Geotagging Integrated into N82 on Next Firmware Update

According to S60 Blogs, the next firmware update of the N82 should include Geotagging integrated into the camera settings. No firm date was offered, but the update is on course to be released during Q1.

The post also says:

Work on Location Tagging is progressing well, some other new features are also being added (that I can't talk about yet).

I wonder what those features will be?

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Get Together in London

WOMWorld is a website where you can find listed in one place chat about NSeries phones. They scour the internet and link to discussions on forums, posts on blogs and general news stories about specifically the Nokia NSeries range. I've found many an interesting post and blog via their site.

The guys from WOMWorld, friendly bunch that they are, have decided to get together in London one evening early next month, to share with like minded NSeries freaks (I mean that term in the nicest way, including myself under that description) to share a chat over a beer about the greatest mobile products in the industry.

Also, during that evening, Ryan Gallagher from Camera Toss is going to be passing through as part of his excursion on the Nokia NSeries Urbanista diaries, and he will give a demo of 'Camera Toss' (Something I could *never* see myself doing!). I hope everyone is keeping up to date with the excellent Urbanista Diaries project, you can find more detail here.

The WOMWorld event will take place on the 5th March, at the Crown Pub in London which is just a three minute walk from Holborn Tube station. A map is linked here.

The WOMworld crew will be there from 6.30ish onwards, so if you are up for a lively evening and will be in the area, pop in and meet the guys.

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N78 Advertising

From AAS, this ad for the N78. It has to be said when I first saw the N78 I was far from impressed. Now I'm starting to change my mind. It could actually be even a more popular handset than the N96.

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Nokia N95 8GB - First Impressions

So, now the N82 has been returned, I've had to look across the market to see what phone I should get next. Normally, I go back to the N73, but I'm finding that is now becoming just that bit old now, despite being one of the best NSeries phones, ever.

So, not wanting the N73 again, I've looked to see what took my fancy. There's not a lot on the market right now, really. The new NSeries, N78 and N96 are still a while off, and really anything other than a smartphone just doesn't cut it. I considered the Sony Ericsson W960, and also the Nokia E51, but ultimately decided on the N95 8GB. I've owned the N95 a couple of times in the past, but this is the first time I've owned the 8GB version.

This phone just looks good. Huge screen, easy to use navigation keys, comfortable keypad, and nice black colour.

A few initial thoughts on the phone. It is sold as coming with the Spiderman 3 film, but if you want to keep it functioning don't upgrade your firmware. I backed up before upgrading last night but despite this, the film now no longer works. I can't understand why Nokia don't carry through this functionality on a firmware upgrade, is it really that difficult? A quick scan of the Nokia discussion boards shows a lot of dissatisfied users who've lost the film after upgrading their firmware, some backed up, some did not because, as a brand new handset they didn't think there was anything too back up. Surely it isn't hard to rectify this issue?

Another point, that mini USB cable is just too short. My phone barely reaches my desk from the PC, it is that short.

Minor points really, but annoying enough to mention them. Overall I'm very happy with the phone and I'm sure it will last until the Black N82 hits the market.

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Iconic Handsets

There have been some iconic mobile phones, over the years. Handsets that have really stood out, and stood the test of time. The reasons a handset becomes part of mobile folklore will usually be either because of a classic design, or outstanding features. Take the Motorola Star Tac, for example. Feature-wise nothing special but it is a real design classic of a mobile phone. Or who could forget what popularly became known as the Motorola Wings, the Motorola V3688. This handset was tiny, and just felt great to use, despite being absolutely useless for anything other than calls. The V3688 even sucked at SMS, with poor message input and early handsets had no link to the phonebook, so unless you knew the number you didn't know who messages were from. Great keypad for such a small phone though.

Moving on from the Motorola design classics, we come to another iconic handset, the Nokia 6310i. Certainly not a popular handset because of its looks, this is one of the most sold handsets Nokia have ever produced, it sold in its millions. It was such an easy phone to use, simple in layout, it had Bluetooth and GPRS back in the day when this was important and new. I know people now who still insist on their 6310i and won't swap. There is a roaring trade on 6310i refurbs on Ebay. This is one phone that will run for a few more years. A friend told me he is taken with the simplicity, whilst at the same time of course, there is the legendary 6310i battery. That thing just goes forever!

