What I liked in Nokia N900/Maemo

It’s been more than a week since I started using Nokia N900 smart phone. At the same time an android phone visited me (Samsung Galaxy S) which failed to impress! I continued using N900 & handed that device over to Santosh to write a guest review on Tech Bangalore. Since it’s too late to write a detailed review of N900, I’m just pointing out what all features I liked on this phone.

Build:

Many said it’s bulky/heavy, but I personally like the way it is built. It perfectly sits in my hands & makes it totally comfortable to use QWERTY keyboard. You will feel it’s bulkiness when you keep it in pocket, you cannot keep anything other than the N900 in your pocket!

Browser:

Almost all N900 reviews talk more about browser! Though I had an option of using Firefox (AFAIK only smart phone which runs Firefox), I liked using the default browser. Default browser is powered by mozilla technology & gives desktop browsing experience. I was really impressed by capabilities of this browser. For ex: Few days ago I wrote a simple location aware foursquare app using Geo APIs supported by Firefox. Out of curiosity I tried accessing this app from N900 & voila, N900 gave my application GPS location & my app worked perfectly fine. I had actually written the code without any intentions of accessing GPS location, all done by the browser.

Angry Birds!

Killing time in power cuts is not that easy. Angry Birds make me feel like Power, don’t come for another hour please!. Angry Birds is a simple yet very addictive game which first came on Maemo & then launched for iPhone too. It’s one of the most selling games on iPhone app store. Game is simple, just throw birds at pigs and kill them!

Vagalume:

I hugely rely on last.fm (I don’t know how many times I said that!) for music. I wouldn’t buy a phone if it can’t play last.fm radio, it is so important for me. Vagalume is a last.fm client for Maemo platform which can play last.fm radios. Unlike other last.fm clients I have seen, vagalume automatically downloads free tracks on last.fm while playing a radio. That means, it plays that track locally instead of streaming it again. One more unique feature I liked on Vagalume is that, you can enter a last.fm url & play that radio. It can be friend’s library, friend’s loved track, similar artists page…anything.

Joikuspot:

The application which enables you to carry wifi hotspot wherever you go, Joikuspot is my favorite right from the day they launched it for Symbian. Thanks to MyNokiaWorld which gave away a premium license of Joikuspot to me. If you aren’t already aware of, Joikuspot uses your GPRS/EDGE/3G connection & converts your phone into a wifi hotspot. Other devices like laptops, iPod touch, tablets can connect to this hotspot & access internet.

Android 2.2 (Froyo) has this feature inbuilt, you don’t have to install/buy any application to do it.

Tunewiki Widget:

Tunewiki widget automatically fetches lyrics of the song you are currently playing on N900′s music player. Tunewiki syncs the lyrics with the playback which enables you to sing with your favorite track. This can be ultimate karaoke machine!!

I wrote about only these many features to just to maintain uniqueness of my writeup. There are lot other things which I like on N900 like unified conversations, unified contacts, camera, email client, customizable multiple desktops, community support….and lot others.

As a special offer to Tech Bangalore readers, you will get a stereo bluetooth  headset free with the purchase of N900 worth Rs.4000. Store price of the handset is around Rs.24k. Leave a comment below to know how to avail this exclusive offer.

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The most waited device by techies, Linux based Nokia N900 is finally coming to India. Device will be available at Nokia stores starting 9th June. Though the device came out around 8-9 months ago, it wasn’t available in India due to some regulations & few other reasons. Nokia N900 sports ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz processor, 1gb of RAM (256MB + 750 MB Virtual), 3G, Wifi, 5 MP Camera with Carl Zeus lens, 3.5” resistive touch screen, 32gb of internal memory & external memory expandable upto 16gb with micro SD card.

That’s all about hardware, N900 runs on Maemo 5, a Linux based OS. Maemo is open source & has a great community support & hence there are tons of applications built for N900. N900 bundles full fledged mozilla based web browser with flash 9.4 & AJAX support. So, you no longer have to visit mobile version of websites, N900 is capable of loading the full web site. User can also install Firefox on the device which enables tabbed browsing. I can say N900 is a true internet device with tight integration of social network contacts with your phonebook. I liked the concept of having unified contacts & conversations.

This device wins my heart by all it’s offerings, but priced at Rs.30639. A little disappointing point for me since there are Android based smart phones at around same price tag. But, it’s MRP, store price will be definitely less than that.

Here I come again with another mobile phone review. This time it’s not a phone which costs a bomb, which you can’t think of buying! It’s Nokia 5233, a full touch phone running on Symbian S60 5th edition.

