The Nokia Guide

Tip of the day: Improve your N95’s speaker performance

The N95 and N95 8GB are the loudest in the Nseries when it comes to stereo speaker performance.  For this reason many of tend to forget the portable speaker and just use the N95 series of devices to fill a room with our favorite tunes.  Here’s a little tip that just might help making the experience a little bit better. For a long time Home Theater enthusiasts have been using a room’s walls and corners to aid in optimizing the sound produced by speakers and subwoofers. In the case of subwoofers it’s sometimes recommended to place them in the corner to effectively increase the output.  In the case of bipole or dipole speakers the walls again play a great role as to how the sound will be affected.  Applying these techniques makes the already impressive sound output on the N95 series even better.

Next time you want to share your music with other in a room, just place the N95 standing upright on a flat surface in front of wall or even closed windows. This will effectively help to better spread the sound and slightly increase the volume. The effect is even more dramatic when the N95 is placed in a corner. Corner placement also seems to enhance the deeper tones of a song. Try playing your favorite tunes while standing in the middle of a room, now place the device in front of a wall or corner. Hear the difference?

Is Cloud Computing the future of the Nseries, Symbian and S60?

In basic terms Cloud Computing refers to the notion of running applications and services in real-time, even your storage from somewhere in the “clouds”, with such a “cloud” being massive computer servers linked through an internal corporate network or the public Internet .Many believe that this is where the PC is heading and with current  Nseries being categorized as multimedia computers, it doesn’t take much to realize that the same could be done on our mobile devices. With this in mind, can you imagine future Nseries devices with applications, storage or even the entire operating system stored not locally but in the “clouds.” Logically a dependable, constant and fast connection would be critical, but it’s not something that can’t be done with current technology. Such a system could have many benefits that include greater computing efficiency, accessibility of data and applications from anywhere or any phone. Lose your phone and it’s just a matter of disabling your account on that phone and enabling all your settings, apps and operating system on a new one. No worries with Software or firmware updates as these would automatically be applied once runned.

Other benefits that you could think of include cheaper devices, due to the fact that most of the “computing” is done by the servers, self-healing in the sense that in case of failure, there will be a hot backup instance of the application ready to take over without disruption. You could even think of having virtual desktops, or in our case stand-by screens or better yet, several virtual operating systems running at the same time, all handled by the servers. This would do away with having to worry about signing applications or even installing them, the application would immediately be there on a rent-to-use or pay-once-to-use models.  When it comes to storage it would come down to how much space do you need with no traditional memory cards to worry with.  Taking an 8GB microSD card on a trip and worrying that it might fill up could be a thing of the past.

What do you think? Is Cloud Computing the future?

Getting the most out of your Nseries’ camera Part 2: Creating the mood

One of the tips in the first part of Getting the most out of your Nseries’ camera was setting the Flash to “On” during the day. It may seem to conflict with logic, but it actually helped to brighten up the subject and expose more details, even during the day. Today’s tip is exactly the opposite and just like the previous one it might seem to contradict common knowledge, but in certain low- shots it actually helps to turn off the flash. As with most cameras, the Nseries device’s cameras are set at default to fire the flash in low-light conditions. The key to doing this is settings the flash to “Off” instead of the default “Automatic.” Doing so will allow the camera to capture the natural light of the scene, instead of the artificial light from the flash that sometimes can ruin a picture by taken away the “mood.”

The example below is a simple way of showing this: by turning the flash off, the candle’s dramatic and romantic light is captured creating a specific mood. The picture with the flash set to on shows a lot more details, but lacks the romantic light effect.

Getting full use out of UPnP on the Nseries

UPnP was introduced to the Nseries on the N80 and since than has been used on numerous flagship devices, including the N81, N81 8GB, N82, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB and upcoming N96. Simply put, UpnP allow you to: copy media files from your PC to your phone or the other way around and display images and video stored on your phone using your PC, all done wirelessly over WiFi. Ewan from Allaboutsymbian has written a must-read on how to get it up and running using the built-in Windows Media Player.

