If you want uninstall multiple apps on a S60 device you can do it only one after the other, not several at once. This  is without a doubt a pain and takes some time.  With BatchUninstall, developed by Think Change, you can uninstall multiple application at once. You just need to select all apps you want to uninstall  and click ‘Delete Selected’. Batch Uninstall works on all S60 5th and 3rd edition devices.

Download BatchUninstall

Skype have finally launched an official Skype application for S60 3rd Edition. The limited beta application runs on all S60 3rd Edition devices and can be downloaded here.
Just like the desktop version if you can call your sykpe contacts, write IMs, sent files and much more. It looks and works pretty good. Skype for Symbian works over Wifi or 3G data connection. We recommend having a unlimited data plan when using 3G connection.

Skype for Symbian supports:

• Free Skype-to-Skype calling
• Call phones with Skype credits or subscription
• Receive calls on your Online Number
• Instant Messaging
• Group conversations
• File sending and receiving

Majority of people know what a Nokia N81 (8GB Version) looks and feels like as 2 years ago it was the talk of the town with its nice 8GB HDD, 3.2 Megapixel Camera, Mini-Jack for standard headphones and one of the “main” phones for N-Gage gaming.  Well this N81 is slightly different as its the Limited Edition Star Wars version, and this is what it looks like.

A few months ago i (Emo185) won the “Star Wars N-Gage Trivia” tournament, where first prize was a limited edition N81 with star wars effects on it. There is only 10 of these phones (or back-covers) available and i have got 1 of them so i thought id show you guys what it looks like.

These pictures were taken on a Panasonic DMC-FS3 Digital Camera and to view the full set of images click here.

The phone is just a normal N81 except the back cover has got the “Star Wars Force Unleashed” game logo and “N-Gage” Logo imprinted onto it, but since i like star wars and n-gage it is a perfect fit for me, i havent turned it on as i want do not want to use it, so it could have other star wars goodies installed on the phone. Enjoy the pictures!

I am a user of Nokia mobile-phones for several years by now. Actually I had many problems with the build-quality and other issues of all the phones by Nokia I have used. Unfortunately the time has gone by and not much except the features has changed. So I decided to write a post about all the issues I am „enjoying” with the company Nokia.

1.) The build quality

We all know that many Nokia mobile phones have issues with the build quality. Some very significant issues are the wobbly slider of the N95, the internal keyboard of the E90 that touches the huge internal screen and the chrome of the N76 which is peeling off.

2.) Bugs & Firmware updates

Some of the newer models, e.g. the N96, are having many problems with the software. Thus Nokia is releasing firmware updates to improve the general stability of a device but also to fix those bugs. If you don’t want to use a phone full of bugs you need to update your firmware. With a fast internet connection this shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes. The update itself isn’t the problem as you can see, but if you’re updating your phones’ firmware all the userdata and applications on the internal memory will be deleted, which means that you have to reinstall all the applications, setup the device as if it was taken out of the box for the first time, and finally all your messages and so on will be deleted for ever.

3.) Nokia’s service

Since most of the users don’t want buggy, ugly or wobbly phones they’re bringing them to a Nokia Service Center or back where they’ve bought them. There are reports that users have been waiting on their fixed phones to come back for over two months. I also experienced this long waiting-time with my N95-1, I waited three weeks for it to come back.

4.) User experience

Doing everything manually (update your applications, sync your contacts with your memorycard, etc.) can be very annoying after some time. There’s not much eye-candy and so the whole device seems to be made without any „love”.

Suggestions for Nokia on how to make all the things better:

1.) The build quality

The only thing I can say on this topic is: Make better tests with your phones, not only if they can stand crashes, but also if the slider is shaking, if light shines through the gaps or if the chrome peels off after some time.

2.) Bugs & Firmware updates

Look at Apple’s iPhone and you know how firmware updates should be. Installing the update without losing any personal data is the point. The users don’t want to install everything again when they’re updating the firmware.

What about a programme like iTunes? It synchronizes everything with the phone by just one click. All the data is back-uped by just connecting your phone to the computer, loss of important data is almost impossible with this method.

3.) Nokia’s service

Service shouldn’t take much time. This is the service I would like to see at Nokia (this is no dream, other companies can do it. So why should Nokia can’t do it?): 1. Report your problem on a website > 2. Wait until a Nokia employee has checked your problem and decided what to do > 3. get packaging material from Nokia > 4. send the device back to Nokia > 5. Get a new device within 3 workdays.

