Recently I got myself a new toy and it’s kinda new on the market and not a lot of sites already got their hands on this little badboy, so I thought I would share it with you, my dear readers (are you guys still there? I didn’t post anything in a loooong time so let me know in the comments if you’re actually reading this ;) ). Ladies and gents, here it is – Nokia Essence (BH-610) in all its glory, latest and greatest Nokia Bluetooth in-ear headset with NFC and Active Noise Cancellation. The packaging contains a lot of useful accessories (accessories for an accessory, lol to that!) such as 6 different sizes of earpieces, a carrying pouch and a neckband. Are you interested in reading a short review of these? If so let me know in the comments below and I’ll consider a little write-up. Cheers!

Android Ice Cream Sandwich is finally here and we as most of geeks do went ahead and downloaded the latest SDK just to play with it on our own. After checking all the major things inside the system itself I went to about page, just as I usually do to check all the details and I suddenly recalled the Gingerbread Easter egg that someone found some time ago. To find it, you had to click on the android version number a couple of times and then the scary gingerbread man painting showed up. Without any further ado, I started clicking on version string like crazy and look what showed up. Almost the same one as in Honeycomb! Those sneaky Google devs… ;-)

Many people wonder why Google still haven’t made the mobile version of their browser – Chrome. The biggest players in the field of web browsers already have android versions of their browsers for long time. Only Google itself is somewhat reluctant to the introduction of its product on its own mobile platform. Recently, there were some first confirmed information posted about ongoing work. My today’s discovery seems to be even more significant. After installing the new, recently leaked Ice Cream Sandwich launcher a google search widget appeared which contains Google Chrome icon. Just take a look on the screenshot above.

What does this mean for us? This may be a sign that Google plans to integrate the Google Chrome browser in the upcoming version of Android or that it will simply be presented during the Samsung and Google event in HongKong next week. Time will tell, however there’s definitely something going on.

Edit.

Later on I found out that my discovery was completely pointless because of the fact, that the launcher I found was just a fan-made piece of code. I’m always pissed when bloggers don’t check their sources before posting and now the same thing happened to me. Well, karma got me…

The dust slowly fell on the ground. Finally I had sight of what happened. Putting a shadow on my face, giant silhouette sparkled flamely. It was covered in ash and its armour was heavily damaged. However, its eyes, little triangles of fluid fire, shone. I looked at it amazed. My hero. it saved me from inevitable death of being disintegrated by that robot’s laser gun. Lifesaver told me his name was Deltus and he came here to fight hostile robots infected by deadly virus. They were his brothers, but he had to kill them mercilessly.
A few minutes ago appeared one of the converted robots. He was stronger than others Deltus has met and equipped with powerful weapons. Deltus told me to find a cover quickly. I hid in the nearest building, eager to see, why Deltus is so afraid of the robot that looks just like the others. After the fearful fight, Deltus explained.
- He was one of their leaders. I must go. Here, take this to contact me when I will go back home to fight them.
I waved him good-bye and look at the gift he gave me. It was Nokia Windows Phone, the handheld of hero.

___________________________

Now, do you know why am I excited about Nokia World 2011? I want to see the future.

Image credits goes to poisondlo.

It’s been a while. But we’re back with some breaking news. Today we’ve seen leaked Nokia N5 images and we were certain, that appearance of model N6 is just a matter of time.

Devices N6-01 and N6-02 were leaked on Nokia’s own NDS website. Two xml files contain general information about unreleased yet phones.

Both N6-01 and N6-02 are working on Symbian S60 5.2 (Symbian^3) platform, are equipped with displays at 360×640 and ARM chips.

Hi folks! This is the unboxing video of one of the latest Nokia devices, which came to our headquater lately. Nokia C7. We’ve got a white unit to review.

If you have any questions about the device itself fell free to ask and I’ll do my best to include the answers in review which is coming in two weeks, so stay tuned!

When I first saw live pictures of Vertu Constellation Quest revealed by HardWorkingBee.com I didn’t realize the one major thing about the handset. Today I when looked at the pictures more closely I noticed that the screen definitely looks much sharper than QVGA (320×240) resolution. It’s hard to tell what resolution it is exactly but it must be something much bigger. I have chosen three, best looking pics and edited them so that it looks like actual screenshots. You can click on the pics to see them in full resolution, but keep in mind that those are pictures, not actual screens snaps.

Now I want to show you a snap of my E72′s screen:

Difference is actually HUGE. I hope that Nokia will put this new hi-res screen into a E72 successor. It’ll be an awesome upgrade since many users love this form factor and want are waiting for a proper upgrade.

You can also see a some kind of side bar on the right side of third screen snap. I think it’s something like 5800′s Media Key. Look at this:

So… Nokia, if you are listening, write something down. I’m your long time fan. Recently I had my hands on N8 and I decided to buy myself an E72 instead of it. Just because of form factor (I was also a long time E71 user) . I hope these words speak for themselves.

Nokia N900 is considered to be the geekiest mobile phone ever released. And I, after two weeks of the trial, have to admit this statement is true. But the question is: why is it so great? What’s in it for me? No matter if you are Casual User or Poweruser – this review is for you.

