The Nokia N95 promises so much. It’s got every gizmo and gadget you can imagine on it, but Richard Davis hasn’t found the dream to match the reality. After you read this, you’ll appreciate that he’s not a happy chappie.
Let me set the scene as to how I came about my Nokia N95. I fell out of love with Nokia after a rather clunky experience with the N73 a while back, followed by various other niggles which led me away.
Continue reading Living With A Nokia N95: A Bug’s Life (1/3)
With more and more mobile punters accessing the web to download music, watch video, browse the web or grab emails, Nokia are hoping to persuade some wallets to creak open for their new 6120 classic phone offering the faster HSDPA (High Speed Downlink Packet Access) connectivity.
Claimed to offer downloads “up to 10 times faster than over usual WCDMA networks,” the Nokia 6120 bigs up its multimedia credentials sporting two cameras. The first is a basic, low res affair slapped on the front for video calls, while the main camera serves up 2-megapixels worth of picture-grabbing, 4-times digital zoom, a built in flash and a panorama mode.
Powered by a Symbian Series 60 OS, the 6120 looks very similar to its slower 3G predecessor, the 6233, with all the gubbins enclosed in Nokia’s familiar candybar form factor and a bright QVGA-quality display with 16-million colours dominating the front.
There’s Bluetooth on board for wireless streaming of stereo sounds, a built-in FM radio, support for MP3/AAC/MPEG4 tuneage and a micro SD card slot for slapping in some more memory capacity.
To help fumbling newbies and floundering technophobes, the 6120 comes with bundled How-To Guides and a Set-up Wizard for setting up email, messaging and Internet connection, with Data Transfer apps helping users shuffle all their contacts, calendars, photos, videos and files over from their old Nokia handset.
With the phone purring along on the S60 OS, there’s ample scope for users to download third party apps and customise the phone to their heart’s desire.
Here’s Peter Ropke, Senior Vice President, Mobile Phones, Nokia to whip us into a frenzy of expectation for the phone, “With the HSDPA technology, S60 operating system and the wide range of features of the Nokia 6120 classic, consumers will be able to make their daily lives more manageable.”
The Nokia 6120 classic (no relation to the 6120 they released in the 1998!) should start shimmying on to shop shelves in the summer for around 260 Euros (around £175) SIM-free.
Nokia are extending their relationship with Sony Ericsson as they take their Intellisync Wireless Email to two more Sony Ericsson devices, the M600 and P990.
Nokia’s Intellisync Wireless Email is their counter to RIM’s Blackberry and Microsoft’s mobile email service, covering wireless email, synchronization for calendars, contacts, files, data and applications.
Where as the competition only works with their own devices, Nokia claims that theirs works with any device and any backend system. This extended deal with Sony Ericsson makes this real.
This solution is primarily aimed at business users, but as people become dependent on digital communications, it’s highly likely that every man (and woman) and his (or her) dog (or cat) will be wanting this kind of thing.
Around the Digital-Lifestyles office we are not big email fans, given that it’s laden with so much junk these days. We, like many others use IM to communicate.
Nokia has announced an update to their 770 Nseries widget in the shape of the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, which comes decked out in a natty industrial chrome look.
Sporting a high resolution display, Nokia say that the tablet has been “optimised for enjoying the familiar Web experience anytime, anywhere,” and comes with support for internet calling, instant messaging and email.
Naturally, the thing’s stuffed full of multimedia gadgetry with stereo audio, media support and the ability to enjoy streamed content as you amble around your Tower Hamlets bedsit Hollywood-like mansion.
Boasting faster performance than its predecessor, the N800 comes with a full screen finger QWERTY keyboard (but not a proper pull-out hardware keyboard), easier connectivity via Wi-Fi or a Bluetooth phone, an integrated web camera packed up into a sleek new streamlined design.
