Guess who is back?

As you have heard for weeks, the new Nokia Phone is now out. Today here, I shall tell you what I liked, hated and loved from this Smartphone that kindly Mr. Nokia sent me a couple of weeks ago. In this while, I tested it and took photos, social networking and all capable a Nokia would. Let’s think that the Lumia 800 is N9’s lost half brother, both of the same father, different mother.

Firstly let me tell you, the design is just awesome. Same as the N9, it also looks and feels like a fine jewel. That the screen is shiny and beautiful for the eyes and fingers alike, smooth as silk. The body is soft plastic, called polycarbonate by Nokia, which is another fancy word for it.

The Lumia comes in two storage variants 16 and 64GB and in 3 colours: Nokia Blue, Black & Pink, each one of them look trendy and hot. On the upper side  the jacklead input slot can be found, next to it, you find the microUSB slot for charging and sync purposes & finally in the last place you’ll find the microSIM slot. Unfortunately there is no expandable micro SD port, so you will be stuck with whatever storage variant you pay for. On the right side of the phone you find 4 buttons. Going from up to down the first two ones are the volume controls, which in fact are made of metal, next to them is the lock/unlock control and in the far side you find the dedicated camera button. On the bottom side there is a speaker, which I have found to be fairly good and loud. The left side is clean of buttons. On the back side you’ll find the Carl-Seizz camera of 8MxP, above it you can see the dual-led flash, useful during those night events and parties, but be warned, the king of camera phones is still the Nokia N8. This Smartphone comes with a AMOLED 3,7 inch screen, 480x800p, process at 1.4GHz, , Wi Fi, 3G capable, GPS  and Bluetooth. Weird, no NFC.

Loaded with Windows Phone 7 Mango (7.5 actually) makes it tempting. Will it be good, will it be bad? In a world that has embraced iOS & Android as the main platforms because everyone talks about them, WP7 feels like a kind of outcast from the new world order. So let’s find out what makes this phone so special.    As told before this phone is charged with a Windows Phone 7 OS; to untrained eyes will think, at first glance, it is just an N9, but this is the son of the two biggest tech companies in the world. Along with Nokia services such as Nokia Maps something Nokia excels at, you will also find the world-famous Microsoft services inside such as the Microsoft Marketplace, Internet Explorer, Office and the Xbox Live, to mention some. What some people may like and some not is the absence of a physical keyboard, but coming from a QWERTY device, myself didn’t find the virtual keyboard bad. Everything in the screen looks vivid and colorful, and looks better compared to my Nokia N9 or previous Nokia phones I have owned, which is much saying.

To use the Microsoft services and as well, the marketplace in a more smooth way in the PC you have use the Zune software given by Microsoft for free. This is very much like iTunes, you can use it for playing and syncing your multimedia and also to purchase new content as movies, tv shows, music and apps all for your phone. The experience with this mix is great.

Previously mentioned, the Marketplace is where you can find the apps. Let’s dig some apps I have found good and useful.

From the most known & popular to the lost jewels. The most popular messaging known is Whatsapp. This was recently presented to be available in the new ecosystem, which is an advantage compared to N9’s MeeGo . One of my personal recommendations is Tango, a videochat whatsapp-like app. Your contacts using tango will automatically synch with your phone;  its easy and has good video quality, but it is a shame there is no front facing camera on the Lumia, this app would be a killer app, just like FaceTime is for Apple, but cross-platform (there is a Symbian client).

If you get lost easily, the Nokia Maps can get you out of that despair and send you back to your home, this is Nokia’s selling point. Nokia plans to offer Nokia’s turn by turn navigation only to those phones made by the Finnish company, this way it helps differentiate Nokia from other Windows Phone manufacturer. To let you know, many apps are free, some cost and others offer a demo before you get convinced.  Wanted to recommend Netflix, but since it is not available in my region I couldn’t try it. With the forementioned Office you can read, view and edit all your .doc, .docx, .pps, .ppsx or .xls on the go. There is a strong ecosystem here, pushed mostly because of Microsoft’s name.

The homescreen seen in the first picture can be editable as you feel pleased, as well it can be coloured as you like and how ever is your mood. There are different tiles which the users may add, change or remove as will, they will work like widgets as in other Symbian phones.

