Unwired View » Nokia

Nokia to launch Rihanna’s Rated R album, stream live concert

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:23:31 +0000

Nokia has just announced a new global music partnership with Universal Music Group International (UMGI) and the Island Def Jam Music Group (IDJMG), dubbed Nokia Play 2010 and “created to deliver unique and exclusive music content to fans around the world.”

Nokia says that this coincides with the global availability of Nokia X6, its new flagship music phone that should be on sale in the UK starting November 12.

The first event organized by Nokia Play 2010 is the release of Rihanna’s new album, “Rated R”, which will be available worldwide starting November 23. Rihanna will perform live on November 16 in London, and Nokia will stream the show live over the internet – fans can sign up here.

Nokia will also release a Rihanna mobile app via the Ovi Store. Moreover, Nokia Comes With Music customers will have access to an exclusive edition of Rihanna’s Rated R album, which includes a bonus track and free content.

Via Press release

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Nokia X6 to hit the UK on November 12

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:05:56 +0000

Announced two months ago as the flagship of the new Xseries family, the Nokia X6 is ready to hit the market and it looks like it will be available in the UK starting November 12.

Expansys lists the X6 as coming on this date, for no less than 529.99 GBP ($878). Of course, the phone’s price at launch will probably be closer to the price initially announced by Nokia: about €450 (405 GBP).

The X6 is a high-end Symbian touchscreen phone with features that include a 3.2 inches display with 360 x 640 pixels, HSDPA connectivity, Wi-Fi (with UPnP), stereo speakers, 3.5mm headset jack, TV out, 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, and 32GB of internal memory.

Nokia X6 includes Comes With Music unlimited downloads for a year. A non-CWM version of the X6 is rumored to be released in 2010 for a lower price.

Via World of Nokia

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Nokia N900 to be released in U.S. next week! Nov. 14th, to be exact

Staska — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 22:15:53 +0000

I know many of you have been waiting for Nokia N900 to finally hit the shops.

And were extremely disappointed, when Nokia delayed the release of N900 from October to November. Without even bothering to reveal more concrete release date, or even week.

Well, your wait is almost over. There are reports that Nokia N900 starts shipping in U.K. on Nov. 16th.

And now I have even better news for those, who have been eagerly awaiting Nokia’s N900 arrival to the United States.

Nokia N900 will be released in U.S. next week. On November 14th, to be exact, if the info on NewEgg website is accurate:

As you can see, NewEgg is having a pretty nice discount on Nokia N900, and says that it’s being released on 11/14/2009 – that’s next Saturday.

The wait seems to be almost over. Let’s hope this is for real, and there will be no more last minute delays by Nokia.

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Nokia N900 to hit the UK on Nov. 16, free on select contracts

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:35:35 +0000

After being delayed a bit by Nokia, the Maemo 5-based N900 is now almost ready to hit the market.

In the UK, customers will be able to buy the Nokia N900 starting November 16 and, depending on the contract and data plan they choose, they can get the smartphone even for free.

For example, you won’t have to pay anything for the N900 is you choose a 2-yr contract agreement with a £35 monthly plan from Orange (which includes 900 minutes). There are also many O2 deals – for instance, £30 per month for two years lets you have the N900 at only £10.

To check out all the Nokia N900 deals available in the UK, visit Omio (note that there aren’t any deals for Vodafone and T-Mobile at the moment).

Via Pocket-lint

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Cheap Nokia 1280, 1616, 1800, 2220 slide and 2690 announced

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:11:32 +0000

Nokia’s starting to make a habit out of announcing many new affordable phones at the same time.

The Finnish giant has just unveiled five new models that will be available around the world soon: Nokia 1280, Nokia 1616, Nokia 1800, Nokia 2220 slide and Nokia 2690.

Nokia 1280 is the company’s cheapest phone to date, as it will retail at only €20 (about $30).

The 1280 looks more like a toy than a real phone, and features S30 UI, a 96 x 68 pixels monochrome display, GSM-only connectivity, flashlight, alarm, calendar, MP3 ringtones, FM radio and – interestingly – a 3.5mm headset jack (although there’s no headset included in the box). The handset is dust and scratch resistant, and has changeable color covers. Its battery should last up to 8.5 hours in talk-time mode, or 22 days in stand-by mode.

The Nokia 1280 also supports Nokia Life Tools, the service that’s already available in India and will be launched in Indonesia in December 2009.

The next two phones, Nokia 1616 and Nokia 1800, look similar and feature 128 x 160 pixels color displays, flashlight, FM radio and support for Nokia Life Tools.

The Nokia 1616 and 1800 will cost €24 and €26 respectively.

Next we have the Nokia 2220 slide, a slider that we’ve seen before in several leaked photos.

The Nokia 2220 slide features Ovi Mail, GSM/GPRS connectivity, a 128 x 160 pixels color display, Bluetooth, 3.5mm headset jack, MP3 player, MMS, FM radio, Nokia Life Tools support, VGA photo camera, and 32MB of internal memory. The phone will cost €45.

Finally, the Nokia 2690 is a candybar that looks pretty nice and has most of the features the 2220 has, plus EDGE and MicroSD card support (up to 8GB).

Nokia 2690 will be available for €54.

Via Press release

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Nokia X3 passes the FCC, might hit the US soon

Ilinca Nita — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:37:31 +0000

The FCC has just approved the Nokia X3, an affordable music phone announced in early September (at the same time with the Nokia X6).

In case you don’t know yet, Nokia X3 is a slider that has no 3G, but features a 3.5mm headset jack, dedicated touch music keys on the side, Bluetooth 2.1, stereo speakers and stereo FM radio.

The S40 phone also features a 2.2 inch QVGA display, access to Ovi Store, 3.2MP camera with flash, and MicroSD card support (a 2GB card should be included in the box).

At the moment, there’s no word yet whether there will be US carriers to offer the X3 or not.

In Europe, the Nokia X3 will cost €115 ($169) unlocked, so US customers will probably be able to buy it at a similar price – assuming the phone will reach North America.

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Opera Mobile 10 launched for Symbian S60 (touch and non-touch)

Ilinca Nita — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:46:28 +0000

Opera announced the availability of Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian S60 phones from Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson.

Opera Mobile 10 beta works with Symbian S60 3rd and 5th edition, so it can be installed on both touchscreen and non-touchscreen phones.

The new version of Opera Mobile has a fresh design, it’s twice as fast as the older versions launched for Symbian, and comes with desktop-like features such as Speed Dial and tabbed browsing.

Here’s a video presentation of Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian:

You can download Opera Mobile 10 beta for free from Opera’s official website.

Via Press release

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Nokia will say goodbye to N-Gage in 2010

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:22:51 +0000

Launched in the first half of 2008, Nokia’s N-Gage mobile gaming platform will end its life sooner than everyone has probably thought. Nokia has just announced that N-Gage.com and the N-Gage Arena will stop being operational after 2010, while N-Gage games will be available for purchase until September 2010 only.

The reason for all this is Nokia’s new Ovi Store, which, apart from providing various apps, Maps and Music, will act as a “one store front with an even broader portfolio of games – games for everyone.”

From now on, there will be no new Nokia phones to come with N-Gage. However, there will still be previously-announced models that will be shipped with N-Gage pre-installed.

Most of Nokia’s new S60 and S40 phones will have Ovi Store pre-installed. Nokia is currently “working on offering more community elements through Ovi”, in order to compensate for the features that will be lost after N-Gage is no more.

Via All About Symbian

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Nokia to launch Qualcomm-based Symbian smartphone for AT&T

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:02:22 +0000

Remember Nokia’s plans to launch Qualcomm-based Symbian S60 smartphones in North America?

It turns out that one of these smartphones will be released through AT&T. Unfortunately, VentureBeat (the source of this rumor) doesn’t provide a launch date for the handset. However, since Nokia and Qualcomm said back in February that their first phones will be introduced in 2010, we should probably not expect AT&T to announce the rumored device this year.

