Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

Handy Phoneguard from Epocware was installed on two devices, a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS 9.4 and a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device with Symbian OS 9.3.

Installation

Installation is simply via the Nokia Application Installer available in the Nokia PC Suite.

First Look

Handy Phoneguard is yet another security application for S60 Smartphones. We have reviewed 2 security applications in the past, WaveSecure and SecureMe.  Lets see how Handy Phoneguard stacks up.

Main Review

Handy Phoneguard, in addition to securing general access to the Symbian Smartphone, which is a keypad / touch screen lock, also allows the user to secure applications and stored information (contacts, messages, notes, settings, images, videos, etc.) from unauthorized use.

Securing Phone, Data & Applications

Phone security comes with the usual features of screen lock at power on and automatic lock after a configurable number of minutes. The application also locks out immediately, when it goes to the background to avoid misuse.

Both on the Nokia 5800 and the E71, the locked screen displays the number pad for touch typing the password, along with the owner’s name, mobile phone number, email and address, which can be configured in the Owner Info menu in the application.

When you open a protected application, the splash screen is displayed giving owner information, asking for the password.

SMS Alerts and Remote Lock / Wipe

When the SIM card is changed, Handy Phoneguard sends an SMS to the friend’s mobile number with the IMSI of the rogue SIM card.

Now the friend can send an SMS [lock "password" or wipe "password"] to that number to lock out the device or delete your confidential information on the device when remote SMS lock/wipe command is activated.

You also have the IMSI number of the thief with which he can be tracked down with the help of the mobile operator.

Handling

Handy Phoneguard employs just one secured password for all protection functions enabled. This saves the hassle of having to remember many passwords. But it still asks you for the password for accessing each application and data that’s protected. It could get a little annoying for day to day use. The best way is to enable protection for applications and data only when you travel, because the chances of losing the device is higher or when the Smartphone is loaned to someone.

I liked the option to deactivate Phoneguard. This way, you can use it normally and still secure it when the need arises, with just a touch.

When the memory card is protected and you try to access the device via Bluetooth, Windows hanged. I had to hard reboot my desktop and then disable protection for the memory card to access the memory card. This could have been gracefully handled.

Weaknesses

When the phone rings, the caller information is not displayed on the screen.  The Phone application should be allowed to override Phoneguard and let me know who the caller is. I could pick up the call, only because the Nokia 5800 has hardware keys. This won’t be possible for the Nokia 5530, a touch screen phone without any hardware keys.

Some operations like Music Player controls – play, pause, etc., should be allowed access even when the mobile is locked out. When I need to immediately pause play, I don’t want to be unlocking the device first.

Conclusion

Handy Phoneguard can be downloaded here. WaveSecure does not have the option to secure applications or data while SecureMe lets you secure some data but not all that Handy Phoneguard does. I found Handy Phoneguard to have the most useful features and a clean and simple interface. Its a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Related articles

• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• SBSH SafeWallet 1.2 for S60 5th edition (0)
• Crack It – Crack your S60 touch screen (1)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

The Symbian Foundation has released a new theme for Symbian S60 5th edition devices, like the Nokia 5800.

The theme is quite obviously based on the symbian.org theme. The Symbian Foundation has adopted a consistent and innovative design for all its websites and this has been extended to the theme also.

It has an unobtrusive background of various characters and objects that are  form a part of the symbian.org theme. Built-in applications of OS / S60 UI get a new icon that gels with the overall theme. The theme sticks to just two colors, white and yellow.

Download

The Symbian Foundation Theme for S60 5th edition devices can be downloaded here.

Conclusion

The Symbian Foundation theme is zippy and responsive and does not slow down the user interface. Its a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Related articles

• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Psiloc World Traveler for S60 Touch (1)
• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)
• Touch Screen – Not a panacea to all ills (2)

In this second part, we are going to explore applications which convert videos for playback on Nokia S60 5th edition mobiles, specifically the Nokia 5800.

In Part 1, we reviewed SmartMovie,  a commercially available from video player for playback on the Symbian device.

We will look at three applications for video conversion. All these applications were installed in a laptop running Windows XP SP2 with 1 Gigabyte of RAM and a 1.66 GHz processor.

1. Videora Nokia 5800 Converter
2. Handbrake
3. Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter

Videora Nokia 5800 Converter 5.00

Videora Nokia 5800 Converter can be downloaded here. It supports H.264 VGA 1024kbps Stereo/128kbps and MPEG4 VGA 1024kbps Stereo/128kbps formats.

