Here is an app that demonstrates why mobile phones will be the swiss knife of the future; why the future is headed to the mobile sector.
When I found this app on the Ovi Store I thought it was some kind of joke like the smell scanner which is actually a fake ”joke” app. But the metal detector app for the Nokia N97 actually works! It is really amazing (and free). I downloaded the app and tried it on several metal things, it got every single one right! For example, this box of Altoids:
Here are excellent news for Nokia users who have Sky TV and wanted to switch to the iPhone just because it supported the SkyTV app. SkyTV is now available for Nokia smartphones! Only Nokia touchscreen phones are supported by SkyTV: Nokia 5800, Nokia N97 (Mini), Nokia X6, 5530 and so on. The SkyTV app will become available for more devices, we will have to wait and see which devices will be supported, hopefully, S60 3rd Ed devices like the popular E71, E75 or E72.
The SkyTV app for Nokia is completely free, you can watch SkyTV live on your Nokia. All the SkyTV app needs to work is your username and password, after that you are ready to go. You can also set up your Sky+ box so you can use Remote Record and start recording from your phone the shows you are going to miss. The app looks really cool, head to the Ovi Store and get SkyTV for your Nokia device. SkyTV or you can use the direct link: http://mobile.sky.com/SBM/SonyE_novid/SkyMobile_SonyWithoutTv.jar
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonRemember we told you that the Nokia X6 was coming in the NAM flavorNokia X6 was coming in the NAM flavor? Not many thought that it was going to come, and it took some time, but is finally here, the NAM version of the Nokia X6.
Nokia USA just made available the Nokia X6 in the North American Market. Currently the Nokia X6 is being offered in both of the Flagship stores in the US, it will also hit the NokiaUSA online store, what we still don’t know is when. The Nokia X6 first made is debut as a ”Comes With Music” only phone for markets that supported the service, Nokia later unveiled a 16GB version, but no NAM X6 was mentioned. Today the X6 NAM silently appeared at NokiaUSA in three colors, yellow, blue and black. Along with a description that reads ”responsive to your touch,” which we find very ironical, partly because the Nokia X6 is the first capacitive touchscreen device from Nokia. Seems they learnt that resistive screens weren’t that responsive after all
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonThis is a great app for F1 enthusiasts! The Formula1 season started a few days ago and I am sure that fans want to have all the information of what is happening while they are on the go. I usually use my Nokia device to check scores on different sports and events, so I thought that the Formula1 app would be useful for F1 fans around the world. But side from being useful, the F1 app for touchscreen Nokia devices like the X6, N97 Mini, 5800, 5230 and more is really complete, feature pack and brilliantly done. It has the dates of upcoming races, ”Live Timing’ for when the event is taking place, a regressive counter for the next race, and most importantly: Standings.
The Nokia E55 just got a new software update! I always wanted a Nokia E55, unfortunately Nokia didn’t release an E55 for the US. This phone seems so practical and powerful that it would make a great phone for risk situations where you don’t want to take a more expensive device, like camping, gym etc…
Anyway, the Nokia E55 got a new firmware. The new software update for the E55 is v33. It is still unknown what specific things were changed on V33, the only obvious one is that the free version of Ovi Maps now comes pre-installed on the phone. Nothing else is known, you can get the new software update on your E55 by going to ”SW Update,” which means that you can do it OTA without a computer. If you find anything new on the new software for the E55 please leave a comment.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonThere really isn’t a good Twitter app for the Nokia N900, the best Twitter experience one can get on the N900 is using a web-app, but as long as native clients concerns, nothing is usable. But that is about to change! There is a new Twitter client for the N900 called ”TweeGo.” TweeGo is still in Alpha and is lacking important functionality, however, the client is so beautiful, well done and designed that is a joy to use. TweeGo is definitively the best Twitter app for the N900. TweeGo has an amazing UI and transitions, it is really friendly and easy to use.
Lately Nokia is the last manufacturer in everything; can you imagine that we still don’t have an usable Facebook client for the vast majority of Nokia smartphones (non-touchscreen)? Sure, the E72 and E71 got a version of the Facebook app, it is pretty incomplete and barely usable compared to other Facebook clients in other platforms, but at least offers a partial mobile Facebook experience. The weird and totally irrational thing about this, is that although the Facebook app is totally compatible with S60 3rd Ed devices like the: N95, N86, N85, N79, E75 and so on, Nokia decided to channel the app through the Ovi Store and make it available only to the E71 and E72. Now the good news, is that while the Ovi Store was broken some days ago as AAS reported, someone managed to get the direct link to the Facebook App!
Facebook running on the previously unsupported E75
Since Nokia announced the last couple of devices in a virtual event some days ago, no one has been able to get their hands on this three new devices. So basically, all we had so far was cool videos and pictures released by Nokia, that although look cool, almost always give a false impression of how the device looks in the real life. Today I was browsing YouTube and found an interesting, although muted and of low quality video that shows the white Nokia C6. It is a short overview, all I can think while I watch the video is ”Looks just like the G1.”