Ewan points out a very big shortcoming of the Windows Media Player software: “While we can browse music via sharing Windows Media Player on our device, without installing a third party plug-in you won't be able to control it from your handset.” This feature has been available from day one on the very first UPnP-enabled device: the N80. The key to using the Nseries device as a wirless remote to control your music via UpnP is getting the right software and in this case I can recommend SimpleCenter, a piece of software that might be familiar to owners of the N80 or N93, as this was included on the install CD and is mentioned on the N80 support page. SimpleCenter comes in a free and paid version, but the basic one should enough for most, including using your phone as a remote. SimpleCenter can be downloaded here.

Tip of the day: keep the screen clean

The N95 8GB has a large 2.8” screen and the bigger the screen, the better the chances are of getting it dirty. There are many ways to smudge your screen, but one of the biggest ways is holding it against your face when talking on the phone.  Next time you’re talking,  just point the bottom part of the phone just slightly away, minimizing the chances of it touching your face and getting smudged. The good part of this is that the earpiece is still held against your ear allowing you to clearly hear the person you’re talking to, but despite the fact that the mic is sligtly farther away, it is sensitive enough to keep up.

First Impression of the N82 Black

It’s no secret that I really like the Nokia N82 and while it has a few shortcomings, it is currently what I believe the closest thing to perfection available on the market today, beating even the mighty N95 and N95 8GB. Not bad neither that it is one of the best, if not the best mobile imaging device, all in a unpretentious compact package in the traditional “can’t-go-wrong” silver.

Giving the N82 a jet-black look just seemed logical and well they did, joining the current white and “warm titanium” (silver for the rest of us) colors. Worth noting however is that with both of these colors, it’s only the back that changes, while the front is exactly the same silver, whereas on the black version the phone is finally completely black. There’s something about the black color on mobile device: so elegant and mysterious at the same time, that makes people that just to go crazy about them and the N82 is no exception. It’s no coincidence that when Nokia set out to create an updated N95 in the form of the N95 8GB they made it completely black. Remember what color they released the music editons of the N70, N73 and the N91 8GB? Or how about N81? For this reason I think Nokia should make it a habit of releasing a black version of their device at launch. They can get as creative as they want with the colors (remember the purple back on the N95?) but not releasing a full black version should almost be made illegal.

When it comes to changes to the software there’s absolutley nothing new except for the fact that it comes right out of the box with firmware v20.0.062.

On the hardware side, it was obvioulsy given the black color, but overall the same shade of black is not used: the front and back use the darkest shade of black, while the sides, call and end buttons use a lighter, almost dark grey color, but this difference can only be spotted in day light. The material with the lighter shade of black has this matte grippy feel to, something similar to the back of the N95 8GB.  This makes the black N82 a lot less slippery when compared to the other colors and adds a suprising amount of extra grip. The front uses a piano-like finish, whereas the back has a different looking anf feeling glossy effect that seems to have been created by putting a clear coating on top.

 

A noticeable imprvement comes from the keypad buttons and the D-pad itself. The silver N82 had a very wobbly D-pad, now it seems that it has been improved on the black version as it feels a lot more solid. The keys themselves feel positively different: they seem a lot more solid and have much improved audible and tactile feel to them.

The black N82 is not all perfect: One dissapointment comes from the back-lit keypad that has the same strange light-yellowish color to it that doesn’t do jutice to the black the look. Comparing it to the N95 8GB, it shows that the latter uses more of pure-white back-lit keys that looks a lot better. Another missed opportunity comes from the fact that they could have added a light to the D-pad like on the N81. And lastly comparing the black N82 to the N95 8GB reveals that screen auto-rotation reacts way too slow on the N82, while it on the N95 8GB it works just fine. And why doesn’t the black N82’s screen auto-rotation work on the stand-by screen? It does it on the N95 8GB, so the same should be done with the black N82.

Join Maps with Photography: Urbanista Diaries for all!

Remember The Urbanista Diaries? Basically a blogger global relay race where one blogger is dropped off somewhere in the world where he or she encounters challenges along the way. The bloggers than had to use the N82 + Sports Tracker combo to document and share the experience as well as using it as a tool to find his or her way to the next blogger who will continue the journey. A few key parts to the Urbanista Diaries has been the N82 + Sports Tracker which helped to pin-point your location using the N82’s built-in GPS and Sports Tracker that recorded all of this in real-time and later uploads it to the web. We can’t forget about the full-size map on the Urbanista site and of course the Urbanista Widget, which displayed your route and pictures on an interactive map. Personally I found the widget handy s you could easily place it on your site or blog and your readers keep track of your location.

