Weekly wrapup: the full Nokia N97 review (and lots more)

Here’s a summary of the last week’s digital lifestyle action on last100. Note that you can subscribe to the weekly wrapups, either via the special weekly wrapup RSS feed or by email.

Enter your email address: Delivered by FeedBurner

Mobile

More hands-on impressions of the Nokia N97 [full review]

There is of course a world of difference between living with a phone for any meaningful length of time and having a quick play at a press event or trade show. And after 3 days of ‘real world’ use, I’ll offer up the first mea culpa: the keyboard isn’t nearly as good as I’d first reported. Read on for a more in-depth review of the Nokia N97…

My favorite smartphone just got superseded

Today, the Nokia E71 got superseded by a new handset from Nokia, the E72, which thankfully keeps the physical design relatively untouched, improves the keyboard layout, and ups the fairly feeble camera (my main complaint of the E71) to a more respectable 5 megapixels capable of shooting 30 fps VGA video.

Archos’ 9 inch tablet looks promising

I’m not a big fan of tablet style PCs or at least those that come much bigger than Apple’s iPod touch, which is an Internet tablet disguised as a portable media player if there ever was one. However, others feel differently – just witness the excitement over the upcoming CrunchPad. Last week, Archos threw its latest hat in the ring, announcing a yet-to-be-released 9 inch tablet-style “Mini-PC”.

Internet TV

Does the world need another video sharing site? Pure Digital (Flip) thinks so

One of the biggest selling points of the Flip range of camcorders is the software that they come bundled with (installable from the camera itself), which enables basic editing and upload to YouTube and other third-party video sites. So why launch a competing site of their own? Two words: Privacy and convenience.

Pirate Bay offering file sharers their own encrypted private network

Notorious BitTorrent tracker Pirate Bay is launching a new service that will offer file swappers their own encrypted virtual private network that will keep any “ilegal” activities away from the prying eyes of the content industry and their trigger happy legal teams.

Digital Music

UK ISP Virgin Media and UMG announce “carrot and stick” music plans

This week, Virgin talked up the latest phase of its cozy relationship with the major record labels, announcing a new unlimited music plan backed by Universal Music Group, and a firm commitment to “educate” file sharers through a temporary suspension of service.

That’s a wrap. Thanks for reading,

– Steve (follow me on Twitter: sohear)

last100 is edited by Steve O'Hear. Aside from founding last100, Steve is co-founder and CEO of Beepl and a freelance journalist who has written for numerous publications, including TechCrunch, The Guardian, ZDNet, ReadWriteWeb and Macworld, and also wrote and directed the Silicon Valley documentary, In Search of the Valley. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.

Leave a Reply