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Nokia N97 Review - Multimedia & Conclusion

2009-10-05T01:15:00.003-04:00

The Nokia N97 is the flagship Nseries product for 2009 and includes many of the expected multimedia features like 5 MP camera, integrated GPS, and WiFi and includes some new ones like a digital compass and FM transmitter. But what sets the N97 apart from its predecessors is how well these multimedia functionality are integrated together in the software.

Read my N97 hardware and N97 software reviews

More after the jump!

Bug: While typing this review, my Note application kept crashing without saving when the note got too long. Turning off predictive typing stopped the crashing.

Camera
The Nokia N97 includes a 5 megapixel camera sporting Carl Zeiss Tessar lens with dual LED flash, autofocus, and macro mode.

Photos
The N97 camera application looks different than other Nseries devices with an emphasis on simplicity. But that's not to say there's a lost in control as the advanced functionality is hidden in the menus. The camera retains white balance, color tone, light sensitivity, high-level ISO, exposure, and contrast controls.

A simplified camera app makes capturing great photos a click away.

The new camera application features a simple one press camera taking button that handles autofocusing and photo capture - just like on the blackberry and iPhone. The one click photo taking button is useful for quickly taking a focussed photo and for people not accustomed with a camera phone having focussing. The physical shutter release is still very useful for manually setting the focus before taking the photo and for taking self photos. In any mode, the camera will automatically use macro-mode if you're focussing on something near.

Advanced camera settings are hidden in the 3 horizontal bar bar button on the right

The camera software still doesn't save your settings, like contrast, after each use.

Just to see how the N97's camera compares, I pitted it against Nokia's premier camera phone, the N82:

Indoors (N97 to N82):

The N97 handled the incoming sunlight a lot better than the N82 in auto mode. However the N82 photo is sharper showing better detail in the bolts of the plane.

Outside (N97 to N82):

I think the N97 produced a sharper image but both cameras produced very similar results.

Macro Mode (N97, N82 without macro, N82 with macro):

The N97 produced a more colorful photo than the duller N82. Although the focussing area was slightly different (the N97 was higher than the N82), the focus area on the N97 is 25% narrower than the N82.

Dimly lit interior with flash:

The camera software and dual LED flash on the N97 did not work well together as a number of photos were washed out with a flood of white in dimly lit. The dual LED is overly bright and can't be turned off when focussing so it's not ideal for taking photos in light sensitive places like the art gallery.

Dimly lit macro (N97 to N82):

The N97 produced a warmer photo with more accurate colors than the N82. However the N97 had more noise compared to the N82.

Photos in the dark (N97 to N82):

The N82 produced a much brighter photo and had more accurate colors. The N97 photo was grainly and dim.

The photo processing time after taking a photo was slow, taking about 4 seconds to finish saving the photo. This went down to around 3 seconds with the v12 firmware.

Although I keep referring to the Nokia N97 as having dual LED flash, it actually has 3 LEDs. There is 2 white LEDs right above the camera and a small red LED between the two white LEDs. The red LED is flashed when taking a photo under sunlight.

Bugs - if you require a passcode on your phone, you'll run into frequent problems with unlocking the phone where the screen wouldn't light up. For exanple, the flipping down the camera cover won't unlock or prompt for passcode and the camera application doesn't start in both cases.

Defect - The lens cover on my N97 does scratch the lens. I have 2 deep scratches close to the LED flash. I have 2 more medium scratchs running through the camera area. However, I didn't notice a big impact to camera quality.

Video
Although the N97 camera sounds very 2007 (i.e. the Nokia N95) on paper, it really is. It adds widescreen support but accomplishes it by reducing the video height.

The video recording software saves some settings like flash but not all, such as scene, after each use.

Video quality settings:
4:2 aspect ratio high: MPEG4, 640 x 480, 29 FPS, ACC Mono @ 48 KHz, 2.93Mb/s
Widescr. high quality: MPEG4, 640 x 352, 29 FPS, ACC Mono @ 48 KHz, 1.95Mb/s (default)
Sharing quality: H.263, 176 x 144, 15.5 FPS, AMR Narrowband Mono @ 8KHz, 107Kb/s

Other settings: Show GPS Info, Audio Recording, Scene modes (auto, low light, night), White balance, Color tone.

The N97's large screen makes watching captured videos on the N97 look especially nice.

Sample Widescr. high quality video:

Connectivity
The data connection software, called Destinations, is a vast improvement over previous S60 software. It works like Birdstep's SmartConnect by grouping a mix of multiple access points like home wifi, office wifi, and carrier network into a single point for use by all your applications. As with SmartConnect, you can define priorities to the access points so it will use your home wifi network before trying to use your carrier's network. Unlike SmartConnect, if you set your software to prompt, Destinations will search through your access points and suggest the best access point based on your priority. And any access point you successfully connect will be automatically added to the bottom of your group of access points. It's so intuitive that I rarely need to manage access points for my mail synchronizing.

WiFi
The N97 support 802.11 b/g which most wireless routers support.

The N97's WiFi antenna is weaker than my E71 even when its keyboard is opened. As you may remember from my E71 review, the E71 is weaker than the N82 in pulling WiFi signals.

Sadly WiFi doesn't work without a SIM card.

Bug: In the Wifi wizard, the right Exit button can stop working but Option > Exit still works

Bug: Wifi wizard, connected then it wouldn't respond. Switching to the application showed a dimmed screen. Couldn't kill app and it started to slow down the whole phone. Had to shut off the phone. Got stuck connected to an access point and not possible to connect back to it and the connection manager doesn't show the active connection

Integrated GPS
I turned off assisted GPS to test the integrated GPS. Lock on time from cold boot (no prior lock ons) and stationary was twice as long as my N82 but beat my E71 which never managed to lock on within 10 minutes. However, in motion, the N97 had a lot of difficulty locking on compared to both the N82 and E71 - sometimes taking up to 20 minutes to lock on.

The N97 has a weak GPS with v12 firmware.

While locked, the GPS was jumping all over the place and frequently didn't report me moving even in an open area with direct access to the clear skies. With both my E71 and N97 running the same version of Garmin XT driving in downtown of a major Canadian city, the N97 frequently showed me driving between streets and easily got disoriented when I was stopped at traffic lights.

The N97 is very jumpy so you'll frequently see yourselve between streets while driving

Some users report the internal GPS was better before installing Nokia Maps 3 but I couldn't report that. I'm hoping firmware v20 will resolve issues with the GPS. I wouldn't rely on the N97 as my dedicated GPS.

FM Transmitter
Just like other recent Nseries devices, you can broadcast the audio from your N97 over FM frequencies - great for cars without an auxillery input. The frequency is configurable so you just have to find a frequency not used by your local radio stations. The audio produced was had a noticable amount of static and more muffled than listening through headphones. I would say it's worst that a real FM radio station but it's great for road trips into areas with no radio stations.

Speakers
The two small speakers at the top and bottom left side of the phone are tiny and weak.
Audio through the headset was also weak

Memory
The Nokia N97 includes 32GB of internal memory and supports removable microSDHC support.

The removable memory card lies under the back cover but you don't need to turn off the phone to access it.

I tested the N97 with a 8GB microSDHC and it had no problems with it. The internal memory and the removeable media both act the same in the phone - as a separate drives. One major advantage of the internal memory is that it's formatted in FAT32 file system which is better space usage over the FAT format of SD cards.

Battery
The BP-4L 1500mAh battery is the largest used in Nokia's line of phones. It's the same battery found on Nokia's E71, which is known for having a long standby time. Unfortunately, the N97 doesn't fare so well with the same battery, lasting only 2.5 days long with my typical usage of some camera, light GPS usage, light WiFi Internet browsing. My E71 would last 4 days under similar usage but my N82 wouldn't make 2 days. The longer battery life made using the N97 as my MP3/video player compared to my N82.

Conclusion
Being Nokia's biggest product launch this year against the mounting pressure from competitors such Apple and Google, there's bound to be criticism when expectations are so high. The N97 retains the legacy S60 platform which can be both a good thing (easy for previous S60 users to get around) or a bad thing (not as intuitive as it could be). Nokia made a significant effort to revamping the S60 software with a widget home screen, more intuitive reorganization of menu items, and improving the ease of use for beginners.

The new form factor is a welcome addition to the Nseries line of phones. With the qwerty keyboard and powerful 5MP camera, the N97 can easily replace my N82/E71 combination. But for those looking for a combination business tool while taking quality photos, you should also consider the E75 and upcoming E72.

To be honest, this isn't a groundbreaking product like the N95 was when it was launched but it's a natural evolution of the S60 platform. But it is worthy of the title of Nokia's flagship device, a big improvement over Nokia's previous flagship, the N96, and I think it'll do very well in markets where Nokia is strong.

Ratings:
Performance...........8
Build quality...........7
Keypad...................5
Connectivity...............7 (a weak GPS hurt this score)
Features for $.........8
Software................7 (still buggy)
Camera..................8
Battery life.............7

Overall.....................8

PROS:
*amazing screen
*WiFi
*very impressive camera under sunlight
*Great incoming sound
*landscape screen
*longer lasting battery
*touchscreen or QWERTY keyboard when needed
*better data connection handling
*built-in FM transmitter

CONS:

*thick phone
*no HTML in e-mails in built-in Mail client
*grainy camera in dark
*Paying for navigation in Nokia Maps
*creaking phone case
*smudges easily
*screen scratches
*software bugs throughout the phone
*lack of quality 3rd party software
*really bad GPS lock on and stability

Nokia N97 Review - Software

2009-09-22T01:06:00.002-04:00

The Nokia N97 is the first Nseries to run Nokia's touch screen optimized S60 5th operating system and only the second Nokia phone to use it. I've had the N97 over a month now and made it my primary phone so I hope to give you a good idea what it feels to use the phone. In my first N97 review I covered the hardware aspect which is only a part of the phone. Here I will be reviewing the software that powers the N97.

Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the N97-1 in this review.

More after the jump!

S60 hasn't gone through much of a change - great for people already familiar with S60.

Nokia E71 with S60 3rd edition, Nokia N97 with S60 5th edition, and N82 with S60 3rd edition

Firmware Updates
It's not common to see firmware updates being reviewed so early in a product review but I want to emphasize to both current N97 users and prospective N97 owners on the importance of updates and Nokia's dedication to their products.

During my review process Nokia had updated the firmware for the N97 from V 11.0.021 (15-06-2009) to V 12.0.024 (04-08-09). This gave the N97 much better response and screen redraw speed throughout the phone. I also ran into less system errors and reboots. To put it simply, the N97 is still a work in progress, much like the N95, and Nokia is two or three firmwares away from a great phone.

Thankfully Nokia has included a very convenient easy to use over-the-air firmware upgrade software powered by Red Bend. Just start SW update under Applications and it'll automatically check online for software updates and one click downloads and installs it just like Microsoft's Windows Update.

Nokia's software update is a fabulous tool to help keep your phone working at its best.

Operating System

Home screen
The much hyped widget based home screen is a big customization improvement to S60. There are still limits as you can only add each widget once. So you can't display an Accuweather widget for both your home city and the city you're visiting on the home screen. But Nokia has given the user much more flexibility by including 2 shortcut widgets so you can add up to 8 application shortcuts and 2 contacts widgets to put 8 of your favorite contacts. Too bad Nokia didn't include 2 e-mail widgets so users can follow both their work e-mail and their personal e-mail. To configure any of the widgets, click Options > Edit Content and click on the widget you want to edit or tap and hold the widget to change the positioning. One annoyance with the home screen is that a slight flick of the finger on the widgets will hide them all instead making it more useful like revealing another home screen. To re-enable the widgets you can flick your finger again on the empty space or click Options > Show content.

The e-mail widget is improved over previous incarnations allowing the display of up to 2 of the latest e-mails and number of new e-mails or just displays the number of new e-mails.

Navigation
Double clicking and single clicking isn't annoying as I thought it'd be but it gives the impression the phone is too slow and not capturing all touch input. You just have to realize that it's not an iPhone but S60 done up with touch so you still get scroll bars.

Screen rotation is fast enough. There is a noticeable delay where the screen goes blank with just the background color but it is very livable. The v12 improved the screen redraw speed considerably.

Nokia has gone through S60 and reorganized many of the menu items - more so compared to previous attempts. If I wasn't so accustomed to S60 I would think they made some good decisions to grouping similar functions together.

For example:
App manager is now in settings. Use Organize > Delete to remove applications.
Connectivity in Settings
Music Player, Radio, Music Store all merged into the Music application
Landmarks, GPS data, and Positioning all merged into the Location application

There's no smart dial on the homescreen. It would've made the dialpad much more useful.

Nokia, please add the letters to the numbers for the next firmware.

It would have been nice if Nokia included the letters associated with the numbers in the dialing user interface. Otherwise making a call to something like 1-800-CALL-ATT would be difficult. They fixed this on the N900.

When you finish an incoming call while the phone was locked and "Show call duration" is enabled, the N97 immediately locks after finishing a call so the call duration popup is quickly lost. This doesn't happen on S60 3rd edition so I believe it's a usability bug. I still hate how S60 doesn't keep call duration for each call; even my 3 year old SE W810i did this.

Scrolling with the narrow and small scroll bar is very frustrating. In a long note like this reviewing I'm writing, the scroll bar is narrow and small making it difficult to select and stopping it at the right spot in the file is hard as slight movements scroll a lot. This is where kinetic scrolling is sorely needed.

Input methods

One of the draws to the N97 is its full QWERTY keyboard but for those times when you just can't be bothered to open up the phone or need one-handed operation, the N97 offers numerous input methods:

T9 for the older schoolers

It even works in landscape

Handwriting recognition

The handwriting recognition is fairly good. I just had problems with having the N97 recognize my 'i' which turns into 'j'.
Handwriting recognizes both lowercase and uppercase input but it makes fewer mistakes with uppercase.

Typing software - it doesn't have some of the little usability enhancements found in Blackberries for typing like capitalizing 'I' when it stands alone or placing a period after hitting space twice.

Predictive typing is disabled by default but it's something every user should consider turning on to address some of the poor keyboard layout. For example, if you need an apostrophe you can just hit the period and the software will suggest apostrophe above which you just hit up on the d pad to accept. I never used predictive typing on the E71 but it makes a difference on the N97

With predictive typing turned on, the N97 is sluggish and can't keep up with my typing - and I don't even type fast!

Unfortunately the N97 does not offer an on screen QWERTY keyboard, as found on the 5800, for the few people that want it.

Bug - with keyboard locking turned on, if you leave the phone open, let it dim and autolock, the N97 won't unlock even if you open it or hit unlock key. I had to take out the battery to reset the N97.

Included or Nokia Software
For a smartphone to be successful it has to include some useful software and Nokia spent a lot of money in the last few years differentiating its products with a wealth of included applications like Ovi Mail and Nokia Maps.

Contacts
The S60 contacts holds information the same way it did in previous versions of S60 with each contact having first name, last name, various phone numbers, and various details. The number of contacts limit is the memory of the phone.

For S60 5th edition, they've added an additional page as above that makes calling, texting, and video calling easier to click but it's 1 more click to look up phone numbers. You can no longer switch to the details of the previous/next contact by hitting left or right on the Dpad.

Mail & Mail for Exchange
If you've used Mail or Mail for Exchange (MfE) on other S60 devices such as the E71 or N95 then you won't notice any new features. Mail handles e-mail, text messages, Bluetooth transfers, and MMS. MfE provides Microsoft Exchange synchronization support to your Nokia S60 device through the Mail client (more details can be found in my MfE article). If you're planning to use the N97 for personal e-mail I highly suggest installing Nokia's new Nokia Messaging to replace the built-in client which features simple wizards to help set up your email account and boasts HTML support. Unfortunately MfE users are stuck with the built-in client.

Some changes to the Mail client are:
The top tab for Inbox, Sent, Draft, etc. is not scrollable.
Scrolling through a large list of e-mail is difficult as the scroll bar gets smaller as number of e-mail increases. When the scroll bar is small, the slight movements put you somewhere else on the list, likely not where you wanted to be.

Mail still doesn't support HTML or rich text email so all email appear as pure text
Also the much used Search, found in the latest S60 devices, does not support mail for exchange.