Nokia 5233 sports 3.2 inch touch screen, 2MP camera, 3.5 mm audio jack, 70 mb internal memory & external (microSD) expandable upto 16GB. Touch is pretty good & responsive but better with stylus than fingers. I always ended up typing wrong words even after using the phone for a week full time! Anyway that also depends on personal choices, I don’t really like typing on a touch screen.

Home screen has contacts widget, music player controls & application shortcuts. Contacts widget is like a fast dial, u can add contacts which you keep calling again & again. Clicking on a contact here pops up recent activity done with that contact like messaging, call logs. You can also add an RSS feed to contact & track! (I used Friendfeed RSS feed of my friend). Application shortcuts can also be configured based on your requirement.

Though it has a 2MP camera, you can take descent pictures from it. Music quality is comparable to any other music phone in market. Since it supports upto 16GB of external memory, you can store hell lot of music in it. 3.5 mm audio jack gives you an opportunity of using ear phones of your choice.

Since the phone runs on Symbian S60 5th edition, almost all the symbian apps which are there in market will work. When it comes to phone, availability of apps is one the major considerations for me. All major symbian apps like Gravity, Fring, Nimbuzz, Google Maps…etc work on Nokia 5233.

What’s not there?

Well, it’s important to know what’s not there before going for a phone. Nokia 5233 doesn’t have 3G, GPS & Wireless. It is really impossible to put them all into such a low priced phone. Decision is yours, you know better what you need. If you really need those features, I suggest go for Nokia 5800. I heard 5800 is much better after recent firmware update.

How Much?

I have been to my cousin’s marriage last week & did a small research with the phone! I asked around 13-15 people “What could be the price of this phone?”. Most of them said it’s around 20k!! Yeah, it looks like that! But the MRP of the phone is Rs.7,999, should be less in showrooms.

Nokia has launched it’s new touch phone 5230 in Bangalore. This phone is mainly targeted at youth who love to listen to music. Nokia 5230 features 3.2 inch touch screen with dedicated music control buttons, 2MP camera, 70MB internal memory, microSD slot expandable upto 16GB. Nokia 5230 runs on Symbian S60 5th edition & that opens up doors to huge number of apps for the device. MRP of the phone is Rs.8,499, yeah I was shocked too! It’s pretty affordable & value for money I should say.

Check out the launch event video happened at Garuda mall, Bangalore:

When it comes to E series phones everyone thinks about messaging, IM, office suite & other serious stuff! But E72 has a twist, it has got really good camera built into it, which previous E-series phones lacked. So, let me show how good E72′s 5 Mega Pixel camera is with photographs taken in different modes & lighting conditions.

Day to Day photography:

Found something interesting while traveling? Just take out your phone & click! No options, no modes selected. I saw a bus stop in the car mirror while commuting, just took out the phone & clicked!

As you can see the image clarity & details are really good. No wonder if posts to my Posterous has increased these days!

Close Up:

This scene mode is used to capture objects in 10 to 60 cms of distance. Collected those thumb drives in different Nokia events

Landscape:

Bangalore race course captured in landscape mode.

Night Landscape:

As you can see, capturing night landscape isn’t that great from E72. The picture isn’t clear & blurry. N97′s camera performed really better in similar lighting conditions.

Night Photography (normal closer objects):

Woke up of a bad dream in the mid night! Just to divert my mind, took the phone & blindly clicked this pic. There was absolutely no light in my room when I clicked this one. This also proves how brilliant the flash is on E72.

Backlight (Pointing at a light source):

First one, the sunset, though it looks brilliant, cam is unable to capture all the colors in it. Second pic looks really nice.

Video Recording:


Captured this video from the window of a fast moving bus covering Bangalore city corporation’s wall project initiative.

Conclusion:

Overall, camera of Nokia E72 is as good as an entry level digital camera. If you are a person who wants to capture those wonderful moments as it happens, this is just perfect for you. Inbuilt email client & share online features of the phone enables you to share those moments right-away with friends & family. I’m really loving it, god save my mobile internet bill!!!

You might be also interested in what all I liked about this phone.

I couldn’t wait too long to express my opinion about Nokia E72!! So, here is a quick post!

