While the wait was long and hard (has it really been six months already?), Nokia has officially come out and stated in a press release that the N97 will be on sale in June (in over 75 countries). While this is still vague, it is a lot better than what was originally speculated which was a July release. Although there isn't a set date it is safe to say that we should start seeing handsets in customer hands sometime around the 25th. This is assuming that the date Amazon had on its site was correct. Now lucky owners can count the days down as June has just started. Lucky for us June only has 30 days! If you haven't had a chance to preorder or were holding out take a look at these retailers.

NokiaUSA.com - priced at $699.99 + shipping (includes free BT headset)

Amazon.com - priced at $603.99 + free shipping

For those looking to wait a bit I recommend check out SNTraderOnline. They are quoting a price of around $550.00 and should have it the third week of June.

Check out this video below of the N97 being assembled at the plant. Proof it's ready to ship...

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While summer is fast approaching two highly anticipated S60 5th edition devices come closer to being released, Nokia’s N97 and Samsung’s OmniaHD.  Both considered to be each respective companies high-end/flagship device for 2009.  While both are high-end devices some argue that the N97 is NOT worthy of such a title.  Turning back to December when Nokia broke news of its “best kept secret” flagship device at Nokia World 2008, there was much excitement.  Not only had Nokia created a powerful N-series device with a qwerty keyboard, but it also added a touch screen!   This phone quickly came to be regarded as the true successor to the highly acclaimed N95.  When the dust had settled after the initial announcement it was clear that some if not most of the features were similar to previous N-series devices.  What had seemed impressive upon initial release was quickly overshadowed by what its competitors would release at MWC 2009.

MWC 09 took place and another S60 5th edition device was announced, the Samsung OmniaHD.  This handset would quickly set the benchmark for what a top end handset should have in 2009.  The OmniaHD has a large AMOLED 3.7” screen with capacitive touch screen capability, 8MP camera with HD video recording (720p), and HMDI output.  Incredible specifications, and something genuinely to get excited about.  This left many Nokia fans with a bad taste in their mouths.  The questions started to arise.  Why did Nokia chose 5MP over 8MP? Why did they use a 4xxmhz processor vs a 600mhz?  AMOLED vs LCD? and so on.  Although I am also concerned as to why the N97 doesn't pack these amazing features, I trust that Nokia has focused its time elsewhere.  The hardware in the N97 is older but by no means dated.  Also being able to work with the same hardware for nearly two years should allow for precision tweaks and improvements. This brings the question, what does the Nokia N97 have over the Samsung Omnia HD?  What is Nokia counting on to make the N97 the dominant S60 5th edition device this summer?  The answer is software.  They both run on the same OS but have different additions.  While the OmniaHD will offer its TouchWiz3d.  The Nokia N97 will offer a customizable front page with internet/active widgets.  Nokia has spent a large part of its demonstrations showing off the new home screen widgets.  Nokia will also be opening its new OVI store which is rumored to launch with 20,000 items (applications, wallpapers, songs, etc).

While it is yet to be seen whether the software will be amazing/useful/smooth, most demonstrations of the live widgets have looked smooth with minor lag (which can be seen on YouTube).  While we wont be sure if the lag will be present in production models we can only hope that Nokia has thoroughly tested its hardware configuration and has a excellent staff that can create a wonderful experience for us when the N97 is available for purchase.  While the N97 isn't a hardware beast it may just be time to rethink what an N-series device is.  Many still have their N95 because the many firmware updates have allowed the device to grow into a “perfect” device.  Maybe this is a new generation of N-series device, one that will make sure that the user is happy not by having state of the art hardware, but having good hardware and great software. 

Timi Cantisano is a long time mobile phone user and S60/Nokia fan. You can read more of his articles at his personal phone website called Phoneomenon.com. Keep checking back for more contributions to this site by Timi.

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I’m seeing more and more S60 5th edition apps become available  which is great news for Nokia 5800 users. Over the next few weeks I’ll be reviewing a handful of 5th Edition applications for the Nokia 97 and 5800 since I’ll have hands on experience. I recently got the Nokia 5800XM NAM. And not the red or blue version – but the black version with silver trim. Very slick! For people on the fence about the Nokia 5800 now is a good time to take the plunge. You can buy it from Amazon right now for $301. Not a bad deal for such an advanced device.

A month ago to this day I showed you an exclusive sneak preview of Nokia Messaging for the 5800. If you’re not familiar with Nokia Messaging it’s Nokia’s new email solution, and I must say it has been working very well on my E71 and N82 combo. The version I reviewed last month for the 5800 was an early alpha with a few quarks here and there. Not more problems than I’d expect from an alpha.