Personally, I just the iconic status of my handsets by the amount of time I buy one. It works something like this. I buy a phone, use it, like it, buy another, but the replacement doesn't cut it, either in usability, or design, or features, so I purchase another of the model I had previously. It's like my little vice, I don't drink, smoke or gamble, I do buy lots of phones! Over time phones like the V3688 and 6310i have been iconic handsets in my phone ownership history. Also the Nokia 7650, the first camera phone in the UK, the first Symbian phone, the handset that got me hooked on S60 in general, became an iconic handset. The 6600 after it, the N73, all iconic handsets.

A few months ago, I was invited to the launch of the Nokia N82, with a few other bloggers, and we were given a live handset to take away with us and put it through its every day paces. A fantastic opportunity to get real hands on with the latest S60 product, and really find out how it performs. I cannot recommend this handset enough. In the three months I've used this phone it hasn't failed me. Recently I purchased an 8GB memory card so storage was never an issue, the N82 has a great camera, WiFi, HSDPA, easy email to setup and use, an excellent web browser, the acceleromator, GPS, a handily placed 3.5mm audio jack on the top of the phone, a great bright clear screen, all in my favourite phone shape, the classic candybar.

The trial period with the N82 is now at an end, and the handset is going back. It is the only time I've ever trialed a handset that I really didn't want to give back, the N82 is that good.

I am going to by another N82. In my mind, the N82 has achieved the level of an iconic handset, to me personally. However, I am going to wait until I can get my hands on the black version, I've seen one in the flesh, so to speak, and it really is nice. In the meantime I will use an N95 8GB which I haven't owned since they came to market, but I've had the N95 previously and the N82 to me is a much better handset, even if just for the form factor.

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Hands on with the Nokia N96

At the Nokia Press event today, I also had the opportunity to get some hands on time with the Nokia N96. The first thing I noticed was the size, it was smaller than I expected. The design is similar to the N95, with the dual slider, but overall reflects more the N81 in design. Some people are not too impressed by this, for myself I like the look of the phone.

The screen is large, and dominates the handset when closed. Open, and you see a good keypad, well laid out and very easy to use. There will be no problems with text input on this phone.

A lot of the innovation on the N96 is inside. Firstly there is support for DVB-H which is basically support for digital television. I'm not sure how this affects us in the UK, the last time there was a Nokia phone with DVB-H support it didn't release in the UK as our digital signal is not compatible. For more technical detail, see here, here and here.

The N96 is endowed with an impressive 16GB of internal memory and there is also support for Micro SD cards, so in theory you could increase capacity to an amazing 32GB. For now you will have to make do with 24GB as 16GB cards will not likely be on the market until towards the end of 2008 (My guess, not based on any concrete info)

The N96 has a mini 'kick stand' at the back. In place it sits flush around the camera lens, opened out it allows the phone to stand for watching video. The N96 will support WMV videos and it is expected to also support DivX video during the handsets lifecycle.

Overall I was again impressed with the Nokia N96, the build quality was solid, the slide worked well, and the screen is very bright and clear. One thing I did like, thanks to the FP2 support, is using the phone theme you can finally remove the Nokia calendar from the front screen. Well, kind of. What actually happens is the theme will remove the standby icons from there normal position across the main screen, and list them down the left handside. You can choose which icons appear, so if you decide not to include the calendar, then obviously it won't appear. If you do choose the calendar, then appointments are only shown if you highlight the calendar icon, a mini screen pops up. Much better than the way all appointments are shown on the main screen right now, but not quite as good as the ESeries plugins.

Tomorrow I am flying out to Barcelona to attend the MWC, I will try and get some more info on the new phones, and some more pictures.

