Dec 11

Nokia 5235 Comes With Music and a low price in Q1 2010

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

The 5230 has only recently made its way out to stores, but that hasn’t stopped Nokia from fashioning a KIRFy sort of successor for it. Meet the Nokia 5235, a spec for spec copy of its elder brother, including the same 3.2-inch touchscreen, 2 megapixel camera, and Symbian S60 5th edition. We thought we could spot a tiny difference in the materials being used, but otherwise you really are looking at the exact same handset. Your wallet would tell the difference, though, as the 5235 has a pre-tax and pre-subsidy price of €145 ($214), which is more than €100 cheaper than the previously noted 5230 CWM variant — in other words, Nokia is renaming its CWM model and chopping the price nicely. Why, we don’t know, but when is the first quarter of 2010.

Nokia 5235 Comes With Music and a low price in Q1 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 08

Nokia ships E72 and 5800 Navigation Edition to the US of A

Posted in: available, nokia, now available, NowAvailable, on sale, OnSale, ship, shipping, ships, smartphone, symbian, Today's Chili, us, usa

We know it’s the N900 you’re jonesing for, but if you’re looking to let those “other guys” put Maemo 5 through the ringer while you continue to use an OS that’s been around the block, Nokia’s got two more for you to choose from starting today. Both the QWERTY-packin’ E72 ($407) and eager-to-route 5800 Navigation Edition have started to ship to America (according to the company, anyway), with the former listed as “coming soon” on Nokia’s webstore and as “in stock on December 10th” over at Amazon. The latter is available to order now for $299 sans contract, so good luck holding off for Google Maps Navigation to make this thing look dated.

Update: Seems this is the second time Nokia has stated that its E72 was available in the US, so we’d probably wait for at least another notification or two before pulling the trigger. Can’t ever be too careful!

Gallery: Nokia ships E72 and 5800 Navigation Edition to the US of A

Nokia ships E72 and 5800 Navigation Edition to the US of A originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 08 Dec 2009 10:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 03

Nokia slashing smartphone lineup in half for 2010

Posted in: nokia, smartphone, Smartphones, symbian, Today's Chili

One of the natural side effects of being the largest maker of cellphones in the world is that you produce a lot of different models — a lot — which makes it way too easy for product planning, engineering, and marketing to all have corners cut for even the most important devices in the herd. Nokia seems to be coming to terms with that, though, announcing that it’ll scale back from “around 20” smartphones released this year to roughly a half of that in 2010, allowing it to give each phone the TLC it so desperately needs. Interestingly, the company says that it’s looking to the low- to midrange smartphone realm as a hot new competitive frontier — and an area where it’ll “have tools to play offence [sic] as well as defense,” possibly thanks to its continued involvement in Symbian even as it looks to Maemo to grow the high end. By any measure, it sounds like Nokia’s starting to get the hint — but it’s still anyone’s guess what kinds of products will ultimately see out of these guys over the next 12 to 18 months.

Nokia slashing smartphone lineup in half for 2010 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 16:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 03

Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface

Posted in: breaking news, BreakingNews, capacitive, multitouch, nokia, slate, symbian, Today's Chili

You know that new Symbian user experience promised by Nokia for next year? Want a sneak peak? Although Nokia’s downloadable slide-deck from its Capital Market Day event leaves out all the new UI visuals, fortunately the webcast has ’em all. And if we’re not mistaken then that’s a wall-to-wall capacitive multitouch slate up there from Nokia’s conceptual studios. As Nokia tells it, the Symbian OS is not the problem, the UI is — and we agree. In 2010 new hardware and tweaked software will reduce Symbian’s clutter, add multitouch input on “large capacitive displays,” minimize steps to request functions (2-taps to get to favorite music or video instead of 8, create an email account in 2 steps, not 4), significantly improve the browser experience, and make the entire UI 3 times faster than current high-end Symbian products while taking scrolling to 60fps (up from 15fps used today). Notably, Nokia will remove more than 350 user prompts that make using Symbian so frustrating today. The user experience promises to be so good that Nokia CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, calls it “magical.” Us? Sweet, but it’s only slideware for now. Watch the rousing video after the break.

