Espoo, Finland – Nokia today unveiled the Nokia N85, the latest Nokia Nseries multimedia computer made to set new standards for mobile entertainment, gaming and sharing. Along with an eye-catching 2.6″ OLED screen and smooth, sleek finish, the Nokia N85 redefines the mobile experience. It boasts N-Gage gaming, music with in-built FM transmitter, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and geotagging capabilities, three month integrated license for turn-by-turn voice navigation and high-speed connectivity, all in one device. This cell phone is expected to begin shipping in October 2008 with an estimated retail price of EUR 450, before taxes and subsidies.
“The Nokia N85 was created to be more than the sum of its parts, offering a complete mobile entertainment package designed for connecting, sharing and discovering,” said Juha-Pekka Sipponen, Director, Nokia Nseries. “The iconic Nokia Nseries dual slider design has evolved to become smaller and sleeker while integrating the newest features and services to deliver the best mobile experience to date.”
With a strong lineup of multimedia features, the Nokia N85 is taking the world of mobile convergence to the next level. Gaming, photos, navigation and music blend together with the newest Ovi and third party services via 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity to make discovering and sharing experiences quick and seamless.
Engage and interact
The Nokia N85 is pre-loaded with at least 10 made-for-mobile N-Gage gaming titles that jump off of the screen thanks to the dazzling OLED display and a voucher to activate one full game license. Dedicated gaming keys light up when the device is in landscape gaming mode to further enhance the action-packed experience. A state-of-the-art 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and bright dual LED flash captures clear, sharp images as well as DVD-quality videos at 30 frames per second. Combined with A-GPS it is possible to geotag favorite pictures to see where each photo was taken using the Nokia Maps application or online sites such as Share on Ovi or Flickr.
Each Nokia N85 comes with an 8 GB microSD card, up to 30 hours of music playback time and its high-fidelity sound means favorite tracks can be enjoyed virtually anywhere. Build a personal music collection from the millions of tracks and playlists available from the Nokia Music Store or other online music vendors, or synchronize PC and mobile music libraries via USB cable. Alternatively, consumers can enjoy RDS radio or a wide selection of stations via the internet The 3.5 mm audio jack makes connecting a top-quality headset simple and an in-built FM transmitter lets the Nokia N85 play wirelessly through a car or home stereo to really crank up the sound.
While it comes out of the box with a multitude of powerful functionality, the pre-loaded Nokia Download! application makes the Nokia N85 truly customizable by offering a wide range of bespoke content. This includes an outstanding selection of world-class branded entertainment content, the latest in mobile gaming and dynamic applications so users can really make their device their own.
In spite of the fact that we can’t praise a cell phone without actually using it, it seems to me that the Nokia N79 is the best candybar handset manufactured by Nokia. This means that even the N82 will no longer carry the title of the best candybar Nseries handset. Just take a look at the following N79 specs:
- Stylish Nseries power emphasized by two different front covers – and five Xpress-on TM smart back covers. Three smart covers are included in every box, so the N79 can suit any occasion. The display theme changes automatically when new covers are attached.
- FM Transmitter with direct access to the Nokia Music Store, power for up to 24 hours of music playback plus 3.5 mm headset connector and dedicated music keys for non-stop music enjoyment.
- 5 MPX camera with Carl Zeiss optics, geotagging and dual LED-flash for high-quality images and DVD. Quality video and easy upload to Share on Ovi, Flickr or YouTube.
- Discover new places with turn-by-turn voice navigation, pedestrian navigation, city guides and 15 million points of interest with Nokia Maps 2.0.
- Includes a 4GB microSD card and supports up to 8GB for carrying a wide selection of songs, photos, videos and games.
- Size: 110 x 49 x 15 mm.
- Weight: 97g.
- Display: 2.4” QVGA (240×320 px) with up to 16M colors.
- Memory: Up to 50MB internal memory, 4GB in-box micro SD memory card.
- Talk time: Up to 210 min (3G), 330 min (GSM).
- Stand-by time: Up to 406 hours (3G), 370 hours (GSM).
So far, we know that the N79 is the smallest candybar Nseries handset. It’s also the first candybar Nseries smartphone to offer dedicated music keys. However, these are not enough to make the N79 shine. The following features have been taken from N79 technical specs page.
- BL-6F 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery.
- Browsing time with packet data (maximum): 5 h 54 min.
- Video playback time (maximum): 4 h 24 min.
- Video recording time (maximum): 3 h 30 min.