Nokia has now released this widget to all, allowing you to customize the look and place it not only on your site or blog, but also on your profile in various social media sites. But the biggest change however is that this time you don’t follow The Urbanist Dairists, but anyone with a Sports Tracker account. You can choose among 20 different colors and even give the widget a name. You are asked to enter the Sports Tracker username you’d like to follow and currently you can choose between Facebook or Blogger widgets. But where is the Wordpress, Typepad and MySpace support? And wouldn’t it be cool if they could create an app specifically for Nseries devices? Or how about a Vista Side Bar Gadget? These are what I think are essential things that they kind of forgot about and I hope they add them fast. The final result can be seen here on the left, with our own customized The Nokia Guide Widget.

Despite the lack of support for Typepad, I used the Blogger app and that worked just fine. Despite these small shortcomings, the addition of having a customizable widget as an add-on to Sports Tracker is excellent idea showing the different evolutionary directions Location-aware application are going. This should be a fun way of keeping track of what friends and family are doing, but also a great way to share your travels or even your daily routine with others. The Widget can be downloaded right here.

Tip of the day: Open Podcasts with the Music Player

I love podcasts. I listen to them every single day! In a previous post here I had talked about them and how to get the most out of them.  Fact is however that some podcasts are long and I do mean long. I’m talking about 2 hours long and in some cases you can’t listen to them all the way through. In my case I listen to these long podcasts in chunks of 30minutes or less with the usual pause in between. I used to just open these podcasts with the Nokia Podcasting app, but in some cases where I would accidentally close the app or had to restart the phone I would be left wondering where I was. With the latest devices things have gotten a lot easier as the Music Player divides your tunes from your podcasts. Better yet, in the case that you need to close the Music player, it will remember where you left of. So next time, download your podcasts with the Podcasting app, but play them with the Music Player!

Update:  Devices like the N95 8GB, N81 and N82 include the updated Podcasting app version 1.10.1 in the ROM software. The podcasting team is indicating that compared to the older version 1.03 that is currently available for download “There are some minor bug fixes and work done to improve the battery life, but the main value is that the text is now localized to the country languages.” This is handy for those older devices that don’t have the updated app in the ROM. This update should go up this week, so stay tuned.

What happened to FOTA?

Remember FOTA? First introduced with the N80, FOTA or Over-The-Air firmware update, allows your Nseries to  update the firmware directly from the manufacturer’s server using a wireless data connection like Wi-Fi. This is a handy function that allows you update the firmware without ever needing a USB cable and Nokia Software Updater or those visits to the Nokia service centers. On top of that Nokia could offer smaller updates, patching issues as they arise. Newer users would also find it much easier than the NSU solution. Most important of all is the fact that the chances of getting a bricked phone (unusable phone due to failed firmware upgrade) are greatly minimized. While Nokia has made HUGE improvements, making the firmware update via the NSU/USB cable combo almost fail-proof, it’s also a fact that sometimes things still go wrong. That’s where FOTA steps in: it’s a much more convenient and safe solution.

But what happened? Sure, the N80 got a few updates via FOTA and several devices like the N73 got the feature enabled (but never used it), but how many times have you had your phone updated via FOTA lately? Wasn’t this supposed to be one of those big features of S60 3^rd Feature Pack 1? Honestly I had even forgotten that it even existed and it wasn’t until I read the N810 WIMAX edition where they mentioned “Seamless Software Update functionality”, which to me soundws like they’re talking about FOTA. If Nokia is going to introduce this on the Internet Tablets, they should remember that they have this thing called FOTA on their S60 devices and actually use it this time. Better yet, instead of larger updates, they could look at issues users are having in mobile forums and patch them a lot quicker than it would take to do a major update. Do you prefer updating via FOTA, NSU or the good old Nokia service center?

Tip (s) of the day: It’s all about multi-tasking

Wikipedia defines multi-tasking as: the apparent simultaneous performance of two or more tasks by a computer's central processing unit. In this case the “computer” could be any one of the Nseries devices, but as we all know earlier devices were plagued by insufficient and inefficient use of  RAM. They could perform many tasks, but in the end were limited by the available RAM. Luckily, the latest devices like the N95 8GB, N82 and even the N81 have been blessed with tons of RAM. So why not put it to good use?