Nokia has this horrible custom of releasing different colors of the same phone several months after they are launched. One good example is the Nokia E72. It originally came in three colors, then, almost 5 months after, Nokia announces the E72 in purple, and now, Nokia is offering the E72 in white! The E72 looks particularly good in white, it looks like a completely different phone: elegant, beautiful and classy. This color upgrade of the Nokia E72 probably positions the E72 among the most good looking phones ever. Its pure Nokia-style design, powerful features (although I struggle with the screen), and now this sexy color makes me desperately want one of this E72s. Lets see if Nokia makes it available quickly.
The E72 with all white accessories.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonNow that the Nokia N8 is finally here, N82 fans can stop looking for a replacement for that great smartphone that took awesome pictures in every light condition. The Nokia N82 has wide-angle lens, like the N86, but on top of that it adds the 12 Megapixel camera and Xenon flash while loosing the led’s for video recording. Anyway, the pic below was taken with the N8:
That is a pretty impressive image coming from a cameraphone. I checked the EXIF data and seems that there wasn’t and post-processing software like Photoshop involved, so this comes straight from the N8 itself (taken the 24th of April by the way). Of course some professional photographer took the picture, but still, it is very impressive. Now, let’s take a look at the HD video recording capabilities of the Nokia N8.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonNokia N97 Mini for two full weeks, only string attached is that he has to write for me a carefully planned review of the Mini. So now that you know the situation, I can go further and explain what I’ll do here:
My friend Tom reviewed the N97 Mini after two weeks of usage. Tom has used a really crappy LG phone for the last 3 years since he doesn’t care as long as the phone texts and calls. Since Tom is a complete noob to the whole smartphone world, I thought that would be pretty interesting to let him try one of the best Nokia devices right now in the market. I gave him an N97, and here are his impressions. Note that I’ll have to comment along in blue his review since he didn’t write a precisely understandable article:
The Nokia N97 Mini was a small, easy to use, and reliable phone. The OS was simple and I personally had no problems learning it. The camera on the phone was clear, but the flash on the phone was not very bright and almost useless. The phone was organized and I was able to get to all of the apps without any problem (after me having installed a few useful apps and cleaning the garbage that comes in the ”Apps” folder, what’s with the empty ”MfE folder”?). The only problem I had was with the internet. I had no problem connecting; it was changing web pages that I had a problem with (yes, tabs on the S60 browser suck). I would go on YouTube and watch a video. When I was done I would go to watch another video and the first video I watched would come up. This even happened when I went to browse the internet. I would type in a website in the URL and the video would pop up again. This would cause the phone to freeze and get stuck a tad bit. (The S60 browser needs an update, try to load engadget on any Nokia phone but the N900 and you will see). The organization of the phone was great, from the app store to the music. I was able to find, buy, and download an app quickly. The app would work great and the phone loaded the app quickly. The app store was organized well. The Home page was also organized well. I was able to manipulate what icons I wanted on the home page easily and it was easy to move around from app to app. I loved that if you hold the action key you can switch between apps no matter how many you may have open. (even a noob intuitively knows what multitasking is!)
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonI never tried a ”low-mid” segment phone from Nokia before, but having the opportunity to get my hands on the Nokia X3 was something I didn’t want to pass. I received the blue version of the Nokia X3 after an anxious wait, not that I wanted to use it as my main phone, but perhaps it was a little giant that would surprise me. The Nokia X3 is a really cheap phone, just 140USD and am sure that free with many contracts. The X3 has a 3.2MP Camera, Bluetooth, runs S40 and is an Xseries meaning that music is the big thing. Here are some pics of the Nokia X3 unboxing:
So what was my experience with the Nokia X3? Well, my expectations for this device weren’t high at all, I expected a good-looking entry-level phone with some nice features and decent usability. But right after opening the box everything just didn’t run as expected. Right after opening the device I obviously needed to take the back cover off to install the SIM card and the battery. This is when problems started. After not paying attention to the sticker explaining how to open the X3, I tried for 5 minutes to open the back cover. After I realized that I had done everything possible to open the X3, I resorted to the picture to find that the way to open the X3, was basically what I had thought. After another 5 minutes of trying to open the X3 I got really angry and just used force to slide the back-cover; it came off flying across the room in an abrupt movement. The back cover of the X3 is the most difficult thing to remove in the world, somebody could easily break the slider in the process having in account that the X3 isn’t exactly solid. So I proceed to install the SIM card, and unbelievably, same happens, took me another 5 minutes to dent my nail to open the idiotic cover to insert the SIM. Anyway, I tried to forget that since I know that someone who buys this phone won’t change batteries or SIMs frequently, so I just proceeded to play with the X3.
The X3 is a beauty. The colors and the design of the phone are very appealing; it is just a cool looking handset. But the X3 feels somehow cheap. It is made entirely out of plastic, and the type that is in the edge between good quality plastic and just average plastic. I would think that the build-quality and materials used are just a bit above average, just what you would expect in this type of phones. The X3 is durable, the plastic is resilient to any accident that could happen, the X3 can stand pretty much against all dangers that a phone could face. The screen, however, is a completely different story.
