Last November been a really eventful month for me (though apparently less eventful for my blog posts themselves) as after BlackBerry Touch 9860 and Nokia N9, Nokia Lumia 800 also joined in the list of review devices to me. But then Its not been only tough schedules but also the entirely new product experience that made me delay in posting my first impressions (though I always been vocal on my twitter account @nkumar_ in this while) like I did in case of big devices like Samsung Galaxy S or Nokia N9 in past.

It was necessary to get over with the excitements/ pre-judgments first before writing a Layman’s Take about it. So,… here I am. Back again after the longest period taken with any of other review device to me in past.

Since we heard of leaks about Nokia SeaRay, this handset (now known as Nokia Lumia 800) always been overshadowed by the adjective Nokia N9 look-a-like and that really been a lot injustice to this brilliant piece of design. Think if there was no Nokia N9 and Nokia would have came out with this iconic design as their first Windows Phone? Shouldn’t we judge this device in that way only?

Nokia: Symbian –> Windows phone

Since the Burning Platform Memo, there been a lot of debate around Nokia’s shift to Windows Phone. Like any heated discussion, there will always be some pros and cons of any move on such a big scale, but the thing is, we should accept the reality now that Nokia is a business company and they are here for business. When a new CEO got hired and was expected to do a turn-around (with probably not that many easy options around as many of us might have thought in early emotions of #Feb11), then considering the reputation of in-house software in eyes of major operators, we can see a point here in choosing Windows Phone as viable alternative.

Many called Stephen Elop a Trojan Horse since his joining as Nokia CEO in October 2010 and speculations around his shares in Microsoft kept on fueling the doubts until he sold those shares and bought Nokia’s shares. But in all those speculations, people missed one thing to notice. Even if he would have been a Trojan, even if he had plans of a Nokia-Microsoft deal since the beginning, was this really that easy to convince whole Nokia to go Microsoft way from day one? Making a Windows Phone from day one? Think practical. How much time Nokia Lumia 800 got in R&D labs? Not even an year.

Me and you may not understand that how hard it might have been, but ask the manufacturers and experts that how hard it is to actually deliver a product in market in this short span of time? Even if you write off the design as that of Nokia N9 plainly, it’s a totally different OS and related interfaces beneath and testing of components follow a standard process that is sure a time taking one.

You have to admit the remarkable work that is personified as Nokia Lumia 800 today, one totally distinct design standing apart from whole world of suing and counter-suing. When you think of situations around it then Its just not a design or just another phone, but its something even bigger than that.

Windows Phone and me

Believe it or not, its been the first ever Windows phone for me as I never had a brief hands on over Windows phone in past. So, what I am gonna write here, will be raw impressions for a first timer. I would be someone who is coming from a Nokia device background and being a Samsung Galaxy S owner, can weigh its pros & cons in comparison to other available alternative that is Android.

Its not only interesting for you, but its been interesting for me as well and so I decided to give it enough time before writing something about  it (After all, I been given a generous two months review period for the device). And now it would be one of the biggest text based walkthrough of Windows Phone Software till date.

I didn’t expected another 11000+ words post again, but it refused to remain short due to the new platforms and mannerism of new experience, Yes! ITS A MASSIVE 19500+ WORDS EPIC POST THIS TIME. So Bookmark this link or save it to Read it Later, you will be needed enough time to go through “Layman’s Take on Nokia Lumia 800” that some already called as mini booklet review of Lumia 800 (Am I eligible for writing a full book now? )

Do not miss to click on the page numbers mentioned below (around 24 pages)

]]> http://nitishkumar.net/2012/01/20/laymans-take-on-nokia-lumia-800-take-a-look-over-it-without-shadows-of-anything/feed/ 13 nitishkumar 2011-12-10-126 nokia-windows-phone7_2 2011-12-02-048 http://nitishkumar.net/2012/01/01/happy-new-year-2012/ http://nitishkumar.net/2012/01/01/happy-new-year-2012/#comments Sun, 01 Jan 2012 04:46:55 +0000 Nitish Kumar https://nitishkumar.wordpress.com/?p=9664 ]]>

Hi Friends!

I would have been very lazy lately about posting on blog (blame office works) but that wasn’t going to be an excuse for not wishing you all a warm happy new year.

Some take this time as a resolution time when they try to set the targets for the new year and some try to take a look back to see what happened in their lives and around last year & what to learn from those things.

For me, its simple. It was a real big year that just moved away from us. So so many exciting moments to count, either it be personal life (got married this year), either it be my office or it be social circles. Seen ups, seen downs, seen tears, seen smiles … Really a lot of things happened which will keep a big impression on my mind in whatever Ido in next years. Learned a lot from each of them and still ready to learn from whatever that comes across me.

It still looks like a dream when I check that how many of you are connected with me via mails, via tweets and via facebook. Its your trust and faith that always inspires me to stand tall and walk forward with confidence. Nothing more better I would have expected from the last year.

What in next year?

I really don’t know. I didn’t knew in start of year 2011 that it will be an year, when I will get my hands on almost all top end Symbian devices, top end MeeGo device, top end Windows Phones, top end Blackberry devices, top end iOS devices and typing this post from TouchPad itself… I had no idea that "Layman’s take" will get so much love from Nokia and my readers. So I can’t really think of what to expect next.

Just want to say a Hi to all and shout loud …Happy New Year

2012.. A year whom some have even mentioned as even end of the world, so are you scared of it or ready to make the most of it like me?

Even if its a time, when hard core Nokia fans are either moving towards Windows Phones or keeping it low most of the times in a tough battle against the growing base of Android, one must admit that post February 2011, Symbian^3 has seen tremendous activity under his name. Many Qt apps joined the pack to enhance the user experience, Nokia websites got redesigned in fancy blue and even if hopes of Symbian Belle (now Nokia Belle) kept on playing hide and seek with us, those who experienced the performance of Nokia N8 like old handsets with leaked Belle can guarantee you that nothing is finished yet.

Meanwhile the above debate is on, there was one app that was always standing apart of everything, apart of Belle, Anna, S60 etc, apart of Android vs iOS vs Symbian. Yes! our Gravity!! And we really waited impatiently for the next version of the same, not because of some bugs or some expectations, but just to wonder that what new innovation the all in one app Gravity brings for us this time. So, let’s take a ride of what we see new in this new build of Gravity (v2.50, Build 7025):

(First I will cover Symbian^3 changes only will update S60 features later on)

1. Belle compatible bottom bar:

Though most of Nokia Community still don’t have access to Symbian Belle but once Symbian Belle arrived in market in form of some new handsets, it was unavoidable to ignore the UI navigation theme as on Symbian Belle that has shifted from those Options\Cancel button and taken form of icons now. The new build of Gravity tries to do the same though with addition of option to “reverse the toolbar” for those who feel its more natural to have options menu on the left like it been in Symbian always.

Minor UI changes but those who are already on Symbian Belle will appreciate it and those who are not, will get a preview of upcoming via this app.

2. Pull to Refresh and minor but noticeable change in design:

After tap to top, Gravity finally gets the most awaited feature that is pull to refresh. Pull to refresh is not limited to Twitter only but works in Facebook, FourSquare, Google Reader, YouTube etc as well.

The other minor change is replacement of text by icons (as been theme of Belle UI). You can see icon of a pen in place of New Button and Belle like options icon though I still wonder that why @janole didn’t replaced the Back button by an arrow icon?

3. YouTube Account added: 

One of the feature addition with this new build is the option of YouTube account. While we already had the capability to play YouTube videos since last few builds, it was a one step forward to add accessibility of YouTube account in the form of familiar Gravity theme. It includes favorites, Watch it later, My Uploads, friends videos and you can always search with a split screen keyboard. Though I couldn’t find an option to upload some videos, but this is still great for a start.

I was personally expecting MISO and Tumblr to be part of Gravity by version 2.50, but as @janole said its a preview build only so may be later.

4. Google Reader section can now display the images as well:

While today you might think it as one of those many features that Gravity added by this new build, but as @janole said, this was the main feature idea with which @janole started working on the new build. Again like other sections, we find the UI options going via small icons in place of Text (except the odd Back button like old days). Did you noticed the recording like icon for Read or Unread?

Must say, with inline picture display, now you can think of adding your Google Reader Account in Gravity permanently than using any other apps (be aware of heavy data usages though).

Though I find it odd that Google reader section can share the posts via Twitter only not via Facebook or any other service. Also while in outer menu, option to copy the link on clipboard is present, we miss the same in full post mode. May be next build bridges these gaps.

5. Entirely redesigned and more productive Twitter Trends screen

I don’t how many of you use Twitter Trends actively but for experienced users, its been an essential part of Twitter experience by which they can keep a tab on most important things happening around. In older version of Gravity, not much was configurable here, but with the new Gravity, you can check trends worldwide or by country specifically as well.

I must tell you, you gonna love it.

6. Satellite mode, zoom-in, zoom-out buttons added for maps:

Since @janole has changed the UI for displaying the image preview and maps, it has enabled Gravity to do some more tricks. This one is the latest.

Zoom-In and Zoom-Out buttons are now added to UI in bottom bar and you no longer needed to remember the volume key shortcut for the same. Also the globe like icon next to option icon let you toggle between maps mode and satellite mode.

7. Image saving option:

While Gravity already had probably the best support for displaying images from multiple services, addition of saving pictures option makes it a killer now. Gravity was already displaying the non-service images by just URL ending with .jpg, .png etc and with this, things gonna really really challenging for other clients across all platforms. Though the same feature is limited with Twitter Image previews only, but I see no reason that why @janole wont extend the same functionality for Facebook images as well in near future. Finally we can see the larger version of images via Native Gallery and can store it and zoom in.

Gravity was already storing the images earlier as well but those were kind of cache version hidden inside private folders of Symbian. Images will be saved in Images folder of E: drive now.

8. Many other minor changes

There might be many minor changes hidden inside that I am yet to discover though one of them was display of last user names with an “@” on the accounts screen (like the name of @aktiwary showing in the above screenshot).

What is still annoying with Gravity on Belle?

You can blame awesomeness of Gravity full screen mode that @janole always skipped to provide much support for non-full screen mode which remains one of those weak points about Gravity. Like in above screenshots, you can see that on Symbian Belle with full touch phones, one can not write a new tweet as there is no button for that neither than option for new tweet in menu. Also the Gravity Keyboard doesn’t work in non-full screen mode.

Download link for New Gravity version 2.50 Build 7025

Link

So, anything else you find in the new Gravity, do tell me?

Update: The review unit is from @nokia_connects. There was some confusion as came via Nokia India

While many of the readers are yet to finish the giant Nokia N9 review that I posted few hours back, here comes the another big news. Nokia Lumia 800 has just been delivered at Layman’s Take.

While you might be wondering about the first Bluedart bag in place of usual DHL package then let me give you another surprise. This is the first review unit to me from Nokia India itself (in co-ordination with Nokia Connects obviously) and to add into the excitement of the latest device, let me tell you that it will remain with me for next two months.

Not to forget, as per my wish, Nokia decided to treat me with the Black Model. So… now its time to shot a big YAHOOOOOO … oops! big BINGGGG as @modibimal says

Its been enough long since I didn’t came back  about the much awaited Nokia N9 post, the Layman’s Take on Nokia N9, but I wanted to assure you that I wasn’t lost and was exploring the beauty from the most critical angles, so that you can get a view beyond the praises, beyond the technicalities… beyond the background stories … beyond Meego’s Future etc.. just a practical and real life plain view about the device and here I am .. back again..

What will you do if …

• You know that you are among least wanted out there …
• You know that nothing matters now, no matter how hard you try …
• You know that this is actually the last life you are going to live out there …
• If you have to face the world out there alone as even your own people will back off from you …

Yes! this been exactly the thing with Nokia N9, when it was waiting for its turn to come out in lights.

Odds from whole universe been tiding their hands against this lonely warrior. Big tech blogs were habitual of discarding anything from praises, if a name Nokia attached with it. Think of the adrenal in your veins when you know that people are ready to discard you even before giving you a tiny chance, leave the talk of a fair chance, think of the thoughts going on inside, when you know that even your company don’t want to launch you all over the world and just want to pass it on?

Do you know, what Nokia N9 did?

It did something that only heros do, like Beethoven did, with composing legendary music even when he went medically deaf. Nokia N9 stood tall in front of all the odds and turned around the things single handedly.