- Video calling time (maximum): 2 h 20 min.
- Music playback time (maximum): 29 h.
- Gaming time (maximum): 4h.
- Slide cover for protection and camera activation.
- Video recording file formats: .mp4, .3gp; codecs: H.263, H.264.
- Audio recording formats: AMR, AAC stereo.
- Video playback file formats: MPEG4, AVC/H.264, WMV, RV, Flash Video, H.263/3GPP.
- Video streaming: MPEG4, AVC/H.264, WMV, RV, Flash Video, H.263/3GPP.
- Audio streaming.
- UPnP music streaming.
- Digital stereo microphone.
As the detailed specs list shows, the N79 comes with a BL-6F 1200 mAh battery, supports audio/video streaming, provides a digital stereo microphone, and ads AAC to the audio formats it can record. I believe these are enough to take any Nseries handset one step forward. If the right-mounted speakers are better than those of the N82, I’ll definitely get an N79 as it reaches Iran.
Related Info: Nokia N79 & N85 To Be Announced Today
Espoo, Finland – Nokia today unveiled the Nokia N79, the latest addition to the Nokia Nseries range that combines intelligent and customizable design with a fully-loaded multimedia computer. Behind its sleek exterior, the Nokia N79 is a technology powerhouse. It offers a full range of multimedia experiences including integrated navigation, music with FM transmitter, high-speed connectivity, superior web browsing, at least 10 pre-loaded N-Gage games and an advanced 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. The Nokia N79 is expected to begin shipping in October 2008, with an estimated retail price of EUR 350, before taxes and subsidies.
“The Nokia N79 packs cutting-edge technology into a compact design – a characteristic of the iconic Nseries – that allows people to discover, create and share their passions with others,” said Juha Kokkonen, Director, Nokia Nseries. “It has been designed for those who want a device that is as appealing as it is powerful and comes with interchangeable covers that have automatically matching screen themes. This balance of performance and style means that it is a powerful and defining step forward from the popular and very successful Nokia N72 and Nokia N73.”
Perfect for the style conscious, the Nokia N79 comes with Xpress-on smart covers that are available in five cool colors: Light Sea Blue, Espresso Brown, Olive Green, White and Coral Red. A combination of three of these comes with each Nokia N79.
The convergence of photos, music and navigation in the Nokia N79 combines with high-speed 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi to make it quick and easy to share experiences on websites, blogs or online communities.
Experience new discoveries
The innovative technology packed into this colorful offering means that accessing a rich pool of services to further enhance individual experiences is seamless. Log on to online communities like Friendster, Flickr or YouTube or click through to Nokia services such as the Nokia Music Store, N-Gage, Nokia Maps and Share on Ovi, an online service that enables consumers to share personal pictures and videos from their mobile devices.
The 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, dual LED flash and video light captures sharp, clear images and video that can be edited immediately, without the need for a PC. Images can also be geotagged to specific locations. What’s more, the Nokia N79 comes packaged with a 4 GB microSD memory card that makes it possible to store around 3,000 songs, approximately 2,500 pictures and up to four hours of DVD-quality video clips that can be organized by albums or tags and uploaded directly to Share on Ovi or third party services. The addition of a sliding lens cover helps protect the top-quality lens when not in use.
Nokia Maps makes it easy to explore and navigate new surroundings by accessing more than 15 million points of interest (POI). In-built A-GPS providing turn-by-turn navigation – for walking or driving – comes with a three month integrated license on the Nokia N79.
A Friendster widget will also be made available for the Nokia N79 via the WidSets service. This will allow people to browse Friendster friends’ profiles, view and post shoutouts, upload pictures taken with their handset, and browse their own and friends’ photo albums. All this enables more effective communication with friends while away from a computer using the Nokia N79. New users can even register for Friendster directly on their device via a link to Friendster’s mobile site (m.friendster.com), create an account, and instantly begin participating in the Friendster global community.
To ensure each device is as distinctive as its user, customizable features are available at the Nokia Download! store, a one stop personalization shop, already embedded in Nokia Nseries devices. It lets consumers create a unique experience for themselves by offering easy access to a multitude of popular ringtones, branded entertainment content, the latest in mobile gaming and dynamic applications for personalizing mobile devices to the user’s own preferences.
Related Info: Nokia N79 and N85 Cell Phones To Be Announced Today
The friendly and popular Symbian RSS aggregator, S60NewsReader, was just updated to V1.02.03. The following can be found in this update:
- Optimization for performance and memory management (internal compression of all news items and local files).