Conversion of an avi file of approximately 800 Megabytes in the H.246 format takes approximately 45 minutes but when encoded with the MPEG4 format takes nearly 2.5 hours. Videora has different versions for N97, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and various other mobile phones and iPods.

There are two modes you can choose for conversion, Simple Mode and Power Mode. In the Simple Mode, you just have to specify the file to be converted, the location on the hard drive where the converted file has to be stored and you are on your way.

Successful playback using the RealPlayer on the Nokia 5800 was a hit or miss. RealPlayer played back some files successfully back but it failed to play a few files. To find that playback failed after waiting for more than an hour converting the video is quite frustrating!!

Handbrake

Handbrake is an open source multi-threaded video transcoder that accept practically any type of video as a source. It supports many video formats that can be picked using various built-in presets that are categorized under Apple, Basic, High Profile and Gaming Consoles. I picked the Basic category and the Normal preset under this category for my conversion.

An avi file with running time of nearly 2 hours takes over 2 hours. The video codec was H.264. In the output settings, you can select the format of the output file as M4V, MP4, AVI, MKV and OGM. I’d prefer MP4. An avi file converted to M4V format failed to play on the S60 device. I didn’t try any presets under the Apple category.
Successful playback was once again a hit or miss. Playback of videos converted using some presets, like the Classic failed. Pick the Basic category under the Normal preset and it works!

Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter v0.32

The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter is home grown application from Nokia available in Nokia Beta Labs that converts videos to the .mp4 format and works perfectly well with all Nokia phones.

It doesn’t confuse you by giving a myriad options of video and audio formats to choose from. The Video quality can be chosen from one of the 4 options that a layman can understand, Low, Good, Better and Best. Of course, each option corresponds to a particular bit rate of audio and video and a encoding at specific frame-per-second (fps). The bit rate for the Low video quality is 200 kbps video, 64 kbps audio at 24 fps. The bit rate for the Best video quality is 860 kbps video and 128 kbps audio at 30 fps.

It takes over an hour to convert videos but the time it takes to convert a video and the size of the video also varies based on the video quality. Choosing the Low video quality means the smallest video converted in the shortest time. Playback on the Nokia 5800 was always successful when converted using the Nokia Internet Video Converter.

Conclusion

Overall, my experience of converting videos to play on the Nokia 5800 was not very pleasant. What irked me most was how long I had to wait for videos to be converted to the required format. And I’d come to know only at the end of the whole process that playback wasn’t successful.

The applications throw you a whole bunch of options that are overwhelming. I would like to try out each one to determine which is the best, but video conversion with each option would take at least an hour. You simply can’t think of loading your S60 device with a couple of movies at the last minute, when you embark on a trip.

I’d recommend Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter for its simple interface and 100% success rate.

More thoughts on video playback on the device

Videos playback using RealPlayer was a pleasant experience on my Nokia 5800. Frame loss was low and did not interfere with my visual experience. If you try to fast-forward, it takes a few seconds for full resolution to set in in the new playback position.

RealPlayer does not remember playback positions which is painful because navigating to the right point of the movie is cumbersome.

Video playback is a huge battery draining task for the mobile phone. Prepare to recharge your S60 device within a day if you are going to watch a whole movie.

Related articles

• Touch Screen – Not a panacea to all ills (2)
• Symbian Foundation’s S60 5th edition Theme (0)
• Psiloc World Traveler for S60 Touch (1)
• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

ABC Color Sheet is an alphabet learning guide for children.  As the name suggests, the application has a grid will all the 26 letters in the alphabet. Your child can pick a letter, associate it with an object and practice writing the patterns using your Symbian S60 5th edition touch device.

On each alphabet, arrow marks adjoining the letters assist the child in tracing the pattern along the alphabet in the correct direction. A wide palette of colors are available and the pencil’s thickness can be varied.

ABC Color  Sheet lets you send the alphabets as images via Bluetooth, text or email and also share them online. The alphabets can also bet set as wallpapers.

The eraser is very small dot and erasing text written on the alphabet is a real pain. You can see in the picture below how difficult it is to erase text written on the alphabet. Besides, there is no option to clean up all that’s scribbled on the alphabets. They don’t go away even when the application is closed.

Download

ABC Color Sheet for S60 devices is available in the Ovi store for 3 Euros. You can get the URL via SMS to your mobile to download it. The Ovi store application automatically installs the application after purchase.

