Joy of Gadgets

Tuesday, I received my white Nokia E71. The phone’s been out a while, as I’m sure anyone who follows a Gadget blog or reads Wired can tell you. Since I work for Nokia, you should realize the following is my own opinion on the Nokia E71 NAM, i.e. E71-2, RM-357, or at least one other name I’m not allowed to use in public.

The first thing I noticed when I opened my package was how small the box is compared to even the N96 I received not too long ago. It’s about half the size. Inside the box, pretty much everything inside that wasn’t shrinkwrapped was cardboard instead of plastic, making the packaging a lot more recyclable. Very green, even if the inside of my box is mostly black

Inside the box, I got the phone, battery, 2.5mm stereo headphones–more on that in a minute–power adapter, micro USB cable, manual, CD. Pretty much everything I expect to come with the phone, though the matching wrist strap and carry case were nice bonuses.

I had seen and even handled some pre-release versions of this handset, but they are never as good as the production units. This one felt wonderful. Solid construction, not too big. The keys are crammed together, but it’s pretty easy to push the right ones.

Continue reading ‘The Nokia E71 NAM: The Good, Bad, and Uglyrgb’

The Nokia E63 is a lower-cost version of the wildly-popular Nokia E71 that was released several months ago. It’s a little thicker than it’s cousin, and the case is plastic instead of metal. It also downsides the camera to 2 megapixel without auto-focus, and loses HSDPA data and GPS.

However, the handset still has a 320×240 color screen, 3G data (at UMTS speeds of 384k/s), WiFi, an awesome keyboard, and the ability to easily switch between home and work profiles. And it has something the Nokia E71 doesn’t have: a bog-standard 3.5mm headset jack on the top of the handset!

The price is certainly right on this handset: 199 EUR before taxes and subsidies. Three variants are being produced to account for the different 3G frequencies around the world, including for the North American market, i.e. for use on AT&T and Rogers. No word on whether or not we’ll see this device taken by a carrier, but this device could easily become under $50 with a two year contract!

The other phone I got last week was the Nokia N96, though this came from the folks at Nokia’s Blogger Relations program instead of T-Mobile.

My first impression is that it is a cross between the Nokia N95 and the Nokia N81. Unlike the Nokia N95, and like the N81, the headset jack is up top. This is an infinitely more useful place for it to be when I, say, want to set it on the treadmill like is shown here.

Unlike the N81, and like the N95, it has a nice 5 megapixel camera. Whereas the Nokia N81 has a similar quality camera to the Nokia 6301 I used to take this picture, the N96 has a good camera. I’ve posted a few pictures on my Share on Ovi account.

In the “cross between the N95 and N81″ category, it has both a 16gb internal storage memory and a MicroSD slot for additional memory storage. I was able to load all my 4 and 5-star rated song from iTunes on my phone and I still have a ton of space left over!

Speaking of which, it took an order of magnitude less time to sync 7.6 gigs of data to the N96. Instead of the 700k a second I have typically gotten with most other Nokia devices I’ve played with, I was getting around 5000k a second (give or take). The device actually enumerates as USB 2.0 unlike previous Nokia’s that I’ve played with, and it synced much faster!

The phone has a newer version of S60 on it, S60 3rd Edition FP2. It has several enhancements that I discuss on phoneboy.com that I won’t get into here. They are nice usability enhancements over previous handsets.

Some other random things I’ve seen that are improvements:

• A kickstand to allow the handset to stand up on its side.
• The volume increments in 5% increments with a headset plugged in. Nice idea, but it doesn’t actually seem to work.
• A power-save mode the handset goes into when the battery life drops down to 1 bar. I’m not sure exactly what it does.
• Geo-tagging photos. It’s not something I want to do, but it’s nice to know it’s there.
• Slide-to-lock on the top of the phone like the N81. I know people have different feelings on it, but I like it.
• Dual-LED flash. Not Xenon, but it’s still better than the N95.

However, based on the experience with the software build on the phone, I am not entirely happy. It reminds me very much of the early public releases of the N95-1 in that it was buggy, locked up, and otherwise did weird things. I can get this to happen with just the built-in apps and Mail for Exchange 2.7 using the v11.018 firmware. If I were the product manager for this program and saw these problems, I would have at the very least questioned if this product was ready for release.

Some of the weird things I’ve run into include:

• Music Player playing weird, sped-up, garbled audio in the middle of a song or podcast. Pausing and restarting the audio clears it up.
• After several hours of being on, applications will randomly lock up, crash, and hang. Power cycle restores functionality.
• Applications do not always reorient from landscape mode properly. For example, try taking a photo/video and emailing the video to a friend. Screen should orient out of landscape mode, but it does not.
• The phone does not respond to the media keys at all or takes more than a few seconds to do so.

Of course, I have no doubt that my Nokia colleagues will fix these issues in due course. If anyone inside the mothership wants more details on the problems I’m running into, look me up in the Nokia Phonebook.

A while ago, when I was writing for Gadgets Weblog, I reviewed the Solio H1000 Universal Hybrid Charger. At $79.95, it seemed a bit pricey. Especially since I could never get the solar part of the charging to work very well.

Meanwhile, Mark Guim over at The Nokia Blog got a Solar Cell Charger by Daylight Savings. Unlike the Solio H1000, which required special cables, this appears to use standard USB cables both for charging–in case you live someplace where the sun never shines–and for the compatible charging tips for phones.

The battery in this bad boy is 1200mAh, which is enough to fully charge the Nokia N95 8GB that I typically carry. However, I will likely have to heed Mark’s warning about the included charging cables being too short and use the Nokia CA-100 cables I already keep handy.