- Faster startup time.
- New option “Mark as deleted after (days)”. News articles are marked as deleted after the given period of time. Use “0” to disable this feature – default “60 days”.
- If a feed aliasname has been set, only the aliasname is displayed instead of the feed title and description.
- Optimized for S60TickerServer V1.06. (Support for up to 500 news items).
- Workaround: Enhanced encoding for wrong server side encoding added (e.g. “ü”).
- A warning appears if you try to update in Offline Mode.
- Bug fix: Last received news item has wrong published date.
- Minor bug fixes and code optimization.
These changes have resulted in faster application response. For instance, news articles are now deleted very quickly. To take advantage of these changes, you should install today’s release of S60TickerServer. S60TickerServer 1.06 — which requires no license keys — provides the following features and bug fixes:
- Support for left-to-right scrolling direction. Used for Arabic or Hebrew text. Depends on your local device settings.
- Option “Visible on standby/homescreen only” now also works on devices with feature pack 2 (FP2/e.g. Nokia N78).
- Optimization for memory usage and speed. (Tested with up to 500 ticker items).
- Number of current ticker items displayed while using hotkey mode.
- Long “C” press removes all active items.
- Some minor bug fixes.
While S60NewsReader can be installed without any limitations, it’s a good idea to support this project by buying a license key. If you’re planning to do so and also want to get a discount, don’t forget to take a look at the comments section of my post regarding this application. I’m also hoping to see OPML support and the ability to paste URLs into the “feed URL” text box of the “create feed” window soon.
If nothing goes awry, Nokia will be announcing a few cell phone handsets today. The new multimedia computers which will hit the market next month are the N79 and the N85.
As a candybar handset the N79 which is said to complement the N78 features a 5MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics and a dual LED flash. Its lens will be protected by a sliding camera cover. It also supports Geotagging. The N78 hosts an FM transmitter, a 3.5 mm audio jack and dedicated music keys. The handset supports up to 24 hours of audio playback. Nokia Maps 2.0 is also on board to make use of the built-in GPS receiver and a 4GB microSD card is included in the sales package. Simply put, it is for the style-conscious with its “Xpress-On”-like covers and its 2.4-inch display.
The N85 features a 2.6 AMOLED QVGA (240×320 pixels) display that supports 16 million colors. The OLED display results in a faster response time, refresh rate and uses less power in comparison with LCD displays. A 5MP camera with support for Geotagging ships with the Nokia N85. There are also dedicated gaming keys and 10 pre-loaded demo titles to try out and you will be able to choose 1 game to have for free. Other features include a built-in FM transmitter, GPS and a 3.5 mm audio jack. The handset supports up to 28 hours of audio playback. The N85 will offer an 8GB microSD card with the sales package. The so-called non-candybar handset will be available next month.
Stay tuned for the detailed specs. In my opinion, if the Nokia N79 speakers produce crisp and clear audio, this handset can possibly beat the N82 – the N79 has dedicated music keys while the N82 doesn’t. Also, it comes with a more powerful battery. Being a candybar lover, I’ll do my best to grab the N79 once I’m assured its speakers are better than those of the N82. I’ll wait for the complete specs, though.
So far I’ve covered Nokia RSS Reader and Resco News in my continued hunt for the most feature-rich and user-friendly RSS reader. In fact, I think the S60 platform truly deserves a mature aggregator. At any rate, if Nokia RSS Reader lacks some important features and if Resco News might manage to perplex some users with its rather knotty interface, S60NewsReader covers the middle ground. It has keyboard shortcuts for virtually every task you can imagine, and, as a good news for visually impaired screen reader users, its “headline” window is accessible.
Recently developed by “stoeger it GmbH” as a plug-in for S60Ticker, S60NewsReader also shines as a standalone feed aggregator. In brief, S60Ticker is an application which helps users see various pieces of information (such as incoming SMS and sender info, incoming mail and system wide alarm events) wherever they want, and the application knows no limits of any type. With S60NewsReader, S60Ticker can display RSS feeds and updated news articles on whatever screen you want; as a result, S60Ticker is a requirement for this feed aggregator. If, however, you want a full-fledged environment to create, read and manage your feeds, S60NewsReader offers an enhanced one.
Close look at features
S60NewsReader offers the following key features”
- Scheduled feed updates.
- Selection of the preferred internet access point.
- Individual connection timeout handling – I can’t tell how this one functions.
- Support for roaming networks.
- Preview window for full news descriptions.
