Today the Nokia E71 has become finally become official, and I have some new videos and photos to prove it. So far this phone is my favorite Eseries device and I'm seriously thinking about picking one of these up. The solid form factor, amazing battery, and high speed 3G internet is so tempting. Not to mention the 3.2mp camera.
This new video really does the E71 justice, more than any other video or photos we've seen. Check it out...
I love that sleek look with metallic edges. Not to mention this thing is slimmer than the iPhone making it perfect to slip into your pocket.
A new scrolling feature has been added in the Calendar application allowing you to see all your events during the day without having to push anything. Watch the video...
Another amazing announcement is that the E71 will also be coming in white. This is great to attract the women who want to have this amazing business phone while still showing their feminine side, and I also know many guys who would find the white attractive.
And of course the black version will probably be the best seller...
Last but not least, a photo sample showing off the 3.2mp camera. Not bad for a business phone huh? Credits to All About Symbian for the photo...
I published this article the other day at The N82 Blog to show off one of the most creative uses I've seen done with the Nokia N82. A reader Ming emailed me with a video he made of a plant growing. Using certain camera settings with the N82 he was able to capture 10 days worth of growth with over 1400 photos - all automatically. The 10 days of growth was condensed into a 2 minute video. The addition of titles and beautiful music completed this project.
Using a method he learned from the Finest Fones Blog, Ming was able to make an inspiring video to show off to readers of his blog.
Before you watch, Ming says,
Time lapse videography has always fascinated me; I mean, 3D animation is pretty cool, but messing with the 4th dimension (time) is way cooler. Watching nature at unnatural speeds is like witnessing pure magic. And thanks to the Nokia N82 (and any S60 device with a camera), it’s now completely within our reach.
Now check out the video below...
To learn more about this and see detailed steps of what he did, read this article and try it with your Nseries handset.
Nokia introduced Share On Ovi to us awhile back ago to challenge the popular photo sharing website Flickr and provide a place for Nokia users to store their photos, videos, and files online. Since the introduction Ovi has been introducing new services and features here and there and listening to user's requests in their support forums.
Today they added a few features, one that I am very happy about. I've always thought they need more size options for viewing the images online. You now have the option to view images at medium, large, extra large, and original. The extra large size will show your images up to 1280 pixels wide. Ovi says, "New photos posted to Share will present the Extra Large view immediately. It will take some time to render the new size view for existing photos. Be on the lookout for the updated view of your media."
Also PicLens now works with Share On Ovi. PicLens introduces a new way to view images online and was first introduced to me by Al from The Nokia Blog (aka Dr. Tran from Hofo).
What Share On Ovi says about PicLens...
PicLens is an innovative and unique way to immerse yourself in the media viewing experience. Install PicLens to view and browse media on Share in a full screen, interactive mode. PicLens is easy to install and use. Visit www.piclens.com to download and install the plug-in. After installation, simply mouse over media on Share and click on the PicLens play button that appears in the lower left hand corner to view.
If you want more features added to Ovi, head to the support forums and give them your feedback. I've already asked for embed options for tags and even more sharing options for individual photos in public channels. Hopefully we get these. Oh and not to mention geofeed support for embedding photos on a map. This way I can finally ditch Flickr for good. Come on Nokia, I know you can do it.
A New Video Tour They have FINALLY made a tour video of Share On Ovi. You can already find one on the Nokia website, but this one gives you more insight that is even helpful to experienced users. Click here to see the video.
Every day I get more excited about Share On Ovi. I find new uses and upload to it constantly. I'm sharing media with my friends and family faster than I ever have before. Like I said there are a few things that need to be implemented, but from the looks of it they are well on their way.
Are you enjoying Share On Ovi, or have you yet to try it?
Think back to late last year, if you remember a S60 video was released showing off the upcoming Touch interface thats supposed to rival the iPhone. Some were impressed, others weren't. Personally I was on the fence about the UI, but I'm starting to like the way they are going with it. They threw in some more content to save some money, not having to remake the entire commercial.
Video...
So what say you? Are they looking good, or still have lots of work? Am I the only one noticing the awkward scrolling in the Web browser. Or am I being picky? Steve L. from All About Symbian also noticed the same thing. By the way, that was my source of this video.