1)The S60 browser on older devices used  to close by itself when RAM would run out once you loaded one of those RAM hungry pages or when you opened any other application like the Music Player. With the added RAM the latest Nseries phones can tackle the S60 browser in combination with various other open apps and even various browser tabs. But by default there isn’t any setting to allow you to manually open more browser windows.  So Mark from the Nokia blog has come up with a handy tip to trick the the browser into doing this. He suggests that on the newer devices with the updated Multimedia Menu, you could go to the Internet tile and open another browser tabs.  You could repeat this as many time,s adding as many tabs as you like. Pressing #5 in the S60 would bring a list of open pages.

Vaibhav Sharma from the Symbian Blog also has a neat trick to achieve similar results by using the Feed option. He suggests that by subscribing to a feed in the S60 browser and than by opening any post from that feed and selecting the “Full Article” option, this will open the post in a new window. You could then stop the page from loading and proceed to going to any site you want. Again pressing #5 would bring a list of open pages.

2) Many new Nseries users don’t that the Menu key also acts as a “Task Switcher” to switch between open apps. See that button that looks like two snakes? Pressing it toggles between the stand-by screen and applications menu. But by doing a long-press you could open a “Task bar” that shows the list of open apps. You could use Up and Down on the D-pad to browse through these apps or pressing the C-key to close the app you want

3) Once you’ve mastered multi-tasking, why close your apps? If you really want quick access to your application you could leave them running in the background and switch between them using the Menu key. This is especially handy for your email or even the slow Gallery application.

No Nseries devices with Optical zoom in 2008?

Nokia is really pushing the imaging side of their Nseries line with the N82 probably sporting the best camera in any mobile device. But in my opinion a camera phone is not complete until it has optical zoom. A pretty reliable source has stated that we won’t be seeing any Nseries devices this year with optical zoom. After getting both the N93 and N93i with 3X optical zooming, Nokia has been skipping this feature for way too long and having to wait till 2009 to get this feature is a bit of a disappointment. This type of information is still regarded as rumor until we see the actual products. And hopefully this is one of those rumor will stay just that: a rumor. So Nokia, if you are going to top the N82, the next device has got to have optical zooming.

Update on availability N82 Black Edition

Last week I wrote about the Black N82’s availability and at that time things didn’t look so good as Phonesource-USA seemed to be the only online store with the Black Beauty in stock. A week later things are looking much much better as as both Plemix and X1387 on Ebay have it in stock and ready to be shipped. Among all of these Phonesource-USA still has the lowest price among the online vendors who have it in stock at $480.95 (as of April 14^th 2008), but If you’re willing to wait a few days, ShopBLT has estimated time of arrival this April the 18^th for about: $479.63.

Update:  SNtrader now also seem to have it in stock. More info here.

If you’re already part of the N82 family or just joining by getting the black version, you might check out The N82 Blog for the latest N82 tips, tricks, news and review.

Ultimate Audio accessory: Shure SE530PTH First Look

Every now and then a product comes a long that is just good at what it does. Sometimes it does one thing specifically and sometimes it’s many things at once. In other cases it does something totally new or in a new way, while in others it doesn’t do anything new but does it in such a manner that it still becomes famous. Such products become objects of desire and in some cases even reach an iconic status. We don’t have to search very far for such an example: The classic N95. It did many things at once and did them very well.  It sold in large quantities despite its relatively high price and without any doubt it will reach iconic status. But the product I’m talking about today is in many ways a complete opposite to the N95: it doesn’t do many things, in fact it only does one thing. I also doubt it will reach iconic status or sell in large numbers. But the reason why I think it deserves so much attention is because it does what it does so well, rivaling products twice its price.

Getting the most out of your Nseries’ camera

The Nseries is all about imaging. This is obviously an important feature seeing the success of imaging devices like the N73, N95, N95 8GB and most recently the N82. Seeing the quality imaging hardware and the  exceptional images that are the result of this, it shows how important imaging is to Nokia.  But a camera is only as good as the photographer. Sure, manufacturers are constantly putting in “smart” features that  try to correct and make masterpieces using our admittedly less-than-ideal shooting habits. Mastering the art of photography takes a lot of knowledge and practice, which in many cases takes years to master. There are however a few easy tricks that are easy to remember, but in the end make a huge difference.