Update: We added a link to the 51MB PDF containing all the presentations. Bonus points for spotting our quote about the N900. [Thanks, Pasi]

Gallery: Nokia offers sneak peak at improved 2010 Symbian user interface

Continue reading Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface

Nokia offers sneak peek at improved 2010 Symbian user interface originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 02

Nokia N97 Mini now shipping to American lovers, haters

Posted in: amazon, available, nokia, now available, now shipping, NowAvailable, NowShipping, ship, shipping, ships, smartphone, symbian, Today's Chili

The miniaturized version of Nokia’s N97 began shipping to eager consumers in Europe in late October, but for those unable to save their pennies in America while waiting for the N900, today’s the day to unload. As of right now, the (obviously unlocked) N97 Mini is shipping from both Dell and Amazon here in the States, with the former offering it for $430 (after coupon) and the latter selling it for $479.99. Any takers? Or has the full-sized N97 already claimed that piece of your heart?

Nokia N97 Mini now shipping to American lovers, haters originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 21:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Dec 02

Nokia promises to take “Symbian user interface to a new level” in 2010, Maemo 6 in 2H

Posted in: maemo, nokia, symbian, Today's Chili, ui

It’s Nokia Capital Market Day again which means that the boys from Espoo are fawning over investors and giving them a reason to stick around in 2010. And you know what? It sure sounds promising for gadget nerds. Why the optimism? Easy: Nokia is hell-bent on redefining the user experience of its Symbian devices. To quote CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, “In 2010, we will drive user experience improvements, and the progress we make will take the Symbian user interface to a new level.” To bolster this proclamation, the very first bullet point listed under Nokia’s Devices and Services operational priorities is “improve our user experience” — something that would thrill us to no end if it happens.

The revamped Symbian UI is set to deliver on two “major product milestones” in the first and second halves of the year. Nokia will also deliver its first Maemo 6 “mobile computer” in the second half of 2010 flanked by a significantly increased proportion of “touch and/or QWERTY devices” in its smartphone portfolio. It’s worth noting that all the discussion is around Symbian, just a single mention of Maemo and its “iconic user experience” in the forward looking press release. Developers will be happy to hear that Nokia will also continue to scale services geographically while continuing to enhance its developer tools like QT4.6 announced yesterday. Financially speaking, Nokia expects to see the erosion of its average selling price slowed compared to recent years. That’s good as Nokia attempts to grow its margins. However, while Nokia expects mobile device volumes to be up approximately 10% in 2010 across the industry, it sees its own mobile device volume market share as flat in 2010, compared to 2009.

Be clear on this though: our incredibly frustrating S60 5th user experience was by far the biggest complaint we had when reviewing Nokia’s flagship N97 — having the most bullet points on a list of features is not what it takes to lure consumers anymore (if ever). If Nokia can better the best in class experiences carved out by Apple, Palm, and HTC with its Sense UI then consumer mindshare, and our hearts, will follow.

[Original image via Vladstudio]

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Nokia promises to take “Symbian user interface to a new level” in 2010, Maemo 6 in 2H originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 07:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 30

Nokia launching only one Maemo device in 2010?

Posted in: maemo, nokia, rumor, smartphone, symbian, Today's Chili

Better sit down Maemo fans. If you expected Nokia to just kick its waning S60 5th OS to the curb in 2010 after positive reaction to the Linux side of its dual-platform smartphone strategy, well, it ain’t gonna happen. At least that’s the word from a Reuters source with “direct knowledge of Nokia’s product roadmap” who says Nokia will only launch one new Linux smartphone next year. Driving the point home is word from a Nokia spokesman who declined comment on future plans but did add, “We remain firmly committed to Symbian as our smartphone platform of choice.” While this might sound like bad news to N900 enthusiasts given the vast number of handsets the company produces, keep in mind that Nokia’s recent cuts in global R&D headcount (550 employees in total) was justified by Nokia’s attempt to streamline operations to be in line with its “focused portfolio of future products.” In other words, it sounds like we can expect less handsets from Espoo as they scale back the variety of models produced. And if anything can be learned from the boys in Cupertino: it only takes one handset to change the game.

