Apr 22

Nokia delays Symbian^3, investors not impressed

Posted in: delay, market, nokia, symbian, Today's Chili
Nokia delays Symbian^3, investors not impressed

As in any business, in the world of the smartphone there are winners and there are losers. Earlier this week Apple blew away market expectations and posted a $3 billion profit thanks largely to increased popularity of the iPhone. For the competition news is not so good, and while Nokia did manage to boost earnings per share 40 percent this year, it missed analyst expectations and, more importantly, is having to delay the release of Symbian^3 until sometime in the third quarter. The release was initially due in the first half of the year, then became a little more specific as a Q2 release. These factors have sent share prices dropping 12 percent and leaves Nokia fans waiting another few months for a taste of something fresh — not good when there are so many other delectable options up for the taking.

Nokia delays Symbian^3, investors not impressed originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 22 Apr 2010 07:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 13

Nokia C3, C6, and E5 try to smarten up the dumbphone market

Posted in: nokia, qwerty, social networking, SocialNetworking, symbian, Today's Chili

The countdown is over and the mystery is solved. Nokia just let us in on the secret of its “everyone connect” teaser: a trio of new middling handsets. Yes folks, hardware, but not the N-series flagship many of you were hoping for. Instead we’ve got a handful of affordable QWERTY cellphones bent on bringing messaging and social networking to the masses. Naturally, these devices aren’t going to compete for the attention of the N8-00 crowd — that’s fine, they’re not meant to. Today’s launch is part of Nokia’s global strategy to push the smartphone experience down into the dumbphone market.

Let’s start things off with the colorful C3-00 (available Q2 for €90 pre-tax and pre-subsidy) — Nokia’s first Series 40 QWERTY. The quad-band GSM candybar crams its social networking tools onto a 2.4-inch QVGA homescreen with Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi, and 55MB of internal memory (and up to 8GB supported on microSD) coming along for the ride. It’s also packing the Opera Mini browser in addition to the standard Webkit fare for browsing the mobile internet on the C3’s paltry EGPRS data connection. But hey, €90. Moving on, we’ve got the more ambitious C6-00 (Q2, €220) 4-row QWERTY slider with quad-band GSM/EDGE and quad-band HSDPA/UMTS on the 850/900/1900/2100 frequencies. The familiar looking C6 runs S60 5th on that 3.2-inch nHD (640 x 360 pixel) touchscreen (resistive, we presume) with a 5 megapixel autofocus camera and flash riding the backside. Of course, it also features integrated A-GPS for free Ovi Maps turn-by-turn navigation as is the case for all new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones. Finally we’ve got the E5-00 (Q3, €180) for those in need of a S60 3rd device that’s a bit more business-minded than the C3 but twice the price (but still cheap). That means tri-band UMTS, A-GPS, WiFi and another unfortunate 2.4-inch LCD. Full press release after the break.

Gallery: Nokia C3, C6, and E5 try to smarten up the dumbphone market

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Nokia C3, C6, and E5 try to smarten up the dumbphone market originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 13 Apr 2010 04:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 12

Samsung i8910 HD runs 62 apps at once, multitaskers bow their heads

Posted in: rom, samsung, symbian, Today's Chili

While iPhone 3G owners and would-be Windows Phone 7 buyers sit in the corner, quietly weeping over their lack of true multitasking, webOS and Symbian continue to point and laugh. In mid-January, a Palm Pre Plus was seen cackling with joy over its rivals’ misfortune even as the device staggered under the weight of 50 simultaneous applications, and less than a week later, a Samsung Omnia HD performed the very same feat, despite having only half the Pre Plus’ RAM (i.e. 256MB) to work with. Now, in what we can only interpret as a large middle finger and “come here” gesture to all who aspire to the cell phone multitasking heavyweight title, we have a video of the i8910 running no less than sixty-two applications thanks to a custom ROM by HyperX. Watch in stunned silence as a finger scrolls through them, right after the break.

