All About Symbian - General News

Change of pace for Nokia World

Wed, 23 May 2012 12:50:25 GMT

Nokia Converations reports that the format of the next Nokia World will be a departure from previous events. In the past, Nokia has hired a large hall and filled it with representatives and demonstrations for invited industry members and press to wonder around, and attend focused keynotes. For the past two years, it has been held at the ExCeL exhibition centre in the London docklands area. Now though, not only are Nokia taking the event back home to Finland, but it will host a number of smaller events instead, specficially aimed at target groups of invitees.

Of smartphone accelerometers, LCD displays and phone design

Wed, 23 May 2012 07:44:34 GMT

Doing the rounds today on the Interwebs are a series of videos from Bill Hammack, 'The Engineer Guy', looking at how a number of things work - who doesn't love this sort of common man explanation of some really clever science and engineering? Embedded below are three of the most relevant videos, covering smartphone accelerometers, LCD displays and overall design constraints.

Head to head: Nokia 808 PureView and Samsung Galaxy S III

Tue, 22 May 2012 07:07:12 GMT

In my recent 'N8 to 808' feature, I postulated that the natural upgrade from an N8 would be to a 4.3"-screened smartphone at most, but there was a definite opinion that the new Samsung Galaxy S III is still an attractive option for current N8 owners, despite the size. Having spent some time with the SGS3 at the launch event, I wanted to compare specs and features between this and the 'shoe-in N8 upgrade', the 808. Personally, I fancy owning both...(!)

Event and meet-up: 361 Degrees Live in London on 11th June

Mon, 21 May 2012 16:49:50 GMT

The 361 Degrees team are delighted to announce our first ever public event. Here's your chance to come and meet the team, and readers from All About Windows Phone, All About Symbian, Mobile Industry Review and Wireless Worker.

361 Degrees Podcast - "Ewan wants a better phone than you"

Mon, 21 May 2012 12:52:35 GMT

In the third episode of season three of the 361 Degrees podcast, Rafe, Ben and Ewan M talk about smartphone fashion, specifically ways for you to distinguish yourself amongst your peers as someone different, someone knowledgeable, someone with style. It's a great podcast and is embedded below, along with some of my own thoughts - is it possible to stand out by going retro rather than high end?

Spoilt for choice... since 2007

Mon, 21 May 2012 06:00:00 GMT

The 'my phone (or smartphone platform) is better than yours' debates across the tech world rage on, somewhat amusingly. Yes, I know that megabucks are involved, that sales of successful products now reach into the many tens of millions, that each launch is bigger and better funded than the last. But I also can't help notice that we've only been seeing gradual improvements for the last five years and that, in truth, I could happily use almost any top-end device from that entire period to accomplish all the things I need a smartphone to do.

Review: Belkin In Car Tunecast 6 Universal FM Transmitter

Fri, 18 May 2012 07:46:00 GMT

Something a little different for a Friday. Frustrated that a lot of the Symbian and Windows phones I wanted to try day to day didn't have a built-in FM transmitter (I'll explain why that's important to me below), I opted to grab the Belkin In Car Tunecast 6 Universal FM Transmitter and try it out and about in the UK. Summary: it works brilliantly, far better (surprisingly) than the few phones which did have the functionality built-in.

Fight: N8 vs HTC One S/X cameras

Fri, 18 May 2012 06:23:10 GMT

Ah. So there is someone else out there in the blogosphere who takes smartphone camera testing as seriously as me. Well, almost as seriously...(!) In this case, 'Deaconclgi' over at 'My Nokia Blog', who takes his beloved Nokia N8 and HTC One S and puts them through a set of demanding shots in varying light conditions, exploring the detail and coloration in their photos.

Let's play.... hunt the higher capacity batteries

Thu, 17 May 2012 07:32:07 GMT

You may remember that I reported late last year on the newer, higher capacity versions of some of Nokia's most popular batteries? One such came with the 1300mAh version of the BL-5K that came with the Nokia 701, but this battery type also fits the Nokia N85, N86 and C7. And ever since, I've been watching for the point at which the new batteries starting being sold on their own. After all, what's not to like about getting a new, refreshed battery that's also higher capacity than the original, when your phone was new?

AAS Insight #213: beautiful phones and what next for N8 owners

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:57:21 GMT

In All About Symbian Insight number 213, we start with the news of a fix for Nokia Maps Suite 2.0 installation and details of latest beta of Nokia Transport. Rafe and Steve discuss mobile web versus client apps, prompted by recent updates to Twitter and YouTube's mobile website; and David talk about his experience with the DC-16 charger. In the second half of the podcast, we revisit Steve's feature on the top 10 most beautiful Symbian smartphones, before moving on to talk about the upgrade options for Nokia N8 owners.