Conclusion

ABC Color Sheet is a basic application for practicing patterns. But the poor eraser and not being able to clean up the graffiti on the alphabets is annoying. a simple feedback  mechanism would engage children more. Its worth a look and I’ll give it 3 of 5.

Related articles

• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)
• Touch Screen – Not a panacea to all ills (2)
• Symbian Foundation’s S60 5th edition Theme (0)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

We reviewed SafeWallet 1.1 a few months back. A new version is available with many improved features and support for Symbian S60 5th edition touch devices. Lets see how it is.

SafeWallet lets you create and maintain private information in multiple Wallets and each Wallet can be protected by different passwords. You can create several Folders in each Wallet with each folder carrying many Cards.

In the earlier version, if a Wallet is open and you send the application to the background, it doesn’t auto-lock. The new version locks automatically when its pushed to the background. It also locks up after a few minutes, which can be configured. This is not an issue if if only the application is open but all Wallets are closed.

SafeWallet lets you create custom templates of Cards so that they can be used again later.

The PC Companion now has a quick search panel and windows-like shortcuts that’s very useful. The PC Companion now allows to import a simple CSV file. Now I can see a confirmation from the PC Companion that the sync process has been successful. The lack of it was a weakness which I pointed out in the earlier review.

Single-tap all the way

What I liked most was that the SafeWallet developers have almost eliminated the infamous single tap-double tap issue of S60 5th edition. Every operation within SafeWallet can be achieved with a single click. It took me a while to get used to but I really appreciate this. That’s a great design decision.

It seems to me that the developers have added the code that does the “second tap” where ever the OS needs it, preempting the user from having to do it. But the second tap becomes one too many in one situation. When SafeWallet is open and a you enter a password to open a Wallet, the OK to set the password causes a double tap, I guess and this also opens the first folder inside the Wallet, which is Favorites.  I can live with it

But all is not well with version 1.2.

SafeWallet crashed on me a few times when I was editing a Card. In the edit mode, selecting the option to edit a field caused SafeWallet to crash, consistently. Initially I though it was due to lack of RAM and closed all applications. But the crash persisted. I observed this on both my S60 5th edition device and the S60 3rd edition FP 1 device, a Nokia E71.

Creating custom templates on the mobile is good but I didn’t understand why the card has to be in edit mode to save it as a template. The “Save as Template” option was never available in the read mode.  Though the custom templates were available on the mobile, they were never synced back to the PC Companion.

Finally, I could never edit a Card on the Nokia 5800, the S60 5th device with SafeWallet 1.2!! When I selected a Card and pressed edit, I got into the edit mode but was not able to open up any of the handwriting modes. But on the  E71, I could edit existing Cards and create new Cards.

Every operation inevitably caused the “Loading” page to come up. It was too annoying to observe this page even for minor operations like navigation.

Download

SBSH SafeWallet can be downloaded here.

Conclusion

If you already have SafeWallet, I’d suggest you want until all these issues are fixed before upgrading to version 1.2 even though you get a free upgrade. I didn’t find many improvements to be implemented well.

SafeWallet is ideally suited for kinetic scrolling. Navigation through th Wallet-Folders-Card structure would have been much easier with kinetic scrolling.

With quite a few hiccups, my experience with version 1.2 wasn’t great. This version is worth a look but I’ll wait for the next version. I’ll give it 3 of 5.

Related articles

• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Handy Phoneguard (0)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)
• VoiceQ – Your personal Secretary on the go (2)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

Did you know that the electricity wastage by just one mobile phone per year is 2.8 KW? Worldwide, every quarter, upwards of 250 million mobile phones are shipped out of which approximately 16 million are Symbian devices. Even a small amount of savings in electricity through efficient charging and usage of mobiles will go a long way in making our planet greener. Its also worth noting that the mobile charger consumes electricity as long as its plugged in to the wall socket even when its not charging the mobile device.

Impetus Technologies has created an an energy-saving utility for Symbian S60 mobile phones called Green Charging to do its part in slowing down Global Warming. Green Charging enables users to save power by notifying the user when the phone is fully charged so that they don’t overcharge mobiles and they also unplug the charger from the socket.

When the phone’s being charged, an electric plug icon is displayed on the top right corner of the screen. The Battery charge status, Standby time and Talk time of the mobile are also displayed on the screen.

