-and-a-half video. Not exactly good enough for me. It might be good enough for everyone else, though. And one more thing. I achieved this conversion time by only running the ITVC, and turning off all background processes that aren't needed by the system. Which was good for testing purposes, although I don't think I'd ever use it like this in 'real life'.

Do keep in mind what I needed to constantly remind myself of: this is a beta product. It will certainly be improved in time.

Now for feedback for the ITVC team (I will also post this here, where I strongly encourage you to give feedback too):

• I'd like more 'Advanced' settings. The main Settings menu is fine for a 'normal' user, because it is so easy to use. The 'Advanced' tab, however should have customizable bitrates, customizable audio quality independent of video quality and so on.
• I'd also like the ITVC to support decoding for more codecs and containers (Matroska, for example, is not recognized, even if I have the necessary codecs installed).
• There's something wrong with copying speed. I connected a card reader with the MiniSD card in it, and copying was still as slow as if I had connected the tablet directly, even if it should have been around 4MB/s.
  

And now, the breakthrough:

MPlayer has just received an update. Which, for me at least, has managed to make this the single most useful Video app for the tablet. Version 1.0rc1-maemo.26 handles .avi XviD encoded files a lot better than I expected. Audio and video are almost always in sync, and even when they aren't, the sync is regained shortly. The only obvious downside is that frames do get dropped from time to time, but that really is normal given the device's hardware. It plays a lot smoother than Core Player does on my N95, so I'm finally happy. I can finally throw unconverted XviDs at the tablet and they play just fine.

It's not all wonderful, though. MPlayer does have its disadvantages. One is the fact that it doesn't have a touch-enabled on screen display (OSD). And while it does have keyboard shortcuts, they are not easy to find unless you try pressing every single key to find out what it does. Until now, I found that the 'Menu' key on the keyboard opens the OSD. Spacebar pauses and resumes playback. Left or right D-pad keys skip backward or forward a few seconds, while Up and Down skip backward or forward more. If you can't get rid of the OSD, press the hardware 'Back' key.

(Yet another) Rundown of the video players for the N810:

• MPlayer has been explained above
  
• Canola has the best UI, in my opinion. It will play everything the default player can, and rather smoothly. Since this is a beta app, there are unexpected hangs from time to time. One very nice feature is that the folders where you store your (different types of) media are fully configurable. This ensures that you only get what you want in the Media Library. Also of note is its YouTube plugin, which works wonderfully, however I would have appreciated having the ability to choose aspect ratio. Right now it doesn't have that, and automatically transforms YouTube videos, which are all in 4:3 format, into 16:9. Now that creates a rather disturbing stretch effect. What is nice about it is that "full screen" means almost full screen, there are only tiny horizontal letterboxes. Viewing them in 4:3 aspect ratio would create bigger and more nasty vertical letterboxes. Anyway, choice would be wonderful. Another good standalone YouTube player is mYTube. This does leave the aspect ratio unchanged, however it works rather differently. What it does is it downloads the video to your device, and uses the default Media Player to start playback whenever a sufficient part of the video has been transferred. Works very good, if you remember to delete the downloaded videos from time to time (otherwise it can use up a lot of space).
• The default Media Player will work very well for most people. It plays videos that have been converted using the ITVC better than any other player (which is surprising, to some extent).
• Video Center is the best choice for podcasts, both video and audio, believe it or not! To add a new podcast, just go to Tools->Services->Add, and enter the URL of the podcast feed. It will then show you the list of episodes, which you can download and view or listen to in the default Media Player. More on audio podcasts in a few days in the dedicated post about the Audio capabilities of the tablet.
• It has been my personal experience that all the other Video players for the tablets are not worthwhile. However, I strongly encourage you to try them all, so as to find out which suits you best.