An assistant is aboard in your Nokia Windows Phone 7, who I like to call “Luminia”, and since it is a woman’s voice I can feel some kind of attachment to her (if you like women voices, that is). Mostly of the time she will hear correctly,  like 87% of the time, on other occasions, she will ask you to repeat your order again, which can be frustrating (can be set to various languages). All apps can be opened with the voice-command, to talk to Luminia just hold the Windows Logo and she will ask what is your command. Your incoming Facebook messages or sms can be read by her with an understable voice, just as your secretary would do. Manual texting on the Lumia is very easy and while you write the message there is an autocorrect list that will show your possible word, in case you are writing it wrong. Browsing is a great experience, there is no flash support, but this is something some may not care.

Battery life is something to consider, while I have some more tests to do, I have managed to make 12 hours on average at work with some use which include data connection, email reading, scarce web browsing, reading tweeter, a few calls, some whatsapp texting and no video, no music at all. There is room for battery improvement , but I will be satisfied as long as the phones makes it home after a complete 8 hour work shift.

To wrap it up, I can say that this is Nokia’s best shot in some years. I’m one of those hard Nokia fans who doubted on Elop’s strategy dumping MeeGo and embracing WP, I even bought a N9 just  because I thought this would be ‘last’ real Nokia’s flagship, but after trying the Lumia 800 I can tell that I’m very satisfied with what the deal of Nokia and Microsoft has done. There is much room for improvements, but the system is stable, and fun to use. If there is something we have learned in these years is that people are not completely interested in specs or looks, but with the overall experience;  most consumers will love the simplicity of the Lumia and will adore the breath-taking design, which makes it stand out of other Windows Phone vendors, while retaining Nokia’s footprint enough to make us Nokia’s hard fans happy. There are still some improvements to be done on the system, but today Nokia has released a phone that will catch the attention of the regular consumers.

See it this way: it’s just a win-win-win situation. Nokia needed an OS with a strong ecosystems for developers and consumers to regain market share, Microsoft needed an OEM to distribute their small-shared OS, and us people will get an awesome device, combining the best of both companies’ world.

by Luis Castro

edited by dcastrog

A sight to the future?

We first learn about MeeGo about 1 year ago, Nokia needed an OS to replace the old decaying Symbian, and that’s when it teamed up with Intel  to deliver the OS that would rule the world just as Symbian did not much ago. But then, on February 2011 Nokia anounced a new shift in their OS strategy. They were going to parter up with Microsoft and release Windows Phone on their new handsets, ditching MeeGo, before any device running it was released.

We saw leaks of the famous N950, the one device running MeeGo and sporting a qwerty keyboard. Later Nokia would announce that they would release the N950 for developers only and the N9 (non qwerty) for the rest of us non-developers, then, there wouldt be no more MeeGo handsets. They will focus on the Windows Phones. This leaves the just released N9 in the shadows, most developers are not very interested in developing apps for an OS that is going to disappear after one device, leaving it in the hands of the MeeGo-Maemo-Linux community. Perhaps one of the best handsets Nokia has released in the last 5 years, you will soon learn why.

The simplest, the most elegant.

The retail box is the smallest Nokia has done until now. You can see how Nokia is making packages smaller every year. Inside there is only the necessary space for the N9, the charger, data cable, headset and instructions leaflets. This goes perfectly with the minimalistic style the N9 has.

The whole N9′s body is made of one pice of soft polycarbonate. The 3,9″ screen is georgeous, shiny, curved and looks like a precious gem, kind of reminds me of an obsidian stone when the display is turned off. Swiping the fingers over the screen is a pleasure, haven’t touched a smoother screen on any other handset ever. There is a micro usb port on the top, along with a 3.5mm plug and the micro sim card tray. The volume, and lock/power buttons on the right side, on the bottom you will find thespeakers and a 8MPX camera on the back with dual LED flash. The whole device feels premium in the hand, and I will say it again: it’s like holding a precious, shiny gem.