The screen of the X3 is the worst screen I ever saw in a mobile phone. It is not because it is small, it is because it is small but on top has design problems. After I turned ON the X3 I thought something was wrong with my contacts, I just saw the images on the screen awkwardly, like if my eyes were playing tricks on me. Looking at the screen of the X3 is like looking at one of those visual illusions that play with your eyes, they get your eyes out of focus and make you dizzy. Upon further inspection, I discovered why the X3 has this effect. The people that designed the X3 put the backlight in a way that when the user looks at the screen from the left angle, the screen looks darker, and when the user looks at the screen from a right-hand perspective, the screen looks lighter. Take a look at this pics and notice the difference when looking at different angles.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonOne feature I have been enjoying in my ”Android vacations” with the Nexus One are the live wallpapers. The Live Wallpapers are basically wallpapers, but they respond to movement or touch. So behind the widgets on the N8, you would have a moving wallpaper that would move as you move the N8 around.
The cool part of this is, well, looks really good and is an impressive feature; the bad aspect is that there are a limited amount of Live Wallpapers and they consume battery. On the Nexus One Live Wallpapers consume exactly 3% of the total battery, not much, but ehh. So here is a video showing how Live Wallpapers work in the Nokia N8.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet Buttontouchscreen Nokia devices called Playlist DJ? Well, now it is available for Symbian S60 3rd Ed devices like the: E72, N86, and E75. This app initially came as part of the Comes With Music offering from Nokia but then it was made available for everyone to download at the Ovi Store, however, only touchscreen devices were compatible.
So what is playlist DJ? It is one of the coolest free Nokia apps out there really. It almost works as if it was magic. What playlist DJ does is categorize your songs by ”moods” and ”types” and then with four bars you can adjust the levels of ”love, anger, tempo or happiness” and Playlist DJ will bring up the songs that match your mood. But not only that, Playlist DJ is really useful to make a quick playlist of just one type of music. Let’s say you need really quick romantic music, instead of creating a new playlist and adding songs manually, Playlist DJ does it for you! Playlist DJ is really accurate, it really tags the songs and categorizes them correctly even if they don’t have a title because unknown songs are uploaded and categorized automatically. Yu can get Playlist DJ in your S60 3rd Ed device by just searching for it in the Ovi Store.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonI don’t know if it is me but everyone is paying special attention to the orange Nokia N8, and why not, the orange Nokia N8 is a great looking device! But now taking a look at a live picture of the blue Nokia N8 I now will have a hard time deciding between the orange, the blue, and perhaps the black Nokia N8. The unusual thing about the ”colors” in the Nokia N8 is that apparently they change a lot from what the official pictures show, and how the device actually looks like. Here is a live picture of the Nokia N8 in blue, and orange:
And now take a look at the official picture of the blue Nokia N8:
t is always interesting to compare devices and see which one comes up with the best results. And although the Nokia N8 already got compared with the Nokia N97, here is yet another comparison, only this time against more ”worthy” competitors such as the iPhone 3GS, Omnia HD, and the iPad.
This time the comparison is a little bit more detailed and compares the GPU and CPU, meaning the processing power and the graphics power of the devices. Take a look at the graph:
The Nokia N8 is clearly the winner! If you take a look at the GPU (graphing processing) results, the Nokia N8 just takes over the competition without a problem, the iPad and iPhone 3GS are way behind the Nokia N8 in the graphic department, the numbers just demonstrate it. The CPU results, however, didn’t overtake the rest as much as the GPU, but the N8 is still proved to be a strong competitor. Lets also remember that the N8 has a 680mhz processor, which is not as powerful as Snapdragon and others but will assure a longer battery life, so one thing for the other. The last phase of the comparison showed how many triangles can each device push, and again, the N8 just smashed the competition and this time by a wide margin.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonOne of the many annoying things that the N97 has is its speed: it is just the slowest touchscreen device I have ever used. And guess what, touchscreen technology doesn’t go along with unresponsiveness, the result of both is anger, plain and simple. The Nokia N8, however, will be a different story. Of course that the processor is clocked at 600mhz, just like the N900, but on top there is a graphic accelerator chip, and the performance updates from Symbian^3. This is why is not surprising that the Nokia N8 is 350% faster than the Nokia N97! And 100% faster than the Omnia HD. That means that the Nokia N8 is twice as fast as the Omnia HD from Samsung which is already a fast device.
The video above shows the speed test performed in the Samsung and the N97, as you can see the Omnia HD did a lot better. Below you can find the screenshots from that same test ran on the Nokia N8. The speeds are measured with an app, the same test was ran on the three handsets and here is how it came out:
Nokia N97: 253
Samsung Omnia HD: 506
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonWhile in the eternal wait for the Nokia N8, all we can do is watch at other people having fun with one. How do they have one? No idea, probably work for Nokia or something, because the N8 is still far from being released into the market. Anyway, the N8 has a couple of new and exciting things that really impress me. I mean, the hardware of the N8 is as cool as a smartphone could get, but Symbian^3 isn’t a huge improvement over the totally annoying Symbian^1. But even though Symbian^3 is nothing revolutionary, the N8 does have two features that are very welcome. The first is the visual multitasking, and the second is the ability to plug an USB, or even a phone, to the N8 without the need of a PC.