• Powerful: With ARM 11 600 MHz processor, it is really powerful. It’s been two days of massive usage & it hasn’t hung or crashed a single time
• Camera: E-Series phone with 5 MPix camera!!? Pics are brilliant & makes me think to start a new photo blog! Will post few pictures taken from it in a short while.
• Smooth UI: Though it’s the same old Symbian S60 3rd edition OS, UI is very different from other E-series phones like E63, E66, E71. The new UI is very smooth & has got cool transition effects.
• Form Factor: Ultra slim & metallic finish gives a very good feeling when I keep it in my hand, and makes it fully comfortable to type on QWERTY keyboard.
• Runs for long!: It really has got a huge battery, it ran straight two days with ‘always online’ email, random music listening, many app downloads from OVI store & all!
• Music: I can hear!! I can hear that difference in music when compared to my old E-series phone E66. And also E72 has 3.5 mm audio jack which lets you plug any earphone of your choice!
• Optical Navi Key: Initially was making mistakes in menu selections because of Optical Navi key, after a day, I’m so much used to it. Turned the sensitivity of it to ‘High’!!
• Blink!: A small thing, the blink from that d-pad makes me feel I have a living being in my hand. It blinks faster when there are unchecked SMSs or missed calls!!

That’s it for now! Let me know what you think about it in comment section.

Nokia N97 mini will available in Indian market from 23rd November, which is just couple of days from today. I had my hands on the device few days back at a bloggers meet arranged by Nokia to showcase N97 mini.

First Impressions:

When I had the device in my hand, there was nothing new! Just that it’s a smaller variant of N97, running same Symbian S60 5th edition. The navi-pad which was present in N97 has been removed to make it look small. Other than form factor, there’s nothing much to talk about this device! Though Nokia is trying to say that N97 mini has a custom OVI store with lot of applications localized for Indians. Does it really make a big difference?

N97 mini is priced at MRP.30939 & expected to be around 28k Rs at mobile phone dealers. In my honest opinion, it’s really over priced. At the same price you can actually go for better alternatives like HTC Hero, Samsung Galaxy which runs on Google Android OS. So, I’m speculating N97 mini is going to be yet another #Fail from Nokia after N97.

What do you think?

We Meet is a pilot project developed by Nokia Research Centers in Bangalore & Palo Alto collaboratively. We Meet has been developed mainly keeping India in mind. We Meet is a group messaging system in which user can create groups & send messages to group. Well, we know there are many group SMS systems already available like SMSGupShup. But these SMS groups are one way, only administrator of the group can send messages to the group. But in We Meet all the members can post messages & hence it is more interactive. So, at the cost of one SMS you can reach out to an entire group of people. We Meet is purely SMS based & doesn’t require GPRS active. We Meet is location aware, location of the user will be attached to his message. We Meet compares tower information with it’s database to get the location of a user.

We Meet is available in three forms, java based client, text only client & web client. Java client is very nicely designed as you can see in the screenshots. Using java client allows you to perform all the operations including creating groups, add members to group, chat with a group..etc. Java client also has privacy settings to enable/disable location sharing and also options to turn off the service for a while. SMS counter in java client gives you a glance of how many SMSs you have sent & received. For those who can’t install java application, can still use We Meet with text only mode. In text only mode, everything happens over SMS, user has to prefix his mesaages with keyword commands (ex: ACCEPT BLOGGERS will accept the invitation to join group Bloggers). Web client is still under development & might probably go live very soon.

We Meet java client makes sure that messages sent & received using it won’t appear in your phone’s SMS inbox. That actually helps in keeping your phone’s inbox clean & organized. Messages which are sent & received using We Meet gets stored in the server & hence doesn’t eat up phone’s memory. We Meet is a free service, but you have to pay your operator for SMSs as per the plan you are on. We Meet is currently using a Karnataka based mobile phone number, so if you have got plenty of free local SMSs, you don’t have to worry about charges!! Even if you are in any place outside karnataka, it still can workout cheaper since one SMS goes to entire group of people.

Know more about We Meet & get your hands on the application at wemeet.nokiapaloalto.com

Nokia is replacing charger of the phone Nokia 7210, for the ones which are manufactured in between June 15th to August 9th. Chargers manufactured in this date range have a problem with plastic that it opens up as you use & exposes internal components. This might lead to electric shock when touched. Though there is no complaint against this product yet, Nokia is taking preventive measures to avoid possible injuries in future. The charger model which is part of exchange program in India is only AC-3E.

Eligible consumers can walk into any nearest Nokia Care center from November 10th onwards to claim exchange. To check whether your charger is part of the exchange program or not visit http://chargerexchange.nokia.com/. You can also fill in your address, details in the same link to receive charger via courier.

