Nokia N8 Review Week – Day 3 – Symbian^3 And UI

Hello and welcome everyone to the Nokia N8 Review Week here on Fone Arena! Each day of this week, one of our team members will cover one area of Nokia’s imaging flagship with all the do’s and dont’s. This should make for an exciting week and we’re all looking forward to that! Today is Wednesday, our names are Rita El Khoury and Sloan Bowman, and we have joined forces to tell you about the Nokia N8 software and what you can expect of it. Since the software/UI is a very objective and personal matter, we thought we would give you two real-world opinions of it, sometimes we’ll agree, other times we’ll have radically opposing impressions. Enjoy reading along and if you have any questions on that matter, leave a comment!

After tackling the Hardware and Camera in the previous days, two aspects where the Nokia N8 excels by anyone’s standards, we come to the most controversial aspect of the N8, the software or Symbian^3 and its UI. Symbian^3 is the first major software leap since Nokia brought S60 5th Edition on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Upon introduction, Symbian^3 was described as an evolutional not revolutional progression, meant to fix all the major issues that plagued Symbian’s first iteration with a touchscreen UI, and which were most heartfelt on the Nokia N97. Continue reading “Nokia N8 Review Week – Day 3 – Symbian^3 And UI”

Drive Safe.ly with the new Blackberry Application

Never realized that we could have been missing on a feature on one of the finest phones, till I came across Drive Safe.ly . Bluetooth is so much good till the time a call comes through, but here comes an application that sorts out the problem of receiving mails and messages and your hands itching to check it out while driving.

Drive Safe.ly actually reads out your SMS or Mail as it arrives in the mail box, and can auto respond to the same. An excellent application for those busy individuals on the move. Easy to use, just set it to “On” while driving and it will read out your message in Crystal Clear voice.

Drive Safely Mobile Application
Drive Safely Mobile Application

Continue reading “Drive Safe.ly with the new Blackberry Application”

Samsung Omnia HD Review Part-3: Software and Accessories

Scr000004In this rather late third part of the review of the Omnia HD, we bring to you a low down on the software that makes the Omnia HD a performer.

As you all know the Omnia HD is Samsung’s first S60 5th edition device and the third touch screen S60 phone to be launched. Samsung with a good experience in touch screen phones, has for some reason failed to deliver a product that sets it apart from an N97 or a 5800. Sure, in terms of the hardware and the camera performance, the Omnia HD is one helluva performer, but some downright silly niggles keep the Omnia HD from becoming a high seller. The good part of it, a firmware update can easily fix it. Continue reading “Samsung Omnia HD Review Part-3: Software and Accessories”

It’s Raining updates from Nokia and we have all of them covered..

Nokia has been rolling out a lot of Firmware updates and application updates from the last two days and here you can find a gist of all the major updates from Nokia in the last two days

Firmware Updates

In the spate of just two days Nokia has released firmware updates for two of its N-Series offerings and three of the E-Series devices.

Device Name

New Firmware Version

N97

v11.0.021

N96

v30.033

E71

v300.21.012

E66

v300.21.012

E51

v400.34.011

Continue reading “It’s Raining updates from Nokia and we have all of them covered..”

Paypal brings Mobile Checkout

Can’t login to Paypal on your mobile ? Worrying about the loads of time their homepage takes to load on your mobile . There’s some relief.

Paypal has launched a new mobile checkout service that enables users to pay for services over paypal using a website interface tailor made for small screens. There’s verification by means of a Mobile PIN.

paypal_mobile_checkout_1.jpg

paypal_mobile_checkout_2.jpg

Nice to see some activity on the mobile web arena.

More

Nokia’s new N-gage gaming platform

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You might have seen the Nokia N-gage and the Ngage-QD . It was not a big hit but it defintely made the mobile gaming experience a enjoyable one.Nokia is currently working on a new N-Gage gaming platform. Details are expected to be announced any time. Unlike the previous version the new n-gage is expected to be compatible with at least all N-Series phones.

The Graphics looks really good.Will the 3D accelerator in the N95 be powerful enough for 3D Gaming ?

Lets wait and watch, for now enjoy the video.

check the video for a preview of what’s in store

Mozilla Firefox for mobile phones soon

Looks like Opera software and other mobile broswer vendors might face some stiff competition with the entry of Mozilla Firefox into the mobile arena. APC carries a news story which says

Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker has been thinking about it too, and looking at how Firefox can be ported to mobile platforms. “

A Mini Mozilla based variant is already available for Windows Mobile devices here MiniMo .

Opera Mini works great but it will always be good to see some innovation as Mobile Browsing is a tedious job.

via [apc]

Forum Nokia Open C Roadshow comes to Chennai

Great news for Mobile Developers in and around chennai.