There aren’t any clear details about this AT&T-bound handset, but Nokia and Qualcomm (which recently joined the Symbian Foundation) may want to use a Snapdragon processor for it.

Nokia released quite a few phones via AT&T this year, although none of them is high-end – the latest is the Nokia 6350, a cheap clamshell that’s offered for $30 on contract.

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Nokia Comes With Music from T-Mobile UK too

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 16:06:43 +0000

T-Mobile UK will be joining 3 and Orange into offering Nokia’s Comes With Music service to its customers.

Providing free and unlimited music downloads (for 1 year) from a list of more than 6 million tracks, Comes With Music will be offered by T-Mo UK bundled with a special chrome edition of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

The 5800 CWM will be available starting November 1, for free with any T-Mobile 2-yr plan of at least £30 per month. For comparison, the regular version of 5800 is offered for free with a plan of £15 per month.

Although it’s been around for about one year, Nokia Comes With Music only managed to attract a bit over 100,000 users globally. About 33,000 of those come from the UK, so I guess T-Mobile will manage to sell quite many chromed 5800 XpressMusic phones.

Via Pocket-lint

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Rogers launches Nokia Surge, prepares Nokia N86, LG Eve

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:03:34 +0000

Rogers Wireless, Canada’s largest mobile carrier, has launched the Nokia Surge – a QWERTY S60 phone that’s already available in the US from AT&T.

The features of Nokia Surge include a 2.4 inch QVGA display, HSDPA, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, GPS, Bluetooth, 2.5mm headset jack, 2MP camera and MicroSD card support.

Rogers sells the Surge for as low as $29.99 with a 3-yr contract agreement. Without a contract, the phone costs $279.99.

According to PhoneModo at the Howard Forums (via Mobile Syrup), Rogers is also getting ready to launch the Nokia N86 8MP (as rumored before), and the LG Eve – which is actually the Android-based LG GW620.

The Nokia N86 should cost $99.99, while the LG Eve will be only $49.99 (both with 3-yr contract agreements).

Rogers will also offer the BlackBerry Bold 9000 in white for $99.99, and the Xperia X1 for a lower price than the current one – $99.99.

Apparently, the Canadian carrier will rebrand its smartphones and call them Webphones.

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Nokia 6788 announced – Nokia’s first TD-SCDMA phone

Ilinca Nita — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 09:00:31 +0000

Nokia’s plans to bring a TD-SCDMA handset to the Chinese market have finally come to fruition today, with the announcement of Nokia 6788, which is obviously the company’s first TD-SCDMA phone.

Made for China Mobile, the Nokia 6788 uses Symbian S60 and has a design “inspired by traditional Chinese furniture and architecture.”

The known features of Nokia 6788 include: 2.8 inch QVGA display, 5MP autofocus camera with Led flash, and MicroSD card support.

Here’s what the new phone looks like:

“Nokia sees TD-SCDMA as being central to the successful evolution of 3G in China, and so is fully committed to this 3G standard. With a wide range of integrated China Mobile applications, the Nokia 6788 marks a new level of collaboration with China Mobile and offers enriched experiences to China’s 3G users. Nokia plans to introduce more TD-SCDMA phones in the near future, further boosting the development of this 3G standard in China,” declared Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia.

Nokia will launch the 6788 sometime in December, for a price that is not known at the moment.

Via Press release

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Nokia’s Here and Now updated, includes movies and restaurants

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 17:36:01 +0000

Nokia Here and Now, the beta application announced back in April, has just been updated.

Designed to provide instant access to various info directly on your phone, the application now adds nearby movie listings, as well as nearby restaurants.

The new release also fixes some bugs and solves a “nasty wrong location problem that had” the app’s developers “puzzled for quite a while”.

Here and Now is currently not compatible with Nokia S60 5th Edition phones, but it works with most S60 3rd Edition FP1 and FP2 phones, as well as with select S40 handsets (like Nokia 7610 Supernova, 7510 Supernova, 6700 Classic, 6600 Slide, 6600 Fold, 6300i, 6210 Navigator, 6303 Classic, 3710 Fold and 3600 Slide).

To download Nokia Here and Now, head on over tot the Nokia Beta Labs website.

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Nokia sues Apple, claims iPhone infringes 10 of its patents

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:54:55 +0000

In a surprising announcement, today Nokia said that it has sued Apple for infringing no less than ten patents “for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards.”

The patents cover speech coding, wireless data, encryption and security, and Nokia claims that they’re infringed by all of Apple’s iPhones – starting with the 2.5G model launched in 2007.

Nokia (which recently said its high-end N900 won’t be launched this month) mentions that the ten patents are already licensed to 40 companies around the world, including all the major phone vendors.

Here’s what Ilkka Rahnasto, Vice President, Legal & Intellectual Property at Nokia, declared:

“The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for. Apple is also expected to follow this principle. By refusing to agree appropriate terms for Nokia’s intellectual property, Apple is attempting to get a free ride on the back of Nokia’s innovation.”

Nokia’s complaint against Apple was filed with the Federal District Court in Delaware, US. If Nokia’s claims turn out to be true, Apple will probably have to pay a lot of money to the Finnish company.

Via Press release

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Nokia investigating Carphone for unauthorized sales of its 5530 inventory

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:56:06 +0000

Nokia UK is apparently investigating Carphone Warehouse for selling tens of thousands of 5530 XpressMusic phones on the grey market.

Carphone launched the Nokia 5530 in the UK on August 11, after it ordered about 130,000 units from the Finnish phone maker.

According to MobileNewsCWP, more than half of the units were “offered to the UK trade at rock-bottom prices, explicitly for export outside of Europe” – which seems to be against the terms of Carphone’s exclusivity deal with Nokia.

Several thousands of the Carphone-marked Nokia 5530 phones that were exported overseas have re-appeared in the UK. They’re sold at prices that are lower than the best prices offered by UK-accredited partners – this hurting sales via the mentioned partners.

Nokia obviously doesn’t want its UK stock to be exported, because this “skews country sales figures, associated marketing budgets and local logistics operations.”

We’ll bring updates on the matter as soon as something new comes up.

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Nokia N900 delayed a bit, will start shipping in November

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:31:42 +0000

If you’ve been eagerly waiting for the Nokia N900 to become available, it looks like you’ll have to wait a bit longer.

Nokia initially announced that the new Maemo 5 handset would be on sale starting October, but this won’t happen.

According to Peter Schneider (Head of Marketing, Maemo Devices), the Nokia N900 will start shipping “during November” – and since no exact date is given, this might mean we’ll get to see the N900 in stores in late November or even early December.

Well, until the N900 hits the market, you can check out our review of it – part 1, part 2 and part 3.

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Nokia is exploring 3D multi-touch interface

Staska — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:52:53 +0000

By now, almost everyone has figured what a good touch interface on a mobile device should look like. Also, almost everyone is dabbling with at least some sort of multi-touch features on mobile devices.

Nokia is no exception here.

While Symbian based Nokia touch handsets might still be lagging behind the competition, their Maemo 5 based N900 shows, that Nokia has finally learned how to make a really good touch based mobile device. The next version, due sometime next year promises to be even better.

Meanwhile, Nokia R&D labs are already looking beyond multi-touch.

In this patent application, Nokia is exploring a 3D multi-touch interface for the mobile devices, that reacts not only to your finger movements, but also to the strength with which your finger is pressing the screen.

The 3D multi-touch interface is enabled via a combination of capacitive touch screen and a number of force sensors, that are able to measure the force you press the screen with, and also the direction of that force as you move a finger on a touchscreen display.

The actual implementation of this technology might be pretty far off, but a device with a well implemented 3D multi-touch interface, coupled with the Nokia haptikos tactile touchscreen, we’ve seen cooking in their R&D labs, might be really something.

When it comes out eventually.

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Nokia Sports Tracker becomes a startup – Sports Tracking Technologies

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:19:56 +0000

The creators of Sports Tracker, one of Nokia’s most successful mobile applications, have decided to form a company of their own, called Sports Tracking Technologies Ltd.