Oddly, turning off date grouping was found under messaging > other.

Bug: The mail indicator at the top of the standby screen won't disappear even after having read all my messages and email.

Calendar

This is a big improvement over existing S60 devices. The event details now open instantly in contrast to the E71 where you needed to wait a second. Each of the listed details is also a link to the full description of the event. The Change view, add meeting, and add to-do note buttons at the bottom are very useful. With the N97s much larger screen, the week view is much easier to read than on the E71.

With the phone locked, the N97 will blink with the meeting alert once very quickly and not blink again as my E71 does (fixed in v12) and repeat as the E71 does.

Nokia Browser
Powered by Apple WebKit, the same technology found in the iPhone and Android browsers, the Nokia Browser was one of the first firmware embedded full browsers. Unfortunately, the Nokia Browser hasn't undergone much of a change since then and still runs an old version 412 of WebKit while the iPhone and Android run version 528. The Nokia Browser is considered slow to render pages when compared to more contemporary browsers. Many power users have switched to the faster and lighter Java-based Opera Mini, which now supports touch.

The browser is one of the few included applications that support kinetic scrolling. While scrolling it will display a thin scroll bar on the right that gives you a visual indication of where you are on the page but you cannot click on the scroll bar. I found it slower to get to the bottom of a page with kinetic scrolling comapred to the Dpad.

Like previous Nokia browsers, it does not include the built-in function to open new windows. Navigating the multiple windows opened by Javascript is clumsy at best requiring about 5 clicks.

With the added CPU speed over the last generation of S60 devices like the E71, page rendering was faster and the in-browser flash played smoothly.

My computer ran into problems so my n97 became my computer. Too bad the browser doesn't support activeX which is required for my work.

Photos
Gone is the flashy but useless carousel photo viewer in the N95. Replacing it is a very plain but functional photo viewer:

Pulling up the full image takes a long time - much longer than my N82. You're treated to a zoomed in version of the thumbnail while you wait. Zooming it done through a scroll bar.
Bug - photos crashed a number of time when zooming in on specific photos.

Photo Browser
This is a little beta project of Nokia's but I thought it'd be nice to include here to show my readers that Nokia is trying to improve the user experience but hasn't gotten it stable enough to include it with the firmware.

All those white outlines boxes should have photos in them but the software is slow pulling the thumbnails

The photo browser is much more geared to the touch screen of the 5th edition with support for kinetic scrolling and nice eye candy while scrolling. Too bad that pulling up the full photo is slow like the included Photo application. Moreover, zooming on this app is fairly useless as it magnifies the area directly below your finger so your finger blocks what you're trying to see.

Music

The music player remains the same as previous S60 devices.

To have your newly loaded music appear in the Music application, you may need to click Options > refresh library.

Ovi Store

Many users have complained about Ovi search not working well. AllAboutSymbian even made their own. You'll need Ovi account to download anything, including the free things. You'll find a few useful applications like Bloomberg, AccuWeather, and Drawing in Ovi but absent are useful staple software like YouTube.

Nokia Maps

When I got my N97 I immediately upgraded Nokia Maps to 3.01 v09wk26 b02. Unfortunately, a number of users have reported that Nokia Maps 3.0 causes the GPS to become unstable having difficulties holding a satellite lock and giving jumpy data.

Realplayer
Realplayer has been the default video player with S60 for as long as I can remember. As expected, it will play mp4 and 3gpp formats but doesn't support the popular DiVX format.

Realplayer has been touch enhanced and made to look less cheesy and cumbersome than in S60 3rd edition

Flashplayer
The flashplayer powers flash within the Nokia browser but you can also open flash FLV files within the included File Manager in Office.

Great to play those saved FLV videos from YouTube but lack of play controls limit its usefulness.
Bug: For FLV videos, audio shutters near the beginning and audio shutters after a few minutes of play it will shutter again and continue.

Drawing

It's a fun simple application. No OCR support to convert notes to text. There are only a limited colors and editing tools. It's also not vector based.

You can even open photos captured with the N97 and make some interesting drawings:

Third Party Applications
No smartphone is complete without even more software! The main draw to a smartphone is the wealth of compatible 3rd party software to make the phone more useful to the user.

Similar to the transition between Nokia's older S60 2nd edition like the N70 to S60 3rd edition like the N73, the transition to 5th edition breaks compatibility with a lot of applications. Although some of your older S60 3rd edition application may install, not all will run (i.e. Garmin XT version 4) and not all will work well (i.e. Mobitubia doesn't have back button). So before you make the jump to a S60 5th edition, make sure your favorite applications or a viable alternative are available. Unfortunately there aren't a large number of applications designed specifically for S60 5th edition just yet.

PhoneTorch
Big bug - open PhoneTorch and leave in default settings, turn on light, open camera lense cover, and close camera lense cover. The N97 will now display lines and then reboot.

Garmin

Garmin now works on 5th edition and, of course, works with the internal GPS.
Bug - Gamin is still buggy with frequent crashes, performance problems, and map drawing bug in landscape mode.

YouTube

Changing Connection doesn't let you choose the specific connection so you're left guessing if it's using WiFi or your carrier's network

It would've been nice if Nokia displayed the left and right soft keys on the screen for non-compatible S60 3rd edition software since 5th edition doesn't include left/right keys. I tried Mobitubia on the N97 but couldn't navigation back as it's done with a soft key which isn't displayed.

Overall
The Nokia N97 software makes some great improvements to much used functionality like the calendar and Nokia Maps. However the N97 felt like a work in progress even after the firmware update to v12. I encountered more than a handful of times I've had to either restart the phone or pull out the battery to fix the phone. There are a number of navigation inconsistencies throughout the operating system such as scroll bars or kinetic scrolling, single clicking or double clicking, and using soft keys or holding your finger on the screen. And a final big sting to S60 5th as a smartphone platform is the lack of quality 3rd party software compared to its competitors. I'm hoping the rumoured v20 firmware update in October will fix much of my N97 software complaints.

Continue to N97 Review - Multimedia & Conclusion > >

Nokia Nseries and Eseries vs. iPhone: CPU and Battery Life

2009-09-09T11:49:00.004-04:00

* Updated 09/09/2009 - Added iPhone 3GS, Nokia E72, N86, Nokia N900. Merged the many tables into one table.

* Updated 10/22/2008, 10/1/2008

After almost a year since the iPhone was announced and more than half a year since it was launched, the iPhone to some other phone comparisons have started to die down. So just to add some wood to the dying fire, I'm here to state:

Current Nokia smartphones can't match the general computing performance of the iPhone

CPU

Nokia N82/N95	Texas Instruments OMAP2420	330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA
Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85	32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N96	32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12	264 MHz ARM926EJ-S
Apple iPhone	Samsung S5L8900	620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz)
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 412MHz)
Nokia N86, N97	32bit Freescale MXC300	434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia E72	32bit Freescale MXC300	600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N900	Texas Instruments OMAP3430	600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 600MHz) ARM1176JZF + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: Semiconductor insights, Engadget, PDAdb.net
BoingBoing, iPhone 3G FCC filing

More after the jump.

From the configuration we can see that Nokia has placed a higher importance in call performance (probably from the inclusion of 3G video calling) with the use of a dedicated Digital Signal Processing (DSP) unit, namely the Texas Instruments 220 MHz TMS320C55xDSP).

Does the iPhone lag behind because it lacks a DSP?

No, not really.

In the following chart you will see the ARM1176 perform almost as good as the C55x:

Moreover you can see the ARM1136, found in the Nokia phones, perform almost as good as the ARM1176 with a similar clock speed. Too bad the iPhone packs a ARM1176 with almost double the clock speed.

Two is always better than one right? It could be if you're using both CPUs at the same time. With the flexibility of the Symbian S60 operating system on Nokia phones, you can initiate a video call while editing Microsoft Word/Excel documents in QuickOffice and seamlessly switch between them. The Apple iPhone hides the multitasking from the user and you don't have video calling so you will likely have the iPhone to your ear where you can't really do anything else simultanously. And that's when you realize 1 CPU on the iPhone is good enough if it could handle both DSP operations and general CPU usage as you rarely get to do both at the same time.

So when you're only using the general computing CPU, say for watching a video, the iPhone can process more frames and provide a snappier interface than the Nokia phones.

Battery

So here comes a drawback to the two processor set up on Nokia phones. They're power hungry compared to the iPhone since it has to power two CPUs. Even though each of them uses less power than the high clocked iPhone CPU, putting them together in a package creates a higher power usage situation since one is powering the UI while the other is handling cellular operations.

Now to add the nail to the coffin, Nokia has equipped their phones will less powerful batteries:

N95 - 950mAh
N82 - 1100mAh
N95 8GB - 1200mAh
iPhone/iPhone 3G - 1400mAh

Conclusion

The Nokia phones are equipped with a dedicated DSP CPU and a general ARM CPU while the iPhone makes due with a higher clocked general ARM CPU. The iPhone user interface doesn't emphasize the multitasking capability by hiding it from the user so a single processor design works well enough for it. Nokia equips their phones with two CPUs with one focussed on heavy DSP tasks like 3G calling while the other handles all other CPU tasks. The preferred design is based on how you use your phone. But with a more powerful battery and a single chip design, the iPhone will win in the battery life competition.

Reference:
Use a Microprocessor, a DSP, or Both?, BDti, 2007/04/04
DSP Design Line

Update 10/1/2008
Nokia's latest S60 phones (E-series and N-series) have switched from the Texas Instrument dual core N82/N95 to a Freescale single core in the E66/E71/N79/N85. Oddly enough, a single chip design was used in the N96 like the iPhone. However, the Nokia N96 phone use an older ARMv5 instruction set architecture as opposed to the ARMv6 of the iPhone and other Nokia phones. The iPhone continues to overshadow the Nokias with a higher frequency.

Nokia E71, E66, N79, N85	32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N96	32bit STMicroelectronics Nomadik STn8815A12	264 MHz ARM926EJ-S
Apple iPhone	Samsung S5L8900	620MHz ARM1176JZF (downclocked to 412MHz)
Apple iPhone 3G	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 412MHz)

Source: iPhone 3G FCC filing

My original article wrote about the benefits of having a CPU with DSP combination and Nokia continues this with most of their latest phones except the N96. The latest Nokia phones do not have the 3D graphics accelerator as the N82/N95. It's too bad Nokia didn't outfit all their N-series devices with 3D graphics accelerators so N-gage games can stand out from standard Java games. Nokia's switch from a dual core to a single core design and leaving out graphics acceleration will improve battery life.

Nokia continues to outfit their phones with smaller batteries:
E66 - 1000mAh
E71 - 1500mAh
N79 - 1200mAh
N85 - 1200mAh
N96 - 950mAh

It is surprising that Nokia's next flagship phone, the N96, has such a low frequency and uses a single chip design compared to other Nokia devices. Out of all the Nokia phones, only the E71 has a larger battery (1500mAh) compared to the iPhone. I think it was a bad decision for Nokia to include low powered phones (like the N73) as being N-gage compatible when they could've differentiated their N-gage games from other games if 3D hardware acceleration was part of the N-gage platform.

Source:
MXC300-30: 3G Single Core Modem Platform
ARM1136JF-S - ARM Processor
ARM926EJ-S - ARM Processor
ARM1176JZ(F)-S - ARM Processor

Update 10/22/2008 notes: Revised clock speed for iPhone 3G, mentioned downclocking for iPhone, revised to refer to 3D hardware acceleration

Additional note: The Nokia N96 does support DSP and hardware video acceleration for 2D/3D with its STn8815A12 chipset. Read more at STMicroelectronics. Oddly enough, the JBenchmark scores for the N96 in the 3D category do not come close to the N82/N95 which feature a separate chip for 3D acceleration. The benchmarks more closely resemble the N85 that does not have 3D hardware acceleration.

Source: Mobile88, Mobile Arsenal

Update 09/09/2009
It's been almost a year since I updated this posting and things have only slightly changed with Nokia putting out Nseries and Eseries devices with a higher clock speed. Apple, not to let any competitor catch up, gave the iPhone 3GS an updated Samsung solution with graphics hardware acceration and higher clock speed but keeps the same CPU.

Nokia N86, N97	32bit Freescale MXC300	434 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia E72	32bit Freescale MXC300	600 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP
Nokia N900	Texas Instruments OMAP3430	600MHz ARM Cortex-A8 + PowerVR SGX graphics core + IVA 2+
Apple iPhone 3GS	Samsung S5L8900	835MHz (downclocked to 600MHz) ARM1176JZF + 100MHz PowerVR SGX 530 graphics core + VPU

Source: PDADB.net, Nokia N900

As I had suspected, the 32bit Freescale MXC300 used by Nokia in their Nseries and Eseries phones for the last year and a half had more capability than Nokia was using which explains the jump from 369MHz to 600MHz.

Since this post is about CPU to battery life I decided to look up the battery life of the Nokia E71 and E72 because they both use the same Freescale solution and same battery but the E72 uses a higher clock frequency.

Phone	E71	E72
Battery	BP-4L 1500 mAh	BP-4L 1500 mAh
Talk (GSM/WCDMA)	10h 30min/4h 30min	12h 30min/5h 42min
Standby (GSM/WCDMA)	17 days/20 days	20 days/24 days

Source: Nokia E71 Specifications, Nokia E72 Specifications

Very oddly, even though the E72 has a higher clock speed and same battery as the E71, the E72 has a much better life so there is much more to battery life than just CPU and battery capacity. Influences could be better firmware and hardware design.

Unfortunately, 600Mhz is the upper limit to the Freescale solution so Nokia had better find a better solution to keep up with their high-end competitors. I suspect Nokia will continue to use the Freescale solutions in their mid-tier devices, for its good balance of speed and battery life, well into 2011.

This is where Nokia's latest smartphone, the N900, comes in. The N900 discards the pathetic Freescale solutions and returns to the more powerful Texas Instrument solutions to provide the necessary speed to run today's applications and rich multimedia. This extra power puts it inline to compete with Apple's iPhone 3GS. If you don't believe me about how pathetic the Freescale solution is, try comparing the playability of Vampent vBagX on a E71 to the older N95.

The Nokia N900 will be a very exciting product for Nokia. I'm hoping to see a performance comparison between the N900 and the iPhone 3GS to see which will take the crown as the most powerful consumer smart phone.

Nokia N97 Review - Hardware

2009-09-06T01:08:00.003-04:00

Anticipated by millions of people for over a year, the Nokia N97 is Nokia's flagship product for 2009. It features the new S60 5th edition touch focused user interface with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and all the multimedia goodies that distinguish an Nseries like 5MP camera, wifi, and integrated GPS. The box contains the phone, AC-10U charger, CA-101 USB data cable, Nokia Wired Headset (AD-54, HS-45), Nseries pointer, screen wiper, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.

I've had the N97 over a month now and I want to share with you my experiences with it. I wanted to make this one big review but there was just too much to talk about the N97 that I'm breaking it out over 3 posts: Hardware, Software, and Multimedia.

Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the N97-1 in this review.

More after the jump!

I originally received the N97 with the V 11.0.021 (15-06-2009) firmware but midway through my review Nokia shipped the much improved V 12.0.024 (04-08-09) firmware. As with all Nokia S60 devices, Nokia has been very diligent improving the user experience based on user feedback. Nokia also makes it very easy to update with their fantastic over the air (OTA) software update. The next firmware, V20, is rumored to arrive in October and will carry significant user experience improvements like OS wide kinetic scrolling.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia N97-1 (RM-505)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Weight: 150 g
Dimensions: 117 x 55 x 15.9 mm
Battery life (stand by): 700 hours (WCDMA), 280 hours (GSM)
Battery life (talk): 320 minutes (WCDMA), 320 minutes (GSM)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Finland.

The N97 closed:

The display half of the phone is very flat and undecorated.
The top has a thin slit for the speaker rather than the usual Nokia grill. 3 circles are beside the speaker slit: the proximity sensor, forward facing camera, and light sensor. The bottom has two touch sensitive call keys and a really stiff multimedia key.

The multimedia keys is very stiff. I wasn't fond of the call keys because they don't consistently respond in every part of the OS.