Here are two video demos showing the multitasking in the N8 and the USB on the go.
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonSince Apple introduced the iPad, suddenly the market to tablet computers opened. Before that, tablets were just a gadget that a few geeks used, and not even that because I know many people that stopped using them after the first few days because they couldn’t find a good use for it (like me with the N810). What Apple did was really simple, throw the OS already used on the iPhone in a nice looking tablet and market it to exhaustion; putting it in many colorful ads (that plagued all the cities of the world because I am currently in a trip and all the cities I have been in are full of iPad ads) together with usage scenarios, cool ways of using it and of course magical words like ”magical.”
I have thought before about getting an iPad, but my problem with it is that the OS is just not powerful enough to replace my computer (and I am looking for something to replace my laptop, not a third device between my smartphone and my laptop because that is pointless, like the iPad, I mean, if I have to carry a bag anyway lets throw something that can do it all, not an iPad). Anyway, there are good news coming from Nokia!
Today a really cool video appeared in YouTube showing what MeeGo for tablets might look like, this is a really, really early pre-Alpha version that will be modified before it looks like the one we are going to receive in the form of a Nokia Tablet. Yes, there is a Nokia Tablet coming and it is likely to be announced in September at Nokia World, and it will hit the shelves hopefully by the first quarter of 2011 together with the N9 (although Nokia has said the MeeGo phone should be shipping before the year ends). Below is the video overview of MeeGo for tablets. I have to say that this is a real tablet with a real OS designed for tablet devices, and I think this tablet will have a full internet browser (Google Chromium) like MeeGo 1.0 for netbooks. I am excited!
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Nokia never mentioned the Nokia N8 was a computer, I mean, they do refer to Nseries devices as ”Mobile Computers” but they never showed what you are about to see. Before, ”Mobile Computers” meant, of course, powerful mobile devices, but Nokia hasn’t mentioned that the N8 actually supports Bluetooth Mouse + Keyboard + HDMI out, which together make the N8 what everyone calls ”a computer.”
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonNokia today announced through their Twitter account that they are working in a new design for the Nokia.com website, about time!
The new design is somewhat minimalistic, it is really simple, looks similar to a blog and you would never think that is the official website of a company because it lacks all the cool flash animations and movement that big companies use in their websites, in fact, the new Nokia.com site uses mostly text and few images. However, as you get into the website and navigate through the categories (Nokia has now categorized their devices in High-Performance, Style etc..) you can notice that the design changes from the homescreen and actually looks like a company website. I haven’t decided yet if I like it, but I think it will grow in me because of its simplicity. Not to mention that it is still in beta! You can check the new Nokia.com style website here: http://beta.nokia.ie/
Share This Post on Twitter Just Click Tweet ButtonNokia N8-01, which is not the same N8 we all know. No one knew very well what the N8-01 was, until some days ago Eldar Murtazin from Mobile-Review mentioned that there is another version of the N8 that adds a QWERTY keyboard. I imagined that it was the pic we all saw some months ago, here it is:
And my thoughts were confirmed by today’s pic where now the real thing appears, not the rendering you see above. It looks to me like the exact same model, with an N8 inspired design and a long centered space bar in the keyboard. So here you go, the variant of the N8 which is known as N8-01:
The N8-01 will feature the same specifications of the Nokia N8, but for the camera which will be lowered to 8 MP instead of 12. The specs. are not clear yet but as I said, it is rumored to be just the same N8 with less MP to differentiate it from its keyboardless brother. Which by the way causes some confusion, I still prefer the simple N8, but now there will be people waiting for this one, and others who can’t decide. Do we really need two models? The N8-01 is still a rumor though, but it looks pretty legitimate, I would expect this phone to be announced in a few months. I also hope they come with something smart to make people understand it is the same N8 but with a slight difference, something like N8i, (remember 9300 and 9300i?) N8x, or even N8 Pro will do, I just hope it isn’t N8-01.
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The Nokia BH-102: $2.99 After Rebate
Nokia is really clearing out these BH-10x headsets. Not too long ago the BH-102s were going for $7.18 after rebate – now they’re $2.99. Maybe in six months they’ll be paying YOU to take them away.
At any rate, the BH-102 is your typical no-frills Bluetooth headset. It is, in my opinion, a zero in the looks department. However, it does support the Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR specification, which should technically mean less power consumption. It’s rated at 10 hours of talk time, you be the judge.
The Deal
Buy.com is selling the BH-102 for $17.99 with free shipping. Combined with the Nokia $15 Visa card rebate, that’s $2.99 when all is said and done. Note that the condition is “New in Poly-Bag” – that means OEM.
The Nokia N97. Or is it?
The N97 is officially available today at Nokia Flagship stores in the USA. Great news, but you’ll have to pay retail – $700 bucks to be exact. Or, you could do the next best thing and preorder it from Amazon for $603.99. But you’ll have to wait until June 30th, when the phone starts shipping.
And then…you might be tempted to buy an N97 from eBay.
First, a quick quiz: what’s real and what’s fake?
If you said all of them, sorry, you automatically lose. The answers are: A and D are the real N97s, B and C are fakes from actual eBay listings.