Sports Tracking Technologies Ltd was announced as part of the Nokia Technopolis Innovation program, which has the purpose of converting “Nokia’s unused ideas and innovations into growth businesses through both founding new companies and by licensing them to selected Finnish ICT companies for further development and exploitation”.

Jussi Kaasinen and Ykä Huhtala are the core developers behind Sports Tracker. While Nokia isn’t directly involved in their new startup, the Finnish giant will be a client of Sports Tracking Technologies. The STT team is reportedly growing and working to bring enhanced features and “compatibility refinements for products and services which promise to remain wholly sports-centric.”

The official Sports Tracking Technologies website can be accessed at this address. Anyway, at the moment, the Sports Tracker app can still be downloaded from Nokia’s website.

Via The Symbian Blog

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Nokia 2220 Slide in new photos, should be released this quarter

Ilinca Nita — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 09:03:39 +0000

Although it’s not officially announced, the Nokia 2220 Slide has appeared once again, this time in live photos.

As its name suggests, the 2220 Slide (or 2220s) is a new Nokia slider phone. Most of its features are on the entry-level side, which means that its retail price will be quite low, possibly around $100.

The Nokia 2220 Slide is based on S40 and comes with dual band GSM connectivity (900/1800 MHz), a 128 x 160 TFT display, 3.5mm headset jack, FM radio, Opera Mini, VGA photo camera and 10MB of internal memory. Its battery can provide up to 8 hours of talk time, or up to 400 hours of stand-by time.

Nokia should launch the 2220 Slide before the year’s end and customers in emerging markets will probably be very interested in checking it out.

Via Daily Mobile

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Fun stuff with Nokia N900: P2P/ Bittorent downloads and Xvid/AVI movie playback

Staska — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 16:03:02 +0000

Before I checked this out, I thought that P2P/BitTorrent clients on smartphones was one of the things the people just did not do.

I guess, I was wrong. It seems that every major mobile platform has one.

On the other hand, since I use Bittorent mainly to catch up with the U.S. shows, like Lost, FlashForward, Mentalist, etc; that are still not available here, in Eastern Europe, I never saw a reason to try one on my smartphone.

So far, even the handsets with enough screen real estate, to consider watching a movie on it, required some serious video transcoding in order to be able to watch the thing. So it was a much more easy thing to do on my PC.

But with Nokia N900 feeling more and more like a small computer in my hand, I thought I’ll give it a try.

And it worked! I was able to download Xvid/Avi formatted show episode of CSI from P2P site and watch it on my Nokia 900.

Well, it wasn’t glitch free, or seamless. But it was pretty easy to do. All I needed was to download and install Transmission P2P app (beta version only, for now). And find a torrent to download. That’s it. I clicked the link to the torrent, was asked whether I wanted to open it with Transmission, said yes, and the download started. When it finished downloading, I checked the new “Downloads” folder with file manager. The new show episode was there and played without a hitch.

The whole process was a bit buggy, and I managed to crash the system a couple of times. But that’s what you can expect from beta version of app and unfinished firmware. It was also very resource intensive. P2P download slowed down the multitasking capabilities of Nokia N900 to the point of being unusable. While it still worked, getting to app dashboard and starting other apps took tens of seconds.

I used my home Wi-Fi for the download. And it was pretty power hungry. A single download of 40 min, 380 MB episode, consumed about 15-20% of my battery in about 30 minutes.

Still, the main thing is that it worked. The bugs will be fixed eventually. And, if during my travels I’ll find myself with nothing to do, few hours to kill and Wi-Fi or more generous HSDPA connection, I’ll know what to do.

Here’s the video I took of the whole P2P download process on Nokia N900:

And yes, I know, this pirating stuff is not exactly within the limits of the law But, they won’t give us a single legal way to get any digital content here, so, frankly, I do not care much.

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Nokia CWM has slightly over 100K users after one year

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:47:29 +0000

Launched by Nokia in October 2008, the Comes With Music service doesn’t seem to have the success Nokia has hoped for.

According to MusicAlley, in July this year CWM had a total of 107,227 users in the nine markets were it’s available – that’s not exactly a great number, since Nokia has surely invested a lot in Comes With Music.

Moreover, if we look at the 6 million user base that Spotify had after one year, Nokia’s results are actually shameful (sure, the services are not exactly the same, although Spotify is coming to mobile phones soon).

Here are the July numbers for each of the nine mentioned markets, along with the date Comes With Music was launched there:

UK – 32,728 users (October 2008)
Singapore – 19,318 users (February 2009)
Australia – 23,003 users (March 2009)
Brazil – 10,809 users (April 2009)
Sweden – 1,101 users (April 2009)
Italy – 691 users (April 2009)
Mexico – 16,344 users (May 2009)
Germany – 2,673 users (May 2009)
Switzerland – 560 users (June 2009)

Surprisingly low is the CWM user base in Italy, a country where virtually everyone has a cell phone.

Well, maybe Nokia will have better luck in India, the world’s second largest mobile market, where Comes With Music should be released by the end of 2009.

Via MoCoNews

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Bell’s HSPA November Lineup Leaked

Brad Molen — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:29:14 +0000

No, it’s not your imagination. It’s true that Bell has been a prominent figure in the phone news as of late. They’ve got some crazy stuff going on — most good, some bad. Fortunately we have more news on the good end of the stick.

BGR has leaked the new lineup that’s supposed to start off their voyage into HSPA+. Some phones are obvious while a few others are a pleasant sight to see.

First off, we all knew the iPhone is coming next month to Bell, so no surprise there. There have also been rumors of the Samsung Omnia II floating around. But we have learned that the Bold and Bold 2 (9700) are coming, Samsung Impact, LG Xenon, Nokias 2730 and 6350, and 3 HSPA laptop cards from Novatel (2 of which will offer 21 Mbps, a third will have 7.2).

Notable items: both the Bold and Bold 2 will be sold at the same time, though the original is rumored to be offered at a lower price ($149 for original, $249 for new). The iPhones will be $149, 199 and 299 for the 8, 16 and 32 GB respectively.

That’s all that was on the list for now, but I’m sure there will be a few others coming out that we haven’t heard of. Just make sure you get a new contract with these phones so you don’t get charged an additional monthly fee.

via BGR

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Nokia N920, keyboardless, big screen N900 successor shows up (update: photoshopped)

Staska — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:17:09 +0000

Interesting rumor poped- up on the net today. And I have no idea whether it’s true or not.

But if it is, the pictured product has leaked darn early.

We have just got our hands on Nokia N900, which is not even shipping yet. And now the image of what is claimed to be it’s successor, Nokia N920 Internet Tablet showed up at Nokiaport.de forum, and was discovered there by Chinese site InMobile365.

(Sort of pretty circuitous route, I’d say, which does not ad much to the credibility of the rumor)

Nevertheless, the picture of Nokia N920 looks real enough, so here it is:

It is said that Nokia N920 will come with a big 4.13” capacitive touchscreen display, thin body, and will not have a physical keyboard. That’s about all that is known about the new device for now.

But don’t expect it anytime soon. The best case scenario for Nokia N920 launch would be around Mobile World Congress 2010 in February, though I doubt that. More likely, we will see it sometime in spring/summer of 2010.

Update: The picture above is not real. We have received a comment from the author of the pic from Nokiaport.de:

This is just an artwork of mine!
I never claimed this phone to be Nokia N920 or published any details!

Please read the official statement of NokiaPort.de:
http://www.nokiaport.de/forum/thread.php?thread…
PDF:
http://www.nokiaport.de/temp/Denial_-_I_just_pu…

Regards,
[ExiTuS], NokiaPort.de

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Nokia N900 review, pt2. First impressions. 6 things I hate about N900

Staska — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:16:30 +0000

Let’s continue with my first impressions about Nokia N900 Maemo 5 handset.

Check out the first part of Nokia N900 review, for the things I liked most about it. And, to tell the truth, they are just the start of the things I really like about this handset.