In addition to alerting the user, Green Charging’s help has some interesting facts about electricity wastage and battery saving tips that are practical and effective for every mobile phone user.

Download

Green Charging is available for the S60 devices in the Ovi store for 3 Euros. You can get the URL via SMS to your mobile to download it. The Ovi store application automatically installs the application after purchase.

Conclusion

Green Charging does what it promises. Its Good Stuff and I’ll give it 4 of 5.

Green Charging is one among the Top 5 short-listed Apps to pitch for the 2010 GSMA Mobile Innovation Grand Prix-APAC Tournament.

Related articles

• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)
• Touch Screen – Not a panacea to all ills (2)
• Symbian Foundation’s S60 5th edition Theme (0)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

DreamConnect from DreamSpring was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS version 9.4.

Installation

DreamConnect is a native Symbian OS .sis application that’s available upon registration at the website. The application is linked to the IMEI of the device.

First View

There has been no improvements to the S60 contact manager over various feature packs and OS versions despite persistent demands demands from the online community for many improvements like adding support for Categories and so on. Lets see if DreamConnect is a compelling replacement for the native S60 contact manager.

Main Review

Contacts Database

DreamConnect installs itself as a native Symbian application. It provides extra and useful functionality and a different UI but uses the native contacts database of the Symbian OS.

DreamConnect lets you create new contacts and edit existing contacts seamlessly on the contacts database. Therefore the user does not have to worry about managing multiple versions of contact information. For the same reason that DreamConnect uses the underlying contacts database, sync to desktop applications like Outlook is not affected by installing DreamConnect.

At startup, DreamConnect reloads the contacts database for its own use. During all the operations of DreamConnect, you can still continue to use the S60 Contacts application without any interference.  But any change to the contacts using the S60 Contacts will not reflect in DreamConnect until its restarted again so that the latest contacts database is reloaded.

Two applications are installed, DreamConnect and DSVCardApp. DreamConnect is the contacts management application. DSVCardApp is the vCard reader. Existing vCards can be imported onto the S60 mobile and can be viewed.

Two features that stand out are Find and grouping contacts into categories.

Find

The Find function has two features – KeyMatch and Global Find. Just like the desktop search on the S60 E71, the KeyMatch feature you can just starting typing the name of a Contact and DreamConnect shows the contacts that match the search string. The numeric key pad with three alphabets on each key is displayed on the screen and you can just type away. This is very useful and you will get used to searching contacts this way very quickly. The KeyMatch feature beats the current contact search feature on the S60 5th edition, e.g. Nokia 5800, hands down.

The second find feature is the Global Find. Using this feature, you can search any text in the contacts database. I searched for partial phone numbers, addresses, emails, etc. This is a very powerful feature and the user will find it absolutely essential and valuable as the usage increases.

Categories

DreamConnect imports existing categories in Outlook and also lets you create new categories on the mobile. But the most important feature is the sub-categories option where you can file contacts under a parent category. This allows you to create a high-level hierarchy of categories like Business, Personal and within Business, you can create categories for various companies, etc. You can also filter the contacts by categories so that only the contacts belonging to a particular category or sub-category are displayed. And finally you can remove contacts from a category and add it to a different category. The options are enormous.

Contacts Display

When you open a contact, it is displayed on a white background with all the information clearly shown, including long addresses, email ids, multiple telephone numbers, etc. Its very useful to look up when I am driving and am searching for an address.

I always found that looking up addresses on the native S60 Contacts was not user-friendly to put it mildly. Addresses are entered in different fields like P.O. Box, Street, City, etc and they are also displayed in the same format. if the street name is a long, only a part of it is displayed. You actually have go into the edit mode of a field to view it completely.

Contacts can also be zoomed in and out using the volume keys!! That’s a very thoughtful feature. But I would also like to flip through contacts with a finger swipe on the screen. That would have been a great feature.

URLs and Email links can be invoked from the Contacts Display mode. This is also a very useful feature and is not supported in native S60 Contacts.

Sorting

Contacts can be sorted with more options than just first name and last name. You can sort contacts so that the Company or the Country appears in the list. I personally liked Company, First Name, Last Name option.

vCard

The DSVCardApp application will import vCard in the .vcf format and save them into the contacts database. If you have many contacts stored in this format, this application is very useful.

Handling

With great Find features and various filter-options to display contacts, handling and using DreamConnect was actually a dream.

