Diaries of a Nokia Fan Boy

Ok, so this is something that I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time but never seemed to get the chance. Now, it seems, that the news wagon is fairly slow, little going on, so I figure its the perfect time.
I see this being a multi-part (or multi-session) post, as there is quite a bit that I would like to go over. I’ll try to draw on real phones but hey, this is just my imagination talking, so that might now always be possible.

Well first off, what is wrong with the current phones? Why is it that I say that there is no perfect phone out there?
My perfect phone does not yet exist as the features I want somehow seem to be mutually-exclusive. I want my phone to be a powerhouse and have a long-lasting battery, but it seems that the only phones out there that can do that are almost big enough to be someone’s house. I also want the phone to by thin and light but then you can forget about the features. Anyway, here’s what I think the perfect phone would have:

Signal Strength & Quality
Starting with the basics, I want the phone to work just about anywhere, that means that it has to have a strong, clean signal even when speaking in an elevator or underground parking garage. To be fair, most of today’s phones do this quite well. I use my N95 8GB just about anywhere and only in a couple confined places do I regularly lose service (such as the London Drugs in Lougheed Town Center). Now, the interesting thing, is that my Blackberry 8100 seems to have signal in some places that my N95 8GB does not, and vice-versa. So there must be something that can be done in order to get signal everywhere. Of course, often times the stronger signal results in shorter battery life, and I think there should be an option to boost the signal strength in places where the signal is weak (with the option to only do so with a hands-free, since the radiation output will be quite significant).

Telephony
Next up, is the most basic thing that the phone should do well: telephony. While this encompasses the signal strength/quality topic, its actually much larger than that. For starters, the earpiece on the phone has to be of high quality in order to let you hear exactly what the other person is saying. The sound should be automatically adjusted for the surrounding environment. The microphone should filter out that same environmental noise so that the person on the other end of the call is actually able to hear me. That said, the microphone, or microphones in the case of noise cancellation, have to be of very high quality as well. After all, this is the single most important function of the phone. Additionally, the user interface surrounding telephony needs to be very well thought out: the volume buttons in the appropriate location, the loudspeaker or call-muting easy to turn on off, of course the bluetooth accessories need to pair effortlessly, and connect and work without any glitches.

Display
We all use our phones outdoors, in fact, its nice to think that we spend more time outside, so this should be even more important! Although realistically we spend little time outside, instead breathing in conditioned air, with the eerie glow of the monitor as the only light source at times. But in all seriousness, this is a very important part of the phone, especially if its a touch-screen phone or if you, like me, use it a GPS.
The phone screen has to be vibrant, have high contrast, be easy to see on bright sunny days, and have a nice, high resolution. Of course depending on the resolution of the screen, whether its a touch screen or not, and the form factor of the phone itself, the screen should be of a good size. For instance, an all touch screen device should have a 3.2″+ screen, preferably 16M color AMOLED, with VGA or higher resolution; where as a qwerty E71-like phone could have a 2.4″+ screen with HVGA resolution (of course 16M color AMOLED still stands).
The capacitive vs. resistive touch screen technology is really a trade-off, so its not a requisite, however I would rather have the resistive only if it implemented that super-high-sensitivity resistive technology that was shown around a while back. (if anyone wants the link let me know I’ll look around)

Build Quality / Durability
This topic is actually quite an extensive one, so I will try to briefly go over what I think this should be. First off, high quality materials need to be used. That’s not to say that it has to be metal, although it helps, but there are very high quality, pleasant plastics around as well. Plastics, while being lighter, tend to be less resistant to damage if only very thin sheets are used. Personally, I would rather have my phone out of metal, even if it means it will be heavier, because its more durable and can make the phone thinner/smaller. Of course the exterior is not the only important part of it, the interior design and construction of the phone has to be held to high enough standards that the phone being dropped is taken into consideration (e.g. by placing rubber dampeners at critical points), as well as the phone wouldn’t make creaking sounds when squeezed. Now Nokia phones used to be this good (not sure about the current generation), but then the quality seemed to drop. For example my E60 was build with amazing quality, dropped it a million times and it just got a couple scratches and that’s it, where as my N95 8GB is not quite of the same construction, and I won’t even start on the old and very popular 3310. To be fair, the E71 has very commendable build quality, so it could be that the E-series is held to a high standard than the N-series, which is understandable.
There are some interesting concepts out there, like the Nokia 3720 Classic, which look like a regular phone but are really very durable – that’s what build quality should be like (given that the touch and look aspects are as I described).