Tip:
If possible, insert your miniSD (or SD, in the case of the N800) card into a card reader whenever you have to copy large files. If you connect the tablet directly, the best speed you'll get will be around 900 KB/s, whereas with a Class 4 card in a card reader you get about 4 MB/s (Class 6 cards reach speeds of up to 6 MB/s). Until copying speed is fixed in the ITVC (see my feedback above), try not using it for copying the converted videos to the tablet. Instead, in the ITVC, go to Settings, click on the Advanced tab and see where exactly it stores the converted files (the path can be changed, if you want to). Then manually copy from there to the card, either by using Windows Explorer ("My Computer") or software such as Total Commander.

Please note:
I honestly doubt that I would have found out what is described in this post had I continued to go on the 'average consumer' path. To give you an example, Gerry Moth made me aware of the update to MPlayer via Jaiku. And so on. The consumer-oriented review will however continue in future posts, this was hopefully a one-time thing.

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Nokia N810: Video

I use Core Player to watch videos on my N95, because of codec support. It plays a lot of different formats. Not all yet, but all I need. Using it, I don't convert videos, I just copy them to my memory card and watch. This method does mean that a lot of frames will be skipped, but for comedy shows (what I mostly watch on my mobile devices), it doesn't matter that much. The audio and video are at least in sync.

Don't get me wrong, the default Real Player is fine too. If you convert your videos in, say, H.264 format, the quality is astonishing. However, I normally can't be bothered with converting anything into anything. The 15 or so minutes that it takes to convert an XviD into an H.264 for a 22 minute show seem way too much for me. This time is what I normally achieve with Alloksoft's converter (I've tried many, and this is one of the best in my opinion).

Okay. I've introduced you to my mobile-video-viewing habits.

Enter the N810.

One of the first things that I thought of (I've mentioned this before) when I first saw both the N800 and the N810 was: "wow, that screen would make for perfect video viewing!". You see, these tablets have a screen with 800x480 resolution, which is way more than your usual smartphone resolution of 320x240. Other than HD videos, no video is encoded at a resolution higher than this. So obviously I think "I'll throw some unconverted .avi XviD videos at it".

Which is the first thing I did.
Didn't work. I've tried Media Player, MPlayer, Canola and Media Box. Not one would play.

Ok, I think, time for some converting. So I Google "tablet video converter" and come across a Beta software from Nokia's own BetaLabs, called Internet Tablet Video Converter (ITVC). I download. I install. I start it. Nice UI. I go to settings, which are few. Good for a normal user, doesn't seem too complicated.

But wait, what is this? Even the "best" setting has a resolution of only 400x240! Anyway, I stick with "better" and convert.

30 MINUTES LATER the video was converted. I barely stopped myself from cancelling the process a couple of times. I have no patience. Such things should "just work", not make me wait minutes and minutes. Oh, did I mention the video I was converting was 22 minutes long? Yup.

The result? It was ok. It played rather smoothly (the keyword here being rather). I was however able to count the pixels. A little bit of research later (definitely not something an average Joe would do, but I just couldn't bear not knowing) I found out that, indeed, 400x240 is the highest resolution officially supported. You can try higher resolutions, but trust me, it ain't worth it.

WHY?

Actually, rationally speaking, I think I understand why. The processor surely can't handle higher resolutions...but wait! The processor in my N95 can! I may be wrong, but to my knowledge the clock frequency on both is more or less the same. So then what's up with this?

And it wasn't over. I had a 2-in-1 episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations (which was aired years ago, but I never got a chance to watch it). So I open ITVC again, keep the "better" video quality setting, and hit "Convert". This was a 723MB .avi XviD file. The running time is about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Why am I writing this? Because converting it took (get ready for this) ... 1 HOUR AND 35 MINUTES! I had set a new record!

Here is a bit of the result (forgive the video recording quality):

No, no, no. Last time I ever did that. Now one might argue that my computer might be to blame here, but...
The resulting video was 320x240 (since it was in 4:3 format). I proceeded to convert the same video in Alloksoft's converter. Encoding: H.264, "high" video setting, 96 kbps audio, 320x240 resolution. 50 minutes. Now that's a big difference! Which, to tell you the truth, makes absolutely no sense to me.