Since then the fellas developing Nokia Messaging have been hard at work fine tuning the application. It’s now available for anyone to try and give feedback at Beta Labs. Email is very important to me and most people so getting this application right is a priority for the development team.

Nokia Messaging makes mobile email easy and mobilizes consumer email across a range of Nokia devices. Nokia Messaging enables users to quickly set up, access, and use their email on their Nokia devices through a service that is optimized for mobile email.

The final release for the Xpress Music 5800 will be coming in May via the Nokia Messaging site. Before that, we'd love to hear if you encounter any issues, or if there are ways in which you would like us to improve the S60 5.0 client.

Known Issues with the S60 5th Edition client

• HTML support is coming in a future release.
• You many encounter a few quirks involving jumping between mailboxes, please note anything you find in the support forums

If you have anymore issues or suggestions be sure to leave them your feedback. Remember…beta means it’s there for you to test out. It’s not the final version. Try it on your Nokia 5800 and let  us know what you think.

Click here to learn more and get started at Nokia Beta Labs.

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It's no secret that times are getting tough. Companies are already tightening their belts, looking for ways to market their products in creative ways while being cost effective. Companies like RIM and Apple are spending millions on TV ads, while it seems Nokia spends virtually nothing to advertise S60 products in the North American market. You won't find a radio ad or tv commercial. Once in awhile you'll see a newspaper spot, but not often. Apple does a great job of presenting their product and showing how it works in a real life situation. Most of their commercials are simply demonstrations of how each application works.

The folks over at Nokia Conversations posted an article showing off a gigantic four foot flat panel screen resembling the Nokia 5800. It's placed outside a Nokia Store in Belguim, right on the corner of a busy street. You can walk up and touch the screen, trying out the basic features of the phone like the photo gallery, music player, and maps.

Check out the video below showing people trying this out...



Now I know this is nothing new but why doesn't Nokia put something like this out side the North American Nokia stores? I think it would be a great hit.

“Bypassers can control the mobile phone by touching the glass. Create Multimedia developed a Flash application similar to the phone’s interface. You can listen to music, look at maps, browse video’s, photo’s… The hardware we used was an iWindow Interactive foil combined with their unique daylight technology. This gave an awesome result even in bright sunlight. We also use the iWindow through glass sound system to play music on the street.”

For more information check out this article at Nokia Conversations.

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Yesterday, Nokia released an update to their Nokia Messaging application (email.nokia.com), bringing support for Windows Live Hotmail and HTML email to S60 Nokia devices. Along with the announcement came word that the Nokia 5800 will soon be compatible. I got my hands on the pre-release version of Nokia Messaging for the 5800 if you're interested in seeing the screenshots. It's still a little buggy but it's coming along nicely. Even with these announced updates to Nokia Messaging many people are still having problems getting their email set up properly.

Check out the follow tips from the Nokia Messaging team...

Trouble Logging In

If you're having trouble logging in, remember that your Nokia Messaging username and password are the same as the email address and email address password that you used to sign up for Nokia Messaging with.

Setting Up IMAP Folders

In order to sync your IMAP subfolders, Log into your account on email.nokia.com, and select the Edit settings link next to an email address for which you would like to sync additional folders.

Where To Get Nokia Messaging

Depending on the model and/or firmware version of your Nokia device, you may have Nokia Messaging preloaded on your device. If you are in a country where Nokia Messaging is available, the E-Mail setup application on your phone will setup your email address within Nokia Messaging. As an alternative, you can sign up for Nokia Messaging at email.nokia.com. You can also download it from your mobile browser.

Problems Syncing

Check the "sync while roaming" setting if you are experiencing connection problems.

HTML Support

Nokia Messaging handles rich formatted text and lighter HTML-formatted emails very well. Within some larger messages, you may notice some irregular scrolling and selecting behavior. We will continue to work on improving HTML rendering in the future.

How To Edit Advanced Settings Of Nokia Messaging

You can now edit your email settings: while signing up for a Nokia Messaging account, you are now able to include the outgoing mail server as part of advanced settings. Users with a Nokia Messaging account are now able to edit their email server settings from the My Account page. This will be helpful if you are experiencing difficulty sending or receiving emails, or feel like your email provider settings were not discovered correctly.

Personally I haven't had any problems with Gmail or Mail on Ovi accounts in the past few weeks. But from reading many comments around the internet like these from E71Fanatics.com it seems like it's a hit or miss.

For more discussion and troubleshooting help you can visit the Nokia Support Forums.

Hope this helps everybody out!