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Update:

Ok, so I think its time to add some more details, don’t you?

Storage Capacity/Memory Card
I strongly believe that there is no reason to carry around multiple devices when just one device will suffice. Case in point: I don’t carry around an MP3 player because my N95 8GB gives me fantastic audio quality. Granted, 8GB of music is getting a little low, and because of that I’ve had to scale down my MP3’s to 192kbps – being an audiophile I would like to have 320kbps. There are of course many reasons to have large amounts of storage, especially with phones capable of capturing and outputting HD Video content. This means that more space consuming files will be stored on the phone. Personally, I believe that having a 32GB internal flash drive, with the ability to insert a 32GB microSD card will provide plenty of storage. The first 32GB would give 99.95% of the people out there enough storage, however having the ability to carry around a couple extra microSD cards would cover the other 0.05%. The only other option is USB-host capabilities and enough juice to power a 1.8″/2.5″ hard drive – but that’s not very realistic.

Processing power/speed
This is kind of a multi-hardware piece topic in that its not just the CPU that matters. Case in point: my E60 had a 220MHz CPU, which would have been enough, only the very limited amount of RAM made multi-tasking nearly impossible. Also, I’m finding that more and more manufacturers are integrating GPU’s in order to boost performance, which works quite well, even if it uses a fair bit of power. What would be nice to see is a multi-core CPU, perhaps at 400MHz-800MHz variable clock speed, with the ability to turn off a number of the cores. The CPU should either have a dedicated GPU (potentially integrated into the main processor circuit), or be designed with GPU demands in mind (that is, vector/shader calculations, and so forth). The phone should also have a minimum of 128MB RAM, however 256MB or even 512MB would be nice to see. Bottom line, is the phone should not slow down even when having to draw multiple three-dimensional, semi-transparent, reflective objects, or when encoding/decoding HD Video content (camera recording, or outputting to an HDTV). Of course all this would have to run smoothly even with multiple processes running in the background.

Audio
We all listen to music, many of us, like me, prefer to do so on our phones. This means that dedicated, specialized hardware is a requirement, in order to get consistently high quality across all frequency ranges. This also means that the phone needs to have a standard 3.5mm audio jack, as well as good quality loudspeakers. I rather like my N95 8GB’s 3.5mm solution, which supports a variety of equipment, including TV out (albeit at QVGA quality). One thing, however, that I liked more on my E60 than on my N95 8GB, is the way it handled call and message tones when playing music: instead of pausing the music for the message ring, it just decreased the audio volume, beeped, and brought the volume back up. Something like that shouldn’t even be that difficult to make configurable.

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Update 2:

Alright, it’s that time again, lets update this again.

Battery
We all hate it when this happens: you’re in the middle of your day, hours away from any potential power source, when the icon on the right appears on your phone. What tends to make it even worse is when you know you will have to call someone, listen to music, or even use the GPS function to get home. So what are the options? You can always carry around a spare battery or charger, but that gets more problematic when you don’t have any place to put it. You can keep charging your phone whenever possible, but sometimes, that’s just not possible due to time constraints or lack of a power source. Well there are two more options. They may be more complex, however are still quite realistic.

Option #1: We can drastically reduce the power consumption of the hardware. There are already a number of components that do that, such as a new generation GPS chip, with higher sensitivity and much lower power consumption. There is also the Bluetooth/WiFi on a single chip (part of Bluetooth 3). And finally, different printing processes have different power consumption levels, such as 60nm, 45nm, 32nm, etc. All of these combined can drastically reduce the power consumption of the phone.

Option #2: We can use different battery technologies. Different technologies have different properties, and there are two main ones that I am thinking about. Using a different composition within the Lithium battery can yield up to a ten-fold increase in the capacity, or it can allow for charge times of a couple minutes. Both of these technologies are already past the concept stage and well into prototyping. Really the biggest issue is the mass-production set up. The biggest players in these are carbon nano-tubes, and Lithium Air. The capacity is an obvious one, however the fast charge time would allow for charging stations in malls, gas stations, and other locations. There is, I should say, another technology: Fuel cell. It falls under the higher capacity category, however I believe its still too far off to really call it.

The best part about these two options is that they’re really not exclusive, both can be incorporated at the same time. Allowing us to use our phones, and indeed other gadgets, for days on end.