But before I go on, and continue to sing praises to Nokia N900, there are some things that I just have to get off my chest.

These are annoyances I encountered using Nokia N900.

I know that Nokia N900/Maemo is a work in progress, not expected to reach it’s full potential until Maemo 6 comes out next year, and that the device I have uses a pre-release firmware. I am taking this into account.

Also, before I begin, I want to say the the number of bugs and missing features that I encountered so far, were few and far between.

But they still were there, and are worth talking about.

(Initially, this post was called “8 things I hate about Nokia N900”. But two of them turned out to be a non-issues, so they are only the things I used to hate for the first two days. And don’t pay much attention to this “hate” thing. It is purely an attention grabber I am only annoyed, irritated or disappointed by most of them, and none are a deal breaker that will make me like my N900 less.)

Anyway, here we go.

6 things I hate about Nokia N900. Listed in no particular order.

1. Almost exclusively landscape orientation. Lack of portrait mode. This one’s a biggie. When Maemo devices were only internet tablets, exclusively landscape orientation made sense. But N900 is not only the tablet anymore. Yes, it is mobile computer, and a great internet browsing device.

But N900 is also a thing, that is meant to be used as a smartphone. And, in a lot of cases, smartphones are meant to be used with a single hand. Which, if not impossible, is extremely hard to do in a landscape orientation.

Thank god Nokia made dialer app work in portrait mode. This way I can, at least, make calls holding the phone in one hand. But the portrait mode, for now, is exclusively for the phone calls – dialing the number on keypad, or selecting a contact to call.

It does not even extended to SMS. For even the shortest message I have to switch back to landscape mode.

Some applications and interaction modes work also best in a portrait mode, which is impossible to do for now.

Fortunately, the absence of landscape mode is not some strange design decision on Nokia’s part. They simply did not have enough time to include that before the device launch.

Nokia knows the problem, is working on it, and will provide fix in time. In fact, during Maemo Summit last week in Amsterdam, head of Nokia Maemo group promised portrait mode support in N900 browser by the end of the year, with pervasive portrait support throughout the device later.

2. Password entry while browsing. It’s a small thing, but pretty annoying.

Usually, on a mobile device, when you press a key entering hidden symbols for a password field, the actual symbol pops up for a short while, and then is replaced with a star.

This does not happen with N900 browser. When I use physical keyboard to type in a password on some site , all I can see in the entry field – are the stars. It does not show what symbol I entered, even for a short while. Then, when the password does not work, I am left guessing whether I forgot it, or just made a typo on those tiny keys. Trying to figure out which one it is, by entering password again and again, is no fun, and can leave me banned from some sites for hours.

Fortunately, there is a sort of workaround for this problem. Close the device, and use virtual keyboard instead. When you encounter password, or any other data entry field, tap on it. Virtual keypad with a separate data entry field pops-up, and works as it is supposed to work on any full touch mobile device.

But I still would like to have similar functionality when using physical keyboard as well. Including pop-up data entry field for forms. Those forms are mighty small on such a small display. And all that zooming in and out when filling in the forms can be a real pain in the behind.

3. Small icons with big “Close” fields in ‘Desktop setup” mode. I don’t know if there is any easy way around it, but moving shortcut icons, when setting up desktop panels, is real pain.

Maybe it’s just my big fingers, but the icon size to “close” button size ratio is really small. Which results in me accidentally removing the icon, instead of moving it to some place else, more often then not.

4. Not enough desktop panels, or space on them. I am already starting to run out of the space for widgets, shortcuts and bookmarks on the 4 desktop panels I have available to me. Even with an extremely limited amount of widgets and apps available for Nokia N900 for now.

I dread to think what I will do when app and widget development for Maemo 5 takes off.

So please, Nokia, in some future firmware upgrade, give us the possibility to have more desktop panels. Or at least make some of them scrollable.

5. Maps and Navigation. When I travel to some place, Maps&Navigation apps become a key for the mobile device I carry. Right now, I’m planning my trip to SEE 2009 in London, and want to take the N900 as a main mobile device for a ride. However, available maps and navigation options, make me think hard about that.

I am used to using Google maps and Ovi Maps 3.0 on my trips. For some things Google maps are better, for others OVI maps shine. Neither of which are available on Nokia N900 yet.

What I am left with right now – are Ovi Maps 1.00. Which are kind of OK for many things on the go. But when you are used to much better OVI Maps 3, and the latest in Google maps, this “kind of OK” thing sucks. And it is a significant step down from the mapping/navigation experience, I got used to on my 3 year old Nokia N95.

No PC/cloud Ovi syncing, no easy way (that I found) to download maps in advance, no street view, inferior search, etc; Duh.

Please, Nokia, Google, port your latest mapping apps to Maemo 5/N900 as soon as you can. I really need them.

6. Which brings us the problem of general lack of apps for the device.

Yes I know, I know. This is just a pre-release version, and in a week or few,quite a few more Maemo apps will become available through OVI store, Maemo Select and Maemo.org Extras.

I also know, that adding Maemo.org testing catalogue to N900, gets you quite a few additional cool beta apps right now.

And then, with the QT 4.6 integration, many more apps are on the way in the following months. Whether ported from Symbian and other platforms, or developed exclusively for Maemo.

It’s just me, being impatient, ranting and venting. Still, could we have all the cool apps I played with on Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile and iPhone, running on Maemo. Tomorrow, please!

Things I hated about Nokia N900 for the first two days. But found a solution

And then there are a couple of things I fumed about for the first two days, and have already made them a part of this post. They are somewhat related – issues with locking and unlocking of Nokia N900. But it turns out it was mainly my bad, with the solution right in front of my nose.

Still, I hate to waste all of that text and ranting passion, and some of you may be having the same problems. So I’ll keep the already resolved complaints here, and then tell you why they are not the problem anymore.

Device unlock screen with no info at all. This one’s a rather smallish thing, that, I think, can be easily fixed. But it’s extremely annoying to me.

Since setting up Nokia N900 as a mobile computer, security was one of the key things I was worried about. With passwords to my all e-mail accounts, sites like Google Adsense, this blog, Facebook account, etc; stored on the device, and only a click away, I was extremely conscious what can happen if my Nokia N900 gets stolen by a person who knows what to do about it.

Fortunately, Nokia N900 provides a possibility to lock the handset after certain amount of time. And it works pretty well.

Except for one thing. When you want to check what’s happening on N900 after it’s locked, all you get is the screen with a keypad to enter the unlock code.

Now, I haven’t been wearing a wristwatch for more then 10 years now. I always use my mobile for that. You know the drill. Want to know what time is it? Take out the phone. Press a key or two. Done.

Except that now I have to use unlock switch, and then enter the full unlock code, every time I want to check time! Oh, and that portrait/landscape thing I talked earlier about? Yes, the unlock keypad is available only in landscape mode. So I have to use both of my hands for the whole thing.

Status/message notifications on the device unlock screen, showing how many calls I missed, e-mails and messages received, would be nice, too. But please, please, please put at least the friggin clock on the unlock display ASAP!!

Unlock key on the right/side bottom of N900. And whose bright idea was that? When in landscape mode, and holding the device with two hands, it works OK. But in portrait mode, and when I hold N900 in the palm of my hand, the unlock switch is at the bottom of the handset. Do you know how easy it is to get to that switch, at the bottom, when you hold the device in the same hand? Just try it

Solution.Well, it turns out I was raving and ranting about these unlocking things in vain. Nokia N900 already has resolved these issues very elegantly. Instead of using “Screen lock/unlock” key or sliding keyboard to activate a touchscreen, use “Power On/Off” key instead.

When you press the power key, display backlights, and a screen with time, date and a very iPhonish slider appears. Swipe the slider and the screen unlocks.

I would still like to see missed calls, message info on this screen, but my main itch –no easily accessible clock – has been scratched away.

There you have it. These are all my gripes after playing with Nokia N900 quite intensively, for the last 3 days.