To turn it on/off you should press the lock button for 3 seconds. Took me a while to figure it out, of course, I didn’t read the instructions. After the phone has booted up you are greeted with 3 main homescreens. The first one is the news feed, then the app menu, and the multitasking homscreen. In the newsfeed you can set up your twitter timeline along with your facebook feed and news by AP. You can choose what feed to show in case you dont need to read the news on the newsfeed. If you tap on a feed you will be taken to the twitter/facebook app where you can add comments or like stuff. The app menu is classic app grid where you choose what app to open, you may edit the layout by holding the tap.

The multitasking screen shows you what apps are open in a mini window that’s running live. You can close the apps by holding the tap and taping on the cross mark. These 3 homescreen sound pretty simple, but what makes this phone stand above others is what Nokia calls ‘Swipe’ After opening an app you can do 4 kinds of swipe. To do a swipe you must put your finger on the outer border of the screen and move to the oposite directin. You may do a swipe in 4 directions; if you swipe from left or right the app running will go to the multitasking menu and continue running in the background. If you swipe from the bottom you may go to the multitasking menu or if you stop the swipe halfway, a shortcut menu will appear with apps like phone, contacts, camera and broswer. If you swipe from top to bottom you will close the app, taking you to the multitasking menu.

Everything runs smooth and it’s really a joy to use. Of course,  there is a learning curve, but after the first 15 minutes you are set to go. Also, reading the instruction manual may help a lot . The integration is excelent. By entering your facebook and twitter account info, your contacts will be saved on your contact book along with your phone numbers agenda. You can then choose to combine them under one name. The message app will integrate facebook chat, and SMS conversations in one convenient place.

The facebook app I must say is a bit laggy and crashes very often, but lets you do most things you can expect. The Twitter app, on the other hand is great, a bit slow, but great in features, that it almost matches gravity for symbian. Still there is room for improvements.

The camera is good. The usual options are there, and, wow! It’s very fast taking pictures, but it doesn’t match the N8 in terms of quality, making the N8 the king of camera phones. Also, the lack of physical button doesn’t help either, so you have to use the in screen shutter to take pictures. This is the reason I’m keeping my N8 too, as my camera phone. The speakers sound ok, enough power and good quality, nothing outstanding. The reception and call quality is 100% Nokia.

The phone is fast, have tried opening 20 apps at the same time and there is no lag.  The battery is not that outstanding, I can manage 10 hours with moderate to heavy use, so you should take your charger just in case. There is a map app and a drive app. I still don’t understand why did Nokia made them separately.

I tried the Nokia Store, but there are not many apps out there yet, as I said before, most developers dont want to invest money and time developing apps for an ecosystem that won’t exist later in 3 years. This is also one of the reasons I need to keep my N8, since there is no Whatsapp version for MeeGo and I use it a lot. Leaving the N9 in the hands of the loyal Maemo/MeeGo community

who are very commited to this OS. However, if Nokia wants to sell the phone, they also need the help of commercial apps (hello, whatsapp?).

Is it the end?

As conclusion, the N9 represents what Nokia could have been if it had followed their own path. After the deal with Microsoft, Nokia had to let go the projects they were working and commit 100% to windows phone, they cannot keep 2 top OS, or else they would cannibalize each other, or could they?  The swipe part is the most revolutionary of the N9. There is no multitasking button, there is no close button, everything is done by gestures and this is what Nokia intended to: start a new era in UI, based in gestures and leaving buttons (either hardware of software) behind.

The N9 delivers a complete package of power and style, I’m very pleased with the design and I’m happy to see that Nokia is reusing it on its new phone: the Nokia 800 Lumia. I just hope to see more Nokia’s integration in future Windows Mobile phones, maybe we will see the Swipe in a future?

For now we can only dream what the N9 could have been and enjoy one of the last real Nokia device, keeping one shiny piece of history.

dcastrog

The first thing that caught me about this app was it’s name. Now for those who don’t know I’m from Trinidad and Tobago and if you’re familiar with my people you would know that we have our own dialect and one phrase used daily from this dialect is, “yuh done” or “u done” So it makes sense now right? Honestly I heard about this app and I wasn’t excited, I thought to myself, “damn another boring task manager” and when I opened it, I was greeted by nothing exciting, however when I dug further I realised it was packed with various goodies, like a voice recorder, sketch app, etc.