I'm hoping that they make a method to input text with your finger and not just a stylus. And I know some would still love to have a real keypad along with the touchscreen. That sounds like an idea.
Will you wait for this phone to be released (like me)? Or jump on the 3g iPhone. Shoot for all we know the 3g iPhone will be outdated by the time Nokia gets off their arses with a touchscreen S60 device.
Zach from Symbian In Motion got his hands on a Nokia N78 and has posted a few video reviews. I always love his reviews cuz they are up front and honest.
The first video is a basic overview of the phone where he covers everything from the form factor to the UI which of course has Symbian S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2. Zach seems a little unimpressed with the Nokia N78. The navi-wheel doesn't work the way he likes and he mentions the keypad will take some getting used to. One thing that stands out to me is he thinks the N78 is lacking IMAP Idle, which will obviously be a catastrophe. Hopefully he digs around and can find it somewhere in the settings, I don't believe Nokia is that dumb to leave it out. When I asked him about this, here's the reply.
Yes, the phone supports IMAP protocol. The problem is that it doesn't support IMAP idle. In other words, rather than maintaining an active connection to the mailbox and updating in near-real time (IMAP idle) with headers, the email app will poll every XX minutes as it does with POP. This means that when new mail arrives the email app will download the header and then disconnect. If you want to read it you click on it and then wait for the email app to connect to the mailbox (again), wait for it to download the email and wait for it to open the message. No good.
I agree with Zach, no bueno.
I also agree with him that there should be a News Ticker from the Web applications RSS Feeds that can be embedded on the standby screen. Simple things like this can make the experience of the N78 so much better. Sure they added the vertical standby menu, but it doesn't seem like they went above and beyond like they could have and should have. Snippets of emails and text messages should be added to the standby screen, along with more customization.
Click here to check out the detailed 16 minute video review by Zach from SIMO.
The second video Zach shot is embedded below. It shows off a pre-installed theme on the N78 thats gives different and better looking transitions than the one he used in his full video review. This discovering leaves me wondering if 3rd party developers will have the option to create their own transitions and effects for their custom themes. Who knows what the minds of Pizero and Babi theme makers can come up with for transitions.
Check out the video below showing off the transitions in Feature Pack 2...
Overall I think the N78 is a great phone. The form factor is great and I'm sure I can get used to the keys. I don't think it's worthy of upgraded from my N82 though, I am to spoiled with the xenon flash. Feature Pack 2 does look pretty, but not enough for me to upgrade.
Has anyone seen any retailers selling the North American 3g version of this phone yet? I read a rumor today that Nokia is still in negotiations with AT&T to pick up this phone. If this happens I may think about buying one at a cheaper price and unlocking it so it's just like I bought it from Nokia unlocked. I'll keep you guys updated.
The Nokia E71 has to be one of the most anticipated high end Nokia devices since the original Nokia N95. The hype is so built up, and so many peopole are interested in buying one of these puppies. Interestingly enough I've seen a lot of people in various community websites from the North American region exciting and waiting for this to come out.
The fellas over at Boy Genius Report have gotten there grubby hands on a presale model of the hot Nokia E71 where they are answering tons of questions from giddy Nokia fans. I personally am very excited about this phone and interested to see if AT&T will pick it up. If so, and it's a reasonable price, I may grab it and unlock/unbrand it to make it just like I got it from Nokia.
A few hardware features that I love about it is the size (thinner than the iPhone), 3.2mp camera, Gps, Wifi, 1500mah battery (amazing), and of course the qwerty keypad and North American 3g data speeds. As far as internals go the T9 has been enchanced, the memory and UI is big and fast, there are "modes" where you can define different standby screens for different times of the day, plus most of the other great features that you get in any Nseries device.
For me if it came down to the E71 or N95 I'd pick the E71 all the way. The reviewer mentioned that the E71 is built like a rock, another plus. It's just too hard to give up the xenon flash of the Nokia N82 that I've fallen in love with.
Check out the video review of the Nokia E71 by Boy Genious Report. Keep in mind it's 17 minutes long but has lots of great info and compares the E71 to the Blackberry Curve and iPhone. You can see lots of comments that include questions and answers about the Nokia E71.