- Support for opening news articles in the S60 web browser.
- Support for RSS 0.91 up to 2.01.
- Scheduler online or offline mode.
Using S60NewsReader is a breeze
When you run the application for the first time, you’ll see a list of English and German RSS feeds already placed in the main application window for your convenience. You can easily add, modify and delete RSS feeds. S60NewsReader has two views: the main view displays RSS feeds and the second displays news articles. When located on a news feed, “Joystick Right” or “Select” displays its articles. Alternatively, “Joystick Left” switches the focus to the list of RSS feeds. Pressing “Key 1” on a feed displays the following menu items:
- Show news (->),
- Update latest news (8|5),
- Mark feed as un/read (9),
- Edit feed,
- Add feed,
- Delete feed ( c ),
-
Mark, submenu:
- Mark,
- Unmark,
- Mark all,
- Unmark all.
-
Sort by, submenu:
- Alias name,
- Caption,
- Read,
- Update.
-
Settings, submenu:
- Work offline (0),
- Common,
- S60Ticker.
- About,
- Exit.
To add a feed, select “Add feed” and provide the following bits of information:
- Feed URL — (mandatory),
- Alias name – to identify the feed in the feed list (optional),
- Scheduler on/off,
- Update interval (minutes).
Upon moving to the list of articles for each feed “Key 1” displays these menu items:
- Show (->),
- Open news web site,
- Mark as deleted ( c ),
- Mark as unread (6|9),
-
Mark, submenu:
- Mark,
- Unmark,
- Mark all,
- Unmark all.
-
Sort by, submenu:
- Age,
- Read,
- Deleted.
If you want to close S60NewsReader without keeping it in the background – which is useful for S60Ticker, use the “Exit” item from the menu.
Keyboard shortcuts do the magic
The beauty of S60NewsReader is that through its easy-to-memorize shortcuts you can perform many tasks. Note that some of these tasks cannot be executed via the menu system. These shortcuts are:
Feed list
- 1 – Activate current or selected feed(s) for scheduled updates.
- 4 – Deactivate current or selected feed(s) for scheduled updates.
- 7 – Reverse status “active for scheduled updates”.
- 5 – Update all feeds with status “active for scheduled updates”.
- 8 – Update current selected feed.
- 0 – Set application online/offline.
- 9 – Mark all news articles of the focused feed as read/unread.
- C – Delete current or selected feed(s) – along with their articles.
Article list
- 3 – Mark current or selected articles as read.
- 6 – Mark current or selected articles as unread.
- 9 – Mark current or selected article as read/unread and step to next entry.
- C – Mark current or selected news as deleted/undeleted.
- Select – Show highlighted article preview.
It’s worth mentioning that both feeds and articles can be marked using the Number/Hash key + Up/Down, similar to marking adjacent list items in the S60 platform. Moreover, the Number/Hash key can be used to mark/unmark individual feeds or articles.
A word about settings
As you might have noticed, feeds can be scheduled to download their articles automatically. If you want to update scheduled feeds upon starting S60NewsReader, go to “Settings/Common” and set “Initial update” to “On”. The Common dialog also allows you to modify other connection-related settings.
Limitations
As with many S60 RSS readers, the most obvious barrier which might discourage many users is difficulty typing the feed URL upon creating a feed. Some RSS readers work around this issue by providing an OPML import/export facility. However, S60NewsReader V1.01.02 doesn’t offer such a feature. The application web site mentions that such a facility will be added soon. Moreover, the “feed URL” edit box doesn’t allow users to paste an already-copied URL into it, so, for instance, if you copy a feed URL from Nokia’s built-in S60 RSS reader, it won’t be pasted into S60NewsReader’s Feed URL edit box. RSS readers like Resco News offer an “Edit options” submenu with items like “Copy” and “Paste”.
On a different topic, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to help users copy text from the “feed preview” window or save the displayed article as a bookmark either in the S60 web browser or in a would-be Bookmarks tab sheet inside the reader itself. Currently you can simply read text in the “feed preview” window and no text copying facilities have been designed. I also like to be allowed to save news articles as TXT or HTML files for later use. Last but not least, the application is a bit sluggish especially if one deletes several news articles.
Don’t think that I’ve mentioned these limitations to denigrate the product – it’s now my preferred S60 RSS reader albeit it costs about $13. Don’t forget to trial it before making a purchasing decision.
