Phone-Rush

N78 US 3G Being Shipped in The States for $560

After the N78 being available from online retailers for the past few days, Nokia has finally made it official with their N78 being available online on their site and at the Nokia Flagship stores. This phone is unique in particular for multiple reasons:

• It's marketed as a mid-range device offering the latest S60 FP2 firmware with US 3G.
• It's almost concurrently launched with the Euro-spec N78.
• It boasts a FM transmitter to stream music to any FM receiver within range.
• It has a Navi wheel and from the reviews it seems miles ahead of the original one used on the N81.

When the N78 was announced at MWC, I thought of it as a worthy backup phone for the N95-3 or as a great phone for somebody who wants to start with a US 3G S60 phone. It's now available for $560 before taxes and shipping. Hopefully I get a chance to play with one soon and get a better feel for the new tweaks and software running on the phone.

Deal of the Day: Nokia N95-3 w. Slingbox Solo for $549

   

    I was skimming through HowardForums today, and houman has found a great deal on buy.com for a Nokia N95-3 that is bundled with a Slingbox Solo for a great price of $549 with free shipping. Why the bundling of these two? With the Slingbox, you can have your all of your media (Cable or Satellite TV, DVD Player, Apple TV, and etc) be transmitted to your Nokia N95-3 (which supports hi-speed HSDPA and EDGE in the States) anywhere that you are.   
    You can do this with the Sling Player application that you can download in the Download! application of the N95-3. You can change channels from the application, and switch what type of device you are using straight from the SlingPlayer application. The video and audio quality is quite good, and obviously better than MobiTV for sure. I'd definitely recommend getting this bundle if you haven't already gotten yourself a N95-3, and want to have all of your media with you at any time.

MWC 2008: Nokia N78 Announced

Along side the announcement of the Nokia N96, the Nokia N78 was released. This phone is essentially the successor to the popular Nokia N73. It is enhanced with Wi-Fi, AGPS, FP2, FM Transmitter, and other software tweaks.

Here are my first impressions on this phone:

• The design is clean and simple, and except for the keypad, the buttons are well-spaced.
• In contrast in what I initially perceived, the softkeys are easy to press for the most part.
• The keypad feel is similar to the N82, so if you don't like that keypad, you probably won't like this keypad as well. I'm some what used to the N82, so that's no big problem for me.
• Like the N96, this phone is a fingerprint magnet.
• My rant on the N96 also applies to this phone as well, that is I wished that the multimedia button could be mapped for any application or process the user would specify.
• With all this in mind, I still think it's a worthy phone in its own right, and I would definitely love to give this phone a full spin as it becomes available.

Here are some pictures of the N78 taken on the launch day:

MWC 2008: Nokia N96 Announced

The cream of the crop of this year's announcement from Nokia is the Nokia N96, dubbed the "supercharged N95" depending on how you view it. Of course before the formal announcement everybody pretty much knew what this phone was all about.

Here are my first takes of this phone, being present in the Q & A session with the Nokia N96 product manager:

VZW announces "Any App, Any Device" option in 08

By Guest Author - Mehdi

Verizon Wireless has announced today that they will give their customers the option to use wireless devices and software that they do not offer on their network. Devices will be tested and if they meet the minimum technical standard, they will be activated. Tested and approved devices will be announced in a press conference later on. This option is going to be available starting early 2008. Devices will be tested in a $20 million dollar testing lab.

This is a huge leap for a CDMA service, because for years, customers have been restricted to devices and software that are offered by the service only.This is also a big step in leveling Verizon and other CDMA services with GSM services such as AT&T and T-Mobile. GSM networks basically allow any device that uses a SIM card and runs on the same frequency to run on their network. Sprint is doing something similar by unlocking CDMA phones for customers and allowing them to run on the Sprint network. With these services, Verizon and Sprint phones will now be compatible with each other's networks. As a Sprint customer I am delighted that I will finally be able to get hold of decent phones. CDMAs future is getting brighter.

You can listen to a replay of the teleconference on the Verizon website or call 877-519-4471 and use passcode 9505430. I ran into some trouble listening online, it stopped playing after 15 seconds, but the phone number worked fine.

Carnival Of The Mobilists #101

Carnival of the Mobilists hit their 100th issue last week, and I'd like to congratulate them with their hard work and consistency organizing this gathering of the mobilists. The 101th edition is hosted on Martin's Mobile Technology Page by Martin Sauter this week. There you can find this week's best articles about the mobile market and technology status. My submission is also included as well. So get ready to go tab-trigger-happy with the articles there. Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to guest host the Carnival.

For those who don't know what the Carnival of the Mobilists is, it's all about the round up of the best mobile technology articles of a particular week, guest hosted by a participant each week. Next week The Carnival is hosted by Symbiano-Tek.

Reminder: An Evening With S60 in San Francisco, I Like How This is Going

    Nokia's Marketing Team is in full gear, after the successful LA event, they're coming at it again in California as part of their unlocked campaign with a slightly different twist. This time it's an Evening with S60 event in San Francicso.

   

This event in contrast to the LA event will include the newest S60 phones from all lines of Nokia, including Nseries, Eseries, and the regular ones. I've been waiting for a long time to get my hands on with the E90, not only because until recently it was the king of the s60 phones in terms of overall functionality, but also a great productivity package as well.

    Of course different blocs of people will be there to mingle with. I'm currently working out the plans to get to SF for the event, so if you want to meet up and talk about anything you guys like if you're in the area, just drop a comment here.

    I'll update on this as the days get closer.

A Few More Hours Left

Bloggers and readers who follow up with Nokia are awaiting tonight's party in LA. I'm of course am going there. A lot of people I'm waiting to get to know in person, the people from WomWorld, Darla, Ricky, and a bunch of people I'm acquainted  with on HowardForums. Also I know that there are other people from other forums joining in the event. Of course lots of speculations about any possible announcements, but I have my fingers crossed for the remote possibility of the N82, now that would freakin' complete the night. I'm trying to configure the Typepad Mobile Client my E61i, and hopefully I can post from there if I don't get too distracted....

Nokia Nseries Party in Los Angeles T-48 Hours

For me it's taking forever, but the Nokia Nseries party is 48 hours away. The HowardForums thread is in full gear, and it's the same in every other active Nokia/S60 forum. A lot of my good friends will be there to drink, talk, and have fun.

I've heard about the Typepad Mobile App, so if I can get the working on my E61i, I'll try to see if updating the blog from there is possible. I'll let you guys know how the setup is working out tomorrow.

Initiation in Progress...

Here is our first post, an idea pretty much the both of us developed in less than two minutes. We couldn't get over our differences between whether GSM or CDMA is the best network. So we decided the two of us cover what we each like best in these two networks, but under one hood. We really appreciate any comments or constructive criticisms you the readers have.