The N97 opened:

Opening up the phone will slide the display out and up at a nonadjustable 35 degree angle to the QWERTY keyboard half of the keyboard. The slide mechanism is smooth and assisted so it'll snap open. Closing it requires a little more force but it'll also snaps to the closed position. The slide mechanism is very sturdy and never felt loose - very comparable to the E65 in slide quality. I've never had the phone accidentally slide open and the slide mechanism doesn't feel it got any looser over the month of usage.

The fixed screen angle makes it easier to see the screen when the N97 is sitting on the table but doesn't do much to improve the typing experience.

Keyboard lighting

The N97 while closed:

The N97 while opened:

There was little to no light leaking or spilling. It's nice to see the D-pad finally lighted on a Nokia phone.

Aesthetics
The N97 doesn't look like the typical Nokia Nseries of its era. Its use of circles and round corners give it a softer appearance unlike the sharp square-ish designs found in the N95 or N82. The N97 is also surrounded by a chrome trim to give it a higher class appearance that is more typical of Nokia's Eseries line of phones.

From left to right: Nokia E71, Nokia N97, and Nokia N82.

The SIM card card holder is a slide out type which is a lot easier to switch SIM cards in and out than the E71.

In terms of thickness, the N97 is almost double the thickness of a E71:

Nokia N97 compared to the Nokia E71

But the N97 is inline with other high multimedia phones:

Nokia N97 compared to the Nokia N82

Display
Wow this screen is huge for a Nokia! It's a 3.5 inch TFT LCD displaying 360 by 640 pixels with 16M colors.

The widescreen and size make watching movies on the N97 enjoyable

The screen is a resistive so it requires you to push on the screen unlike the capacitive screens found on the iPhone and many Samsung touch screen phones. However, unlike captive touch screens, the resistive touch screen does not require human touch so it is still usable with your gloves on or a stylus pen. Since the screen requires pushes, the screen has a slight flex. Although a number of reviewers bemoan the use of resistive over captive, in practice you don't notice it as much since the accuracy is still impressive right out of the box. You can also go through the calibration wizard if you're picky. A sore point to the touch screen is that the N97 doesn't currently support multi-touch. The vibration feedback for the touch screen was comfortable - being noticeable but not overwhelming.

The higher screen resolution of the N97 mark a significant improvement over the 320 x 240 pixel screens of previous S60 phones. Text and icons no longer look blocky. Screen legibility is on par with the N82 under sunlight the E71 is better however. Noticeable lines run diagonally on the screen when you reflect light off the screen. While closed you can see the top layer having a top right to bottom left by light reflecting off the screen while the lower layer runs top left to bottom right seen by looking closely at the screen in the dark

Sadly the software blanks the display while the phone is locked. It would've been nice to have a clock and phone status displayed like the E71.

During my month of normal usage, I noticed a few numerous hair-thin scratches, only visible by reflecting off the screen that slight distort the screen, appear. My N82 has screen scratches after a year or usage but my E71 hasn't yet.

Keyboard

As enjoyable using the kinetic finger swiping to navigating pages may be, it was easier to click small links found in a group of links, like a tag cloud, using the d-pad. Having the option of using both the touch screen and physical keys is a strong selling point of this phone.

D-pad is shallow. Used nails to left and right side a lot. Some reviews have commented on the unusual left placement of the D-pad but this makes a lot of sense for gaming and you compare it to most video game consoles where the D-pad is always on the left.

The keys are very shallow so there isn't a lot of feedback when you push them. A number of times I didn't know whether I pushed the function key at the bottom right for number input. Part of the issue is that different keys provide a different feedback such as the 'H' making a click sound while my 'M' key is a lot more muted. Keys also vary in stiffness such as the 'O' character was stiffer than 'H'.

The placement of the function key is so far bottom right that it's hard for my right thumb to reach making apostrophes, numbers, or anything needing the function key a chore. If you're coming from the E61 or E71 then you'll immediately notice the 'Z' character no longer sits below the 'A' character. I made a number of typographical errors hitting the CAPS key instead of 'Z'. Highlighting text is difficult with the keyboard as the shift key is far to the left along with the d-pad. Someone at Nokia was listening as the newer N97 mini addresses many of the key placement issues.

Why are the decimal, comma, and apostrophe all on the same key? They are the keys I use very often. I much prefer the E71's keyboard putting comma period beside each other and don't require a function or caps lock key press.

The flatness of the keyboard and spacing made it less enjoyable to type on the N97 and directly influenced the reduction of emailing from the N97 compared to the E71.

The N97 keyboard compared to the E71

Overall the N97 keyboard is useable but not great. It pales in comparison to other Nokia QWERTY equipped phones like the Nokia E75 or Nokia E71.

Build quality
The battery cover hinges are small and fragile so don't break them by forcing the battery cover on.

The battery cover creaked and the area around the lock/unlock key (extremely annoying as the unlock key is so frequently used) but the rest of the phone was solid.

The key lock is frequently used but also creaked the most so it keeps reminding me of bad build quality

I remember worrying about the display ribbon being exposed behind the hinge but I haven't heard of anyone complaining about it. Under heavy usage, the bottom half of the phone gets noticeably warm.

Continue to N97 Review - Software > >

Not all Nokia battery chargers built the same

2009-08-10T10:48:00.000-04:00

An article posted a while ago on AAS mentioned phone battery charge time varied by the charger used. If you've bought Nokia phones from their various product lines then you may have noticed Nokia including different chargers. But what exactly is the difference?

From left to right: AC-3U, AC-6E, AC-4U, AC-5E

Here is a comparison of the various current Nokia chargers:

Type	Short Description	Connector	Output	Packaged with
AC-3	Blocky low end chargers	Nokia 2mm	DC 5V, 350mA	Nokia 1110, Nokia 3555, Nokia 5310, Nokia E61
AC-4	High end chargers	Nokia 2mm	DC 5V, 890mA	Nokia 5610, Nokia E71
AC-5	Small high end chargers	Nokia 2mm	DC 5V, 800mA	Nokia N82, Nokia N95
AC-6	Midranged chargers designed for microUSB charging. They resemble the AC-4 in design but output is very different.	microUSB	DC 5V, 550mA	~~Nokia N97~~
AC-8	High end chargers. They resemble the AC-4 in design.	Nokia 2mm	DC 5V, 890 mA	Nokia E75
AC-10	High end chargers	microUSB	DC 5V, 1200 mA	Nokia N85, Nokia N86, Nokia N97
DC-4	High end car chargers.	Nokia 2mm	DC 5V, 890 mA	N/A

All this information can be found in small text on your charger. The output indicates the amount of power sent to the phone. You may notice a letter just after the types I listed above such as 'U' or 'E'. This letter indicates the region the charger is designed for - 'U' would be for the United States/Canada while 'E' is European. The same type of charger produces the same output regardless of the charger's region.

Charging my N82 took over twice as long to charge with the AC-3 compared to the bundled AC-5.

~~Interestingly, the high end N97 bundles such a low output charger. I initially thought it was a microUSB limitation but Nokia also makes the AC-10 which produces much more power.~~ I think someone swapped the battery charger in the review unit I have because the official N97 sales package mentions the inclusion of a AC-10. It would have been better if Nokia equipped the N97 with both the older Nokia charger port and the microUSB charging like the E75 so we could use our existing chargers too.

As you can see, Nokia makes various chargers and the higher the output the faster your phone will charge. So if you have a number of chargers available and need to charge your Nokia phone in a hurry, be sure to pay attention to the charger.

Nokia E71: A Year in Review

2009-07-23T00:49:00.001-04:00

This was the phone I didn't think I'd love. Compared to its predecessor, it has a small screen and a small tight keyboard. But it went on to become one of Nokia's bestselling phones. After a year of use, I agree with everyone else and make the E71 one of my favorite phones.

Looking and functioning like new after one year of use

My E71 has travelled with me all over the world.Two main selling points of the E71 for me are its stylish design and highly demanded qwerty keyboard. The E71 is still one of the thinnest available QWERTY keyboard equipped phones. It's one of the first QWERTY phones to use metal accents which was quickly followed by the Blackberry Bold. More important than looks is the E71's great keyboard. The raised keys make it easy to distinguish keys and the narrow design makes it possible to use the phone in one hand. The keyboard is positioned well away from the sides of the phone so reaching for the keys at the edge of the keyboard, like the letter A, are not a chore. The weight of the phone lies just a bit below the center around the keyboard giving it good stability while typing. I actually use my E71 to write my reviews while I'm commuting because it's much more convenient than pulling out my laptop.

More after the jump!

It is not without its weakness. First thing i did when i got my phone was to replace the theme. The original theme had horribly bland icons. I would never use the original theme. The 3.2MP camera is the worst 3.2MP I've used. It doesn't even match the quality of 2MP photos from the 3 year old sony ericsson w810i. Unlike the thousands of photos I've taken with my N82, I've taken under a hundred photos with the E71. I just installed the latest firmware and it only slightly improves the magenta tint. Although the metal frame is nice, my E71 attracts fingerprints.

Handling Enterprise E-mail

E-mail looks very basic on the E71 through Mail for Exchange.It's no Blackberry. Carriers and companies have often set up Blackberries for their owners to fetch personal email or connect them to the company network. With the E71, you're on your own. Although Nokia has tried to make it a lot easier with their Nokia Mail offered on their E75 and wizards on the E71, users still need to know all the settings when trying to set up their E71 to their corporate mail server. At least Nokia offers a free Mail for Exchange client to sychronize your e-mail with a Microsoft Exchange mail server, which I actively use. Mail for Exchange leverages Nokia's basic included S60 mail client so doesn't look really good with no inline HTML support. I listed a number of limitations compared to the E71 competitors such as the Blackberry platform and the Windows Mobile in a previous blog post so I won't go into too much detail. Although it's functionality is limited, I do appreciate what it can do for me which is synchronize my e-mail, calendar (saved me on many occasions when I forgot I had a meeting to attend), and to-do. The screen will blink or even play an alert when a meeting is coming up within 15 minutes. Unlike the Blackberry, you have a lot more control of how you synchronize such as turning it off when you're travelling in another country to avoid roaming charges or only having the E71 check every hour on weekends to save battery. You can even set up the E71 to switch between Wifi and using your carrier's network using SmartConnect. I travel a lot so the flexibility is a strong selling point for me to keep using the E71 as my e-mail device.

S60 has saved my life
That might be an exaggeration but it has saved my work life on numerous occasions when I didn't have access to a laptop.
The ability to multi-task on a business phone is critical.
Here's a situation I frequently find myself in: I'm out on a business event and have to attend a project conference call. The call organizer only sent the powerpoint or spreadsheet file, which is the central discussion of the call, a few minutes before the call while i was out of the office. With my E71 on the call over speakerphone, i quickly sync my mail over 3G or wifi, open up the file, and follow along. A few times i've had to update a spreadsheet to send back too. The ability to multi-task on a business phone is critical. Doing all this without crashing is a testiment to the stability and maturity of Nokia's S60 platform.

Standing the test of time

Each of the E71s had a different problem.In a year of daily use, creaking has developed around the letter A of my keyboard. The firmware has been impressively stable since the phone came out. I did get the dreaded "Out of Memory" message before and had to remove the battery to restart the phone. The E71 had a number of initial manufacturing issues. I have gone thru 3 E71s and each had its own issues such as poor reception, photo capture delays, and weak GPS. But E71s manufactured after week 42 have seem to resolved these issues.

Battery life has been amazing and doesn't seem like it's lost any of its charge. I still never worry about running out of juice after using the GPS and WiFi.

The killer apps for me on this phone are Mail for Exchange, Garmin XT, Smartconnect, Fring, QuickOffice, Mobitubia, and the included Notes and web browser.

Long live the E71
The E71 has been my main data device since I got it. I would have a hard time going back to a number pad for my web browsing and note taking. I totally rely on my E71 to keep me synchronized with my work through e-mail and calendar freeing me from the shackles of my laptop. With such a long lasting battery, I rarely worry about using the GPS and WiFi. It has been a good compliment to my photo-centric N82. I don't think i'll be replacing my E71 anytime soon... maybe with the E72.

Nokia E75 Review

2009-07-14T00:45:00.001-04:00

The Windows Mobile community long had the bar with qwerty keyboard slider form factor with their HTC S710. Finally Nokia delivers a S60 device in this form factor to meet the demands of the continually growing text messaging crowd. This was the form factor that I had hoped for a long time that Nokia would make. The slider merges the convenience of a keypad for quick calls while offering a full qwerty for typing out long messages. Find out if the E75 delivers the goods in my review. The firmware on my E75-2 is V 100.48.78 25-03-09 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone, AC-8U charger, CA-101 USB data cable, HS-43 Stereo Music Headset, Nokia 4GB microSDHC class 4 memory card, Nokia E-series carrying case, and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.

I must admit, I didn't think I'd get the chance to review the E75-2 NAM so soon. Thanks to WOM World for supplying me the E75-2 in this review.

Full review after the jump.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia E75-2 NAM (RM-413)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 139 g
Dimensions: 112 x 50 x 14.4 mm
Battery life (stand by): 270 hours (WCDMA), 280 hours (GSM)
Battery life (talk): 260 minutes (WCDMA), 320 minutes (GSM)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) China.

The E75 closed:

A simple looking bar phone with the classic Nokia looks.

The E75 opened:

Inside hides the slide out QWERTY keyboard for increased typing speeds.

Top of the phone features simply the 3.5mm headset jack. Left of the phone have the microUSB and microSD slot which have a slight bump for your finger to nudge open. Right of the phone has the recorder, volume rocker, and dedicated camera button (great addition to the E-series devices). The volume rocker is not lighted but is sturdy like the E71.

Aesthetics
Nokia has been hitting the right design cues in their phones lately and the E75 is no exception with its nice metal accent and classy design. Its slide out keyboard has made many people compare the E75 to the very popular E71 and venerable E90.
The glossy top half of the phone mean you'll have lots of fingerprint smudges. The E75's top half has a little noticable wobble when closed and opened. Pushing on the top while the phone is open bends the top slightly. It didn't feel like it would break but makes you a little worried.

The E75 shares a number of design cues from the E71 (right).

The status LED lies right under the d-pad so the ring between the center key and navigation ring will blink when an e-mail arrives. Unfortunately the LED doesn't blink frequent enough and not bright enough to notice. I couldn't tell the difference between the normal blink and the email notification blink.

The keypad light is strong. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.

The E75 while closed

The E75 while opened

The number pad is disabled while the phone is opened so it's not lighted.

The SIM mechanism is similar to the E71 but even worst. I have a hard time sliding out the SIM card from its holder.

Although the E75 doesn't have a rubber padding on the back of the battery cover, the snug fit and finish of the E75 produces no creaking or rattling.

In terms of thickness, the E75 is just a tad thicker than the E71 if you factor in the E71's camera bulge:

The E75 is thin compared to Nokia's older bar phones like the N82:

Display
The E75 uses a 2.4 inch screen with the same pixel density (320x240) as many of Nokia's other non-touch S60 phones. The screen feels small on this phone because of the large amount of black at the top when closed. But the screen is not too off center when the phone is opened. The E75 perfomed well under direct sunlight with emails readable without having to tilt the screen.

The E75 display has a higher contrast compared to the E71. It looks more vivid than the N82

To help conserve battery power, the E75 has a power saver timeout that blanks the entire screen and blinks the LED under the D-pad. unlike the E71, turning off the Breathing Light will not disable the screen from turning all black.

Keypad

The combination of a number pad and slide out QWERTY keyboard in a compact phone is the E75's selling point. But were compromises made in Nokia's first slide out keyboard phone?

The number pad:

The numberpad keys are very loose and feel cheap feeling. You can push them in between the rows of keys.

The number keys have a lot of give when you push between them

The lowest set of keys are too low on the phone making some keys like * very hard to hit. The left soft key is very close to the home key so i frequently hit the Home key instead so i have to navigate back to where i was. The right soft key shares the same piece of plastic as the Delete key so it's not unusual to hit delete and see the e75 try to delete an application while navigating the menus.
The D pad is very creaky when i push up and also very stiff.
The Bluetooth toogle on the * key is a nice addition allowing quick enabling and disabling of Bluetooth.