Are you excited as many others are including myself about this upcoming Nokia Eseries device?
It's amazing the kind of technology that is coming to S60. I don't know if this application is available yet or who makes it, but you can see the video below for a demonstration. Waving your hand in front of the phone to the left can drag your photo gallery to the left, and vice versa. Hovering your hand while coming down towards the phone can play and pause the music player. Crazy stuff. It's in another language and I'm not quite sure what he's saying.
This is one of the first real good video reviews I've seen of the Nokia N78, thanks to Rafe of All About Symbian. There are a few really cool things in this video that stand out for to me.
First is the geo-tagging of photos. Geo-tagging is nothing new. It's coming in the next firmware release of the Nokia N82, and a beta version of Location Tagger can be downloaded at Nokia Beta Labs for GPS enabled Nseries phones. But what you see in this video is just awesome. You can have the option to view a tag cloud of all the locations of your photos. Click on the location, and all the photos you took will show up in the Gallery (now called Photos). I think that's pretty damn cool. You also have the option to "view on map", which pulls up Nokia Maps with the photo you selected.
The next great thing is the speed of the Gallery. It's in the same layout we're used to, a half circle. But the load time is almost instantaneous. Even on the newer phones like the N95 and N82, we still get a delay of the thumbnails loading in the Gallery. Obviously a huge upgrade to the N78's predecessor, the N73.
You also get a look at the Naviwheel and the D-pad, along with the Multimedia features, Nokia Maps, & the Photo Suite that allows you to view photos on your computer. It looks pretty slick, but only time will tell how memory hungry the new Suite is.
Overall it's a great review and makes me want the N78 more and more. There are however a few things that are turning me off about the phone, but I'll talk about this more in another article.
For now, check out the video review of the Nokia N78, and be sure to head over to All About Symbian to leave your comments after you watch the video.
Yesterday I posted this over at The N82 Blog and I wanted to share it here as well. I can't say how excited I am about seeing the rock band Foo Fighters this Thursday night at the Great Western Forum in Los Angeles. They've been one of my favorite bands since I can remember. I'll be using my N82 extensively, uploaded photos and videos to Ovi (Nokia's version of Flickr, I'll tell you more about it later). I'll have a link here on the blog where you can check out photos and videos throughout the night, and hopefully try out the Qik application, which allows you to stream live video from your phone to the internet. Not sure if my Edge connection will be fast enough for that though. I'm also not too sure of where I'm sitting, hopefully close enough to get some good footage. We might go out afterwards and get some more pics of the afterparty. Friday shall be a rough day at work, but it'll be well worth it. Anyone else into the Foo Fighters?
Also, if anyone has gotten footage of any bands or music artists from a live concert with the Nokia N82? Interested to see how the quality comes out.
I found this video over at AllAboutSymbian.com. I actually like this commercial and hope that Nokia airs it. The fellas at the Nokia marketing department are starting to show somewhat of a funny side.
Check out the insides of the Nokia N78....
I'm actually really fond of this phone. The only thing that is turning me off is the lack of 5mp and Xenon flash. I may consider getting this since it's been announced to have US 3g. It all depends on if Nokia has fixed the camera speed and stability compared to the N73. I'm assuming they have since it has so much RAM. We'll wait for sample photos to roll in.
We're finally getting a real first hand look at Feature Pack 2. The video below only shows the cool transitions, which alone make me want one of these new phones. The response time of the menus is great, and everything is smooth and fluid.
Check out the video. We should be getting more videos like this in a few weeks.
Feature Pack 2 will make it's debut on the Nokia N96 and N78. I must say I'm pretty impressed. What do you think?
I'm sure you've all heard about the new Nokia flagship phone, the N96. If you haven't, read a few posts down and you'll find the specs. The specs are amazing. A true multimedia phone. Huge screen, video playback, built-in stereo speakers, tons of memory. They are begging you to use the crap out of it, and not to talk. Use it as a computer. That's right - emails, web, movies, music, games, tv, maps, video recording with double lcd - the works. Heck, if it had a full qwerty keyboard I wouldn't need a laptop anymore.
But once again, why the small 950mah battery? Didn't they learn the first time with the Nokia N95. Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog got a video with an interview with one of the N96 managers. He tries to explain why they don't need a bigger battery. He basically says the firmware has been optimized to not take a huge toll on the battery. I don't believe it. On a phone like this, my average day would be...