There are a couple of telltale signs that can give away a fakie N97. These are (click on thumbnail images to see full picture):
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Obvious Stuff
Always read the complete auction description. A lot of fake N97 auctions display the bands as “Triband 900/1800/1900” when the phone is quite obviously quad-band (850/900/1800/1900). Also, stay as far away as humanly possible from auctions that display “Chinese model” or refer to anything “Chinese” in the description. There are no Chinese N97 models. They are fake. And avoid any N97 auctions that say the phone features TransFlash memory, of all things.
Remember: if it looks too good to be true, well, it probably is.
(pictures above taken from various sources: A – Gizmodo, D – GSMArena, B/C –
Get the N97 + Extended Warranty + Overnight Shipping for $535.19 and Tax
While this deal is nowhere near as hot as the previous mega-hot N97 deal, it’s also currently the best price for this phone. The * refers to the price you’ll get BEFORE taxes (regardless of whether Nokia has a presence in your state…how scammy), so tack on your state taxes. For me, the total ended up being $583.34 thanks to 7% NJ tax. Hm…
The Deal
1. Go to the NokiaUSA web site.
2. Either use the giant N97 banner, or click on the small green Buy Now button underneath.
3. Choose a color and click Add to Cart.
4. Check off the “Extended Warranty for $19.99&Prime box.
5. Click “Continue With Accessories”.
6. Accept the terms and conditions (check the box) and click “Add extended warranty”
7. At the shopping cart, enter the promotional code NOKIATHEATRE and click Submit.
8. Click the Checkout button.
9. Enter your information, and make sure you select Overnight Shipping – $14.99. This will activate the free shipping code.
When all’s said and done, you’ll get the Nokia N97 with a 1-year extended warranty and overnight shipping for $535.19 + (whatever your sales tax is on the total). Since it’s actually in stock, you should receive it in a day or two, depending on when you place your order. Remember – Amazon and Dell will not start shipping the N97 until late June (June 25 for Amazon), so if you want it now, this is the fastest and cheapest way to get it.
ZXReader: The best (and only) ebook reader for the N97 and 5800XM.
The Mobipocket eBook reader used to be my reader of choice. That is, until their Symbian programmer disappeared like a fart in the wind (or so I’ve heard), leaving behind nothing but a half-finished S60 Fifth Edition port. One that can’t even exit fullscreen mode without a complete reinstall. To put it mildly, I think it sucks.
You can move the info/progress bar around the screen - I have it set to the right side.
So the only thing left is an eBook reader called ZXReader, and it’s actually an impressive piece of work. You can customize almost every facet of the eBook display, from changing the fonts and colors to things like screen margins and the location of the info bar. Navigation is neat, too: the app divides the screen into touchable regions that can activate different functions – by default, the top portion of the screen is used to move back a page, and the bottom portion to move forward. But you could also change it to left, center, right, and have each section perform a different task. It’s so far and away from the crap that is Mobireader S60 v5 Beta Unsigned that it’s amazing. Did I mention it’s free?
ZXReader provides a wealth of customizations. Lots of good stuff here.
There is a catch, however.
And that catch is – ZXReader is only compatible with two types of file formats: regular text files and .fb2 files. Text files are fine, but unfortunately don’t have support for things like bold headings and the like. Also, they tend to run the gamut in terms of quality since nothing’s standardized.
Enter FB2. FB2 is apparently a newfangled ebook format based on XML and created by some Russian programmers. It’s not a very popular file format, and finding software for it was a pain in the butt. An application called FictionBook Designer can open up a bunch of different ebook formats (html, doc, rtf, pdf, lit, pdb, rb, xml, and best of all prc). Yep, that’s mobipocket’s file format. One of the help files does say that the prc file format is a little wonky (not the exact words) and you’re probably better off converting the prc to html with MobiPerl. I personally tested a couple prc->html->fb2 conversions and it worked fine.
Download ZXReader 1.2.3 For Symbian S60 Fifth Edition Devices (N97, 5800 XpressMusic)
ZXReader. Right click and select “Save Target As…” if the download does not work correctly.
Using FictionBook Designer to Create FB2 Files
This is pretty straightforward.
Converting PRC Files to HTML
Since Fiction Book Designer does a lousy job with prc files, use MobiPerl to do the conversion to HTML, then have FBD do the rest.
I highly suggest creating an ebooks directory on your memory card or mass storage or wherever. To add your ebooks to ZXReader, simply go to Library -> Options -> Add file.
The first Nokia Phone Blog official keyboard shootout!
The Nokia N97. The 5800 XpressMusic. The E75. Three phones, three distinct little keyboards. Does the N97 deserve the flak it’s taken for the mushy QWERTY? The 5800XM on-screen keyboard sucks, right? And how does the E75 stack up in all of this?
To find out, I conducted a little “keyboard shootout” experiment, pitting me, typist of 20 years (give or take 10 years) in one corner, against a stopwatch and the phrase “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” in the other. To measure real-world time, the entire phrase had to be completely correct before I would end each trial.