This is possible! Apple’s support showed it to me when I had problems with my iPod. So come on Nokia, you also can do it!

4.) User experience

As I said in point 2.) before, look at the iPhone. If there are updates available for applications there should be a little information window which says: „New versions of AB and XY are available. Do you want to update?”.As also said before, develop an application like iTunes which does everything you want to do with just one click. Last but not least, build more eye-candy into your Symbian S60 OS.

As you maybe noticed there are many suggestions to copy the simplicity of Apple’s products, but this is not because I’m a Apple-fanboy, I just think that the user experience that comes with their products is the best of all manufacturers.

*#06# displays the IMEI – the serial number – of your phone. On the box of your device there should be the same number on the little sticker on one side of the box.

*#0000# displays the firmware and its date. Additionally there is the type (e.g. RM-159) and the name of your phone. This menu also gives you, if you own a N96, 5800, N85 and some other devices, the chance to update your firmware over the air.

*#92702689# (*#war_anty) displays the “warranty-menu” of your phone. Actually, in S60 it shows the time you spent on calls already.

*#2820# (*#bta_#) displays the bluetooth-address of your device. Every device has another bluetooth-address (works just if it has Bluetooth!).

*#62209526# (*#mac_wlan#) displays the MAC-address of your phone (works just if it has Wireless Lan!).

By pressing 0 (zero) for three seconds on the home-screen you easily can open the web browser.

By pressing the Menu/Home key for three seconds you open the task manager, which shows all opened applications.

Holding # for three seconds on the home screen you change the active profile to silent or back.

In the File manager, Photos application or Gallery you can sent your files really easily by pressing the green-answer key. Once you done that a lists pops up and you can decide whether you want to sent the file via e-mail, Bluetooth, upload it to a service or sent it as a message .

NOTE: The following codes can RESET your phone to the factory settings, all data on it will be deleted!

*#7780# (*#rst_#) does a soft-reset to your phone.

*#7370# (*#res_#) does a hard-reset to your phone.

Actually it could be, that we forgot a code or you now one that we don’t have here. If so, please leave a comment.

At the Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig Nokia announced their partnership with Zeemote and also shown the JS1 controller at their show case. Now the N85, a gaming oriented device, comes with the Zeemote JS1 out of the box. The JS1 is a bluetooth controller for gaming and more. Read this review to take a deeper look including pictures and a video.

Usage:

The JS1 is mainly for gaming purpose. So, you can play N85’s N-Gage games using the JS1or even plug in your N85 to your TV-set and enjoy an awesome gaming experience with your N85, the TV-set and the JS1.However, of course you can use it for many other actions. For example for navigate through the menu, to use it in presentation to use it as a remote control or to switch to the next sheet.

Design & Keys:

(click to enlarge)

The JS1 is a handy controller and has the size of about 100 x 25mm. Due to its ergonomic shape it really feels good in the hand and is good to use. It has in total 4 keys and a 4-ways-Joystick. On the front you have the joystick and the D-button which is also the power button. By press and holding the D-button you can turn on the controller. On the top you find the A- and B-button and on the back the C-button. All keys are really big and good for gaming. The joystick is good to use but sometimes it overreacts but nevertheless it’s pretty good for gaming and all other task you want to solve. The JS1 uses two little AAA batteries.

Geting connected:

The JS1 works via bluetooth so that you can enjoy a wireless gaming experience.  For getting connected with your device you need to have the application ”Zeekey” (Download) on your phone. In our test, the Nokia N85 already had the application pre-installed. First press and hold the red D-button on the JS1 until the LED starts to impulse.

• impulse blue: ready for gaming
• impulse blue and yellow: ready for connection
• impulse yellow: low battery

Than activate the Bluetooth on your device and go to the menu and open the Zeekey application. Than just press on Connect or Reconnect. Than after some seconds you’re ready to go. Unfortunately, you need to switch on the Bluetooth on your device manually, the Zeekey application doesn’t ask you whether you want to do this so that you need to do this in advance.