This makes recording tasks very simple. You can draw, record, take a picture or type out text to attach to your “task” to make it easier to remember. The lite version is what I used to write this review and it loads reasonably fast although my devices is overclocked to 1.2Ghz. It comes packed with themes so the programme can match your current theme as best as possible however in the future, I would like to see an integration with my social networks so that important events can be broadcasted into the app and then you can be alerted via a tone and get to see what tasks you have available. Maybe also task sharing where, your boss or friend can write out a task and send it to you over Wifi in the work place,for now you’re just alerted of your tasks when you set the alarm for it.

It comes also with a neat calender and the *Help button actually is animated so no need to read a list of boring help notes. But honestly I’m not a task manager person, and even though it comes with so many nice things to make jotting down tasks simple fast, I rather just take a mental note, but it is a great looking app though and very useful for those with a busy schedule.

Download U-done Here

Hey guys, Today I have got a nice little review of the nokia e7 that I got from the boys and girls at womworld/nokia, so watch and enjoy the video below and thanks to the Womworld guys again.

What do you guys think about the nokia e7 and i’m planing on getting the nokia e6 good idea?

(not seeing the video?…..reload the page again )

Today nokia betalab released an app called ‘nokia play to’ which allows you to wirelessly enjoy and share photos, videos and music on your nokia mobile device on your Tv.  All you need is a nokia C6, C7,E7, N8 or X7,  WLAN access and DLNA capable playing device  so a TV, Blu-ray player or a PS3 will all work.

Betalabs Post:

With Nokia Play To, you can play your media simply, with no MacGyver skills needed. No time-consuming set-ups, no cables or wires. No hassle. Just a fuss-free wireless connection between:

• A Symbian^3 Nokia phone (all phone models except Nokia E6-01) and
• A DLNA device (e.g TV) connected to your home network

When you’ve got Nokia Play To installed on your phone, streaming is very quick and simple. To start, open the mobile application. Select the DLNA system you want to connect to, choose the photo, video, or music track you want to play, and that’s all there is to it. You can also browse the media content stored in your phone with DLNA player devices, like a PlayStation 3, Blu-ray player or a home theatre system – it’s just as easy.

Nokia Play to is still in beta so you can’t download it from the ovi store just yet but if you really want to get your hand on it you can download the beta at the nokia betalab site: Here

As you know from Renaldo’s review the Bh-905i is a great music headset and I fully agree but I don’t think it’s too soft as he said, I i like the hight of the volume and like he said in his review the Active Noise Cancellation is amazing! there are four to five people at my house at any given time but with the ANC on the bh-905i it’s like i’m always home alone and that really helps me to stay focused on what i’m doing whether that be typing this post or trying to take a nap.

The  Bh-905i’s are also  good for watching movies and by the way i saw Drive Angry this week it’s a great movie but moving on I love the feel of the headset which is a little shocking given that i’m more of an inear-headphones kind of guy and never really liked the Dj style headphones but i’m happy to say that has changed since using the bh-905i they are super comfortable and feel like clouds on your head.

Watching movies and listing to music is more or less what the  Bh-905i is made for but what about gaming? well as you may or may not know in online FPS (First-person shooter) games like call of duty mw2/black-ops you can hear footsteps of other players therefore you know where they are coming from which gives you a big advantage over other players but it’s really hard to hear those footsteps with your standard speaker setup, surround sound speakers or even with standard headphones and that being said with the bh-905i you hear everything! super clear from footsteps to gun reloads and it’s kind of  unfair because for example will be shooting someone in front of me hear a other player coming behind me spin around and kill him,which makes me look like i’m hacking and people call me a hacker all the time but it’s because i have a headset and with out the Bh-905i or a other big name gaming headset you wouldn’t be able to that.

So All in all the Bh-905i’s are great for music and movies and it’s a pretty good gaming headset as well, not forgetting it has Bluetooth so you can connect it wirelessly to your nokia mobile phone and amazing ANC (Active Noise Cancellation) so you can get away without getting way. That’s it,  later guys!

Lucky us!

After the last update on Valentine’s day our friends of Rovio are offering fans of the Angry Birds franchise a new update to celebrate the St. Patrick’s day. I know, a bit late, but still great news.

