Phone-Rush

E71 Sample Pictures and Videos: Big Bear Lake, CA

Over the weekend I went up towards Big Bear Lake, CA, about a 2 hr drive from Los Angeles in order to escape the heatwave. I brought along the E71 and decided to take some landscape photos and shoot a couple of videos while I was up there. Coming from a N95, obviously I'm somewhat disappointed with the E71 video recording, but at least it has minimal pixelation while the camera is moving, making it watchable.

With photography, the pictures were somewhat of what I expected them to be for a 3.2 MP camera, good for small size viewing. Also in regards of using T for auto focusing, it's a simple button press for focus and another click for taking the shot. However I wished the AF would be activated with one press of the dpad, and another press for taking the shot. I'll be back soon with more up close shots that can really lay out the capabilities of the auto focus.

Enter The Nokia E71 Unboxing Video

Today after been waiting for months and months, I finally have got a hold on the Nokia E71, courtesy of WOMWorld. First thing to do with this was to rip the packaging open and see what comes in the box.

In the next few days I'll cover the hardware and software in great details. If you have any questions in the meantime, leave them in the comments and I'll get an answer for you.

Coverage of the Nokia E71 Reviews

Last week Nokia announced a much needed refreshment to their E-series line up, the slider Nokia E66, and the qwerty Nokia E71. Both of these phones have essentially the same spec sheet, just in different form factors. Back in the day I loved my E61i, and if it weren't for it being a little bit slow, I'd still be rocking that phone anyday over the N95-3. Now that the E71 is announced with FP1 and US 3G, it just makes it a no-brainer for me. Enough with my obsession, I wanted to list a few of the Nokia E71 reviews that were put up within the last few days.

Of course one of the most comprehensive reviews can be found on AllAboutSymbian, and so far they have published two pieces regarding the E71. The first is an overall impression and first look, and the second focuses on the multimedia capabilities of it. In the first piece, Steve Litchfield takes a look at the prospective position the E71 will have in the market, comparisons to its direct predecessor the E61i, and a look at the hardware, software and the exclusive tweaks that it has.

Engadget Mobile has also got their hands on the E71, and seem to enjoy the feel of the phone. Their review mainly focuses on the physical aspects of the phone. They've also seemed to be impressed with the Web browser as well.

Also the people at My-Symbian have an overall impression of the phone. They start off with a brief intro about its size, comparison to Blackberries in general and also about the LED notification on the dpad. They continue with a mini-tour of the menus and added features such as VPN, Personal/Business modes, and corporate email setup.

Besides the obvious flaw of having a 2.5 mm jack for audio and the reported short comings in the photo and video recording department, this should be a great device. The only issues that I'd want to find out is that if two flaws that were in the E61i have been or will be addressed: 1. Using the numeric keypad portion as shortcuts within the grid menus and 2. If someone wants to dial a number say 1-800-GONOKIA, will the phone be smart enough to correlate the letter with the correct number just like on a phone with a regular keypad?

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.

An Overlook On The Nokia N95 8GB NAM (N95-4)

The N95 has come a long way since its introduction late 2006. Later on Nokia was forced to create more functional variants to address the criticisms and ride on the successful sales of the original. I'm taking a look at the 4th member of the family, the Nokia N95 8GB NAM or simply N95-4. The N95-4 is a featured packed phone, sporting HSDPA, 5 MP camera, near DVD quality video recording, GPS, Wi-Fi, and much more. Here I want to talk about the features and issues that stand out with this device. What I won't cover is most likely standard N95 features that don't need me to talk about, since it's been covered before. This is more focused on people seeing whether if this phone is worth getting over the N95-1 or the N95-3 (I'd say it's worth getting it over the N95-2 if you can use US 3G as they have almost the same exact features).

Voice Quality:

Let's not forget, the primary focus of this phone is to make phone calls. The N95-4 is awesome for calls because first it has great quality and the voices come in very clear, and second that it is pretty loud, so there is no trouble hearing the other side even when your walking on a busy street. The loudspeaker is excellent, and plenty loud and clear for a noisy environment. I give props to the 3G for the clear call quality.

How To Tether Your Nokia S60 Phone To Your Windows Vista Laptop

In this how to, I want to show you how to connect your Nokia S60 phone and utilize the cellular data that it receives and channel it to your laptop, therefore making you're laptop go online anywhere you get a cellular reception. There are 3 main ways of doing this:

1. Using a Bluetooth Connection
2. Using a USB cable
3. Using an application called JoikoSpot or WalkingHotSpot. (If using this method your phone has to have Wi-Fi as well)

Now that we know the methods, We want to "tether" our phone to the laptop running Windows Vista using the first two methods. For this how to I'll be using a N95 8GB NAM (N95-4), as it supports US 3G  HSDPA and makes practical sense to tether (tethering can be done with other S60 phones with GPRS or EDGE as well). Of course there are multiple ways to set this up, but I'm trying to aim for the most stream-lined way of doing it, by using the Nokia PC Suite (or Nseries Suite).