The QWERTY keyboard:

Tactile feedback on the qwerty keyboard is at the center of the key so if you hit off center, the phone registers the keypress but you don't get a satisfying feedback. The keys are not very deep so feedback is limited. It takes me more energy to type on the E75's full keyboard than on the E71. The keys are fairly wide so one handed operation is close to impossible. with my index fingers along the sides of the phone when typing, i found it hard to reach the left most keys with my left hand and right most keys with my right hand. It's nice that nokia included the backspace key in both the top have of the phone and bottom. The phone is top heavy so it lies well in your hand with your thumbs behind but typing upside down is a challenge as it tends to fall forward. Pushing the D pad with the phone open will slightly bend the top half back and creak a bit. I was concerned it'd break on me.

The QWERTY keyboards compared between the E75 and the E71:

I still find the E71 more comfortable to type with because it has more closely packed domed keys

I've typed this review on the E75 using the included Notes and find it more difficult to type compared to the E71. I wasn't fond of the flat keys making it difficult to feel the separation.

Software

The E75 is a snappy phone with very fast response throughout the menu.

Impressively, the E75 switches between landscape (QWERTY keyboard opened) and portrait (QWERTY keyboard closed) very quickly. By default the keypad will lock when you close the slider but you can customize this in Ctrl. Panel > Settings > General > Slide Handling

As you may have heard, or not, the E75 runs S60 FP2 but with some modifications. It's very similar to the E71 modifications but include improved icons based on FP5.

Note that some software don't work with the E75 so be sure to test out all your applications. This is what I've observed:
- S60SpotOn doesn't work
- Screenshot doesn't work.
- Vampent vBag doesn't work

Although Nokia has once again rejuggled where everything is again. S60 still needs a lot more work to be intuitive for first time users. For example to handle Wifi connections you don't look under Control Panel > Connectivity (where WLAN wizard and Conn. Mgr reside) but you have to look in Ctrl Panel > Settings > Connection > Destination > Internet.

Mail
Nokia has finally added HTML support to their S60 mail but the HTML version of the email arrives as an attachment to the text email. The recently released Blackberry Bold and iPhone both support embedded HTML so the email appears formatted once you open it.
Email allows you to highlight the sender and recipients but you still can't copy or email them individually.
Unlike the Blackberry, the E71 will continue to display a wallpaper behind emails messages instead of a flat color as it does when scrolling down the contacts page. This can make reading emails difficult if the background has similar colors to the text. Thankfully the included themes use a white text and dark background.

Blackberry
Much to the bemoan of a few users, the Nokia E75 doesn't supports Blackberry Connect like the E71. The E75 supports Microsoft's Exchange Active Sync through their Mail for Exchange software. Unlike other E-series, you can't upgrade the Mail for Exchange software through the separate Mail for Exchange install file.

Stability
During my time with the E75, I only recall about 3 reboots in the three weeks I've had the phone.

Multimedia
Those who say S60 is designed mainly for creating and not geared as much to consume multimedia must not fully use their phone. Out of the box the E71 supports H.264 video, the same video format used by the iPhone. With some added third party software like Coreplayer and MobiTubia, the E75 can open DiVX movies and stream YouTube videos. With the included 3.5mm stereo headsets (or get yourself a pair of AD2P stereo Bluetooth headsets) and music player supporting album art, you can easily have your favorite MP3s blasting in your ears. If you're an audiophile then you can install OggPlayer. S60 gives you more flexibility than both the locked down iPhone and the "lacking in software" Blackberry.

Camera
The E75 includes a 3.2 MP camera with autofocus and macro mode. Sounds the same as the E71 but it's a lot better.

The E75 sports a LED for flash and a mirror for self portraits

The E75 uses the same camera software as the N-series line of devices.

Camera uses the dedicated camera button which is a big improvement over the E71.
You can silent the camera but the led will automatically flash.

Outdoor Auto (E75, E71, N82):

Indoor Macro (E75, E71, N82):

Outdoor Auto (E75, N82):

Outdoor Macro (E75, N82):

Dim Indoor with Nightmode (E75, E71, N82):

Dim Indoor with flash (E75, E71, N82):

The E75 produced very impressive photos under direct sunlight that rivalled Nokia's photo-centric N82. Colors reproduction was more accurate just siding a little to more vivid. The night photos with and without flash were very poor. The E71 photos were poor in any condition and not worth mentioning.

Video
The maximum video recording resolution supported by the E75 is 640 x 480 at 29fps which puts it on par with N-series devices. Unfortuately, the results weren't so great.

These are the available quality settings:
TV high quality: MP4 640 x 480 29fps 2.93Mbps
TV normal quality: MP4 640 x 480 15fps 1.46Mbps
E-mail high quality: MP4 320 x 240 29fps 873kbps
E-mail norm. quality: MP4 320 x 240 15fps 454.
Sharing quality: 3GPP 176 x 144 15fps 93kbps

The image quality is very grainy in an indoor setting. The camera is also not set to be focussed on close up objects.

Reception
The E75 had about the same number of bars as the N82. Although bars isn't an accurate measurement of a phone's reception but a phone without bars can't make calls.

Speakerphone
The audio was not as loud as the N82 but good in a quiet setting.

Headset
I didn't have a chance to test this.

Connectivity
Unlike the Blackberry and iPhone, the E75 offers a wealth of Bluetooth profiles that allows you to share files with other devices, listen to music over a wireless stereo bluetooth headset, or sync data to your home computer.
Sadly, after a number of criticisms, Nokia has removed infrared from this E-series device. I still primarily use infrared to share small files between laptops that don't yet have Bluetooth.
Connecting the E71 to a computer using a USB cable will automatically keypad unlock the phone (but not phone unlock) allowing you to select the connection type (mass storage, nokia suite, etc.)

WiFi
The WiFi sensitivity is weaker, picking up less wireless routers, than the Nokia N82 but stronger than the E71. As usual, the sensitivity is weaker than the standard Centrino package from Intel for laptops.

In case you were wondering, you can find the E75's MAC address behind the battery or on the box. I wish it came up with the *#0000# command on the home screen.

Global Positioning (GPS)
The E75 has an integrated GPS chip to get an accurate position of the phone.

Here is a comparison of the E75 to the E71 GPS status screen:

Both phones had their GPS started at the same time from cold boot

The N82 was consistently faster at locking a position and much more sensitive. The E75 usually took 1 minute more to lock compared to the N82. The E75 locked on far faster than the E71 which never achieved a lock on within 10 minutes.

Time to lock is dependent on your location and weather conditions. Turning on assisted GPS in Tools > Settings > General > Positioning > Positioning Methods will reduce lock time but requires a data connection.

External Memory
Like most other S60 Nokia handsets, the E75-2 NAM includes a memory card with the retail package (4GB microSDHC class 4). However it easily supported the 2GB microSD and 8GB microSDHC cards I had on hand. The small slot and rubber cover make inserting the memory card very tricky. Make sure you don't insert the card upside down because it's really hard to take out. The memory card goes gold connector side facing up.

Battery
The E75 uses a thin BL4U Nokia battery with 1000mAH to keep the thickness down. The 1000mAH is adequate for light usage. Under medium usage with occasion wifi and GPS usage, the E75 lasted about 1.5 days compared to 3 days with my E71 under similar usage.

The E75 still has the smaller Nokia charger jack at the bottom. But, surprisingly, also supports USB charging through the microUSD jack! I wish all Nokia phones will keep both because I still have a lot of legacy Nokia chargers.

Conclusion
After 3 weeks of testing the E75, I grew to like it. I initially didn't like the cheap feeling numberpad and disliked the flat wide QWERTY keyboard but I slowly got used to the QWERTY keypad. The camera on the E75 is possibly the best on an E-series device. It gave my N82 a good challenge. Unfortunately photos in dim situations were not so good. The E75 supports Rogers and AT&T highspeed 3G HSDPA networks and 802.11b/g wifi giving users a variety of connection methods. Nokia's open nature with software ensures a wealth of third party software is available for the S60 platform. If you're a business user who doesn't need Blackberry support or a frequent text message sender looking for a phone with a QWERTY keyboard and multimedia capabilities, I highly recommend taking a look at the Nokia E75. It is the form factor that I had longed for but I like my E71 much more and the Xenon flash on my N82 always wins. If you can't carry two phones with you, then the E75 is a great mix of the two!

Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........8
Keypad...................7
Connectivity...............9
Features for $.........9
Software................8
Camera..................8
Battery life.............7

Overall.....................8

PROS:
*compact design
*lots of memory to run apps simultaneously
*WiFi
*very impressive camera under sunlight
*Great incoming sound
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*landscape screen
*long lasting battery
*number pad or QWERTY keyboard when needed
*slim design

CONS:

*HTML in e-mails as attachments
*grainy camera in dark
*Paying for navigation in Nokia Maps
*small screen
*wide keyboard
*smudges easily
*organization of menu items still not intuitive

Nokia N85 Preview

2009-04-07T12:11:00.005-04:00

More than a year has passed and the N95 has reigned as Nokia's top high volume feature-packed phone. The overpriced and slower N96 didn't do well in the market but the N86 was unveiled to serve as the N95's successor with a lower price point for the masses.

Opening it up:

Packed with almost everything you'll need such as the phone (N85-1), battery (BL-5K: Extended 850 mAh), charger (AC-10), Nokia 8GB microSD card (MU-43), Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U), USB cable (CA-101) and stereo headset with controls (HS-45, AD-54):

First impressions are very good with a large vibrant high quality screen. Build quality is much improved over the N95 with a spring loaded side mechanism but still not as solid as the older Nokia E65. There was little to no creaking while the phone is closed.

The N85 isn't groundbreaking as the phone it replaces. It features almost the same specs as its predecessor such as HSDPA, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, built-in WiFi and GPS, and the dual sliding mechanism. But its stand out feature is the use of an OLED screen that uses less power than a traditional LCD and makes black very black as the individual pixels are not lighted. A few other little upgrades is the addition of a FM transmitter for broadcasting music from the N85 and use of 2 LEDs for the camera flash.

Stay tuned for the upcoming review as I take the Nokia N85 around the block.

Sony Ericsson W580i Review

2009-03-22T15:03:00.004-04:00

It has been a while since I've had a new phone to review but this one is a special one. Unlike my most recently reviews, this isn't a Nokia - it's a Sony Ericsson. When my mom was ready to replace her aging Motorola V3 RAZR which was having a difficult time holding a charge, I looked at the best cheap phone she could get. Since she was on Rogers and her contract had been up for a while, the best place was to get a phone on contract. My mom isn't big on e-mail or browsing the web so a smartphone would overcomplicate things for her. There were a few Motorola flips and Nokia flips that didn't even look as nice as the RAZR - as you can tell, she's big on asthetics. But she spotted a pink thin slider that sparked her interest - namely the W580i.

The firmware on my W580i is R8BE001 (the initial Rogers production firmware). The box contains the phone, Sony Ericsson Battery BST-38 900 mAh, travel charger CST-60, USB data cable, Sony Ericsson Stereo Headset HPM-70, 512MB Memory Stick Micro card, and Sony Ericsson CD with utilities and programs

The W580i is a very sleek thin slider running Sony Ericsson's proprietary OS.

Quick facts:
Name: Sony Ericsson W580i
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Weight: 94 g
Dimensions: 99 x 47 x 14 mm
Battery life (stand by): 370 hours
Battery life (talk): 540 minutes

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Malaysia.

The W580i opened:

There are no keys on the right of the phone. The left side has a very recessed volume rocker which is hard to push since it's so thin. The top has a very recessed black power button on the keypad half that is difficult to push when the phone is opened.

Aesthetics
The W580i is a beautiful phone in pink. Unlike most manufacturer's who just change the faceplate and call it a new colour (like Nokia and RIM), SE has gone all the way with pink LEDs behind the D-pad and number pad, shiny pink plastic between the keys in the number pad, and a pink headset. A really great job by SE.

The W580i is a lot better looking than Nokia's 5610. SE did a lot better job in the use of colors.

The sides of the phone have very little grip so I push the slide from the bottom to open the slider.

Side featuring the LED:

Although it's a little tacky for a business phone, the LED looks OK for a personal phone

Opening the slider will automatically unlock the keyboard while closing the slider will display the lock option for the center, after a couple seconds of being closed the phone will auto key lock (change this at menu > settings >phone > automatic keyguard). Auto keyguard does not apply when the slider is open.

Sony Ericsson W580i to the Nokia E71

A good sized screen that keeps up with the big boys

Sony Ericsson W580i to the Motorola V3 RAZR

The W580i is impressively thin and definitely pocketable.

The sim card holder is not good with just a slot. Taking out the SIM is tricky as you need to push it in and slide:

The W580i has a creaks all over when you push on it from any two sides. The battery cover slid off a couple times so we had to tape it to the phone.

Display
The screen is a good size and resolution is at 240 x 320 pixels (2 inches) and can display up to 262,144 (18-bit) colors. But a major problem is the very slow refresh rate causing a lot of ghosting.

The W580i keypad is well lit with lighting even coming from the sides:

The W580i is recessed but fully exposed with no layer of glass or plastic to protect the LCD.

Keyboard

Upper half featuring the soft keys and D-pad:

Lower half featuring the number pad:

The raised outer rim around the D-pad makes pushing any direction difficult without using your nails. The soft keys are wobbly and don't feel very accurate in differentiating between the top and bottom buttons. The W810i soft keys feel a lot better than the W580i even though they are laid out the same. The bottom of the soft keys (back and C keys) are very close to the Walkman and task buttons making them feel odd pressing them.

The number pad is flush with the lower part of the phone without the usual notches on the number 3 so it's hard to dial without looking. The buttons are large enough for midsized fingers. The bottom set of keys are really close to the rim of the phone so they can be tricky to press.

There is a known issue with earlier W580i in green that had cracking keypads due to the paint used. Luckily this phone hasn't had that problem yet after a couple months of use.

In hand

The W580i is a good size and comfortable to hold

Software
As i mentioned before, the W580i runs SE's proprietary OS. There are very little Rogers customizations like the left and right softkey can't be changed so it's stuck as Calls and Roger's music player.

The phone feels slow within the menus but the music/video player was more smooth and faster than the 5310.

Not much is different between the old W810i and the W580i so you can refer to my W810i review for details on the software.

Reception
The W580i supports all 4 GSM frequencies for world roaming.

Sound Quality
I experienced some problems with voice cutting in and out but none of my calls were dropped. Audio is loud enough but didn't increase enough in loud environments.

The Rogers firmware prevents you from using any MP3 as a ringtone. You must first DRM the MP3 using SE software or purchase MP3 ringtunes from Rogers.

Speakerphone
The W580i has loud speakers with no bass. The audio quality is not as good as the stronger W810i speakers. It also only plays mono through the speakers.

Headset use
The W580i sales package includes a stereo headset (color matching in pink too!) for the W580i's SE proprietary port. The 5610 also supports Bluetooth stereo headsets through A2DP but I wasn't able to test this.

Multimedia Features

Camera
The W580i has a 2MP (1600 x 1200 pixels) camera

The camera is protected by a plastic cover that's hidden when the camera is closed.

UI:

Since the W580i isn't a Cybershot, it uses the traditional SE camera UI with limited support for shortcuts and very little options.

The only other 2MP camera phone I have available is the venerable W810i. The main advantage of the W810i is its autofocus but it does take a longer time to take a photo since you can't disable autofocus and must wait for the focus.

Close up (W580i / W810i with macro)

Without autofocus, the W580i cannot get a sharp image of the grapefruit. The background cup looks sharp however. Colors are pale on the W580i but much too warm on the W810i.

Macro (W580i / W810i with macro)

Without macro mode, the W580i cannot focus and produces really bad photos. The W580i tries to mask this problem with blurring the noise. The W810i has noticable noise but sharp.

Dim (W580i with nightmode/ W810i with nightmode)

The W580i produced much more noise than the W810i but attempts to hide it with aggressive use of blurring.

Daylight (W580i / W810i)

Surprisingly the W580i produced a warmer and sharper photo than the W810i if you look at the cars. However the W580i still uses a little more blurring so the bricks are not as clear as the W810i. I prefer the photo with the W580i in this instance.

The photos produced by the W580i uses too much blurring to hide noise in all cases. There were no unreasonable shutter delay as those found on mid-ranged Nokia photos such as the 5610. Photo saving also takes a reasonable amount of space unlike the 6 seconds of the 5610.

