From Chris's piece:

And you won’t struggle to find good images, either. We’ve been consistently amazed by the output from the 808 PureView today, with the phone being capable of some astonishingly good shots both at maximum resolution and at the lower resolutions too. Colors are rich and accurate; noise is incredibly low.

It’s fast, too: lower-res captures are pretty much instantaneous, and you can keep bashing away at 5-megapixel frames one after the other thanks to the dedicated imaging processor Nokia has used. Even 38-megapixel shots are surprisingly quick; there’s a little lag as the frame is saved, but the image itself is captured as soon as you press the button, so there’s none of the “when can I move the phone” uncertainty we’ve seen from laggy rivals.

Here's one of Chris's photos from the 808, just as a taster (click to download the 'pure' original, 870k):

Very impressive results in Chris's hands. I'm sure Rafe's shots will be just as good, watch this space.

You'll now be wondering about hands-on with production/retail 808 PureViews. Days, not weeks, I'm told. Personally, I can't wait!

You'll get the concept at once, of course, who hasn't had fun in their childhood cutting out faces and sticking them in other photorealistic scenarios? This was all before Photoshop and the professionals moved in, of course! Or, visiting at the seaside, putting your face into one of those 'cheeky' silhouettes for someone else to snap you as a sailor or king or similar?

What we have here is a software system, running 'in the cloud' doing face detection on any photos you care to send it and inserting said face into whichever of the 280 or so predefined situations you choose.

All of which promises to be fun, though as you might expect the results are somewhat hit and miss in terms of realism, plus you might want to note from the ninth screenshot below that the output resolution is extremely low (near to VGA, so - yes - what we were snapping in 2003). If the fun composite is for Facebook then no problem - the social service massively downsamples uploaded photos anyway to about VGA, but don't get any pretensions about using anything here in printed form or on any size monitor as a wallpaper, for example.

The options on offers are categorised into about 20 top level categories, as shown below. 'Posters', 'Magazines', and so on. Tapping through into a (handily enumerated) category brings up a scrollable pane of all the individual composite effects available:

It's worth noting at this point that even these categories and composites are all stored on PhotoFunia's servers and served up when needed, i.e. this is very much a 'web application'. In practice, there's little penalty in terms of performance.

Once you've chosen a composite effect, in this case 'Family in the museum', tap on 'Choose Photo' and then pick either an existing face from a photo in your phone's Gallery or take a new one with the 'Camera' option provided. You don't have to take too much care with composition. This then gets sent to PhotoFunia's servers where the photo is analysed and the main face picked out in terms of shape/boundary/features. 

Finally, the result is downloaded and displayed in the PhotoFunia app - the whole process takes about ten seconds on average:

All of which sounds pretty terrific, I was pleased with the result above. Unfortunately, there's a huge fly in the ointment. Probably to minimise data transmission times, possibly to reduce the processing time on the server, the resolution of the processed image is very low, as you can see above, right. Roughly VGA resolution and only useable for social networks and for on-phone display.

Use of PhotoFunia ie best used over wi-fi - 3G isn't recommended, as many network operators downgrade images passing over their network, so your final masterpiece may be very grainy, as explained by one of PhotoFunia's helpful 'Help' screens:

Let's try another PhotoFunia composite, 'Pilot':

Not a bad attempt at underlaying my face beneath the classic photo with aperture where the face should be, but the result looks a little unnatural. What about 'Superman', I always fancied myself as a 'man of steel'!

Things have, as you can see, apparently gone wierdly and horribly wrong! However, it turns out that some of the composite effects have 'randomising' applied to them - in this case, you get one particular superhero, but you can never be sure which one! Still, adds to the fun, I guess?

Let's try one final example, 'Alien':

Oddly, I didn't get the green skin promised.... Probably just as well, my mind's still reeling from my pink superhero suit, above!

Once you've got a composite sent down the line, you can save to your phone's image store or immediately send on using email or MMS - sadly there's no built-in support for social networks, which would have been a great fit with PhotoFunia's purpose and ambitions. Something for an update?

At least all of this merriment (or abomination, depending on your point of view) is free, thanks to the in-app ads displayed in the screens above. Which is just as well, as I'd find it hard to recommend PhotoFunia as a commercial application. 

What's odd is that I thought I'd hate PhotoFunia, yet the 'let's try one more example' factor kept me coming back - I did a dozen or so in the end.

It's worth grabbing PhotoFunia for a play (and a laugh) down the pub with your friends, if nothing else. Which, curiously, is exactly the sort of use that PhotoFunia were aiming the service at, so everyone's happy in the end.

Nokialino reports here on the official Italian product launch of the 808 PureView, but have some quotes from Fiorin from Q&A at the event.