Continue reading Samsung i8910 HD runs 62 apps at once, multitaskers bow their heads

Samsung i8910 HD runs 62 apps at once, multitaskers bow their heads originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Apr 2010 02:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apr 06

Sony Ericsson Vivaz review

Posted in: Features, review, Sony Ericsson, SonyEricsson, symbian, Today's Chili

Sony Ericsson’s no stranger to phones with decent cameras, and the Vivaz with European 3G frequencies aims to be one of them; after all these months we’ve finally got hold of this S60 device, which is the first phone capable of continuous autofocus on 720p video recording courtesy of its speedy 720MHz Cortex A8 and PowerVR GPU. Compared to its predecessor, the Vivaz bears a similar button layout and GUI to the Satio‘s, but lacks a front-facing camera, Fast Port (replaced by a micro-USB port and 3.5mm headphone jack), and a slide cover for the camera. The resistive touchscreen (sigh, more on that later) has been downsized from 3.5 inches to 3.2 inches but retains a similar resolution (640 x 360), while the camera sensor is also scaled down from 12.1 megapixels to a more sensible 8.1, possibly for the sake of picture quality and component cost. But enough with the comparison — let’s get cracking with the review.

Gallery: Sony Ericsson Vivaz review

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Sony Ericsson Vivaz review originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 29

Stats: iPhone OS is still king of the mobile web space, but Android is nipping at its heels

Posted in: ads, Android, AndroidOs, Apple, Google, iPhone, mobile internet, mobile os, MobileInternet, MobileOs, RIM, smartphone, Smartphones, statistics, stats, symbian, Today's Chili, web, webos

AdMob serves north of 10 billion ads per month to more than 15,000 mobile websites and applications. Thus, although its data is about ad rather than page impressions, it can be taken as a pretty robust indicator of how web usage habits are developing and changing over time. Android is the big standout of its most recent figures, with Google loyalists now constituting a cool 42 percent of AdMob’s smartphone audience in the US. With the EVO 4G and Galaxy S rapidly approaching, we wouldn’t be surprised by the little green droid stealing away the US share crown, at least until Apple counters with its next slice of magical machinery. Looking at the global stage, Android has also recently skipped ahead of Symbian, with a 24 percent share versus 18 percent for the smartphone leader. Together with BlackBerry OS, Symbian is still the predominant operating system in terms of smartphone sales, but it’s interesting to see both falling behind in the field of web or application usage, which is what this metric seeks to measure. Figures from Net Applications (to be found at the TheAppleBlog link) and ArsTechnica‘s own mobile user numbers corroborate these findings.

Stats: iPhone OS is still king of the mobile web space, but Android is nipping at its heels originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 29 Mar 2010 10:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 28

Nokia N8-00 gets first official mention with Symbian^3 and nHD display

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, leak, nokia, symbian, Today's Chili

Simmer down, we don’t have official pics yet (just the supposed leaks) but we do have the first official mention of what looks to be Nokia’s first Symbian^3 handset. The culprit is the “NN8-00r100-3G” XML file sitting pretty on nokia.com right now. The first notables are a “N8-00” model and the “Symbian/3” string listed in the agent header that seemingly confirm that the N8-00 will run Symbian^3. Next is a “360 x 640 pixel” screen size. Note that the N8-00 display is rumored to be 3.5-inches making this a very similar nHD display to the one found on Nokia’s current N-series flagship: the N97. The difference this time is that we’re expecting Nokia’s newest flagship to opt for a capacitive touchscreen display to match Symbian^3’s more finger friendly UI. Unfortunately, we’re not seeing any mention of the rumored 12 megapixel camera and the only keyboard mentioned is a “PhoneKeyPad” — in other words, no QWERTY not that we were expecting one. We do see Bluetooth 2.0 and radios for WiFi and GPRS/EGPRS/EDGE/WCDMA/HSDPA among the other details. Feel free to sleuth the file for yourselves in the source link below while we wait for the mid-April announcement.

[Thanks, Glenn]

Nokia N8-00 gets first official mention with Symbian^3 and nHD display originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 28 Mar 2010 10:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 11

Nokia Symbian^3 UI demonstrated in detail, seeks multitouch devices (video)