Its been long since when we heard literally hundred percent reviews about a Nokia filled with adjectives only and when it happens then if it tempting you to know about it “more and more” then you are perfectly sane. After all, when people like Gizmodo, who even refused to review Nokia N8 (still the best Nokia phone for me till date), feel tempted about it, then why should you hide your lust for it?

I had every reason to  literally beg for this gadget pornography and thank to kind people at Nokia, I wasn’t denied like always.

But who was I?

The one who started his mobile blogging with almighty Nokia N900 and still dreams about that “old” resistive device only, I was obviously not surprised by the praises coming in the way of Nokia N9, knowing that it was successor to Nokia N900 itself with removal of most of its shortcomings (not all).

I was obviously not starting afresh here. I had my own expectations, coming from Nokia N900 and Nokia N8 combined, let’s see what I felt about the device, but I should warn you that once you click the Read More link, you are into a post that is as big as around 11000+ words, more than double larger that any other review I posted till date..

Nokia N9 – The Box

After seeing the boxes of Nokia Oro and Nokia X7 likes, I was already aware of trend and Nokia N9 wasn’t any different either, only slightly bigger box than device’s front face itself.

I think we all always liked this kind of approach.

Compared to Nokia N8 box, I was presented with a much compact box for the screen size wise bigger device (just similar to Nokia X7).

But still it was good to see the favorite blue of NSeries back with the same footprints.

Oh! the unboxing video.??? Here we go…

What would have been the appropriate moment to use stop motion at Layman’s Take for the first time.

As about the content, then knowing the fact that Nokia N9 doesn’t come up with USB OTG or HDMI etc, I wasn’t expecting a big fat list of contents inside and it came out to be similar with some noticeable changes.

It was good to see the inclusion of Rubber cover for Nokia N9 polycarbonate body, which actually fits the Nokia N9 quite well and matches the Cyan unit exactly (I wonder how beautiful Dark Grey Black unit gonna look like).

• Nokia N9 all-screen smartphone
• Nokia Fast USB Charger AC-16
• Nokia Charging and Data Cable CA-185CD
• Nokia Stereo Headset WH-901
• Get started guide
• Product information
• leaflet Cover

First the awareness of the fact that Nokia N9 uses a micro-SIM, it was the charger Nokia AC-16 that got me smiling. This device definitely going after something (Read iPhone here ). One of the very eco-friendly, compact and beautiful designs, the charger will surprise you by its performance as well (No wonder, it’s part of Nokia Fast charger lineup).

Like the charger itself, even the USB cable was something different than the one I got with Nokia N8 and others. I mean same specs etc but just a little change in shape.

Considering the minimalistic nature of the device, Nokia decided to provide a sleek stereo headphone with it. Nokia WH-901 might not showing off those loads of controls built in, but the clarity of voice is unmatched even on highest of volume. Though I have some issues with the shape itself, which was hard to my ears and this time, it didn’t packed any ear buds either.

*Note: I took the last two shots with Nokia N9 camera itself. Works wonder for Macro Shots, even better than Nokia N8

As I said earlier, the leaflet Cover was an interesting piece of design. Makes no compromise with the beauty of the masterpiece itself and yet protect it at the best. Though its polycarbonate body (kind of hard plastic, but no nonsense gimmick alone and doesn’t feel like plastic even for a second) should serve one as a timeless material, but in practical, the metal on back camera wont have that kind of luck. So it would be a wise choice for many to keep it on.

Its been a time with loads of exciting stuffs to me, first Nokia N9 and then BlackBerry Torch 9860, Two totally new platforms with a contrast nature. Like I usually been doing with my review units, I was required to immerse myself into one of them totally as my main phone to know about things more than skin deep, but it definitely was tougher this time. But still, Blackberry grabbed my attention in many ways and definitely left a very good impression for a first time Blackberry user. A lot to say, but will try to keep it compact.

BlackBerry and me:

It should come up as a strange fact that despite of being called as a workaholic, I been far away from the BlackBerry World till now.

Reason …

My first short encounters were with models like BlackBerry 8800 two years back, when we purchased around a dozen for our office. The same model never strike me about its looks or QWERTY (didn’t liked that in comparison of likes of Nokia E71/E72 etc). So, it was a sort of first impression that left me with a bad taste just by looks\ design even when I didn’t tried the services part.

Secondly, as far as services part is concerned, then in those days, I wasn’t much into social services/facebook etc (just created those accounts after that time period) and push mails were not that big concern to me so obviously paying a premium amount for BIS/BES services was out of question, when I never felt any particular need of timely delivery.

But things changed over time. I started “regular” blogging by Feb 2009 and later on joined Twitter/Facebook etc by end of 2009 I guess. Mails/ Twitter/ Facebook feeds kept on finding their ways deep into my life and now I generally take part into dozens of twitter communications with roughly 100 tweets/mentions per day and similar about the mails. Now was the time, when timely delivery was important, now was the time, when I was ready to pay premium was accurate services and that’s now it was about time, when I dig into and explore the BlackBerry world, which been a legacy about service delivery till now.

Thanks to twitter and @kaushaldivya5 that I got a chance to take a look over the latest of BlackBerry’s adventure with Full Touch.

Let’s see what I felt about my first BlackBerry …

Blackberry Torch 9860: The content inside the box

Knowing the reputation of BlackBerry about their focus toward core, I wasn’t expecting any marketing gimmick like some fancy colors, lots of cables or any other thing like that and things came out to be the same about the content of box. Not much to expect of, its the usual business.

This is all you find inside the box:

1. One BlackBerry Torch 9860 Unit.
2. One Standard battery JM-1, Li-Ion 1230 mAh
3. One USB Cable (Small one). Same kind of standard jack as we see on Nokia ones.
4. A set of Headphone.
5. A fancy looking charger with separable component (Not sure on fast charger part)

I am sure I always seen a leather pouch coming from the BlackBerry Boxes that got delivered in my office, but this should be a first for BlackBerry, where we do not see any leather pouch inside the box. Also I would miss the presence of a Bluetooth handset in box here considering the premium price of the phone for Indian Market, but that’s the way, BlackBerry is.

Blackberry Torch 9860: The Exteriors

Look wise, BlackBerry Torch 9860 definitely looks bigger than usual 3.7” handsets in the market and though it has managed to keep the dimensions on slimmer side like 120 x 62 x 11.5 mm (As far as I know, it’s the thinnest BlackBerry Full Touch till date). I would say that its a propriety BlackBerry looks which is somewhat similar with their earlier touch models like Storm 2. Weight wise, its exactly same as Nokia N8/Nokia N9, that is 135g. Not a lighter one like Samsung Galaxy S, but I guess one will like how solid it feels in hands.

I definitely would have gone irritated about the fact that it posses a toughen plastic screen rather than some Gorilla glasses, if it was a Nokia or Samsung, but somehow I seen that BlackBerry handsets fare better over time even with that kind of screen.

But at the end, that’s what we got here, a toughen plastic front, which really don’t feel cheap and goes from edge to edge, leaving places for four HW buttons, optical track pad and speaker slot

The edges are curvy, so no standing position possible for BlackBerry Torch 9860 like its been for Nokia N8/N9 likes.

The bottom edge also makes room for speakers and microphone.

The top edge has the room for Display lock switch which seems to be a touch by looks but considering the haptics, we know that its a HW key again. Would love to know that how this design fare over longer periods but seems a solid fit to me.

Coming from Nokia, Samsung and Apple, the side keys on BlackBerry Torch 9860 and on some other BlackBerry models, looks very different. In fact, from a distance, you wont feel that it has keys there. I had some issues with my fingers finding the camera keys natural in start, but it grows upon you over the time and may be a good thing about the design rather than being a con. One side carries raised Volume keys, Camera key and 3.5mm jack.

While the other side comes with standard USB port (same as on Nokia/ Samsung ones, so one can use the same cable).

The top right corner has a notification light, which I would say that should be natural place for notification light on all platforms means at top portion of device rather than hiding it at bottom place. The notification light here has an interesting nature as well. It blinks as red light, once any notification is left unread and blinks as green if you allowed it to show network signal reception that way and blinks as orange if the device on low charge (not sure, if it has more colors as well). Also there is proximity center somewhere inside at the same place.

The five buttons at the bottom that are slightly raised above the screen (why?), are Call Key, Option Key (with BlackBerry logo style), Optical track pad, Back Key and Call End\Power key. Keeping the looks strictly professional, Blackberry Tocrch 9860 keeps it away from colored keys and all are painted as backlit white. Adds a kind of quiet elegance. Also I will say thumbs up for the raised keys part as having used those HTC ones, I know that how confusing it might be to have tiny buttons placed at surface level.

The back of the device is an interesting mix of metal and rubber. I avoided removing the sticker covering the whole back, but you can get an idea from pics above from CrackBerry.com. Borders are steel, then rubber part contains LED Flash and 5 MP camera (capable of AF Video at 720p). The angular shape might not be making some poetry for your eyes, but does a superb job about the grip either you handle it in portrait mode or in landscape mode.

Blackberry Torch 9860: The Interiors

For the people looking for details, BlackBerry Torch 9860 comprises of following ten specs mentions:

1. 3.7" WVGA (800×480) display (~252 ppi pixel density)
2. TFT capacitive touchscreen, 16M colors
3. 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Scorpion MSM8655 SoC
4. Adreno 205 GPU (Liquid Graphics GPU)
5. 2.5 GB User Storage 
6. 768 MB RAM
7. MicroSD Card support, upto 32 GB
8. Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
9. HSDPA 14.4 Mbps, HSUPA 5.76 Mbps, Bluetooth 2.1 (can send files) and Wifi
10. 5 MP Auto Focus Camera capable for 720p video recording with very effective continuous Auto Focus

One of the things about BlackBerry Torch 9860 that been pleasantly surprising to me is its Display.  I almost had assumed that a great display should be consist of some SMOLED and Gorilla Glass combination essentially and then here came a BlackBerry with toughened Plastic TFT display to surprise me again.

I was really not aware of the fact that it’s a kind of plastic otherwise I would have been more careful with it, but still in last 4-5 days, while I kept it in my jeans pockets uncovered/ unprotected, no sign of scratches anywhere.

Second thing is about its sunlight visibility and crispiness. I am keeping the fonts on twitter app at around 5 only, but its with such small fonts, the characters are visible in damn good manner. Same about sunlight visibility , which is exactly like some hard core business device should posses.

I was never needed to change some brightness settings or theme when I was moving out under Sun, that is exactly what I felt about Nokia N9’s CBD display. Damn Good.

The third great thing about BlackBerry been its Sound Quality. It doesn’t attaches itself with any name like Dolby or Beats, but just take a call or put the phone on loudspeakers and see yourself. I don’t claim tests or numbers, but I can definitely claim that call quality\loudspeaker volume is much better over Nokia N8\SGS\Nokia N9\Nokia Oro, I own. This is one of the core thing to interest many of the users and impresses you for sure. Placing of the speaker also plays a good role in it.

But I would like to add that I am talking about call quality\ speakerphone loudness here, when coming to Music volume\quality, Nokia N8 likes take the cake again.

The angular design of the back makes it not only fitting naturally in hands, but also protects camera from touching the plain surface and at the same time, places no hindrance for the bottom speakers.

On the con side, with common features, we miss the front camera here, we miss the magnetometer, we miss the ambient light sensor (hence no auto-brightness adjustment) and we badly miss the FM radio (leave the FM Transmitter).  As about advanced features, we miss TV-Out, we miss HDMI, we miss anything kind of USB OTG and we miss any kind of Wifi Hotspot inbuilt (though upcoming Q4 update might bring this feature). Also like Android, BlackBerry OS 7 also doesn’t respond to Nokia Joikuspot Wifi connection.

Blackberry Torch 9860: The walkthrough of BlackBerry OS 7

For  existing BlackBerry owners, BlackBerry OS 7 would be an OS bringing the following main changes:

1. Liquid Graphics Display Not sure about the technical details behind the term like I don’t get the deal about Retina Display, but I definitely like the Glossy feel of the entire OS and quick response of the touch screen coupled with decent animations.

2. An updated browser A new browser that though doesn’t supports Flash, but gives a HTML5 score of 260 that definitely should be called as a decent score.

3. A new social experience via Augmented reality An app named Wikitude that sure seems to be one of its kind and brings all kind of local information at your fingerprint. This app is definitely not one of those legacy community apps depending on user’s participation, but utilizes info from various sources like Foursquare and our own BBM community. 