Key Mapping:

The JS1 already has a pre-install key mapping. So, you use the joystick to move up, down, left and right. The C-button represents the right softkey, the D-button the left softkey and the two remaining button, A and B represents the navigation key ( center of the D-pad) by default. If you don’t like this key mapping which comes by default you can of course change this key mapping. This is useful when you want to replace the gaming keys of the N85, N96 or N81 which aren’t defined by default. Going to the application and choosing ‘Key Mappings’ you can easily create your own mapping. Just assign each key and than you have your own key mapping. However, in the test we had issues to assign the gaming keys. The A-button (N85’s gaming key) was no problem but we could not assign the B-button. This is really a mess if you want to play for example ‘The One’ but you can assign the keys in the One’s menu too.

Demonstration:

Now a video demonstration showing you all steps from connecting the JS1 and the N85 till playing several games.

Verdict:

To put in a nutshell, the JS1 is a handy and ergonomic bluetooth controller mainly for gaming. The usage is simple and gaming with the JS1, especially on the big TV-set is a real pleasure. Indeed a useful gadget for every mobile gamer. Head over to  the official Zeemote homepage.

The Nokia N81 is a device which especially is designed for gaming with the N-Gage platform. Since this is the main-feature of the N81 it isn’t an “all-in-one device” like the Nokia N95 or similar. Its worst feature is the camera. The device has a 2 megapixel camera without autofocus. The camera is supported by a LED-flash.
2 megapixel, LED-flash and no autofocus – you think that’s not too bad and it can compete with a three year old device like the N70? Far from it! The pictures are extremely noisy and only a few are really sharp. In bad lighting conditions the pictures are almost unusable. To show you what I mean I have made a little picture-gallery…

Normal images:

Images with flash:

Close-up images:

As you can see in the pictures above, only the one with the candle hasn’t too much noise. All of the other pictures are either very noisy or blurred.

Over on Nokia Beta Labs I’ve found one new application and a update of another application. Nokia Image Exchange basically uploads your pictures to its own service in just a couple of seconds. Currently services like Flickr or Ovi aren’t supported. The mobile and web interface are synchronized so you can upload, publish & browse pictures on your mobile. Of course you can decide whether you keep them for your own or show them to the public or just to your friends. Than Enhanced Calculator gets finally an update. This calculator offers you more functions than the pre-installed calculator and is of course for free. Just jump over to download it or to get more information. Most S60 3rd Edition devices should support these two application, however, there are a few issues with some devices but you should give it a try.

Nokia Image Exchange:

Enhanced Calculator for S60:

The possibility of playing high-quality games on a Nokia multimedia-computer is just great. With the N-Gage application you can play everywhere -  on the go, in the bus, in the train or if you’re waiting somewhere for something. With a multimedia-computer by your side you won’t get bored. Unfortunately not all the devices which support N-Gage are real gaming-devices. They aren’t designed for N-Gage like the N81, but they support it.

The Nokia N95 is such a candidate which isn’t designed for N-Gage gaming. In this post I’ll compare it to the real “gaming-king” Nokia N81.

Problem 1: The special gaming-keys

The N-Gage application requires two additional keys for proper gaming. In the Nokia N95 the multimedia-keypad is used for this two keys. They are the stop- and the play/pause-key. Unfortunately the N95’s multimedia-keypad is extremely flat and the keys on it have almost no feedback. Thus it is very hard to use them fast in a game.

Since the N81 is a device designed for gaming it has very good gaming-keys. The keys have a very good feedback and they aren’t too small. You can also press them very fast which is important in many games.

Problem 2: The D-pad

Another problem of the N95 is its D-pad and the surrounding keys. The D-pad is very small and the surrounding menu- and multimedia-key are very big. Thus you will hit those two keys very often while navigating through the game with the small D-pad. This is very annoying, because everytime you hit the wrong button the main-menu or the multimedia-menu will pop up and you have to close it and go back to the game via the taskmanager.

The N81 doesn’t have this problem, the D-pad is very big and it is higher than the rest of the N81’s front-cover, so you won’t have problems using it for games.

Verdict

As you can see there are some problems with N-Gage gaming on devices which aren’t specialised on gaming. This problems are very annoying, especially if you hit the wrong key and you enter a menu while playing a game. Of course this problem doesn’t sound too annoying, but it happens very often and so it definitely is annoying.
Have you also experienced problems while playing N-Gage on your device? If so, leave a comment below!

The Nokia N81 was Nokia’s first device with the black, glossy design which you can find in many other Nseries devices nowadays. Today I decided to make a photoshooting with the N81 8GB, enjoy the pictures!