Nokia launching only one Maemo device in 2010? originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:43:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 24

Fring adds Skype video support on S60, threatens to make front cams useful

Posted in: skype, symbian, Today's Chili

Considering the proliferation of 3G, WiFi, in-home broadband, and front-facing cameras on phones, you’d think that there’d be far more obvious ways to bridge video calls between phones and PCs — but alas, it’s virtually impossible, particularly in the States where carriers have a complete aversion to the topic. Enter Fring — one of the mobile industry’s VoIP pioneers that has spread its love from Symbian to almost every smartphone platform worth mentioning over the years — which is stepping out today with a new build for S60 handsets that offers video support through Skype. The way we see it, this is great news for a couple of reasons: one, Skype is one of the few videoconferencing systems with widespread traction, and two, this suddenly makes front-facing cams useful to a whole swath of Nokia users on networks (ahem, AT&T and T-Mobile) that don’t offer video calling themselves. Whether we actually use it is another story altogether, but hey, it’s cool to have it if we absolutely must see your beautiful face right now in stunning low fidelity. Follow the break for a video demo.

Continue reading Fring adds Skype video support on S60, threatens to make front cams useful

Fring adds Skype video support on S60, threatens to make front cams useful originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:06:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 24

Sony Ericsson Satio sales suspended after bugs discovered

Posted in: retail, sales, Sony Ericsson, SonyEricsson, symbian, Today's Chili

Adding insult to Sony Ericsson’s injurious bottom line, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U shops (the UK’s largest mobile phone retailers) have halted sales of the SE’s Symbian-powered Satio handset after a high number of customer returns and complaints. A “software glitch” reportedly causes Sony Ericsson’s flagship device to power down when users try to access certain applications — unfortunately, the issue can’t be patched via an over-the-air update. A little digging into CPW discussion forums reveals multiple complaints of freezes, crashes, under-performing batteries, and bizarre interface behavior. Both the Carphone Warehouse and Phones4U will offer “new phones” to customers fed up with their Satio. Richard Dorman, senior marketing manager at Sony Ericsson, concedes the issue and assures us that it should be sorted by Christmas. Until then, you can still purchase the handset directly from Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile… but really, why would you? The Satio’s not the only dubiously-spec’d 12 megapixel cameraphone on the market.

[Thanks, ugotamesij]

Sony Ericsson Satio sales suspended after bugs discovered originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Nov 2009 06:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Nov 23

Sony Ericsson Kurara previewed way ahead of release

Posted in: arm, cellphone, ericsson, preview, smartphone, sony, Sony Ericsson, SonyEricsson, symbian, Today's Chili, touchscreen

We were promised a preview of Sony Ericsson’s Symbian-sporting Satio sibling, and indeed here we are, looking at the machine-translated Kurara analysis courtesy of Eldar from Mobile Review. He pulls no punches in his introduction by noting that the new handset will offer little in terms of specs to trump the Samsung i8910 HD, and sketching out the tough market it’ll have to compete in once the Nokia X6 comes out and starts grabbing market and mindshare alike. As to the phone itself, he describes the 8.1 megapixel camera as an “inexpensive” unit and lets the sample photos and 720p sample video shot with it speak for themselves. Battery life was found to be “lacking,” though we congratulate SE on electing to use a 3.5mm headphone jack and MicroSD memory expansion over its own proprietary formats. Overall, the Kurara was “pleasant to use,” but lacked the necessary wow factor and its fate, says Eldar, will depend on just how keenly Sony Ericsson wants to price it.

Sony Ericsson Kurara previewed way ahead of release originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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