Filler Flash

Flash is used to illuminate a scene and for this reason people tend to associate Flash with dark or low-light conditions. That is in fact one way of using flash, but have you thought about using your Nseries’ flash during the day? Most cameras including the Nseries devices have the flash set at a default to auto mode, which only activates flash in low-light condition. Setting the flash to always “On” can come in handy during the day by making your subject stand out. The key to doing this is settings the flash to “On” instead of the default “Automatic.”

Go around taking pictures of your subject in daylight with the flash set to on, you’ll be amazed at the results. The first image on the left was taken without flash and the second one on the right had flashed turned on. See how the subject pops out? (click on the image for full size)

 

Tip of the day: Best audio performance goes to….

Looking into getting a new Nseries device and music is your thing? If you plan on listening to your favorite tunes using one of those expensive and fancy earphones, than you might have a look at the N81, N81 8GB or even the tried and true N91 and N91 8GB, arguably the best performing Nseries devices when it comes to audio quality over the 3.5mm Audio jack. Test that I have done myself show that these are capable of rivaling and often even beating most stand-alone MP3 players. If your more of the type that likes to share their taste in music with the world, than you might have a look at the N95 and N95 8GB, while inferior to the already mentioned devices when it comes to the 3.5mm jack, it makes up for it through some of the loudest built-in stereo speaker I’ve heard and superior specs.

Turning your Nseries into a Super Nintendo System: Step by Step

I had previously talked about how the Nseries could be used to play your old Nintendo classics like Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong Country, right here. Now here are the steps to get things up and running and how to optimally run the games which in fact are emulated.

1) First things first. The software needed for this to work is called vSsun, a Super Nintendo Emulator for S60 devices. Yes I know it’s not free, but once you have it; there are literally thousands of games to be had. All those bulky cartridges are replaced with your Nseries device with only the phone’s internal storage being the limiting factor.

2) Search for Super Nintendo SMC ROM files, thousands of these can be found online.

3) Once the program is installed and you have your SMC ROM files, connect your Nseries to your PC or Notebook using the USB cable in “PC Suite mode.”  Launch PC Suite and open the File Manager and go to: Phone Memory>Data>Others>Vsun. Here you should see the preinstalled “Color Demo.” Copy as many .SMC ROM files as you like to this location. Alternatively any wireless connection such as Bluetooth can be used.

4) Fire up the vSun app and you will now see a list of all the detected games, select the desired game and click to launch.

5) One launched, the game might look odd or it might even take only half of the screen. Press either the left or right soft key until a menu pops up.  Go to Graph and set Size to “Full” and Output to “Bitmap”. If you want audio go to Sound and Switch to “Full” and adjust the volume as needed. Press to right softkey to exit and go to Exit. Restart the game and your good to go.

You can save or load your game by pressing the right softkey and going to “Game” and selecting one of the appropriate slots from 1-5 to where you can save or load your saved game. And lastly if the mobile gaming is just not doing it for you with the small screen, play those classics using the usual way on your TV where the Nseries device is your controller. Or how about a more 2008-ish approach with a Bluetooth keyboard?

It takes a bit to get the whole thing going, but once you do chances are you’ll agree that it’s well worth it. Ah, Mario and Donkey Kong are back!

Tip of the day: disable internal GPS.

My review of the Nokia LD-4W external GPS unit here and here indicated that there are many reasons why you should get an external GPS, despite having a device with internal GPS.  Programs like Nokia Map 2.0 apparently don’t allow you to select which GPS unit you want to use if you have an internal and external enabled on one device. It apparently just uses the internal one. If you want to use the external unit, go to: Tool, Settings, General, Positioning and go to Positioning Methods. Make sure to uncheck the Integrated GPS option and enable Bluetooth GPS, but do make sure to leave the other settings enabled.

Black Nokia N82 now available through online stores

A few weeks ago Nokia launched the Nokia N82 in black, expected to “start shipping within weeks’, which usually means 2-3 weeks later. Most major online mobile stores still don’t seem to have it in stock and are still charging a premium on the silver beauty. With a lot of you asking about the black version I decided to do a little search at some of online store, and apparently Phonesource-USA is confirmed to have the black N82 and even the white model in stock and ready to be shipped. Buyers outside of the US should be happy to learn that they ship internationally. Both the white and black version seem to be going for just a few dollars more than the original platinum silver. If you’re interested in the black N82 (and I know a lot of you are!)head on over to Phonesource-USA. What online stores do you know of that have the N82 in stock?