…for more pictures head over to my OVI account!

Since I have the great opportunity to trial two devices at the same time I decided to make a photoshooting with the trialdevices N78 and N81 8GB and of course my own N95-1 “classic”. Because a photo says more than a thousand words just lean back and enjoy the images!

(click on the images to enlarge them)

[original article]

N-Gage:

The N81 8GB has two main focuses. One of them is the gaming focus. Already when I was waiting for the flight, which delayed 2 hours, I used the N81 and the N-Gage application to play FIFA 08 and Call of duty. The two dedicated gaming keys above the display make in some games like in Brother In Arms really sense and make it more easily. During the week I played pretty much FIFA and Brother In Arms whether on the daily bus drive, or lieing in the bed.

Music:

As I already mentioned the N81 has two main focuses. The second focus is the music focus. Having a 3.5mm audio jack, 8GB storage and dedicated music keys listening to music is a real pressure. Almost all time I listened to music – either via my Bluetooth headphones, my 3.5mm headset or via the really loud stereo speakers.

WiFi:

As a blogger I don’t want to miss a day in the cyberworld. So, I have subscribed to a bunch of RSS feeds. Fortunately I had access to a WiFi access point during the week. Using this WiFi access point I refreshed my RSS-Feeds, retrieved E-mails, checked the internet and kept the contact with all my friends via MSN. More over, I downloaded several podcast which I watched every evening on the good 2.4” display.

Now its time to mention the bad thing:

Camera:

On the back of the N81 you find a poor 2 megapixel camera without autofocus. This may be enough for snapshots but not for good pictures. I used to take a lot pictures when I’m in an other country but unfortunately the N81 isn’t made for this task.

Verdict:

The Nokia N81 is indeed a great device for a trip, in this case to Sweden. It helps to make waiting much interesting or even funny. Listening to music, playing N-Gage or surfing the web are really its advantages. However, if you take pictures and you like to have good quality, you shouldn’t use the N81.

The in-game control works mostly with the d-pad, as shown in the video. The B-key is also very important. The game is very much fun, but if you think it’s easy you’re wrong – the higher the level you are, the faster you must enter the patterns and the enemies are more. All in all the game is very nice and if you’re interested in it you definitely should install the trial version, and if you like it buy it – it’s worth the money.

Previous N-Gage reviews:

1. Asphalt 3

[original article]

googlee41a9cf30bec168a.html

The Nokia N96 is not even mainstream yet but got a new firmware. This new firmware is the first update for this very new device which originally comes with the firmware v10.065. The new firmware is version 11.018 and there’s no changelog yet.

Source: p@sco

The World War II game Brothers In Arms is now available for the N-Gage application. You can find it in the showroom section. The game has 37 MB, so it can take a long time to download and install it on your phone. If you can’t find it in your N-Gage application just go to “Update Now”. Now it should be in the latest games section.

Source: All About Symbian & S60 Inside

Source: S60inside

Nokia Email is an application which automatically pushes your email from your IMAP or POP email account straight to your Nokia S60 device. According to the official website following devices are supported: the E51, E61, E61i, E65, E66, E71, E90, N73, N80, N81 8GB and the N95. However, yet I don’t know whether the N82, N95 8GB and so on are also supported. Anyway, although it’s just in beta phase you should give Nokia Email a chance, especially since it’s for free. Jump over to sign up.

Route 66, one of the most famous navigation solution for the mobile handset, is available in version 8 now. The really kind Route66 Support provided me with a free version of Route66 Mobile 8 and the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) maps. Let’s check how good it works:

Sales package:

The sales package includes:

• A CD/DVD with the navigationsoftware, maps and manuals
• Route 66 Mobile 8 – Quick Start Guide Manual
• Route 66 Sync – Extra Services And Content For Your Navigation Manual

Installation:
The Route 66 Mobile 8 and the whole map content are already on the CD/DVD. Once you insert the CD/DVD into the PC the Route 66 Installer opens up and you can start transfer the maps and the sis file on your handset. It’s really easy and everything is explained really well. Unfortunately, you have to delete all content from your memory card in order to get the sis file. Therefore I advice you to save everything on your computer before doing this. After the installation you’re ready to use Route 66. You can find the Route 66 Mobile 8 icon in its own folder called ‘’Route66’’. After the splash screen and some question appeared Route 66 tries to find your current GPS position and tries to zoom right to the place you’re currently located.