Don't forget Vlingo - now updated

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:54:22 GMT

In all the fuss over Apple's (effectively bought in) Siri and Samsung's (effectively bought in) S-voice, Symbian owners eager for a little voice recognition action shouldn't forget about Vlingo, free for our OS and recently updated to v2.4.50, bringing better recognition, new settings and under the hood improvements. Some screenshots and examples below, just to refresh your memory!

Concluding the N86 experiment

Wed, 16 May 2012 08:10:09 GMT

I'm not the only crazy N86 fan, it seems - the much respected Alvin Wong has been running a two week experiment using this three year old T9-based phone (the last great N95-style dual-slide smartphone) as his only device. No touchscreens, no qwerty keypads (physical or otherwise), no 2012 cloud computing (out of the box, at least). He took the experiment very seriously and has produced a number of extensive reports, some of which are quoted and linked below.

361 Degrees Podcast - All things cloudy

Tue, 15 May 2012 17:38:25 GMT

In the second episode of season three of the 361 Degrees podcast we examine the consumer cloud, talking about what services we use, why we use them, and our main priorities and concerns.

YouTube Mobile in May 2012 - who needs a client?

Tue, 15 May 2012 11:18:00 GMT

You all know I'm a fan of the Web doing the job of an application - remember 'There's a bookmark for that', from 2010? Over the last couple of years I've dipped into YouTube's mobile-optimised web site, m.youtube.com, watching it get better and better. Recent changes have improved it to the point where it's debatable whether you need to even think about sourcing a dedicated YouTube client. Read on for proof...

N8 to 808 PureView: Where else would we go?

Mon, 14 May 2012 17:35:00 GMT

With the world of Symbian seemingly shrinking around us, in terms of 'sales marketshare' at least, because of lack of presence in shops around the world, and with mainstream application development only including Symbian rarely, the question of 'where, if anywhere, should I go, after my N8?' is certainly a valid one. What are the pros and cons of other platforms and other devices? Apple iPhone 4S? Nokia N9? HTC One S? Or perhaps the 808 PureView is the one to go for and the rest of the world be damned?

Review: Nokia DC-16 charger

Fri, 11 May 2012 07:08:00 GMT

As more smartphones are designed with non-replaceable batteries, the potential of getting through a day of heavy use by carrying a spare battery is going away. This has in turn created a market in external batteries. For instance, the first phone with a non-replaceable battery was the iPhone, which has an array of battery jackets. However, these are fixed to just one phone design. The alternative is external batteries that connect via cable. It's a less stylish solution, but guarantees that any of your devices can be topped up. That's where Nokia's new DC-16 external battery steps in, and we've been putting it to the test in this review.

iStyle - turning your Symbian smartphone into an iPhone?

Thu, 10 May 2012 11:50:00 GMT

We've seen iPhone wallpapers and themes before, but this one's special in that it has had PiZero's full care and attention lavished on it. And iStyle is free for the next five days, should you want to grab it, it's compatible with all Symbian devices from the last six years and it includes a full set of iOS icons. In fact, the only worry is whether Apple's lawyers will be bursting into action, so best download it now rather than later. Screenshots below.

The Top 10 most beautiful Symbian smartphones ever

Thu, 10 May 2012 09:22:00 GMT

I've done other top lists here, based on functionality and innovation, but never one based on pure cosmetics and elegance. And, with that in mind, we discover in my latest Top 10 a few unsung heroes of the Symbian world. You see, the raw power and functionality usually championed on this site often comes with something of a price in terms of compromises to appearance - the devices on offer here include some which are fairly unusable out in the world but which look a treat...!

Mobile Twitter takes a step forwards

Wed, 09 May 2012 15:18:21 GMT

Never mind the variety of Twitter clients for Symbian, it seems that all you really need is the Web browser on Symbian phones these days. Twitter has announced a new, highly optimised mobile version, mobile.twitter.com, apparently using one third the bandwidth of the previous setup, screenshotted below for your interest. At least this will give new users on less powerful phones access to the popular social network, which was Twitter's aim. Good stuff, even if I personally prefer the AMOLED-friendlier Dabr alternative (also linked below).

Water doom: yet another reason why integral batteries are a terrible idea

Wed, 09 May 2012 09:02:53 GMT

You may remember I recently argued passionately that phone batteries should be easily replaceable, pointing out many advantages and disadvantages of the 'sealed vs replaceable' schools of thought in phone design. One thing I didn't mention was an extra huge advantage of batteries that can be pulled out quickly - avoiding water damage. Whether rain or a pond or a basin of water, that doom is surely only one slip away...