Let’s see how it all turned out.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic: Offline profile, touch screen vibration Level 1, touch screen tones Off
Nokia N97: Offline profile, no other changes
Nokia E75: Offline profile, no other changes
Nokia E66: Offline profile, T9 prediction on, keypad tones Level 1
I used the XNote Timer XP utility as my stopwatch. Each time trial went like this:
- Pick up phone
- Clear text on screen
- Hold phone in ready position above keyboard
- Hit Spacebar with right pinky to activate stopwatch
- Type in phrase “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.” as fast as possible, correcting any and all mistakes.
- Hit Spacebar with left hand to stop the time.
- Switch to next phone and repeat five times for each
I also ran ten trials using a Nokia E66 (with T9 on) and a Mitsumi brand PC keyboard for fun.
All times are in seconds.
Nokia E75 Keyboard
Times: 11.95, 13.29, 12.25, 11.31, 10.93
Average: 11.946 sec – .5 sec* (see note at bottom)
WPM (Words Per Minute): 47.17
The best of the bunch, by far. The E75 has large, tactile keys that make it relatively easy to type stuff on a mobile phone. The kicker, however, is some quirky button placements – like the backspace key that’s next to the L key, or the Return key that’s directly under that. Still, 47.17 wpm on a mobile phone is quite respectable.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Keyboard
Times: 20.23, 17.84, 13.25, 17.73, 20.26
Average: 17.862 sec – .5 sec*
WPM: 31.10
As expected, the 5800 XpressMusic dominated the absolute bottom tier of keyboards (read: loser). Those damn on-screen keys are so tiny that it’s very easy to hit something other than the key you wanted, and the lack of multi-touch means that sometimes you’ll type a word too quickly and miss a couple letters in the process. In terms of raw speed, the keyboard wasn’t that horrible – but the number of mistakes I made (and had to correct) was. The only time I typed the phrase perfectly was the third run.
Nokia N97 Keyboard
Times: 13.71, 16.29, 14.48, 12.68, 15.35
Average: 14.502 sec – .5 sec*
WPM: 38.56
I really thought the N97 would show some pretty low scores. Nope! It turns out the N97, if you get past the mushiness and generally weird bottom row, is not as bad as some folks (like me) may have you believe. Or maybe I was just having a good day. The N97 was only 18% slower than the E75, but it’s also smaller, squishier (hard to tell whether you hit a key or not), and personally more annoying to use. You be the judge.
Controls:
Nokia E66 Keyboard
Times: 19.14, 16.37, 15.12, 13.82, 12.01
Average: 15.292 sec – .5 sec*
WPM: 36.51
Shouldn’t QWERTY keyboards be faster than a keypad equipped with T9? At 15.292 seconds, the E66 control group beat out the 5800 and came close to tying the N97. I might have to rethink this keyboard thing…
Just kidding. This is mostly luck, because the only word I actually needed to scroll through T9 for was “lazy”. Apparently, “jazz” is a more popular word.
Mitsumi PC Keyboard
Times: 4.82, 6.09, 4.70, 4.40, 4.32
Average: 4.86 sec
WPM: 111.11
*Note that since I had to manually start and stop the clock myself, I subtracted .5 seconds from the average to calculate WPM. For the PC keyboard test, I ignored this because there was no real motion needed to stop the timer (I need to hit alt-tab, the right key, and space).
The obvious conclusion is that the E75 is the best keyboard of the bunch. That isn’t too difficult to see, since it has the largest keyboard, and the best feel, of the group. But the numbers are interesting: it was 18% faster than the N97, 34% faster than the 5800 XpressMusic, and 23% faster than the E66 with T9 prediction.
And just for fun, I did an E66 T9 vs. No T9 mini-shootout, with the results showing that T9 is about 36% faster than typing without it.
Learn how to encode video files for your 5800 XpressMusic or N97.
You’ve got an N97 or a 5800 XM, and you’re fiending for some content. Movies. TV shows. Funny video clips. Where do you start? What settings do you use?
I’ve written up a short guide that will get you up to speed with encoding videos for the S60 Fifth Edition phones’ default RealPlayer application. Hopefully it’ll take out a little of the guesswork that normally goes into the encoding process.
We’ll be re-encoding files in the MPEG-4 video format, with AAC audio. Let’s start!
- SUPER (scroll all the way to the bottom to see the download link), or any other encoding application such as AVS. I did all of my encodings with SUPER, so I can vouch that the settings below work perfectly. And it’s freeware. Technically, it shouldn’t really matter which encoder you use, as long as you use the same basic settings.
- A source video file.
- Enough hard drive space for your re-encoded file (twice as much to be safe).
Once you’ve downloaded and installed SUPER, run it. In the top left corner, you should see “[1. Select the Output Container ]“. If you see anything else, click on the top radio button below that message. The first time I ran the program it defaulted to Output Process instead.
The screenshot should match your SUPER settings. (Click to view entire image)
1. Make sure the output container is MP4.
2. The Output Video Codec should be MPEG-4.
3. Use AAC LC for Output Audio Codec.
4. Check the DirectShow Decode box. This may or may not cause problems with your hardware setup. In my case, I couldn’t finish encoding anything without it checked.
5. Change the Video Scale Size to 640 width x 360 height. To get to the custom video size, click on the More checkbox twice.