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Hands on with the Nokia N78

Earlier on today I attended the Nokia Press Conference in the new flagship store in Regents St in London, as Nokia presented live from Barcelona their new handsets. In all four handsets were announced, the Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia 6220 Classic, Nokia N78 and Nokia N96. Here, I'm interested in the two NSeries handsets.

First, the N78. The N78 is a direct replacement for the very popular Nokia N73. The N73 is probably one of my favourite ever handsets, it matched a good feature set, for its time along with a very good battery life. Overall Nokia sold over 50 million N73 handsets. But, as with all things in the mobile industry, we move forward.

I saw an N78 a few months ago, and to be honest, I was not impressed. It is always hard to judge what is clearly a prototype handset, however I didn't like the look, I didn't like the feel and neither the design. And that keypad, it was awful! So of the new handsets to be seen, the N78 was the one I wasn't really to bothered about.

Well, I'm happy to say those initial impressions have been shown to be misplaced. The N78 I saw today, whilst still a prototype, was way ahead of the model I saw just a short while ago. The keypad seems to have been changed slightly, in the numeric keys are more aligned than I remember. And, whilst it does still look uncomfortable, it actually isn't. Three months of using the N82 and you soon get used to using those slim keys. The keys on the N78 are slightly different, they are not separate but one long line. In fact, none of the keys are cut out separately, but part of one whole plastic design. You can get an idea of this from the pictures below. Just click on the image to see them in full size.

The N78 is equipped with an FM transmitter. This is the first time that a mobile phone has included an FM transmitter built in. I need to try the feature out, but it works in much the same way as those add on modules do for music players. The transmitter will scan for an available FM signal and you can transmit your music via the transmitter to your car or home stereo.

The N78 has HSDPA, and WiFi, and support for Bluetooth 2.0. There is also GPS support, and this includes support for geotagging, which will capture information when you take a picture, so when you upload the picture details are stored of when and where the picture was taken.

Overall the N78 did impress me, and I imagine that in two years or so, we will be looking back and seeing that the N78 has achieved similar sales figures to the N73.

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N78 and N96 Live Pictures

I've been down to London this morning, to attend the Nokia Press event. I got some hands on time with the N96 and N78. They also had the 6210 Navigator phone and 6220 Classic. I will be back shortly to add some detail about the handsets, but in the meantime here are some pictures (click the image to view full size)

Don't forget to click on the ticket in the post below to go to the online Nokia NSeries event.

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Take Your Seats for NSeries at the Mobile World Congress

Most recently Nokia have had a few online events when they are launching new products. Tomorrow is the first day of the Mobile World Congress and once again there will be a virtual online launch event.

This will offer you the opportunity to talk online with product managers who have been involved with the latest releases, and there will also be chat rooms where you can discuss the new releases with bloggers and other NSeries fans.

To access the online site, click on the ticket at the top of this post. It all kicks off tomorrow, at around 10.20 CET.

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N96 Spec Leaked

Intomobile is always a good read, and one of my daily visits. This time they have come up with a great scoop, the confirmed spec list for the N96:

• Quadband EDGE
• Dualband HSDPA 850/2100 MHz
• DVB-H Class C
• 92 cc volume
• 125 gram weight
• 103 x 55 x 18 mm
• 16 GB internal memory AND a microSD slot;
• 950 mAh battery
• 6.1 cm (2.8 inch) 320×240 display with 16 million colors
• 3.5 mm headphone jack
• WiFi (802.11b/g)
• AGPS
• 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens that also does VGA video recording at 30 FPS, Dual LED flash that can also be used when video recording!
• S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 (Flash Lite 3 enabled web browser included)
• microUSB

I'm glad to say the spec list includes the rumoured stuff I posted about here. I think you can also take as confirmed the spec of the N78 from that list, too.

The N96 is most likely to be confirmed, with a release date, at the Mobile World Congress which starts next week

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N82 Available in Black

The Black N82 is now official, as spotted by Stefan, over at IntoMobile. We'd always imagined that a black version would be available, and now we have confirmation.

I did actually get to see a live handset just last week, but I wasn't allowed to say anything. You don't know how tempting it was, and how hard to keep quiet!

