Nokia N8 game: Slice Ice Review

The premise of the game is simple, as are the controls. The idea is to launch ninjas skywards at each other in order to group them into bunches of the same colour. Doing so gradually clears the screen. You’ll want to do this as much as possible, because only when you clear the screen of ninjas can you progress onto the next level.

To launch a ninja, simply tap on a point of the screen that you wish the ninja to be launched at from the catapult below. Simple, but it’s when things begin to get trickier that you’ll need to use your wits. One tactic is to tap the edge of the screen to rebound ninjas off the corner, helping you to squeeze them into the tightest of gaps.

But be quick. A counter below displays how long you take to clear each level. Leave it too long and the screen will begin to fill up. Let it fill up too much, and you’ll need to start over. It’s all part of the challenge, and adds some much needed urgency to the action.

Ninja Shooter is a pleasant game to play. The action is simple, and the premise is easy to understand. We love the cutesy presentation. On our Nokia N8, the graphics look clear and vibrant. Even the backgrounds look nice. A lot of care has clearly gone into their design. We’ve also no problems with how Ninja Shooter handles: touches are immediately responsive. We had no trouble enjoying Ninja Shooter on-the-move. Play is instinctive, as it should be.

If we must be fussy, we’d could that we’ve seen this kind of game many, many times before. The premise is nothing original, but Ninja Shooter carries it off well. It’s still a fun, well presented game for the Nokia N8 that is still worth checking out. Available as a paid for and free version, there’s no excuse for not giving it a go.

Download: Ninja Shooter

Size: 1.09MB

Cost: £1.50 (or free, supported with ads)

Check out our Nokia N8 game: Ninja Shooter photo gallery below:

Nokia Lumia 710 vs Nokia X7: Side-by-side photo comparison

Of course, the Nokia Lumia 710 and the BlackBerry Bold don’t look too much alike. The Nokia we’ve all grown to know and love is a modern all-touch affair with a nice sized 3.7-inch display dominating the front, while the BlackBerry Bold 9700 has a traditional qwerty keyboard, rather like the Nokia E6.

That sense of a generation gap is present when it comes to using the two phones, too. While the Nokia Lumia 710 has a super-snappy 1.4GHz processor powering the next-gen Windows Phone 7.5 OS, the BlackBerry has to make to with a 624MHz processor running the somewhat archaic BlackBerry OS. To us it’s like night and day in the hand, but each to their own!

So, how do the two stack up visually? Check out our comparison gallery below, then let us know which you prefer the look of in the Comments section.

Nokia Lumia 710 vs BlackBerry Bold 9700 comparison gallery:

The teaser trailer, which can be found on Nokia’s official YouTube channel hints at what could be a new form of camera technology.

The 22-second clip depicts snowy scenes accompanied by the captions: “Pure detail”, “pure depth”, “pure definition”, and ends with the teasing message: “get ready to capture a pure view.”

Watch to the very end and you’ll see the Nokia logo, along with the date 27 February 2012. It can only mean one thing. Something special from Nokia is set to be announced during MWC 2012.

Quite what it is, we don’t yet know. The big rumour going down suggests that Nokia is supposedly ready to unleash its next big cameraphone. Are we about to see a new wave of Pure View cameraphones?

Right now we’d have to give that thought a big fat rumour stamp, but we can only get excited at the possibility. And will Nokia pure be a Symbian or Nokia Windows Phone feature?

Again there are lots of guesses floating about, so we can only wait and see what Nokia has up its sleeves. What do you think? Take a look at the trailer for yourself and let us know:

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic may not have the megapixel muscle of the Nokia N8, but that hasn’t stopped its owners getting creative with its 3.2 megapixel camera, which still stands up today.

The 5800 XpressMusic camera features auto exposure, auto focus, Carl Zeiss lens, a self timer and a still image editor. Put all that in the right hands and you get the kind of results you can see below.

Yesterday alone, over 1,253 items were uploaded to Flickr by a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. Here are some of our favourites.

kucing comel
Firdee’s 5800 XM

It may be the cat’s impression that makes this photo, but we love the sandy texture of the colours just as much, lending the photo a very urban feel. The way the fur bristles out looks very professional.

PX1122
By raqib

The thing we love about this is that it doesn’t look like it was shot using a phone, but a high-end camera. Just look at the way thw background comes into focus as if the viewer is attempting to see past the raindrops shielding the view.

Golden Evening
By NA.dir

We love the solid lines in this photo. The building looks so clean, almost toy-like. It helps that the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has managed to catch some great detail here. The result is a striking bit of mobile photography.