Update: As for the package content I learned that not much has changed and reportedly includes the same 2GB microSD card as the Platinum Silver N82. So no extras. No word on the box art, but this is expected to be different.

Update 2: Having bought several times from Phonesource-USA, I know that all of their phones are from the APAC region (Asia-Pacific) and that sometimes the phones have Asian marking on the keypad. Sometimes you can request either getting Asian markings or not. I have heard reports that indeed these Black N82 have Asian marking. So I suggest you taking Mike’s advice from the Nokia N82 blog to give them a call or shooting them an email before pressing that buy button.

Tip of the day: Barcodes

Want to share links, text, numbers or emails with others without having two write them down?

How about making your own 2D mobile bar code? If they have a barcode reader on their Nseries it’s a matter of firing up the barcode reader app and pointing your camera at the barcode. Want to make your own code to print on business cards or even T-shirts? Those can be made right here.

N-Gage released: Not-Impressed

In what seems like one of their most anti-climate high-profile launches, Nokia has finally released the much anticipated and delayed N-Gage platform. Stranger still is the fact that there wasn’t any announcement.  After downloading the pretty large 6Mb+ (for phone installation files at least) I was pretty much ready to be wowed, but in the end I ended up not impressed. Here are the reasons why, going from bad to even worse.

1)First of all, when installing the N-Gage app it replaces the demo app, but instead of putting the replacement at the exact same spot at the top level of the menu (Root Folder) It chooses to place it in the Application folder. Why? Who would ever consider putting such an important app in the top level of the Menu, that would be crazy, wouldn’t it? I decided not to worry much about this, and moved the icons to the Menu’s top level where it should be.

2)I must admit however that the amount of functionality and interface look pretty nice, but the app itself opens up at a snail’s pace and again moving through the different tabs it feels unresponsive. Opening trial games like System Rush Evolution or Asphalt you are confronted with an upside down screen orientation. You’ll have to go all the way into the options to flip the screen. I remember that I could just flip the N95 8GB and revealing the media keys would automatically reorient the screen, why doesn’t this do it?

3)But the thing that got me the most was playing the actual Trial version of System Rush Evolution on the final N-Gage app. Remember the Demo System Rush Evolution that came with the N95 or even the N93? Remember how amazing those graphics looked? Personally I was a bit surprised at how noticeable the difference in graphics was when I compared the Demo version against the one that comes with the final N-Gage. The newer one, which I’ll suppose doesn’t use hardware acceleration and effects supported in hardware looks pixilated, less detailed and many light effects seen on the demo version just aren’t there anymore. This little YouTube video shows exactly what I mean, see the difference?

I do remember that Nokia had decided to take a software approach when it comes to N-Gage graphics, the reason given was to support a higher amount of mobile devices. Why not make specially made versions that specifically make use of the available horsepower?

Knowing Nokia they could easily fix the problems I described in point 1 and 2, but not having 3D accelerated graphics to me means not having getting the graphic detail that I was originally promised with the orginal SRE Demo and for this reason Nokia should seriously reconsider the move of abandoning 3D accelerated graphics in N-Gage.

Stavros Q&A

What does the great Stavros do when he’s not creating the greatest work of art EVER? He holds a press conference of course! Head on over to Stavros’ bloggy using the internet and get enlightened as Stavros answers not only questions regarding this masterpiece, but also Stavros’ genius in general. Strangely he’s not using the black N82, is it still resting in the safe? We even get a peek at the upcoming N96 which Stavros already seems to have gotten his hands on! It still a mystery whether Stavros will switch to the new device and strangely enough the question regarding Doctor Shopova seems to have been forgotten, I wonder…

The N810 with a bulge: Nokia N810 WiMAX Edition

As expected Nokia released the N810 WiMAX Edition, set to be available in the United States during the summer of 2008 in areas where WiMAX connectivity is available. This is contrary to the “N830” name that earlier reports indicated, but considering that the only true new addition is going to be the WiMAX connectivity I would say that the name was rightly chosen. WiMAX connectivity is aimed at providing wireless data over long distances through various options like point-to-point links to full mobile cellular-like access.