The N82 looks as good, if not actually better, in the flesh, so to speak, than it does in the pictures. Like a lot of people I've always had a preference for phones in black, I think they just look very classy. The N95 8GB looks way better than the N95 Classic, the N73 Music Edition is way better than the original N73.

I can't find any confirmed details on a release of the Black N82 in the UK, but I would imagine the release is imminent. Network take up of the original N82 has been poor, with only O2 officially taking it on. Hopefully that will change with the black version.

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Turning Your Mobile Into a Live GPS Sports Tracking Tool

I receive an interesting email yesterday evening, about a new Java app called Map My Tracks, that offers real time GPS tracking, focusing on soprts enthusiasts. The app will work with handsets that have an internal GPS unit and also to handsets that connect to an external GPS unit via Bluetooth.

Here's the press release:

Launched today, Map My Tracks is a new Java mobile application that uses GPS technology to accurately track a sportsman's position in real time, displaying useful live information including pace, time and elapsed distance. A selection of screenshots of the service in action is available at http://www.mapmytracks.com/about/screenshots.

Once back home sportsmen can replay and analyse tracks to see where performances can be improved, as well as review useful information like average speed, maximum speed and distance covered. As Map My Tracks shows the sportsman's position live on the internet, friends and relatives can watch progress from the comfort of home too.

The Map My Tracks phone application is a Java Midlet built using Sun Microsystem's Java Micro Edition (J2ME). It is intended to work on any phone which supports Java and has access to the internet. For GPS positioning the Java Bluetooth API (JSR 82) is used to support internal GPS devices, while external GPS devices are supportred by Java Location API (JSR 179).

Find out more at http://www.mapmytracks.com/

Here is a YouTube Video of Map My Tracks:



The app looks good from what I've seen in demo so far, I'm hoping to give it a try out over the next few days. There is a monthly subscription to the service, more details of which can be found on the sign up page here. There is a free option so you can give the app a try out first.

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Killer N95 deal - For Today Only

This offer comes thanks to the guys at E2Save. For today only, they are offering an N95 on a 12 month contract with 12 months half price line rental, on the O2 network. The tariff is O2 600, which offers 600 minutes and 500 text per month for what will effectively be £20 per month!

As with all cashback deals, make sure you check how to claim your money back. E2Save are one of the largest online retailers and part of the Carphone Warehouse Group of companies.

This offer is only open to UK residents over the age of 18, and is subject to a credit check, as per all UK contracts.

Click here for more

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Turn Your Symbian Smartphone into a Mini Wi-Fi Hotspots

Finland based software house, Joikusoft says that it has developed an application for Symbian Series 60 based smartphones which converts them into a Wi-Fi hotspot, using 3G cellular for the backhaul connection. When turned on, external WLAN devices can discover the open JoikuSpot and establish internet connection wirelessly using the mobile phone's 3G internet connection.

Joikusoft says that their software application also presents a new type of a business opportunity for network operators, saying that JoikuSpot encourages its users to upgrade their mobile data plans to faster and fixed monthly plans, and usage of JoikuSpot sizeably improves the user data ARPU.

Reading the instruction manual for the software though makes no mention of encrypted usage via conventional WEP/WPA or the ability to restrict users by computer MAC address. That means anyone in range can connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot and use the internet access. As the software is still in Beta, we can presume that this necessary feature would be added in the near future.

JoikuSpot is based on Joikusoft's patent pending technology, and the limited beta version for Symbian OS unveiled today is called JoikuSpot Light.

Source

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Mobile World Congress 2008

It used to be called 3GSM. Now known as the Mobile World Congress (that name sucks) it all kicks off next week, 11th February. I am lucky enough to be attending the event, but due to other commitments I will only be there for one day!

I am flying out to Barcelona on the 12th February, at 6am, and flying back later the same evening. I think a lot of the announcements will happen next Monday, for Nokia at least, so my main focus will be getting live pictures and video of the new NSeries devices. I hope the N78 will be officially announced and also the N96. Who knows if there will be anything else?

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