4. Voice activated universal search Another fancy term it might be, but this does what it says by the name.

But I am sure that over Layman’s Take, you are not looking for these official features, but a rather long walkthrough, so let’s begin …

1. Startup and Shutdown of a BlackBerry

With lots of smartphones around, now we have moved past to slow startups but BlackBerry OS takes the things a little differently. First it tries to avoid the complete shutdown in most of the cases (unless you pull off the battery), like by shutting down the antenna completely in case of extreme low battery and then it general operations, it relies more over the server side push notifications rather than keeping the screen on all the time. With the faster SOC, the cold boot up time has definitely reduced but its still larger than  Nokia N8/SGS etc. though for the defense, we get a nice animation showing the progress of boot up rather than keeping some clueless video or animations on.

Even shutdown asks you options like shown above. Obviously, the OS by nature doesn’t want a complete shutdown (that’s why known as Always On devices). Does this nature a sign of some weakness? I don’t think so that as I seen\heard about almost no crashes in BlackBerry OS, no matter how abruptly someone keeps on pulling out the battery,

2. Connection with PC

Once you connect it with PC, then you get greeted with options like connection mode and then options to set the alarm in Apple kind of wheel clock way. After the two prompts, it leaves you one professional looking big clock. I think this behavior could be controlled from somewhere in options, but haven’t tried it myself. Btw.. we can definitely use our BlackBerry Phone as a modem.

3. BlackBerry Internet\Enterprise Services subscription is a must

BlackBerry is unique about its focus toward work and accurate service delivery which asks for a premium, activation of BIS/BES services. BIS/BES provides your phone a unique BBM pin and rest of BlackBerry related services start from there. BIS takes care of your social feeds like Facebook, Twitter and takes care of enterprise/personal mails as well. In fact, in most part, people can agree that BlackBerry been a scale that measures the accuracy of push messaging. You do not check for your facebook\twitter\mail alerts but they follow you instead.

Unfortunately, Twitter/Facebook like apps do not function at all on BlackBerry with mobile data unless you subscribe to BIS/BIS. Only WiFi is available as an option but I don’t think that provides push.

The charges I paid was Rs. 100/- for a week EDGE based plan that makes it roughly Rs. 400/- expense per month for actually experiencing a BlackBerry in BlackBerry way. The charges may be different for your region but the point is, if you coming BlackBerry way, then it is a premium that you have to pay for other than the premium price of handset itself.

Is it worth it?

My short experience says it is, if your needs are like mine or like some core workaholic. One remains assured that he wont miss a mail and whenever a mail will come, his phone will buzz him about its presence. Same about social feeds, twitter mentions etc. Then comes the unique services like BBM that takes the experience even higher than others. Will come over it.

4. The home screen

The above pictures might give you a little idea about the home screen part of BlackBerry OS on Torch 9860, which basically consist of six parts.

I really like the glossy way of handling the things. All the operations go snappy and require a very little learning curve. High resolution display and GPU always keep the experience on premium side. It’s never like tap and misses.

1. Services  panel

Brings a  drop down when tapped, where you can find all the options related to Network Services, Alarms and other device specific settings.

2. Sound profile

Tap on the sound icon and it brings the popup in center like the above screen. We can also make changes in these pre-set profiles or can add your custom profiles here. It is possible to set MP3’s as ring tone (Not sure about videos though) and you also set different tones for different people for either phone call alerts or even message alerts.

3. Universal Search

Always present universal search bar serves a great purpose of having things on your fingerprint, whenever you need them even (in later part, you will find that even app panels are designed that way to keep you tapping less and less). Also the Universal search is coupled with voice search option which actually I haven’t gotten used to with. May God help Siri

4. Notification bar

We have seen a lot of ways of notifications on Android, Symbian and iOS, but BlackBerry keeps it plain and simple and also focused to core. A notification panel that brings you all the alerts with their respective icons. Not only that but the notification goes deep into the app notifying the event itself.

Means if there is a twitter notification, then you will see a blue birdie on notification panel telling you that there is a mention that is waiting for you and same time, if you check the twitter app icon, then it will be showing a cross sign on top right to let you know that it needs your attention there. Same about calls, messages, mails, foursquare alerts or anything. Also the notification LED on top right will keep on blinking red unless it gets your attention.

There is a con side of notifications as well. You can not clear them, not in bulk, not in individual. It gets annoying when you receive some annoying messages like those Web push alert messages from operator and find no way to clear it without opening it. May be there is some workaround for this, but I couldn’t find one (obviously a naïve BlackBerry user I am).

5. Wallpaper

Don’t know why I am mentioning it here, but It is one of those places, where you feel that how reluctant BlackBerry was about entering the full touch segment. Whole of the UI is accessible by HW buttons even if it can be operated by Touch operations alone and places where only touch could have worked, have been intentionally left off like here. No long tap on wallpaper area works for bringing any popup options. No swipe actions on wallpaper area itself. Kind of non-interactive place.

No live wallpapers as well, neither do any option for widgets. As I said earlier, focused about work and work only.

6. App panel

App panel on the bottom of the screen has many tricks of its own. You can pull it up in stages like shown above.

Also you can swipe it by sides to scroll through five panels: All, Frequent, Downloads, Media and Favorites. The names themselves give you an idea that what they do.

App panel do have folder support, you can create folders, move various icons in them, rename them.

But like I said in wallpaper part, it feels quite visible that BlackBerry intentionally kept the UI mostly HW key driven. There is an option to move icons but you can move it via track pad only not via fingers themselves.

An interesting option is Hide Icon, which hides the particular icons from viewing unless you select show all icons via Menu or select Unhide icon option on the same icon.

5. The Call Screen

No fancy looks, but no nonsense UI either, BlackBerry call screen seems very well maintaining the same elegance that you find in rest of the UI. I would have been annoyed by the white background thinking of battery consumption, but as I have seen with it, battery life never been an issue for BlackBerry.

There are some fancy options as well like voice dialing. Not any kind of uniqueness over other platforms, but is to the point and works.

On the con side, no smart dialing here. I never understood what issue companies have in implementing smart contact search by number/ name like the way Samsung Galaxy S do. On technical side, its definitely not one of those highly challenging task to implement the same but don’t know what stopping them.

Obviously, no video call option here considering no front camera neither I found any kind of service integration here for Skype/ Gtalk.

6. The Browser 

There was a time, when BlackBerry Browsers were known to be worse about the Java Script performance and with BB OS7 here comes the time when it is told to be walking ahead of its competition from Android and IOS camps.

From the layman point of view, I found the browser snappy and performing well, even if Flash support is not there or the kinetic scrolling is not that smooth in comparison to Opera on Symbian or Android browsers. Even the design does so well for watching multiple websites at once (At least much better over the stock browsers on Nokia or even Android). Pinch to zoom is smooth, though on the con side, Text reflow doesn’t seem to be behaving that  way. One tap does the text reflow, but zooming further leaves you without text reflow.

But still the best part of BlackBerry browser is its usability with kind of display land resolution it has. No matter how small font I use, I never felt any issue about readability either in-house or outdoors.

7. Calendar

Calendar application on BlackBerry been always an example for work centric phones and the calendar on BB OS 7 doesn’t disappoint either. All the accounts like Google, Facebook etc get integrated into calendar naturally. No separate app required.

8. Photo Gallery and videos

Nothing major about the Gallery and videos here, but it contains all the basics as found on any major touch platform. But yeah better part about it sharing with other services like Android.

Usual pinch to zoom, swipe to navigate and tap and hold for options popup.

9. Camera

The simplistic camera app on BlackBerry is nothing like something that should be taken lightly. This would be one of those camera apps that provides two separate UIs for landscape and portrait modes.

I been particularly impressed with video recording performance of Torch 9860. Autofocus works perfect and I found it focusing every very well over objects as close as 10 cm too. LED video light feels insufficient though.

Some random camera still shot samples.

A random Autofocus sample

10. BlackBerry Messenger

BBM,, the lifeline of BlackBerry as people call it often and it definitely has some tricks of its own. The first part is deeply integrated social experience, second part is a big community rooting up for it, third part is accurate delivery and SMS kind of experience. Nokia users will say that its something like whatsapp, but its definitely more than that.

First the integration itself gives it a huge edge over whatsapp, when you find your neighbor BBM buddies via other apps like Foursquare or Wikitude and even if that’s not enough, BBM goes one step further from any other IM service of this kind by adding acknowledgement of delivery.

Firstly, it sends the message via BlackBerry’s propriety secure servers, then the “D” icon on the left top of the message tells you that it got delivered on the other end. If you thought that only security is a plus here, then it shows a “R” sign on the left top of the message in place of “D” sign earlier, acknowledging the fact that the message got read by the other party (so, one better not refuse that he\she didn’t read the message and missed it.). It definitely takes BBM one step beyond the conventional SMS\Email\IM system.

11. BlackBerry Mails\ IM Accounts

As I haven’t used myself so I wont be able to comment on the BlackBerry Enterprise Services, but one finds the email experience on any BlackBerry a satisfactory experience always. If your company has the BlackBerry server hosting then you enjoy easy communication between your employees and also a very effective contact/calendar sync and collaborations. Even if it doesn’t then you can always configure personal emails  in the same way and it gets integrated into the core of OS (Calendar\Alerts\Contacts\IM etc) in similar way.

Yes! IM experience on BlackBerry is definitely beter than Nokia ones I  have experienced till date. May be the credit goes to operator support or may be the UX is like that, but I couldn’t find frequent disconnection of IM services issues here.

12. BlackBerry App World

I would probably require a little more time to explore about the App World on BlackBerry but as little my exposure been with BlackBerry till now, its been sufficient about resources. Definitely better over early Nokia experience as various app updates notify you once the update arrives.

13. Multi-Tasking

After Symbian\Meego\Maemo etc, only BlackBerry would be a non-Nokia mobile platform that provides the user a complete multi-tasking experience. Switching between running app is just the same as Symbian and fits perfectly into the need of a business person. Its not impossible to make it lag at time (even though very rare), I found over all experience smooth and glossy.

13. Battery Life

Battery life been always the core concern about designing any BlackBerry OS and BB OS7 seems to doing much better than just fair in the same reference. Can’t exactly say about the numbers, but it always seemed to be living much better over my SGS or N8.

But the reasons lie in usages pattern as well. Due to very reliable notification system, BlackBerry allows one to be careless about checking\following things means one will find himself interacting the touch screen lesser than other platforms, which always been the main draining factor about any platform. I yet to check out its battery performance with long  Gaming or Video viewing but with my kind of usages, I had no complaint with Battery which lived up all day long for me.

14. Common apps and surprise goodies

I might look harsh, when I say that Quality on apps on this touch phone is kind of mediocre or not optimized for Touch Screen at all, but it is somewhat close to the truth. BlackBerry apps definitely are backed with an UX at par with the best of platforms, but the UI never seems to be centered around touch experience. Ultra tiny buttons, Java based apps ruins the experience of the glossy feeling of the core OS. Though will write it again that this is about the looks only, function wise, UX of app rivals the best in market apps.

There are some positives as well. Facebook apps includes the chat option in same way as some IM, we can send status updates on all the services at once via Social Feeds and the Hindi Touch Keyboard, that is probably the best one I ever seen on any platform. There are definitely lots of positives as well.

So, this was all what I explored about BlackBerry Torch 9860 till now. Definitely a lot more to explore about it and the short encounter has definitely tempted me enough for buying one myself. The premium price and half hearted apps is something that will hold me from buying a full touch though. Sometimes I really think that if BlackBerry experience is best described by HW QWERTY only? What you say?

While the excitement of receiving a Nokia N9 one day back isn’t over yet, the first day of November opened the another door for Layman’s Take. This time, I got BlackBerry Torch 9860 (All-Touch) review unit for seven days. (The first from an Indian PR and really the quickest response I would ever had from anyone other than Nokia)

That’s bound to be an exciting week for me and readers sure gonna get an entirely fresh take about a Blackberry because, if you bar a few mins interactions with old BlackBerry models, then I been totally unaware of the new world that been sweetheart of most of the business persons out there.

So, what you wanna hear about this new world? Or what you wanna suggest me about it? Send me all those questions, comments, tips on nitish@nitishkumar.net or @nkumar_ I am waiting ….

Finally it is the time to end the suspense and to reveal what I been holding since last few days. Yes! The One is here. The one you waited to hear about from me, the one, over which I was dying to get my hands on. And finally thanks to Tom and Paul, it is here. King of kings, Nokia N9.