Externally the N810 WE looks identical to the N810, save for the new black finish and the trademark bulge on the back, reportedly to house the WiMAX hardware. Other than that the package now includes a new car holder: the Nokia Car Holder CR-107, a cleaning wipe and interestingly Sprint Nextel’s XOHM WiMAX activation guide.

Basically, yesterday’s announcement was about adding WiMAX to the N810, but the real news comes from the fact that the N810 WiMAX Edition introduces the newest Internet Tablet operating system. The updates OS2008 introduces new features like an enhanced e-mail client, support for Chinese character rendering in the browser and RSS feeds and Seamless Software Update functionality to eliminate manual software updates, that according to Nokia “making periodic updates of the operating system quick and easy.” But even better news is that current owners of Nokia N810 and N800 Internet Tablets with earlier operating systems will be able to upgrade their device to the revised operating system for free during the second quarter of 2008. Why doesn’t Nokia do this with their non-Tablet Nseries devices? It would be nice to get the updated Operating System, but it would be asking too much if they did this for the entire life of the phone. Something like 1-2 updates sounds fair to me.

And about an interesting detail mentioned yesterday in the press release: Just like DotSisx I’m wondering about the “Seamless Software Update functionality”, which to me could be nothing but Over-the-Air type OS updates. This functionality is said to “eliminate manual software updates” which again seems to strongly support this idea. In my opinion supporting this feature is one thing, but actually using it is another! The Nokia N80 and I think it was the N73 which also got the FOTA feature. While the feature did get used a bit on the N80, I haven’t really heard about it ever since. It was even said be the one of the key features in FP1, but how many times have you heard about people updating their N95 via FOTA?  If they do actively use it on Tablets, than why not on the non-Tablet devices? So I’ll be happy when they actually start using these imbedded technologies!

Personally it will take a long and I do mean  long while before WiMAX gets implemented around here, so with the release of the N810 WE I’m hoping that the N810’s price go even lower. Might even pick one of them to replace my N800.

Tip of the day: New phone, back up!

When you first get your new Nseries, the first thing you should do is back up. “Kind of strange” you might be thinking, especially since you haven’t put any of your own content or contacts on it yet. The reason is pretty simple: these devices come with photos, video and programs that usually cannot be downloaded and once you format the memory card or built-in memory (N95 8GB, N81 8GB, N91 8GB, N91) it’s all gone!

Simply plug you phone to your PC in Memory Transfer mode (1).  Browse to where all the folders are located and go to “Edit” and “Select All” and copy all the files (including hidden files or folders) to a safe location.  In the case something goes wrong it’s as easy as just copying these files and folder (including the hidden ones) to the phone by using the same Mass Memory mode.

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3:

4:

The countless emails I received about people losing Panoman on the N82 with no way of getting it back other than buying it, shows that people erase the memory  card or built-in memory and later on regret this due the lack of a proper backup.

The reason why this backup can’t be done using the method provided by PC Suite is because PC Suite backs up files and the not the actual hidden  files or folders. This method insures a bit for bit exact copy restoring the memory card  or built-in memory to the exact state it was out of the box.

N95, N78 and N96 confirmed to be working with 16GB microSD cards

Unofficial, but reliable sources have informed The Nokia Guide that the soon-to-be-released 16GB Sandisk microSDHC card was tested and confirmed working with the Nokia N95 (with the right firmware).  Other Nokia phones that were tested and are confirmed to be working with the new 16 GB card include:

Nokia N96 (Totaling 32GB, including the built-in 16 GBs of storage)
Nokia N78
Nokia 6210 Navigator
Nokia 6220 Classic

As it has been expected Sandisk will not release a 12GB microSDHC card and will jump straight from 8 to the new 16GB cards which are expected to be released this summer (Possibly June or July.)

No word yet on the support for the N82, N81, N77, N76 and N75, but if the N95’s support for the newer cards is any indication, things are looking good for these devices, but with the proper firmware support of course. Soon I’m expecting final, pre-release samples of Sandisk’s latest and greatest so stay tuned here at The Nokia Guide. In the mean time you can grab some pretty good deals on the 8GB microSD cards over at Moby Memory.

Tip of the day: video for all

Need an all-in-one video and audio converter for all your Nseries devices? One of the best out there is Erightsoft’s SUPER converter. Best of all it’s free!