We are a year old!

This post comes in a little later than it should have (ok a whole lot later!) but since I’ve been busy shifting my base it’s been a little hard to get some blogging done. I know I have the N97 and the E75 with me, but it’s more about finding time than anything else.

It was on the 7th of July, 2008 that I decided to start blogging about phones. A couple of days prior to this, my girlfriend had told me that she had begun blogging and that I should start too. it was her insistence which led me to start a blog. the question at that time was ‘What do I blog about?’ and as I said I thought about phones. I had been following them for a a couple of years and I thought that I had gathered enough knowledge about the industry to have my own view point.

So I began, with a humble post about my experience with mobile phones. I was a regular reader of Darla’s blog and Symbian-Guru amongst a whole lot many. Ricky Cadden a.k.a The Guru gave me a few tips (I’m sure he doesn’t even remember! lol!) about getting in touch with WOM World for trial devices. I contacted them and it wasn’t until a couple of months later that they mailed me asking if I would like to trial the E66. I was overjoyed!

It would be the first of many trial devices I would get from WOM World. My relationship with the warm people at WOM World(no pun intended here!) grew and they kept on sending me devices after devices against my requests (E66, E71, E63, N96, N85, E75). And today here I am, taking part in a global contest of ‘Teach the Technophobe’, You can read about it here.

Thank you so much WOM World and all the people I have interacted with, you guys are really great!

During this time I came across another person’s blog. He had used the N80 just like me and although he had upgraded faster than me, his story seemed similar to mine. This blogger was none other than Clinton Jeff of ZomgitsCj. Over the years I became a regular visitor to his blog and in time we became very good friends. In addition to the many blogs he wrote for, Cj would help me out by putting up blogposts on topics when I could not blog due to my rigorous MBA schedule. We would (we still do!) catch up online and have some of the most interesting and intellectually stimulating conversations about mobile phones and the internet. It was uncanny, how we would have almost identical view points.

Thank you Cj for all the help and support you have given to this blog and me. If it weren’t for your contributions (posts and chats), this blog would not be where it is today.

Another person I must thank is Ravindra Dissanayake. Ravindra till last year was writing for Symbian-Life Blog. I used to love his articles, always simple, lucid and packed with content. This prolific blogger (in my eyes at least) went on to create Symbian Stories, before he vanished to Australia for further studies (I hope you and your wife are doing alright mate!). Around then, Meraj of Phone Report V2.0 offered me a position at Phone Report V2.0 and I accepted. Ravi also requested me to take over the reins of Symbian-Life Blog, I would then start blogging on three different blogs. But I must admit, it is indeed difficult to fit into Ravi’s shoes.

Thank you Meraj and Ravi for giving me such wonderful opportunities and allowing me to become a bit wiser. Thank also for all the guidance and support you continue to give to me. I am indeed thankful to you guys for putting me on the path of growth.

Carlos, a regular visitor on both the blogs (this one and Symbian-Life Blog) also helped out in times of stress. He would write a few articles for me on this blog, when I was trying to set myself with all the blogs I was writing for. Thank you so much Carlos for helping me out in times of need. I hope you still visit this blog!

Mike Macias, I would like to thank you too for being a great person to look up to. Your N82 blog in many ways is like the Bible for N82 users. I have always received support from you, no matter how big or small the issue. Also if it weren’t for you, I would have never bought this great netbook I have now.

All of these people and many more have played a very important role in developing this blog in their own ways.my readers and all the people who have commented. All the websites and blogs that have linked to this blog and those who I have linked to.

The S60 Ambassadors Program also provided me a lot of opportunities to meet some great bloggers and hear their story and give me a wider perspective of the S60 platform. Various forums like Symbian-Freak forums, Howardforums, and many more provided loads of knowledge about S60, and it’s quirks.

The high point of this first year came when I was invited to the N97 Blogger Meet, in Gurgaon where I met Axel Meyer and got to play with the N97 way before it was launched. Along with this WOM World invited me to be a part of a global campaign ‘Teach the Technophobe’.

I also want to thank D3x, Rita El Khoury, Varun Krishnan, Vaibhav Sharma for everything. Listening to your rants and passion for phones has always been inspirational, I hope I can reach the same place where you are today.