I guess I could talk about one other thing – lack of MMS support on Nokia N900. Which is true. For now, Nokia N900 does not support MMS messaging. But I haven’t sent a single MMS message in my life. So I simply don’t care about this.

Overall, for a device with pre-release firmware, and an OS that is one generation away from completion, there are amazingly few bugs and things that piss me off on Nokia N900. Whatever I try on it, you are much more likely to hear shouts like ‘Wow!”, “Holy crap, that’s cool!” from me, instead of “F*&k”, “What a piece of crap!”, “Bollocks!” that I got used to, testing many other Nokia and non Nokia devices.

And now, off to singing praises again and more N900 testing. Expect the next review installment of the review early next week.

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Nokia Booklet 3G announced for AT&T, coming soon to a Best Buy store near you

Ilinca Nita — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:28:45 +0000

Nokia has just announced that its first netbook, the much-talked-about Nokia Booklet 3G, will be launched in the US in collaboration with Best Buy and AT&T.

The Nokia Booklet 3G will be offered for $299.99 with a 2-yr AT&T Data Connect plan, or for $599.99 free of contract.

Best Buy plans to take orders online and in stores starting October 22, but the netbook will be actually available in mid November.

As expected, the Booklet 3G will come with Microsoft’s new Windows 7 on board, as well as with lots of nice features, including embedded HSPA connectivity, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, Ovi Maps, Ovi Suite, a 10.1 inch HD-ready display, HDMI port for HD video out, and up to 12 hours of battery life.

Via Nokia

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Nokia N900 review, part 1. First impressions. Things I really liked

Staska — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:37:21 +0000

Yesterday, around lunchtime, my test model of Nokia N900 arrived at the door.

And, with a few hours of sleep interrupt, I’ve been playing with it ever since. For about 15 hrs. now. So I think it’s time to put it away for a while, and share some first impressions I got from playing around with Nokia N900.

The bottom line – I’m impressed. Very impressed. Really, really impressed.

On the other hand, I know understand why Nokia is insisting that N900 is more of a work in progress, “step 4 in a 5 step program”, that it’s a niche device and should be sold mostly to early adopters, who like to push the limits, but won’t mind a bug or two, or some common elsewhere, but missing in N900 feature.

And Nokia N900 is certainly not a phone. While you can feel that most Nokia smartphones are designed as phones, with “smart” functions added on top and around, N900 feels the opposite. Like a small screen computer with a phone functionality added on top.

I will also mention, that the device I have is a pre-release handset, and Nokia is still ironing out minor bugs, so there’s a good chance that quite a few of the bugs/shortcomings I noticed, will be fixed/resolved by the time N900 hits the streets in a week or two.

Nokia N900 first impressions. Starting-up

Just like any new handset, when you boot it up, you are greeted with a screen to enter the things like time, date, language, regional settings, etc. After that, N900 launches, with a screen looking something like this:

and lets you play a “Get started” video, which does what it says pretty well, and quickly takes you through the main features and functions of the device.

Then it’s time to actually start exploring and playing with the handset. The 4 available desktop panels on Nokia N900 are somewhat filled up with the preinstalled widgets and shortcuts. To find my bearings around N900, I just started sliding from panel to panel with a swipe gesture, tapping around and checking out what each shortcut or widget does.

The problem is, I managed to, unintentionally, but very quickly, wipe out all the preinstalled shortcuts and widgets away from all the panels. I did it by simply by deselecting and then selecting again the active panels in “Desktop set-up”–>”Manage views” menu.

Which left me with a screen like this:

Completely empty spaces, without a single shortcut, widget or any other indication what to do. And remember, there is not a single physical or soft key on the front of the device. Which, at first, confused and pissed me off a bit, but then turned out to be for the best.

Filling things back was pretty intuitive and easy. Just tap at the top of the screen a couple of times to get to “desktop settings” menu, and start adding things back. Doing that without any hints and pre-conceptions of Nokia engineers of what’s important to me, allowed me to customize the 4 available desktop panels of Nokia N900, exactly the way I wanted.

Nokia N900 first impressions. Touchscreen, navigation and usability

It’s a conventional wisdom that resistive touchscreen will always be inferior to the capacitive one. Nokia N900 has a resistive touchscreen, so, no matter what, it can not be very good.

And, like most conventional wisdoms, this one’s is also dead wrong. The touchscreen on Nokia N900 is very responsive, fast and easy to use. I did not have any problems with it so far.

Overall phone navigation is pretty well thought out too.

You have 4 desktop panels, where you can place any installed widgets, shortcuts to various apps, functions, or contacts. You can move through panels with a swipe gesture.

At the top left corner of the screen there is an “Applications menu”.

Tap on it once and it brigs up a dashboard where active/running application thumbnails and notification about missed calls, messages, e-mails, etc; are displayed.

Tap twice, and you are taken to the application menu.

In the first open window of app menu, only main default N900 apps and functions are displayed. And the non scrollable area contains only 15 icons, so it can be a bit confusing at first - I got an impression that there’s only very limited amount of apps available. However, when you press the bottom right “More…” icon, another , bigger/scrollable page opens, where various installed and ready to be installed apps are displayed.

Tapping anywhere at the top of “app menu” screen, takes you back to active app dashboard. Taping anywhere outside active apps, takes you to the main desktops panels. Tapping on an active up, of course, brings up that app.

Overall, it took me between 15 to 30 minutes to get used to it, and then I was able to navigate anywhere in the device extremely fast, with a few intuitive taps and swipes.

Next to the “Applications menu” you have a “Status bar” , where relevant connectivity/phone status symbols are displayed. Things like – on-line offline, connected to 3G Networks, Wi-Fi data connection, remaining battery power, time, etc;.

Tapping on a status bar, brings up “Status menu”, where you can quickly adjust things like time/alarms, internet connection options, availability status on IM services, phone profile, Bluetooth, USB, etc;

Tapping anywhere else at the top of the touchscreen, brings up the set up options/menu for the active Window. If it’s the main desktop panel, options to add, delete and move around various icons and shortcuts, change background and themes, appear. If it’s a browser window – you get various options for the browser, in phone app – telephone app set-up and so on.

Nokia N900 First Impressions. Phone, SMS, VoIP/Skype and IM integration

Contrary to most of the other traditional smartphones, Nokia N900 is not centered around the phone function. There are no “Answer”/ “Hang up” buttons or menu keys on it, no default/compulsory phone access from the home screen. On Nokia N900, telephony is truly just another application. Not much different from Skype, Google Talk, Jabber and other instant messaging clients.

In fact, Google Voice, Skype, Nokia IM, Jabber and SIP clients are natively integrated in the phone app. For now, I had a chance to try only Google Talk and Skype on N900. But those two worked like a charm inside the main phone/contacts app.

To get GTalk and Skype running on N900, I only had to add them as “New accounts” with my login details. That’s it. All the contacts from both services were imported into my address book and the services are active whenever I am online.

When I want to contact a person, I just select a person and decide how I want to go about that: make a phone call, send an e-mail, send Skype/GTalk instant message or make a Skype call. There’s no functional difference, friction or difference in the telephony/contact app between any of these options. So you just select whichever is the most convenient mode of contact at this particular moment, and do it.

I already see my Skype (both free and paid) usage going through the roof with this, while at the same time reducing mobile phone bills too.

Well, there was one small inconvenience with all those multiple accounts merged into the phone book. Since I’m not too careful or diligent in maintaining contact lists on those services, the merged phone book got kinda messy, and required some manual cleaning and record merging. But it was worth it. And, also, with the option to delegate a desktop panel or two exclusively to the contacts I communicate with the most, I’m now in touch with them much better then I was before.

Nokia N900 first impressions. Internet browsing and multi-tasking.

Internet browsing and multitasking are probably the coolest features of Nokia N900.

For now, I think, the internet browser and overall Net browsing experience on Nokia N900 ,is probably the the best one among the mobile devices of similar size.