Camera
To me, a good camera on my phone means that’s one less gadget I have to carry around, and as much as I like gadgets, I don’t like to carry them all. There are some limitations on the current cameras, however if you understand that this is still a cell phone and not a dedicated camera, those limitations become quite insignificant.
First off, the camera should be 5-8MP, as any higher resolution and the dpi becomes too high and not enough light is captured on each pixel. The sensor should also be larger than what is used now in order to capture more light, although with small quarters it might take some fancy printing technologies to get it to work just right.
Second, the camera should have some sort of optical zoom – there’s already a Samsung W880 with a 3x optical zoom, but that phone is a bit bulky, a little on the large side. There are a couple of different variations on the standard optical zoom, such as Origami optics, and they seem to work quite well, some are even getting close to production.
Third, the phone should have a dedicated camera processor, kind of like Motorola’s ZN5. Having it will allow more complex features and better quality processing, as well as increasing focusing and shot-to-shot speeds of the camera. Now, it is quite possible that a graphics-derived CPU will be able to handle all the calculations and produce good quality, but it seems that a company who’s sole purpose is cameras will be able to give better results. A Nokia-Canon partnership would be nice to see.
Fourth, a dual-led light and a zenon flash. Enough said.

GPS/Compass/Navigation
Well I don’t really know what to say here. This is kind of a two piece: hardware and software. Both have to function well, with slightly different requirements for each one. The hardware needs to be sensitive enough to be able to quickly obtain a GPS signal in streets with high-rises all around. A digital compass and an accelerometer should be used when GPS isn’t working, or simply to quickly sense changes in direction. For example when turning or when navigating through tunnels. Finally, the navigation software needs to have the most up-to-date maps, should be easy to use, with clear instructions. I’ve always like TomTom’s software for its interface and navigation speed, however Navigon’s interface seems quite intriguing as well. Bottom line: it should be a pleasure to use, not a nuisance.

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Update 3:

Alright, time for the last and final update of this little article. And thankfully, there’s just one piece left. Well there are more I’m sure, but one left that I am going to talk about.

Money
I know what everyone’s thinking – “The phone should be free!” Well I must disagree. We all tend to buy more expensive things because they’re better, they last longer, and more of a pleasure to use. And to be honest, I wouldn’t like the device nearly as much if I got it for free than if I had to spend my heard-earned money on it.
So what is a good price for the be-all, end-all device? I guess it would depend on just how much of the criteria the device meets. For instance, if the device doesn’t have GPS then the price needs to reflect that. If everything I mentioned is met I would say that a good price would be around $1,000, however I doubt I would actually buy it for that much.
That’s really the killer now, isn’t it? I mean if the phone is perfect I should be willing to spend that much on it, however if I’m not going to spend my money then why bother, right? I guess that’s why we don’t see a lot of these “perfect phones” out there, however many come mighty close. I suppose manufacturers are doing the best they can given that not a lot of people will buy these phones.
But at the same time, there must be enough people willing to spend that much. I mean I would like to think that when I start making more money I’ll be able to afford these phones. And for now I would contend with waiting a couple months for the price to fall and then buy the phone for $500 – $700, of maybe even just buy it used!

Bottom line, the phone needs to be priced fairly according to its specification. Releasing very expensive phones with low sales volumes doesn’t mean the phones will cause the company a loss since they have a lot of marketing value. I would be proud to have a phone manufactured by the same company that gets “The best phone of the year” award year-in, year-out.

I hope this wasn’t too boring for you and that you actually got something out of it. I will be making a point-form recap of this, but for anything with detail you’ll want to look here.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: my brain!

So I’ve been meaning to write about this for a while. I’ve used my Android-based HTC Magic for about a month’s time, and I’ve posted up what I felt about it in comparison to my Symbian-based Nokia N95 8GB. But now I went back to my N95 8GB and have for about a month’s time.

My first impression going back to the Symbian phone was really more of a “It’s good to be home” feeling. But after using it for a while I realised just how much more thought out the OS really is. Not only does it allow for some customization not available on the Android, but it runs better. Its much more stable, running for days, if not weeks, without crashing or having to reboot. There are no major memory leaks, and multi-tasking on it is a joy!

Besides that OS, the hardware is much more impressive. I rarely used my Magic’s camera, but the camera on my N95 8GB has such impressive quality that I never have to think whether I will need a camera wherever I am going. Text messaging on this phone is much more pleasant due to the addition of a hardware keyboard.