For visually impaired users
S60NewsReader is the most accessible aggregator I’ve seen so far, and its “feed preview” window can be read by Nuance TALKS. If you also want to navigate this window line by line, don’t set the TALKS “Cursor mode” to “Original”. Also, if you want my labeled icons for S60NewsReader, use the “comments” section of the post to notify me.
Related Info: Nokia Headlines Replaces Nokia Channels
While I was away, SmartphoneWare updated Best TaskMan to V2.02. This small update offers the following features:
- The problem with Java applications (the program crashed when Quickstart or TaskSwitcher contained Java application) is fixed.
- Crash on start (with some firmwares the program crashed when starting) is fixed.
- “Kill application” command added.
- Task switcher no longer hides “Menu” application.
- TaskMan is no longer closed by system when out of memory.
- When device keyboard is locked intercepted keys should be locked as well now.
- Added shortcuts to views: 1 – Tasks, 2 – Memory,3 – Launcher, 4 – All tasks, 5 – Installed apps, 6 – Processes.
- Now available in English, German, Russian and Chinese languages.
The only feature which I’d like to see implemented in Best TaskMan is a quasi-Windows Vista “search and locate” function – something available with Handy TaskMan.
Related Info: Jbak Taskman
It’s about 17 days that I’ve not posted an article. As I mentioned in my last post, I was supposed to resume posting on August 4th, but as I returned to Tehran I had to wrestle with an unexpected flu. My hot showers and a sturdy cooling system are to be blamed for that. Over the past few days I was also busy handling some ragged work-related issues. They haven’t been totally resolved, but I now know how to tolerate them without disrupting this blog.
All this means that I’m glad to be posting again! I have a lot to talk about.
I’m currently vacationing in one of the most beautiful cities of Iran, Urmia. It’s near the famous Lake Urmia. As such, I’ll resume posting articles next Monday (August 4th).
If you think Nokia’s upcoming N96 would shake the cell phone arena with its various multimedia and professional features, you should take a look at Samsung’s newly announced i8510. This handset offers the following awesome features:
- 8 megapixel auto focus camera with dual LED flash. Camera functions / modes include Smart Reader, Image Stabilizer, Auto-Panor ama Shot, Smile Shot, Blink Shot, Wide Dynamic Range (WDR), and Face Detection. The camera can also capture video at VGA (30 frames per second) and QVGA (120 frames per second) resolutions. On board software for editing images and videos (Movie Maker and Storyboard applications) are available.
- Dimensions: 106.5 x 53.9 x 17.2 mm.
- 2.8 inch, QVGA screen with 16 million colours.
- Integrated GP S with support for A-GPS.
- Integrated accelerometer sensor used for automatic screen rotation.
- Optical sensor, taking the form of a touch pad (as on laptops) like control in the centre of the D-pad.
- 16GB of internal flash memory and a microSD card slot support cards up to 16GB in size (SDHC).
- Support for HSDPA at 7.2 bps (3.5G) connectivity on 900 and 2100 Mhz WCDMA bands, quad band GSM, Bluetooth 2.0 (including A2DP support), WiFi and USB 2 (Full-speed). WiFi will enable DNLA (UPnP) support for audio and video.
- 3.5 mm audio jack, support for MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA (including DRM), AMR and RealAudio audio formats, stereo FM radio (with RDS) and DNSe audio technology. Digital Natural Sound engine (DNSe) is an audio enhancement technology used across a portfolio of Samsung products and helps to produce higher quality surround sound.
- Video playback formats: DivX, H.263, H.264, WMV, and MP4.
- Runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2.
- Will ship with 2 embedded games: FIFA 08 (EA) and Asphalt (Gameloft).
- Battery: 1200 mAH with quoted talk time of up to 300/510 min (3G/2.5G) and stand-by time up to 330 / 310 hrs (3G/2.5G).
- The phone will be released in Europe during August and in the rest of the world during September.
Just compare i8510’s 1200 mAH battery with N96’s 950 one and you’ll notice the difference. Also, the Samsung handset – which is called INNOV8 – has an 8MP camera compared with the 5MP camera of Nokia smartphones including that of the N96. To be honest, it’s the first time I can’t find Nokia at the very forefront of high-end smartphones, but I’m sure Nokia will come up with something soon. Moreover, the manufacturing of such non-Nokia handsets is good for the S60 platform as this phenomenon will convince more developers and users to gravitate toward the OS. Last but not least, it would be interesting to see how the I8510 and the N96 will compete on the market. Both are to reach customers in August/September so stay tuned for a good number of hands-on reviews.
Mobile Space - A Cell Phone Related Blog 