Weaknesses

While I didn’t find any weaknesses in the current features of DreamConnect, while using it, I observed that a few new features would have made it a dynamite. Here are the features I’d like to see in DreamConnect.

DreamConnect must support Kinetic scrolling. Its still very difficult to browse through the contacts using the scroll bar on the right.

Why doesn’t DreamConnect just simply replace the native S60 Contacts and Log applications? Users will be confused by two different Contacts even if you communicate clearly that they use the same database.

I absolutely must have the ability to flip through contacts with a finger swipe on the screen when in the Display mode, just like flipping through images. The extent of user friendliness of this feature can never be overstated.

Conclusion

After using DreamConnect for just a few days, I must say its a great replacement for the native S60 Contacts. It addresses all the limitations of the native contacts application – adding a good find, adding categories, better display of contact information and various filters. DreamConnect is a must have and I’ll give it 5 of 5. It can be downloaded here after registration.

Related articles

• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)
• Touch Screen – Not a panacea to all ills (2)
• Symbian Foundation’s S60 5th edition Theme (0)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

The Nokia 5800 XPress Music, an S60 touch device with a large 3.2” bright screen and a 3.5 mm audio jack is well suited for watching long clips and movies. I set out to find out the best solution for watching videos on this mobile device.

Installation

All applications that I set out to review and evaluate are native Symbian applications in the .sis or .sisx format. Video converters are Windows applications that are compatible with Windows XP SP3.

First View

A worthy solution should have the following features:

1. Ease and speed of converting videos to a S60-friendly format
2. Video Players on the S60 mobile device – good quality playback and support for many video formats
3. Ease of transferring content to the mobile
4. Easy availability of content

In Part 1 we will look at SmartMovie Player from Lonely Cat Games.

Main Review

Converting videos to a mobile-friendly format

SmartMovie Converter

SmartMovie supports the Video Playback Formats 3GP, MP4, FLV and AVI formats. It comes with a Windows-based desktop application called SmartMovie Converter and a video player called SmartMovie Player for the S60 device. The desktop application optimizes, resizes and and prepares videos in MPG or AVI formats.

The SmartMovie Mobile Video Coverter It supports 4 video codecs – uncompressed, Divx 6.8.5 codec, Xvid Encoder and XviD MPEG-4 Codec. Choosing one of the four options are quite a challenge for the uninitiated.

I used SmartMove to optimize a 500 Megabyte AVI file using the XviD MPEG-4 encoder. SmartMovie lets you choose the Nokia mobile device for which the video should be optimized and has presents for each device. For the Nokia 5800, the video bit rate is 224 kbps and screen size is 320 x 180. The audio frequency is 16000 Hz at a bit rate of 40 kbps. Video conversion to avi took about 25 minutes and a file of size just 145 Megabytes was created. Playback quality was great.

Next I used the XviD encoder. The results were similar. It took about 25 minutes to optimize the file and the new file was 254 Megabytes of size. Playback quality was great too. Remember NOT to open a file as Read-only when you are going to encode it.

Divx 6.8.5 codec is an optimized version for PCs with multi-core processors and so I didn’t bother to use it since it will not give a better video for the Nokia 5800, which is a single core device.

For converting DVD formats to play on the S60, the SmartMovie DVD Guide recommends that the VOB file should be converted to AVI using other tools like DVDx before using SmartMovie to optimize, resize and prepare the video for playback on a mobile device. SmartMovie retains the file format after the optimization.

I also tried transferred an avi file directly without optimizing it using the SmartMovie Converter. Playback and audio was good but the audio and video was grossly out of sync and it took several attempts to get them to sync.

The SmartMovie Converter clearly prefers avi files for optimization but didn’t handle all avi files well. It threw a conversion error and crashed with many avi files. Overall, it was a hit or miss. SmartMovie Converter optimized some files but failed to convert many others.

SmartMovie Player

Playback on the SmartMovie player was smooth with little frame loss.  I found that there were minor out-of-sync issues on videos optimized using the SmartMovie player too but they could be fixed using the AV Sync option.

It has simple animated controls and a nifty seek option that shows a preview of the frame you seek.

SmartMovie Player lets you sync Audio and Video by introducing a delay or by increasing playback speed in multiples of .02 seconds. You can adjust brightness, contrast and saturation.

Handling

SmartMovie Player responds to touch well. The volume can be adjusted by just moving the volume bar up or down. A slider is available at the top of the screen to forward and reverse the video using the finger or stylus.