The W580i camera produces impressive results in the daylight but the lack of autofocus and macro limits its use in close up photos. The W580i doesn't have a flash LED so you can't take photos in darkness.

External Memory
A 512MB memory card is included in the W580i. The memory card is accessible without opening the battery cover.

Battery
Battery is good but not impressive. The W580i lasts 3.5 days from full charge. Without a SIM card or placing the phone in flight mode, the phone lasted 5 days without a charge.

Ratings:
Performance...........6
Build quality...........8
Keypad...................6
Connectivity...............3
Features for $.........8 (Rogers $29.99 for 2 years)
Software................8
Camera..................8
Battery life.............4

Overall.....................7

PROS:
*Attractive exterior design
*Flexible SE OS
*Great build quality
*Decent camera images

CONS:
*Slow menu navigation
*No autofocus or macro mode in camera
*No 3G support.
*Complicated menu system
*No 3.5mm headset jack
*cheap battery cover

Overall the W580i is a great mid-ranged phone with a very compelling design and decent build quality. The W580i produces shockingly great images from its non-autofocus 2MP camera. The sluggish UI can be frustating to some people. I had some call quality issues but phone always reports full bars with the Rogers network in Toronto.

Nokia N86 Announced

2009-02-16T12:13:00.016-05:00

After Samsung had released a 8MP S60 camera phone called the INNOV8 and Sony Ericsson announced their Idou 12MP Symbian phone, Nokia announces their 8MP phone the N86:

For those holding a N82 or N79 and hoping for an upgrade, the N86 only features dual LED and no Xenon flash.

In case you're still interested, here are more quick details:

N86 DatasheetName: Nokia N86
CPU: Freescale MXC300, 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S RISC + StarCore SC140 DSP
RAM: 128 MB (user accessible: 71 MB)
Network: EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100 or WCDMA 850,1900,2100
Weight: 149 g
Dimensions: 103.4 x 51.4 x 16.5 mm
Battery life (stand by): up to 11.5 hours (WCDMA), 13h (GSM) (these values seem too low so the datasheet might have a typo)
Battery life (talk): up to 234 minutes (WCDMA), 378 minutes (GSM)

As in all Nseries, the N86 will include 802.11b/g WiFi connectivity, support video capture at 640x480 up to 30fps, feature a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, and support Nokia's ngage gaming service. Luckily the N86 features the amazing 2.6 inch OLED display that got high praises on the N85 and it also integrates a FM transmitter that was a strong selling point of the N79. The N86 includes 8GB of internal memory and supports microSDHC up to 16GB.

Spec-wise it's a strong phone but something I would've liked to have seen last year. For all those Nokia users that have been asking for better materials on the Nseries, you'll be happy to know that Nokia's added a chrome trim on the sides of the top half. The design looks a bit like the N97 but the number pad reminds me of the older Motorola T720 from almost a decade ago.

WidSets: More than just RSS

2009-01-30T17:24:00.003-05:00

http://www.widsets.com

Cell phones have become the premier device for people to keep connected. And one aspect of keeping connected is to get timely updates of the news and web sites we regularly follow. If RSS reader and/or Twitter were the first things that popped in your mind then you're along the right lines. I personally stick to RSS readers too since almost every web site offers a RSS feed.

While I was going through Nokia's Download! service, I noticed an application that I've heard a lot about but never tried before, WidSets. Widsets is available on almost all Nokia phones as either a Java application for Nokia's mainstream S40 handsets and phones from other manufacturers or as a native S60 application for Nokia's S60 smartphones. It provides a consistent UI and framework for developers to develop online applications called widgets.

For this blog I am reviewing WidSets version 3.1.4 on a Nokia E71. Find out if WidSets is worth trying after the jump.

When you start WidSets it requests access to connect online. Of course you can keep it offline but you'll only be able to see what's cached on your phone the last time you were online and won't get updated content. To quickly tell if you're online or offline, the background of WidSets is black if it's offline and blue if it's online. In a way, offline and online resembles Google Gears and how, just recently, you can browse your Gmail while offline based on what you've previously viewed.

Once WidSets is connected, the workspace background turns blue. I guess it's to say it's daytime. The AccuWeather widget will display the current weather right on the widget button.Without any widgets on your screen when you first start, you'll want to browse through Widset's list of widgets. A quick glance at what's available may lead you to believe it's just another RSS reader since you have Nokia Discussions, Wall Street Journal, Howard Forums, and Wikipedia. And that isn't too far from the truth. Unfortunately most widgets don't give you much functionality and the quality between them vary greatly. So to be fair I'm going to review one of the popular widgets that is a little more than just a news reader and one that you may find useful too.

Browsing through the widgets (left) you can see the popularity of the widget and only the widget title is displayed. You can also search for a particular widget (middle). The detailed view (right) doesn't give you any added information. Click images for larger versions.

The popular Facebook social networking application makes its way onto WidSets and impresses with its features.It's a popular social networking web site that has a native application for almost all smartphones like the Blackberry and iPhone. You may have seen your friends adding the application. It's Facebook and for Nokia handsets it comes in the form of a widget. Unlike most widgets (I'm looking at you, the Howard Forums widget), you can interact with the Facebook widget by logging in. Inside you'll get all your latest notifications, browse through your friends and read their details, browse through photo galleries, update your status, and even upload photos to your own gallery. This is almost everything you can do in the real Facebook web site minus the custom applications. If you were put off by most widgets, I definitely recommend the Facebook widget if you're a Facebook addict.

Browse through your friends and view their details. Browse through photo galleries. Zoom in on any photo. Update your status or even upload a photo. Click images for larger versions.

Most WidSets widgets like Wall Street Journal Online, Howard Forums, and Nokia Discussion are just a newsfeed and do not feature any interactive features like posting comments.Unfortunately, all widgets are contained within the WidSets application so as good as the Facebook widget is, it never feels great as you can't access the widget directly as a shortcut from your home screen. The weather widget is nice that it immediately updates with the current weather when you open Widset, but wouldn't it be even better if the weather widget appeared as a dedicated application and its icon automatically updated based on the weather? You're left continuously clicking back into the WidSets application and that's the weakness. First it takes a few clicks to go into the WidSets application unless you have it on your home screen. Secondly, the UI for WidSets is laid out horizontally while all the widgset icons are horizonatally wide and fairly large. With at most 3 widgets stacked in each column, you can't see all your widgets at once and scrolling doesn't wrap so you'll be scrolling a lot to get to your last and right most widget.

Some really great widgets like Facebook, it's offline capabilities, and wealth of widgets make Widsets a very useful application to add to your phone. Since widgets are designed for mobile devices, all the content are easy to navigate on small screens. Lot of medocre widgets that don't do any more than a RSS reader, a clunky UI that needs a lot of scrolling and provides little detail to the widgets available, and a framework that limits widgets to being within the WidSets application hurt the overall user experience while using Widsets. I recommend giving WidSets a try to see if there are any widgets that interest you and whether your appreciate the WidSets UI layout.

Eric's Software Rating: Worth a try

Corporate ActiveSync Exchange E-mail S60 Compared to Windows Mobile, Blackberry, iPhone

2008-12-22T13:45:00.000-05:00

The Nokia E71 is designed for corporate communication with ActiveSync support and Office document viewing/editingA cornerstone of any phone is its ability to connect with people. A key part of that for business smart phones is the ability to synchronize with corporate e-mail, calendar, and contacts. Research in Motion (RIM) Blackberries have been accomplishing this for years with their proprietary Blackberry protocol. With the introduction of ActiveSync with Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, all ActiveSync enabled phones are capable of receiving push messaging when your company is using Exchange. Since the introduction of the Eseries, Nokia has offered Mail for Exchange for free to Nokia S60 users to get ActiveSync on their phones.

ActiveSync isn't the only way to synchronize corporate e-mail. An older method is using IMAP but it loses out on many functions present in ActiveSync such as contact and calendar synchronization. Just to make it easier to see a comparison, here's a chart of the differences:

Feature		ActiveSync	IMAP
E-mail	Push	Yes	Yes^ (most clients only support pull)
	HTML Formatting	Yes*	Yes
	Attachment download	Yes	Yes
	Search	Yes*	No
Calendar	Sync (main calendar only)	Yes	No
Calendar	Accept/Decline meeting requests	Yes	No
Contacts	Sync (not subfolders)	Yes	No
Contacts	Global Address List Lookup	Yes	No
Tasks	Sync	Yes	No
Out of Office	Settings	Yes*	No
Security	Enforce policies on device	Yes	No

* Some features require Exchange 2007
^ Microsoft Exchange does not support push IMAP
Source: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/07/10/446015.aspx

I found an interesting article about how you can accomplish most things in ActiveSync in some other way. But security is one that IMAP can't enforce and most IT companies want to enforce as much as they can.

As most people, I'm usually dictated by what's a go by the IT team. From the few companies I've been to, ActiveSync has been the preferred (usually only) way of getting your e-mail to your device as it supports a number of security policies such as remote device wiping. End users get the benefit of ActiveSync's support for push e-mail.

I'm not one to trust storing my passwords with a third party so this article will not be reviewing any solutions that require storing your corporate login and password by a third party or using desktop software to synchronize your corporate e-mail like Blackberry Internet Service (BIS) or emoze.

I was wondering if other solutions offered better corporate e-mail synchronization compared to what a S60 user has to deal with. S60 offers two compelling software to synchronize with Exchange: Nokia's Mail for Exchange and DataViz's RoadSync so I've included both in my comparison chart as each support different features. To find out whether the grass is greener on the otherside I put together a comparison chart for reference after the jump.

Latest versions as of this writing: Mail for Exchange 2.7, RoadSync for S60 4.0, Blackberry (BES 4.1.5), Windows Mobile 6.1, and iPhone 2.0.2.

S60, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, iPhone Corporate Exchange Support Comparison Chart:

Feature		Nokia Mail for Exchange	RoadSync for S60	Blackberry (BES)	Windows Mobile	iPhone
Price		Free	$49.99 USD	Included	Included	Included (firmware 2.0+)
E-mail	Push	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (reply/forward status not updated on server)
	HTML Formatting	Yes (as attachment)	Yes (version 4+)	Yes (only Bold and Storm)	Yes (version 6+)	Yes (supported on both Exchange 2003/2007)
	Attachment download	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
	Server Search	No	Yes (version 3+)	Yes	Yes	No
	Subfolder	No	Yes	Yes (only server side)	Yes	Yes (only server side)
	Flagging	Yes (version 2.5+)	Yes (version 4+)	No	Yes	No
Calendar	Sync (main calendar only)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (supports multiple)
Calendar	Accept/Decline meeting requests	Yes (cannot invite attendees, cannot provide reason, decline not sent)	Yes (cannot invite attendees, cannot provide reason)	Yes	Yes (version 6+ for inviting attendees)	Yes (cannot invite attendees, cannot provide reason for decline, cannot delete single occurance or reccuring)
Contacts	Sync (not subfolders)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes (supports subfolders)
Contacts	Global Address List Lookup	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Tasks	Sync	Yes	Yes (version 4+)	Yes	Yes	No
Notes	Sync	No	No	Yes	No	No
Out of Office	Settings	Yes (version 2.5+)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Security	Enforce policies on device	E-devices only	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Security	Certificates	Yes	Yes	N/A	Yes	Yes
Synchronization	Ability to turn off	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
	Scheduling by Peak/Non-Peak	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
	Multiple Accounts	No	No	No	No	No
Additional Notes		Creates its own folder in the native S60 Messaging application for synchronizing e-mail.	Creates its own folder in the native S60 Messaging application for synchronizing e-mail.	Requires the use of Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) by your company. Since the device's IMEI must be registered to BES, a user cannot easily switch between devices without notifying the BES system administrator. The Blackberry's "always on" nature with no way to turn off e-mail sync'ing will cause huge roaming costs when its roaming.	Support for memory card encryption and remote wipe via Exchange 2007	No PIN enforcement

It looks like Nokia Mail for Exchange users covers most of the features that other solutions offer in the market support. You can always opt to pay for RoadSync and get some much needed features like inline HTML e-mail, subfolder browsing, and server side search. For a screenshot comparison of Mail for Exchange to RoadSync visit Mobile Industry Review. The article is a bit old since both Mail for Exchange and RoadSync have received significant upgrades within the last few months but the screenshots are generally still accurate.

The grass isn't so much greener on the other side of the fence. Corporate S60 users have all the reason to be happy with their phones knowing they're getting almost all the features offered by Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.

One, possibly significant for a small number of users, benefit for S60 users by having two different ActiveSync solutions that maintain their own e-mail folders is the ability to synchronize mail from two different Exchange accounts. Do not enable calendar, task, and contact synchronization on both accounts or you may wipe out all your calendar, tasks, and contacts.

I personally use Nokia Mail for Exchange on my E71 for my business e-mail and I haven't had any synchronization problems with it. Although most corporate users from North America use Blackberry, it doesn't offer much end user benefits as it once did when it was the only game in town.

Helpful resources:

S60 ActiveSync compared to Blackberry

Nokia Internet Radio

2008-12-16T14:20:00.001-05:00

These days we don't think twice about streaming content from the Internet. With the S60 operating system, you have a diverse selection of media streaming choices such as your local TV through SlingPlayer, YouTube through MobiTubia, or Last.fm through Mobbler to meet most people's needed. But just a few years ago, none of this was common place on cell phones. Find out if Internet Radio on your S60 is worth trying after the jump.

One of Nokia's early projects to jump start mobile streaming on S60 back in 2006 was Internet Radio. It's a simple media player that supports the very popular SHOUTcast streaming audio playback in MP3 or AAC+ streams. These days most S60 phones come with Internet Radio. I must admit, I never opened it because I doubted Nokia's support for the product and the music selection available.

But since I'm writing this review I have to give a try just to see what it's all about.

Start screen

Very straightforward. You choose if you want to continue listening to what you were listening the last time of you can browse another. You can save your stations under favorites for quick access. Or if you want something fresh you can browse through the station directory.

Station Directory

Here you can browse through the directory of stations in several ways. It's not implemented as a filter system because I wanted to browse for Dance in English but I ended up going through so much French Dance stations that I gave up.

By Genre

There's a good selection of some of the popular choices. I found that Indian music was the most popular and offered the best selection of stations.

Music Player Interface

It's simple and does its thing. Pushing down on the D-pad will bring up the radio station details. No equalizer, unfortunately. I don't have a S60 phone with media keys like the N95/N96 so I'm not sure if they work in Internet Radio. If you do have a N95/N96, please let me know by leaving a comment.

Radio Station Details

Here you get all the information that the radio station is categorized. Unfortunately categorization needs some work as my radio station that's playing a Michael Bolton song seems to fall under Korean Pop.

Although there are a number of applications that are either better or have a better selection of content, it's hard not to recognize Nokia's effort in creating something that showcases practical usage of S60 functionality such as codecs. Some of these ideas are of course utilized in other projects such as MobiTubia. But I think the cost of data and availabilty of WiFi on S60 phones have helped drive streaming media to mobiles more so than Internet Radio.

Internet Radio comes with most S60 phones so it's worth a little time to browse through and see if you find anything you life. Unfortunately there are a lot of music tastes that are under served such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. It's also unfortunate that Nokia controls the radio station directory so you can't add your own to Internet Radio and you can't suggest one to Nokia. It's very limited but neat.

Software Rating: Worth a try

Nokia N82: A Year in Review

2008-12-13T00:42:00.005-05:00

Looking and functioning like new after one year of use and taking over 3200 photos

It was a year ago I bought my Nokia N82 to replace my dated Sony Ericsson W810i. The N82 had big shoes to fill because my W810i had served me well for almost a year and I took over 3600 photos with it. I loved the W810i 3.2MP camera but I felt really constrained with a non-Smartphone. I had tried the Nokia N95 but the slider felt cheap and I was very worried about scratching the exposed LCD. But I loved the 5MP camera, having WiFi to avoid data costs, and the S60 OS' flexibility. When the N82 was announced I knew I had to get the phone. It was everything the N95 was but in a more manageable size and candy bar format.

