Symbian in Motion

A big congrats to the winners of the BlueTect contest! Truth be told, it wasn’t much of a contest (all you had to do was post a comment) but that won’t make your 100% unlimited BlueText license codes any less enjoyable. ;)

• yd
• Robert H
• Markus
• Scott
• last but not least, Bruno

By the time you all read this, you’ll already have a fresh new license code waiting for you in your inboxes. Congrats once again and to everyone else, thanks very much for your comments!

UPDATE: yd, please email me to claim your prize. I’ve tried two addresses for you and neither worked! 

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Yesterday a package arrived for me which I didn’t expect. Upon opening and inspection revealed a poster and a t-shirt with a strange face on it. Intrigued I logged onto the url provided;

http://www.theworldismycanvas.com/

Not many people have heard of him, some may even be scared of him on first view, but one thing for sure is Stavros is a Genius unique.

Today he starts his journey in Rome to create what is known as Live Art, using his trusty Nokia N82 he will use the integrated GPS feature to create “art”. The GPS will track his movements to create a trail which should then resembele something arty?

Is this a good idea? Is this even art? One thing’s for sure, I’m both confused and intrigued.

You can follow Stavros on his journey via his Bloggy (beware the intro is somewhat unorthodox, but watch it nonetheless.)

Users can also submit their ideas suggesting arty shapes Stavros can create on his journey. For now the journey has begun.

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Sittiphol Phanvilai has updated the Mobitubia client to 1.76 for S60 3rd Edition models to fix a bug, one big huge one in fact; that bug is Youtube.com. After they had tweaked their site so that 3rd party Youtube clients would not work any more with their site, (which also included emTube), giving users the “Video Not Found” error.

Now I don’t have a problem with Youtube saying that they don’t want their content to be accessed directly by 3rd party applications, but what other alternative is there? The official Youtube client? Have they actually seen the quality of the playback on that? Now I don’t know about you, but from where I stand, this is just Youtube crippling the progress and evolution of potentially 2 great applications. Why not just work with the developers and make a great application which works?

Do not stand in the way of evolution Youtube, either embrace it or get out of the way. Just like time, evolution waits for no one.

Luckily this latest update for Mobitubia fixes this issue and you can enjoy it still, just go to the official website to download it. The client supports (tested:)

• Nokia N95
  
• Nokia N93
• Nokia N82
• Nokia N75
• Nokia E65
• Nokia E61
• Nokia E61i

*Note, the Nokia N95 8GB is also supported, but if you are running on V15 firmware you do know that you have native Youtube.com support? This means you can watch Youtube videos on the full Youtube .com website. You can try either or both if you prefer.

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For years now I’ve wondered why my PC couldn’t replace my mobile phone while I’m sitting at my desk. Let me explain: When I’m at work, I’m sitting at my PC 90% of the time and it becomes my main method of communications. Whether I’m in Outlook, some form of instant messenger (I use four different IM apps unfortunately) or making calls using Skype. When my office phone rings, it annoys me. Convergence, people. I want one point of focus that handles all of my work and communications needs. I’m on my PC, I have a bluetooth headset in my ear connected to my PC, call me on Skype! Likewise, when people call or text me on my mobile it draws my attention away from my PC and forces my to use my handset if I want to interact. Sure I can forward my mobile to my Skype number and ignore my SMS if I so choose, but why should I have to? When I’m within range of my PC, I wish it would automatically connect to my handset and take over all communications. An email widget, an SMS / MMS widget and a voice comms widget - at least.

BlueText is a step in that direction. Like Nokia’s Text Messenger beta, it is a PC-based SMS interface that allows you to send and receive SMS via your mobile phone. Of course BlueText isn’t the first piece of software to afford users this functionality, but it is the first to do it with S60 3rd and Windows XP. As neat as Nokia’s Text Messenger is, it’s Vista only I’m afraid. If you’re like me then you avoid Vista like the plague so Text Messenger just isn’t an option.

The PC app is very Vista-like in terms of appearance. It has a nice semi-transparent UI that is nice and minimal. Sending an SMS is quite simple as shown above. Select your recipient, type your message, hit send and be on your way. Notifications will pop up directly on your screen when new SMS messages arrive and you can reply in just two clicks.

The device-side app is quite simple as well, as you can see above. After installation, license activation and set up, you’ll only access the app to enable and disable the service.

