Archive for 'Reviews'

We got our hands on a Lumia 900 last week and spent a day with it, trying to use it as our primary device. Windows 7.5 is an easy OS to use, though it is different enough from Android and iOS that it does take some time to get familiar with. Before we get into the pros and cons of the device, here is a little refresher about the specs of the device:

- 4.3″ AMOLED ClearBack glass touchscreen
- 1.4 GHz processor
- 16 GB Internal Memory
- 512 MB RAM
- 4G LTE Connectivity
- 8 MP Carl Zeiss camera; 1 MP front camera
- 5.6 ounces; 2.7 inches across, 5.03 inches tall, 0.45 inches thick
- Micro SIM

This phone feels sturdy in your hands, and while it has a little more body to hold onto than a lot of phones hitting the market today, we never felt like it was too big to use. Windows 7.5 (Mango) is a beautiful Operating System, and while using it we never hit an error or lag when moving between apps. Admittedly, it would be hard to transition to from an Android or iOS device with the lack of apps, but if you were taking your first steps away from a BlackBerry or feature phone, the Lumia 900 and Windows Phone in general, would be a great place to start.

The battery life was impressive, having just made it through the day without charging it while testing it extensively, it should be no problem with normal use. The mail and messaging applications are easy to use, and concisely show your messages. It was really easy to transition from Facebook chat, to text messaging, to Windows Live Messenger without skipping a beat.

The camera software was intuitive, and the Carl Zeiss hardware fantastic. The only complaint we (and every other reviewer on the Internet apparently) had was that the actual image files seem to come out with slightly different colors than how they looked when being taken.

Long story, the Nokia hardware is good, the Windows Mango OS is good, and if Microsoft can get the droves of developers that some of the other platforms have brought to the table on board, then maybe there really can be a third competitor in the Smartphone arena.

The guys over at GSMArena have done themselves proud in this comprehensive mobile phone screen testing, pitching several mobile devices together, and testing the stability, usability, and functionality of the various types of screen technologies used, all in the aim of research.  You can find Nokia’s new CBD screen there too, so checkout the results over at GSMArena and see how how Nokia’s new screen tech faired in the competition.

“This is not a story going back to monochrome displays and the dawn of STN and CSTN screens. That would’ve made an even bigger mess. Instead, we’re focusing on present day touchscreen and the varieties it comes in. We have each technology represented and it’s quite a bunch of highly popular and fairly recent phones being judged by the quality of their screen. From the good old LCD to the ClearBlack AMOLED by Nokia – they are all here, with all their strengths and weaknesses”. 

Hat tip to Jay from My Nokia Blog

When Powermat.com contacted me recently asking if I would review one of their wireless charging products, I responded right away, as I was not only interested in the wireless charging technologies used by PowerMat, but for anyone who has been following me over the years, and my reviews will by now know I love my gadgets.

When it comes to mobile device chargers, and alike, I have reviewed several different types from many brands, and love putting them to the test in the real world, and sharing my experiences with my readers so you can then decide for yourselves if a certain product is for you, as expected, I always speak my mind, and will not write a glowing review for a product that does not meet its makers specifications, performance, or sales pitches.

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Massive thanks to Mobilefun.co.uk for sending me this Nokia Accessory for review, Im sorry its taken so long to publish, but better late that never. You can checkout Mobilefun.couk range of mobile device in-car holders here.

If you have more than one Nokia mobile device, and like to switch between devices during traveling then the Nokia CR-115 In-Car Mobile device holder is for you. Just like device specific in-car holders from Nokia, the CR-115 Universal holder comes with the usual suction mount (HH-20), which you can leave in place on your windscreen, and interchange Nokia phone holders easily by simply twisting to remove, and twisting to replace.

I have the N97 Specific Nokia In-Car holder, which is specifically designed just for that one handset, but my N97 also fits snuggly into the Universal holder too.

I have tried several Nokia devices in the Nokia CR-115, and most fit very well, however, depending on device, the amount of pressure required to clamp in the device varies.

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Firstly I would like to say thanks to Mobilefun.co.uk for sending me this Nokia CR-116 N97 in-car holder for review. It’s available on their webiste here for just £18.47, (was £39.95) saving you 54% on RRP.

The Nokia CR-116 is an OEM, Genuine Nokia product for the N97, extremely well built, and holds the N97 very securely.  So how good is it really? Well, I have to say, it does exactly as its supposed to, and does it very well.  The CR-116 comes in two pieces, the suction mount with quick lock, and release suction cup, and an “S” type attachment for securing to secondary part, that being, the cradle for the N97 itself. 

Sadly, there is no way you can have the N97′s keyboard open whilst fitted in the CR-116, which is a real shame.  Also, Nokia missed another option which some people would of liked, myself included, that being, a cut-out in the back fascia for the camera.  Not only would this allow you to use your N97 camera whilst in the cradle (Out of the car), but would of also allowed you to film your road trips too.

As mentioned, the CR-116 has a quick release fixture, which is very simple to use, once you have attached the suction cup part to your windscreen, you simply align the fitment faces, and turn the N97 fitted in its cradle clockwise, continuing to turn clockwise too, so to get it into position without removing it, because if you do fit it, then turn it anti-clock-wise, you remove the coupling again, this is easy enough to get used to, but I found myself a little frustrated with it at first, as each time I tried to get the angle just right, I accidently uncoupled the fitting.