I must say, however, that Android does have its pluses, and so does the Magic. For one, the Android market is easier to use than the Ovi Store, even considering that the Android market has a terrible search. Also the applications available on the market are better – I downloaded some music players and, while they didn’t improve audio quality/support, they did add some interesting functionality such as immediate lyrics or song suggestions. At the same time, I really liked how HTC allows you to upgrade the OS via a ROM file. Different OS versions out there come with their ups and their quirks. While I didn’t like the fact that the quirks seemed to be quite large and annoying, I did enjoy being able to install a new firmware when it came out because I know someone had ported it (I am referring to my v20 N95-4 when N95-2 is on v30+).

Since I’ve been using my N95 8GB, Mike has been using my Magic and has found some even more fascinating programs. For example, he found a spectrometer that kept us amused for an hour, playing different songs into it and seeing the visual representation – it was quite interesting to see how much richer a voice is compared to an instrument.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about the direction that Symbian is going in, and whether Nokia should consider other OS’s. To be honest, I think that there is a lot of potential in Symbian, and I hope that Nokia draws that potential out. But operating systems such as Android have already built on that potential and are already available, which will make things much more difficult for Nokia. I think that Nokia is doing well to stand by its operating system, especially considering how stable and efficient it really is, but it won’t be easy to win against the new hot shots on the block.

Also, things I would like to see on Nokia devices:

• Easily and safely exchangeable OS versions (a la HTC phones)
• Much higher support for applicatoins, more so those centered around entertainment
• Smaller, lighter, sexier touch screens (X6 is definitely an improvement)

Well these are my thoughts for a Saturday afternoon,

-Nokia FanBoy

So Nokia finally released the official spec’s to the N97 Mini. Since I’ve covered the phone a couple times already I’ll just say what I’m thinking:

First of all, the phone sports a Quad-band HSDPA!! I’m pretty sure that’s a first somewhere along the lines, and even if it isn’t, its still damn impressive. The screen is smaller, sure, at 3.2″ you won’t be able to see things as clearly, but the phone itself is nicely smaller, with dimensions of 113 x 52.5 x 14.2 mm and a weight of 138g, the phone should make the original N97 feel like a beast. And finally, the phone sports a smaller battery at 1200mAh, which is a down-side, but not an overly large one. The phone still sports decent talk and standby times. The biggest downfall, however, is the price: 450 Euro (or $710 CAD). Especially considering that I can pick up the full sized N97 for less than that. Lets just hope the price falls quickly and more people can afford it.

So would I pick up the phone? I might, if the price was more reasonable, but its certainly going to give the original N97 a run for its money. Wait… is that a good thing?

-Nokia FanBoy

via: GSMArena (read)
and: Engadget (read)

Finally, an announcement from Nokia that wasn’t first leaked by Eldar. The cheap version of the 5230 might be exactly what the doctor ordered for those looking for a touch-screen phone on-the-budget. However there are a couple things to consider:

1. Specification differences
2. Lack of XpressMusic moniker
3. Speed of post-release price drop

Specification Differences:
Now, we all know that its not necessarily the specifications that make the phone, however in this case they do have some implications. See here for a full list of specification differences, but here are some of the highlights:

• Identical screen size and resolution
• Identical body size, but 6g heavier
• Less internal storage (and RAM also?)
• microSD card slot, no included memory card
• Similar connectivity, however no WiFi
• Both have GPS and include Nokia Maps 2
• 2MP Camera w/out flash (vs. 3.2MP with flash)
• No TV-out
• Identical battery, but shorter talk time
• Unknown: CPU, RAM

As you can see, the specifications are nearly identical, however there are a couple key differences: lack of WiFi, cheaper camera without a flash, no TV-out. Of course if you, like me, have a good data plan, you do not need WiFi. And the 3.2MP camera was never sufficient anyway, so the downgrade there isn’t a big deal either. And the TV-out functionality was not on a priority list, so that too will not be missed. Besides that, the specifications are so similar that I would almost suggest buying the 5230.

Lack of XpressMusic moniker
And if it wasn’t for this point, I would, without question, go out and buy this device. However this is a bit of a sore point for me. Since I enjoy listening to music on my phone (I don’t have a dedicated MP3 player), audio quality is important to me, and I fear that the lack of the the XpressMusic moniker will be this device’s demise in the audio department. Of course, I’m not prejudiced, this is simply my belief, and I hope that the good people at GSMArena put the phone through its paces and compare the audio quality of the two phones (the other being the 5800 XpressMusic).

Until such a time as a good comparison can be made, the only speculation I can have on the audio quality is that it must be at least decent with the option of inclusion of the Comes With Music service as one purchase option.