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Nokia Beta Labs just released a new Photo Browser for the Nokia 5800. When I say "one of the nicest I've seen", I'm talking about on ANY mobile device, not just S60 Nokia phones. When I first read this news over at Symbian-Guru.com I was ecstatic as Nokia Beta Labs has been really pushing out some cool new S60 applications lately.

Nokia Photo Browser includes a new facial recognition technology. If there are a few people in the picture you can touch their face and the application zooms in on that person. You can then move the picture around to view other faces in the photo. Scrolling through thumbnails is extremely intuitive and fast - bringing more "eye candy" to the S60 5th Edition, something that is really needed.

Check out the video demonstration released by Labs...



According to Mika from Beta Labs...

Nokia Photo Browser is still prototype application and it has some limitations. We are developing new features and improving the usability continuously. If you have Nokia S60 5.0 phone with touch screen like Nokia XpressMusic 5800, give us feed back how we can further develop Photo Browser application. If you don’t have touch screen device yet, wait for a moment. We will release Photo Browser also for Series 60 3.x products soon.

Nokia Photo Browser will also work for the upcoming Nokia N97. I'm hoping this application entirely replaces the built in photo gallery. Support for S60 3rd Edition devices like the Nokia E71 and N85 is coming soon.

I haven't got a chance to try this out yet, but I'll install it on my fiance's 5800 tonight and let you guys know any gripes I might have. So far a big thumbs up to Nokia for getting us something pretty to show off and at the same time keeping the usability factor. Hopefully we'll continue seeing more applications like this in the near future.

Click here to download Nokia Photo Browser.

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As you all know I've been reviewing the Nokia 5800 for a few weeks now. One of the major reasons I haven't been extremely happy with the 5800 was the lack of Nokia Messaging, you know - the email client that Nokia has been working on, originally called Nokia Email. Having email on my mobile device is extremely important to me, and th build in 5800 email application just wasn't cutting it. Nokia Messaging is used on my Nokia E71 and N82 for all my Gmail and Ovi mail needs. Over the weekend I got my grubby hands on an alpha version of the Nokia Messaging application that the developers are currently working on for S60 5th edition devices like the Nokia 5800. So far the application is extremely stable and my email is being sent to my phone immediately, sometimes even faster than it hits the inbox on my PC.

Check out the screenshots and details…

Welcome Screen: All you need to do is input your email address and password. Nokia Messaging takes care of the rest. It managed to set up my Gmail and Ovi inbox without any problems.

Inbox: Below is a preview of how my inbox looks. You can see the Gmail logo in the top left. If you have other accounts set up like Yahoo, Ovi, etc. you just click that icon and it will list your other inboxes. Tap the Inbox icon in the top row and it will show you the other folders like Trash, Sent, and your IMAP folders. Tap the Date icon and you can also sort by Subject, Sender, Flag, Priority, Unread, and Attachments. At the bottom you can reply/forward, delete, and compose. To scroll through the list you can either drag the bar on the right side or put your finger anywhere on the message list and move it up and down. I prefer the second method as it works very well.

Message: Here is what it looks like when you view a specific message.  In the row of buttons on the bottom you can choose to reply/forward, delete, and flag your message. In the options menu you can mark unread, move, select text, call sender, and compose.

Compose: This is where you compose or reply to a message. The icons at the right allow you to send, attach, and add priority to your message. unfortunately I couldn’t get a screenshot of this in portrait view, the screenshot app will not let me. So here it is in landscape…

 Landscape Mode: As you see above Nokia Messaging also works great in landscape mode.

Extra Notes:

There are a few other notes that I’d like to mention before wrapping up this post. There is a Touch And Hold gesture that works when you highlight an email and hold your finger on the screen. A menu comes up with the following actions: Delete, Reply, Reply All, Forward, Mark Unread, Flag, and Move. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get a screenshot of this because the screenshot application won’t capture it. This feature needs a little more work since it sometimes doesn’t bring up this shortcut menu, instead it thinks my finger is trying to scroll.  This actually happens across the board. Sometimes when trying to open a specific message by tapping it, the application thinks I’m scrolling and just moves the inbox up and down.  I’m sure this will be worked out when the first beta version is released, keep in mind my version is still alpha.

Before you ask - HTML is still not implemented in this version. I can assure you that the developers are working around the clock to bring this functionality.  UI design is also being polished, and home screen integration is on the to-do list.

Slightly Off Topic: For all other version of Nokia Messaging: HTML support is “coming soon”. I’ll let you know a soon as it’s available.

If you have any questions about Nokia Messaging for the 5800 feel free to ask! If you haven't tried out Nokia Messaging and you have a device other than the 5800 get it from http://email.nokia.com

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