Its been 323 days back from here, when I requested the Santa to bring a Nokia N900 for me and while I thought he missed my plea back then in flood of pleas from others, I can hear that he didn’t missed me, but thought to greet me with something even bigger than that. Something that might have removed all the shortcomings of Nokia N900 I once cribbed about and bring this much more than for counting even my fingers could fell short.

It is a dream come true.

I know you wanna hear all about it, I know you wanna see all what you haven’t seen.. in next coming days, I will try that I wont disappoint you all. Now let me go back to the dreamland again.

]]> http://nitishkumar.net/2011/10/31/da-bang-at-laymans-take-yeah-it-is-an-nokia-n9/feed/ 1 nitishkumar 2011-10-31-439 http://nitishkumar.net/2011/10/20/laymans-take-on-nokia-500why-to-buy-and-why-not-to-the-review/ http://nitishkumar.net/2011/10/20/laymans-take-on-nokia-500why-to-buy-and-why-not-to-the-review/#comments Wed, 19 Oct 2011 19:18:49 +0000 Nitish Kumar https://nitishkumar.wordpress.com/?p=8663 ]]>

So, while you have seen that how Nokia 500 looks like and what’s the content inside via the unboxing video, its time to do a recap and then back to usual Layman’s take.

Like I said in last post, low price phones like Nokia C5, Nokia E5, Nokia 5800, Nokia 5233, Nokia 7230 etc always had a special place for me and I gave them a due whenever got a chance, so when you hear about a phone with 1GHz processor under 10k, then its kind of natural to get excited about it. Nokia 500 been the first of 1GHz Symbian Smartphone lineup from Nokia and while its obviously not going to be make big buzz on big tech sites you read, this is sure something that mean business in Asian countries.

Nokia 500: The naming scheme

It’s been a lot of confusing lately with names like C6-00, C6-01, X2-00, X2-03 etc… but finally Nokia taken the suggestions and went back to the old naming conventions like we knew Nokia sometimes back in era or Nokia 1100, 6600 etc…

Pure numeric names for the consumer models and special names for the flagships.

Sure the convention here actually has some different meaning than this, but that’s the way normal consumer may understand it better. So, a good news to see the names like Nokia 500, 600, 700, 701 etc.

I am not sure that many would remember that this is not the first Nokia 500 model. Yeah! it might come as a surprise to you that there was already a product named Nokia 500 Auto Navigation , which was a car navigation device with a 4.3” resistive touch screen with 480×272 pixels resolution supporting 65k colors. More interestingly, this device from 2008 had Samsung’s 400 Mhz CPU. Did you knew it?

While no reviewers seem to be pointing over this, but I find it a bit strange that why Nokia thought to make use of this name? Anyway, as that TomTom competitor is ancient now, so I don’t think anyone will bother when the name Nokia 500 sits tight with the names of other devices in the same range (Nokia 600, Nokia 700, Nokia 701).

Though still we heard of two more product in the old confusing naming, but we should say kudos to Nokia for listening their community and changing the naming scheme finally.

Let’s see what I seen and thought of Nokia 500 …

Nokia 500: The Box and the contents

I wasn’t expecting something heavy inside the box at this price (like we seen in case of Nokia 5800 long back). Sure, there is no TV Out cable (no TV Out capability too), no premium microphones (but it is a Stereo  headset) like Nokia 5800, but you didn’t seen these things with Nokia C7-00 likes too, no?

So, here goes the Nokia 500 Box Contents targeting mass users …

1. Nokia 500 Handset
2. Nokia AC-5E Battery Charger
3. Nokia CA-101D USB Data Cable
4. Nokia WH-102 Stereo Handset
5. Two extra swappable battery covers in different colors
5. A Nokia 500 Manual

You can notice that the content of box is almost the same as it has been with Nokia C7-00 except the super compact charger Nokia AC-5E in place of AC-15E (Not sure if I ever seen such a compact charger around). Also the addition of two swappable battery cover is might be a popular trick to engage youngsters and also keep their different league as Nokia brand due to premium material used in construction.

Complaining about “smallest USB cable in the world” is old days story, so not talking about that, but want to tell the readers that unlike rest of Symbian^3 lineup, like an odd man out, Nokia 500 doesn’t have USB OTG, just like it doesn’t have Bluetooth 3.0 (it has Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR). But its still doesn’t go as deal breaker as expect Nokia Symbian^3 lineup, none of other brands have any of these, leave the low price handsets.

Nokia 500: The design

Do you know what was my first expression, when I seen this device in front of me? I was like holy cow… this thing is so good looking for a low price handset. Same been the words of others, whoever seen it. If you would have seen the designs of Nokia 5800, Nokia 5233 etc or the other brands in this segment, then I am sure that these looks will please you for the price on offer (current best price is 8.5k INR around).

Just take a look at this thing …

Nokia took the same design forward to present their first 1Ghz phone, which arrived with their first capacitive smartphone Nokia X6.

If you thought that Nokia 500 looks fantastic from the front only and plastic (rubber actually I think) on the back might be spoiling the looks, then look at this…

Now, think that from which side you wanna show off this nice little beauty.

The bottom part of the device front contains in-surface touch buttons for Menu, Call, Call End button and an unusually placed Microphone, if you would have noticed left part of the screen.

While in switched off state, Call and Call End buttons look while, Nokia didn’t missed to put Green LED behind Call button and Red LED for the switched on state. And by the way, did I tell you that Call End serves as Power Button as well in case pressed enough long.

Not a big surprise for people keeping track of devices in this price range, but consumers should have been much happier if this phone was sporting a front camera. I mean, isn’t it disappointing a bit to see a device with HSDPA Cat10 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA Cat6 5.76 Mbps but not usable as a video calling device? But again.. why to expect big things from a budget device that is already doing great for its price?

So apart from the ear piece, what else you see on the top of device front is Ambient Light Sensor and a proximity sensor.

Like I always said, if there is no good implementation to cover it, then it’s a lot better to leave the USB slot open, like Nokia been doing with N82, N8 likes and Nokia 500 fall back in the same line. If you look closer then the USB slot is different than other Symbian^3 devices, to ensure that someone may not accidently put a USB OTG cable inside the slot. Also I should personally thank Nokia for managing to keep the USB charging feature retained with Nokia 500.

Rest of the top place is taken by 3.5mm Audio jack on a side and 2mm Charging port on other side. Thank God, we have dual charging options here, which may serve a great purpose of being a reliable modem for our PCs/Laptops. Remember we have HSDPA Cat10 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA Cat6 5.76 Mbps here.

While right side or bottom side of device has no buttons or any ports, we find a lock button and volume buttons on the left side of the device. The Lock button is not slider here, which might be serving better for a plastic body in long term.

While many might miss this point, but you must notice the fact that the camera on back uses the glass here, no plastic lens on the back cover. My experience with Nokia 5233 likes says that we should praise this device whole heartedly. Adds another dimension into durability of this device.

The speaker on the back isn’t anything big to be talked about. Its nothing like those almighty speakers on Nokia 5800, Nokia N8-00 etc but still does fairer than other brands around (quality wise).

Not sure, what to say about it, but Nokia 500 carries a 1110 mAh battery in place of usual 1200 mAh that been kind of standard to Nokia nowadays. Though sure, I don’t have a big complaint on a battery life till its above 7 hours per charge.

The placement of SIM or MicroSD card under battery makes both of them non-hot swappable, but slot open mechanism used here again makes both of a very durable design over some pull out mechanism.

The above is the back cover of the device, which is not that easy to pull it off. I mean not very much tough but still not as easy as it been case of Nokia N82 or Nokia 5310 likes to me. But once you are used to it, the good news is, you can swap the covers without switching off device. I know many for which it would be handy.

Nokia 500: The Interiors

As written on the box, the prominent feature about Nokia 500 is 1GHz ARM processor. Rest usual goodies like 5MP Full Focus Camera, HSDPA Cat10 14.4 Mbps and HSUPA Cat6 5.76 Mbps, 256 MB RAM, 512 MB ROM, 2Gb mass memory, 32 Gb MicroSD support, WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR, Accelerometer Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor and Compass (Magnetometer Sensor) fall in place with Nokia 500.

Neither of 14.1 mm thickness or 3.2” LCD (non AMOLED or non CBD) is something big to talk about nor you expect some superb viewing angles from a plain LCD Display of sub 10k device, but the display is bright enough and pixel density should be considered as above average at 229 ppi (184 ppi of X7-00, 210 ppi of N8-00). Definitely fits enough juice for a sub 10k device.

While we have read that what we got here, let’s take a look at, what we are missing here.

1. No Front camera
2. No LED Flash with back 5MP Full Focus Camera (100 cm to Infinity)
3. No 720p recording anymore (just 640 x 480 pixels with 15 fps only)
4. No Gorilla Glass
5. No Bluetooth 3.0
6. No USB OTG
7. No TV Out support
8. No HDMI obviously
9. Only 2D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG 1.1 support, not the usual 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support (Its big one, if you ask me).

Nokia 500: The Software Experience

Once you open and go through the Symbian Anna on Nokia 500, you definitely find it lighter than its own physical weight. 1 Ghz is so happening with Symbian’s way of utilizing resources so well though lack of 3D HW acceleration sure makes you want more (and Nokia 600, 700, 701 are just around the corner on a little bit more price).

Never found it lagging anywhere, no matter how many apps I am running, but that’s also a fact that not many apps to run there, thanks to no 3D acceleration. But sure its not that big deal as developers will easily adopt with this particular device in a matter of very short time (next Gravity going to cover it for sure, I guess).

Yes, we call it Symbian Anna and it looks like Symbian Anna, but I am sure that developers behind it would have done a great job mapping a 3D HW accelerated UI into a non-3D accelerated UI. I am not a developer but I think that the version number 010.029, we see here should be something different than usual Symbian Anna.

We don’t get to run Angry Bird, I Must Run! like popular games here and Gravity facing noticeable flickering issues .. kind of shows that the software still need some work. Though other apps like fMobi, Nokia Store, 4squick, LinkedIn etc works great.

Rest all Symbian Anna goodies are right there, split input, Qt apps, Video Editor and Photo Editor etc. and I must say it’s the most you get from a sub 10k device out of the box. Otherwise, you either miss 3G or miss camera or miss resolution or missing anything like that.

So, keeping the long story short, this is Nokia 500, what I seen of it. What you think about it? Tell me.. I am all ears on @nkumar_ or on nitish@nitishkumar.net

This was something that we all been waiting since a while, the second inning of the superstar, who never ceases to amaze you. Yes! Gravity 2.0 first preview is finally open for public now.

This time, I been a little late in grabbing the beta as must have been in the way back to home from office, but once grabbed it, it was not easy to sit and type a review that soon as I was used to do in past. Reason: the experience with this version was so mesmerizing to pull you into it that it was hard to keep yourself distracted into anything else. Specially the facebook section kept me into it for around an hour. Hats off @Janole … I was waiting for shout it again.. since long…

So, let’s see what’s changed with the new version (phew!! it’s a long list and many under the hood changes)

1. Entirely reworked Facebook Section:

This always been a complaint from Gravity users and an excuse for others that Facebook never been a priority for Gravity in past. Gravity stood more as a workable Facebook client than being a full fledge one. That’s been the reason that we seen fMobi likes finding a place in essential Symbian App lists. Seems the real competition gonna begin from today itself.

As was already expected, the new Gravity keeps harmony with its own established template for the dashboard style and evolves the various options in its own way. Let’s start checking it out.

As you can see from the first screen itself, we find three kind of notifications with three different icons: one for News feed, One for notifications and one for messages. The main dashboard screen looks like the similar template as we seen with Twitter or FourSquare though in name of details, you will find only few (like you see company name in my case). Tap on the dash board and you are on wall of the user, Tap further and you move into public photos of the same person.

Yes! as you can see, Facebook photos are totally supported now. Either it be picture previews, albums or photo comments. Even if its not as open as some of the other clients or native clients (zooming, tagging, like, share etc), but the elegance of UI is way to go and its just the first preview build of Gravity 2.0, we seen how Gravity been evolving in recent months.

Dig deeper into the interface and you find a lot of new handy things. Now you can see how many likes any of the status has received or how many friends any of friend has or how many mutual friends in between you two. Only now, I came to know that I have around 561 friends on Facebook.

Though its not like that something is not missing here. We don’t see share feature yet, we don’t see which particular people liked any one of your status, but again, it’s the first time, when Gravity moved a step toward Facebook in very bold manner.