The N97 is held very secure in the CR-116, with a sliding locking mechanism on the rear of the Cradle used for fitting and removal of the N97, you need to slide the small plastic lock part in order to insert your N97, and then slide it back, locking your N97 into place, now, I would say this is a little overkill to be honest, but unless of course your going for some serious driving, off-roading in your 4×4, as the fitting is so secure, you could sustain the most bumpy of roads, and the N97 wouldn’t budge an inch. Check after the break for larger photos in the photo gallery.

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It’s been a while since I last told you about Mecanto, and what they offer you in the way of what I would say is an amazing free service.  Mecanto started out as a small group by the name of Hyrax, a service which allowed you to upload your entire music collection to the cloud, and then play it back via your mobile device, or PC/Laptop using one of Hyrax’s free players. 

Soon after the successful launch of Hyrax, it was obvious right at the beginning that the free service they offered was very popular, with them offering what some say sounds too good to be true, allowing you to upload unlimited amounts of your own music to your own free online account, thus removing the need to actually have any music on your device, playing it directly, streaming to your chosen player from the cloud. If you don’t use Mecanto, but would like to give it a test drive, head over to their Official site here.

Once your music is uploaded via their desktop launch pad, you have full control of your music collection, everthing, including tags are still intact, and you can organise your playlists, and even share what you are listening too with the Social plugin, tweeting which songs you are liking etc, similar to Last.fm.

Recently, MeCanto has made it into the top 10 finalists of the Nokia Developer Contest, which is great news for the team, as they have worked very hard behind the scenes, and offered superb customer support in my experience.  If you use Mecanto, show your support for them by heading over to their facebook fan page, and become a fan, this will count as your vote support, and will allow the team to improve MeCanto and provide you with a better product and service.

Yesterday I was browsing through the content available for my N97 in the Ovi Store, and I came across a lovely little application, which name kind of distracts from its purpose.  Its actually a really nice application, a aggregator and publisher for Social Media Networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Flickr.  you can also add any of your favorite RSS feeds, making TMN Pond an all round News source.

TMN Pond is currently only available for S60 5th Edition as far as I’m aware, however, if you manage to get it working on S60 3rd Edition devices, please let me know.

TMN is completely free too, ok, its not as well finished as, say Gravity, but TMN Pond does have potential, thats for sure.  Check it out for yourself by heading to the Ovi Store here.  The twitter feature is quite simple, but does allow you to see your timeline, reply to messages, and ReTweet updates, its quite quick too.

So far the only things I have found wrong with this application is that when you choose to upload a photo to share, and after granting permissions for Pond to access your device media files, the application crashes, and closes down.  Also, when you go to the “About” screen, there is a link where you can leave the developer feedback, and report bugs, however at this time, the email it links to appears to be incorrect, and bounces back your mail, well this has been the case with me anyway.  Just to note, when you are granting permissions when setting your various accounts, the success page is displayed in Portuguese, as the developer is from Portugal.  Hopefully he/she will rectify these small issues with an update in the near future.

Pond is a social media aggregator and publisher that allows you to follow your friends, collect information about them and share your own content in some of the most popular online social content services available. In Pond you decide what content you want to see and your friends don’t even have to use Pond. As long as you can add them as contacts in any of the services Pond supports or they provide a feed (eg., a blog RSS feed), you can add them to Pond and follow their stuff.  Click “Read More” for further screenshots of TMN Pond.

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If you are always having to look around for a good language translation service online, you may be familar with Bablefish from Yahoo, and of course, Google.  Well now, if you have an N900, there is a realy simple solution, which comes in a very easy to use application called gTranslate, a Google translator application. 

This is actually only available currently in Extras devel, which indicates its currently not quite ready for primetime usage, but it should be available for all pretty soon.

Once downloaded, and installed on your N900, simply launch gTranslate, and then configure your input language, then your choice, and output language preference.  In the screenshot below, I chose English, as the input language, and Finnish as my output language.  Then its a simple couple of steps to translate any word, or sentence using the buttons below the main text area.  You can even copy, and paste your output translationed words, and paste them into say, IM, twitter etc.

gTranslate was created by Tuomas Siipola, and will no doubt be improved further in the coming weeks, as at the moment, there are some preferences that have been requested, for example, each time you launch the app, it reverts back to no languages chosen, whereas in an update, it will keep your last chosen presets. Expect gTranslate to show up in your download catalogue pretty soon. 

Jon, and Paul from Tehkseven Blog have been carrying out a series of hardcore stress tests on their beloved N900, from scratching it, dropping it, and even giving it the splash water test, not to mention disassembling it too, but all in the aid of research of course, and also to provide you with valuable information about your N900, and how well it would fare in those unwanted conditions which some of us experience unexpectedly. 

We all drop our phones from time to time, and our heart misses a beat.  Well can you imagine how you would feel when you drop your N900 for the first time, remember, its a true mobile computer, not just a phone.  Keep your eyes peeled on Jon and Paul’s shenanigans over on Tehkseven Blog, as they both share some great, unique content, and all with a polish of humour, and wit, it all makes great entertainment, and of course, fun whilst at the same time, actually learning something.  Well, sometimes.  Click “Read More” to watch these great videos.

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