Problem is, the Alloksoft converter, as well as many others, does not have a 400x240 resolution to choose from. So for 4:3 videos all is fine, since the maximum height is 240 pixels, it is common sense that the width will be 320, but with 16:9 videos, who knows... Oh, and by the way, 400x240 is not 16:9, it's actually 15:9. Confused? That's exactly my point.

I don't know whether or not this is an issue with the ITVC, although it does seems that way.

The real problem here is how messy getting videos to the tablet really is. Maybe the average consumer will google for conversion software. Maybe. Then he or she will install ITVC and...what if the experience is as bad as mine was? I can't imagine any normal person spending a total of more than two hours (copying time included) to get a movie onto the tablet. Let me rephrase that: would you spend more time getting the video on the tablet than it takes to actually watch it?

And the obvious solution of the day is...
Codec support. Actual codec support. Fine, I'll get used to viewing videos at half the screen's resolution. But I really want at least .avi XviD support, if not DivX. And I'd like the ITVC to convert videos to XviD, or leave them with that codec, and only change the resolution. And do that fast.

Maemo is open source. XviD is open source. What is the problem then?

I am aware that there may be workarounds for what I've described above. However, keep in mind that I'm trying to keep an average consumer's perspective on things. Now the average consumer is not that person who would spend hours and hours reading hundreds of forum posts to get around these issues.


Video players

I've tried all of them. UI-wise, the clear winner is Canola2. The wonderful UI does come at a RAM cost, so don't think of running Canola and the Web browser, for example, at the same time. Also, keep in mind that Canola is a work in progress (currently at Beta7), and the final release will definitely be more polished.
The default Media Player is good too. The UI is finger-centric and the converted videos play fine. Canola does, however, have additional features all grouped in one UI: podcasting, Internet Radio and YouTube.

Functionality-wise, if I may even use that word, MPlayer seems to be the best. It at least attempted to play the XviD I threw at it. Didn't succeed, but it was the only one that even bothered to try. The UI however is a disaster. No on-screen controls, there are apparently some keyboard shortcuts, but I have no clue what they are.


YouTube

The built-in browser supports Flash, which means that sites such as YouTube will supposedly behave as they do on your computer. I have not tried it, though. I will for other Flash video sites, but for YouTube, I find Canola's YouTube plugin to be almost perfect. Very finger-friendly interface, fast searching, a little lag before the video starts, but then none whatsoever. It plays fullscreen too.

Also for YouTube playback without actually visiting the YouTube site are UKTube and mYTube. Haven't had a chance to try any of these yet, but, in theory at least, both should provide a better searching and playing experience than you'd get by using the Web browser.


Is the N810 a consumer-friendly device? NO and YES.
Not for getting videos on it. It is decent at actually playing videos (including Internet videos).


More pictures

More pictures of the N810 will gradually be available on this Share on Ovi channel. When there are new pics up, the posts about the N810 will also have an embedded slideshow of the channel. Such as this one:

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The laptop has arrived

Strange day. Exciting, but strange.
I had a few blog posts drafted in my mind. But then the TNT guy woke me up.
He had a package from WOM World. In it, my laptop for the next two weeks.

What am I talking about, you ask? The Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, of course.

I know, I know, lots of people have done this before. There are a lot of reviews across the internets and so on. Even the 'laptop' moniker is not original. People have tried replacing laptops and whatnot with Internet Tablets and accessories (and tethered N95s). And hey, I don't even have a laptop. Nor will I, for the foreseeable future, at least. I don't believe in laptops. Not in most, anyway. I don't believe in anything that says "carry me around" and weighs 3 kgs or more. Portable? Then my TV is portable too, by such standards.

I love the concept of Internet Tablets. Here is something actually portable, with decent screen size and resolution, proper browsing and so on. I even did a test post from it earlier (if your feed reader caught that, sorry, I just couldn't help myself).

The question that is on everyone's mind, though, is "is the N810 a consumer-friendly device?". Like, not for geeks such as myself, but for your 'average Joe'.

This is what I'll try to answer during these weeks. From the moment I first powered it up, I handled it like I never did any gadget before. That is, not like I would, but how I think that 'average Joe' would. I didn't read the manual. I tried to forget almost everything I've read about it in the past months (except the maemo site).