And its just not about Photos, but Facebook section now support Pages (feeds from pages you like, not the ability to post as page admin), Groups and Friends as well. So, in short Gravity regains its place as a one stop solution for the ultimate social client on Symbian.

Not only this but there are a number of changes under the hood as well, like caching is enabled in FourSquare and Facebook as well and you wont be stumped with blank timelines, when giving Gravity a cold start. Though I am not sure about the image caching limits as of now, but it seems to be considerably improved now. Numbers may come later.

Talking of shortcomings, then the place, Gravity falling short is privacy features. I am not sure if other clients are doing so or even if Facebook APIs are available for the same, but once Facebook has rolled out various privacy options, sooner or later, then mobile clients also have to follow the suit. Ideally one should be able to choose that who can see his\her updates or how he can add others in some update with tagging them. Tedious task but should be on To-Do list of @janole.

2. More equipped Foursquare with Gravity 2.0

When you open the Foursquare section then you will be greeted with the same UI, though just a tap over any of the check-in and you will see that what’s new about Foursquare in Gravity 2.0. Yes! while with last updates, Gravity already got Foursquare picture previews and weekly scores, Gravity 2.0 adds the option to comment on check-in’s as well. You can even notice from the check-in list itself that which of the check-in got comments by the tiny chat like icons. Not only that but the UI for location map is also have undergone a little change as you can see in the screenshot given below.

Though one can easily guess that some of the important features are still missing here. Like no picture upload option, no notifications for comments or updates and no lists yet. Also Add Venue option is still in the same simple mode rather than being descriptive like with tips or categories.

3. Improved Image upload options

When we talk about image uploads, then Gravity used to have a different approach, where image uploading activities been separated from the regular updates. Gravity used to have a separate images section handling Facebook\ Twitter uploads and Gravity 2.0 doesn’t changes the approach. Though finally with more focus on Facebook section, we got some of very desired changes here about Facebook uploads. Not only we can decide the name of album to upload the picture (can not create a new album though), but we can decide about the quality of picture upload (High or Low only) as well. This was available for Twitter related services only before Gravity 2.0.

4. New Picture UI and Multiple image previews

If you remember then earlier, when you pressed preview, Gravity was opening a new browser showing picture with a slight mirror effect. Its still kind of same but greatly enhanced now as it previews the image in an inline way means along with text (original tweet, Original Facebook status). The same actually gives the context to the image which been missing in Gravity till now.

This been one of the most requested feature since long. While we still do not have pinch to zoom etc, but having multiple service support already and now multiple image preview as well, makes Gravity putting a tough competition to all of other clients (even other platforms) out there.

So this is all I could gather about the new Gravity 2.0 Build 7001 till now, definitely there is a lot more than this in the new version and many more features coming in next few days. Keep tuned in. By the way … check out about one more hope

It might feel odd for a few, but low price phones like Nokia C5, Nokia E5, Nokia 5800, Nokia 5233, Nokia 7230 etc always had a special place for me and I given them a due whenever got a chance. In past, there been many of the readers mails been of similar kind of questions that “what to choose if want to buy a phone under 10k-15k?”. So, it was obvious to be excited when I heard about a Nokia phone coming at a price less than 10k with 1GHz processor, 256 mb RAM and most importantly a capacitive screen. May be the same was the reason that Paul @WomworldNokia decided to give me one of the units for reviewing it and here it goes the unboxing video of the same..

I must admit that for many like me, Nokia 500 is an odd man out there due to no 3D Acceleration support and only Symbian Anna as an OS on it, but still if you think reasonably and think of the fact that what options were out there for people under 10k range and compare this 1GHz capacitive phone with earlier Nokia 5800, Nokia 5233, Nokia C6-00 etc, then you will know that why this is a welcome step.

Sure, one can’t help but get impressed that how Nokia managed to keep the premium feel in such a low price device as well. Remember the designs of Nokia 5800/5233 and just look at this… lovely for its price, isn’t it?

If you think that its just another Nokia/Symbian, about which we are hearing a lot of negative buzz in recent, then watch the video given below and think again, if you have seen it anywhere else and then remind yourself that it’s just a <10k device…

What you say?? Tell me on @nkumar_ or at nitish@nitishkumar.net that what more you wanna know about this.

It should come as an odd to people who know me as the review coming a “little bit” late than usual. I am finishing off the post, when the review unit has gone back. But credit of the same goes to kind of maniac office life. I hope I will be forgiven for the same.

After Nokia E6, I was definitely looking for Nokia X7-00 desperately for the two reasons, first was obviously Symbian Anna on a full touch device and second was the 4" screen that I enjoyed a lot with Nokia E7-00 in a bit thicker format.. and finally Womworld guys heard me. Paul must have got bored reading thanks from my side to him, but I still wanna say… thanks … thanks again mate

So, How Nokia X7 is? Is it really worth it? Without wasting more time, let’s start the Layman’s take.

Nokia X7-00: the box

While I was expecting the box to be something like Nokia C7, the design this time surprised me. I think I even mentioned on my twitter account (@nkumar_) that the box itself reminded me of Apple iPod box. It wasn’t that kind of transparent one, but a front facing of box, that is just a little bigger than the product itself, been style of Apple since long.

Though after opening the box the Apple impression was gone and things reminded me of Nokia Oro box, which I recently unboxed. It should definitely be taken as a compliment for the packaging as Nokia Oro packaging been one of the most premium one so far if I consider all the device that I ever unboxed.

While again I was expecting the content to be like Nokia C7’s box, here came the other surprise that was the Nokia WH-701 Stereo Handset With 1350 mm long cord and all required buttons to control music and call. This was the same headset that I received with Nokia N8 and though didn’t seen with my Nokia E7 review unit, but heard that Indian Nokia E7 units were shipped with the same. This one is definitely a premium one over the one I seen with Nokia C7. Good!!!

USB OTG and Cleaning cloths continued to be missing from the box, but not a big complaint over them now as becoming used to of the fact that Nokia not gonna provide the same 450/- cable in their non-premium handsets.

Here goes the final content of the box.

1. Nokia X7-00 Handset
2. Nokia AC-10E Battery Charger
3. Nokia CA-179 USB Data Cable (same as was with Nokia N8)
4. Nokia WH-701 Stereo Handset and ear buds (same as was with Nokia N8)
5. A Nokia X7-00 Manual

So at the end, will say that impressed with the box, impressed with individual content quality (Cable, Charger, Headset) and totally loved the fashionable design of Nokia X7-00.

Everyone loved it at first sight, either it be people from my office or wife. Great start for the price 21-22k around.

Nokia X7-00: The Exteriors

If you talk about all the Nokia devices till date, then I would like to call Nokia X7-00 as a hunk. By looks, it stands out from all of them as a definitely male appearance even though girls love it.

There are four grills around the phone body though only two of them works as speaker (lower ones) and rest two are here just to add the appearance. Rest parts are the usual large earpiece in middle, ambient light sensor and proximity sensor, but the absence of a front camera can’t be called any less than a horror. Doesn’t matter that how much of front camera I use in my daily life, but I was plain shocked over absence of the same in Nokia X7-00. Will come over it later on.

A differently styled power button to match the fashionable style of Nokia X7 and I am happy to see an open Micro USB slot without any cover as I always said that its better to leave the slot open than putting a pull out plastic cap on it (till the time, you don’t find a better mechanism for the same. Hint: Copy Samsung please).

Lower side of the device has a construction similar to the top with two real speaker grills on the sides and one Menu button in the middle (more like Nokia E7 rather than Nokia C7 or N8).

The back of the Nokia X7-00 has kind of similar same surface level Camera like Nokia E7-00, which matches it specs wise as well.

Also it was a pleasant surprise to see the physical camera button here as placing buttons on curvy surface like Nokia X7-00 wouldn’t have been that easy design decision. Even though there will be few that will find the curvy button a bit strange to hold, I will still praise the decision to keep it.

Same about the volume buttons, which are again almost in level to the surface with nice tactile feedback.

The other side has slots for SIM and Memory cards and I must tell you… these slots are kind of trickiest one that one could have seen in any of recent Nokia. After the absence of front camera, this been the second most annoying thing for me in start and I actually took around 15 mins to insert the SIM for the first time even when Nokia E7-00 likes never been a job of more than few seconds for me.

While opening the slot been tricky one in start, it wont be the same always once you give a little time to it. Analyzing it further will also give you idea that its not been a fault of the design but its supposed to go like that. The above pictures may give you a little idea that how to pull out the slots (both the slots have similar mechanisms). But I must tell you that one needs to be a little ruthless in pulling out those tiny slots without the fear of breaking them.

So this was all about Nokia X7-00 exteriors, undoubtedly most fab looking Nokia handset till date.

Nokia X7-00: The interiors

The specs sheet of Nokia X7-00 is definitely not that kind of looker as the handset itself is. Still as you know, it has kind of similar specs as of Nokia E7/N8/C7 etc. Same pentaband connectivity, Same HSDPA\HSUPA, same WLAN 802.11 b/g/n, Same 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support, same 2 Microphones, same Accelerometer Sensor, same Ambient Light Sensor, same Compass (Magnetometer Sensor), same Proximity Sensor and same TV Out with composite.

Disappointing part is lack of CBD screen and most prominently lack of front camera. I wonder what it would look like when we will see something with a HD level resolution and CBD AMOLED screen with such a metallic fab looking build.

Let’s take a look over tech specs for the people, who might be interested in the same… (kind of repeat for people who have read about N8/E7/C7 etc)

• ARM 680 MHz process (Single Core).
• 256 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM
• Pentaband connectivity with HSDPA Cat9 10.2 Mbps, HSUPA Cat5 2.0 Mbps, WLAN IEEE 802.11 b/g/n
• Separate GPU (32 MB) with 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support.
• 4 inch AMOLED display; Gorilla Glass protection.
• Slim stainless steel body.
• 8 megapixel camera with 720p HD video Full Focus Camera. (Symbian Anna limiting video recording to 25 fps till now)
• Internal Memory 350 MB
• 8 GB microSD provided.
• 32 GB Memory Card support
• Superior audio quality than even Nokia N8 likes. Placing of speakers make it even more louder in practical usages
• BL-5K 3.7V 1200mAh (while E7 had BL-4D 3.7V 1200mAh, noticeable difference in battery life, specs wise too. 6.5 GSM Talk time)

On the con side, its not only CBD, front camera and Auto-Focus etc that is absent here, but you will find no Magnetometer sensor too. Not sure, if many will notice the same but sure limits some features about Ovi Maps on otherwise excellent big screen in slim form factor. By the way, if we go by specs, then even if no front camera is here, the phone is fully capable of making video calls via the back camera. Also in comparison of E-Series handsets, we do not have Lotus Notes support as well (not in N8 etc either, only E7/E6).

Nokia X7-00: The experience and what I feel about it

We have already discussed about Symbian Anna experience in details with my Nokia Oro review and I also covered in enough details that how things gonna be much more better with the upcoming Symbian Belle Update that is not many weeks far from here, so I don’t have enough things to say about Nokia X7-00 in separate.

While I understand that there would be many who will wish to have my words on Nokia X7-00 without influence of my experience with Nokia N8 likes, but honestly speaking, its been a hard job for me even to put a Layman’s take on Nokia X7 without keeping my earlier experiences in mind. Nokia X7-00 was always my favorite due to its design etc and for the time, its been with me, I always used it more than Nokia Oro or Nokia N8, but if you ask to put me money on it, then Nokia N8 would be my first choice, but for people considering Nokia C7, it would have been a better bet. But let’s see that why one should buy a Nokia X7-00?

1. Build Quality Though Nokia X7-00 is not built from the same material as Nokia N8 or Nokia E7 likes, but still having a handset built with Stainless Steel is just another league. Not every manufacturer had much success with metallic builds when it comes about including all the features as well. With only a little 11g higher weight than Nokia N8, you getting a similar solid build in much slimmer profile and with a bigger screen. Above all, Nokia X7-00 has kind of an iconic design, which one can spot from even at some distance.

2. Connectivity options With Nokia X7-00, you get HSDPA 10.2 Mbps and HSUPA 2 Mbps, WLAN connectivity and Bluetooth 3.0. Even if that was less, then it offers you USB-OTG that instantly removes the need for memory card exchange for many. You just need to buy a cable and then you can connect any pen drive directly to your phone with any PC. Similarly, even if there is no HDMI option available here for this mid range device, you get the standard TV-Out option here via the TV-Out cable that needs to be purchased in separate. Also Nokia Play like apps might enable you to play via DLNA as well.