Obviously these have been heard, transcribed in Italian and then tranlated to English, so there's bound to be a little mangling of his exact words. Here's Nokialino's version:

FP1 for N8 will be available soon, and will include, in particular, the updating of the browser to the new version 8.2 and Nokia Social.

The update will still be small compared to the official FP1, already available for the S^3 terminals that support it, adapted to the processor on the N8 (already exploited almost to the limit with the latest updates).

Probably there will be a minimal overclock the processor (as far as possible for ARM11 mounted on N8).

According Fiorin always, then, N8 will also FP2 (as Carla was  shelved ).

The N8's browser under Belle is currently at v7.4.2.6, so v8.2 sounds like a big upgrade in terms of rendering, though balance that against the N8's relatively slow processor. A new version of Nokia Social sounds good too, though unless it has been completely rewritten in Qt then I still fear for page load times.

The idea of a 'minimal overclock' sounds great, but I do wonder how practical that it in terms of the existing electronics and in terms of stability. I'll believe this bit when I see it!

The fact that the N8 might get elements of Belle FP2 as well sounds promising too, though I'd guess we'd be talking at least another six months for that.

Any comments?

From the press release:

Introducing the new Constellation Candy Collection, the ultimate accessory to complement and enhance the discerning lifestyle of the fashion forward individual. 

Inspired by this summer's must-have colours, each handset exudes personality, from the highest quality exotic alligator skin, to the exquisite natural gem stones. A Vertu handset owner can also enjoy a highly bespoke fashion week experience with invitations to
the most influential shows. 

Each Constellation Candy also comes with a range of services, of course:

• Vertu Concierge
• Vertu Concierge Live
• Vertu Club Access
• Vertu Select
• Vertu City Brief
• Vertu.Me

At some point, we'd love to review one of these, should Vertu deign to bless us with a reply to our humble emails from the Earth below...

From the original tutorial:

One of the longest serving 'stars' in the Symbian software firmament has been Handy Safe Pro, working on every device from 2004 up to the present day. It's an encrypted database, of course, a way of keeping all your PINs, passwords, logins, reference numbers and much more, all safe from prying eyes. One key feature is that every entry can have a note and this can often run to dozens of extra lines. Which makes the tool very flexible, but how to get all of this information over to a new smartphone on another mobile platform? In this case, Windows Phone?

There are two schools of thought at this point. One is to do it the hard way - export all of your information from Handy Safe Pro in as structured a form as possible, but in what is essentially plain text format, and then spend a weekend massaging this (e.g. via XML) and importing it into one of the many cross-platform solutions, eventually syncing data through the cloud to a new Windows Phone device. Great for the soul, not so good for your diary.

Or you can do it the easy way, which takes all of ten minutes....

In the case of Windows Phone, the easy way was to set up this platform for syncing with Handy Safe Desktop. Now, although this does work with some Android phones, specifically those which let their internal mass storage or memory card be mounted via USB as a desktop 'disk', it doesn't work with most of the modern Android phones which have integral storage, iPhone/Windows Phone-style, i.e. all the memory's in one block.

For example, the Galaxy Nexus - which is what I have here. Connections between Android 4 and the desktop world via USB are seen using the MTP protocol - a Windows PC may see this and (maybe) mount it well enough for Handy Safe Desktop, but on a Mac, certainly, Android File Transfer is needed.

So we have the situation where you can install Handy Safe Pro from the Android 'Play Store' but probably can't actually sync it with Handy Safe Desktop.

However, it turns out that copying the appropriate database files over does work - you just have to be confident with your files and folders.

1. On the Symbian phone, go into File manager and find the folder /Other/HandySafePro (or similar, this may vary according to the platform variant)
2. Go into the folder and highlight all three files (starting 'safe.')
3. Copy them to somewhere on a disk where you'll be able to access them from your desktop, e.g. the root of your mass memory (E:)

     

4. Plug in your Symbian phone and copy these three files onto a suitable folder on your desktop
5. Unplug your Symbian phone and plug in your Galaxy Nexus or similar
6. Start up Android File Transfer and find the folder com.epocware.handysafe
7. Copy the three files from earlier into this folder, as shown below. You'll be prompted to replace the existing (probably tiny) files with these new, much larger ones.

   

8. If Handy Safe Pro was already running on the Android phone, quit it by closing it from the Android 4 multitasking pane.
9. Restart Handy Safe Pro so that it picks up the new database.

Job done, though all of this (which take a couple of minutes) is an utterly manual process, of course. And there's currently no way to automatically back up Handy Safe Pro on a Galaxy Nexus or similar, so you might want to practice copying these three files back to the desktop every now and then, should you proceed with the Android solution.

Or, like I've done, you can keep the Symbian phone as the master and just copy over the database once a week so that the Android one is kept more or less up to speed.

Hope this helps someone, anyway - I accept that my personal combination of devices, mobile and desktop platforms may be slightly niche!