It is almost a full fledged, touch optimized Firefox browser with complete HTML, Flash, Javascript and other Web standard support. Simply put, websites on Nokia N900 look the same (if only with a smaller symbols and elements) as they would look on a desktop PC with 800 pixel wide resolution display.

It takes a little time to get used to Nokia’s strange clockwise/counterclockwise finger rotation gesture for zooming. But once you get used to it, Internet browsing experience on N900 becomes the best, compared to any other device around (iPhone included). Of course, it is still not a complete desktop experience, there is only so much you can do on a 3.5 inch screen. But it is the next best thing for now.

And Nokia N900 does a true, almost PC level multi-tasking without breaking a sweat. Here’s a screenshot of of Nokia N900 dashboard with 6 open browser windows, 9 active applications (File manager, Phone app, Conversations app, Ovi Maps, E-mail app, Chess and Blocks games, PDF reader with an e-book open, Gallery app) and an mp3 podcast playing in the background.

And, with all that stuff running, there was no significant slowdown in overall speed of the device.

Well, this first impression thing starts running pretty long. I think I’m gonna take a brake for now and will be back tomorrow with part 2. Today was all praises of Nokia N900, tomorrow I’ll talk about the things that piss me off about it and some conclusions.

Stay tuned.

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Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 now out of beta

Ilinca Nita — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:11:36 +0000

Launched in June this year, Nokia Ovi Suite has now reached version 2.0.0.10 and is out of beta.

The Suite was designed to include essential features from Nokia’s desktop applications like Nokia PC Suite, Nokia Software Updater, Nokia Music, Nokia Map Loader and Nokia Nseries PC Suite.

At the moment, Nokia Ovi Suite is compatible with 142 Nokia phones and requires users to have a PC with Windows XP SP2 or newer, or Windows Vista SP1 or newer. In the future, Mac OSX might be supported as well.

You can download Nokia Ovi Suite 2.0 directly from here (EXE file), or from Nokia’s website – where you can also find more info about it.

Via Nokia Beta Labs Blog

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Nokia’s Maemo 6 to support capacitive displays, multi-touch

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:58:59 +0000

The Maemo 5-based Nokia N900 is a really nice piece of technology, but some may argue that the lack of multi-touch and the presence of a resistive touchscreen are not that cool.

Well, the next generation Maemo devices won’t have these problems.

According to UMPC portal, Nokia announced that Maemo 6 will support capacitive displays, as well as multi-touch. Moreover, Maemo 6-based handsets will support both landscape and portrait mode (the N900 works only in landscape mode).

Unfortunately, at the moment there’s no word on when Maemo 6 devices will be ready to hit the market. But let’s hope it will happen next year.

Via IntoMobile

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Nokia N86, 2730, 6750 and 6350 coming to Canada for the Holidays

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 11:05:37 +0000

Nokia fans over in Canada will soon be able to buy at least four new phones made by their favorite manufacturer: Nokia N86 8MP, Nokia 2730, Nokia 6750 and Nokia 6350.

It’s not clear yet if any of these phones will be picked up by a carrier, but Rogers and Fido could certainly do it.

Also, no pricing details were unveiled, but we do know that all these handsets will be available in Canada in time for the Holiday season.

Coming as Nokia’s first 8MP camera phone, the N86 is an Nseries slider with S60 on board and features like Wi-Fi, GPS, HSDPA, 3.5mm headset jack, a QVGA AMOLED display, and 8GB of internal memory.

Moving on, the Nokia 2730 is a good-looking candybar with a 2 inch QVGA display, stereo FM radio, 3.5mm headset jack, and a 2MP camera.

Already available in the US through AT&T, Nokia 6750 and Nokia 6350 are two fold phones with QVGA internal displays, 3G and 2MP cameras.

Apart from the new phones mentioned above, Nokia will also launch the E71 in a new color, namely Holiday Red. It should cost $150 with a 3-yr Rogers agreement.

Via Mobile Syrup

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3 launches app store for Nokia and SE phones in Scandinavia

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 16:26:05 +0000

Today, Mobile Virtual Network Operator 3 has launched its own application store, which is currently available only in Denmark.

For the moment, the app store – apparently called 3apps – is compatible with Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones, but more handsets will probably be added soon.

The store features 500 applications organized in categories like Social Networking, Business, Entertainment and Health & Fitness.

The first phone to come with 3’s app store preinstalled is the eco-friendly Sony Ericsson Naite (which was announced by O2 UK yesterday).

Via Mobil.nu

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Nokia Booklet 3G comes on Oct. 22 to O2 Germany for €249 on contract

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:44:59 +0000

Nokia Booklet 3G, the first netbook to come under the Nokia brand, will be launched on October 22 in Germany, via O2.

The Booklet 3G will be offered for €249 ($365) with a 2-yr contract and a data plan of €20 ($29) per month.

Until now, O2 Germany is the only carrier that announced its intention to sell the Nokia Booklet 3G – but there will probably be others to come. If not, you’ll surely be able to buy the netbook free of contract soon. In the US, for example, it will be sold via Nokia’s stores and through Best Buy.

The Nokia Booklet 3G comes with Windows 7, an Intel Atom Z530 CPU at 1.6 GHz, HSPA, Wi-Fi, a 10 inch display with 1280 x 720 pixels, pre-installed Nokia services, and a 120GB SATA hard drive.

Via Nokia Conversations

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T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender, T-Mobile Tap and Nokia 3711 announced

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:54:16 +0000

Not long after unveiling the Samsung Behold II, T-Mobile USA has now announced more new phones from its holiday lineup: T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition, T-Mobile Tap, Nokia 3711 and Motorola Cliq (well, we already knew that the Cliq is coming).

The T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition is presented as being perfect for music lovers. This myTouch 3G remake has “a guitar-inspired wood-grain finish” and features a 3.5mm headset jack, as well as a 16GB memory card. The smartphone should be available “later this year”, coming with exclusive video and audio clips. Unfortunately, there’s no image of it available yet.

The price of T-Mobile myTouch 3G Fender Limited Edition was not announced, but it’s probably higher than the price of the regular myTouch 3G ($149.99 on contract).

Next we have the T-Mobile Tap, which seems to be a rebranded Huawei U7510.

T-Mobile Tap features 3G, GPS, TeleNav location based services, stereo Bluetooth, and a 2MP camera. Its price and exact release date were not unveiled.

And finally, we have the Nokia 3711, an S40 clamshell phone with a hidden external display, 3G, GPS, Nokia Maps, Bluetooth and a 2MP camera.

T-Mobile USA will sell the Nokia 3711 starting the coming weeks. No word yet on the phone’s price.

Via Press release

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Flash 10.1 to Offer Full Mobile Flash Support with HD Video

Brad Molen — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:01:19 +0000

If you use Android, WebOS, Windows Mobile, Blackberry or Symbian, you will be incredibly happy to hear that Adobe is updating Flash to 10.1 with some great features, including FULL Flash support on your device.

If you use iPhone, sorry. No progress to report there.

So here’s what Flash 10.1 will have to offer: full Flash with GPU acceleration so that you can play YouTube videos in HD. It will add in support for accelerometers, multitouch, and gestures. It will also work for Netbooks as well.

Does this mean you’ll be able to watch Hulu on your mobile device? Yes, yes it does. On every major smartphone OS except one.

There’s only one bad piece of news here, and that’s the waiting time; while betas will be coming out this year for WinMo and WebOS, full rollout won’t be taking place until mid-2010. Android and Symbian betas will be early next year.

But still, we’re incredibly happy to hear how much better the mobile internet experience will be getting in the very near future.

And it’s one more checkmark for any smartphone besides the iPhone.

via Adobe

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Nokia 2330 headed to T-Mobile USA

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 14:21:29 +0000

Although T-Mobile USA has just launched the Nokia 5130, the carrier is getting ready to release yet another Nokia candybar.

The phone in question is Nokia 2330, announced by Nokia way back in November 2008.