And if you thought that these options are lesser, then remember my video of Nokia E6, where I paired the Bluetooth mouse with Nokia E6, same is possible with Nokia X7 as well and not only that but you can do the same via USB OTG and a normal USB mouse/Keyboard as well. Do you think that any other mobile OS supports this?

3. 8 MP Camera capable of shooting 720p Even though Full Focus cameras by Nokia been an average experience for camera savvy users, but when it comes to Videos, then though Full Focus cameras like Nokia X7 lacks in extreme close-up videos, they perform very decently when it comes to general videos. Check out a a random shot taken by me while my Nainital trip …

And though nothing like some special mention, but even for still shooting, Full Focus does enough decent job for common people. See some samples …

A little low light shot from an evening …

Not exactly, but kind of close shot ..

A shot from the running car ..

4. Free Ovi Maps navigation Like I always said If Maps are mainstream now, then all the credit goes to Nokia and Google like companies. True that, in India, we still prefer to have Google Maps installed in addition to Ovi Maps, but if you have a car and stuck in areas with no data connection or fluctuating data connections, then you really come to know what worth technologies like Ovi Maps has. Though the experience will have a little bit limited by the absence of magnetometer here, but still bigger screen makes the fun bigger and specially good when in a lighter weight than Nokia E7-00.

5. Multimedia support While lack of any kind of back stand or tilt screen like Nokia E7 limits the choices with Nokia X7-00 video viewing, it still stands as a great video companion for one with its gorgeous 4” AMOLED screen than it known to be one of the brightest screen around.

6. Gaming caliber I would say that Gaming is possibly the best use of Nokia X7 so far. A lighter but tough build in your hands gives the best feeling while playing the games.

I went for a lengthy post on Gaming with Nokia N8-00 and you can be assured that Nokia X7-00 does a little better than Nokia N8-00 on this regard. Slimmer build helps you on grip and being the same GPU capabilities, the experience is definitely the same.

Angry Bird, Asphalt, War Chess, Galaxy on Fire, SIMS 3, Micro Maze, Real Soccer, Hero of Sparta, Cricket T20 Fever, Avtar, I Must Run! … the list of the games on Symbian^3 and hence on Nokia X7-00 is enough long to keep you interested.

Once I got hold on Symbian Belle on my Nokia N8 then it was kind of due to bring a Layman’s Take style big walkthrough of Symbian Belle. Though still one needs to understand that the firmware, I am using on my phone is a leaked and half baked one, so there might be major changes afterwards.

What is Symbian Belle?

The latest firmware update to Symbian^3 devices, Symbian Belle, is what Symbian^3 PR3.0 was supposed to be. A kind of rename for understanding of n00bs rather than confusing them with various version numbers. Its something that seems to be influenced from Android itself (Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, IceCream Sandwitch, Honeycomb ….).

Symbian Belle is the first Symbian^3 update that is supposed to bring major UI changes throughout the Symbian^3 lineup. It will change many Symbian UI paradigms and also the way, we know Symbian till now. A true modernization of Symbian without alienating existing user habits.

Is Symbian Belle the last stop for Symbian^3?

While developers and insiders were already aware of it, Nokia has confirmed officially that despite of the fact that Company is moving toward Windows Phones, Symbian Belle will not be the last update to Symbian platform.

We already seen glimpses of Symbian^4 back in Feb 2010, which though definitely feels outdated now, but still there been lots of references to Symbian^4 in Symbian bugzilla since then and so hard to deny the fact that Symbian^4 will be the next step.

Sure, it will have a new name like Anna or Belle and also there are no exact ideas that what features it’ll bring on board as many of the Symbian^4 changes are already being incorporated into Symbian Belle itself. But there is a big hope.

Now, let’s go through new features of Symbian Belle …

1. New Lock screen

We have seen some changes in the Lock Screen with Symbian Anna itself, when we got notifications on lock screen, but Symbian Belle takes it a step further. Not only there are cosmetic changes in Clock, which feels like 3D now, you see a glossy and colorful lock screen rather than old black one.

Yes! the standby screen will still stay black (first screenshot) without any mention of signals, battery, bluetooth, data connection etc, but that is totally understandable as queries all those values takes precious battery life that sure would have been unnecessary in standby.

Wondering that how you can change the wallpaper on the lock screen? There is no option for doing that. This is actually a transparency effect and will show up the same wallpaper as the home screen behind the lock screen. Means if you locked your phone from 1st screen then it will show up the wallpaper of 1st screen and if locked from 2nd screen then it will show up of the 2nd.

2. New Notification Bar

Symbian Users and developers had a long pending complaint over the notification bar of Symbian that was taking too much of precious screen space (Check the third screenshot given below).

1. SGS Home Screen, 2. iOS Home screen, 3. Early Symbian^3 Home screen 4. Symbian Belle.

Its very interesting to see the similarity between first and last one means Android (TouchWiz) and Symbian Belle.

But still its a welcome step for Symbian users that at least its getting at par with others with Symbian’s reliability and battery life. It was also good to see that we are able to pull the drop down bar throughout the UI and within Applications (except when they are in full screen mode like Gravity).

While it seems that ultimately everyone following Android-ish way of notifications which been one of the excellent direction so far, I found it a bit disappointing that Nokia decided to completely copy the same without adding anything more into it. The above screenshot shows that how much of Android got copied into Symbian Belle and how much got left.

On the positive side, it was good to see mobile Data toggle button there as it might help to those, who wanna keep a strict control over the mobile data usages as it provides an easy switch between wifi and Mobile Data.

On the negative side, notifications are better but not as much functional as Android or iOS5 (which are much better over even Android now). You can’t clear individual notifications or even all at once, no email/social notifications and even not sure if notifications API is available for third party developers yet. It’s revolutionary for Symbian users for sure but need a lot of work to be at par with other platforms.

3. New Home screen and widgets

For people asking for the count first, let me confirm that leaked Symbian Belle for Nokia N8 contains a max of three home screens, not sure about what will happen in final firmware.

While smooth draggable Home Screens like Android have arrived since Symbian Anna (first screenshot), there is a change between both the implementations (Android vs Symbian). There are no Panorama or Live\Animated wallpapers for Symbian yet nor any future plans. Each home screen will have its own wallpaper and while there will be same wallpaper in background while dragging, it will smoothly fade in for the wallpaper on next Home screen.

In the above screenshots, you can see that now there are a lot of choices in widget design and widgets are richer and powerful than ever. While screen space and resolution will keep the size of unit widget like same 80×100, but the screen is divided into 11×7 rectangles rather than earlier 6×4 rectangles, which definitely make the user feel the system as more flexible. Not only that but dragging a widget from one home screen to another is finally possible.

One more interesting thing about the new Home screen is the orientation handling. Landscape and Horizontal screens both seems to be storing their location co-ordinates separately that is definitely much more flexible and intelligent approach. Loved it.

One widget that I liked most was the Email widget. It is scrollable, shows last 20 mails for an account (no unified emails from multiple accounts), shows off the news mails by blue circle at left and have a decent new mails alert at the right top of widget. I would have loved if there was a simple switching between two or more accounts (you need to go via bottom left icon in arrange mode), but still I liked the current implementation. You may have multiple email widgets for multiple accounts as well, but I think widget size will limit that possibility.

Not sure but probably Samsung Galaxy S2 has a similar email widget. I wish @janole may think of something similar for his Gravity as well.

4. Richer Pop-Up dialogues in center

With Symbian Belle the popup notifications are in center and a bit richer than earlier. Though we would have liked some kind of transparency effect over them and option to skip them by tapping anywhere out, but thing to think is, if Nokia gonna provide the same functionality to developers as well. Some innovative ideas from third party Developers along with available functionalities can definitely change a lot about the overall experience.

5. New Navigation Paradigm

If we remember those last leaks about PR3.0 back in Feb 11, then you can see that things change over time. Its not exactly the same as we seen in those pictures, but is similar. Finally the two menu approach of Symbian (that was taken straight away from the non-touch phones and been a big bugger of all time) going a little away and giving in the place to a modern UI.

Two Menu system is gone, bulky notifications are gone and in place of text, we will have icons for actions like Back, Call and Options, which not only looks better but saves the precious screen space and much better scalable too. Presence of portrait split input and search option integrated in bottom bar scores high for the usability. For backward compatibility, options\Back icons are still here.

In Menu, we find the same style background as was with Lock screen. You will find the same wallpaper as transparent background as was of the Home Screen from where you are coming.

While the Folders can still be created, but out of box, you find all the apps in one scrollable menu like some Android Launchers (No multiple screens like iOS or TouchWiz). The long press context menu got one more option that is add to home screen. Also the new arrange apps screen look much nicer than earlier. One more addition is the new application notification as red “*” on top left of the app icon. Its been like this in iOS and some of Android Launchers earlier. Sure a welcome step for Symbian Users.

6. New Contacts App

While Symbian Belle brings some of the UI changes, there were some changes in the new contacts app since Symbian Anna already like Remote Contact Search in your Mail accounts and contact merging ability.

Its strange to see that Social Network Integration or Chat Integration got missing with the update. May be its not finished yet but the contact card definitely changed and has became less functional now. While the minimalistic approach might be better in some sense, I would have liked to see something that has been in Maemo. Let’s see what happens in final product.

7. New Call Dialpad UI

While there are some minor changes in the UI, it again disappoints to see that contact search by numbers is still missing from Symbian Belle. We might expect some app coming from Nokia Beta Labs to fill the gap, but it should have been implemented within the core. I never come to know that what’s been the reason that Nokia still avoiding the same.

8. New SMS/Conversation App

While possibility of searching by name in SMS Conversation app might be a great news for many, Back Menu and Fade-In effect while navigating through pages will add a lot into the experience. Also like you see on the top of screen in last screenshot, easier navigation from one SMS to another and easy selection of text should be a great news.

9. New Browser

Even though the leaked build on my Nokia N8 didn’t had a very great performing browser in terms of HTML5 Score (just 96 without any bonus points), in real, I never had any issue with rendering and speed. Scrolling was just beyond any Symbian Build so far pinch to zoom/ rendering etc been smooth. Its not a tabbed browsing experience again, but multiple window tab is in bottom navigation bar that almost equivalent to tabs.

Though there is nothing like speed dial, but if you set your homepage to “Most Visited Pages”, then you can find kind of same in your browser as well (though not customizable like speed dial).

Also easy copy option in browser should also be appreciated.

10. New Gallery

There been some incremental changes in Symbian Gallery from PR1.0 to PR2.0 and PR3.0 a.k.a Symbian Belle isn’t any behind. While the performance is snippy, split screen sharing etc makes it more better.

Though still I wish if there were automatic folderwise, datewise albums, but every positive step for Symbian is always welcome here. We need it.

11. New Calender

While the date widget is already very new and sleak, the calendar app is also blessed with the new navigation UI as rest of the apps. Functionality wise there seems to not much changes over already brilliant Symbian Anna calendar app.

12. New Email

The changes in Email App might be cosmetic in nature, but as I already mentioned, the biggest upgrade was the Email widget. Marking mode is circular style everywhere and allows you to select more than one emails, which is missing from my Galaxy S. Though I need some longer time to evaluate the same but first 3-4 days has assured me that mails are working at least if not the push actually.

When I configured mail, then it was like providing email id only. It doesn’t asks for agreement to any service and I didn’t configured manually as well, so it should be half implemented or may be not integrated with Nokia servers yet, but in last days, I missed no mail and test mails get delivered within 2-3 mins if not within a min. Good news finally.

13. New Video App

While one of the most simplified in looks, Symbian^3 video app been a peace of beauty about performance. Not much into customizations, but still provides you almost everything to enjoy the multiple format videos in your phone. With Symbian Belle now the controls have moved to the bottom which makes it more natural now.

14. New Music App

While functionality wise, I was unable to find any big upgrade in Music player of Symbian Belle (in comparison to Symbian Anna one), the only changes were the new kind of transparency effect while choosing one of album cards and side swiping on album art to change track (though its without any animation of Fade-In effect that is strange but very handy).

Thanks for the tip @laxman289

Still no custom presets or equalizers.

15. Brand New Camera UI

While Nokia and @phonedaz have already released the similar Camera app for Nokia N8 via Betalabs so the UI will be less of a surprise to most of the users, but its seriously a big upgrade over the last UI, if you remember.

Video part has also got 30fps and continuous auto focus though there is no mention for the same within the app itself as these are kind technical details. No option for switching off Continuous Auto Focus like the earlier released hacked mod as the official implementation is smart enough to handle various situation without any issue.

