Trying to copy the text in a message you just received? Open the message, go to copy>forward. Hold down the “Pencil key” while pressing left or right on the D-pad. Once the entire text is selected, keep holding pencil key and “Copy” should appear. Copy the text and voila! Go into any other app, press the Pencil-key and Paste the text.
Despite the lack of a dedicated shutter release button, the E71 has an Auto-focus fuction. Just hold the letter “T” on the keypad in untill it has properly focused (inidicated by the green focus bracket) and press the D-pad to take the shot. If you want to recompose the shot, just press “T” once more to restart and press it again to re-focus.
Staying in the TV-out theme, our tip of the day is for TV-out equipped Nseries devices. Travelers hopping from country to country, might find themselves using the TV-out feature with the resulting image looking a bit funny. This could be the result of choosing the wrong analogue video signal; here you have the choice of either NTSC or PAL. Just go to Tools>Settings>General>Enhancement>TV-Out and set the TV System to either PAL or NTSC. This applies for the N82, N93, N93i, All variants of the N95 and of course N96. The image below should help to indicate where PAL and NTSC are supported.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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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.
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