It’s a really low-end device, with features like: 128 x 160 pixels TFT display, dual-band GSM/GPRS connectivity, Bluetooth, 2.5mm headset jack, stereo FM radio, My Faves, web2Go, and a VGA photo camera.

This is what T-Mobile’s Nokia 2330 looks like:

The 2330 should be available through T-Mobile “in the next few weeks”, probably for free on contract (the phone costs €50 in Europe, unlocked).

Via CellPhoneSignal

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Nokia 6350 announced by AT&T, only $29.99

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:39:45 +0000

It’s not only Verizon that announced a new Nokia phone today (the Nokia 2705 Shade), as AT&T went official with the Nokia 6350, too.

The 6350 is a rather simple flip phone with features that include: HSDPA connectivity, external music keys, AT&T Navigator, AT&T Video Share, web browser, email, 2MP camera and a battery that can last up to 4 hours in talk-time mode.

Nokia 6350 will be offered by AT&T starting October 4, in two color versions: red and graphite.

AT&T’s new Nokia phone is quite affordable: it will cost only $29.99 with a contract agreement for 2 years.

Via Nokia

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Nokia Booklet 3G to be a Best Buy exclusive in the US

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:35:01 +0000

Nokia Booklet 3G, the Windows netbook unveiled by Nokia back in August, will not be sold via too many retailers in the US.

More exactly, except for Nokia’s stores, Best Buy will be the only location where you’ll find the Booklet 3G,

As you may already know, Nokia Booklet 3G is powered by an Intel Atom Z530 CPU at 1.6 GHz and features a 10 inch display with 1280 x 720 pixels, lots of Nokia services, Wi-Fi, A-GPS, 1GB DDR2, 120GB SATA hard drive, and a 1.3 MP front facing camera.

The price of Nokia Booklet 3G from Best Buy is not known at the moment, but it will probably be of around $800.

Via PhoneScoop

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Verizon announces HTC Imagio, Nokia 2705 Shade, Motorola Barrage and more

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:37:00 +0000

Today, Verizon Wireless has announced no less than four new phones, as well as a netbook.

The most important new phone is, of course, the HTC Imagio, which is actually a smartphone that will come with Windows Mobile 6.5.

Verizon will sell the Imagio online starting October 6, and in retail locations starting October 20. The handset’s price is of $199.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement and after a $100 rebate.

For that money, you get the following features: 3.6 inch WVGA touchscreen display, TouchFlo 3D, HSDPA and EV-DO Rev. A connectivity, Wi-Fi, 3.5mm headset jack, 5MP autofocus camera, and V CAST Mobile TV (this service costs $15 per month).

Next we have the Nokia 2705 Shade, a clamshell touted as “one of the smallest phones to be offered by Verizon.”

Nokia 2705 Shade has internal and external displays, 1.3MP camera, Bluetooth, micro USB and a battery that can provide a talk-time of up to 5 hours. The phone will be available on October 6, in two versions (with or without camera), and users will be able to buy Xpress-on color covers for it. As for the price, Verizon asks only $29.99 for the 2705 Shade (with a 2-yr agreement).

The third new phone from Verizon, Motorola Barrage V860, is also a clamshell – but a rugged one that’s shock, vibration, water and humidity resistant.

The features of Motorola Barrage include: push-to-talk, VZ Navigator, 2MP camera and a 1170 mAh battery. The Barrage is available at Verizon starting today, for $129.99 with a 2-yr agreement and after a $50 mail-in rebate. There will also be a cameraless version, launched on October 21.

Verizon Razzle is the fourth new phone. As previously reported, this is a candybar with a QWERTY keyboard that swivels to unveil dedicated music controls. Other features include a 2.2 inch QVGA display, VZ Navigator, Bluetooth, 1.3MP camera and a 1GB card.

Verizon Razzle costs $69.99 on contract. It will be available starting October 6.

And finally we have the Gateway LT2016u – a new netbook with Windows XP, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, 10.1-inch WSVGA display, Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz processor, 1GB DDR2, and a 160GB hard drive.

Verizon will offer the Gateway LT2016u netbook starting October 4, for $149.99 with a 2-yr agreement and after a $100 mail-in rebate.

Via Mobile Burn

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Nokia Ovi Mail Setup app for S60 available now

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 16:08:42 +0000

Nokia has just launched the Ovi Mail Setup app for S60 – a beta application that allows Symbian S60 users to setup Ovi Mail on their smartphones.

Those who already have an Ovi Mail account can still use the Ovi Mail Setup app for S60, as it lets them configure the email client directly on an S60 device.

In addition to launching the new S60 app, Nokia has also updated the Ovi Mail webmail interface – the navigation is now simplified.

The Ovi Mail Setup app for S60 can be downloaded for free from Nokia Beta Labs (where a list of supported S60 handsets is also available).

Launched back in December 2008, the Nokia Ovi Mail service has reached more than 1 million users in August.

Via Nokia Beta Labs Blog

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Nokia to buy travel social network Dopplr for more than €10 million

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:28:20 +0000

After buying bit-side, Plum and Cellity, Nokia wants to continue this year’s acquisitions with Dopplr – a UK-based company that offers free travel social networking services via the Dopplr website.

According to TechCrunch, Nokia is ready to pay between €10 million ($14.7 million) and €15 million ($22.1 million) for Dopplr, which is currently run by CEO Marko Ahtisaari, an ex-Director of Design Strategy at Nokia.

Dopplr helps users by making their “travel planning smarter” and allowing them to share travel plans, find tips and get travel advices.

The company’s acquisition will probably allow Nokia to further enhance its own services, including Nokia Maps.

Somehow related: Dopplr has a free iPhone app (see above), called The Social Atlas app for iPhone and available here.

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Palm offers more shares for sale; Nokia interested in buying?

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:03:21 +0000

Palm has just announced that its public offering of common stock has been increased to 20,000,000 shares, at a price of $16.25 per share.

Palm expects to receive net proceeds of about $313.1 from the shares’ sale. The Sunnyvale-based smartphone maker says that it wants to use the money “for working capital and general corporate purposes”.

Interestingly, according to Bloomberg, some analysts believe that Nokia could be interested in buying shares from Palm (which recently unveiled its new Pixi smartphone).

Of course, at the moment there’s nothing official about Nokia’s intention to buy Palm stock. But things can surely become interesting if, say, Nokia would buy Palm for good – although this will probably never happen.

Via Palm

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Nokia Braille Reader to help visually impaired users read SMS

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 20:55:01 +0000

Nokia has just released a beta application that should allow blind and visually impaired users to read SMS.

Called Nokia Braille Reader, the app works on touchscreen phones, it uses the Braille alphabet and leverages on tactile feedback.

Developed in collaboration with the Finnish Federation of the Visually Impaired and the Tampere University, Nokia Braille Reader is compatible only with Nokia’s S60 5th Edition smartphones: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5530, Nokia 5230 and Nokia X6.

The video below should give you a better idea on how the application works:

Nokia Braille Reader is available as a free download from Nokia Beta Labs.

Via Nokia Beta Labs Blog

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Nokia 5130 XpressMusic available at T-Mobile USA

Ilinca Nita — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:43:44 +0000

As expected, today Nokia has officially announced the Nokia 5130 XpressMusic for T-Mobile USA.

Available in Europe for some time now, the 5130 is an S40 candybar with external music controls, 3.5 mm audio jack, stereo Bluetooth, FM radio and dedicated music player.

The phone also features a 2 inch QVGA display, email, 2MP camera, MicroSD card support and quad-band GSM/EDGE connectivity.

Nokia 5130 XpressMusic can be bought from T-Mobile USA in two color versions: white aqua and black red. The phone’s price is of 29.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement and after a $20 mail-in rebate.

The 5130 may not be as cool as the Android Motorola Cliq (which should be available from T-Mo in the next few months), but it certainly seems to be a good choice for those who want an affordable music phone.