Well, there are already ‘n’ number of reviews out there on web about Nokia N97! So, I don’t want to go through all that again. This write up is only concentrated on Internet capabilities of N97. So, let’s start!

Browser:

When we are talking about internet, first thing comes up in mind is Browser. Nokia N97 has very powerful web browser which is capable of loading almost any website on internet. Pages render much faster compared to browser on S60 3rd edition phones. Browser comes with advanced features like “Overview” where you can see the whole web page & select any area to zoom in. User can also tap on any portion of the web page to zoom in & tap again to zoom out. Javascript/AJAX fields, dropdown box works well as in PC browser. Browser supports tabbed browsing, but my complaint about the browser remains since there is no option to open a new tab (or concurrent window). New tab open only when you are clicking on a link which open in new window (target=_blank). Overall browser experience is amazing with powerful browser & a wide display, I prefer browsing in landscape mode.

Email/Calendar/Contact Synchronization:

Though Nokia has it’s own push email service Nokia Mail, I prefer System Seven push email service for it’s simplicity. Both of them are really good in features & real time email. I configured two email IDs on Seven, one is Gmail & the other one Google Apps email. Similar to Nokia Email, Seven also provides calendar & contacts synchronization. Personally I don’t prefer to use contact synchronization since it messes up the Phonebook. But calendar sync is one amazing feature I use a lot, create an entry either on web or phone, it’s reflected everywhere.

for Business users:

It’s time to say bye to Blackberrys where business users are forced to use completely business oriented phones & not at all looking at personal life! Configuring Microsoft Exchange server is 10 minutes job! Just install MFE (Mail For Exchange) & configure server details to start using it. MFE also provides contacts & calendar synchronization. Right now N97 is not listed under supported devices for MFE, but I can see a blank MFE folder in the phone which gives a clue that MFE might be out for N97 soon. If your Outlook server provides Web Access (webmail), it can also be configured on System Seven. Users can also open attachments including MS Word, Excel & PowerPoint, edit them & send it back. Though editing requires Quick Office license, it shouldn’t be a big overhead for corporates. So, N97 fills all your requirement as a business user & also let’s you enjoy multimedia features on phone.

Facebook, Orkut:

Nokia bundles Facebook application with the phone. This app is seriously made for the phone, just perfectly fits in! Facebook app let’s you perform all the operations you do in web interface. Update status, view friends status messages, accept/decline friend requests, view photo galleries…etc. Unlike Facebook there’s no bundled app for Orkut, but you can get it by going to m.google.com/orkut on phone’s browser. Orkut app also works really well & let’s you do all stuff, but since this is not really made for N97 (J2ME App), app is not touch sensitive. You have to use navigation keys on keyboard to navigate through menus.

Twitter – Gravity:

I have been using Gravity from day 1 it got released. I must say it’s *the* best app I ever used on a Symbian device. To all who still don’t know about Gravity, it’s an S60 twitter client with hell lot of features! Gravity has a very nice, glossy user interface with options to do almost everything. I have seen lot of iPhone Twitter Apps, all of them load a new page when tapped on a tweet. But Gravity loads all the options inline with a smooth slide down effect when tapped on a Tweet, which is so convenient & reduces number of clicks to achieve certain task. It’s clear that developer of Gravity gives a lot of concentration towards usablity of the app. With additional support for other services like Twitpic, Posterous, MobyPicture, Yfrog, Instapaper, img.ly, TwitGoo, Delicious…etc Gravity makes N97 an awesome Tweeting device!

Feed Reading – Google Reader:

Feed Reading is a daily exercise for me to keep up with the latest news & trends. And there is no better option than Google reader for feed reading. Mobile version of Google Reader isn’t that great & there are no good application on Symbian platform yet for it. But there is a separate version of Google Reader for iPhones! This AJAXified iPhone version of  Google Reader can be accessed over http://google.com/reader/i . You can also perform Star, Share, Share with Note, Email operations for each feed entry. Since Nokia’s browser is also built on same platform (webkit), this version is well supported on N97.

Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, Skype – Fring:

Fring is a IM/VoIP client for Symbian phones which supports multiple protocols including Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger & Skype. Fring helps you keep in touch with friends on the move. Fring not just enables you to chat with your friends, but also let’s you make a call & talk as in Google talk or Skype. Call quality will be better when you are connected to a WiFi network since India still don’t have 3G.

So I have got enough reasons to say Nokia N97 is an ultimate internet device!

What you say!?