Nokia N85 and N79 Announced, N85 is looking great

The brand new Nokia N85 and the brand new Nokia N79 were announced today

They both feature GPS, WiFi, HSDPA, an FM Transmitter and a 5 Megapixel Camera with Autofocus, Carl Zeiss Lens and a Dual LED Flash

They both have their advantages and disadvantages, but I have my eyes on the Nokia N85 to replace my N81 8GB

The N85 is a Dual-Slider, styled in the same way as the N81, at least on it's face. It's sides and back share little with the N81.

I'm into it's looks, but they have made a few iffy decisions and I am concerned for it's practicality. The frontal Music Keys of the N81 have been axed and I'm not particularly happy, also axed is a real charger port, you can only charge via the bundled USB charger!

However, they have put in some very nice features that should make for a welcome upgrade over the N81. The N85 is smaller then the N81, yet has a bigger battery, and a much longer battery life for Music. It has an excellent camera and a built-in FM Transmitter. It also has the new Feature Pack 2 of the Series 60 User Interface, which should add some nice transitions while turning the screen using the new Accelerometer (even if some of the FP2 Transitions were included in the V20.0.056 firmware update for the N81 ;). The stereo speakers are now on one side, so they should have an improved stereo effect, especially when in Landscape mode. To top it all off, it comes with an 8GB microSD card in the box so I don't lose out on any memory from upgrading from an N81 8GB.

The only problem is the phone is priced more then the N81 8GB at launch, it is set for 450 Euros, I will only be able to afford it once it hits roughly 300 Euros.

But this phone looks so good, I'm sure it will be worth the wait :)

Nokia N81 8GB, Firmware V20.0.056 Impressions

Last week I installed the new N81 8GB firmware V20.0.056 onto my phone

It added a few new featueres, the biggest of which was FP2 Transitions throughout the phone, as well as Flash Lite 3.0 and WRW (Web Runtime Widgets)

But it improved on a few features as well. The Navi-Wheel was extensively improved, and is now much easier to use, and on top of that it can now be used in more areas. Nokia also added the ability to Turn Off the Media keys around the Navi-Wheel in the center, but I don't think many people will be doing that, I think it would only help people with gigantic thumbs who press the Media Keys whenever the are using the D-PAD

Overall, it was a great Firmware Update

Well, That Was Unexpected

I saw the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight" yesterday and it was very good.

No no no, that wasn't the unexpected part, the unexpected part was the appearance of the Unannounced Nokia 5800 XpressMedia in it, it looked very slick in the film.

But the film itself was great, the Joker was amazing, and surprisingly it was the Batman who ended up being the worst character in the film. That isn't to say he was bad, it's just that eveyone else was much better.

Nokia N95 8GB Review/Comparison, It's The Little Things That Count...

WOM World were more then kind enough to lend me a Nokia N95 8GB NAM for trial over 3 weeks, and I have come to know it's Pros and Cons for someone in my situation over this time.

The Nokia N95 8GB is an improvement to the revolutionary Nokia N95, mixing S60 powered goodness with advanced features such as a 5 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, TV-OUT as well as many other significant technologies that still look advanced today. Over the N95 it offers a bigger battery (1200mAh VS 950mAh), more RAM (128MB VS 64MB), a bigger screen (2.8" VS 2.6"), improved Media Keys, 8GB of internal memory and a new Black colour.

The N95 8GB is a fairly ordinary looking device, apart from the gigantic 2.8" screen on the front of the device. Showing it to friends at school, they were wowed by the Dual sliding design (and impressed by the Automatic-Screen Rotation feature, which changes the screen to landscape mdoe upon turning the phone around due to it's built-in accelerometer)

Going around the device clockwise you can see the infrared port (nice to see it still hanging on) the 3.5mm jack and the left loudspeaker on the left side. On the top is a power button by it's lonesome. On the right side is the right loudspeaker, the volume keys, the Gallery key and the 2-press Camera key (Half-Press=Focus, Full-Press=Take Picture). On the bottom is the Mini-USB port and the charger slot.

The keys, while slightly squashed under the display, were fairly easy to use. The numeric keypad, once slid out, is excellent, they are big enough and offer great feedback and differentiation between keys. They are also nowhere near the top of the slider which is a problem on other phones for some with larger thumbs. The media keys weren't so impressive though. While it was great that they were there they offered mushy feedback at best, although the new ridges aided differentiation between keys when it was in your pocket.

I must also say the back cover was great, easy to put on or off, but it was held securely in place, unlike my N81 8GB that is a bit difficult to put on or off and creaks a bit once it's on.

The stereo loudspeaker quality was ok, but not as good as the N81 8GB. Depending on the situation it could have been louder or softer, it wasn't definitively behind or ahead of the N81 8GB in loudness levels so it was adequately loud for all scenarios.

