Nokia N97 Photo Shoot!!

I had an opportunity to experience the new Nokia N97 at two back to back events StartupCity &  Nokia N97 Bloggers meet. I tried to explore all the aspects the end user probably going to look at & here are the pictures. Few images are from my cam & few from Manasa (thanks for that )

Tried loading my other Blog Control Enter, just shows how awesome the browsing experience is on N97

How can we forget Phone's basic functionality, dialer, fully touchable!!

Main menu of the phone, did you notice OVI store app!? N97 is the first phone which is shipping with OVI Store app

Staying updated with the news is hell lot easier now!

Software/Firmware Information

Viewing HD videos is just awesome on N97 which supports 16:9 aspect ratio & comes with 32GB inbuilt memory which enough room to all your favorite videos

I still don’t understand how I forgot to take a snap of all new “Customizable Home Screen” But I love the first picture, just shows how awesome the browsing experience on this phone & that’s my favorite picture (I keep looking at it again & again!!).

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Yesterday Leeladhar wrote on ControlEnter about an SMS scam. You might receive an SMS saying you have won lottery prize of Rs.xxxx, claim it by calling following number. Which refers to an international number, upon calling subscribers might be charged as high as Rs.500. Airtel is displaying a alert message about this scam on it’s main page:

?Unsolicited fraudulent SMS?s are being sent to various subscribers informing them that they have won a prize and need to call an international number to collect their prize. When calls are made to the number in the text message the subscribers are billed a high amount (upto Rs 500 per minute).Subscribers are cautioned not to respond to such SMS?s?

So, don’t reply by calling to numbers provided in SMSs. Educate your friends about this scam by sharing this information.

Note: You can use “Google Friend Connect” on Tech Bangalore to send the link to your gmail contacts by clicking on “Invite Friends” after logging into it.

Few people use PIN locking system to lock their phone to avoid un-authorised access. Though this is a good option, it pisses you off sometime. Three wrong entry of PIN code will result in SIM blocking. Once SIM gets blocked, phone starts asking PUK code to enter. If you again enter wrong code for three times, SIM gets completely blocked. You have to walk into your service provider outlet to get a replacement SIM card.

PUK code is a SIM specific code assigned by your service provider. No way you can guess & enter it. So, when it asks for the PUK code, don’t do anything, get the PUK code from your service provider. Airtel has a easier way of getting PUK code. For getting PUK code of a Airtel number, send PUK<space>PhoneNumber to toll free number 121. You can make use of any other Airtel number to send this message since your SIM might have been blocked already.

If the above method doesn’t works or your service provider is not Airtel, call to customer care using any other mobile phone which uses the same service provider. They will ask some details about you to make sure you are the owner of the SIM card. Questions might include your billing address, email ID, numbers you recently called or messaged etc. They might even ask you number printed on the SIM card, so be prepared with all details before calling them. Once you get the PUK code, enter it into the phone & your phone will return to normal.

Reliance has started it’s GSM service & is offering connection for as low as Rs.25. The plan is called as CeP – Customer Experience Pack. Following are the plan details:

• Free talktime worth Rs.5 everyday to call any local phone.
• Free night calling (11 PM to 6AM) across Reliance numbers.
• SIX months incoming validity

All these you get for Rs.25, top ups start from Rs.10. Many mobile phone shops in Bangalore are already selling SIM cards. Look for big Reliance banners, wallposts, you can easilyu find them.

Starwars is a game based on movie Starwars which almost seems like a movie in story mode. It has excellent game play & graphics as you see in above trailer. Starwars is the most difficult game out of three n-gage games I have played. This is for those who can take up the challenge! Though the game is tough, once you learn how to use different forces you have, you can beat any enemy with the ease. You just need to find out which force is more powerful against a particular enemy. Accordingly you need to change the force you are using & destroy the enemy.