Navigation:

To start an new route just hit ‘’1’’ or hit the left softkey and than ‘’Search’’. You can choose between six different search modes:

• Free text
• Address
• Nearby: eg. Attractions, Parking, Shopping and more…
• History: your results until yet
• My landmarks: Select your Homeaddress, Office or create other landmarks for even easily navigation
• Contacts: Search addresses out of your contactbook

Once you’ve found the right address you can decide what you want to do with this address/place. So you can:

• Show on map
• Navigate to
• Add to route
• Save
• Sent
• Map display

After you set your destination and you have a connection with enough GPS satellites you can start the navigation. Of course you can save routes so that you can use them also afterwords. In the test using my Nokia N95 it worked pretty good and navigate me good to my destination, whether with the car or by feed. During the navigation you can choose between three different layouts. More over, you can choose between night colors or day colors, or choose between 2D and 3D perspective.

As you can see, you can get informed about your current speed, your current position, expected arrival and a bunch more.

If you turn into a wrong street or you miss a street the software recalculates the route immediately and gives you a new route or the best way to turn around.

GPS View:
By hitting ‘’5’’ you will find some GPS information with four subfolders. These GPS information are giving you information about your current position, speed, altitude, and some more.

Shortcuts:
To easily switch between different view modes, see the GPS status or listen to the latest announcement you just have to hit a special key. So, you don’t need to make 5 clicks.

• 1 Search
• 2 Change layout
• 3. Change between Day- and Nightmode
• 4 Progress bar
• 5 GPS View
• 6 Switching between 2D and 3D
• 7 Search
• 8 Zooming to whole card
• 9 Volume on/off
• 0 Repeat of the recent driving instruction
• * zooming in
• + zooming out

Verdict:

To put in a nutshell, Route 66 is a great navigation solution for your S60 device for a good price. The tested version costs about 60€ which is indeed a good price. Unfortunately, you can use just one device per license, which I can understand but otherwise some people change their devices every month. But all in all Route 66 is worth having on a device.

jamespowell1989 from Talk About Nseries has brought us news that S60 devices such as the N82, N95 etc. have a built in IM client which works pretty good. Using the Mobjab application and the IM application you can use MSN, ICQ, AOL IM, Yahoo! and some more on your handset. Jump over for a detailed tutorial.

Via: WOM World

Nokia today announced that its highly anticipated update for Nokia Maps has left beta stage and is now ready for consumers to download.

Thanks to one of our readers I found a video over at YouTube in which a guy is showing us how to make macro-images with a phone, thats camera doesn’t have a autofocus.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ku8eIFj9_M&hl=en]

Since I don’t have such a “plastic-lens” which is as big as a creditcard I thought maybe you can do it with a normal loupe as well. So I searched our house after a loupe and thanks to my father who likes to collect stamps I successfully accomplished my search and found a great loupe.

I tested it with my E65 trialdevice from WOM World and it worked well. You will need to have some sort of magnifier and then hold it in front of your cellphones’ lens. The next thing is to capture the image and you will have a great close-up image on your mobile phone without a internal macro-mode.

Here some image samples:

Normal image <<——————————————————–>> image with loupe

This method isn’t the best solution, but just imagine you can make close-up shots without a macro-mode. I think this is better than can’t make close-up images when you really need one.

The marketing folks over at Nokia know how to make great commercials. The latest commercial is ”Open to Anything” featuring great videos which shows the power of the Nokia N95 8GB ( eight gig ) and its open platform. Jump over to the Open to Anything Homepage to see what you can do with your Nseries and where you can get one. Indeed, Nokia knows how to make commercial!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwVCOnLW4Zo]

I finally managed to get my hands-on these fabulous devices and ask few questions on this and that. I’ve compared the N96, N78, N82 black, N95 8GB, and the N81 8GB. It took some effort to present the differences, and I managed to get everyone staring at me like I was a maniac.

Below you can notice the dimensions comparison between all those phones mentioned above. From the top: N95 8GB, N78, N82 Black, N96, N81 8GB N81 8GB, N96 (thanks to everyone who pointed out this mistake).