From the Store entry for FlightAware:

Free, live flight tracker and flight status from FlightAware for Symbian!

This app allows you to track the real-time flight status and tracking map of any commercial flight worldwide. It can also track general aviation (private, charter, etc) in the United States and Canada.

Search by aircraft registration, route, airline, flight number, city pair, or airport code. 

View flight departure/arrival info as well as cancellations, gate changes, delays, and diversions.

Here's a brief screenshot walkthrough of this Qt-based app in action:

The opening menu, though in the right screenshot, I've tapped on 'Nearby' instead - this shows planes in real time over your location. You can prove that the tracks are live by waiting a few seconds and then tapping on the refresh icon! Tapping on an individual plane shows its flight numbers and altitude.

Looking up a particular flight number and its history...

Tapping through on an individual flight's entry shows the details above left, including the landing time and current planned speed. Tapping on the 'Flight map' shows the plane's track and current position. The track is since you opened the application, as far as I can tell - there's no going online to retrieve a full historical path.

Other views of FlightAware data: looking up flights that service a particular route; and looking up a particular aircraft tail number (possibly one for the plane spotters?)

Here's FlightAware, a free download in the Nokia Store (the tie-up with Breitling is presumably how the developers have managed to keep the application free).

As usual, the table is part reference, part subjective opinion. And where obviously appropriate, I've allocated a row winner, in green.

	Nokia 808 PureView	Samsung Galaxy S III
First sold	May 2012	May 2012
OS	Nokia Belle FP1	Android 4.0.4 plus TouchWiz and other Samsung extensions
Form factor, materials	Solid plastic body, full-face Gorilla glass capacitive touchscreen, 170g	Larger but lighter, essentially two-handed form, plastic body, full face Gorilla glass, 133g
Dimensions	124 x 60 x 14 mm	137 x 71 x 9 mm
Connectivity	Pentaband 3G, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, 'USB on the go' (to USB disks/accessories), NFC	Quad band 3G,  Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, integral wifi tethering without needing third party software, USB on the go, NFC
Input mechanisms	Adequate virtual qwerty landscape keyboard with writing aids, plus qwerty or numeric 'T9' input in portrait mode. Compatible with most Bluetooth and USB keyboards.	Pretty good multi-touch virtual qwerty keyboard in both portrait and landscape modes (where appropriate), with writing aids. Compatible with most Bluetooth keyboards. S-voice (based on Vlingo) allows some voice recognition and control.
Display	4.0" (360 x 640 pixels) AMOLED with ClearBlack Display polarisers, true RGB pixels, readable in bright sunlight	4.8" (720 x 1280 pixels) Super AMOLED, pentile pixel layout (some argue that this effectively halves the 'real' resolution), just about readable in bright sunlight
Interface	(Symbian) Nokia Belle FP1, kinetic scrolling everywhere, multi-touch where needed, six homescreens of live widgets, whole interface works in portrait or landscape mode.	Android 4, customised with TouchWiz additions, kinetic and multi-touch, of course. Seven homescreens of live, often interactive widgets. Most applications work in landscape mode, but homescreen and app menu is resolutely portrait only. S-Voice interface with customised 'wake up' audio control
Speed	Good, 1.3GHz ARM 11 with 512MB RAM and a graphics processor to help out with effects, transitions and multimedia, plus a dedicated PureView camera GPU.	Generally very good, with a quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos processor, plus GPU. The processing power has been demonstrated by playing back smooth 1080p Flash video in web pages - amazing, in a phone. As with Symbian, there's full, no holds multitasking.
Memory capacity (storage)	Up to 512MB of C: (system) disk, plus 16GB mass memory and flexible microSD expansion, e.g. adding an extra 32GB. Apps can be installed on any disk. Plugging in the phone to any desktop computer allows mass memory and microSD to be mounted and treated like any other disk. Plus generic USB disk support via 'USB on the go', adding up to 128GB extra.	16/32/64GB (depending on variant) of integral storage (MTP-mountable on a desktop), plus microSD expansion, quoted up to 64GB. Plus generic USB disk support via 'USB on the go', adding up to 128GB extra.
Camera (stills)	Superlative 38 megapixel stills, though usually running in 5mp 'PureView' mode, offering zero digital noise and 'perfect' pixels with lossless 3x digital zoom. Huge 1/1.2" sensor and Carl Zeiss optics. Exposed camera glass. Proper shutter button. Genuine Xenon flash and tuned camera hardware make for foolproof evening/social shots.	Good 8 megapixel photos, 1/3.2" sensor. Results will be similar to those from the Galaxy S II with near identical camera hardware - see my SGS2/N8 photo comparisons. A variety of extra camera modes in software. Not having a camera shutter button has to be a negative though...
Camera (video)	1080p video capture is superb and at high bitrate, a variety of focus options, plus intelligent (non-lossy) 3x digital zoom; audio capture in stereo and with pro-quality digital mikes and RichRecording software and electronics, capable of handling a very wide volume range.	Full 1080p capture, with continuous auto-focus good audio capture at normal volumes, in stereo.
GPS and navigation	Good GPS, backed up by Nokia Wi-fi location, with Nokia Maps 3.9 worldwide free sat-nav. Maps can be pre-loaded by continent, country or area.	Good GPS, with Google Maps Navigation and (somewhat robotic) voice guidance. Maps can now be pre-loaded into a cache and then pulled back later, but not, as far as I can see, on a country level.
Audio out	Loud, high quality mono speaker, 3.5mm jack, A2DP, FM transmitter to car radio, plus Dolby Digital Surround Sound (through HDMI port)	Adequate mono speaker, 3.5mm jack, A2DP.
Multimedia playback	Video playback is terrific, with a wide range of codecs supported. YouTube playback in high quality requires a third party download (e.g. CuteTube), 360p via the mobile YouTube web site.	Video playback is excellent on the big HD screen. Excellent HQ YouTube support means that quality streamed video is never far away, too, on that 720p screen, bandwidth permitting.
Web browsing	Symbian Web (webkit-based), functional without ever really impressing, though it's faster on the 808 than on any previous Symbian handset.	Stunning rendering speed on a stunning display. The Android browser on the SGS III is fairly unbeatable in mobile, with text reflow, etc. At 720p resolution, many sites also don't even need zooming or panning if your eyes are good enough.
Email	All purpose Mail client provides 'push' facilities for Mail for Exchange, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo! mail and many others - works well on the whole but some limitations and performance annoyances when 'rich' emails come in.	The odd pairing of Gmail and a generic email client persists, as is usual for Android, but it should all work well and at very good speed here, bandwidth permitting.
Other application highlights out of the box	Microsoft Office Mobile editing suite/cloud integration, Dictionary, Zip manager, Photo editor, Video editor, Nokia Social Networking (Twitter and Facebook)	Full Polaris Office editing suite, plus Dropbox, various digital content hubs/stores and the usual Android core applications.
Application store and ecosystem	Nokia Store client, hundreds* of high quality native Symbian applications are compatible. There's an automatic update system but installs are somewhat intrusive where the Qt Smart Installer is involved.	Google Play (the new name for the Android Market...!), and access to many thousands* of high quality native (based on Java) applications. Applications can be automatically or manually updated.
Battery	1400mAh, replaceable when needed, microUSB charging, casual use should last 2 days.	2100 mAh, replaceable when needed, microUSB charging, casual use should last 2 days.
Ongoing firmware support and OS updates	Symbian's long term prospects are of course time-limited now. Support and minor upgrades will continue at some level though, for another three years. Many OS modules and components can be upgraded, over the air, as-and-when using the 'Sw update tool' in the device.	Prospects reasonable, this is Samsung's flagship for 2012, though any core Android updates will take many months to appear, since the OS has to have TouchWiz applied and then tested as such.