The game has “Story Mode” which is pretty much similar to the movie. It also has chapter mode, once you unlock chapters you can choose & play any chapter later. The game has got good realistic graphics & sound fx are awesome.

You can download free trial at StarWars official website. Join n-gage gamers gang to discuss about the game, learn tricks & tips about the game, challenge other gamers! Wan’t to challenge me? my n-gage gamer ID is “yappa”, let’s get n-gaged!

Tata indicom recently launched Blackberry service, I was curious about what they have to offer. I come across an awsome UNLIMITED tariff plan exclusively for Blackberry users. The plan is called as Platinum 2500 & details are as below:

So you get unlimited local & STD calls, unlimited SMS & also unlimited data usage (internet) for Rs.2500 a month. This is the only ALL UNLIMITED plan which I ever come across & right choice for businessman. Looking forward for similar plan from any GSM service provider like Airtel or Vodafone.

Before telling about n-gage gamers gang, let me tell you about n-gage first. n-gage is a gaming platform which runs on latest Nokia N Series phones including N79, N85, N96, N95, N95 8GB, N81, N818GB and 5320 XPressMusic & expected to available for Nokia N78, Nokia N73, Nokia N93i and Nokia N93. If you own any of the supported phones, you can download & install n-gage from www.n-gage.com.

Ok now let me tell you about n-gage gamers gang. It’s a community created by gaming enthusiasts to support n-gage. You can join the community either on Facebook or Orkut. You have to create a user ID in n-gage website & share your user ID at discussion threads created in these communities. You can also share your gaming experience with n-gage, your scores, meet new players, make them friends on n-gage

Free Game title!

Nokia is giving away free full version game titles till the end of October. All you have to do is install n-gage on your phone if supported, create an user ID at n-gage.com, share your user ID, email ID at nokiangageindia.com. Within 24 hours you will receive activation code for a full version game. You can also try many games available at n-gage showroom for free. Go Ahead, get engaged with n-gage!!!

Nokia E66

Nokia has released E66 & E71 around mid July. Both are business class phones designed for the way we work. I had Nokia E66 in my hand to review & here we go!

Finish of E66 is really awesome, slider, 2.4″ 16.7 million colors screen, wide key pad with quick access buttons….it’s a complete package. Let’s go one by one rather telling everything here & messing it up!

Receiving, Making, Managing Calls:

Call clearity is really good in E66, I could hear clearly even in Bangalore traffic! E66 comes with “Advanced Call Manager” which lets you manage your calls as you like. You can opt to receive/reject all calls, calls from contacts, from whitelist/Blacklist. When you select to reject, you have options to send busy tone, automatically reply by SMS, divert to different number & use Phone’s Answering Machine. This makes easy to handle calls while you are in meeting or busy with work.

Email, Messaging:

E66 supports SMS, MMS & Emails on IMAP & POP servers. It also has inbuilt configuration for known email services like Gmail. When you enter your Gmail ID, it automatically configures to IMAP. I configured two email IDs one is gmail & another one is techbangalore mail. Both worked fine on Vodafone EDGE connection, fetching emails was pretty smooth. E66 can sync your Outlook address book with contacts which makes composing new mails easy. It also has “Switch” service which helps you migrate your data from old phone to the new E66.

Connectivity:

E66 supports all types of connectivity, IR, USB, Bluetooth, WiFi & also VPN! Through VPN connectivity you can connect to your office intranet. WLAN Wiz searches for available WiFi networks & you can easily connect to any of them. It supports GPRS, EDGE & 3G technologies for internet connectivity. It has Print support, you can connect printer & take print outs.You can also use wireless bluetooth keyboard, which is not included in package.

Documents, Office Tools:

Nokia E66 has Quick Office with which you can open all types of office documents; word docs, spreadsheets & presentations. But it has limited license, you can’t create a document on your phone. You have to pay for full license for complete features. It also has Acrobat Reader which will be helpful to read e-books in PDF format on the go. It has useful Multi Card reader application which can capture contact details from business/visiting cards & save it in one button press! It can capture text from any hard copy. It also has Barcode reader, I think, which will not be useful for many of us.