Time for some specs

Okay folks. We all know, that technology is developing fast but sometimes there appears a device, which specifications are mindblowing even a year or two after its premiere. One of them is Nokia N900.

Specifications:

• Size: 110,9 x 59,8 x 18 (19,55) mm
• Weight: 181 g
• 3,5” resistive touchscreen at 800×480 resolution
• Proximity sensor
• Physical slider QWERTY keyboard
• 5 Mpx camera with Carl Zeiss optics (CMOS, 2,8/5,2)
• Double LED flash
• Video recording at WVGA (800×480)
• Front VGA camera for videocalls
• WLAN
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• WCDMA, HSPA
• microUSB
• TV-Out
• A-GPS
• 32GB internal memory + up to 16GB microSDHC memory card
• FM transmitter (and receiver of course)
• Maemo5 OS with 4 panoramic customizable homescreens

What does it offer…

… A Casual User

If you feel you belong this this kind of user, you expect only the basic phone functions and some multimedia features. Here’s what Nokia N900 can do in this matter.

• Body – Nokia N900 is pretty fat phone, because it consists of two main body elements: main body with battery, camera, all the interiors and QWERTY keyboard + sliding body with touchscreen. The whole construction is about 20mm thick and weighs  181g. Yes, it’s a lot, phones is pretty heavy, but we have to remember about double construction, large battery and big camera module. Of course not everyone is comfortable with this size – in my opinion it was not too heavy at all, I like to feel I have something in the palm of my hand. But some of my friends found this device too massive to be carried daily. A matter of taste.
• Phone – Nokia N900 is stall a phone, right? I have to highlight it here, because after a few days with this device I almost forgot I can use it to call. It simply replaced my laptop in the crucial moment. Sending text messages is as easy as it looks, thanks to physical QWERTY keyboard texting is a pleasure, buttons are designed good enough to fit every finger size. Call quality is satisfying. I had no problems with hearing the person I was talking to, so didn’t that someone on the other side of the cable. No glitches and disturbances. Unfortunately I was not able to test videocalls, because none of my friends owns mobile phone equipped with secondary camera. (edit. rodakk – You forgot about me! :p)
• Internet – People browse Internet on their mobile phones more and more and if you are one of those – N900 won’t fail you. The phone is equipped with default Maemo5 browser called MicroB. Can’t hear a bell ringing? So do I, but I have to admit this application really fulfilled all my expectations. It copes with massive websites (like online auctions with tons of photos and texts), Flash content, hyperlinks, downloading images and files (without any extension/source/destination limitations). It also supports bookmarks (which you can even add to your homescreen, favorites, history, private data cleaning etc. In summary – it does everything your PC browser does. And it starts only in a few seconds! To browse Internet on Nokia N900 you can use either WCDMA and HSPA or WLAN connection. Data transfer speed is satisfying. Not a world record breaker, but works just as good.
• Social – Social networking becomes more and more popular among mobile phones users thanks to ability to share messages instantly and also thanks to easy Internet connection. Unfortunately – Nokia N900 won’t surprise you with awesome Facebook and Twitter applications – so far none of them was release officially and all you can find in the Catalogue are some wanna-be’s. Instead, you are granted intergrated access to all kinds of IM. With default Conversations app or any other communicator downloaded from the web, you can talk to people just like via text messages. Phonebook automatically syncs your IM contacts and you send them instant message in no time. Pretty handy, huh? It is also worth to mention, that you can add your favorite contact icons to the homescreen.
• Multimedia – Let’s slice this category in a few pieces, okay?

1. Music – Music player on Nokia N900 looks just great. It’s user friendly and intuitive, enables grid view off all of your favorite albums at once and list view all artists, genres and all the other stuff. Using it is just a pleasure. How about music quality? One point down here… Nokia N900 plays music really good, but not better than Nokia 5230 and the whole class below the iPod touch. I was pretty disappointed with lack of deep bass, while even 5230 offers satisfying deep tones level. But I have to admit I am pretty demanding audiomaniac…
2. Video – And this is a field, where Nokia N900 shows what it’s made of. Playing MP4, AVI, WMV, OGG and all the other similar video files is not a problem for this phone. Moreover – it plays AVI files without major glitches and lags, also it supports separate TXT and SRT subtitle files. So – no more converting, scaling, blending and merging subtitles! Thanks to awesome stereo speakers, sounds coming out of them is loud, clear and very good quality. To be honest, I find those speakers the best I have ever seen in mobile phone. As soon as I received this device, I played built-in video “9 – Trailer”. I was surprised and shocked by sounds and image quality. So sharp, so clear!
3. Games – Thanks to OpenGL 2.0 support, Nokia N900 offers amazing gaming experience. Unfortunately, there aren’t many games using OpenGL 2.0 technology so you can take most out of it. During the trial, I found only two good-looking games accelerated by OpenGL 2.0 technology. It were Bounce and Kroll. Screenshots below. Cinematics in Kroll look really amazing, especially on HDTV…

   
   





4. Camera – Nokia N900is equipped with 5 Megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss’ optics (Tessar 2.8/5.2) with autofocus and double LED flash. And as far as photos, thanks to great quality optics, are great, videos recorded with the device seem to “frame” and have not enough color saturation. Pictures taken with N900 are really good quality and with many tweaks and settings in the Camera menu, you are able to fix all niuances of your photo soon after taking it. Macro mode deserves a special award. Focus is really great and level of details on the picture is stunning. But check it out on your own below.