While flashing to Belle, I was skeptical about the camera part only as wasn’t wishing to be long on leaked Symbian Belle if the camera app performs mediocre or any bit lesser than original and the verdict is, I am glad that I switched to Symbian Belle.

Though it might be a  bug, but the leaked Belle firmware opens camera by pressing camera key, even if the screen is in locked mode. Not sure, if its intentional or accidental.

16. New Search App

While the same app been seen in Symbian Anna as well, but there seems to be many of the performance improvement in the search app on Symbian Belle. The only place, where you can search for numbers in your contacts.

17. New animations

Those who blamed Symbian for lack of flashy animations, will be shouting a little less now due to Fade-In effects filled in almost all the place throughout the UI. The wonderful part is, all these animations doesn’t seem be slowing down the phone or even eating more battery.

18. Performance and Battery life improvements

Its not always a good experience on Symbian once you install too many apps and fill up your memory with crap and background processes. But with Symbian Belle, it feels really different. Before trying Symbian Belle myself, I was thinking that they might have filled in some animations when App is processing in background, but once used, it was like “from where the hell, its getting processor and such speed?”. I really wonder that how optimized and less resource hungry software Nokia people and Symbian can make. If this is an 680 MHz ARM processor only then what if some 1GHz etc?

I never really used myself, so can’t confirm but one of the friend sent me this screenshot via an App Speedy Go that provides a measure of speed (not sure on what parameters). According to him, the same phone which was performing like 600-700 with Symbian Anna, now shows 2892. If its a right measure then we can say that speed improvement is like 400%.

There been some reports by other users that leaked Symbian Belle is giving less of battery life in comparison to Symbian Anna, but my experience been just opposite. Its not like that it has gone some 200-250% but its sure 125%-150%. I am using my Nokia N8 with two mail id configured on it and Gravity is on like full time with 100 tweets/day, but still managing 6-7 hours on cracking 3G of my area. Believe me its definitely better situation than what I was used to face with same network and same Nokia N8. Its more better because nowadays, I use it outside Gravity as well.. and use it a lot.

19. Nokia Pure fonts

I am not really sure that if the device itself has Nokia Pure Fonts or not but it really seems so.

20. New startup

Though usual Nokia Connecting Hands video is still in the startup but before the same, we get greeted by the following screen.

By the way, do not panic, if you start your phone and touch screen not responds to your taps. Its a known bug of this leaked firmware. It happens if you start/restart your phone with power cable/ USB cable inserted in it. Just remove the cable and restart it again, it will work fine.

A short video preview of Symbian Belle ..

So, this was all about Symbian Belle as I learned till now or could have written. Its always impossible to cover up all the details from a user side as there will be/might be a lot of internal changes to make the experience more better than ever. So, I can’t say anything if there comes a claim that Symbian Belle got some 50+ changes.

Its not like that the leaked Symbian Belle is perfect, there are a lot of issues pending like some mentioned in this thread. I don’t get any kind of vibrations as of now, no haptic feedback at all. But for me, its totally usable and awesome experience to be on Symbian Belle than being over Symbian Anna. Definitely good time ahead for those who bought a Nokia Symbian phone and one shouldn’t be giving hope just yet.

For those wishing to be part of the same experience, I have warned already that it might be risky and its better if you know the risks first before thinking of flashing. But even then if you are willing to take the risk for the changes\features mentioned above, then here is the Layman’s Guide to Flash Symbian Belle on Nokia N8. Obviously, flashing is not recommended for all and will not only void your warranty but might brick your Nokia N8 forever.

I know there are many out there with Symbian Belle on their Nokia N8 or those who might be wishing to do so, so from here I wanna know from all of you, if I might have missed anything here or if you can add anything from your side, then you are most welcome.

For any query related to this or anything else, you can always catch me on twitter @nkumar_ or on mail nitish@nitishkumar.net.

Update: Avoid the old method as the latest firmware update method is very simple. Keep the files in place, open Product and flash. Use refurbish.

Original Firmware file link only: Download Link (Warning: It leaves only 20 mb around in C: drive of Nokia N8)

Updated link without Hero of Sparta: Download Link (It will leave you with around 130 mb in C: drive)

I will suggest you to use the second link which is created after removing Hero of Sparta files from the firmware.

Check the latest version demo here

Notice the speed this time.

Updated: Installed the second leaked version too via the same procedure and with new files. Haptic feedback and 6 home screens now. You can use exactly the same procedure while flashing. Note that even if you are already on Symbian Belle (earlier leaked one), you need to use the same Anna files (at least I did so successfully without any trouble).

So you bought a Nokia N8 last year and while reading a lot of negative buzz on internet and around you, started thinking if buying Nokia N8 (or even any other Symbian^3 device) was a wrong decision? But still keeping it around as there been no better camera phone than this ever nor seems likely any soon.

Think again… Haven’t you seen your Nokia N8 like brand new twice a time till now?

Once when you bought it and once you got Symbian Anna on it recently. Not enough? That was just kind of theme change in your eyes?

Be ready to see it like real brand new with Symbian Belle now. Yup! even though its so unlike Layman’s take, I decided to take the plunge and flashed Symbian Belle leaked firmware on it. So we paid once and will be having brand new device experience for more than three times.

WARNING:

1. DO NOT USE ANY OTHER THEME THAN INSTALLED. IT WILL CERTAINLY MAKE YOUR PHONE GO IN REBOOT LOOP.
I bricked mine while trying the same and the only  resolution was to flash it back to PR1.0 11.5 scanvidia. It was a scary ride for me as didn’t wanted to loose N8 in any case. Somehow managed to get over with it.

How to flash my Nokia N8 with Symbian Belle?

I know most of readers here never did any flashing with their Nokia Phones and no one wanna take a risk of bricking their phones, specially when it comes to Nokia N8. I know there will be many questions in your mind and I will try to get them answered, but first I want to make you clear that

1. FLASHING YOUR PHONE WITH ANY UNOFFICIAL FIRMWARE WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY (though you can claim your warranty back once you are back on official firmware).

2. THERE ALWAYS WILL BE A RISK OF BRICKING YOUR DEVICE WHILE FLASHING, SO ITS AT YOUR RISK (Not advised for faint hearted)

So done with warning, I know you still are interested in the guide .. so here we go..

Pre-requisites tools and files:

Let me very clear that this guide is talking about unlocked Nokia N8′s only. You need to download the following things first …

1. Phonix: An awesome piece of un-official software for flashing Nokia Phones. Official Page here and download link for the latest version is here. Note that its some 95 mb+ file.

2. Navifirm: Navifirm is a software for downloading firmwares for Nokia devices. It is also for finding product code of Nokia mobile phones. You can find their page here and latest version is here. Less than 1mb

3. Symbian Belle leaked firmware: Leaked firmware’s are usually those one that are not yet finished for the official release and somehow came out via some insider or some outsider accidently or intentionally. Obviously the definition itself says that its not a finished firmware and there might be\ will be bugs. Worth it or not, you will find in later parts. You can download the files from here (password: orvvan + mohamad 79) or alternative download without password from here.

It will contain the following four files

RM-596_111.010.0606_13.01_MEA_A_79u_prd.rofs2.fpsx (40mb)
RM-596_111.010.0606_79u_prd.core.fpsx (121 mb)
RM-596_111.010.0606_C04.01_MEA_1_79u_prd.rofs3.fpsx
RM-596_111.010.0606_U07.01_79u.uda.fpsx

New Files for the new leaked firmware:

Though original link by CODeRUS was from Rapidshare,  but for the convenience of others, I have uploaded the same on Multi-Upload, that were provide the convenience to download via any of the download site of your choice.

Here goes the link for the new leaked firmware, which resolves haptic issues and also gives 6 home screens.

4. Symbian Anna Official firmware: Multiple posts on web can confuse you that which Symbian Anna firmware you need (some Chinese one or something else), so note it clearly, the basic requirement is Symbian Anna firmware and best option is to download the one, which is available for your region, for your model number, for Nokia N8. Like I went for v22.014 for my Indian Dark Gray Nokia N8.

For downloading the official firmware, you need to use Navifirm Plus, choose Nokia Care Suit mode, then clear cache and once the list loads, select Nokia N8 (RM-596) and then subsequently your firmware files. It should be around 253 mb and 8 files. Indian Dark Grey Nokia N8 users can download from here.

5. A perfectly working Nokia USB Data cable

Precautions to be taken before the beginning:

1. Install Phonix first. Should not be any issues here. Though some guides suggest that you need to uninstall Official Nokia Softwares before installing Phonix, but I found that you just need to assure that none of the official Nokia Apps are running in background, just that. No need to uninstall.

2. (Optional) Have a clean Nokia N8 Many of the issues people faced with leaked Symbian Belle only because of their own messed up Nokia N8, so its better to start a fresh. Best if you have a refurbished Nokia N8 with Symbian Anna, otherwise clean your Nokia N8 via Factory Reset + Delete Data and a reinstall via Ovi Suit.

*Those who haven’t got the official Symbian Anna firmware yet, can flash their phone with an Symabin Anna via same Phonix, but you need Symbian Anna on your phone first to upgrade to Symbian Belle.

3. Make sure power availability and have a recharged Nokia N8 In any case, if your Nokia N8 goes out of battery or USB connection gets disconnected, then its almost likely to brick your Nokia N8, which might be a bit hard to recover back. So make sure, nothing like such happened in middle of operations.

4. Remove the SIM, remove the memory Card There been issues with some people, when they tried to do the flashing with SIM inserted so it better to be safe remove the SIM and only insert back when everything running fine on Symbian Belle.

Finally How to do the flashing:

1. Copy original 8 Symbian Anna firmware files (not the four Symbian Belle files) to Phonix directory

C:\Program Files\Nokia\Phoenix\Products\RM-596

Note that the directory might be changed in your installation and also you need to create RM-596 yourself. *You can check location at Phonix –> Tools –> Options –> Product Location

2. Keep all four Symbian Belle Firmware files in one folder somewhere as you will be needed to navigate to them.

3. Make sure only one phone is connected to your computer. Then go to Phonix –> File –> Manage Connection, move No Connection up and apply.

4. Go to Phonix –> File –> Open Product, type RM-596 and select the result which would be Nokia N8.

5. Go to Phonix –> Flashing –> Firmware Update, from the Product Code box, open and choose your product code (should be there automatically). Now it must be showing your SW version and variant. Check Dead Phone USB Flashing and go to Options button at the bottom of the same page and you will fine another page open with six files listed.

6. Delete following two files as you don’t have those two files available in leaked firmware, so we wont do anything on them

RM596_APE_ONLY_ENO_11w15_v0.148.fpsx
RM-596\RM-596_M021.44.emmc.fpsx

7. Now carefully replace the rest of the four files via Edit option (double click will also do) with subsequent files in Symbian Belle Firmware. Like in my case as given below:

RM-596\RM-596_022.014_79.92_prd.core.fpsx –> RM-596_111.010.0606_79u_prd.core.fpsx
RM-596\RM-596_022.014_24.01_India_79.92_prd.rofs2.fpsx –> RM-596_111.010.0606_13.01_MEA_A_79u_prd.rofs2.fpsx
RM-596_022.014_C03.01_India_79.92_prd.rofs3.fpsx –> RM-596_111.010.0606_C04.01_MEA_1_79u_prd.rofs3.fpsx
RM-596\RM-596_022.014_U03.01_79.92.uda.fpsx –> RM-596_111.010.0606_U07.01_79u.uda.fpsx

Note that only four files must be shown there as of now. Press Ok to come back to last page.

8. Now re-verify all the things above and then press Refurbish which will start flashing your phone. Following the onscreen messages. In between, it will ask to keep the power button pressed for 8 seconds. Keep it pressed for a little longer till you get the three vibrates. In start, it will tell you that a file is missing.. don’t worry and press OK.

9. Now, if all went well then your Nokia N8 will reboot into Symbian Belle.

Its definitely not that longer or complex as it seems from the long post, but I just elaborated the steps a little to make you understand that what’s actually happening otherwise this all will take not even a 5 mins from you (apart from the flashing part). For more convenience, you may check the video

When started, it will take a longer time to install many apps from Mass Storage I guess. Nothing to be scared of it. In my case, Swype was bugging me and was installing like forever. I connected the phone with PC and remove the directory Phone/System/Apps/Swype and all went well.