Via Nokia

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Nokia XpressMusic 5130 Arrives Sept 16 to T-Mobile

Brad Molen — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 05:17:29 +0000

Is it a surprise that Nokia’s newest XpressMusic phone is coming to T-Mobile? Probably not; it’s no secret that T-Mobile and Nokia’s XpressMusic series have a tight bond.

According to CellPhoneSignal, the Nokia 5130 XpressMusic is coming as early as tomorrow, September 16. It will be available in red and aqua/white at time of launch.

As to be expected with the newest offering in this music-centric series of phones, there won’t be a lot of huge bells and whistles besides the essentials: 3.5 mm headset jack, FM radio with RDS, stereo bluetooth, external music controls, and it has a 2 MP camera thrown in.

It isn’t a very obvious product launch, considering it launches tomorrow and we still don’t know the planned price. The 5130 will be replacing the 5310 so it’s likely to be priced around the same level.

via CellPhoneSignal

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Nokia N900 coming to the US on September 27?

Ilinca Nita — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 22:29:58 +0000

Nokia N900 is already on pre-order in the US, but its official release date in the States is still unknown.

However, The Nokia Blog has it that a major US distributor will receive the new Maemo-based device on September 27, and start offering it a few days later.

The N900 will be sold at the pre-order price – $649.

Since the smartphone (or Internet Tablet, if you want to call it that way) has quad-band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) and tri-band WCDMA (900 / 1700 / 2100) connectivity, it will work on T-Mobile’s network. Of course, it can also be used with AT&T, but without 3G.

Coming as Nokia’s first Maemo-based device to have phone capabilities, the N900 features a 3.5 inch touchscreen display with 800 x 480 pixels, full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, GPS, FM transmitter, stereo speakers, 3.5mm headset jack, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera with video recording, and 32GB of internal memory (expandable with a MicroSD card).

Nokia recently said that it supports carrier customization for its Maemo products, so we shouldn’t be surprised if T-Mobile USA will soon offer the N900 on contract.

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Nokia Erdos 8800 luxury phone appears in video

Ilinca Nita — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:38:13 +0000

Nokia didn’t forget about its 8800 series of luxury phones, and it looks like it’s getting ready to launch a new 8800 handset this autumn.

Codenamed Nokia Erdos, the phone is, according to CellPassion, an “engineering masterpiece”.

Running on Symbian S60, the handset is made from a single piece of stainless steel.

Apparently, a piece of glass covers its display, hiding it when the phone is in stand-by, and becoming transparent when the screen is on. The phone also has a “rising keypad”, which matches the display’s level when you slide it.

The mains specs of Nokia Erdos include:

2.4 inch OLED display with 320 x 240 pixels and 16 million colors
Tri-band GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) and dual-band WCDMA connectivity
Wi-Fi
A-GPS
Stereo Bluetooth
5MP Carl Zeiss camera with autofocus, dual LED flash and video recording
8GB of internal memory
116.9 x 50.3 x 15 mm

No word yet on its price, but we know that the Nokia Erdos 8800 should be launched in October this year. Until then, you can take a better look at the phone in this video:

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Nokia will support carrier customization for Maemo

Ilinca Nita — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 19:05:01 +0000

A few days ago, Reuters reported that Nokia may not allow carriers to customize the software on its new Maemo devices, starting with the recently-announced N900.

Well, today Nokia came with an explanatory post at Nokia Conversations, saying that those were mere speculative stories.

The Finnish company’s plans with Maemo are “to focus on the consumer experience – integrating applications and services from Nokia, our broad community of developers and publishers and, of course, from our operator customers.”

This being said, Nokia will definitely allow mobile operators to customize the N900, as well as other upcoming Maemo devices.

This surely is great for operators, but it may not be that great for end customers, since not all of them are happy with the way their carriers modify the software of the phones they’re offering.

For the moment, there are no official announcements regarding Nokia N900’s availability via a mobile operator. However, there will almost surely be carriers to sell the smartphone / internet tablet – one of them is probably T-Mobile USA.

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Nokia 2220 slide to be colorful, simple and cheap

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 23:55:42 +0000

Nokia is getting ready to release a new entry-level phone that will probably be a hit in emerging markets: Nokia 2220 slide.

The 2220 slide is obviously a slider, and it looks like it will come in many color versions, including red, blue and green.

The handset uses Nokia’s S40 UI and it only has dual-band GSM connectivity (900/1800 MHz).

Its other features apparently include: 128 x 160 pixels display, 3.5mm headset jack, FM radio, Opera Mini browser, VGA camera, 10MB of internal memory, and a battery that should last up to 8 hours in talk-time mode, or up to 400 hours in stand-by.

According to Mobil.cz, Nokia 2220 slide will be priced at 2,200 CZK (about $126). No word yet on when the phone will be commercially available.

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Verizon announces the HTC Touch Pro2, Nokia 7705 Twist

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:59:19 +0000

Verizon Wireless has just announced the upcoming availability of two new QWERTY handsets: HTC Touch Pro2 and Nokia 7705 Twist.

Already available from Sprint and T-Mobile, the HTC Touch Pro2 is a high-end Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphone that comes with a 3.6 inch WVGA touchscreen display, TouchFLO 3D UI, full QWERTY keyboard, Wi-Fi, GPS, 3.2MP autofocus camera, 512MB ROM and 288MB RAM.

Verizon’s Touch Pro2 also has EV-DO and global connectivity (GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz and WCDMA/HSPA 2100 MHz).

Surprisingly, Verizon sells the HTC Touch Pro2 for only $199.99 on contract – much less than what Sprint and T-Mo are asking for the smartphone ($350). The Touch Pro2 will be available from Verizon starting September 11.

Unlike HTC Touch Pro2, Nokia 7705 Twist doesn’t seem to be a smartphone – so it probably uses Nokia’s S40 UI.

The 7705 Twist has a square-ish design, a swiveling QWERTY keyboard and a Contact Light Ring that “can be customized to identify a message or a call from those listed in the contact directory.”

The phone’s other features include EV-DO Rev. 0 connectivity, a 2.4 inch QVGA TFT screen, shortcut buttons for quick access to messaging, HTML browser, 3MP autofocus camera, “built-in mirror” and a 2.5mm headset jack.

Nokia 7705 Twist will be available online starting September 13, and in Verizon’s retail stores on September 21. The phone is priced at $99.99 with a 2-yr contract agreement.

Via Verizon, here and here

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Nokia Messaging IM Beta 2.0 adds support for E71, E63, Google Talk

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:22:11 +0000

Launched in June only for the Nokia E75 QWERTY slider, Nokia Messaging IM has now reached version 2.0 Beta.

The new application comes with support for two other Nokia smartphones, namely the E71 and E63 (more devices will be included soon). Nokia Messaging IM 2.0 Beta also adds support for Google Talk.

Nokia Messaging IM was created to provide a desktop-like Instant Messaging experience on your Nokia handset. The app lets you stay close to friends across various IM services, save conversations, log in as invisible and so on.

Nokia Messaging IM 2.0 Beta can be downloaded from the Beta Labs website.

A video preview of Nokia Messaging IM 2.0 Beta is available below:

Via Nokia Beta Labs Blog

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Nokia 6720 classic launched by Telstra in Australia

Ilinca Nita — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:14:42 +0000

Telstra, Australia’s largest mobile carrier, today announced the Nokia 6720 classic, a candybar first unveiled by Nokia back in February this year.

Available in Australia starting September 15, the Nokia 6720 classic is joining Telstra’s Next G and BlueTick line-up of phones.

The features of Telstra’s 6720 classic include: 2.2 inch TFT QVGA display with 16 million colors, GSM and HSDPA connectivity, GPS, Whereis Navigator, email (Microsoft ActiveSync), BigPond TV, Music player, 3.5mm headset jack, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, and a 1GB memory card included.

Telstra offers the Nokia 6720 classic for free to Consumer and Telstra Business customers who sing a contract agreement for $40 per month. Telstra Enterprise & Government customers can get the phone for free too, on an Enterprise Fleet Plan at $40 or higher.

Via Press release

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