Software wise, Nokia are claiming “Internet enhanced navigation” with Navicore, support for RealNetworks’ Rhapsody music service and a deal with Skype to let users make Internet calls from Nokia N800s. They added VoIP support to the 770 back in May last year. It was GTalk at the time.
“As the Internet becomes an ever more integral part of daily life, Nokia
N800 has been designed to offer quick and convenient access to your favourite Internet services regardless of location,” insisted Ari Virtanen, Vice President, Convergence Products, Multimedia, Nokia.
“The Nokia N800 takes our offering to the next level combining speed, performance and mobility into a stylish, compact design,” he added, nearly running out of superlatives.
The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet runs on Nokia’s desktop Linux based Operating System and should be available immediately in the US and Europe for around 399 EUR/USD (around 250 quid).
Mobile phones with built in MP3 music players are proving a massive hit with consumers, far outstripping sales of dedicated music players, say Nokia.
Speaking to Reuters, Nokia’s multimedia unit director, Tommi Mustonen, said the mobile giant aimed to shift 80 million music devices this year, getting on for double last year’s tally of 46.5 million.
“The technology is completely ready, and the change in consumers’ habits has started. The best evidence is our sales number. We are selling huge amounts,” he added.
Nokia’s sales figures certainly dwarf those of Apple, who sold 8.7 million iPods in the last quarter – a high enough figure to keep them at the top of the dedicated music player charts, but still way behind music phones.
Although two out of three consumers with suitable equipped phones are already using them to play music, Nokia insists that Apple is not a competitor (well, not until their highly anticipated iPhone hits the shops).
“The comparison with iPod is wrong; it is a single purpose device, and it is not connected,” Mustonen said, adding that he believes that Nokia’s current rivals are, “companies which make multimedia computers.”
One of their rivals is most certainly Sony Ericsson, currently the world’s fourth-largest handset maker and feeling chuffed with itself after flogging 15 million Walkman music-playing handsets in its first year.
The overall European mobile phone music download market is expanding faster than Mr Creosote at a dinner table too, with Forrester Research predicting that the market is to grow to 674 million euros ($857.5 million) in 2011.
Nokia has announced its first dedicated personal navigation device covering all of Europe-land, the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation.
The Nokia 330 includes full Europe coverage, sports a large 3.5 inch colour touch screen, spoken directions and comes with a raft of multimedia widgets to keep le continental traveller ‘appy.
Featuring an integrated GPS receiver, the Nokia 330 device comes bundled with a 2GB memory card containing the preinstalled Europe-wide map data aling with detailed travel information.
The Nokia 330 uses the ROUTE 66 Navigate 7 application and views can be flipped between 2D/3D and day or night views, with options to change the language or volume of the spoken guide.
To help stave off boredom in Brussels and ennui in Eindhoven, the Auto Navigation also includes a music player, photo viewer and video player (but don’t go watching Rocky V when you’re driving folks! Well, we wouldn’t recommend you watch it any time, but that’s a different story).
And now some corporate guff
“Consumers are increasingly eager to use personal navigation devices while driving and we are delighted to introduce the Nokia 330 Auto Navigation device to meet this demand,” purred Razvan Olosu, vice president, Multimedia Enhancements at Nokia.
“Nokia 330 Auto Navigation complements the recently announced GPS and navigation solutions from Nokia.”
“Finding your way across Europe is simple with this comprehensive navigation package, including an integrated GPS receiver and European maps,” he added.
The Nokia 330 Auto Navigation is expected to turn up in “select channels” in Europe during the fourth quarter 2006 for around EUR 360 – £240 (sans le taxes).
Nokia is to have Mission Impossible 3 released on memory cartridge in parallel with its releases on DVD – making it the world’s first mobile premiere.
The complete film will be on a 512Mb miniSD card, running at 25fps and be exclusively available with the N93. As of next week purchasers of the N93 will get the film included.
Given the gadget fest that M:i:III is, it’s pretty appropriatte.