How to downgrade from Symbian Belle

In case if you wanna come back for claiming warranty or something else, then you will be needed to flash to Scanvidia firmware (that is PR1.0 actually) first. It might not be a working one (no Home Screen etc), but once done, then you can flash your Nokia N8 with the latest Symbian Anna firmware or Symbian Belle or something else (custom/ hacked firmware etc).

As in last steps, always be careful that no SIM\Mass Storage Card should be inside phone while flashing and also never forget to delete unnecessary files except four important files.

Perfecting Working Apps that I installed on Symbian Belle and their links

Gravity, Opera Mobile, Best Screensnap, HDR Photo Camera, LinkedIn, Socially, fmobi, 4Squick

These are not the only apps that working, but ideally all the apps should work perfectly. Though Java based apps not working yet and all those themes which are not created with Carbide 4.2 or later, wont work on Symbian Belle. (Thanks @marvelprash for the tip)

Symbian Belle Preview on Nokia N8

Sorry for a very bad quality video. Somehow made this at mid of the night.

There are a lot to share about Symbian Belle features and I will try to add the same in another post, but one thing I must say, I have a got a brand new Nokia N8 after this.

Any reader, who needs any help or have any quick question or have a nice suggestion/tip for me, can catch me on twitter @nkumar_ or on email id nitish@nitishkumar.net.

Nokia Facebook page was a hot topic among Nokia Fans and bloggers since some days due to a mysterious message on their page with a countdown heading towards today. It didn’t stayed long enough as a mystery among Nokia fans due to some goof-ups (?) from Nokia side itself, when they accidently leaked the name "Belle".

Even though I am rarely blogging nowadays due to office things, but like always I been active on twitter @nkumar_ and like others I was also wondering about the message "This time it’s personal" and even sent a "funny" tweet as well. Though I am yet to figure about the exact motives behind the tagline, Google sent me to this link that was written by Chief Scientist, Accenture long back in 2009. Not sure, but was it first sign of Accenture’s involvement in Symbian?

Anyway, the news is bigger than these small speculations… it is about Announcement of three super cheap smartphones equipped with well awaited Symbian Belle (Yes! you are reading it right.. Symbian Belle, I know even Symbian Anna roll out not finished yet). So let’s talk about the new joinees first.

On August 24, 2011, Nokia has announced three new mid-range smart phones and one headset. All of them have their own firsts. Let’s discuss about each in short.

Nokia 600

People living in Asian regions might have noticed that the fight at low price segment have became fierce recently. Many of the people, who might have been non-smartphone users till now looking for cheapest options possible to taste the whole new world out there. But still when it comes to suggesting friends that what is best for them at price around 10k-12k, it never been an easier choice. Earlier I been suggesting people for Nokia c5/E5 and for those who want touch only, there was no options but Nokia 5230 like phones

Nokia just made the choice easier with a phone official touted as loudest smartphone till date. I definitely would like to check this out someday as I know a few for whom the loudness been the most important criterion always even if the voice quality goes to trash box. Thank God, it’s a Nokia, so I wont even doubt on Voice Quality this time.

When it comes to look and specs, then one would not call Nokia 600 a super impressive one, but once you bind it with the price segment and other devices available in similar price point, then sure you find a lot of reasons to smile.

1 GHz ARM 11 (Single CPU) Processor, 512 MB RAM, 340 MB internal memory, 1GB ROM, 3.2" Capacitive TFT screen …. sometimes one feels like he is reading specs of some 20k+ phone. And for those, who just wanna to skip a Nokia for Symbian, its just beyond anything Symbian you seen till date, its Symbian Belle.

Here I want to read some fine prints about the hardware and clear some doubts here about the phone  ..

• This device supports Penta-band, WLAN 802.11 b/g/n, HSDPACat10 14.4 Mbps & HSUPACat6 5.76 Mbps.
• It has a GPU unit (though not N8/C7/E7 one) and also all the popular sensors and new double tap sensor.
• People doubting over GPU inside, take a look here. GPU Memory increased to 128mb from 32mb of N8/C7/E7 etc.
• Graphics performance is also boosted from 200 MPixels/s to 1000 MPixels/s for all three handsets.
• 5 MP camera on it is a Full Focus one, but supports 720p recording at 30 fps.
• It should be one of the first Nokia devices to have internal FM receiver means FM without headphone
• It got a FM Transmitter built in to share music over frequencies (88.1 – 107.9 MHz)
• Full plastic build.
• Just 2GB internal storage though it got 32Gb MicroSD support
• It doesn’t have an Auto Focus camera means no chance to take macro shots.
• It doesn’t have a front camera or even capability of native video calls.
• Even though the claim is 15 hours GSM talk-time, you are still stuck with BL-4J 3.7V 1200mAh battery.

So in all, you got a phone that is loud, light as less 100g, launched at 12k around, got all the frequencies to run across the globe, got the WLAN caliber, got Bluetooth 3.0, got NFC and innovative ways to make use of it, has the caliber to run your 3D games, can shoot 720p video and blessed with an interface that even premium users like Nokia N8/E7/C7/X7 users still dreaming for. Anything you missed for 12k worth?

I am still wondering that why we are still stuck with hardware Call\Call End key and specially the Menu button? It was supposed to end with Symbian Belle.

Nokia 700

I was surprised when Nokia was calling Nokia 700 as smallest smartphone in the world. Its definitely not the smallest, if we are talking about all smartphones and we seen Nokia C5 likes already, but as the official blog post explains its the most compact touch monoblock smartphone in the market right now, because other might have managed slim profile at 3.5"/4", but no one managed such a slimmer handset at 3.2".

The Nokia 700 measures just 110 x 50.7 x 9.7mm and weighs only 96g (lightest of the three handsets announced). Nokia 700 might have been regarded to have the most superior display among the three launched devices. A clear Black AMOLED 3.2" capacitive display, which would be a big assurance of day light visibility and durability over time. Gorilla Glass perfectly matches the slim profile of the handset as it can slip into your pocket easily without even caring for scratches etc.

While most of the features of Nokia 700 go similar to Nokia 600, but apart from looks, there are some fine print changes as well.

• You can be assured of a stunning visual experience due to CBD AMOLED and slim profile.
• Though unlikely but it seems to have a superior Nokia Email version than Nokia 600.
• It got 1GB user storage in comparison to 340mb of Nokia 600.
• Can add 32Gb MicroSD  card with HotSwap support.
• The back battery cover is metallic, which means durability for me.
• Constructed using materials like bio-plastics, recycled plastics and recycled metals, its Greenest Nokia
• The slim profile costed badly over the battery which is now BP-5Z 1080 mAh means half the battery life
• No Internal FM Radio Antenna for this one means you need headphones for hearing FM.
• No FM Transmitter included

If you ask me, then while the slim profile sure gonna make this phone look very attractive, but at a price of 17k around, the absence of front camera and a proper battery life will be deal breaker to many. I can understand that both the things are design compromises for making the smallest Smartphone+Touchphone ever, but not sure if many would like to miss front camera at this price.

Nokia 701

The looks definitely gonna remind you of some handsets you seen recently.. Nokia C7, Nokia C7-01 and Nokia Oro, but the same form factor and looks got a new frame, Symbian Belle this time.

While Nokia 701 should be called as most premium device equipped with Symbian Belle as of now. At first, I found it strange that Nokia skipped to provide it the glorious AMOLED screen even if CBD and Gorilla Glass still here, but later came to know that the device uses the same IPS display panel as Apple devices nowadays (though resolution would be the same 640 x 360 px). Nokia even calling it as brightest screen in the world in terms of Luminance.

While the features are definitely upgraded over others in this around 19k priced device,  let’s go through the fine print of the hardware.

• It has a 3.5" IPS CBD Cornered Gorilla Glass screen.
• Contrary to other two models, it got two microphones and hence noise cancellation capabilities.
• We have a 8MP wide angle (f/2.8) Full Focus Camera here on back and a VGA Camera on front.
• 8GB internal storage though not clear how much user storage. Same 32Gb Card support (no Hotswap)
• No clear words over battery, but I am expecting a 1350 mAH battery here.
• FM Transmitter is here.
• No Internal FM Radio means no without headset FM like Nokia 600.

So, you can see that apart from the Full Focus Camera, there seems to be less compromises made with Nokia 701. This handset sure seems to unsettle the sales of Nokia C7 likes. Thing is when it gonna come.

For those looking for the official specs sheet and comparison, should check it out here or if you feel lazy, then screenshots here ..

  Screenshots credit to @mynokiablog 

Nokia Essence Bluetooth Headset

After using Nokia BH905/BH905i, while I was stunned by the quality output they provide, at the same time, I was always left disappointed by the huge size of them. I mean even if I can afford the alien look after wearing those big ones, it wasn’t that affordable to carry them around. Look like Nokia finally managed to bring the tech into practical sizes now.

Nokia Essence really makes a big claim that is 99% noise cancellation and coming from the makers of Nokia BH905/905i, you have no reasons to doubt on the same. Unlike the usual Bluetooth headsets, you get a controller here for farward/reverse/play/pause and ear buds like wired headset brings you the goodness of both the worlds.

The launch price at 8.5k is sure not a cheap one but such quality headsets are always aimed to a premium audience, which knows that how much value a peaceful music has.

Symbian Belle

Nokia officially announced Symbian Anna back in April, while it got delivered in mid/end of August and before August could have ended, we got a fully changed and polished update called Symbian Belle. Definitely it seems so exciting on paper and no doubt Symbian Belle is exciting, but hearing the words that its coming to existing devices by some Q4 seems to be same frustrated wait game.

In no way, I was expecting today’s event to bring Symbian Belle for my Nokia N8, but this time I was hoping them to keep the gap even more closer like just a month. But anyway.. when you take a look over Symbian Belle then you will find that this negative preface is just because Symbian Belle is just too good. Its something which if would have arrived in last year, then the market story might (?) have something else.

First let’s watch yourself that why we say that Belle is not the Symbian we knew till date.

While I am sure that you will find yourself stunned by the visual experience here, let’s summarize that what’s new about Symbian Belle

• Free-form, resizable, live widgets: Finally Symbian got a modern and flexible widget system and now its over third party developers that how much innovations they can bring in.

It feels like Maemo days back to Nokia. Not only shapes but there is one more thing to notice about the widgets that they seems to remember their positions for Landscape mode and portrait mode separately.

• More homescreens:As you might have noticed that Symbian Belle is the one which have six home screens not the Symbian Anna as we suspected earlier. People into tech already aware of the fact that the limitation over number of home screen is due to performance reasons, so I am still not sure if Nokia N8 etc will get the same six home screens or not. Likely yes.

• Completely new Android like Status Bar I will agree that it felt totally like my Galaxy S, when I seen the first leaked video. Same four toggle icons, same clear button placing and same way to put notifications.

It seems that like Apple, even Nokia ran out of new ideas about dealing with notifications. But on the other side, as far as a user is concerned, I am happy about it as Android had one of the best way of notifications (though were more of an aid due to limited multi-tasking) and sure such styled notifications with full multi-tasking supported Symbian gonna do wonder.

• Modernised navigation:Finally a much needed change to Symbian Two Menu structure.

A back button and options button along with context sensitive search button at the bottom is sure not exactly what I guessed in one of my post before, but sure seems to be solving much of legacy annoyances.

• New apps:A new suite of powerful business apps from Microsoft includes Lync (IM for businesses, like Microsoft Communicator), Sharepoint, OneNote, Exchange ActiveSync and PowerPoint Broadcaster.

• Informative lock screen:While Lock Screen on Symbian Anna is already an updated one, Symbian Belle takes it one more step further. The lock screen now tells you about missed calls, messages in your inbox and more, so you can check your phone at a glance. You can now also add a coloured wallpaper to your lock screen.

• NFC devices:With Symbian Belle, Near-Field Communications (NFC) is now deeply integrated into the operating system, so you can share pictures, connect with accessories, and check-in – all with just a tap. NFC pairing just look like WebOS way, NFC serves the purpose of linking two devices while the data get transferred over Bluetooth only without intervening the user itself.

• Visual multitasking:Yet to receive a screenshot on it, but it seems to be similar with what we have seen in case of Maemo, where the card style task switcher was able to show you the current state of app like running video in a video app.

Done with reading? Watch one more video about it.

Video via s60v3zone

So, this was all what Nokia announced today and one more announcement was of more importance, where they official said that Symbian Belle will NOT be the last Symbian Update and many more will follow. What do you think about it? Can we start recommending Symbian again? Do tell me, I am all ears on @nkumar_ or nitish@nitishkumar.net