Speed of post-release price drop
Just like with the 5530 XpressMusic, the device’s success will lie in its price point. If I was to check the prices right now, I would see that the 5530 XM is either more expensive than the 5800 XM (Plemix – 5530 @ $415 CAD, 5800 @ $359 CAD), or is only marginally cheaper (Mobile604 – 5530 @ $365 CAD, 5800 @ $369 CAD). And that does not bode well seeing as how the 5800 XM is actually the superior device. Of course, the 5530 XM is still dropping price, and much in the same way I expect the 5230 to come out at a slightly heightened price point, and then quickly drop in the following 1-2 months.

The expected price of the 5230 (without Comes With Music) is 149 Euro ($230 CAD), which does not leave a lot of room for the price to drop. Which makes me question will the phone enter the market at something closer to $400 CAD and then drop to its expected price, or will it enter at its expected price and only slightly drop? Really, either one is satisfactory, however I would not pay more than $250 CAD for the phone.

Nokia 5230 Colors

Conclusion
So what is the conclusion of this rather long rant? While the spec differences are of little consequence, it is the missing XpressMusic moniker that may be the demise of this little phone. But of course everything depends on price, and as such, we will have to wait and see when it comes out. As for now, check out the video below:

-Nokia FanBoy

via: press release
and: Engadget (read)

Well it hasn’t even been half a day since its announcement and a couple, rather interesting, reviews and opinions are already out on the blogosphere.

Mirror.co.uk
seems to be comparing the Booklet 3G to your everyday cheap-o netbook. And they’re right, since this is likely to be their direct competitor. What is interesting in this comparison, however, is that we don’t even know if the two devices will be in the same price range. The only reasons this comparison has come up, in my opinion, is mostly due to the Atom processor, and has been confirmed by the 10.1 inch screen. But really, that doesn’t mean anything. Regardless, the comparison is rather interesting, and I must admit that I too think the Booklet 3G will be a fancy, slightly more expensive, netbook.

10 9 ways the Nokia Booklet 3G beats a netbook

1. The Nokia Booklet 3G is an HD netbook
2. Epic battery life
3. Hot swappable SIM slot
4. GPS on the go
5. It’s made by a mobile player
6. Small but sturdy
7. MacBook looks
8. It syncs with your mobile
9. It’s a home media player

The comparison is quite valid and draws a number of good points, so do go take a look through it if you’re considering this device. And especially if you’re like me and thinking whether to get this or the Always Innovating Touch Book.

Symbian-Freak
has some pretty strong feelings about the Nokia Booklet 3G, but his opinions are more closely related to the company. SF believes, and I agree, that Nokia’s entrance into the netbook market is their attempt at diversification and derisking the company. This is especially obvious when considering that their mobile phone market share has been decreasing slowly. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still the major player here, but the fact that they’re falling behind isn’t exactly comforting. The Booklet also strengthens Nokia’s stance as an “Internet Company” versus just a cell phone manufacturer as the device really is better suited for browsing the web compared to their Internet Tablets (of course we don’t know how good the N900 is yet, so we’ll have to wait and see). Finally, the Windows operating system shows just how deep the Nokia-Microsoft alliance is going, I just hope that WinMo doesn’t make it to Nokia devices, although it would be interesting to see UI variations such as HTC’s TouchFlo and Sense or Samsungs TouchWiz.

Take a look at SF’s review for more details.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Mirror.co.uk (read)
and: Symbian-Freak (read)

We all know software evolves, and operating systems are no stranger to this. From dealing with our own computer operating systems we also know that often times this evolution means that older programs no longer work with the newer operating systems. However computer programs are different from mobile programs in that they generally cost more money, much more. And computer operating systems have the luxury of very powerful processors and virtually unlimited storage to include libraries or pieces of code to maintain backwards compatibility with older programs. This saves the consumer money and hassle; and means programmers don’t have to worry about writing software for a dozen different operating systems. When we consider that the market for computer programs is many times larger than that of mobile programs, we see the problem.

Of course the problem is not the evolving operating system, or even the breaking compatibility. The main problem, in my opinion, is the timing of this happening. Symbian broke many programs going from v3.0 to v3.1 to v3.2 in the past several years, however these breaks have been somewhat small, and were easy to fix. Then Symbian came out with S60 9.5, adding touch functionality and removing the need for a hardware keyboard – and this was a major break in the very paradigm that many programs were working. However this was a necessary evil as the very shift to touch screens was going to cause this anyway. Now Symbian is planning on replacing the UI toolkit altogether.