* yes, yes, overall numbers in each store are much higher, but I'm estimating the number of genuine high quality applications/games. Not novelties or copycats or junk.

As ever, it's interesting (though not that relevant) to add up the green 'wins': the Samsung Galaxy S III scores 6 to the Nokia 808 PureView's 4. Which sounds about right to me, allowing for the context of today, the smartphone world in 2012. I would emphasise three things though:

• the high number of rows/attributes for which I simply couldn't pick an overall winner, either because doing so is entirely subjective (i.e. depending on personal preference) or because the two devices were simply too evenly matched.
• the 808 and SGS3 are very different form factors. You only have to hold each to realise that. I excluded the SGS3 from my article last week because I felt it was too large a leap in form factor for an existing N8 owner. Look at the dimensions here - the 808's significantly bigger than the N8 and yet the SGS3 rather dwarfs it. 
• the 808 and SGS3 have very different core specialisms. The 808 is utterly focussed(!) on the camera functions, while the SGS3 is more an all-rounder and access to the huge library of Android applications or even some of Samsung's new S-gimmicks is likely to be an attraction.
  

Which one would I pick, given the choice? I'm not going to answer that until I've tested full retail versions of each. Watch this space!

Comments welcome as usual.

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 22 May 2012

The point of Tasks Widget is to provide a multitasking view directly on your homescreen without having to call up the Task Switcher (via a long press of the menu key). As mentioned, this mimics the multitasking view built into MeeGo Harmattan. Not only can you view what's running, but each preview has an icon for you to close the application.