Posted in: nokia, symbian, Today's Chili, video

Nokia VP, David Rivas, was in San Francisco yesterday touting Symbian^3 improvements. While we’ve heard and seen plenty about Symbian Three’s enhanced user experience already, it’s still worthy of another look considering Symbian’s dominant marketshare. Besides, David provides a very detailed look as he walks us though elements like the customizable (and more finger friendly) homescreens meant to provide quick access to call features and at-a-glance data. Rivas also reiterates speed improvement claims over existing S60 5th devices (about a 3x improvement in graphics performance) that should “very very pleasantly surprise” users. Naturally, a faster UI coupled with a Symbian device running on something better than ARM 11 will also help here — Nokia’s only Cortex A8 device is the N900 running Maemo, not Symbian. David takes a veiled shot at Microsoft’s new WP7 platform when discussing Symbian’s true multitaking capabilities without any “tricks” — apps are actually running in the background, not just freezing their state until you return. Multitouch screen control on capacitive and resistive (really?) touchscreen displays with Cover Flow-like album art navigation? Yup, it’s all in there, as are hundreds of usability improvements (and fewer nags!) that should bring Symbian^3 up to the level of what everyone expects from a modern smartphone, according to Rivas. In other words, we’ll have to wait for S^4 on early 2011 devices to see any real innovation. While the live demo was run on a laptop, we suspect it won’t be long until Nokia starts showing off its live OS on a production handset. Until then, check the video after the break — it’s all we’ve got.

[Thanks, Rafael C.]

Continue reading Nokia Symbian^3 UI demonstrated in detail, seeks multitouch devices (video)

Nokia Symbian^3 UI demonstrated in detail, seeks multitouch devices (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Mar 2010 03:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 03

Nokia Launches 5230 Nuron Phone on T-Mobile

Posted in: nokia, Smartphones, symbian, t-mobile, Today's Chili

Nokia_Nuron.jpg

Let’s hear it for Nokia scoring another subsidized smartphone deal–a rarity in the U.S.
Nokia and T-Mobile have unveiled the 5230 Nuron, a Symbian Series 60 smartphone with a 3.2-inch, 640-by-360-pixel, plastic resistive touch screen–the same one as in the $479 unlocked Nokia N97 mini.
The Nuron lacks a hardware QWERTY keyboard, though. As a result, it’s considerably smaller; the Nuron measures 4.4 by 2.0 by 0.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.1 ounces with the included stylus.
The Nuron features the excellent Ovi Maps app for free, turn-by-turn, voice-enabled GPS directions. The Nuron also comes with Ovi Store support, plus all the usual hooks for instant messaging, texting, work and persona e-mail.
Other features include a 2-megapixel camera, VGA video recording (640-by-480 at 30 frames per second), and a standard-size 3.5mm headphone jack. The Nokia Nuron will cost just $69.99 with a two-year contract; no word yet on a release date.
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Mar 03

Nokia 5230 Nuron excites the T-Mobile nervous system

Posted in: slate, symbian, Today's Chili
The US will wake up to a fine howdy do from Nokia’s 5230 Nuron now that it’s officially announced for T-Mobile. The device first introduced by Nokia back in August will be available to middle America “in the coming weeks” on T-Mobile’s 3G network. And unlike yesterday’s wee C5, Nuron features a reasonable 3.2-inch, 640 x 360 (nHD) touchscreen for your Ovi Store apps and free Ovi Maps with turn-by-turn navigation to dance upon. Hell, it even has an onscreen keyboard if you want to do something productive like tap out a few emails, enter a URL to surf the web, or update your social networking status(es). While no price or specific date was announced, we’ve seen rumors of a 17 March launch for $70 on contract, or $180 without. Just remember that Nuron runs S60 5th; and with the improved Symbian ^3 touchscreen UI just around the corner (and no clear upgrade path) you’d better really want this device to make the jump whenever it does launch.

Update: Nokia’s own Joe Gallo has confirmed that the Nuron will sell for $69.99 on a 2-year contract at T-Mob.

Nokia 5230 Nuron excites the T-Mobile nervous system originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 03

Nokia adds Skype to Ovi Store, foreshadows death of regular phone calls

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, nokia, skype, symbian, Today's Chili, VoIP

Skype for Symbian. A freely downloadable application that allows you to converse with your Skype-equipped friends over a WiFi or 3G connection. Seriously, why would you ever make another cellular call again? Nokia’s just announced the addition of the online communications client to its Ovi Store, meaning that now more than 200 million users worldwide have access to essentially free calls over their beloved Symbian S60 5th handsets. You knew there was a reason to stay loyal to that stale user experience and here it is. There’s not much else to say here, we’re off to sell whatever stock we have in mobile network operators while you should click the source links for the full list of compatible handsets. High fives all around.

Nokia adds Skype to Ovi Store, foreshadows death of regular phone calls originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 03 Mar 2010 03:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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