BlueText is the first app from Psiloc to make use of their new PC-based installation wizard which makes installation a breeze for inexperienced users. Psiloc’s new system is self-contained and once installed on the PC, it deposits the SIS and launches it at the appropriate time.

What will you need to use BlueText? An S60 3rd handset and a bluetooth enabled PC with Windows or Widcomm bluetooth drivers. Price of admission: Just north of $15 depending on the strength of the US dollar (price is 9.95€) and there is a trial period as with all Psiloc apps. SiMo readers are in luck however! Of course there’s no app like a free app and five lucky commenters will enjoy a free unlimited BlueText license code courtesy of Psiloc. Woo hoo! Just post a comment below and I’ll pick five at random on Friday March 14. Those selected will receive their license codes via email on Friday.

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Having had the N82 for almost a full week now, it would be good to give my opinions on the actual daily usage of the device before doing the camera comparisons. So starting things off; I’ll do a physical of the N82. Keeping in mind that there is a significant difference in seeing any device and actually physically using it and having it in your hands vary. Take my recent review of the N81 for instance, I wasn’t looking forward to it, but was impressed once I had it in my hand to play around with. The saying; don’t judge a book by it’s cover springs to mind.

On the features front the N82 has almost everything identical to the N95. The main differences being the Xenon flash and the form factor. Being a candy bar device gives it a few advantages over the N95; it’s smaller and more ergonomic and as it doesn’t have a slider, it is less likely to break down. Smaller moving parts = more reliability generally. The build quality of the N95 and N82 are fairly similar, both plastic and light (yes that shiny front is plastic), which is a shame as that would have given it a great advantage to purchase it even more. Now before moving onto the usage there are a few things to take note about the N82, mostly to do with the physical design.

Firstly the loud speakers are on one side of the device (right), although I can guess they are there for when having the device in landscape mode, I still think that it’s not a good choice, generally I use the phone in portrait orientation and the lower speaker is covered by my hand, thus distorting the sound when using the loudspeakers. On the adjacent side you’ll find the charger port and the micro USB port, which is another instance of strange positioning in my opinion. The charger port I can see can make sense when charging in an upright position (as there doesn’t seem to be any form of accessories available for the Nseries which allows to just stick the handsets on a desktop charger / synchronizing stand and make life easier) but that’s a another rant. But the micro USB port I do not understand, it is inconvenient in every way, perhaps I’m used to having the N95 and have gotten used to it, but I sat there and thought it out, and yet cannot see why it’s there, it doesn’t help to overcome anything, as there was no problem in the first place.

Luckily there are a few things which have been done right, the 3.5mm jack on the top of the device is a good touch, as is the camera lens cover at the back. Also the ergonomics of the device, just like the N81, it’s very smooth, the side buttons do not bulge out like on the N95, which makes it more rugged whilst the N82 is smooth all the way round, but do watch out, it is very smooth and susceptible to being dropped easily. Talking about smoothness, the screen cover is very smooth as is the back. One thing I did notice was the main screen is not easily viewable in sunlight, even with the brightness sensor set to maximum it was very difficult to see the screen. The front is also very shiny, it has chrome paint over it which makes it very shiny and reflective. How shiny and reflective isn’t captured properly, it’s almost mirror reflective, which makes it very difficult to take pictures of the device, the camera flashes reflect and make it look a dark carbon colour. Users with an obsessive compulsive disorder beware, you’ll spend most of your life keeping it clean of fingerprint and dust specks. Check out the pictures below.

The N82 may have all the features of the N95 and also run on the S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 OS, but I have noticed a few things which are improvements on the N95. On a clean restart the N95 running on V20 firmware has 28.8Mb of RAM available in comparison to the N82’s 93Mb. That is a significant amount to have freely available. The screen is slightly smaller in comparison to the N95 and even more so if compared to the giant screen on the N95 8GB edition, but it is also more saturated in comparison to the N95. The buttons are responsive and easily found in comparison to the N95, there are not issues with pressing any buttons by accident, although I do have some reservations with the navi buttons, which I found unnatural at times especially when using the handset in landscape mode, but overall the design of the keypad excellent.

Overall during the last several days in general use I found the N82 to be excellent in both design and functionality, even now I can say I will miss it once it goes back to the WOM World guys. But until then I’ll cherish it as this is the best Nseries device overall currently (only my opinion, but I’m probably right).

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