jon's weblog

Nokia E55 review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:40:11 PST

The Nokia E55 is the sister model of the E52. Both are the successor to the great and indestructible E51, which itself was the successor to the E50 (another brilliant device). In fact, this line of candybar E-series business phones owes its heritage to the hugely popular 6310i, a now classic phone that still commands a following by dedicated users. They share the same classic monoblock design,

Samsung Bada and Qt powered Symbian interface demo

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 03:55:08 PST

Samsung has announced yet another smartphone platform which they dub as Bada. Seriously, do we need yet another smartphone platform? There are currently a couple of open source smartphone platforms on the western market - Symbian, Android and LiMo. Then we have proprietary OSes like Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Apple and WebOS (the last three should not be counted as they are not licensed to other

Cheap HDTVs for that new PS3 of yours

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:08:19 PST

Bought that cheap PS3 Slim from Sainsbury's? Well you will need a new LCD HDTV to go with that won't you? Here are some great stuff that dropped inside my mailbox today. It's like the January sales have started early this year!Toshiba Regza 32AV615DB 32" 720p with Freeview £289.99Samsung LE32B450C4 32" 720p with Freeview £309.99LG 32LH2000 32" 720p with Freeview £328.94Toshiba Regza 32RV635DB 32"

20% off consoles at Sainsbury's

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:26:48 PST

Sainsbury's is having a console deal that is brilliant for people who prefer to get their consoles and games the a la carte way.Amazon UK is selling the Nintendo DSi for £139.99, but Sainsbury's selling it for £119.97 - a saving of £20!The PSP-3000, which normally costs £129.99, is being sold for £119.99 - a decent saving of about £10 even if it comes with some Hannah something game. Still you

Brazil - hypocrisy much?

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:01:47 PST

Has joined a long list of countries I won't be spending my tourist money in anytime soon.Update: I should not have been too cryptic. A Brazilian University has expelled a student for her wardrobe of choice - a short dress in this case, which is hardly mini'er than say, a cheerleader's outfit. This after allowing a student mob to subject the student to much abuse.Update 2: It seems that the

Camera Obscura's London Shepherd's Bush Empire gig

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 04:59:55 PST

Camera Obscura third London gig of the year (and second at SBE) was simply brilliant. The crowd today were better than the last, no doubt because the new album has been out for some time giving people a chance to familiarise with the tracks. We met plenty of fans, including a group who were next to us during the last SBE gig (this is their fourth Camera Obscura gig they have attended this year

Opera Mobile 10 beta perfect score in Acid3

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 02:54:32 PST

As mentioned earlier, Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian Series 60 platform renders web pages accurately. This is thanks to the Opera Presto engine, which powers the desktop version of Opera 10. I ran the Acid3 test and it gained a 100/100 score - a very impressive score for a mobile browser even if it didn't pass the pixel for pixel likeness (not surprising considering the limited resolution). In

Opera Mobile 10 beta for Symbian Series 60

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:50:14 PST

Opera recently unleashed the public beta of their newest Opera Mobile 10 for Symbian Series 60 platform. It features the same user interface as Opera Mini 5 beta including tabbed browsing and a speed dial similar to their desktop edition.It is quite a bit faster than Opera Mini 5 and the built-in Webkit browser. Unfortunately it is a RAM hog (about 20MB used with a single tab open). With Opera

Nokia E55 music review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:59:40 PST

Nokia's E-series product lines has undergone much change since my first ever E-series phone (the E51). No longer are they just boring business phones with great built quality - they are now regularly equipped with the same multimedia features as found in the more savvy N-series and XpressMusic phones. Today I will be looking at the musical ability of the E55, Nokia's first half-QWERTY

Nokia N97 camera samples

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:38:03 PST

Here are some unedited photographs taken with the Nokia N97. Unfortunately Blogger does not support resolutions as high as 5MP, so these are resized to 1024x768 resolution. Apart from that they are essentially untouched, and will give you an idea of what to expect from the N97 - as far as the camera goes. While certainly no match for my G9 and modern digital compacts, it is good enough to be used

Nokia E55 first impressions

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 05:30:00 PDT

The built quality on this is great, but not as great as the E51. For one the amount of metal has been cut down to just the battery cover and applications keys. The rest are just plastic. This may have to do with cost cutting as well as to reduce the weight of the phone. The E51 has survived many drops on concrete and I occasionally even use it when it is raining (not advisable as it isn't

Nokia E55 unboxing

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:40:43 PDT

While the current trend and talk of the mobile phone industry is the touchscreen, here is one unit that does not feature one and that I am generally very very excited for. It is Nokia's first ever half QWERTY phone. Instead of a standard 12 numerical keypad, the Nokia E55 has a Blackberry Pearl-esque 20-key keypad. RIM calls theirs the SureType, Nokia calls it the half-QWERTY. Whatever the keypad