An obvious observation here is that the N95 8GB is the thickest of them all, while the N96 and N95 8GB seem to be the widest thanks to their 2.8″ display.All the phones have the 3.5mm jack on top, while only the N81 8GB and N96 have the lock switch. The N78 and N82 Black don’t have the USB port or the charging port on the bottom.

N78 notes

Notice anything different between the image with the keypad backlight lit and the one that’s not lit? This innovative and amazing design with all black seems to hide some of the keys and make the device look superslick. A small but fantastic detail.

The keypad seems to have a gap next to the green key (call key), and according to Henri Mattila, it’s so that people don’t press keys by mistake. I kept on pressing it, as my finger recognized it as the Menu key, but the Menu key is on the left side of the numeric keypad. The keypad in general, you just have to get used to it, it isn’t as bad as it looks, the keys are well rised and your fingers can differentiate. Henri even proposed a competition and said he could type on the N78 faster than ANY of us on OUR phones

As you can see the navi-wheel is slightly lifted up, and that gives a good feeling to finger for scrolling. The last gallery item button has been removed, and no to access the gallery, the most recommended way is pressing the multimedia key.

There are two pairs of pins. One is at the left of the SIM card slot, and the other is above the camera flash. These make noise if you remove the back cover and shake the phone.

The software is the best part! The N78 runs on Symbian OS9.3 with S60 v3.2 Feature Pack 2. This Feature Pack 2 brings much more than email functionality as previously announced. It has splendid transitions and animations, which means that you don’t have to wait for Touch UI! The future is here with this Feature Pack! I really don’t have words to describe how unexpected and cool this is. If you go into a new “window”, for example a new folder, there is a Fade Smoothly transition, like those found in Microsoft PowerPoint. It’s even better than Windows Vista animations, as you really feel the futuristic detail. The same to selections, if you are on the Menu or anywhere else, if you move through the icons, the selection icon also has a futuristic feel. If there is a reason to buy the N78, this is one of the best. The camera animation is even better, and it was shown to us be Matilla himself. If you hold on to the camera button, it activates the application, but in order to change to landscape mode, the portrait display goes inside, turns 90 degrees, and comes back to the fullscreen.

The same can’t be said about the N96, the firmware was very early and extremely buggy, while on the N78, everything was smooth. The navi-wheel was another highlight of the phone. It worked even on the Menu, and probably when it is released as a production model, there will be much more to it.

I enquired about the lack of the lock switch, and Henri affirmed that it fits better and is rather appropriate to slider phones, and that’s why it’s not included in this one. I also asked about speaker positioning. There’s one on top right lateral part, and one in bottom left, which is a rather awkward combination. Henri stated that the N78 is made to be hold with a hand, so audio will flow better with that speaker positioning.

Another program I noticed included in the phone was Message Reader, which should read SMSes by voice, which is quite useful for drivers or if you just don’t feel like looking to your phone.

Last but not least, the SPMark for the N78 was 950.

N96 notes

At the right N96 N81 8GB, and at the left the N81 8GB N96. It’s not just the display that’s bigger, but there are few minor changes in cosmetics on the front. The keys are slightly separated, and the multimedia key is smaller. The navi-wheel is made thinner and higher so that it feels good to the finger.

Here it’s noticeable that the N81 8GB and N96 don’t differ much on thickness.

The N96 has a larger camera button, which is better for capturing and autofocus. Another change is the speaker placement. The N96 has a new speaker positioning, which is drives sound better if the phone is kept on the kickstand according to Matilla, and I truly agree with him.

The N96 has definitely a better keypad. Besides having wider keys, there are visual separations between them, and it’s much more “typeable” than the N81’s keypad. The slider itself feels like a mix between the N81’s and N95’s slider, not too rough, not too springy.

These pictures show the difference on the N96 camera when compared to the N818GB. They are both very similar, although the N96’s one is quite larger, as well as the dual flash. There are lines around the camera which supposedly are simple cosmetic details.

The memory card slot on the N96 is quite difficult to open without fingernails.

For some technical reason, the N96’s battery is placed laterally and not in a normal position such as the N81. It uses the BL-5F with 950mAH, same as the Nokia N95.

The above pictures show the N96 sitting on its kickstand.

The flash is quite intense, and stronger than any camera flash I have seen, besides Xenon flash. The LED gets quite hot, so I’m not sure if recording for long will damage any internal circuitry.

The glossy surface leaves a lot of marks, especially fingerprints.