It’s a European deal between Nokia and Paramout Pictures, making it available in the UK, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Turkey. The content will be protected, so it cannot be watched on a PC or transfered to another memory card,
Nokia has been trying very hard to its launch, this is the first deal to link it with watching films.
Tuula Rytilä-Uotila, director of Multimedia at Nokia buzzed, “With this package, we want to highlight that the Nokia N93 is not only a fantastic movie-making device, but that it is also a portable video player, allowing users to enjoy movies wherever, whenever.”
An NFC payment system is on trial in Amsterdam allowing people taking part to make purchases using their mobile phone.
We’re massive fans of NFC (Near Field Communications) and have been for close to two years. We see it as a significant way to enhance the function of your mobile phone (primarily), as well as a new way of getting content to your phone.
Eight companies are getting together for the latest trial, this time lead by Japanese credit card giant JCB and marks Europe’s first contactless international credit payment scheme using a Nokia 3220 with an NFC chip.
Selected JCB cardholders are provided with a mobile phone by Nokia, which are equipped with an NFC chip, developed by NXP and loaded with the JCB payment application developed by Gemalto.
The first transaction of the pilot was conducted at Sushi Time, the Japanese sushi restaurant in the World Trade Center in Amsterdam.
At selected PaySquare merchants, cardholders can securely purchase items by just holding their mobile phone close to ViVOtech’s contactless NFC reader/writer, which is attached to the payment terminal of CCV.
Approximately 100 selected JCB cardholders are now enjoying fast, easy, and convenient payments with Mobile J/Speedy at selected merchants, where they used to pay by cash.
Although it has only been one month since the trial was launched, the increasing number of repeat usage indicates a strong acceptance of the technology and a very successful pilot.
“Feedback from the first users of Mobile J/Speedy has been very encouraging and we are pleased to now be able to involve a wider group of customers,” said Hajime Matsuura, branch manager of JCB International’s Amsterdam branch.
The first European NFC-based public transport ticketing trials took place within the local bus network in the city of Hanau, near Frankfurt, Germany in 2005.
Expect plenty more news on NFC trials.
Nokia has announced the winning entries in the Forum Nokia S60 3rd Edition Challenge global developer competition, dishing out a cool €100,000 in prizes to winning mobile applications developers.
Co-sponsored by Forum Nokia and software monoliths Adobe, the winners in four categories were selected from 117 entries after a 10-month selection process.
The categories were enterprise, music, Macromedia Flash Lite and location-aware applications, with each winner pocketing a €25,000 top prize and a one-year free membership in Forum Nokia PRO developer support program, which is apparently worth €4,000.
Selected by a jury made up of Macromedia and Nokia Business unit reps, the winners were selected from the 20 finalists announced in September this year.
Quickoffice Premier 4 scooped up Best Enterprise Application, with the product allowing users to open, view and edit Microsoft Office documents on the move.
www.quickoffice.com
The best Macromedia Flash application was Foreca – Flash Weather, a natty program that can not only advise you whether that brolly is really necessary, but can offer comprehensive weather forecasts, weather radar, temperature and precipitation forecasts.
www.foreca.com.
InfoTalk Corporation’s Music Finder grabbed the honours for Best Mobile Music Application. The program provides a speedy way to use search for music files using voice commands, with users able to speak a song title, artist’s name or playlist in response to an audio prompt instead of scrolling through zillions of MP3s.
www.infotalkcorp.com.
Finally, the Best Location-Aware Service/Application prize went to Augmentra, whose smarty-pants ViewRanger application offers a unique mapping, navigation and information tool for mobile phones, providing information about immediate surroundings through an intuitive display.
www.viewranger.com.
Nokia has unveiled their latest move to bring themselves ever closer to being associated with video content and its creation.
They’ve sponsored four prominent UK people known for design and style (what a virtuous circle this sponsorship deal turned out to be – video & style) to make short films, using the short shot by Gary Oldman.