Nokia N97: the good things

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:05:07 PDT

After my initial bashing of the N97 you may think that the N97 is a lost cause. Not entirely as there are a couple of good stuff going for it. Whether or not they will sway your opinion on whether to buy one is entirely up to you. As is, because the N97 Mini has already been released, it is probably best to just get that if you are dead set on getting some kind of N97.The reasonably high

Symbian Exchange and Exposition 2009 showroom report

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 14:53:11 PDT

Had about an hour of free time to check out the first ever SEE09 in Earl's Court, London. Unless you are a developer there isn't really much to see that may interest the average person. Still in interesting event and one that I hope will continue as the now open source Symbian platform grows.Sony Ericsson's Satio is a much quicker and polished product than the N97. It runs on Symbian^1 (Series 60

SEE 2009 kicks off today

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:04:27 PDT

The annual Symbian Exchange and Exposition kicks off today at Earls Court, London. This will be a very interesting event as it is expected that more details of Symbian^2 will emerge, as will the mobile phones that will be running them by key exhibitors Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson among others. A host of devices running on the mature none-touchscreen S60v3 platform are also expected to be

Nokia N97: the really bad things

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:04:51 PDT

I have been playing with a trial N97 device from WOMWorld for a couple of days and despite very much wanting to praise it, I can't help but admit that it is a pretty huge disappointment with Nokia's supposed N-series flagship.WOMWorld provided the device as part of an Ovi Maps 3 The Good Things event (I'll write about it eventually but you can check out my twitter feeds with the #ovigoodthings

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (PSP) review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:52:41 PDT

The original PlayStation Revelations: Persona was a great game but sadly very rare. The localisation was actually pretty awful as well, so it was great to see Atlus finally making do for their western fans (well America anyway, no idea yet as to when this will be released in Europe - so as usual hit the usual import stores). The PSP version of Persona is basically an enchanced port of the

WOMWorld's NokiaThe Good Things press stuff

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:04:51 PDT

DHL dropped off press pack for Nokia/WOMWorld's The Good Thing event today.This isn't the first time I have played with the Nokia N97, but it is the first time I have handled one that isn't tethered to some anti theft device or for longer than 10 minutes. After a day of playing around, I find that it is not as horrible as I imagined it to be. It is running on firmware v12 which fixed many of the

More on Nokia's not so hush hush event

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:04:51 PDT

So I have just received my itinerary from WOMWorld for Nokia's The Good Things event. I will be joining nine other bloggers/twitterers(?) in having the chance to do touris'y stuff in London (one of the rare chance where one becomes a tourist in a city he or she lives in) and chatting with a Nokia product manager ("Is Nokia developing the successor to the E90?" will be my first question).I will be

God of War Collection HD trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:43:33 PDT

God of War and God of War II, two of the better PS2 games out there, will be released on Bluray as a PlayStation 3 game. The cynics will undoubtedly accuse Sony of reselling old games, but remastering is nothing new in the music and film industry. Still I hope Sony would not attempt to just remaster everything they have and commit more resources on new games and IPs. Except Ico and Shadow of the

Some not so hush hush Nokia event in London

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:20:21 PDT

Well, I have been invited to participate in a 'secret' Nokia event. The event itself isn't a secret, but I am hardly the person to cruise for mobile device news these days, preferring not to be bombarded by information overload (this is from a person who is a keen twitterer). So it caught me by surprise when Katie of WomWorld contacted me a couple of days ago.In my e-mail exchange with Katie, I

Gran Turismo (PSP) review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 15:46:50 PDT

Announced in 2004 as Gran Turismo 4 Mobile, Gran Turismo was initially pegged as launch title for the new PSP. A couple of years and three PSP revisions later, Polyphony Digital has finally shipped the game early this month. Is it worth the wait? Well read on.To be honest with you I have never been a huge fan of Gran Turismo series. I am more of an arcade racer, preferring something like OutRun

Westone UM3X IEM review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:07:23 PDT

The UM3X is Westone's flagship universal fit IEM designed for musicians and replaces the much liked UM2, as well as a cheaper alternative to the custom high-end ES3X. It isn't aimed to replace the much hyped Westone 3, which was designed for consumers and audiophiles. This is the first universal fit ear canal headphones that contains contains three balanced armatures with a passive three-way

MotorStorm: Arctic Edge review

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 11:42:17 PDT

Evolution Studios's MotorStorm was one of the few PS3 exclusives that truly defined the console's early life. The off-road arcade racer threw out realism for all out mayhem and my gosh they succeeded. The franchise comes to the PSP courtesy of BigBig Studios - the developer behind the two Pursuit Force PSP titles. They know a thing or two about racing games, and they should considering they were

I read The Lost Symbol so you don't have to

noreply@blogger.com (Jon) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 13:57:31 PDT

I wasn't expecting much of The Lost Symbol, but it surpassed even my wildest expectations. It was awful. I mean dreadfully bad. I read this book in one day, not because it was so compelling, but because it was so ridiculously bad I wanted to get it over with and write this little rant. You would think that after four books, Dan Brown would learn to write or at least aim to change his formulaic