Once you install Tasks Widget, there's no application icon, and no settings; instead, you find it via the widgets list. Once added, you'll find two portrait blocks, which are grey at first, but will be populated with images of the first two applications that you subsequently run. This limitation of half a screen per widget is a departure from MeeGo Harmattan's Swipe U's full screen multi-tasking view.

To create the full-screen view, a second widget can be added, but no more than two. The widgets don't have to be on the same homescreen, but it makes sense to have them together. Once placed, they work in concert showing previews of the first four applications launched after their activation. The previews aren't live, in the sense that you can't see things happening in real time – rather they are screenshots of the app taken just as you switched away from the app. Because of a slight difference in the aspect ratio of the preview boxes and the Symbian nHD screen, previews look slightly distorted.

Tasks Widget - before and after loading apps

Tasks Widget took me by surprise with the order in which application previews were shown, when more than four were running. I expected the order in which I'd last used my applications to determine their place in the preview windows, but this isn't the case. Instead, applications are shown in the order in which they were started. This is where some sort of user interface with options would have been useful – this behaviour should (ideally) not be hardwired.

The other benefit of MeeGo Harmattan's multitasking view is that you could pinch to zoom, to change the size and amount of applications on view. Because Tasks Widget obviously has a fixed layout, this is not possible. Also, once you tap through into an application, the Nokia Belle back button won't take you back to the homescreen; it will take you back to the previous page of that application. This makes sense, but can break your mental map. Also, when there aren't enough running applications to display, there is just a grey box on show. This feels rather inelegant, I'd have preferred it to launch the app menu, and maybe even be semi-transparent or to have a preview of your app menu.

Thanks to being split into two widgets, Tasks Widgets works well in landscape orientation too

Despite the minor mismatches of Symbian and Swipe UI, there is a definite use-case for having Tasks Widget on Symbian. Five homescreens are probably more than enough for anyone, and so giving one over to a multitasking view that can be swiped to rather than waiting for a long press on the menu key, for a carousel of application previews that have to be swiped through too.

You can get Tasks Widget from the Nokia Store for £1.00

If you're interested in making your Symbian device even more like the Nokia N9, then you should read our review of GoToMenu, which adds MeeGo Harmattan's touch gestures to enable you to close and launch applications, and call the task switcher. Let us know in the comments if you've tried both of these MeeGo-mimicking applications in concert.

Recommended.

David Gilson, 19^th May 2012

When: 11th June from 6pm

Where: LBi HQ, Truman Brewery, Brick Lane, London E1

What: Part meet-up, part podcast recording…  Starting with “Mobile Question Time” a panel of mobile experts will debate topical (mobile) questions from the audience, all followed by drinks and socialising.

More info:Full details of the panellists and registration at Eventbrite

This event is generously supported by LBi and Nokia.

Watch out for the close-ups of the PureView technology (sensors and camera modules), the testing rigs, the mutant Nokia 700 (also known as the first PureView prototype) and a collection of Nokia's finest imaging devices.

And if you're looking for more PureView material Nokia has published a number of new sample photo's on its Flickr page.

From the Beta Labs product page:

May 18, 2012: New version (0.93.6) of the Symbian client released!

New features:

• ability to sign-in with Facebook credentials
• now easier to add people to your groups with auto-complete names/matches and other improvements
• edit your user profile, name and photo
• better integration with Nokia Maps, and tappable location stamps

Nokia Pulse, in case you're not familiar with it, is "a simple, instant and private way to send rich location messages to your friends and family with just one tap".

From the product page:

Say goodbye to dull SMS messages and hello to Nokia Pulse.  Now your conversations around pick-ups, drop-offs, and meet-ups come to life, because every message (even a photo message) is automatically tagged with your current location:

• Create private groups by adding people directly from your phonebook. No need to be part of a network. All you need is an email address to participate, and on some clients we’ll even auto-fill the email address as you’re typing it.
• Your location is automatically added to every update. Send a place you want to propose for your next gathering, or send a photo of where you are, or simply say “I’m here!” and we’ll add in the rest.
• Deep integration with Nokia Maps. See rich details (ratings, reviews, photos, info) of the place where your friends are, view the place on a map, see a route to get there, or even call to make a reservation!
• Cloud-based conversations. All your conversations are saved and accessible for as long as you need them
• On the device clients you can receive push notifications for every update. On Windows Phone you can pin the app to Start to see your group updates with just a glance at the Live Tile.

Think of Pulse as the intersection of 4square, Whatsapp and, of course, Nokia Maps. It's a brave initiative given the giant brand names in 'social', but remember that this is actively being updated on both Symbian and Windows Phone and that this latest update does bring tangible improvements.

You can download Nokia Pulse here.

Comments welcome. Do you use Nokia Pulse? Do you know anyone else who uses it?

