Posts Tagged ‘Nokia’

Why is Nokia entering the crowded Netbook market? Answer: the mobile carrier subsidy merry-go-round

by Steve O'Hear

August 24th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments1 Comment

nokia-booklet-3gIn a move that might leave many a tech analyst scratching their head, Nokia have announced their own Windows Netbook, albeit a high-end one.

Why the world’s largest mobile phone maker would enter the crowded and low margin market of Netbooks, when it should be focusing on how to restore its lead in the much higher margin ‘smartphone’ category, is a very good question. The answer, however, is simple.

Carrier subsidy.

Here in the UK, we lead the way in the carrier-subsidy merry-go-round where Nokia does very well indeed out of the whole facade.

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Can I survive on half a QWERTY? Nokia E55 in the house

by Steve O'Hear

August 13th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments1 Comment

Nokia E55Regular readers of this blog – and anybody who’ll listen – will know that I’m a big fan of physical QWERTY keyboards on mobile phones. I’m much less fond of virtual ones, such as that found on the iPhone or my Android-powered HTC Magic.

My current day-to-day phone is a Nokia E71, which I’ve found to have the best QWERTY to-date, but my love affair with mobile QWERTYs started way back when I bought my first Palm Treo (see my GDGT profile, if you’re interested in my gadget history).

I was therefore intrigued when Nokia announced the E55 with a keyboard that the company describes as a compact-QWERTY. Similar to BackBerry’s sure-type layout, each key houses two letters. The option of predictive text helps to smooth over this obvious compromise but then on the other hand you get the advantage of a candy bar form factor, and in the E55’s case, a very slender one too.

Over the next few weeks I intend to put the Nokia E55 through its paces and see how well I do on half a QWERTY. Watch this space.

Symbian Foundation crowdsourcing UI design

by Steve O'Hear

July 27th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

uibrainstormThe Symbian Foundation, Nokia’s ambitious open source project designed to give longevity to the Symbian OS, has launched a new blog inviting the ‘community’ to submit their own User Interface mockups.

UI of course is an area where Symbian is perceived to be lagging behind competitors, such as Apple’s iPhone, Android, and the Palm Pre’s Web OS. It’s also something so fundamental to the user experience that it seems odd, even in a small way, to farm this out to the community.

My fear is that, like many an open source project, you could end up with ‘design by committee’.

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Palm Pre to launch on O2 in the UK, just don't mention the competition

by Steve O'Hear

July 7th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

It’s now official: The Palm Pre will launch exclusively on Telefonica-owned O2 here in the UK.

When?

“In time for the holidays”, say Palm and O2, with no word yet on pricing. My guess is that we’re talking early October, enough time to ramp up for Christmas spending.

Either way, it’s a pretty long time to wait, especially since O2 will have been busy pimping its other flagship exclusive. Apple’s newly launched iPhone 3GS.

And then there’s the rest of the competition.

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How I plan to use my HTC Magic Android phone

by Steve O'Hear

June 26th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | Comments6 Comments

Vodafone HTC Magic running on zero SIM on three

Vodafone HTC Magic running on a SIM Zero contract on 3

As my obsession with mobile continues – the new frontier – I’ve made the decision to take out a second mobile phone contract. But with a twist. I don’t plan to make (or receive) a single call on handset number two. Instead, it will be used for data only (Web browsing, third-party Internet-connected apps and email).

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Nokia testing "long form" video service

by Steve O'Hear

June 24th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Net TV | Comments1 Comment

We’ve known for a long time that Nokia wants to be seen as much as a services company as a handset maker, so it shouldn’t be all that surprising to learn that the company is exploring different ways to deliver online video to mobile phones.

According to a report in New Media Age, Nokia is particularly interested in “kick-starting” the consumption of long-form content on mobiles by utilizing a podcast style delivery method whereby users subscribe to various video feeds, presumably enabling content to be downloaded to the device “over-the-air” rather than being “side-loaded”.

While the service is said to be in trial mode only with about 600 users, 100 of which are Nokia employees, content partners already reportedly include BBC Worldwide, ITV, Sky and Paramount.

Intel and Nokia announce "long-term relationship" to develop Intel-based mobile devices

by Steve O'Hear

June 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

This one feels like a bit of a re-announcement but over time could well amount to more. Chip maker Intel and handset maker Nokia held a joint press call today to tell the world about a new “long term relationship” to share R&D and key technologies to develop a new mobile platform or range of devices that “go beyond today’s smartphones, notebooks and netbooks”.

Oh and said devices will be powered by future Intel processors, of course.

Which, as The Register points out, sounds a lot like the Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs) Intel has been to touting for years, and very similar to Nokia’s own – albeit non-Intel based – N810 Internet tablet (see my review).

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Flash 10 coming to smartphones this October? Apple and RIM still missing in action

by Steve O'Hear

June 23rd, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

Flash Player 10 on smartphonesIt seems that Adobe is well on track to deliver a version of Flash 10 for smartphones, with the first beta release due this October. Adobe President and CEO Shantanu Naraye said as much during the company’s latest earnings call, as well as revealing that “multiple partners have already received early versions of this release…”.

Naraye then goes on to name names, citing Android, Nokia’s Symbian, Windows Mobile and Palm’s WebOS as among the first smartphones to “support web browsing with the newsest Flash player.”

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My favorite smartphone just got superseded

by Steve O'Hear

June 15th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile | CommentsNo Comments

Nokia E72

Nokia E72

I get through a fair number of smartphones here at last100 HQ — hey, it’s my job — but there’s one handset that continues to be my primary device. I’m talking about the Nokia E71, which admittedly doesn’t have the fun factor of the iPhone and nearly as many quality third-party apps (I have an iPod touch to compensate) but does have the best QWERTY keyboard on a mobile device that I’ve ever used, in a form factor that is perfect for my own particular needs.

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 15 fps VGA video.

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

by Steve O'Hear

June 9th, 2009 | Posted in Mobile, Review | Comments97 Comments

n97-smallHaving only had around 10 minutes hands-on time with Nokia’s new flagship mobile phone, the N97, at a recent press event in London in which my initial impressions were largely positive, I was really keen to source a loan unit for some quality time with the device. Thanks to Nokia’s PR reps in the UK, I did just that, taking delivery of an N97 on Friday. 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 (see below). Read on for a more in-depth review of the Nokia N97…

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