Hasta La Gadget!

If there’s one company in the world who knows more about gripping phones than anyone else, it’s Nokia — you know, the creator and sole proprietor of sidetalkin’. So on that note, you might want to sit up and pay attention to this little piece over on Nokia Conversations detailing four popular grip styles that won’t kill your signal, including the four-edge — a work of art that we’ve attempted to demonstrate for you with limited success in the picture above. We totally buy the claim that this particular grip causes zero signal degradation in virtually any cellphone ever launched (the curious stares you get are just a bonus), but Nokia goes on to boast that “realistically, you’re free to hold your Nokia device any way you like… and you won’t suffer any signal loss.” Thing is, hands have never really gotten along with phone antennas — see the shot of a Nokia user’s manual explaining this phenomenon after the break, along with a video of an E71 exhibiting some signal drama when touched the wrong way — but seriously, just use the four-edge and you should be good to go. Come on, do it.

Continue reading Nokia muses on grip styles, says you can hold your phone ‘any way you like’

Nokia muses on grip styles, says you can hold your phone ‘any way you like’ originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 12:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Charles Davies might not be as immediately recognizable as some other industry veterans, but anyone that’s been following this business since the early days of PDAs will no doubt be familiar with his work. Davies was Psion‘s very first employee way back in 1981, and stuck with the company all the way up until 2003 when he left to join Symbian, before moving on to Nokia with the rest of the Symbian staff a few years later. During that time, Davies helped Psion pioneer the use of flash memory and custom silicon in handhelds, served as Symbian’s CTO, and helped Nokia head up the strategy and architecture team for its R&D division. What’s more, as The Register notes, Davies move to TomTom only further bolsters the ex-Psion ranks at the company — he’ll be joining former Psion CTO Mark Gretton, and former hardware exec Ken McAlpine, who joined TomTom two years ago after a stint at Apple. Still no word on what Davies’ exact role at TomTom will be, but the company has confirmed the move, and promises to provide more details at some point.

[Thanks, johnny99]

Psion veteran Charles Davies leaves Nokia for TomTom originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 28 Jun 2010 02:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We told you, didn’t we? Whether you want to call this the N98, the N900’s successor, or the N8 plus QWERTY, what you’re looking at above is potentially the visage of Nokia’s next smartphone. It’s being dubbed the N9 by the folks at Negri Electronics, who also inform us it has an 8 megapixel imager on the back, 850 / 1900 3G bands (good for AT&T, Rogers, Telus, and Bell), and “ridiculous screen clarity.” This sort of throws us for a loop, since we’re looking at some straight Symbian action up there, whereas Nokia has told us directly that there’ll be no more Symbian on the N Series after the N8. A clue to what might be going on is provided by the “C0” label at the upper left corner of this device, suggesting that it could be a future C Series member. All we know is that the thing seems pretty real and it’s headed to a full video review in the next few days. Yay!

[Thanks, Jason]

Nokia N9 (or something) in the wild: 8 megapixel camera, American 3G? originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Whoa. Nokia’s premier range of devices, the N Series, will bid adieu to the Symbian operating environment and go MeeGo full time after the introduction of the N8. That’s what we’ve just heard directly from the Finnish horse’s mouth. Nokia will naturally keep Symbian around — of course there’s a whole Symbian^4 to come — but will utilize it on more mass market devices as it seeks to push smartphones further down the product hierarchy. So it’s not necessarily bad news, as such, it means we’ll likely see Symbian trickle down to handsets priced more like featurephones and less like miniaturized laptops. What it does mean, however, is that Nokia is pushing forward with its modernization plans, and doing so more aggressively than previously thought. Which we consider to be a pretty awesome (and necessary) thing.

Nokia N8 to be final Symbian N Series device, all MeeGo from here on out originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re living in the post-smartphone world, where restaurant reviews and silly time-wasting games are never more than a fingerprint away, and now it’s hard to see us as anything but tippy-toeing into the smartcar revolution. While there are plenty of competing implementations out there, Nokia seems to be doing the best at unifying the playing field, announcing a partnership with Clarion to bring its Terminal Mode infotainment integration to yet another major brand. This follows on deals with Alpine, Harman, and nearly every major European auto manufacturer. That’s a lot of partnerships, but as of now no actual products, leaving us feeling a bit indifferent about the whole thing — for the moment at least.

Continue reading Clarion joins Nokia’s Terminal Mode movement for the greater infotainment good

Clarion joins Nokia’s Terminal Mode movement for the greater infotainment good originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 08:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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