For many years they have been using Avkon API, and will now replace it with Qt’s UI toolkit. On the one hand this will make the very development process easier, but on the other hand this is a major change that will require a lot of work. I cannot say that I disagree with this – evolution is necessary for any platform to survive, but what puzzles me is why they didn’t do it before, during the release of the 5800 or even the N97. I guess the answer is much more complex than I can imagine, so I won’t blame them for it. I’m just happy they continue to innovate and do what they can to stay ahead of the curve.

-Nokia FanBoy

PS: I am, however, glad that they chose this particular toolkit, take a look at the Qt website for benefits if you want to know why.

Most people in-the-know agree that the best GPS receiver chip is CSR’s SiRFstarIII. The chip is very accurate, and obtains its position extremely fast. The down side, however, is that the chip drains battery like no tomorrow – which is why most cellphone manufacturers do not use it. However now CSR is releasing the successor: SiRFstarIV. The improvements mean that you will be able to have your GPS start up in seconds while using about as much current as your calculator program!

The SiRFstarIV Architecture
The SiRFstarIV architecture core is comprised of a high-performance GPS location engine, smart location sensor interface, adaptive micro-power manager and active jammer remover, which together deliver:

• Twice the search capacity of the industry proven SiRFstarIII architecture
• Advanced micro-power management and integrated switched-mode regulation that maintains hot-start conditions with minimal energy (50-500 microamperes)
• Intelligent MEMs sensor support (for accelerometers and other sensors) that improves the location experience, enabling greater contextual awareness, more sophisticated energy management and enhanced indoor positional accuracy
• Advanced DSP technology that actively searches for jammers and removes them prior to correlation for maximum GPS performance and design troubleshooting

Just like the introduction of the accelerometer, and the digital compass, so this will bring many fascinating applications, including finally having the ability to GPS-tag our photos without being worried about destroying our batteries in the process!

-Nokia FanBoy

read: press release
via: Symbian Freak (read)

How ironic that the same day I wrote my post on the state of Mobile Operating Systems, Entelligence released a very similar post. Must be something in the inter-webs.

Of course this article has a different take on the entire state, one which is quite interesting and totally worth a read.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)

Well here’s an interesting prospect. The phone that I was sure I was going to get for myself, despite its large size, is possibly going to come out in a smaller version. Of course the size difference isn’t large – maybe 3mm more narrow, 5mm shorter, and 1-2mm thinner (and presumably lighter?) – which gives it dimensions in the area of: 111 x 52 x 14 mm or 80.8cc. This means that it will be some 10% smaller than the larger version.

So what do we get with this reduction in size? Obviously the screen is smaller, although not by too much, the fold-out keyboard loses the D-pad, and the camera in the back loses the sliding cover. And all-in-all the phone seems to have a cheaper look to it.

Is it real?
Hard to say, this could be just a really good copy of the real thing. It does seem somewhat redundant to release the same phone with just a tiny bit smaller body, although the N97 is a little on the large side to begin with. Of course it could all be in the interest of pricing it lower than the actual N97, cutting out more features (the camera could be a 3.2MP), and releasing it to the mainstream public. Lets just hope that Nokia knows what they’re doing if that’s the case.

Update:

It seems as if Symbian-Freak came into possession of some confidential documents from Nokia: Europe & Eurasia Roadmap. And it would appear as if there is more truth to the rumor than originally anticipated. The roadmap clearly shows Nokia N97 Mini as an item under the Explore category. While I’m not sure what that means, at least its not an Entry model, which, in itself, is already good news! Finally, the roadmap seems to show a Gantt chart on the right, and while the time-frame isn’t visible, it would appear as if this model wasn’t planned to release for a while when the roadmap was made.

Decide for yourself: Is it real or just a really good fake?

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)
and: Symbian-Freak (read)

We, users of real mobile operating systems, have long taken for granted the ability to access or file system, however iPhone has just recently released an application that allows iPhone users to access their file system. The problem is, you can’t access all files (I’m going to take a wild guess and say that only files created within that program can be accessed, which kind of defeats the purpose), I’m not even sure you can save email attachments in there. Although one nice thing is that you can share those files with other users by sending a virtual link to that file and, I guess, they would download it as they wished.

However, the biggest issue: its not even free! You have to be a MobileMe subscriber in order to use the application! I’m sorry, but if having to pay in order to be able to access your own files isn’t a rip-off, then I don’t know what is. Kudos Apple, you managed to force people to pay for something that should have been free in the first place.

-Nokia FanBoy

via: Engadget (read)