Viaje al pasado, en un Porsche (16/23)

By falutx

The impact of this black and white photo is enhanced along by the subject of this photo being white itself, but the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic does a great job of showing off the curves of this beautiful little Porsche.

Waiting 

By senato®

More raindrops. We just couldn’t help ourselves. But rather than the water, it’s the colour here that conspires to create a nice warm-looking focal point that contrats with the wet conditions. 

Should you ever grow bored of looking at your Nokia 700, chances are all it needs is a visual tweak. We recommend heading to the Nokia Store and downloading any one of the themes available on the Nokia Store.

Hello from space, designed by intheme c. studio actually surprised us by how polished it looks. As you may have guessed, it is space-themed. The Downloading Hello from space lets you set an image of a rather welcoming astronaut as any of of the homescreen images. There isn’t a lot to say about the astronaut besides how sharp it looks. With Planet Earth in the background a warm glow around the astronaut, the theme is immediately easy on the eyes.

Hello from space adds a welcome dash of colour to your icons. Each icon uses bright greens, reds and yellows to make each icon stand out. If you found the old icon layout slightly on the dreary side, you’ll love Hello from space. Each icon jumps out at you with colour.

We were also struck by the amount of design that has gone into each one. Note the detail on the key on the Settings icon, or the dials on the Camera and FM Radio icons. Kudos to the designers here.

Dive into an icon, such as Settings and you also get a cool space background, this time without the astronaut, contrasted by the white font of the setting options, making for a smooth fit, and one we could easily get used to. It’s a good thing we like space stuff.

And even if you don’t like space stuff, Hello from space is a delightful theme that adds a dash of colour to your Nokia 700, or any Nokia you may plan to download it to. Everything about Hello from space oozes quality and care, making it a pleasure to use your phone again.

Hello from space might be a little cartoony for some, but there’s no denying that a lot of care has gone into this theme. It’s free too, and therefore recommended.

DOWNLOAD: Hello from space
Size: 1.19MB

Price: Free

Check out our Hello from space theme review for Nokia 700 and Nokia Belle:

Paradox Exit

The latest game from Windows Phone indie game ace Elbert Perez (who also features elsewhere on this list) is arguably his most involving, most polished and downright best yet. Paradox Exit is an old school explore-em-up that sees you traveling through vast alien caverns, mining resources and searching for the exit. This is one massive game, with a laid back pace and a compelling upgrade system. Read our review here.

Bug Village

Bug Village is the first freemium game on the Windows Phone platform – which means it’s completely free to download, but it can be enhanced through lots of little in-game purchases. Don’t worry, though – you can get plenty of enjoyment out of this gentle world-building game without spending a penny. Construct your 3D bug village and give it that personal touch with upgrades, while fending off unwanted visitors.

Breeze 

The second Xbox Live game on this list, Breeze is an addictive yet incredibly simple experience. Guide your floating flower around each mazy level either by tilting your phone or touching to ‘blow’ it in the required direction. It’s a bit like those ball mazes you used to get in cereal packets, only far more intricate and fun. That you can also unlock achievements only adds to the charm.

Blocked In Free

Don’t be fooled by its sedate, unassuming looks. Blocked In Free is a fiendish brain-melter of a puzzle game that will make your brain hurt. If that sounds like your idea of heaven, then read on. The idea is you slide a coloured block to each level’s exit, but you must first clear a path that’s obstructed by other plain-coloured blocks. Sounds simple? It isn’t.

Armored Drive

The second game on this list from Elbert Perez couldn’t be any more different from Paradox Exit. The only similarities are an impeccably well realised gameplay and an irresistible upgrade path. Guide your armoured through heavy traffic and other, more outlandish obstacles. You’ll die pretty quickly at the start, but the more you play the more money you get and the more upgrades you can afford. Compelling stuff.

Jewel³

You know the score with Jewel³ if you’ve played any gem-swapping puzzle game on any device over the past five years. Just like Bejeweled and co. you must clear a screen full of jewels by matching rows of three and more of a single colour. This is done by swiping the screen to swap two gems around. Cue chain reactions, special bomb blocks, and hours of lost time.

LineBirds

Crisp, polished and addictive, LineBirds (like many of the games on this list) really has no business being free. You guide your little flapping bird on its perpetual journey from left to right, avoiding obstacles by touching the screen to gain height and letting go to dive. It’s the weighty feel of this core system that keeps you coming back for more – well, that and the obligatory high score system.