There will be a series of posts on the N810. Each post will have an answer to the bolded question above. Even this one has it. The answers might be different because of the different focus of each post. Finally, after the N810 will be sent back to WOM World, there will be a short post about my definitive answer, after taking everything into account.

I will be writing about the N810 in spite of the fact that it's not an S60 device and therefore in spite of this site's primary focus. Why? Because I think that the coming years will belong to Tablets, MIDs, UMPCs or whatever you'd like to call sub-notebook solutions. Which is why this is important. And parallels can be drawn to S60. Both open operating systems (open source, in the case of maemo, and closed source, but "open to new features", in S60's case), both very customizable, both having loads of apps written for them.

Day 1. After more than 10 hours of playing with it...

Is the N810 a consumer-friendly device?
NO.
Out-of-the-box experience is good if you only plan on browsing, but if you don't it's less than ideal. Details to follow in the next post. Hopefully everything that is not working now will be fixed by then so I can also write about how to make (certain) things work.

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The best Nokia ad yet

How did I miss this?

Devin Balentina of The Nokia Guide posted a few details about this amazing ad for the Nokia N82, and that's how I first got to watch it actually. It is by far the best ad for a Nokia phone I've ever seen. The whole story perfectly fits the N82's 'storytelling rediscovered' slogan. This is what all Nokia ads should be like. I sure hope that in the future they will be.

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The black Nokia N82 has been officially announced. And it really is a beauty

Nokia have finally announced the "black beauty", as I like to call it. No 8 GB of memory included, unlike other black editions of Nseries phones, however it will hit the market with a different firmware than what is currently seen on the 'silver' N82. Geotagging will be built into the phone's software. This will probably come to the other editions of the N82 as well, via software update.

The expected price is 400 Euros (interestingly, that's 50 Euros less than the original N82), before taxes and subsidies, and apparently it will be seen on the market very soon.

Sexy!

Full press release here.

Full specs here.

And here's the first commercial/presentation video.



The guy whose voice is used certainly would not be a winner in any word-per-minute competitions (if such things even exist). Anyway, this is a nice video, but I definitely would not say it makes a great ad.

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N95-1 Firmware v21.0.016: Waiting for Godot?

News of the 21.0.016 version of the firmware for the N95-1 (that's the first N95 released) have been floating around the nets even since before anyone knew about v20.0.015 (which has been made available months ago!).

In the last few days, the buzz about this new update has been louder than ever. Symbian Freak have had the changelog for a while now. That's the first time ever when the changelog is available before the actual software hits!

It's being reported that v21 is now available at Nokia Service Centers (wherever those are). However, still no sign of it in the Nokia Software Updater (NSU). Yet. I'm pretty sure it will pop up very soon. However, this is another first. Software updates (or firmware updates, if that sounds better) have traditionally been available in NSU first, and in the following days they would also have them in Nokia Service Centers.

Yawn.

Could we please get this thing in the NSU already?

The new features that this update brings are Flash Lite 3 (read: embedded Flash video, a.k.a. YouTube and the likes, playable from the browser, like you do on the PC) and Widgets RunTime (yet another medium you can use to create apps for S60 devices in). It also naturally features a lot of bugfixes and various minor improvements. As I said, Symbian Freak have the full changelog.

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Firmware update for the Nokia N73 Music Edition

The N73 Music Edition (pictured above) has received a firmware update.
The new version is 4.0808.4.2.2 (amazingly long set of numbers, Nokia!), and is apparently meant primarily for bugfixes and improvements in speed (in the Camera app, for instance).

Symbian Freak have a more detailed explanation of what this firmware upgrade is all about.

To update, you need Nokia Software Updater installed on your PC. If you haven't already, download it from here. Then install and start it - it will easily guide you through the whole process.

Needless to say, I strongly encourage you to use the Software Update feature, since new firmware versions always bring at least bugfixes, and sometimes even new features that will probably give new meaning to your smartphone.