Although the N82 wasn't a North American (NAM) phone since it only had 2100 3G band, I couldn't wait for a NAM version - turns out I made the right decision since Nokia never released one. I was going to visit Japan that month so having 2100 3G would be useful there since they didn't support GSM. Plus, data costs in Canada were ridiculously expensive at the time (7MB for $40, 200MB for $100) so I wouldn't use NAM 3G even if I had it.

Build Quality

The D-pad still feels squishy and I still don't like the chicklet number keysIn my initial review, I mentioned the build quality of the N82 was solid. As with everything that age, like the floorboards of a house, it developed creaks. When I pinch the phone by the sides I can hear the slight creek. Pinching the phone by the top and bottom doesn't creek. The D-pad still makes a squishy sound like plastic ribbons touching each other. The initial looseness of the D-pad gave me the impression that it could just fall off from the rest of the keypad but that hasn't happened yet. I've dropped my phone a few times including one big drop and sliding along a few feet of pavement - that scratched up the back and sides but nothing really bad and the cream colored rear make hide scratches pretty well. The spring loaded camera shutter still has its spring. For the most part, the N82 works like it did a year ago. Amazing job Nokia!

Dust

Most dust gets under the battery coverThe left soft key has become softer to push than the right soft key. Dust has got into the front viewing camera. If I tap my phone hard enough I can move the dust around. Slight dust gets into the memory card slot. Dust gets into the battery compartment too. The exposed micro USB slot didn't accumulate as much dust as I'd imagine. That goes for the top ear piece. My old Sony Ericsson T616 had a big ear piece dust problem that once in a while I'd blast really loud music out of it so the sound pushes out the dust. I also haven't gotten too much dust into the 5MP camera yet so the shutter is actually doing a great job. The most important thing: thankfully dust hasn't gotten into the main display yet. I had a problem with dust getting under the screen on my Nokia 6682.

Software/Hardware Remarks
I've only updated the firmware twice on my N82. My N82 is still on V 20.0.062 as of this writing since I haven't run into any major problems with this firmware. My N82 has gone through the occasional crash and reboots that accompanies any technology. I want to remember the last time it crashed but I can't remember when so that's a good thing or I have a bad memory. The N82 did suffer a major hardware/software problem on one of my vacations where I took a lot of photos during the day and the Xenon flash stopped recharging. I'm not sure everyone notices this but every time you go back to the viewfinder the camera will charge the Xenon flash. Meaning that every time you start the camera or exit the menu in the camera application, it will charge the Xenon flash so that's why taking photos quickly kills your battery. Now when my Xenon flash stopped recharging the camera wouldn't show the viewfinder anymore, stopped allowing me to take photos, and just showed a black screen. I thought my N82's camera was a goner. My N82 was a EURO version so I wasn't looking forward to mailing it to Europe for servicing. Thankfully it started working again after avoiding the camera for a day. Since then the Xenon hasn't been a problem with just occasionally taken a little long to recharge between uses.

The multimedia key placement makes it easy to confuse as the capture keyUsability, I hated that multimedia key beside the camera button and I continue to hate it. But I don't hate it enough to keep running MagicKey in the background to remap that key. Surprisingly, not a lot of people accidentally hit the multimedia when I ask them to help take a photo of myself. But people who take our photos aren't accustomed to having auto focus on a camera phone so our photos usually come out unfocussed.

I really like the support for micro USB. It's a lot less fragile than the old pop port connector since the old CA-53 data cable had a hook on it.

I'd have to admit, I never used uPnP on my N82 before. I just don't have any other devices that support it.

The S60 web browser was really phenomenal when it came out. But it hasn't kept pace against competitors. It has fairly slow page rendering times and disappointing scores on the web compliance acid3 test.

Life Changing

The 5MP takes amazing photos in the daylight and Xenon helps it take amazing photos in the darkThe 5MP auto focus camera has produced some impressive shots for me. It's much more convenient than taking a dedicated camera with me. I've taken over 3200 photos with my N82. At first I had troubles getting the photos settings just right for evening dinner shots without Xenon. Most of them turned out too dark or blurry. I needed my N82 to take indoor photos with little light since I review restaurants in my food blog. I wasn't fond of the large auto focus box since I was used to the small box and easier to focus W810i. But I got accustomed to it, which really meant I would give auto focus a number of tries before I gave up.

The GPS function that I just played around with on the N95 has become the killer feature for me. I am dependent on it for driving directions on all my trips. When I'm in an unfamiliar place and in a taxi/limo, I use it to make sure they're going the right way and not scamming me by going in circles. When I'm in the car, I've found parking lots and alternative routes that have saved me countless hours and money. Sometimes it's as simple as saving your car location in a huge parking lot before walking away so you can find your car later when it's dark. I would never consider buying another primary phone without GPS.

Speaking of saving money, it's obvious that built-in WiFi (802.11g) has saved me money by getting data to my phone without going over EDGE or 3G cell networks. It's also a lot faster than EDGE. I took advantage of WiFi when I was in Japan to check my e-mail without needing to carry my laptop. On a daily basis I use it to stream YouTube using MobiTube.

The N82 is still in my Life

Nokia E71 for e-mails and web browsing. Nokia N82 for everything elseMy N82 is still my primary phone for the most part. But I recently received a Nokia E71 as a birthday present and it has taken much of the spotlight for multimedia since its landscape orientation doesn't require me to rotate the phone and the full keyboard is a lot more convenient to type in URLs. I got the E71 primarily for synchronizing my e-mail with my company's exchange server. The security policies on the Exchange server prevent Mail for Exchange to work on any Nokia phone outside their E-series. I still rely on the N82 as my GPS because it locks onto satellites a lot faster and camera since its 5MP and Xenon can't be matched. I bought my N82 a year ago for $599 USD and never regretted paying a premium for it. It is a powerful phone with all the currently sought after features. That is impressive for a phone that was released over a year ago. If my N82 broke I would definitely pick up another N82 to replace it. The only question is which color? :)

A little snipplet of the places I've taken my N82:

HappyWakeUp

2008-12-10T11:59:00.002-05:00

http://www.happywakeup.com/en/index.htm

HappyWakeUp is a smart alarm clock that aims to improve your mornings by waking you up when your body is the most ready to get up. A friend of mine heard of this software from a Canadian news podcast (CBC) and was wondering if this software actually worked. So she asked me to give it a try and I thought it'd be another review to add to my blog. More importantly, I'm not a morning person, so if this actually worked I'll feel better in the morning.

According to Smart Valley, the software makers of HappyWakeUp, HappyWakeUp is based on medical research of human sleep structure, sleep cycles, and sleep disorders. HappyWakeUp monitors your sleep using the microphone of the phone and makes statistical analysis of your sleep quality to determine when your body is ready to wake up.

For this to all work, you have to place your phone really close to your head while you're sleeping so those of you worried about cell phones causing brain cancer should stay away from this software. They suggest placing the phone in either of the following locations:

Beneath the pillow or sheet near the pillow with microphone down
Bed table within 50cm of pillow with microphone up

If you're OK with sleeping so close to the phone then let's check out the software. For my post I am testing Happy WakeUp version 1.15.

HappyWakeUp connects to the Internet to check licenses (scary!)

Available licenses:

If you download HappyWakeUp from the S60 then you can get a 7 day free trial otherwise you have to pay.

This is what you get when you forget the set the S60 alarm first:

It's not the most user friendly interface but at least there aren't many options to confuse users

Starting HappyWakeUp:

After setting up your regular alarm you're greeted by a screen that shows you the current time in large font, the original S60 alarm time at the bottom, and between that is the window (usually 20 minutes before your S60 alarm) for waking you up.

I mentioned earlier that HappyWakeUp will try to wake you up at the best time but of course that time could be anywhere during your sleep since your body will go into the different stages of sleep more than just once. So HappyWakeUp will only wake you up between the window and your S60 alarm. If HappyWakeUp can't figure out the best time it'll just sound the alarm at the S60 alarm's time.

I tested HappyWakeUp for 3 nights straight and set up another phone to serve as my alarm back up in case HappyWakeUp didn't sound the alarm. For the first 2 nights, HappyWakeUp sound the alarm about 15 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was not ready to wake up and just turned off the alarm and waited for my back up alarm to sound. For the third night it woke me up just after my dream got near the end (the dream was actually getting boring) which was about 17 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was so groggy and couldn't get out but I did hit snooze on HappyWakeUp instead of off. Then it sounded at my regular time and I was grumpy as usual. Maybe even more.

I snoozed through every HappyWakeUp alarm. Overall I was still grumpy as usual and sleepy so it didn't feel like it worked for me. Considering I could easily replace HappyWakeUp with multiple alarms, I find HappyWakeUp very expensive.

Software Rating: Not Recommended

Apple's iPhone outsells Windows Mobile in Q3 2008

2008-12-09T11:14:00.001-05:00

Yes, that's right, the Apple iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile devices in Q3 of 2008 for, not just North America, but the whole world.

Back in January of 2007, in a CNBC interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer grossly underestimated the threat Apple's iPhone with the following comments:

"It doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard which makes it not a very good e-mail machine."

"Right now we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling zero phones a year... let's see how the competition goes"

"Motorola Q for $99... it'll do music, internet, e-mail, IM"

Source: Steve Ballmer, YouTube video, January 19, 2007

In hindsight, we can easily laugh at Ballmer's comments. Adding ActiveSync to the iPhone has made it very appealing to business with Congress testing out the iPhone to replace their army of Blackberries. Apple has surpassed all Windows Mobile sales in Q3 2008. And the Motorola Q has come and gone with little impact to the mobile world except to remind us that Windows Mobile is dated/buggy and Motorola makes cheap phones.

Hopefully this is a wake up call for Microsoft to focus on the complete experience rather than rely on manufacturers like HTC to slap on bandaid solutions like the TouchFlo UI.

Nokia 6650 (AT&T) Review: The latest stylish metallic S60 flip

2008-12-08T13:20:00.008-05:00

Nokia has been trying to break into the North American market for the past few years and now Nokia has unveiled one of the phones that was designed with North America in mind by adopting the popular flip format. Partnering with a US carrier helps as well with AT&T releasing the 6650 a few weeks ago. After a few visits to a local AT&T store, there isn't a lot of focus on the 6650 and the sales staff rarely recommend it so it's going to be a silent seller only to those in the know of its powerful S60 operating system. The firmware on my 6650 is V 03.25.01 10-02-08 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone, AC-4U charger, and manuals.

Thanks to WOM World for supplying me this 6650 for their Nokia Chronicles.

The last AT&T S60 device, the N75, was buggy and bloated with AT&T software. Does the AT&T 6650 suffer the same fate?
Quick facts:
Name: 6650d-1bH (RM-324)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 112 g
Dimensions: 47.3 x 99.7 x 16.2 mm
Battery life (stand by): 350 hours (WCDMA/GSM)
Battery life (talk): 360 minutes (GSM), 240 minutes (WCDMA)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB (accessible: 20 MB)

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Mexico.

Closed:

Opened:

Aesthetics
Although it's only 16.2mm thick when closed, the 6650 looks big compared to current phones in the market. Its boxy appearance makes this phone much more suited for men. The brushed stainless steel battery cover and front give the 6650 an classy expensive appearance. The 6650 exhibited no creaking.

Stainless steel adorns the front of the phone:

The phone interior is glossy black that smudges very easily:

Nokia E71, Nokia 6650, Nokia N82:

The 6650 looks right at home with its S60 brothers.

Thickness of the 6650 compared to the E71:

The side of the 6650 is fairly flat so nudging your finger between the top and bottom halves to flip open the phone with one hand is tricky. I kept getting one of my fingers caught between the two metal parts when the phone flipped open. Ouch

Similar to other Nokia phones, no status LED is present.

The keypad light is relatively weak but does not bleed. Like most flips, lighting is not controlled by a light sensor but turns on when you open the phone.

The SIM mechanism is similar looking to the ones found on the N82 and 6680 but doesn't hold the SIM itself but just keeps the SIM pushed against the connectors.

Display
The 6650 uses a small 240 x 320 pixel 2.2 inch screen as its main display. For some reason I didn't feel it was small and suits the phone's size well. But putting it up against any other S60 you'll notice the difference.

The 6650 display is brighter but smaller than the N82

I had no difficulties viewing the screen under direct sunlight.

External Display
The 6650 uses a 128 x 160 pixel screen. The secondary screen is usually the one that gets all the left over technologies like CTN with lots of problems like ghosting or lack of colors. But the 6650 surprises me with a screen that's adequate for photo taking without the ghosting typically found on external displays.

Image Quality

The brightness and contrast are not as good as the main display but the ghosting isn't too bad

A major bright spot to the external display is that it's not limited to telling time and giving status icons. You actually have a separate menu for the external display. Available applications are: Music Player, Camera (photo only), Profiles, Stopwatch, Timer, Calendar.

Calendar gives you a quick way to see what you have scheduled for the day.

Music Controls:

You can actually read incoming messages from the external screen but you can't access the messaging application from the external display's menu.

Unlike most screens, the standby clock never dims:

I was wondering in my preview if this was an OLED but turns out it's a TFT.

Keypad
The keypad is large but flat. The tactile feedback is similar to the RAZR. There are no easily feelable bumps to sense the difference between each row or column of keys. Each number is coated with plastic so perhaps you could use that to feel your way around the keys but I had a hard time doing that. I just ended up looking at the keypad more than any other phone I've used in the past:

There are some differences in the AT&T model compared to the non-branded 6650:

You can use MagicKey to remap the AT&T keys to something else. I found myself accidently hitting the GPS button pretty frequently when I was trying to find "2"

The D-pad is also completely flat with the D-pad ring being fairly wide and has the same glossy texture as the 1,4,7 column and 3,6,9 column but different than the center key and 2,5,8,0 column. The two tone black glossy and smooth grey columns help you to visually find the keys easier.

I tried playing Tetris on the 6650 but the clicky feedback and flat D-pad was really bad for gaming as you can easily switch directions as you do by rocking a real d-pad ring.

I'm not a fan of the keypad in terms of use but it is nice looking. Fans of the RAZR keypad will feel right at home with this one.

Software
The 6650 runs S60 3rd edition with feature pack (FP) 2. With FP2, the 6650 is slightly sluggish when navigating in and out of folders and opening applications.

Since my review unit is an AT&T branded 6650, it includes some software unique to AT&T:

Software additions include:

Cellular Video
Yellowpages
AT&T Mall
AT&T Music
AT&T GPS
Shop Apps
Shop Games
MobiTV
Mobile Bank
PTT

None of the AT&T applications can be uninstalled from the App. Manager. Most of the AT&T applications can't be moved either.

Some of the re-labelled functions are:

Gallery -> My Stuff
Web -> MEdia Net
Installation -> Games&Apps
Contacts -> Addr. Book

And some custom icons were applied that don't change with a different theme:

Messaging
Calendar
Gallery
Installation
Contacts
Web

Missing typical Nokia S60 applications:

GPS
Download!
QuickOffice (read only)
Zip
IM
Music Store
Podcasting
Switch
Setting Wizard
Nokia Maps

Stability
During my time with the 6650, it never rebooted or hung on me.

Multimedia
Those who say S60 is designed mainly for creating and not geared as much to consume multimedia must not fully use their phone. Out of the box the 6555 supports H.264 video, the same video format used by the iPhone. With some added third party software like Coreplayer and MobiTubia, the E71 can open DiVX movies and stream YouTube videos. With the included 2.5mm stereo headsets (or get yourself a pair of AD2P stereo Bluetooth headsets) and music player supporting album art, you can easily have your favorite MP3s blasting in your ears. If you're an audiophile then you can install OggPlayer. S60 gives you more flexibility than both the locked down iPhone and the "lacking in software" Blackberry.

Camera
The E71 includes a 2 MP camera with no autofocus and no macro mode. Keeping it real basic this time.

Nokia kept it classy and didn't label it with flashy words like "2 Megapixel"

The external display helps for self portraits

These are the available quality settings:
Image Quality: Basic, Normal, High
Image Resolution: 480x640, 864x1152, 1200x1600

Additional settings:
Flash: On, Off, Auto
Night Mode: On, Off
Self-timer: 10, 20, 30 seconds
Sequence Mode: On, Off
White balance: Auto, Sunny, Incandescent, Fluorescent
Color tone: Normal, Sepia, Black & White, Negative

The 6650 doesn't use the N-series photo software but a much more basic one:

Camera uses the center key for taking photos so the menu is hidden by default unlike other s60 devices with a dedicate shutter button. Since the center key takes photos and makes menu selections, you can't take a photo with the menu displayed. press the left soft key or right on the dpad to show menu and hit left on the dpad to hide the menu.