6. The Aspect Ratio should be 16:9.
7. Frames/Sec should be 29.97.
8. For Bitrate, I used 2016kbps. Multiple tests with 3024kbps and 4032kbps showed no discernable difference, even with high quality sources. I just couldn’t tell the difference. If you can, feel free to change this to a higher value.
9. Check the High Quality checkbox. DO NOT check off Top Quality or anything else.
10. Make sure the Sound Freq is 44100.
11. Change the Audio Bitrate (it might be this by default, can’t remember) to 96 kbps. You can increase this value if you want. Again, not much of a noticeable difference for me.
You now have the correct settings for SUPER – let’s start encoding some videos!
To encode a video, find the file using Explorer, and drag and drop it anywhere on the SUPER screen. The video name should appear in the box below the “DROP A VALID MULTIMEDIA FILE HERE…” message, and you can double-click on it to show your video’s nitty-gritty details. You may want to check some things here, like the source bitrate and aspect ratio. If the source bitrate is significantly lower than your encoded bitrate (See #8 above), you might want to either modify the new bitrate or get a better quality video source file. As for aspect ratio, sometimes you may find movies that are 2.35:1 aspect ratio – these will look a little strange on the 5800XM or N97 (people will be taller and thinner than they should be), since both phones are 16:9.
Now hit the Encode (Active Files) button and the fun will begin. Remember, encoding can potentially take a lot of time – depending on the size/complexity of your source file and your settings, it could take 1 minute or hours. A 3-minute fight scene from The Matrix (39.4 megabytes) took me about 2 minutes to encode, while a 40-minute episode of Veronica Mars took almost 30.
Once it’s complete, transfer it to your phone. You can use either the File Manager application or RealPlayer to play your videos.
If you don’t have the time, or the inclination, to re-encode your files, there is another way to get DiVX videos running on your phone: Lonely Cat Games’ Smartmovie. Smartmovie allows you to play DiVX/XviD videos on your phone without needing to re-encode (although you may want to, to save space). Note that I haven’t tested the latest S60 Fifth Edition version of Smartmovie yet
Hide your sound files from the S60 Music Player.
The situation: I have a lot of instrumental music that make great ringtones, but lousy listening music. I don’t want those songs showing up in my “All songs” playlist in the S60 Music Player, because that means I have to create separate playlists that exclude those songs – which take time to create and continually update.
The solution: Dump your ringtone songs into one directory, hide it from the Music player, and use the All songs playlist to play your tracks.
The instructions: Inside.
This trick works with pretty much any phone running S60 Third Edition and above (including Fifth Ed. touch-screen devices). The idea is that Music Player ignores any folder that is flagged as a System directory. So by attaching that flag via Y-Browser, we can hide songs or sound files that we only want to use for ringtones.
- Y-Browser, a signed freeware file browser application by DrJukka. Great program.
- Music files that you want to hide from the Music Player app
1. Download, install, and run Y-Browser. Navigate to your music folder (probably E:\Sounds\Digital).
2. Move all of the sound files that you want to hide from Music Player into one directory – I call mine Instrumental. This may be extremely easy or extremely annoying, depending on how organized your music files are. Basically, you’ll need to highlight the files you want and do Options -> Edit -> Copy/Cut. Then go to your folder, and go to Options -> Edit -> Paste.
3. Select the folder that you want to hide.
4. Go to Options -> File -> Attributes.
5. Change the System value from No to Yes. Hit Save.
6. And you’re done!
Update, 7/19/09: For some reason (and I swear I tested this beforehand), the System-tagged ringtones are no longer visible when choosing in the Profiles or contacts menus (S60 Fifth Edition). However, it seems like they still work if they were selected before the directory was hidden. So make sure you have your ringtones set before using this method.
The nice thing about this method is that even though your sound files are hidden from the Music Player, you can still view and use them as your ringing tones.
Ouch.
The combination of Nokia and AT&T hasn’t exactly produced fruitful results – look at the N75 and E62, for example.
And just when you thought that things were starting to look up with the release of the Nokia E71x, a phone that’s not *that* crippled compared to its high-powered cousins, here comes the Surge.
I look at this phone and I see a whole lot of ouch. It’s not too hard to see why.
The Surge, at first glance, looks like your typical slider, albeit a little squattier than most. That’s correct, except the slide houses a QWERTY keyboard, and not a dedicated number keypad. There’s no touch-screen either. Ouch.
I’m not too sure how this works. You open the phone to make a call, then talk with the slide open, or you close it again and continue talking as if nothing’s changed. Either way, it’s bad design or bad usability. It also makes no sense. Why not just throw in the touch-screen and release the phone as a cheap N97 wannabe?
I’m also not feeling the bottom portion of the phone, or more specifically the “jutting-out” section. It doesn’t look right, mainly because you’ve got three buttons sticking out like a sore thumb, giving the phone that dwarvish, stout look.
Marketed as a cheap messaging phone, the Surge doesn’t provide a whole lot more than that. There is US 3G, A2DP, and your typical AT&T-branded preloaded junk. But Nokia opted to put in the 2.5mm audio jack instead of the more standard 3.5mm. Hey, who’re you marketing these phones to anyway, Nokia?