From the review:

Just because Quickoffice comes pre-installed on Symbian doesn’t automatically make it the best mobile office software. That’s the position taken by the Scottish software house, Picsel, with its Smart Office suite. It’s a favourite among many users for its impressive PDF rendering ability, but how does the rest of the suite stack up against Quickoffice’s free and paid for offerings? Find out in our review as we put not just one, but two versions of Smart Office to the test – version 1.8 for Symbian Anna, and version 2.0 for Nokia Belle!

From the Beta Labs blog post:

Changes in this version 3.28.025 include:

• improved client stability when the client gets into the situation of connection loss
• supports sign-in using Facebook account
• improved reliability when downloading large DRM protected files
• changed the UI of the “contact us” page
• other error fixes

In addition, this release appears to be fully compatible with the VGA-screened Nokia E6. Here's the new v3.28.025 in action:

Note that Facebook login is also now integrated into the Beta Labs web site as well - many will welcome this extra authentication method, though I expect most AAS readers to have a Nokia account by now!

I didn't notice any more changes, once logged in, but 'more reliable' is always welcome in my book....

It's true that I have a lot of smartphones passing through my office, from 2000 (the Ericsson R380) to the latest Nokia 808 PureView (May 2012). In all shapes and sizes. And running around six different software platforms. So I'm well placed to comment on which device does what and to draw comparisons and summaries. And it occurs to me that, completely regardless of manufacturer or OS, almost any device after a particular point in mobile history could be used day to day as my main smartphone. It's true that the experience might not be as smooth or seamless as on some of today's phones, but the functionality was all there.... five years ago.

Pre-2007

Yes, 2007 was the cut off point. Until 2007, we'd had large screen PDAs with tacked on telephony (why the heck didn't the O2 XDA [shown left] - made by HTC back in 2002 and powered by Windows Mobile, the predecessor to Windows Phone - take over the world and become the first mass market smartphone?), we'd had also-large-screened clamshell communicators (e.g. Nokia 9210 and 9500), we'd had the front-qwerty Palm Treos, a smattering of Symbian UIQ touchscreen phones and a rising swell of d-pad driven small-screened 'Series 60' Nokia phones that kept adding more and more functions, coming in very much from the classic 'cell phone' direction.

But whatever the redeeming features of any of these (and, trust me, I owned all of them back in the day), none could do everything. By which I mean all the standard, expected functions and features that we take for granted these days:

• Wi-fi
• GPS plus mapping software
• Camera good enough to replace a standalone for most purposes
• Camcorder good enough for its output to be viewed on a domestic TV
• High quality stereo music output
• Sensors, including accelerometers
• Access to up to 32GB of storage

The watershed year

Up until 2007, it simply wasn't possible, seemingly, to get all these staples into the one device. There would be one model with a good camera, but not Wi-fi and no GPS. Another phone would have Wi-fi and a rubbish camera. Another would be good at music. And so on.

But everything changed with the arrival of the Nokia N95*, into which Nokia put the kitchen sink - every tech feature it could possibly cram in was included. The result was a headache for the company at first, since there were inevitable teething troubles, but the concept was good and, after a few firmware updates, the N95 sold in the tens of millions, as did its bigger and more powerful successor, the N95 8GB.

* Yes, I know the N95 was -announced- in 2006, but it didn't appear in the shops until 2007...

I can, in truth, pull out my N95 today, sync on all my PIM data and that from various applications, and use it in exactly the same way I use any other 2012 smartphone. Look past the now small 2.6" QVGA screen and restricting RAM, this relatively small device was the first phone of the modern age and can be used today (in knowledgeable hands) without any massive restrictions. You may remember we recently reported on Alvin Wong's attempt to use the N86 as his main smartphone? In his case the experiment was cut short because he basically broke the phone, but he'd be the first to admit that he was still fully functional on the older device.

Yes, 2007 was definitely the year. For another reason, too.

You see, while the N95 could (and still can) do just about everything required of a smartphone in 2012, five years on, the experience for the user, in terms of:

• the amount of information presented at once
• the speed of the interface
• the number of button clicks needed to do things
• the size of the learning curve needed

...was somewhat lacking. And this is where the Apple iPhone stepped in, famously, in the same year. The idea was to present an interface that anyone could use, with no menus to learn, few settings to tweak and which required less intelligence in the user by putting more intelligence in the software.

And, of course, was a great success, with its successors outselling the N95 and its followup devices by a long way. It's true that the first iPhone was little more than a feature phone in terms of functions, with no GPS and a terrible camera, but Apple kept iterating on the idea and adding in all the stuff the N95 had, to the point where, from the iPhone 4 onwards, it ticked all the boxes from my first list above as well.

In the meantime, Nokia and Symbian had (with a number of misteps, it's true) been working on adding improvements from my second list to add to the core convergence in their earlier devices. And following both Nokia's and Apple's lead, every other manufacturer and smartphone OS designer has been trying to build everything from both lists into every top end device.