1. Using a Bluetooth Connection:

Now my laptop has built-in bluetooth, but If your's doesn't, you can head down to any electronic store and pick up a bluetooth dongle for around $20. All you have to do is pop in the installation CD from the dongle and follow the instructions. Once you've installed your bluetooth dongle, install the Nokia PC Suite. Once you're done with that, you go to the Get Connected Wizard (or on the newest version of the PC Suite you can select "Click here to connect a phone).

Next Generation of Nokia Chargers to Use 90% Less "Vampire Power"

Over at Nokia Conversations, Charlie Schick has an update with the development of the next generation of Nokia chargers, that use almost 90% less energy when left plugged into an outlet than the current chargers in the market also known (Going from 150 mA to 15 mA). This power being wasted as a result of leaving chargers plugged in without charging anything is called Vampire Power. He also explains the significance of this, given the fact that there are around 3 billion phones and therefore chargers out there, and therefore if all handset manufacturers would embrace energy-efficient chargers there would be less demand on the power grids.

The newest charger that utilizes this technology is the Nokia High Efficiency Charger AC-8, and you can read some interesting comparisons there between the AC-8 and the power usage of regular Nokia chargers per year. In the article there is a link to new solutions for charging phones without wasting energy as well. I admit I'm one of those people that leave their chargers plugged into the outlet, but it would be a start if we can all unplug those idling chargers. If you have multiple devices that use the same type of charger, it's better to leave one charger idling compared to having all of those chargers plugged in at the same time doing nothing.

Followup: Review of Nokia 6500 Classic

if you haven't been following my experience with the Nokia 6500 Classic, I recommend checking out the preview and start from there. For those of you who did read that, I've followed up and rounded up my take on the OS and overall performance of the phone and will go into detail of some of its strengths and weaknesses.

Active Standby

when active standby is turned on

There are four rows that can be selected and each row is highly customizable, giving you a vast freedom and control over what you want to see on the default page. Also it's relatively simple to customize the feel of this home page directly from there by not more than 2 clicks, which is great in the sense that doesn't require the user to go digging in the menus to try to find the appropriate settings.

Most likely one of the these rows is set to be the shortcut bar, which is equivalent to the s60 active standby apps. The small screen can only fit 5 shortcuts at a time, but this standby is dynamic, meaning that if you keep pressing left or right, they well scroll accordingly and you can select a 6th shortcut in there as well, which is a great feature. This is a significant omission on S60 phones (most notoriously the E90 with its internal screen) that don't utilize the space they have for adding additional shortcuts to the active standby, and yet S40 in general allows you to have scrollable shortcuts for applications in their smaller screens.

When active standby is turned off

Pressing any direction will directly take you to designated operations or applications when the shortcuts are disabled and can be accessed indirectly when the active standby is on. This can be setup in the settings of the phone.

The left and right softkeys are also customizable.

 

Nokia Nseries WOMWorld being transformed to Nokia WOMWorld?

    To most prominent bloggers covering Nokia Nseries devices and avid readers following Nokia Nseries phones on the blogosphere the PR company known as WOMWorld is a familiar one. In the start of the new year they have increased their activities, and they will be promoting the brand more heavily this year. One interesting tidbit is that after they reconstructed their site, the user is now greeted with a new design on the home page. But there is more to it. Once you start reading you'll notice that they are now covering and talking about Nokia Eseries devices. I've longed waited for such an initiative.

    The Eseries devices have always been left behind in major advertising campaigns by Nokia, and now there is a chance for these devices to be talked about more often. Probably since these devices are focused more on enterprise and business use, the people at Nokia thought that Word of Mouth isn't as effective as with the more consumer-oriented Nseries line. Well now that has changed, and apparently the WOMWorld team will be covering these devices in addition to the Nseries devices. With more coverage of Eseries devices, the people at Nokia will be more pressed to develop more devices in this series, which honestly makes me excited as they are for the most part are superior in build quality compared to their Nseries counterparts.

This move seems to be in conjunction of Nokia's Conversations blog going public soon as well, a site that is "not just about phones, but about people, products and services, thoughts, interests, business and more."

N82 GPS Performance... In an Airplane

    Now you might ask why would somebody sitting in coach on a airplane would want to use their GPS? The only answer i can give is that because it's cool! On my way back from Barcelona, I thought that it would be worth a try to see if I can get a GPS lock in the airplane. The problem is that although on avg. I was 10 Km closer to the satellites, but the metal body of the airplane acted as a barrier at times. However I was able at times to get a lock, and using the default GPS application on the N82 and knowing the coordinates of Los Angeles, I was able to see  how far away I was and get an estimated ETA, which was more interesting to follow than the show they had playing for the flight. The interesting part is that my dedicated Visiontac VPS700 could not lock on at any time, so the N82 did a remarkable job of locking on, without help from AGPS. Here is a video of the whole procedure (also was on the lookout for flight attendants to not bother me thinking my phone was on) and of course in offline mode for safety reasons. The video is taken with my N95-3.