Penguin

Imagine LineBirds grounded, its controls reversed, and the instant-death obstacles removed in favour of a swooping time-based challenge and you more or less have Penguin. Your titular flightless bird slides along undulating slopes, and it’s up to you to build up momentum through rhythmic play. Pressing the screen causes you to stick to the ground (handy on downward slopes) while releasing at the right time will send you pinging into the air. Thrilling stuff.

Funny Bounce

Very much a Doodle Jump clone, Funny Bounce stands out from its obvious influence by being available for free. Guide your little… yellow… thing on its ceaseless ascent, bouncing off suspended platforms, avoiding broken ones and trying not to drop below the current screen. This is a decent approximation of a modern classic.

Snowball Assault

An intriguing mixture of Angry Birds and Fragger, Snowball Assault has the fresh touches and decent presentation to stand on its own two flippers. You play an angry walrus who must take out a bunch of aggressive penguins with your supply of snowballs. The key difference from the aforementioned games: the penguins can fight back. Top fun.

Have we missed any of your favourite free Windows Phone games? Do share in the Comments section.

Nokia Lumia 800: How to store and play your music from the cloud

As we’ve alluded to previously, Nokia Music is a distinct suite of music services that complements and enhances the default Zune tool that comes with every Windows Phone device. You’ll be amazed at what it can do – just follow our Top 10 tips for Nokia Music on Nokia Lumia 710.

Download some playlists

Nokia Mix Radio is the main attraction here, naturally, for it’s ability to stream themed playlists to your Nokia Lumia 710 for free. No sign-up, no fuss – just great music. One important feature you might overlook is the ability to download said playlists – just press and hold on one and you’ll see the option to Make available offline. Note that you can only save four of these playlists in a month, but that works out to hundreds of tracks.

Create a personalised playlist manually

Staying with Nokia Mix Radio, scroll right twice from the first screen and you’ll get the ability to Create your own personal playlist. Click on the Add tile, type in an artist you like and hit the Play button. There you have it – a playlist based containing said artist and other similar acts!

Have Nokia create a personalised playlist for you

Scroll right from the Create option and you’ll see Personalise. Hit Get my music profile and Nokia will attempt to to create a profile of your music tastes based on your Nokia account activity. It’ll then create a personalised mix based on these. Nifty, eh?

Scan your computer

Of course, there’s a chance there won’t be enough information for Nokia to work from (if you haven’t really bought or managed much music through Nokia, for example). In that case, simply head on over to this Nokia web page from your main computer and download the music scanner tool. This will run through all the music you have stored here, build a profile and send it to your Nokia Account for use by Nokia Mix Music.

Keep an eye on New Mixes

Nokia Mix Radio isn’t a static, closed-off service. It’s constantly growing, evolving and improving. This is especially evident with the New Mixes category, which is near the top of the main Mixes page. Tap on this and you’ll find many a delightful new playlist concept to check out. Recent highlights include a playful white-themed mix to accompany the recent reveal of the Nokia Lumia 800 in white (it’s composed of artists and tracks with ‘White’ in the name). Then there are the colourful themed mixes like ‘Urban Ladies’ and of-the-moment stuff like ‘Indie Whats Hot Feb 12′.

Purchase tracks from Nokia MP3 Store

Nokia Music also contains the ability to purchase music tracks separate from the default Zune Marketplace. If you’re upgrading from a Symbian Nokia and you’re already signed up to Nokia Music, your log-in and payment details will all work in Nokia Music. Just make sure you have a credit card register and you’ll be able to purchase from more than 15 million MP3 music tracks by tapping on them and following instructions.

Get recommendations based on albums you like

Browsing the Nokia Music MP3 store and want something familiar yet new to listen to? Simply find an album you like and go into its track break-down screen. Now scroll right and you’ll find a Recommended section filled with artists and albums who fit within the same broad category – or have some association – to the initial artist and album. It’s a great way to seek out new music.

Preview tracks

Want to hear what a track sounds like before you purchase it? Simply hit the Play button next to its name to hear a 30 second clip of the track in question.

Purchase gig tickets

If you’re looking for music of the live variety, then you’re no doubt aware that Nokia Music lets you see a list of artists playing near your location. But did you know it can also help you purchase the tickets for those same events? Just tap on the event listing and scroll right and you’ll likely be given a series of links to secure, mobile-friendly web pages from which you can purchase tickets.