No further revolution?

The upshot of all of which is that we're completely, utterly spoilt for choice.

Prior to 2007, I would be eagerly anticipating the release of the next big handset - "This is the one that gives me Wi-fi for the first time!" or "Wow, stereo music for the first time, I can retire my Walkman!", and so on. Every device brought something genuinely new to the table and changed the 'game' in a tangible way.

I would argue that, since the appearance of the N95 and iPhone in 2007, there has been little that's actually new. We've seen screens go up in terms of resolution and size, processors get faster (and more numerous!), GPUs get more powerful, cellular data speeds increase, RAM and storage memory increase, all substantial but 'evolutionary' rather than 'revolutionary'. 

Even tech additions like USB on the Go, DLNA and NFC don't really count, since adoption of the technology itself isn't totally mainstream yet.

So, spoilt for choice, I have 20 handsets in front of me (lucky journalist/geek/early adopter that I am, though I daresay you have a drawer with a few devices too?) all from 2007 or later and all of them, repeat ALL of them can function as my day to day smartphone with only relatively minor compromises on my part. I find this amazing, given the changes happening between 2000 and 2007.

A few smartphones of varying vintages and OS platforms - spoilt for choice indeed, since their core functions overlap to around 99%! From left to right: Nokia E72, Nokia Lumia 800, Nokia E7, Apple iPhone 3G, HTC 7 Pro, Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Blackberry Bold 9900

No longer do new smartphones bring something ground-breaking, something that completely takes your breath away. Yes, newer devices are generally better, in terms of:

• specs (e.g. HTC One X)
• experience (e.g. the latest Windows Phones, like the Lumia 800)
• intelligence (e.g. the Galaxy S III, with its various sensor-based functions)
• refinement (e.g. the PureView camera in the Nokia 808 PureView)

...but at heart there's little that's actually new in terms of raw functionality.

So the next time you feel yourself starting to get annoyed that your current smartphone isn't quite up with the cutting edge, the next time you get jealous of the next device's extra processor or extra half inch of display size, just take a moment and realise that these are all, at the end of the day, just post-2007 smartphones, and that they all, for the most part, can do exactly the same job for you.

Remember, if this was even ten years ago, you'd still be looking forward to a phone with a basic camera or even wi-fi, to name but two staples of the modern age.

Looking around at the mobile options available to us in 2012, we really are spoilt for choice. 

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian and All About Windows Phone, 21 May 2012

Right off the bat, there are filters for:

• Thermal
• Mirror (think reflection in a lake)
• Night vision (i.e. black and green)
• X-ray (think negative)
• Pink
• Black and white (actually monochrome)
• Sketch (think line drawing)
• Blue
• Lomo (a vintage look from the days of the earliest cameras)
• Brown

Each is shown in real time on-screen (i.e. at nHD resolution) and taking a shot is done with the on-screen button - there's no support for the camera phone shutter key:

By default, the output resolution of this (fun) app is 3 megapixels, but you can up this in the Settings (see screenshot later) to something higher at the risk of a longer processing time when you want to save what you've snapped. CamEfx's warning (below) is for full 12mp images - it's only a handful of seconds for 3mp ones, don't worry.

Once saved, you can share directly from CamEfx, though you do of course have to go through each service's web site to authorise the app the first time you do this. One oddity is that CamEfx didn't use my standard 'Internet' settings and wanted me to make a specific access point selection before it would go online.

Also available in Settings is the strangely named 'Focal length with volume buttons' - what the developer means is 'Zoom with volume buttons' - it's nothing to do with focal length as far as I can see (CamEfx does focus before taking each shot, by the way). Probably an English translation thing and not surprising from someone who mispelt 'Gallery' in the screenshot above....

I'm sure you can have lots of fun with CamEfx once you've worked out how it works and have set it up, etc. But, as with Instagram and all others of its ilk, it's not for me....!

CamEfx is free in the Store here (presumably with ads) - I was trying the commercial version, here.

The previous 'release' version pushed to devices was v3.22.54, which is what you'll probably see if you haven't been experimenting with the Store betas through Nokia Beta Labs. To see if the update is available in your region yet, just go into the Nokia Store client and, if available, you'll see these screens (courtesy SymbianTweet):

Or, of course, because this is the same version as from Beta Labs, just grab the 'QML Store' from there instead, if you're impatient!

Home screen, offering the facility to replace your existing SUBCARD, etc.; finding my nearest SUBWAY - note that I'm a long way out of London - oops!; starting to place an order

Refining the order, options for bread type, extras, salads and much, much more - you've been to a SUBWAY, right?

Adding a drink and some cookies; checking out; nice to have some comprehensive FAQs and other documentation all within the application

Rather curiously, there's no way to exit the application. It probably doesn't matter, since Symbian OS now works so well with Qt - I doubt the application uses up significant resources when idling in the background. But an 'exit' button would still have been nice, developers please note.

