last100 » N85

Nokia’s DLNA goodness – N85 to PS3 streaming

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:35:40 +0000

A much overlooked feature of Nokia’s Nseries smartphones is their ability to share media with other DLNA-certified devices. In fact, DLNA certification in general is marketed very poorly considering that it goes someway to reaching the holy grail of home media whereby various devices – computers, cellphones, games consoles, hard drives, media streamers and other hardware – can all play nicely together to share and stream media around the home. That’s the aim anyway, although in practice not only is DLNA’s messaging underwhelming, but issues such as copyprotection and varying support for different file formats have held back the technology, which, as I’ve previously noted, offers so much promise. Anyway, back to Nokia.

This afternoon I decided to put the N85’s DLNA support to the test by attempting to stream music, photos and videos stored on the phone to a PlayStation 3. And, perhaps surprisingly, it was all pretty straight forward.

I simply fired up Nokia’s ‘Home media’ application (located in the tools > connectivity folder) and toggled the phone to “visible” so that any DLNA certified device on the same local area network could now connect to the N85 (over WiFi), including my PlayStation 3. After which a Nokia icon popped up in the PS3’s XrossMediaBar Interface. I then needed to tell the N85 which files to make ‘public’; in this instance that would include all music, photos and videos stored on the phone.

After going through these two steps, I was able to browse to the music, photos and video folders respectively on the PlayStation 3 via the Nokia icon labeled N85 (see above screen shot) and stream any of the phone’s media onto my widescreen TV, with one caveat. Although both photos and videos that I’d shot on the N85 played back fine (the PS3 has good support for MPEG4 video, for example), as did MP3 and AAC audio, copyprotected content – a BBC TV show that I’d downloaded via the N85’s iPlayer application- refused to stream.

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Media sharing on the Nokia N85: FM transmitter

Steve O'Hear — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:40:40 +0000

With today’s news that the next generation iPhone could feature an FM transmitter so that music stored on Apple’s handset can be played on a car stereo (or any device with an FM tuner in close proximity) without the need to carry around extra cables or a separate iPod add-on, I was reminded that Nokia’s N85 and a few of the company’s other existing handsets already offer this feature. Since I currently have an N85 on loan, here’s a quick walk-through of how the FM transmitter works on the device…

First up, open the phone’s music player or gallery application and begin playing an album/track/playlist or podcast (this can obviously be changed later).

Next, launch the ‘FM transmit’ application – either within the music player itself or by navigating to the N85’s music folder – and then toggle the FM transmitter to on.

Finally, tune the car’s radio to the same FM frequency displayed on the phone or, if there’s notable interference, change the frequency in which the phone transmits on and then re-tune the car stereo. You’ll need to have the phone close to the car radio’s receiver (using a hands-free mount on the dashboard is a good solution) as FM transmitters designed for personal use tend to be very short range – the N85’s transmitter proved to be just powerful enough that with a bit of adjustment the music played without interference.

Verdict

After using the Nokia N85 to send music to the car stereo, a built-in FM transmitter seems like an obvious feature for any portable media player, including a mobile phone. Bluetooth A2DP might be fast becoming the standard for wirelessly connecting headphones and speakers, but until the tech becomes universal in car stereos, good old FM can get the job done just fine.

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Hands-on: Five things I like about Nokia’s N85 smartphone

Steve O'Hear — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:50:56 +0000

No sooner do I get my hands on Nokia’s N85 smartphone, and the Finnish handset maker announces its successor – the N86. However, since the two devices share so much in common – the most noticeable ‘upgrade’ being the N86’s 8 megapixel camera and improved optics – I thought I’d share five things that I really like about the Nokia N85.

Form factor

When it comes to the form factor, the N85 is very much a phone. Incorporating a two-way slider and 2.6 inch QVGA non-touch screen, sliding downwards reveals a traditional numeric keyboard, while sliding upwards exposes a set of contextual buttons that act as dedicated media keys when listening to music or watching video, and gaming keys when accessing N-Gage, Nokia’s mobile gaming platform. I’ve found the sliding mechanism to be fluid and a lot more solid feeling than the slightly creaky N96, which features a very similar form factor, albeit with a larger screen.

OLED screen

I’d heard good things about OLED technology, but until you’ve seen an OLED screen up close, it’s hard to appreciate the difference in contrast levels and overall liveliness of the display, of which the N85 is testament. Thankfully, we can expect an increasing number of smartphones released later this year to feature OLED screens, such the upcoming N86 and Samsung’s recently announced Omnia HD.

FM transmitter

While mobile phones with FM tuners are old hat, the N85 is the first smartphone that I’ve laid my hands on to feature an FM transmitter. In hindsight, it seems like such an obvious feature, making it possible to broadcast your phone’s music library to a car stereo without the need for extra gear. Take that iPhone :-)

BBC iPlayer

This one only applies to Brits: the N85 carries the same excellent BBC iPlayer client as the N96 (see my review). It’s great to be able to access the BBC’s TV catchup service ‘on the go’, including the ability to download content for off-line viewing.

Video recording

The N85 has a very decent stills camera for a phone- 5 megapixel with Carls Zeiss optics – but it’s the video recording functionality that I’m enjoing most. Picture quaity is really good, especially for web video (640 x 480 pixels and up to 30fps), with my favorite use case so far being live streaming via Kyte.

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