… A Power-user

Who is a poweruser? It is someone, who wants to squeeze all the juice out of the computer or mobile computer (in this case). And, to be honest, Nokia N900, has the biggest amount of juice I have ever seen in a mobile phone… Check out why.

• Developing and Catalogue – If you are a developer or programmer – this phone would be your cup of tea. Nokia N900 has an application called “Catalogue”, which is integrated with App Manager. In Catalogue, you will find all Maemo and MeeGo applications gathered together and grouped in sleek categories symbolized with icons. Between categories “Games”, “Multimedia”, “Tools”, etc., you will find one named “Developing”. What is that? Here you will find application to PROGRAMM straight on your mobile phone. Compilators, test builds, scripts in different languages (Qt mainly, but also Python, C++ and many others). Wait no more – start writing your own applications for your mobile ON you mobile phone! :-) It is also worth to mention built-in application “XTerminal”. To cut story short – it is like Windows’ CMD.exe but in Linux. This app allows you to control your phone, files, functions, root options and many other straight from the console. And via XTerminal you are also able to gain root on your phone. Just in a few seconds…
• .deb applications – N900 is able to install and run .deb applications. Unfortunately not all of them, so you won’t install your favorite communicator from computer Linux on your mobile, but some of those ported work are really good. Usually they are emulators: GameBoy, NES, PS and many, many others.
• Extraordinary performance – Nokia N900, as most of modern smartphones, supports multitasking. You can open tons of applications at the same time and phone should not lag or freeze. It comes in handy, when you are writing something in Word, playing with XTerminal or playing Bounce (nice game with amazing graphics) and in the same time you receive a text message or e-mail. Then tap the left upper screen part and a grid with all opened apps and recent notifications will show up. It is as easy as you see. During  the trial I haven’t had a situation to have the N900 freezed. Performance should really satisfy even the most demanding power-user.
• Customizable homescreen – You can have up to four of them (or more, if you tweak your device). Homescreen is scrollable, with panoramic, loopable wallpaper (consisting of four pieces). To scroll the homescreen, you need to swipe your finger to the left or right, similar to the iPhone (at least in terms of swiping).

On homescreen you can place the following items:

1. Shortcut – an icon being a shortcut to your favorite applications
2. Contact – a shortcut to your favorite contacts. If you have a picture of the contact – it is also shown on the homescreen
3. Bookmark – a bookmark to your favorite websites. Represented with webicon or site screenshot.
4. Widget – a separate application working on your homescreen. By default, there are several widgets to choose from, to mention some of them: Facebook, Calendar, Google Search, Media Player, Conversations, RSS Reader, e-Mail Inbox. If you want more, head to the Catalogue. There, under category “Desktop” you will find many other very useful widgets.

Verdict

If you are a poweruser, a programmer, a computer scientist, an architect or simply someone, who likes to have his computer in the pocket – Nokia N900 is a phone for you. If you know, what open source is and how to use it – Nokia N900 is MORE for you. And if you are a programmer, who knows, what open source is and works with it – don’t look anymore and buy Nokia N900. You will love it as a tool of trade, as a phone and… as a friend.

But if you are a casual user – you will get just another multimedia harvester and I am afraid you won’t make use of over half of the phone’s features.

Gallery

Nokia is definitely going to take advantage of MeeGo not only in handsets but also in tablets. We last heard about Nokia Z500 tablet back in June thanks to Eldar Murtazin. Now we have some kind of confirmation by Nokia itself. Nokia Z500 appeared in Nokia Ovi Store listing just like recent Nokia X7-00 which undoubtedly means something.

You can check it yourself by hitting the link:

http://store.ovi.com/?terminalId=Z500

There’s no content available right now for Z500 which is pretty obvious – it’ll probably run MeeGo which is totally new OS and there are no apps available for it at the moment.

source: NokiaPort.de

It’s finally here. In my hands. Long awaited Nokia N8. What should I say in here? Everything is just like expected. My first impressions are extremely good in every aspect of the device.

As usual – I made the unboxing video for your viewing pleasure :)

Here’s the short list of the box contents:

• Nokia N8 mobile computer
• Nokia Battery BL-4D
• Nokia Connectivity Cable CA-179
• Nokia Stereo Headset WH-701
• Nokia Compact Travel Charger AC-15
• Nokia Adapter Cable for HDMI CA-156
• Nokia Adapter Cable for USB OTG CA-157
• Quick start guide

If you want to ask something about the device – don’t hesitate to do it. Even the hardcore ones. I’m not afraid of flashing, modding and playing around with Torxes.