Weaknesses

Like I said earlier in this post, conversion of AVI files was hit or miss. Some conversions failed while some succeeded. I sorely missed the function in the SmartMovie Converter to transfer videos to the s60 mobile device immediately after conversion.

Conclusion

SmartMovie Converter converts videos at a very fast rate. Twenty five minutes for a full length movie is quite good. But lets find out how other video converters fare in this regard. I had very few problems playing video using the SmartMovie Player. The SmartMovie Player lets you play 60 minutes of free video before it locks out.

SmartMovie could enhance user experience greatly in this regard. SmartMovie can be downloaded here.

In Part 1, we reviewed the SmartMovie Video Converter and SmartMovie Video Player.

In Part 2, we will continue exploring other applications that convert videos for playback on the S60 mobile device in various supported mobile video formats. We will also look at other video players available.

In Part 3, we will talk about transferring content and availability of content.

Related articles

• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Touch Screen – Not a panacea to all ills (2)
• Symbian Foundation’s S60 5th edition Theme (0)
• Sensors on s605th edition (1)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Mini Review

We recently reviewed a music application from Impetus. Here is another one. JalTarang is an ancient Indian musical instrument. Literally Jaltarang means “waves in water” indicating motion of sound created with the aid of water. Bowls made of China numbering around sixteen are normally used. Bowls for notes of lower octave are large while those for notes of higher octaves are smaller in size. Water is poured into the bowls and the pitch is changed by adjusting the volume of water. The number of bowls depends on the melody being played. The JalTarang from Impetus Technologies was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS version 9.4.

The JalTarang uses 7 bowls of increasing size. Each bowl has a different sound.  The application’s response is very similar to the Drummer application. I noticed only a very minor lag between a tap on a bowl and the actual sound.

A tap on a bowl animates it giving a  visual feedback that the instrument has been touched.

A pre-recorded sound clip is available that is animated with a baton tapping the bowls in sync with the music played. You can also record your own music and play it back. But the recording cannot be saved for later use.

Download

JalTarang is available in the Ovi store. You can get the URL via SMS to your mobile to download it. The Ovi store application automatically installs the application after purchase.

Conclusion

JalTarang is a fun application to play with and a nice way to kill time. JalTarang is worth a look and I’ll give it 3 of 5.

Related articles

• Drummer – Music Application for Nokia 5800 (1)
• WordSearch, “Starts With” (0)
• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

Drummer from Impetus Technologies was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS version 9.4.

Installation

Drummer is available in the Ovi store and you can get a URL via SMS to download it. The Ovi store application automatically installs the application after purchase.

First View

The potential of a handheld touch screen device is enormous. Developers come up innovative designs to use the touch screen. Music applications on the Nokia 5800 is one such innovation that is of high entertainment value. Read on.

Main Review

The Drummer is a simple application that contains a Drum Set or Drum Kit with seven components, a Bass Drum, two Toms, a Floor Tom, a Snare Drum and two cymbals, one Crash Cymbal and one Hi-Hat Cymbal. This is a standard collection of drum kit components that are used in Rock and Jazz music.

The application is quite responsive and I only noticed a very minor lag between a tap on a drum and the actual sound. But the application is not able respond fast enough to the speed of thumbs. If I went fast with my thumbs, the application misses a few beats. Of course, I never expect it to respond to the speed of my wrists with drum sticks on real drums.

A tap on a drum or a cymbal animates it giving a  visual feedback that the instrument has been touched. The Hi-Hat and the Crash Cymbals also animate when touched.

The Drummer application has a Record and Play option using which you can record a music. A pre-recorded piece of music is also available that demonstrates the capabilities of Drummer.

Handling

Drummer is very simple and easy to use.

Weaknesses

Responsiveness to taps could be improved.

Conclusion

Drummer is a fun application to play with and a nice way to kill time. Its more of a demonstration of the capabilities of touch screen phones. Even Nokia introduced free music applications including a drummer when the Nokia 5800 XPress Music was introduced. Drummer is worth a look and I’ll give it 3 of 5. Download Drummer at the Ovi Store.

Related articles

• JalTarang – Music Application for Nokia 5800 (1)
• WordSearch, “Starts With” (0)
• WaveSecure – Anti-theft application for Symbian (3)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 Touch – Part 2 (4)
• Watching Movies on your Nokia 5800 S60 Touch – Part 1 (2)