The multimedia keys feel excellent as they are quite large, and there are two gaming buttons, one sitting with the Play button, and the other with the Stop button. There seems to be some light leaking from the sides, although I don’t know if this is on purpose.

The N95 8GBs multimedia keys are considerably smaller than the N96’s. The kickstand feels really useful, and we miss it on the N95. We have never noticed the kickstand feature, but now that we have it, it really seems useful for multimedia playback or other features. The N96 is very loud when it comes to music or video, possibly one of the loudest phones in the market. The video player can play the files from beginning or from where you left the video last time.

The N96’s camera and flash seem to be quite larger than the N95 8GB. The N95 has a round outline to it, while the N96 has an oval outline to it, where the kickstand resides.

The software installed was quiet weak, one of the devices wasn’t working, while all others would crash often. The navi-wheel had no functionality.

A new feature in both these phones was the task switcher option in all applications. Whenever you press the left soft key, you could call the task switcher.

The SPMark wouldn’t install, so I cannot get you a score, and I could take videos either as the video recording application would crash after two seconds of recording.

More inside on these NSeries soon as I publish my interview with Henri Mattila, but for now please appreciate the interview with Alex Lambeek, VP for entry-level devices at Nokia.

Original article

My favorite YouTube gets a new update. MobiTubia just hits 1.80 Build 2 and brings a lot of changes and improvements. Unfortunately is v1.8 Bult 2 just available for donators.

MobiTubia 1.80 Build 2 Changelog

• Change Font Style for 352×416 and 800×352 screen size
• Change Application’s Icon
• Change Some Menu Icons
• Change Splash Screen
• Splash Screen has timer now
• Change whole Video Playing method
• Unicode characters supported for searching
• Language Support: Thai
• Send Saved Clip to another device via Bluetooth and IR
• Add “Sort by” feature in Search menu
• Fixed: Change for YouTube new system

Source: Symbian60

I’m a huge football/socca fan like almost everybody in Germany. I’ve just played the FIFA 08 demo on my N95 which convinced me from the first second. I already wanted to buy the full version but than I noticed that N-Gage is offering free licences for FIFA 08. However, you have to be fast since there is just a limited (15.000) amount of licences. So, go ahead and get FIFA 08 for free.

I’ve already reported about N-Gage latest site which has been launched just today for the public. Jump over to the great site.

As you maybe know the N95 and the N95 8GB have different multimedia-menu´s. The Nokia N95 is a device which has a unique multimedia-menu, no other device has this special multimedia-menu.

The Nokia N95 8GB changed this: Since the N95 8GB all devices of this generation have the new multimedia-menu – the N81, N81 8GB and N82.

Today I want to compare both of the menus – which one is the better one?

Both of the Multimedia-Menu´s come in a nice design. The N95 has some kind of line, which is flying into the screen on start-up with the multimedia-key.

If you choose no symbol in the menu about 12 seconds, there will appear many images, that are showing a man that is using the N95.

Of course you can change this pictures with up to five of your own ones or the design of the theme you´re using. You can also change the symbols which are in the menu and you can turn on menu sounds.

The N95 8GB has the new Multimedia-Menu. This Menu has the same color as the theme you´re using. There are no more single symbols, now there are boxes with different topics – contacts, music, gallery, games, internet and videos. You can arrange this boxes as you want.

You can use both of the menu´s also in landscape-mode. If you switch into landscape-mode, the old Multimedia-Menu of the N95 will look almost the same as in portrait-mode. In the new menu of the N95 8GB this has changed: If you switch to landscape-mode you will only see the first box clearly, the other boxes are not good to see like in portrait-mode.

Verdict

I am using the Multimedia-Menu of my N95 very seldom, because I don´t need it. If I want to start an application fast I do not open the Multimedia-Menu, I use the active standby for that. The N95 8GB´s menu is better in my opinion, because it is not only a “fast-start menu”. It is a well-arranged menu which is showing you nice information like the last captured image or contacts you´ve added to the menu.

The winner is the new Multimedia-Menu which is included in all new devices since the N95 8GB. I hope Nokia will add the new menu also to the N95 with a new firmware.

Finally, the N-Gage service is now available for the N95 8GB, N95, N81, N81 8GB and for the N82.  More devices like the N73 and N93i will follow soon.  Jump over to download N-Gage and to start playing.

Source: Allaboutsymbian