This blog has also been instrumental in me getting a job at Spice Retail Ltd.

So as I celebrate the completion of one year of this blog I want to thank all the people who have contributed to the success of this blog. I want to thank all the software manufacturers for trusting me and giving me an opportunity to review your applications, also Nokia for having me review your devices. I also want to place on record my gratitude to all the readers, fellow bloggers, friends and my family for all your support. Thank you everyone!

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Eseries gets firmware updates

Yesterday saw the E66 and the E71 getting firmwares updates. Thee E71’s firmware has been bumped to V210.21.006.

The E66’s firmware has been bumped to V210.21.007. The firmware is available for the European and the Asian codes. The remaining countries and areas will have to wait a bit longer till it is made available there.

Do remember that the the E66 and E71 does not have UDP (USer Data Prevention) so please backup your phone data.

Updates in the world of phones

I am starting this new feature where I will collect all the happenings in the world of mobile phones and post it here for you to read (ok this is because I am swamped with work!!!)

1. E71 gets a a firmware update:
Last night, the E71 just received a major update to the firmware. From the current version 110.07.127 to a new version 200.21.118 . A lot of fixes have been implemented. Remember to download the latest version of NSU (Nokia Software Updater) and fire it up after connecting you phone to your Windows operated systems as there is no support for other OS.

Another thing to remember, please take a back up of your data as E71 does not have UDP (User Data Prevention). In case you don’t back up, all your data could be wiped out. You can read the change-log here.

New functionalities in MCU SW version 200.21.118:

- Internet Radio application
- My Nokia application
- 3G power reduction for applications using keep-alive style messaging
- User experience improvements:
- Easy Dialing support for Simplified Chinese language
- Device Lock improvement: Open device lock with LSK + Fn-keys
- One key input method switch for China language
- ‘Mute’ option in Right Soft Key when wired headset / hands free is connected
- ‘Loudspeaker’ option in Right Soft Key immediately when phone call is started
- Enlarge characters in Chr-table
- NTLM v1 and v2 support for Intranet Browsing
- New black and red themes

Changes/improvements made to MCU SW version 200.21.118:

General
- Time zones updated
- Improvements to localization
- Localization fixes
- Missing localizations added
- Operator name database updated
- Startup Settings updated
- Certificates updated
- Security updates
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Barcode reader icon changed from 1D icon to 2D icon
- Windows DRM keys are not lost during NSU update from 110.07.127

Qwerty keyboard
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Keyboard mapping corrections

Browser
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Flash Lite improvements

Connectivity
- WLAN stability improvements
- EAP-FAST/TLS stability improved
- WLAN roaming functionality improved
- BT IOP and Dial-up stability improvements

Maps
- Several stability and functionality improvement

Messaging
- Stability and functionality improvements
- Performance improvement

Quickoffice
- Several stability and functionality improvements

VOIP / SIP
- Many stability and functionality improvements

Email
- Mail for Exchange upgraded from version 2.5.5 to 2.7.22
- Improved functionality when sending email via SSL/TLS SMTP server

Mobile dictionary
- Stability improvements
- Improvement for installed languages. Installed language can be removed.

Camera
- Camera image improvements & slow capture correction with certain HW’s
- Stability improvements

Music player
- General functionality and stability improvements

Java
- Update for CLDC-HI (Sun 1.1.1s Java VM)

Device encryption
- Device encryption functionality and stability improvements

Switch application
- Application updates and stability improvements

Information courtsey, “MMAS” on NokiaAddict.com

2. Live Messenger for your S60 5th edition phone:
Ricky aka The Guru, reports over at his blog that Live messenger is now available for S60 5th edition devices. Microsoft has updated the messenger for the 5800 and the upcoming N97. You can download the software from here.

E75 pictures leaked

A member at Mobile-review forums, Mirrorofsorrow has managed to post some real kick ass photos of the unreleased E75! The phone is compared to the ‘tube’ i.e. 5800 Xpressmusic. A look at the photos will show you how the phone looks and give a rough idea about the dimensions.