3-4 hours of music over bluetooth at work
IMAP email set to check for new mail every 30 minutes
about an hour throughout the day of web, rss feeds.
5-10 photos, with uploading to Ovi (I'll talk about the new Ovi online service later, it's awesome!)
about 45 mins of Google Maps and traffic indicator to navigate my way 30 miles to and from work in the lovely Los Angeles traffic
15-20 text messages
5 multimedia messages recieved or sent (funny pictures, etc.)
20-30 minutes of phone calls
about 15 minutes of video playback (youtube and south park episodes.)
Thats AVERAGE! I'm sure I'm not off from many Nseries users. This is how the phone is meant to be used. I expect that usage to get me from 6am-11pm with a few bars left. Of course I may be asking for a lot, but maybe not. A 1400mah battery should handle that.
But will it? Thats the big question that we won't know until the first reviews of the N96 start rolling in.
For now, check out this video by of a Nokia manager talking about the N96 battery life. (thanks to The Nokia Blog).
What do you think? Do you buy it? Will you take the plunge and be one of the first to get this phone before they release another version with a larger battery 5 months later?
This is an alternative to using emTube, unless of course you already have a N95 8gb with built in flash support.
If not, with Mobitubia, you get full accesss to the Youtube database on your s60 phone in good quality, full screen format. The load time is actually pretty quick as well. On an Edge connection here in the States, a 2 minute video loads in about 1.5 minutes, and you can start watching the video even before it fully loads. For you lucky European users, you'll have pretty much no wait time on a 3g connection. And if your in a WiFi area, this works great as well. Best of all you can save your viewed clips to your memory card if you want to check em out later, without having to reload them.
Amazing enough, this application is free to use but donations are encouraging to keep up development of this great application. Also, make sure you have an unlimited data plan or use this on a WiFi connection, Mobitubia uses tons of data.
Mobitubia loads up with a decently clean interface. The icons are slightly choppy, but not annoying. You have so many of Youtube's normal features in this application.
If you go to the Youtube icon you get the following:
Recently Featured
Popular Clips
Open Web Clip (if you know the URL)
View by Youtube ID
Clip Search
Other icons include Saved Clips, Open Clip URL, About, & Exit.
You have so many options while watching a video clip as well.
Play/Pause
Replay
Status Bar (show, hide, autohide)
Max Frame Skip (keep it at 0)
Save Clip (when finished viewing, to your phone or card)
Back and Exit
Overall Mobitubia runs clean and smooth. Watch a video demo below:
To never get bored ever again, click here to download Mobitubia and watch YouTube on your Nokia handset. Be sure to come back and give us your thoughts, and if you use emTube, try this out and see which one you like better.
Mark Guim from The Nokia Blog uploaded a video to Youtube showing off the double led flash of the new Nokia N96. I'm pretty impressed with the brightness for video use, but it doesn't come close to the xenon flash for taking pictures on the Nokia N82. I honestly think all 5mp Nseries devices should come with xenon flash. The LED, even double LED, will prove to once again be useless for night shots, as on the N95. People buy these beauties for the cameras, if not just get yourself a nice looking Eseries.
Anyways, here is a video sample of the double LED flash of the Nokia N96, thanks to The Nokia Blog. I can't wait to see some night photo samples.
Well it seems as though the Nokia 96 will be the next king of the Nseries. It's a multimedia powerhouse, you can even watch live TV! I'm sure this probably will only work in Europe, but who knows. 16 gigs internally, and an expandable microSD slot puts the new 16gig iPhone to shame. This thing can have more storage space than my laptop has! The fellas over at NokNok.tv got the first hands on video, which you can view below. Be sure to check out their website and give em props for getting this footage.
and another video I found while browsing Youtube...
Personally I think this phone is a huge upgrade over the N95, mainly because of the slick design looks. But this baby also has a scroll wheel and feature pack 2 and the music quality is "supposedly" going to be the best out of any Nokia devices. The main thing being criticized right now is the battery. I also am bummed that it doesn't have a xenon flash, but maybe the double led will suffice. All we can do is hope and pray that the slider is more solid than the N95.