If you already bought the Angry Birds Seasons version on the Ovi Store, then you can get it free by just tapping the update button on the game’s main screen, If you havent bought it yet, then you can still get it at the Ovi Store along with the previous seasons updates (christmas, halloween, valentine’s).



After downloading the update you will find 15 new levels, plus 3 bonus levels for liking it on Facebook. The main theme is awesome as it sounds so Irish. The game is not very hard, and still delivers entertainment all centered around Irish themes with shamrocks and gold pots lying around!

So time to update and get ready for Rio

David Castro

Hello Boys and Girls, 2010 is almost at it’s end so before it is i’m going to be counting down what I think are the top five nokia smart phones of  the year.

Number five – Nokia c6

Much like the nokia n97 and the n97 mini without the rise screen the c7 is a good looking side slide device with a QWERTY keyboard and a 3.2 inch touchscreen, it also has a nice 5MP camera and runs on Symbian s60v5, its cheaper than the n97 mini but it feels cheaper too.

Number four – Nokia c3

More or less the little brother of the e72 with i am a big fan of, the c3 is a non-touch messaging phone with a  full QWERTY keypad and a 2.4 inch display, it also has a 3.5 mm audio jack and a 2MP camera. I have never owned or used one so i’m not sure what version of Symbian it runs on or how good the device works but it is very popular here in Trinidad and Tobago right now so there must be some good to it.

Number three – Nokia n8

I can hear the “whats” and “whys” now, the n8 maybe nokia’s flagship devices  but it’s not mine and the only reason being was the hard time i had getting everything to work correctly when i first got the phone, but after days of fighting and i got everything working, the n8 was a really great device to have, from the sexy 3.5 inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen to that awesome 12MP camera and the much improved Symbian^3 it’s hard to go wrong with the n8.

Number two – Nokia c7

The definition of sexy! The nokia c7 is my favorite device currently with it’s 3.5 inch clear black AMOLED display that makes images and videos pop right out of the screen and that slim tank like feel you get when you pick it up along with a very fast Symbian^3 the c7 is hard to put down once you pick it up, the only down sides to the device are the 8MP camera and the lack of a real QWERTY which is canceled out by the swype app. The c7 is a must have if you’re a nokia fan!

Number one – Nokia E7

Slim,sexy,fast,powerful words that only come together when talking about the E7, a huge 4.0 inch clear black AMOLED touchscreen display with scratch resistant gorilla glass and a full slide out QWERTY keyboard along with Symbian^3, a dedicated mic for active noise cancellation, Dolby Digital Plus and a document editor for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files. The Nokia e7 is by far the best nokia smartphone of 2010 with the one letdown being the same 8MP camera from the c7, the e7 is a must have not if you’re just a nokia fan but a must have if you are a tech fan on the hold.

I got this bad boy like 3 weeks ago and at first I must say I didn’t like it much, the speakers were soft and it was muffed and although I produce my own music that’s not my cup of tea since it felt as if I moved too much it would fall off. I gave it to some people to test out, they also agreed that the speakers were too soft, and I admit this is a biased opinion because we are Trinidadians, and we like our music loud!

However there were pros to the headset, the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) feature was my favorite, that did a great job, cancelling off the unwanted noises and leaving me to enjoy my movies on my Nokia n900 in peace, wow what an experience, and on top of that, I could make calls with same headset, with noise cancellation on still, so not only can I watch my movies in peace and clarity but I could talk a female friend too It also looked cool around my neck with the blue light blinking giving people the impression I was a DJ or something, again giving me access to talk to some girls.

I really love those headphones, they weren’t perfect but they were great, the battery lasted long, even when I forgot and left the ANC on for two days by accident it still had a good amount of juice.
So if you’re looking for nice looking headphones with great Active Noise Cancellation that’s not too loud I definitely recommend the Nokia BH 905i for you or as a Xmas gift for a friend.

• Video Review

The new  n8 is easily one f nokia’s sexiest devices but how does it compare in terms of size to nokia’s most popular touch screen device  the 5800 and how does the 5800 compare to nokia’s first  maemo device the n900? check out the pictures below to find out

That’s it for now hope you enjoyed the photos and don’t forget that full size versions of all these photos and others can be viewed here and you read up other n8 posts here. laterz!