I think its high time, Nokia started to move about in terms of the handset designs. From bars, it is slowly moving into clamshells, sliders, touchscreens, and this now. Looking at it I’m reminded of the baby communicator(9300) that was sold before the communicator (9500) came into the markets. This phone also looks to be something like that; a phone for someone who wants a bigger keys than what the E71 or E63 offer yet not something as bulky as the E90. I hope that it is positioned in between the E71 and the E90.

Some specs for the E75 that I could get hold of:
A 2.4 inch screen, 3.2mega pixel camera with single LED flash, WiFi.

What do you think? Do you have some lowdown on the E75?

E71 Review Part-5: Internet & Maps

This is the last part of my review of the Nokia E71. In my previous posts I have concentrated on the various aspects of the E71 like design, lighting, software, music, battery life, screen orientation, camera and accessories. In this last post I will tell you about my thoughts on the E71 with regards to the Internet and Maps feature.

Internet:
This feature of the E71 is most important since it is aiming to be a Blackberry killer (and a sexy one at that!). Connecting to the the web is a beautiful experience. I had no problems staying connected to the Internet during my trip to Rajasthan. The handset smoothly made the transition to GPRS in the absence of EDGE and reverted back when EDGE was available. I used the WiFi feature a bit. But since I was using the GPRS feature (still am at the time of writing this post) I really did not get to experience surfing through WiFi that much. Rest assured the speeds on EDGE were comparable to the speeds I would have got had I used the WiFi connection. I downloaded close to 300MB of music onto my phone through GPRS. The downloads were fast and i had no problems saving it. On the whole I must have downloaded close to 1GB of data (surfing, music, data, etc). That’s quite a lot. It was really great to have an ‘always on’ internet experience on the E71. Chatting through ‘fring’ was simple. I also downloaded and installed Opera Mini. I found that using Opera was slightly faster, though it responded slowly (typical of Java programs). I have not had so much fun using the internet on the phone. The landscape orientation with the ‘qwerty’ keyboard really helped things and turned it into a ‘mini -netbook’.

Coupled with the beta stage, Nokia Email Service (NES) I was getting all my e-mail pushed to my device, I was truly mobile. I wasn’t using my laptop for checking my mails and browsing the net. It was only for certain data intensive applications and blogging that I used the laptop. So what does this mean for the average user? it means that for your everyday surfing and checking your emails, the E71 is more than enough. As it is you can edit Office documents and view PDF files. You don’t need to buy a Blackberry for the ‘push’ email function. Heck you really don’t need a netbook also. the E71 comfortable achieves what a netbook can.

The only few problems with the whole Internet experience is the total lack of tabbed browsing. I have kept on saying this in so many of my earlier posts. Nokia must get tabbed browsing to its web browser. If it doesn’t, the whole ‘web’ experience will be lost. I was also unable to play Youtube videos. I wonder what went wrong there???

Other than that its a fantastic experience using the E71 for my daily internet needs. I will give the E71 a good 9/10.

Maps:
This is the first time where I haven’t used the Maps feature on the phone. Why? Simple, the amount of cities covered by Nokia is so little, I had no use for the application. I hope that Nokia is planning to add more Indian cities and soon. Tourist cities like Jodhpur, Udaipur and so on need to be included quickly into the India map. Once it is done, I am sure you will find a lot of usage for the service. Imagine the Chinese tourist will not need to ask for directions to the City Palace, Udaipur; Instead he will simply whip out his ‘Maps’ enabled device and go there. The usage can grow manifold, if Nokia can only realize that such applications need extensive coverage in terms of maps. With the current cities covered in India, so low. You got a useless application.

Still I am assuming that the service would have worked just as good as the E66. I would give the Maps feature a 8.9/10 on the basis that it performs just as well as the E66 performed. If anybody finds any discrepancy in usage, please let me know.

With this comes to end the my review of the E71. On the whole I have enjoyed using this device. It really is a fantastic phone. This phone is a boon for frequent users of the net, e-mail and messaging function. I would definitely recommend this phone to people who need these features a lot. Sure there are some chinks, but I am sure most of the people looking at this phone will overlook the chinks. Nokia sure has a true winner on its hands. Personally, I like the E66, though after two weeks of usage, I am liking this phone for all its looks and functionality. What are your views? Please put in your comments and let everyone know.