You can't silence the camera on the AT&T firmware.

Outdoor photos:

Night photo:

Without night mode it's noisy. With night mode you have to be very still which I wasn't able to do

Close up photo:

Without macro mode and autofocus, the 6650 doesn't fare well in close up photos.

The images turned out grainy in almost all situation. After hitting the shutter key, a still picture is shown on the screen of when you clicked the shutter key but that isn't the photo you've taken since the camera is slow. After a few seconds, the still picture is replaced with the actually photo. I'm not sure how much lag there is but it feels like it's half way between the shutter key is pressed and the actual photo shows up. This makes it very annoying to take photos of fast things. You need to stay very still for taking photos.

Video
The maximum video recording resolution supported by the E71 is 320 x 240 pixels which is perfect for uploading to YouTube.

These are the available quality settings:
Maximum Length: MP4, mp4v-es, 320x240, 377 kbit/s
Short Length: 3GPP, h232-2000, 176x144, 81 kbit/s

Sample video:

Reception
The 6650 had similar reception to the E71 which is a little weaker than the N82. I had a number of times the 6650 switch to EDGE instead of using the faster 3G HSDPA network. Voice came out loud and clear through the speaker.

Speakerphone
The audio is loud but there is a lot of distortion at the higher volume levels.

Headset
I didn't have a chance to test this.

Connectivity
Unlike the Blackberry and iPhone, the 6650 offers a wealth of Bluetooth profiles that allows you to share files with other devices, listen to music over a wireless stereo bluetooth headset, or sync data to your home computer.
As with all E-series devices, infrared is included to share data with older devices or laptops without Bluetooth.
connecting the 6650 to a computer using a USB cable will automatically keypad unlock the phone allowing you to select the connection type (mass storage, nokia suite, etc.) This even works with the phone closed.

WiFi
None.

Global Positioning (GPS)
The 6650 has an integrated GPS chip to get an accurate position of the phone.

However the internal GPS is hidden behind AT&T's Nav solution since no Nokia built-in GPS applications are included with the 6650. Thankfully AT&T hasn't locked the GPS as Verizon typically does so you can get it working with 3rd party applications.

Here's a photo of it working with Nokia Maps 1.2:

The 6650 was consistently faster at locking a position and much more sensitive than my N82 and leap years ahead of the E71.

Time to lock is dependent on your location and weather conditions. Turning on assisted GPS in Tools > Settings > General > Positioning > Positioning Methods will reduce lock time but requires a data connection.

External Memory
Unlike most other S60 Nokia handsets, the 6650 does not include a memory card with the retail package. However it easily supported the 2GB microSD and 8GB microSDHC cards I had on hand. The small slot and rubber cover make inserting the memory card very tricky. Make sure you don't insert the card upside down because it's really hard to take out. The memory card goes gold connector side facing up when you're looking at the keypad.

Battery
The 6650 uses the same long lasting battery as the E71: the BL5L, with 1500mAH. The 6650 consistently lasted at least 4 days of usage before needing a charge. I spent a whole weekend without a charge and this included having the phone on dual mode (3G and GSM), e-mail synching throughout the business day, send about 8 MMS per day, and occasional phone calls for about 30 minutes total. A great battery where i didn't need to think about charging as i do on my N82.

Conclusion
After 2 weeks of testing the 6650, I found the 6650 to be an enjoyable phone that provides a little more flexibility than the typical dumb phone. It's stylish and fits well in a pocket. I really enjoyed the functionality Nokia added to the external display. I can read incoming messages on the external display without opening the phone. It's too bad Nokia doesn't push the multimedia capabilities and strength of the S60 platform in the 6650 but users benefit by not requiring an expensive smartphone data plan from AT&T. The 6650 looks very business-like so it's a good fit for Nokia's Mail for Exchange. I'm testing RoadSync on mine and haven't experienced any hiccups yet.

Ratings:
Performance...........7
Build quality...........9
Keypad...................4
Connectivity...............6
Features for $.........8 ($69 on AT&T with 2 year contract without data plan needed)
Software................8
Camera..................6
Battery life.............10

Overall.....................7.5

PROS:
*amazingly fast locking GPS
*stylish design with stainless steel
*Great build quality
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*long lasting battery
*AT&T didn't screw up the phone that much

CONS:
*no wifi
*flat keypad with Razr-like feedback
*can't uninstall AT&T applications
*grainy camera
*small screen
*minimal sales package (no memory card, no headset)
*2.5mm headset jack
*sluggish UI with FP2

Freescale powers the Nokia N97 more likely

2008-12-04T01:50:00.001-05:00

I just read from SlashGear that All About Symbian is to announce that the much hyped upcoming Nokia N97 is going to use the CPU/DSP/3D TI OMAP2420 platform found on some of Nokia's older phones like the N82,N95, and E90. It is also used by other manufacturers such as Motorola (Q9h) and Samsung (SGH-i617). The OMAP2420 platform includes a 330 MHz ARM1136, 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP, and PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator providing a powerful solution for highend phones.

If this were true it would be a complete backtrack for Nokia after switching most, if not all, of their phones to the the Freescale solution such as the N85, N79, E71, E66, etc.

A number of sources suggest that Nokia will be using the Freescale MXC300-30 that's also found in Nokia's only other touchbased S60 phone, the 5800. The Freescale MXC300-30 supports an ARM11 processor up to 532MHz and StarCore SC140 DSP up to 250MHz so Nokia has a lot of space to grow before reaching the limits of this platform.

Considering Nokia had worked together with Freescale to produce the single core design of the MXC300-30 and the inclusion of a large 1500mAH battery, I tend to believe Nokia will use the Freescale solution as they have with many of they most recent phones to provide optimum performance for battery life. Not even N-Gage requires hardware 3D acceleration so there's little need for the N97 to have it. Sorry, you won't be able to run Quake 3 on the N97.

Although prototypes of the N97 were available during Nokia World 2008 for the press to test, it is still possible (but very unlikely) the N97 hardware can change so anything is speculation until the N97 is release in Q2 of 2009.

Nokia N97 Announcement

2008-12-03T11:52:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning the Internet was abuzz with news of Nokia's latest announced N-series device, the Nokia N97.

Sporting a haptic 3.5 inch (360 x 640 resolution) touchscreen and running S60 5th edition, the N97 echos similarity to Nokia's just released 5800 XpressMusic. But adds a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Being a N-series it also adds TV-out, uPnP, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 5MP autofocus Carl Zeiss optics camera with 640x480 30FPS MPEG4 video capture.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia N97-1
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Weight: 150 g
Dimensions: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
Battery: BP-4L 3.7V 1500 mAh
Battery life (stand by): 430 hours (GSM), 400 hours (WCDMA)
Battery life (talk): 400 minutes (GSM), 320 (WCDMA)
Source: Nokia

Reaction on the Internet to the N97 has been generally positive. Most people feel this is a worthy phone to fight Apple's iPhone, the form factor resembles a lot like HTC and Samsung's latest touch screen phones, and Nokia has been slow to adopt this form factor.

I feel Nokia took too long to announce a phone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. It would've been a very competitive phone if this was released a year ago. Apple's App Store and the stability of the iPhone 3G variant will make adoption of the N97 a challenge in North America. However, for the rest of the world, where Nokia holds a dominating marketshare, the N97 is going to sell very well with its unique form factor in Nokia's line up. This is a critical and necessary phone for filling a void in Nokia's portfolio and looks to have what everyone wants in a phone. A North American variant of the N97 with 850/1900 HSDPA 3G has not been announced which is necessary for Canadian Rogers or US AT&T to adopt the phone. I'm still hoping a well executed mass produced QWERTY slider/bar E75 is released to help Nokia improve its marketshare in North America.

Nokia Maps & internal GPS on the Nokia 6650

2008-12-02T16:00:00.000-05:00

http://maps.nokia.com

The AT&T branded Nokia 6650 includes AT&T Navigator powered by TeleNav.
Unfortunately this requires a subscription of $9.99 per month plus data charges for route information (no charge for maps). But if you're in the know with Nokia products and services then you might have heard of Nokia Maps or non-subscription based mapping solutions like Garmin.

I've heard the 6650 has an internal GPS but I didn't see any of the customary Nokia GPS related applications like GPS data to show satellite and position information.

Would AT&T lock out the internal GPS like the Verizon's Blackberry GPS while AT&T's Nav relied on network assisted GPS? If the internal GPS was working, would GPS applications other than AT&T's Nav work with the internal GPS? Let's find out...

First, let's download and install Nokia Maps onto the 6650.

Go to http://maps.nokia.com and click download. You will see the screen below to choose your phone:

You won't see the Nokia 6650 on the list so choose the Nokia E50 (it's close to the 6650 as they're both portrait oriented). Although the Nokia 6650 runs S60 3rd Ed. FP2 like the N85, Nokia chose not to include the additional S60 packages needed to run the later versions of Maps. So we're stuck with Nokia Maps 1.2.

I connected the 6650 to my computer using a USB data cable (CA-101, not included with 6650) and installed it via Nokia PC Suite but I'm sure you can do it by Bluetoothing the SIS to the 6650:

Seeing the install message is a good sign it'll likely work

Opening Nokia Maps from the 6650, click Options > Map Options > Satellite Info and you'll see the screenshots below:

Satellites connection strength:

The dark blue shows I'm locked on!

Satellite relative positioning:

The darker blue are the locked satellites

With maps loaded on Nokia Maps and a GPS lock:

To avoid data charges for downloading maps I suggest turning off network use in Settings > Network > Use network = Never and pre-loading maps from your computer via Nokia Maps loader.

I was very surprised to find out the Nokia 6650's internal is open for other applications to use and it's a real GPS. Not some lame network based GPS. It's also a very fast locking GPS taking less than half the time of my N82. I'm very impressed with the Nokia 6650's GPS but too bad AT&T's Nav services will prevent the GPS from being the strong selling point of this phone.

Nokia 6650 (AT&T) Preview

2008-12-01T03:49:00.000-05:00

A month ago I was asked by WOM World to trial the Nokia 6650 and take part in their promotional activity for the AT&T release of the 6650 called Nokia Chronicles (I'm getting featured on Dec 8-14 but you might see some odd photos/videos of myself here just for this activity).

It has been a long time since AT&T has released a Nokia S60 handset to their phone lineup so I was quite eager to see what Nokia has built to cater to American needs and hopeful that this will get S60 in more hands in the US.

I just got the Nokia 6650 in the mail so follow the jump for my initial impressions:

Opening up the box:

The inside felt very empty compared to other phone sales packages I've opened.

The Nokia 6650 sales package includes:

6650 phone
BP-4L battery
wallcharger
Manuals

It's a very basic sales package that really needs to include a memory card like a 1GB. A pair of cheap headphones wouldn't hurt profit margins too much and meet the needs of most casual music listeners.

The Nokia 6650 out of box:

The 6650 looks really good with the brushed metal exterior. The etched AT&T logo is quite classy too.

With the Nokia 6650 powered up and ready to go:

The 6650 fits comfortably in my hand

The AT&T default theme and wallpaper. I wasn't liking it.

It's really hard to see the standby icons and text with the bright colours and details on the map

The external display is really neat:

There are three touch sensitive buttons below the screen that can launch and control the music player, start/stop timers, view your calendar, and take a photo. In idle an anlogue clock is continuously displayed. I wonder if this screen is OLED.

At first the 6650 felt fairly large but I think I've been spoiled by the Nokia 5310 and the E71. It's still thinner than the blocky N82. The S60 3rd edition FP2 feels slow on the 6650 compared to FP1 on both the N82 and E71. Moving in and out folders and launching applications included a slight delay I never had with the E71 and N82. I really like the external display on the 6650 and the added functionality Nokia gave it. I wished it could display incoming text message but it's a lot better than nothing.

To be truthful, I was initially disappointed by the 6650. It looked big to me, slow, and filled with odd AT&T customizations like the wallpaper. But switching the theme to a basic one sped up the UI and I started noticing the subtle features, like the external screen, really impressed me. The phone also looks really nice sitting on the table too. I'm looking forward to reviewing this phone so stay tuned!

Nokia Download! Review

2008-11-28T13:52:00.000-05:00

It seems like every smartphone manufacturer has or is introducing an App Store of their own. When you mention App Store most people will think the first was Apple iPhone's App Store. There's little doubt that Apple was the first to successful make consumers aware of the concept but only diehard Nokia fans know that Nokia phones have been carrying the feature for the past few years in the form of Download!

Until recently, the games and applications available for your phone were either from your carrier's online WAP site (for some reason, most of them call it "mall") or something you found on the Internet and you manually loaded. Cellphone manufacturers have traditionally been locked out from creating their own App Stores as it would compete directly with the ones hosted by the carriers.

In 2007, Apple's iPhone totally changed the entire cellphone industry. I know it's been said again and again but I have to mention it again as Apple resisted all pressures to do things the way the carriers wanted. This meant no branding, no carrier control on the phone software, and the manufacturer could sell directly to the consumer (Apple with the iTunes store). The last fact opened up the door to Apple's App Store so consumers could download applications and games without them being heavily filtered by the cell carriers. This has allowed Google, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia to similarly push their own App Stores directly to consumers.

Being one of the oldest app stores of the bunch, does Nokia Download! really have what it takes to compete? Let's take a walk through Download! and if you have a S60 device on hand you should go take a visit. Make sure you have a SIM card in your phone as Download! uses that to determine your region and what applications you will see...

For this review and all screen shots, I am running Download! version 3.2.818 on the Nokia E71 with a AT&T SIM.

Nokia's Download! opens up to a grid view:

It looks just like the regular S60 interface of your phone but just without your custom icons

Clicking on any of the folders switches you to a list view:

This view takes more screen space yet doesn't give you any more information than the grid view. That little green phone with orange screen icon at the top right of Mail for Exchange shows that I have the application on my phone and clicking on it will run it on my phone instead of trying to download it. If you see a blue phone it means an update for the application is available.

Clicking Option > View Details gives you a description of the application:

I have a hard time making a downloading decision based on this description. Imagine making an actual purchase for paid software based on it

You can download and install applications directly from Download!

If your phone gets wiped out you'll have to re-purchase everything since you don't get the SIS install file with your purchase

Purchase history (Options > My items):

This list is stored on your phone unlike Apple's App Store. Purchasing software from Download! usually involves a credit card so make sure the connection to the software vendor is secure by clicking Options > Security Details when making a purchase

You can see from the screenshots that Nokia designed Download! to work seamlessly with the S60 UI. You can even run applications you already have on your phone from Dowload! Download! is a great way for Nokia to centralize all their software and list only software designed to work for the consumer's handset.

Without comparing Download! to any other App Store you can see there are numerous improvements that Nokia make to Download! There is no list of new software so you have to search each folder to see if anything has changed. No search function so, again, you have to search each folder to find the software you want. The UI needs to be reworked so it shows more information about the applications. It's tedious to have to click "show details" for each application just to see what each does. Moreover, there's just so little information that I can't make a download or purchase decision on it alone. Lately, Nokia has been updating their software catalog so software like Nokia Sports Tracker are finally showing up on Download! after being listed on Nokia's mobile download sites for a few months. But Download! is missing a lot of great well known software such as Mobitubia (YouTube client), Screenshot, fring, and CorePlayer. Overall the Download! experience is fairly inconsistent with the view switching from grid to list for no obvious reason, purchasing something can be secure but not guaranteed, and the little icons shown at the top right of application icons are not clearly described (I'm not sure if it's even consistent because I saw a blue icon so I was downloading the update, cancelled the install, and the icon turned black. It wasn't orange to show I had it and not blue to show there's an update available).

With Nokia making Download! required for downloading some of their latest software like viNe and free software like Birdstep Smartconnect, there's no real point to recommending or not recommending as it's already on your S60 phone and sometimes there's no way around it.

