Nokia unveils the N97

Nokia has unveiled the Nokia N97, claiming it to be the world's most advanced mobile computer. The Nokia N97 combines a large 3.5" touch display with a full QWERTY keyboard, providing an 'always open' window to social networking sites and Internet destinations.

"From the desktop to the laptop and now to your pocket, the Nokia N97 is the most powerful, multi-sensory mobile computer in existence," said Jonas Geust, Vice President, heading Nokia Nseries. "Together with the Ovi services announced today, the Nokia N97 mobile computer adjusts to the world around us, helping stay connected to the people and things that matter most. With the Nokia N97, Nseries leads the charge in helping to transform the Internet into your Internet".

The Nokia N97 introduces the concept of 'social location'. With integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass, the Nokia N97 mobile computer understands where it is. The Nokia N97 makes it easy to update social networks automatically with real-time information, giving approved friends the ability to update their 'status' and share their 'social location' as well as related pictures or videos.

The home screen of the Nokia N97 mobile computer features friends, social networks and news, available by simply touching the home screen. The 16:9 widescreen display can be fully personalized with frequently updated widgets of favorite web services and social networking sites.

The Nokia N97 supports up to 48 GB of storage, including 32 GB of on-board memory, expandable with a 16 GB microSD card for music, media and more. This is complemented by excellent music capabilities, full support for the Nokia Music Store and continuous playback time of up to 1.5 days. The Nokia N97 also has a 5-Megapixel camera with high-quality Carl Zeiss optics, 16:9 and DVD quality video capture, and support for services like Share on Ovi for immediate sharing over HSDPA and WLAN.

The new device N97 is expected to begin shipping in the first half of 2009 at an estimated retail price of EUR 550 before taxes or subsidies.

Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic Reviews

Even though Nokia's 5800 XpressMusic isn't coming out until 2009, the reviews are already starting to trickle in.

Early reviews indicate that call quality is solid, the new touch Symbian OS was mostly stable, and the display was a clear and easy to and interact with. Early reviewers had didn't find anything too negative to say about the phone. The reviewers noted that this is the handset for anyone after a "well-rounded, do-it-all solution."

Reviewers also stated that the Nokia 5800 and the iPhone were really two different types of phones not really worth comparing, and they gave the overall advantage to the Tube (sounds like they did compare then).

...the Nokia 5800's positioning shouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out - it's simply the most feature-rich and affordable touchscreen device with a focus on music. Furthermore, you won't find any other phone that can come close to it in terms of price/quality ratio. Windows Mobile devices are by no means "multimedia-ready", so the only other way to go is the Apple iPhone - however, retailing for twice as much, it's not much of a mobile phone per se. And the Nokia 5800 makes it clear that the real price of the Apple iPhone 3G should revolve around 300-350 USD before subsidies. All in all, I suggest we wait until December and see how Apple will alter their pricing policy in view of Nokia's latest efforts on the touchscreen playground.

Let's hope all this new iPhone competition means we'll all be rockin' cheap iPhone style smartphones with endless apps within the next 2-years.

Read the whole review and check out the beautiful pictures here.

Nokia Brings Out iPhone 3G Competitor

Nokia is finally launching a touch-screen competitor to Apple's iPhone 3G. It looks a lot like the iPhone, but doesn't have multi-touch.

The 5800 has a 3.2-inch resistive touch screen and it's powered by Symbian S60, 5th edition. The user interface will be somewhat familiar to Symbian users, but the company has tweaked the UI for touch control.



"By adding the benefits of touch-screen technology to S60, the world's leading smartphone interface, Nokia is taking the familiar and giving it a human touch," said Nokia VP Jo Harlow, in a statement. "We have used touch technology where it really adds value such as the contacts bar, media bar, and clever shortcuts from the home screen to menu items such as calendar, profiles, and clock."

With a 640 by 360 display, the 5800 can play multiple types of video at a high resolution. Nokia is also emphasizing the handset's audio abilities, and there will be a built-in music player capable of multiple codecs. The handset will come with an 8-GB microSD card for storing this media, and the memory can be expanded up to 16 GB.

Nokia's first touch-screen handset also has a bevy of connectivity options with built-in Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities. These can be used to browse the Internet as well as check e-mail. The 5800 will also have Bluetooth version 2.0, GPS, and a proximity sensor to save battery life and avoid inadvertent touches.

The handset measures in at 4.3 by 2 by 0.6 inches, and it weighs about 3.8 ounces. Nokia said the handset will be available in Europe in the fourth quarter, and it will roll out to other markets in early 2009. The company said a version with its unlimited music download service, Comes With Music, will be available early next year.

Apple releasing iPhone firmware 2.1 on Friday

At today's Let's Rock event, Apple announced a new iPod Nano and and a new iPod Touch, an updated AppleTV, as well as iTunes 8.

But the biggest news to me is the revelation that Firmware 2.1 for iPhone and iPod Touch is going to be out on Friday - hopefully. The current firmware suffers from frequent application crashes and major iPhone 3G reception problems. Firmware 2.0.2 was pushed by AT&T and Apple as a fix to the reception issues, but that iPhone firmware made things worse.

I'll post an update as soon as I have been able to download my 2.1 firmware. I'm hoping that it fixes the reception issues, otherwise that Nokia N96 is looking pretty good right now.

Nokia N96 Review

Looks like the initial hands-on reviews of the Nokia N96 are starting to roll in. As my reception problems with my iPhone 3G continue, this is the phone that I am leaning towards replacing it with.

While the iPhone is probably going win in the long run on the number of available applications, the N96 is very attractive. While the iPhone camera is a paltry 2 megapixels, with no flash and no video, the N96 is 5 megapixel, with flash, with 30fps video recording.

Other features include:

• 32 Gigabyes of total storage - 2X that of the iPhone
• Wide variety of available S60 applications for almost every need
• Ability to sync music with iTunes

For me the biggest draw is the camera. As a professional photographer, I find that I often want to take pictures of everything around me at all times. However, I don't always want to carry another piece of equipment with me. Examples are times when hiking, or at music concerts, or even just walking to lunch in the city.

What did I learn from the review? Well, it appears that the camera's pictures are decent, but still seem a bit muddy. They appear to suffer quite a bit of red/blue noise in the dark areas, and suffer from muddy image/noise patterns that remind me of early Panasonic models.

While it is tempting for me to switch at this point, the biggest sticking points for me are lack of a touchscreen, slow GPS response, and no QWERTY keyboard.

So for now, I guess I'll wait to see if firmware 2.1 for the iPhone fixes the reception problems. If not, I might be phone shopping again. I just can't keep a phone that drops calls 3-5 times per conversation, and that's what is going on with the iPhone.

iPhone 3G not having reception issues, I don't believe it

Engadget is reporting that some enterprising Swedes with science degrees have put the iPhone 3G up against the Nokia N73 and Sony Ericcson P1, and the results are surprising. They say that the reception on the iPhone 3G is "just fine".

To quote the article:

...some industrious Swedes decided to apply a little scientific method to the argument and found something interesting: the iPhone 3G performed just as well (or just as poorly, depending upon your mood) as a Nokia N73 and Sony Ericsson P1 when compared head-to-head in a mobile communications test chamber. The test was conducted by real-life antenna engineers just like those camera-fumbling souls contracted by the FCC.

My take on this is simple. Either they have gotten a good test version that doesn't suffer from the Infineon chip problems, or the 3G network in Sweden has better coverage than ours here in the US.

I can tell you that my iPhone 3G reception problems have only gotten worse since the 2.0.2 firmware. I'm ready to return my iPhone through the window of the closest AT&T store.