In the meantime, go grab SUBWAY Express from the Nokia Store.

(Although the HTC One S was used here, the camera in it is identical to that in the One X, so the comparison applies to both.)

From Deaconclgi's intro and conclusion:

As some of you may know, the HTC One S (and X) has the best camera that HTC has ever made. It has great specifications coupled with a great camera software suite and lightning fast shooting performance. I recently added the One S to my stable of smartphones and decided to put it to the test. Now, I don’t have any fancy lighting or other equipment, or even PC software to crop the photos so this is about as raw and unbiased, unprocessed method as you can get.

Basically, I found subjects to capture in varying lighting, distance and object conditions, loaded them to my laptop, and fired up Windows Live Photo Gallery to simply view the photos. I then used Windows 7′s built in split window organization feature and the built in Snipping Tool to take a screenshot of the equally zoomed photos.

...

The Nokia N8 continues to impress with its 12MP detail yet I find issue with the amount of digital noise/pixel noise that it shows in low-light. What surprised me most is that the N8 viewfinder becomes a grainy mess in low light. Thankfully the photos come out better than what is show in the real time viewfinder. The color accuracy is still a crowning achievement with the N8 as well.

The One S does a FANTASTIC job, especially considering HTC has had some of the worst cameras in the past. In ideal lighting conditions, it is a top notch performer. The camera captures plenty of detail, and provides eye pleasing results, even if a little saturated. Turn off the lights or find yourself outside at night and things get soft and purple like Barney. Even with the soft and cuddly purple, I am surprised at the overall photon capturing ability of the BSI (Back Side Illuminated) sensor on the One S. It appears to do an admirable job. I really hope that HTC can fix the sharpness and purple tinge in a future software update as those are the big negatives to an otherwise solid camera effort from HTC.

Sounds about right. I've reviewed both the HTC One X and One S for The Phones Show and concluded each time that their cameras were undoubtedly the best that HTC has produced, but still some way short of the results from the Apple iPhone 4S and a long way short of those from the Nokia N8. HTC seem to have gone all out to apply colour and edge enhancement, leading to wierd purple coloration when the light's low and unpleasant artefacts when you look closely at an image.

In contrast, the N8's policy of 'no enhancement whatsoever' produces photos which look less saturated but are usually a lot closer to real life colours, with digital noise left as-is, from the sensor, i.e. no noise reduction gets applied. What you see in the photo is what the N8 camera sensor saw and not the result of a few rounds of 'software knows best' filtering....

Nice comparison, Deaconclgi, I'll race you to the big, big Nokia 808 PureView / N8 face-off. See you on the other side!

From the review of Coloring Fun:

In short, the idea is to keep things really simple, really colourful and yet allow the creation of little pieces of art that can be proudly shown to the parent sitting nearby (or driving, perhaps - this app could be a good way of keeping a son or daughter quiet on a long car journey).

If the graphics below seem over-simplistic to you then think again - they're deliberately pitched at four and five year olds and might even be a nice diversion for six and seven year olds, too.

And now we have Coloring Book in the Nokia Store too, pitched at £1.50 and more designed around scribbling than filling in areas of colour. 

Large, finger-friendly controls - actual painting is a lot more fiddly - not that a toddler will care!

The 'flower' icon cycles between pictures to try out - sadly your previous attempt at each isn't saved - this is strictly in 'colouring novelty' territory....

The 'x' close control doesn't seem to work at all. There's obviously some 'kid-safe' trick to using it, to stop your three year old closing the application by mistake and then deleting your contacts, but I couldn't stumble on it. I had to end the application using the standard Symbian multitasking carousel!

I'd rate Coloring Book slightly below the previously reviewed Coloring Fun, if only because there's no 'fill' tool, making finished pictures look messier, even in a three year old's eyes. Still, worth loading up if you have kids of the right age.

You can check for updates in Nokia Maps by either:

• In Nokia Maps, using the 'Maps loader' function on the menu
• In the dedicated 'Maps loader' utility provided with some Nokia Maps installations
• In Nokia Suite in Windows, with your Symbian smartphone connected via Bluetooth or USB

The new maps are dated 30th April and have the version number 2.46.103, as shown below:

Note that, as shown above centre, the existing maps will get deleted ('cleaned up') first. A typical 300MB maps update will take around ten minutes to download and install over wi-fi.

According to Nokialino, the maps update also now enabled traffic updates to more cities around the world. Comments welcome if you notice improvements in functionality in your area.

Updating the underlying maps in any sat-nav product is easy to forget, but is well worth checking periodically - if nothing else, you'll reduce the chances of driving up a road which has been altered and getting thoroughly confused!