Vampent vBagX Review: Gameboy Advance on your S60

2008-11-25T11:45:00.001-05:00

http://www.vampent.com

While Nokia is trying to build creditibility to their N-gage mobile gaming platform, much of the portable gaming market was and continues to be held by dedicated gaming systems like Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP. Just the number of top rate games available on one of these systems far outweigh all the games available on the S60. One way to quickly increase the number of top quality titles is bringing it onto the S60 through emulation.

The power of S60 phones have dramatically increased in the past few months and software like vBag make emulation of yesterday's dedicated portable gaming systems like the hugely popular Nintendo Gameboy Advance possible. With vBag your phone can play any number of games from the GBA's huge library of portable games. Imagine classic like Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario Kart, and the Legend of Zelda on your phone:

It may sound impressive so find out if the claims are true that you can really get the GBA experience on your S60 phone by following the jump to read the full review...

For this post I will be reviewing vBagX x1.20 S60v3 on the most common Nokia S60 architectures:

Architecture	Details	Phones
32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP	E63, E66, E71, N78, N79, N81, N85
Texas Instruments OMAP2420	330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA	N82, N95

I don't have all of these phones so I'll be testing on both a N82 and a E71 to cover both of these architectures on vBag 's performance. A SanDisk 8GB microSDHC class 4 on the N82 and a Nokia 2GB microSD on the E71 memory card were used during this review. vBag was installed on the memory card in both cases because all GBA ROMS (.gba) must be placed in \Data\Others\vBag\

Graphics
vBagX gives you the option to use Bitmap (software rendered) or Direct (hardware rendered) but Direct has never worked for me on either the N82, E71, or even other Vampent products on my 6682.

From my experiences, the E71 renders games exactly as they are on the GBA but some games do run into issues with sprites not appearing in the right spot (see compatibility).

Super Mario Kart Advance runs smoothly with all image layers on the Nokia N82

vBagX comfortably handles the portrait layout found on most S60 phones like the N82 and the landscape layout like the E71. It can also handle screen rotations but the rotation must be done before starting a game otherwise the rotation will cause a screen problem. You can also manually change the screen orientation under Graph > Size (you can rotate the screen 90 degrees left or right, keep it at original reolution or expand to fill the screen).

You do encounter some frame drops here and there even on the higher powered N82/N95. The E71 is more choppy. You can adjust how much frames (0-9) you're OK with vBagX skipping to keep a consistent game speed.

Sounds
vBagX supports full stereo audio on the GBA. However there is a very very minor lag in audio on the N82 but the audio was very out of sync on the E71 by about 0.5 seconds.

Performance
This is highly dependent on the model and firmware of your phone.

My E71 encountered choppy frame rate and lagged audio. There was no way I could play Street Fighter II the same way as I did on a GBA.

I didn't experience any of the lag with the dual core architecture of the N82. But there were a few dropped frames here and there in high speed games like Super Mario Kart. It was very playable but not as smooth as playing on a real Gameboy Advance.

Compatibility
There is currently a running thread of compatible games on Vampent's forum. Here is a list of games I've tested and played:
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Advance 4 (Super Mario 3)
Super Mario Advance 2 (Super Mario World)
Contra Advance (Contra 3)
The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cup
Final Fantasy Advance Tactics
Mario Pinball Land
Super Street Fighter II

All of them worked for me running on compatibilty mode 1. That's the scary but powerful thing. Vampent thought to add a compatibilty setting that goes from 1 to 3 (where 3 is slowest but closest compatibility with GBA) in vBagX so some games work in one setting but not others.

The single core architecture used in the Nokia E71 lends itself better to RPG games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Phone keypads for gaming
You're playing games designed for the GBA's keypad. First off you're losing out on the left (L) and right (R) buttons at the top of the GBA since no S60 phone features these. Secondly, the ring D-pad of most S60 phones don't lend themselves well to diagonal (ie. left-right) presses. Similar to the keyboard on computers, a certain combination of simulataneous key presses can register an error on the phone and thus ignoring the key press. It's annoying when you have to hold one key while tapping another like flying in Super Mario Advance 4.

If you can get past all those physical limitations, vBagX allows you to map any GBA key to almost any phone key. Unfortunately only the volume up/down media keys are currently supported for N95/N96.

I've frequently referred to vBag, vNes, or vBoy under the keypad sections in my reviews as these games were designed for the highly comfortable, high quality, and dedicated to gaming keypad of the Nintendo Gameboy Advance. More often than not, the keypads of a phone aren't built with gaming in mind so button placement is compromised and button quality isn't high on the priority of phone manufacturers. If you plan to game a lot on the road then I highly recommend bringing along a Wii-mote and downloading Mobipad so you can use the better Wii-mote controller for gaming.

Playing GBA games with a Wii-mote paired to your S60 phone via Bluetooth is a lot more enjoyable and comfortable

Overall
vBagX delivers high quality gaming to the S60 platform by giving users access to Gameboy Advance's library of games. Most of my Gameboy Advance games ran fine on vBag with an acceptable framerate, little to no graphical errors, and mostly synchronized audio playback. Since most games require quick reflexes and timing, you need to get either a N82 or any flavor of the N95 to fully enjoy vBagX. I highly recommend downloading the trial vBagX to your phone to test before purchasing it to ensure it runs your favorite games smoothly and you're confortable with the keypad on your phone. If you do decide to purchase vBagX, Vampent offers lifetime upgrades of the vBagX product and I've heard their customer service is really good.

Software rating: Highly Recommend

Welcome

2008-11-25T01:53:00.000-05:00

Hi visitor!

I'm in the progress of setting up my blog here so stay tuned in January 2009 for some exciting posts.

Nokia E65 Review

2008-11-23T23:30:00.000-05:00

Although the E66 is out, the E65 will continue to be popular because the E66 doesn't have the same visual characteristics as the E65.

Compared to the E65, the E66 is wider, uses flat boring soft keys, and loses the round "cute" look that appealed to female users.

I like the look of the E65 more than the E66 which is why I think it's still worth the effort to do a review on the E65 when its successor has already arrived on the market. Read the review after the jump.

When the Nokia E65 came out, it was the first slider available in Nokia's Eseries portfolio and a huge departure from the boxy styling of the E70, E61, and E60 that filled the Eseries portfolio. The E65 brought beauty into Eseries with its leather-life battery cover texture and round smooth shape. It was also Nokia's second S60 3rd edition slider and one of the smallest sliders in Nokia's portfolio - the first S60 3rd edition slider being the large N80. All these gave the E65 a unique position to fill a void in Nokia's portfolio and help sell millions of Eseries devices.

Although there is a later firmware available from Nokia (v4.0633.74.00), my own unit was running firmware version v1.0633.18.01 (11-01-07). I really need to update my firmware.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia E65 (RM-208)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 2100
Weight: 115 g
Dimensions: 105 x 49 x 15.5 mm
Battery life (stand by): 264 hours (GSM), 336 hours (WCDMA)
Battery life (talk): 360 minutes (GSM), 150 minutes (WCDMA)
CPU: Texas Instruments OMAP 1710, 220MHz ARM926TEJ with Embedded TMS320C55x DSP

My phone was manufactured by: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Nokia. It's probably China

Closed:

Opened:

The E65 is similar in width to the N82 but a lot shorter (when closed) and thinner. They're both of similar width. The E65 feels a lot more solid with no creaking.

Aesthetics

The E65 is one of Nokia's early S60 slider devices. With a thickness of only 15.5mm, Nokia did an impeccable job in offering wifi and 2MP camera in a package that rivals that of the N80.

The sliding mechanism has won praise from many members of HowardForums for its smooth spring loaded slide mechanism and solid feel with little to no creaking even after months of ownership.

Its rounded edges give it a comfortable in-hand feel and make it pleasant to look at. The textured battery cover give the E65 a sophisticated feel.

The keypad light has little to no leakage. The D-pad is not lighted. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.

The SIM mechanisms on E-series are some of the worst designs I've encountered and the E65 is no different .

I side my SIM card out by poking it with my nails through that hole. Note the microSD slot at the top of the photo.

Display
The screen resolution is 240 x 320 and can display up to 16.7M colors. Compared to current Nokia displays, the E65 looks pale in comparison but still performs well under direct sun. It's about the same size as the E71 screen and smaller than the N82.

Keypad
The D-pad is surrounded by a cluster of 4 buttons: Contacts, "My Own" (you can set it to anything) and 2 other buttons that I never use (conference call and mute). Around that cluster is another ring with the soft keys at the top and the call/end keys at the bottom. This ring of buttons are narrow so it can be uncomfortable using the S60 menu key (like holding it to bring up the list of active applications). The D-pad itself also uses a very narrow ring for the up/down/left/right keys so holding it long to scroll through a web page can be uncomfortable. You can tell a lot of trade offs were made in the usability category to suit the asthetics of the design.

The numeric keypad buttons are all flush with each other but curved to form a crease that runs vertically though the middle of the keys. The keys offer a moderate amount of feedback due to the thin buttons.

So how is the E65 keypad for gaming? I loaded up VBoy and VNes to compare it to the pretty decent gaming experience I had with my old Nokia 6682. VBoy and VNes ran very smoothly on the phone but the thin ring d-pad is not comfortable at all to play games and there's no way to perform diagonal movement (say holding up and right) so games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 or 3 were very tricky and games requiring careful side to side movements like Super Mario 3 were difficult. The E65 does not lend itself well to gaming due to the thin softkeys and d-pad. The flush keypad also makes it difficult to feel the difference between keys beside each other.

From a phone perspective, you can comfortably use the E65 with one hand since all the keys are all clustered near the center of the phone.

WiFi
At the time WiFi wasn't common on phones so having WiFi on a phone this small was quite an accomplishment in design.

With high data charge rates in Canada from Rogers and roaming a lot for my work and vacations, having WiFi will save you a lot of money. Unlike other FP0 phones, the wireless scan plug-in is included and found on the home screen allowing you to effortlessly connect.

The WiFi reception is weaker than a laptop's, stronger than my E71 but weaker than my N82.

Connectivity
You can connect the N82 to your computer using Bluetooth or data cable (Unfortunately the E65 is an older Nokia and still uses the pop port). You can install Nokia PC Suite to synchronize the E65 with your computer. You do not need to install PC Suite to install any applications/games onto the E65 as you can install them from the phone.

Bluetooth
You can pair devices, you can send images/files/ringtones/themes and virtually any content via bluetooth to another device. All files received appear in your inbox so it's not obvious . If your BT is off you can still send media, the phone prompts you to turn on BT but you'll need to manually turn it off.

Transfers occur in the background so you can multi-task during this time.

Pairing the E65 with a PC gives you these features in the included Bluetooth profiles:
Dial up networking
HS Audio gateway
OBEX Object Push
OBEX File Transfer
Serial Port

Reception

Sound Quality
The outgoing sound quality has static and the receiver will know you're calling from a cell. I tested out calling to a landline from my N82 by walking along a busy corridor, quiet corridor, to a semi-busy hall. I called two different people and both reported static and I switched roles with one and heard the static. I tried to same call from my W810i to a landline and it was clean according to the receiver. I recorded my voice with the voice recorder and I didn't hear the static in the recording as I did in the call.

Incoming sound quality is clear and loud. A lot louder than my W810i in busy places.

I had the chance to use the N82 in Japan, where they are currently migrating to standardized 3G on WCDMA 2100. The incoming sound quality was loud and clear while outgoing sound quality was loud but picked up a bit of the surrounding noise.

Speakerphone
The Speakerphone works well with a volume just lower than the E71. Voices come out clear.

Headset use
I haven't tested this.

Multimedia Features

Camera
The camera user interface (UI) resembles older non N-series phones and takes pictures in the portait orientation.

A small camera module keeps the E65 size small and your photos low in quality

Although the E65 includes a 2MP camera, it produces very low quality photos that don't even come close to matching the older Sony Ericsson K790/W810i

Surprisingly the E65 does capture photos in the Exchangeable Image File Format (EXIF) format. EXIF is a variation on the JPEG that includes extra interchange information such as shutter speed, focal length, and lens aperture. The W810i provides: Width, Height, Horizontal Resolution, Vertical Resolution, Bit Depth, Frame Count, Equipment Make, Camera Model, Lens Aperture, Focal Length, F-Number, Exposure Time, ISO Speed, Metering Mode, Light Source, Date Picture Taken, Flash Mode, and Color Representation.

Image Resolution
640x480, 1600x1200

Quality
High
Normal
Basic

self timer
Self descriptive, it allows you to set up a timer and get into the shot. Choices are: off, 10 secs, 20 secs, and 30 secs.

White Balance
Auto, Sunny, Incandescent, fluorescent

Colour Tone
Normal, Sephia, Black & White, Negative

sequence mode
single, burst (6), 10 sec, 30 sec, 1 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes

The first takes one photo at a time. The burst mode will take 6 pictures or more until you let go of the shutter button. The other timed settings will take a picture every 10 sec, 30 sec, 1 minute, etc.

Shutter Sound
In most E65 firmware, you cannot silent the shutter sound or the autofocus sound even if you switch to Silent mode in Profiles. EURO firmwares allow you to silence the shutter and autofocus sounds in silent mode.

Automatic mode

Night Mode
There's a night mode as well, but it's fairly hard to use as it requires you to be completely still. These pictures were taken with very little external light.

Without night mode, E65 compared to E71:

With night mode, E65 compared to E71:

The E65 night mode makes a big difference to seeing anything in dark environments but introduces a lot of noise. The night mode is better than the E71 in terms of color and noise management.

The E65 camera is very poor which can't compare to 2MP modules found in either the iPhone or Blackberry Curve.

Macro Mode
The E65 doesn't support macro photos so every close photo turned out blurry.

From a E65 compared to a E71 (macro)

Video
The N82 also records video. You can record directly to the memory card and length of the movie is only bound by the amount of free space available. It's the same settings as the N95.

Different quality settings:
Length - Short (max 176x144), Max
Resolution - 128x96, 176x144, 352x288

Audio Recording: On/Off

The E65 has a really slow shutter so you have to be very still and your subject has to be very still:

You're going to miss a lot of photos with this camera

Applications

Multitasking
The E65 has 20MB of RAM so it's not like the large amounts that adorn current S60 phones. It's enough to run one or two applications at the same timebut if you run too many you will have applications automatically close.

Symbian
The menu and navigation is fast, almost as fast as my W810i.

Seeing the N82 has more power than the N73 (baseline n-gage platform) and includes 3D hardware acceleration like the N95, I don't see any issues running the upcoming n-gage games. It can play vNes and vBoy with no issues. vBag and vSun are not practical to run on this phone with major lag. The E65 doesn't have N-gage and won't likely get it. There are a wealth of S60 applications designed for the N73 that will run well on the E65. But some of the latest Nokia applications won't run on the E65's FP0 like Nokia Maps 2.0 or viNe.

Java
I tried WPT (World Poker Tour) Hold Em 2 on the E65 and it played a lot slower than the W810i version. Bejeweled was equally slow. Java was slow on my 6682 so I suspect it's a Java implementation problem on Nokia's end. I guess it doesn't really matter as they're pushing S60 software/games over Java.

External Memory
The memory card is hot swappable so you can take it out while the phone is on. It only supports up to 4GB with no support for microSDHC.

Battery
The battery life lasts an impressive (for S60) 3-4 days. Not as long as the E71 but a lot longer than the 1.5-2 days of the N82.

Charging from 1 bar of battery to full took less than an hour.

Ratings:
Performance...........7
Build quality...........9
Keypad...................8
Connectivity...............7
Features for $.........9
Software................7
Camera..................4
Battery life.............7

Overall.....................7.5

PROS:
*Beautiful design
*Solid build with little to no creaking
*Smooth spring loaded slide mechanism
*WiFi
*Strong RF
*Great incoming sound
*Amazing phonebook organization
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*great battery life

CONS:
*Slow CPU
*Small screen
*Narrow D-pad ring
*Poor camera
*No US 3G support
*runs S60 FP0 so lots of Nokia apps won't work like Nokia Maps

The smartphone market is highly competitive and the E65 lacks the horsepower (small display, slow CPU, very little RAM) to keep up with the rest. The E65 still makes a great phone and still highly recommend the E65 to users who are looking for a stylish thin slider with the flexibility of a smart phone.