Global Positioning System (GPS):

Nokia E66 is a GPS device with Nokia Maps. This is not network dependent as it connects to satellite to find your position. Network is required only in few cases like, to get traffic info, to install guides…etc. You have to download map of your region from Nokia Website & load it to phone. GPS worked pretty accurate in Bangalore, it knew each cross which I traveled! Voice guided navigation is pretty helpful while riding, but it’s free for only 7 days. You have to purchase full license to use it after that period.

Camera:

I was surprised to see business phone having a 3.2 mega pixel camera. But when you look at photographs, quality is about average. Camera has bright flash, 4x digital zoom, auto focus & few presets. I was surprised to see video quality obtained by this device, it’s pretty descent. It has a front camera which is only meant for Video Calls, which is of no use here as video calling is not supported by network. Camera is ok if you are not thinking seriously about photography. You can see few photographs & a video taken from this device at http://www.flickr.com/photos/hnprashanth/sets/72157606651697037/

Music, Videos:

The last thing to look in a business phone, Music is average on Nokia E66. It has basic music player which plays MP3 & few other audio formats. Music in earphones at full volume is not so audible in noisy environment like while traveling. I think that’s most important, because we usually listen to music while traveling. Music through loudspeaker is quite bad actually, it’s not so clear & distorted. Loudspeaker is kept at wrong place, it’s at bottom left corner where usually we keep our hand! The phone has Real Player & Flash player to play videos. You can install other video players to play different formats. As it supports flash, you can watch online videos too.

Conclusion:

A business phone which also has descent camera & music with it. If camera & music are high priority for you, then this is not a good buy. You can look for Nokia N95 or any Sony Erricson walkman/cybershot series. This is mainly meant for business class people which makes many things easier; like printing, reading documents, wireless keyboard support, wireless presenter, business card reader, LAN through VPN…etc. E66 is avialable in India for arround RS.23.5k

After losing my cell phone (Nokia 6030), I opted for Nokia 2626. Yet another basic value for money handset. Specifications are as follows:
Phone book: 300 entries
Connectivity: GPRS, USB
Multimedia: FM Radio, MP3,AMR, Midi ringtone support, Voice recorder, Loudspeaker.
Interface: Series 40 Interface
Display: 65k colors,128 x 128
Messaging: SMS,MMS,Audio Messaging (via MMS), email client(pop).
Dream Feature: I never thought it will come in reality. Nokia 2626 has copy/paste option.

Nokia 2626 v/s Nokia 6030:
Both handsets are similar in features,dimension & price tags. But Nokia 2626 stands out for MP3,AMR ringtone support,More user friendly series 40 interface & voice recorder. FM Radio in loudspeaker very good & clear in 6030, while in 2626 it is distorted.Apart from specifications Nokia 6030 seems to be an unlucky handset. More than my 10 friends lost this set including me!

Conclusion:
Nokia 2626 is available at street price Rs.3750 (Praveen Gift Center, Shivananda Circle). It is absolutely more value for your money. But memory is too low to store Mp3 clips. It has only 2MB of memory which is shared by Applications,Games,Messages.

Operator logo will be displayed on the mobile screen.By default it will show operator name ex: Airtel, Hutch..etc. You can display other images or text as operator logo instead of name of operator by installing new logo. There are many web sites providing operator logos, just google it.But what I tend to explain here is removing logo part completely. You might have experienced a problem while using any celebrity wallpapers on your mobile, where logo displayed almost on face of celebrity which is disturbing. You can remove operator logo by installing a blank logo. From your mobile wap browser goto address http://victorynet.de/wap/betreiberlogos.wml and install blank logo. Now goto your phones display settings & check for “Operator Logo” option, set operator logo ON. It makes blank logo as on & displays nothing. If you make it OFF, operator name will be displayed.