Nokia is starting of its Open C Events in the Country.

If you are wondering what Open C is about but are interested to find out, then head to the venue.
Venue

Le Royal Meridien
1 GST Road,
St. Thomas Mount,
Chennai – 600 016,
Tamil Nadu,
India.

Date 24th April 2007, Tuesday
Time 09:00 – 17:25

Register Now

Microsoft announces Windows Mobile 6.0

The new version of Windows Mobile – 6.0 is coming and devices using the new operating system are expected to be available in the second quarter of 2007.

Whats in

  • Vista Look
  • Improved Office and Outlook 2007 integration
  • Windows Live platform
  • File Transfer possibility in Live Messenger
  • Improved HTML Email support

The OS  will be unveiled at the 3GSM in Barcelona next week.

Bangalore based Motvik readying WWIGO

M.Thiyagarajan of Bangalore,India is the person behind Motvik – a startup in the mobile media space, its flagship product WWIGO (pronounced as ‘vigo’) stands for ‘Webcam Wherever I Go’.

It allows a user to transform a bluetooth enabled camera phone into a wireless webcam to be used along with a PC/Laptop. Currently in private alpha testing it would be soon made available for wider public use.”

I m going to test this app soon and post my impressions on the same here.

Wow !! Its so great to see some activity happenning in the Indian Mobile Space.

Motvik site 

Fring : Make free mobile VOIP Calls

Fring™ is a 3G mobile application that allows you to make free mobile calls and send instant messages (chat) to other fring users and PC based VoIP services such as Skype and Google Talk at no extra cost.
fring™ calls cost nothing extra because they utilize the 3G mobile internet connections and VoIP technologies that are already embedded in your mobile handset.

I was surprised to find that this Software works in India.The voice quality was really great for a normal GPRS connection.

Will post a video or images of our test soon.

fring™ works transparently over 3G networks while bypassing traditional mobile voice and sms text messaging services. This means that fring™ enables mobile-to-mobile calls, mobile-to-landline calls, and mobile-to-PC calls including integration into Skype and Google Talk services wherever you are.

Download

iPhone GUI based Iphony for Palm forces Apple to threaten Blogger

The iPhone fever seems to have hit some Palm addicts.

There was a iPhone like launcher utility which was launched a certain while ago. Its called Iphony.

But Apple seems to have taken this seriously and forced a blogger to remove links to the App.
iphony-palm.jpg

Folks , you can head over here to see the video:PDA Mexico

via: [engadgetmobile]

3 Killer Mobile Apps

Shozhu
shozu_logo.gif

Shozu is a free app to upload photos and videos from your mobile phone.

Its supports Flickr, WordPress, Blogger,Youtube , TypePad and a variety of services.

It also offers Contact backups

Its assisted by timely SMS alerts when the transfers fail or when you move out on roaming.

Gmail Mobile


gmail_mobile.jpg

Google’s J2ME client for its free Gmail service is one of the best mobile email clients out there.

  • automatic pre-fetching of messages
  • Slick and user friendly inteface
  • Attachments support for files and photos, viewable and automatically resized to fit the user’s phone

Just goto http://gmail.com/app on your mobile browser to download the client which is about 130KB in size

Continue reading “3 Killer Mobile Apps”

CloneDVD Mobile

clonedvd mobileCloneDVD lets you to convert your dvds into formats compatible with your mobile phones. So that you never miss your favorite movies or tv series on the go.

CloneDVD mobile converts your DVD movies quickly and easily into a format that your portable device (Sony PSP, Apple iPod Video, iAudio X5, Creative Labs ZEN Vision, etc) can play. You can also convert your DVDs to other file formats, such as DivX, XviD, AVI, MP4, etc.

The software has a user friendly interface and is quick and easy to use. Copying a DVD to your mobile video machine is achieved in a few mouse clicks and without the need to rip it to your hard-disk.

Features

  • Convert movie DVDs to play on mobile video equipment like the Sony PSP, Apple iPod Video, iAudio X5, Creative Labs Z, EN Vision, etc
  • Convert movie DVDs to other file formats like DivX, XviD, AVI, MP4, etc.
  • Utilises a high quality picture conversion engine
  • Supports multi-angle movie DVDs
  • Video Preview shows an overview of all selectable DVD titles
  • Target size freely adjustable
  • Supports chapter trimming
  • Very easy to use: Our unique Filmstrip assistant will guide you step-by-step through all settings – easy for beginners
  • Picture snapshots while converting
  • Logging window available
  • Stable, fast and does not require an ASPI driver.

The product can be downloaded for a free trial and if you want to buy it then it would cost you USD 39.

CloneDVD Mobile