And of course the specs of the Nokia N96...
Symbian S60v3 Feature Pack 2
Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz) and dual-band HSDPA (900/2100MHz)
103mm x 55mm x 18mm (4″ x 2.2″ x .7″) compared to the N95’s 99mm x 53mm x 19mm (4.0″ x 2.0″ x 0.7″)
125g
2.8″ QVGA display with 16m colors
950mAh battery
WiFi with uPnP
DVB-H (digital TV)
5 megapixel camera with autofocus, Carl Zeiss optics, dual-LED flash for photos and video light, secondary front-facing VGA cam for video calling
VGA quality video recording at 30 fps
Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and A2DP
3.5mm AV outlet for audio and TV-Out
AGPS with Nokia Maps 2.0 and built-in geotagging
16GB internal flash memory, microSD card slot
Hidden kickstand for watching video
Dual-slide with dedicated multimedia keys and gaming keys.
A few days ago I talked about the new full desktop - mobile browser coming to S60 called Skyfire. Well this puppy just got reviewed by Brighthand, and damn it looks good. Now mind you this was a review done on a Windows Mobile phone, but the developers are saying we'll get the same thing for S60.
Check out this new demo video below:
To read the full review, head of over to Brighthand.com.
Thanks to Phoneboy, I just read some news over at Howard Forums about a new mobile browser for Symbian S60 devices that brings you a true desktop browser experience. Skyfire will use the same idea as Opera Mini, in which it a backend proxy server to process the website to work on your Nokia phone. It will feature full flash support for websites such as Youtube and Espn.com. The latest Nokia N95 8gb firmware update already gives browser flash support, but people still run into out of memory errors. Hopefully this new 3rd party browser can solve that problem. I think it's great that Nokia will have new competition with 3rd party web browsers, it will only push them to make the built-in one better. Best thing is this application will be FREE!
Even better is I'm hearing that this will work on older models such as the Nokia N73, but don't quote me on that. If that is the case, Skyfire can possibly become one of the most popular S60 applications.
The picture to the left is a screenshot of Skyfire Browser on a Nokia N95. I dropped a screenshot I found over the Nokia N95 8gb screen using Photoshop. I'm not sure that there is even an actual beta version being tested right now.
I actually found a video of Skyfire mobile browser being tested on a Windows Mobile device. See below...it looks absolutely amazing.
This application is slated to be released for S60 sometime this quarter. Click here for the original article at Phoneboy's blog.
I came across this video yesterday of a video tutorial of the built-in video editor in the Nokia N95. I knew the N95 had a video editor, but I never knew it was this detailed, allowing you to add words, transitions, photos, other video clips, and sound or music. It almost feels like Apple's iMovie program if any of you have ever used it. In a few weeks I'm going to be going to a Los Angeles Kings hockey practice and make a little movie out of the practice, all with the Nokia N95, so I can put my movie skills to work. From the looks of the video below, Nokia N95 video editor is a very stable application, which Nokia should promote more, I didn't even realize the full capabilities of it.
For now, check out this great Nokia N95 Video Editing tutorial by Steve Garfield.
The Symbian-Guru.com has posted a video of full YouTube being played on a Nokia N95 8GB. This is with the latest firmware upgrade. I'll have more on this later since I'm heading out to work.
That's right folks. Someoone is developing an iCrap style music player for the Nokia N95 & N82, and hopefully all S60 devices. The music player is actually one of the cool things about the iPhone. The description of the video when you go to the actual YouTube site says that it's made using the Flash Lite player, I'm assuming Flash Lite 3. As you can see in the video below, it has one up on the iPhone. You can use the accelerometer in the Nokia N95 & N82 to control the playback and tracks by moving the phone in a certain direction, much like is already implemented in the NokMote application. Once again, this proves that the possibilities of the S60 3rd Edition platform are endless.
Check out the video below:
If anyone has anymore information on this application or a link to the developer that would be greatly appreciated. I just randomly came across this video on YouTube.
I live in Southern California & love Symbian & Nokia phones. I'm a dockworker at the Ports of Los Angeles & Long Beach, unloading the cargo off of huge mega container ships & I also work for Budweiser in the Graphics Design department printing out posters and banners.