The 3.5mm jack on the left edge, while great for N-GAGE gaming, is horrible IMO for listening to music, if you have pants with a phone pocket the headphones will cause it to get stuck in your pocket or to not even make it in the first place. It should have followed the N81 8GB for this aspect.

Speaking of music, the N95 8Gb has the standard N-Series/XpressMusic (5700) music player. It has an 8-band Equaliser (or Equalizer as my American model stated ;)) as compared to the 5-band on my N81 8GB. However, while the N95 8GB is ok for music listening, the N81 8GB is much better then it, music sounds a little clearer, much more bass and more volume. Better headphones could make the N95 8GB shine (I used some el-cheapo sub $20 Sony's) but the N81 8GB would just sound better then it again. The visualis(z)ations worked much better on the N95 8Gb thanks to it's dedicated Graphics Processor, which leads us onto the next topic...

N-GAGE gaming was quite good on this phone. The Graphics processor allowed every game to run very smoothly and the Media Keys also worked as Gaming Buttons (although they aren't as good as the ones on the N81 8GB). I also tried TV-OUT with N-GAGE, but the results were not incredibly impressive because of heavily aliased (jaggies) visuals coming from the phone.

TV-OUT can be used with any part of the phone, but it's usefulness increases with watching videos and looking at pictures because of it's ability to output in full VGA resolution.

Speaking of Pictures and Videos, now would be a perfect time to talk about the amazing camera abilities of the phone. This phone takes stunning 5 megapixel images, netting the phone possibly a 3rd position in the Western World in terms of camera quality (2nd=Nokia N82, 1st=Motorola ZN5) The videos are also top notch with VGA 30fps recording, but why is there a red light for videos? A solution similar to the N81 8GB would be good where the normal LED is displayed just at half the brightness to not wear it out. After you have taken your photo or video you can quickly access it by pressing the Gallery key of the right hand side of the device as mentioned above. I found this very useful over my time with the phone, which was unexpected.

Other great features include built-in WiFi and GPS. The WiFi allowed me to browse the internet around my home for free, the same as any other S60 powered device would. It is always handy for me to have WiFi and many other households could also find this feature very handy.

GPS locked onto me while indoors with no AGPS in 3-5 minutes, Cold Start. I did not thoroughly test this feature however as I do not find it very important. It is nevertheless, quite a handy feature for some people and Nokia Maps 2.0 was a great looking and working software to use. It was slightly annoying to have to keep the slide open but this is a minor qualm.

There were some slightly annoying things about the phone which Nokia have hopefully improved upon for the N96 (One of the problems has already been solved):
1. Phone automatically locking when closing is quite annoying, and there is no option to turn it off. The N96 and the N81 8GB have a switch/slider at the top that can be quickly flicked to lock the phone or unlock it
2. The phone was slightly laggy at times, my N81 8GB is snappy at all times.

But overall, the N95 8GB is a great phone, the excellent multimedia capabilities, whether it's the camera, or whether it's the N-GAGE gaming, all excel at what they do (except for the slightly lackluster music player)

Prices are dropping all the time, and if you already have a dedicated MP3 Player or are ok with standard sounding music, then this could be the phone for you

8/10

Well... That was a huge let-down...

Nokia set-up a nice viral-marketing website located at http://openatownrisk.com/

It originally contained a countdown which was estimated to finish at 7:00pm AEST Monday, 7th July. It finished all right, but it did absolutely nothing, and nothing has occurred up to now, which is roughly 11:00pm AEST Tuesday, April 8th

The original countdown can still be accessed from here, http://openatownrisk.com/teaser.swf

Speculation ramped up at the time of new Nokia N-Series handsets being announced because of a hiddedn N Series logo found within the Flash File, but it never eventuated. the site belonged to Nokia as proven in a WhoIs entry for the website on the internet.

Hopefully the next time Nokia set-up a countdown, something will actually happen when it finishes...

Travel to the Aquarium & Wildlife Center: N81 8GB & N95 8GB Rock!

I went to the Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife Center yesterday

Both the N95 8GB and the N81 8GB complimented each other perfectly on the trian

On the Train ride there and back I played Poker through N-GAGE and listened to some music at the same time on my N81 8GB

Phone duties were taken care of by the N95 8GB as that is my main until I have to give it back to WOM World, I also used it as my camera at those places and it took some really nice pics. My skills aren't particularly great though and in some underwater shots I think it had trouble focusing on the right thing, so I'm just posting some of the highlights

N95 8GB VS N81 8GB - Music

This is a small comparison between the Nokia N95 8GB and the N81 8GB's music capabilities

The music players of both are pretty much the same, but when it comes to audio quality, things change drastically

In the headphones the N81 8GB smashes the N95 8GB, for volume and especially for bass level, although the N95 8Gb has a more customisable Equaliser (8-band VS 5-band) it just doesn't have the effect on sound the N81 8GB's Equaliser has. The N81 8GB also has 20 volume levels as compared to the N95 8GB's 10-levels. Not just is the N81 8GB's sound louder but it also has smaller differences between each level then the N95 8GB.