The Surge does have two things going for it: price, and the fact that it runs Symbian 3.2. It’s good to see that Nokia is ever-so-slowly bringing out more smartphones to the US market. And at $129.99 (2-year agreement required, you can also get a $50 Visa rebate with a $30+ data plan) it definitely won’t be breaking any banks.
I was going to write about the nice, fat 1500 mAh battery, and the resulting extra-long talk time, but it appears that the battery only provides a talk time of 4.7 hours. Man, being fat sure ain’t easy.
5530 XpressMusic: Best Touch-Screen Phone Under $200
Everyone’s hawing and hemming about the latest super high-end handset, which means the low-ends don’t get much love. And it’s really too bad, because the 5530 XpressMusic is one of the most capable el cheapo phones out there. More inside.
The 5530 XpressMusic is a pretty pocketable phone. It’s small, thin, and fairly lightweight. It’s also solidly built, and not as cheap-feeling as the 5800 XpressMusic. Carrying it around was a heck of a lot more preferable than lugging around my monster-sized N97, despite the loss of a couple key features.
It’s interesting to note that, while the 5800 XpressMusic had actual buttons (Send/End/Menu) on its face, Nokia has opted to make those keys touch-sensitive areas. It works well, and I actually prefer these buttons to the tactile versions. It’s much easier to press in one-handed operation. The XpressMusic shortcut key is still not customizable, but works well for quick access to what will probably be your most used functions anyway. (with the exception being the “Share Online” shortcut, this is garbage)
Moving on to the display, I found the 5530XM touch-screen on par with the 5800 XpressMusic – that is to say, it could be a little bit more sensitive, a la N97.
Even though the 5530XM runs the same flavor of Symbian S60 Fifth Edition as the N97 and 5800XM, it brings a few improvements to the table. Kinetic scrolling, long missing from the latter two phones (although recently added to the N97), is *almost* present everywhere: apparently someone at Nokia forgot to add it to the main menu. Transitions between screens are surprisingly fluid, and the phone gives you the feeling that it’s faster than it probably is. It definitely ups the user experience.
Frequent readers might recall a certain blog post I made a couple of months ago which came to the conclusion that the5800 XpressMusic’s onscreen keyboard is mostly a piece of junk. I am unhappy to report that this has not been remedied in the 5530 XpressMusic. The keyboard is still horrible, and more or less forces you to type below a certain speed to avoid missing letters. The problem is that keys don’t fire when you touch them – they fire when you let go. This means that if you’re hitting two keys in rapid succession, only the second one will register. Please fix this Nokia.
The web browser is based on WebKit, and renders webpages reasonably well. It’s not perfect, however. There’s two issues: first, there’s a lack of kinetic scrolling that’s evident when browsing nearly every page – you’re stuck having to “backscratch” the touch-screen to scroll down. It’s an obvious oversight, and I’m not sure why this wasn’t picked up during testing. And second, visiting certain sites like Gizmodo causes the application to suddenly quit. No warning. No error message. At least you get a nice transition out effect.
Data speeds on AT&T’s EDGE ran an average of 153.05 kbps down (20 KBps), compared to the 292.8 kbps theoretical max of the device. 20 KBps doesn’t sound too quick, but strangely enough I didn’t have a problem with EDGE. It was certainly browsable. (speed tests measured with mobilespeedtests.com)
As well as can be expected from a typical Nokia – that is to say, very good. The only problems I had were due to AT&T’s crapper network. Voices came over clearly, and I had no problems in this department.
The stereo speakers on the 5530XM, like the 5800XM, are very, very good. It’s hard to say which is better – my money’s on the 5800, but either way, music sounds great, and different from the typical “tinny” can speakers that are in most cell phones these days. Note that the Music Player on the 5530XM is the old version, not the newer one that’s present in the latest N97 update.
I also attempted to watch some YouTube clips – they worked, but the quality was so lousy that, in one tennis match, I could barely make out the players. Streaming video is probably not the 5530XM’s strong point.
The 5530XM includes some preinstalled games like the infamous Bounce, Trivial Pursuit, and Asphalt 4, American Idol, and Global Race Raging Thunder. After trying Bounce, I came to the realization that the 5530 simply can’t handle any serious 3D game – Bounce was choppy, laggy, and the controls are just plain lousy (no accelerometer support in this version). Trivial Pursuit, on the other hand, was a nice time-waster even though the computer cheated like hell.
In one word: excellent. I was able to go almost six days straight of random light/moderate usage before the phone crapped out on me, and that’s simply amazing. By comparison, I can only go, at best, two days on my N97 with the same usage. Sure, you can’t just compare the two like that (3G and a larger screen are probably a big reason why), but the 5530 XpressMusic is still a winner in my book when it comes to battery life.
I’d call the 5530 XpressMusic a budget phone that doesn’t feel like a budget phone. It’s got a lot going for it: solid yet lightweight, great battery life, amazing speakers. And it’s super cheap. Cheap enough that it can be found pretty consistently well below the $200 range, and it’s well worth it for the money. Of course, if you’re looking for GPS, or 3G, or an OS other than S60 Fifth Edition, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