Nokia 6550 for T-Mobile runs S60 3rd Edition

At CeBIT on Monday, besides the 6124, Nokia announced another carrier-branded phone, the 6550 for T-Mobile (that is T-Mobile international, not US). However, strangely, the press release has absolutely no mention of S60, so naturally I didn't think it was an S60 smartphone, and thus didn't write about it then.

But in the mean time Engadget Mobile have got their hands on it, and in the picture above you can clearly see the typical S60-style standby menu for the external display.

So there you have it, T-Mobile customers: a cheap (on contract, obviously) S60 3rd Edition (whether Feature Pack 1 or 2 is an even bigger mistery) flip phone with a 2MP camera, aGPS, HSDPA, no WiFi...and that's about it. Good if you're into Nokia flips (but is anyone really?), but at 21 mm, it's not at all slim. Which shouldn't be an issue if it was packing N95-like hardware, but for such lowly specs it's rather ridiculously large in my opinion.

Full Press Release here.

Full specs here.

Nokia and Vodafone announce the 6124 Classic (S60 3rd Edition)

At CeBIT today, Nokia and Vodafone announced an exclusive-to-Vodafone handset, the 6124. Obviously based on the 6120 Classic, this phone follows the tradition of adding a "4" to the index for heavily Vodafone-branded iterations (a la 6234).

What is of note here is that the 6124, like the 6120, runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 (or maybe 2?). The specs are left unchanged from the 6120 (2MP camera, LED flash, HSDPA, no WiFi, no GPS, 2 inch 240 x 320 screen, 64 MB RAM, 35 MB user memory, microSDHC slot, Bluetooth 2.0, and so on).

All that is changed is the design (the front plate now follows Nokia's recent design trends) and, of course, the Vodafone branding.

Software-wise, we can also expect a lot of Vodafone apps and services to clutter the menu up, as always with such releases.

The big advantage of this phone, when it will be released in the 2nd quarter, will probably be the price (on Vodafone contract, I mean). The 6120 Classic is the cheapest S60 3rd Edition phone on contract now, so it will be interesting to see how low the 6124 will go.

'Smartphone for the masses', sequel. Or Vodafone edition. And it looks really nice.
Very good.

Full press release here.

First live pic of the black Nokia N82. 8GB?

Here it is! The Black beauty in all its glory!

Everybody has been posting this, but I still couldn't miss it. The black N82 will be available from April 2nd in the US (and hopefully the rest of the world will get it soon after).

Unlike many other people, I very much enjoy the design of the N82 (including its controversial keypad, that apparently doesn't seem at all controversial once you actually use it). And since black was always my preferred colour for a phone, this is the perfect mix.

NokNok.tv seem to be convinced that this colour will follow recent Nokia tradition and also bring 8GB of internal flash storage. Nothing sure for now, but this will definitely make it even more interesting.

[Source: The N82 Blog]

[March 2nd EDIT]
The black version of the N82 is now officially featured on Nokia's Hong Kong site. It doesn't seem to be a 8 GB version, though.

Nokia 6210 Navigator: A Welcome Evolution

The last (but not at all least) of the "fantastic four" handsets Nokia announced on February 11th, at the Mobile World Congress, is the real Navigator, the 6210. I call it the real Navigator because I think this is exactly what the 6110 should have been.

I don't have any specific sales figures, but my guess is that the 6110 hasn't been the choice of many (at least as a smartphone, and not a Personal Navigation Device). It was a very interesting first attempt phone from Nokia (in the Navigator-branded line), however it was let down by the camera, the size-to-features ratio, and even, to some extent, by the inclusion of Route 66 navigation software instead of Nokia's own Maps application. And this was, if you care for an educated guess, probably because Nokia started developing the 6110 Navigator and/or had licensed the 66 software for this phone before they acquired Gate5 (makers of the later-to-be-renamed-into-Nokia-Maps Smart2Go software).

Now, whereas the 6110 Navigator represented a niche of navigation-focused smartphones, the 6210 Navigator will bring this concept to the mainstream, not in small part aided by...well its branding (Navigator) and its predecessor's (I mean the 6210, not the 6110 Navigator!) success and 'number-awareness', if I may call it that.

Why?

• It has the looks.