Loudspeakers tell a different story however, while the N81 8GB has the edge in quality (it's very clear, with little to no creaking at high volumes) but the N95 8GB is louder (although there is a high amount of creaking at high voluems)

N95 8GB NAM Localisation, or is that Localization?

Nokia have done a surprising amount of work on the N95 8GB to suit American tastes

Spelling is obvious, as is the different 3G bands (850Mhz & 1900Mhz instead of the more standard 2100Mhz) but there was some unexpected changes such as automatic number seperation when typing in a phone number, ie typing in a number and when you get to a certian point it spaces it out so it's easier to read, typing a number like 555 6743 will automatically seperate the number as shown but this doesn't work when the number begins with 0 :-/

So interesting localis(z)ation, but I guess American's would more prefer their iPhone's :(

You Get Some, You Lose Some...

The N95 8GB has some amazing features but their are plenty of shortcomings that the phone has.

The Locking mechanism is frustrating, the hardware switch on the N81 8GB works well and can lock and unlock at any time. The N95 8GB locks automatically when the slider is closed and there is nothing you can do about it

The N95 8GB is also sluggish in the menus when compared to the N81 8GB, even with the higher amount of RAM and other optimisations (Demand Paging, etc) it seems the 30Mhz or so it's missing makes up a surprising percentage of the performance

You do "Get Some" though

The Graphics Accelerator aids with all sorts of things, Games are obvious, as are obvious improvements in Video Playback and TV-OUT but there are unexpected improvements such as much smoother playback of visualisations which are surprisingly slow on the N81 8GB

But the phrase in the heading is most true for the headphone jack, while it is really convenient while playing games in landscape it is a horrible place to use for a pocket as it will stop the phone from fitting in phone pockets

N95 8GB as a TV Games Console

I loved the idea, it seemed great in theory

But in practice the extremely low rendering resolution of the N95 (probably 240x320) produced extremely aliased (jaggy) visuals on my Standard Def TV, I didn't even try it on my High Def TV
TV-OUT in itself worked great though, same speed and everything appeared on the TV at the same time as it appeared on the phone

Maybe it will work out better when Nokia implement a higher resolution display :D

N95 8GB as a Gaming Device

The N95 8GB works very well as a gaming device

The integrated Graphics Chip on the N95 8GB really speeds it up and gives it a nice, consistent frame rate in N-GAGE (and a Game Boy Advance Emulator I use). The screen is also fantastic, it's so large but the colours are vibrant and quite crisp (but it's not quite as nice as the one on the N81 8GB, the bigger size is good though)

The latest firmware also allowed me to use the media keys as gaming buttons in N-GAGE, but of course they are ineffective anywhere else, which sucks when I can use the gaming keys on my N81 8GB in any programm including the Emulator I mentioned earlier, which is very convenient

Also the gaming keys are a little cramped on the N95 8GB, if it slid a little further backwards it would be fantastic but they are good enough the way it is

The headphone jack is in a more convenient position for gaming in the N95 8GB which is ironic because I hate the position of the headphone jack on the N95 8GB, it's much better to be on the bottom or the top like the N81 8GB

I can't wait to try the gaming abilities of the N95 while connecting it to a TV over TV-OUT >:)

N95 8GB NAM Firmware Upgrade

I have a mixed heart about firmware upgrades

I love the bug fixes and new features they bring, but I hate the risk associated with doing it, but one thing goes wrong and chances are your phone is a nice paperweight (especially my 140g Nokia N81 8GB)

I made the decision today to upgrade the firmware on the phone WOM-World kindly provided from V1.2.011 to V20.2.005, nothing went wrong, which was great, and I had a newly upgraded phone

Not much differences that I could feel, Font has changed and I read that Flash Lite 3.0 is installed, but there was no N-GAGE or Maps 2.0 integration and most disappointedly, there was no ASR (Automatic-Screen Rotation) But I have a nice app called RotateMe for that anyway :)

I might try out Nokia Maps 2.0 later on today, I tried putting it on my N81 8Gb but the pitiful internal memory caused a problem so large I had to Hard Reset and re-install everything again, luckily the large internal memory of the N95 8Gb probably won't allow this to happen

My New Blog

Hi, I am Awesome_Aleks from forum2.mobile-review.com and this is my new blog

I will be making posts about Technology (mostly Mobile Phones) and maybe a little about my life.

Hopefully I get a few readers, but I probably won't :)