Browse with Metro

Finally, if you want a brief overview of all the services and all the latest changes to Nokia Music, just scroll right rather than going into a specific heading. In true Metro style you’ll be presented with a nice taster of everything, including your most recently played music (from your music collection or Nokia Mix Radio), the latest Mix Radio mixes you’ve visited, the latest releases on the MP3 Store and the next gigs in your area.

Are there any features of Nokia Music you need help with? Alternatively, do you have any top tips for the rest of us? Let us know in the Comments section below.

Nokia Lumia 800 app: RAC Traffic Windows Phone review

One thing we’re shamefully inept at when compared to our European neighbours is speaking languages other than our own.

You only have to walk down a German straße or a Dutch straat and ask a random passer-by in English how they think the weather will turn out and you’ll probably get a startlingly articulate reply in their second tongue. Meanwhile most of us can’t even ask for a drink in another language without collapsing into nervous giggles.

Apps like Babylon Translator might be a bit of a plaster over our gaping ignorance, but they sure are useful. Acting as a powerful multi-lingual pocket-assistant, it should certainly be considered by any Nokia Lumia 800 owners about to set off on their holidays with a poor grasp on the local dialect.

It’s pretty easy to use, too. Open Babylon Translator up and you’ll be greeted by a Term search field, along with a larger results field and four language tabs. This means you can type in an English word and get a translation in four languages simultaneously – handy for those awkward hostelling moments.

There are issues here, however. While it’s simple enough to get a direct translation for languages using the same alphabet, try translating a word into a language that uses another character set, such as Japanese or Chinese, and you’ll get a completely useless direct translation. There’s no romanisation feature here, so rather than getting a ‘Konnichiwa’ – the Japanese for hello spelt out in phonetic English – you get the original Japanese characters for the word.

There’s also a niggle that can’t even be explained away under the banner of the more difficult languages. While you get the precise translation for words as long as they’re in the Latin alphabet, you don’t always get extra help. Babylon Translator will also pull in extra information on each word from a variety of sources, including language guides and Wikipedia. The only trouble is, many of these are written in the native language, which means they’re very little help for English speakers.

More useful is the full text translation tool, which lets you type in whole passages of text and have it translated into any one of the more than 75 languages on offer here. Well, we say that, but again the app has trouble with non-romanised languages. While we’re picking fault, Babylon Translator could also use a pronunciation function that doesn’t just show you how the translations are written, but actually speaks the words to help with your pronunciation.

There is a handy currency and measurement translator here, but the important part is undoubtedly the language translation element, and on that front Babylon Translator isn’t quite firing on all cylinders just yet. Still, it is handy as a rudimentary translation tool covering a number of European languages – especially considering it’s free on the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Our advice is to download Babylon Translator and keep an eye on those update notification – a few decent updates could raise it to greatness.

The Nokia Store 3.22.054 firmware update isn’t a full flown affair, weighing in at just over 4.3MB it can be downloaded in a flash over Wi-Fi. We found that it took a few minutes to install but once up and running, you’ll find that the physical look of the Nokia Store hasn’t changed.

Nokia Store v3.20.050 update available for Symbian Anna and Belle smartphones

In fact, the reason for the update is to align the Nokia Store engine with the backend of the website, which means you’ll find that searching for apps and general performance is smoother and easier.

How to get hold of the Nokia Store 3.22.054 firmware update? Simply fire up your Nokia Store app and you’ll be directed to update. Now it couldn’t get any easier than that.

Spotted anything in the Nokia Store 3.22.054 firmware update that we’ve missed, or has really impressed you? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments below.  

Nokia Lumia 800 review

If you’re reading this from neighbouring Ireland, then welcome! You might be wondering what all the fuss is about with this Nokia Lumia 800. Well, for one thing it has a gorgeous all-in-one polycarbonate design that makes it look unlike any other phone on sale in Ireland.

Another reason to shout about the Nokia Lumia 800 is its silky smooth 3.7-inch AMOLED display, which produces truly black blacks and vibrant colours – far more so than most smartphones with their LCD displays. This is powered by a super-fast 1.4GHz processor – the fastest ever in a Nokia device. Oh, and did we mention it comes with an 8-megapixel camera?

As important as the handset itself is the software it runs on, and Windows Phone 7.5 really does need to be seen to be believed. From its gorgeous Live Tile-driven interface to its seamless Facebook and Twitter integration and Xbox Live abilities, this feels every inch the next generation of mobile operating systems.

Now that you know what we’re talking about, check out the reaction of Dubliners as the Nokia Lumia 800 road show hits the city. They even got free flowers and coffee, the lucky lot.