I ordered one of these guys because the price was fantastic–$24.99 including shipping. We’ll see how the solar panels fare up here in the Pacific Northwest.

A developer involved with the Nokia Internet Tablets posted on Jaiku about the latest iteration of the Maemo software that runs on these tablets. Note that unlike the Symbian OS that runs on all of Nokia’s smartphones, the underlying Linux OS of Maemo is open source–80% of it is, anyway.

The big news–although not entirely surprising–is that the the next release of Maemo is going to have HSPA support, and it will be open-sourced! Is that for data only or will it have phone features, too?

There is also mention of photo sharing, a higher-quality camera, and a faster OMAP3 process. Wonder just how this stuff will all go together. Will it be a replacement for my beloved Nokia N95 8GB? Will it be a data-only device or a phone as well? What’s it going to cost?

Software is one piece of course. I wonder what the hardware’s gonna look like. We obviously won’t know for a while yet, but it’s nice to have a new piece of gear to look forward to.

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If you want mobile email on the go, but don’t want anything else–including basic phone functionality–Peek may be just for you.

Peek is an email-centric device. In fact, that’s all it does. No web browsing whatsoever. However, the reviews of the device have universally said it handles email fairly well.

The device is a tri-band GSM device (GSM 850/1800/1900) that operates at GPRS speeds only, meaning it will fetch data slower than dialup speeds. However, GPRS is pretty much available everywhere, which means it will work, just very slow.

While it doesn’t say so explicitly anywhere in the FAQ, it appears that Peek’s service does proxy the email before sending it to the device. Given the relatively pokey GPRS speeds, this probably a good thing.

The device will set you back $100 and the U.S.-based service will cost you $20 a month for unlimited data. However, if you take advantage of this special offer, you can get 3 months of service for half off!

Me? My email-only device right now is a Nokia E61i. It’s a bit more complex of a device, but unlike the Peek, it handles web-based email, SMS, and can make phone calls in a pinch.

Via Boing Boing Gadgets, Picture from Geeksugar

Charlie Schick over at Nokia Conversations asks an interesting question: could you join The 1100 Club, i.e. use nothing but a Nokia 1100 series device for a month?

For those that don’t know, the Nokia 1100 is Nokia’s most popular phone, bar none. Over 200 million of these phones have been sold worldwide since late 2003, and they continue to sell.

What is so great about this phone? It makes and receives calls, it sends and receive text messages, it gets insanely good battery life, comes with a flashlight, is built for the harsh environments of developing countries, and it’s cheap. One model in this family (the Nokia 1101) comes with a simple WAP browser. That’s it.

Quite frankly, it’s one of the best phone phones, bar none. If I could find them unlocked in the U.S., I’d buy a couple to keep around to give people who just need a phone when they lose or break theirs. Or heck, buy a couple for my kids to use!

Back to the original question; could I ditch my smartphone? Probably not without carrying more stuff. My Nokia N95 8GB serves as my Internet access device on the go as well as my music player and my digital camera. Now if only I could get as much battery life on my N95 8GB as the Nokia 1100 gets…

I’ve been wanting a pair of stereo bluetooth headphones for a while now. I finally got the opportunity to order a Nokia Stereo Bluetooth Headset BH-604 from the internal purchasing at Nokia.

Unlike a lot of their bluetooth stereo headsets I’ve seen, the cans are the transmitter. They are a bit “old skool” big, but I like that. They are well padded and feel reasonably comfortable. The sound quality is respectable, but I think that has more to do with A2DP not being nearly as good as a wired connection than the overall quality of the headphones.

The controls are on the right earpiece. The only one I find I have a huge problem with is the volume control on the bottom. It’s a bit sloppy in comparison to the other controls, which seem more solid.

I am pretty impressed with the range. I was able to walk a good 30 feet away from my Nokia N95 8GB before I experienced any dropouts. Considering that some regular bluetooth headsets have problems with anything farther than 3 feet, this is amazing!

The headset is a bit pricey ($149 or so) compared to many of the stereo bluetooth headsets I’ve seen, though for similar can-type headsets, it’s in the same ballpark.

The folks at Joiku, makers of the awesome JoikuSpot for S60 now offer a similar program for Windows Mobile devices: WMWiFiRouter. Both of these programs turn your mobile phone into a WiFi hotspot!

The theory is that the program uses the data connection on your mobile phone–which is hopefully 3G. That data connection is made available over WiFi as a regular access point to other WiFi-enabled devices. Sort of, at least on S60, as it is only able to use an AdHoc network type, not infrastructure. This limits you ability to use it with, say, a Nintendo DS or Sony PSP. However, it works great with computers.

JoikuSpot is also currently 40% off: 15 Euros instead of the normal 25! While that’s still a lot of clams in U.S. Pesos, it’s still a nice investment. Where else are you going to get a portable WiFi router for that price?

A couple of months ago, the folks at Cahoona Games sent me a review copy of Marble Maze for the Nokia N95 and Nokia N82. I feel bad that I didn’t review it before now, but I certainly played it several times in the meantime!

The reason this game needs these two specific phones is that it actually uses the accelerometer to move the little ball through the maze. This limits the game to the N95 and N82, both of which contain an accelerometer.

It’s like that old labyrinth game where you take the ball on a table and try and navigate it through a maze without the ball falling into a hole. Marble Maze is exactly like that, except you can hold the maze in the palm of your hand and there are 40 different mazes to go through.

This game is so worth the $5.99 it will cost you to pick it up.