Nokia Messaging Service becomes paid from December

Like me if you have been using Nokia’s email solution, Nokia Messaging Service, you must be loving (and hating it at times) the ability of it to view your email on the phone itself almost instantaneously as it comes to your email box.

Well come December, this service is going to cost you. Nokia Messaging from December will become a paid service on a select few networks. Also going to be released soon is an S40 client, since there are more S40 phones sold than S60. I remember that NMS product manager had said long time back that it would remain an S60 exclusive service. But, I’m glad to know it will be moving to S40, a platform which needs to be accepted as a platform for the masses.

I do have a few questions though, about NMS going paid, like what happens to the E75 owners who got a free lifetime subscription to Nokia Messaging Service, will they have to pay for it now? or does it still remain free?

Will the pre-paid (pay as you go) customer be also included in the scheme of things, or will he be thought to be just a voice and SMS based user? I’ve heard that the service is expected to undercut BlackBerry’s email offering of INR 299 per month, offered by most of the service operators in India.

Leave your comments down below and let us know what your views are on this.

Gravity being released soon!

If you remember, we had recently carried a post on ‘Gravity’, a twitter app for your S60 phone. Well, I’ve been getting to hear a lot about this app on the net. It’s like the most wanted application for all of us twitter users.

Well gerrymoth at Nokia Addict (which just turned 2 years, btw) tells us that the application might be exiting the closed beta testing stage and heading for a possible release for the public at large. The date that he mentions is the 3oth of March, 2009.

This is a great piece of news for all S60 phone users with twitter accounts.

Head on over to Nokia Addict to read more about it.

What the Nokia smartphone cannot do!

Today is Holi, The festival of colours! It is also the day when your precious S60 phone goes inside the cupboard or somwhere safe.

I am sure a lot of you do that. After all who is going to risk the loss of a precious phone. yet, we can’t keep it away also, because you don’t know when you might need it.

I know this feeling, I suffer from it too. Today I am using three phones (3 nos. too) and only of them is a smartphone. You must wonder why aren’t all of them ’smartphones’. Well the reason is quite simple, I can’t afford 3 smartphones. Today though I found out another reason why I should not upgrade to a smartphone.

My weapon of choice is the black N82. This is the phone which has everything I need on it. But there is one big problem, It’s not water proof.

My other phone is a humble 1200 (great phone) and the simple 3110 Classic. The 1200 is your average basic phone which has a dust proof keypad and has a great battery life. The 3110 classic is your average budget phone with music and camera and all those features. It is also thinner compared to the N82.

So how are they better than the smartphone, you ask? Read on!

Well the 1200 with it’s one piece rubber keypad ensured that no water got into the phone, it was able to take a few splashes of water even though it was wrapped in a plastic bag. An ordinary smartphone would have gone kaput probably.

The 3110 classic is pretty similar to your average smartphone, in the sense it has the similar set of concerns as the smartphone has. but there was one great thing about it, the keypad. With a HUGE keypad, I was able to easily dial numbers and send an occasssional SMS to someone. All this while it too was wrapped in plastic. Mind you the phone did manage to get wet a bit.

Now if this would have been a smartphone and suppose it would have gotten spoilt then it would have been a big problem. I wanted to capture some moments on my trusty N82 but I refrained from carrying it, lest something happen.

Now this fear, prevented me from capturing some really great moments. What a loss for you Nokia.

Now had there been a ruggedized s60 phone from you, This would not have happened. I think there is a niche which exists in India, where such a product or accessory would do great. Imagine a s60 phone which you could tke to Holi without worrying about water and colour issues.

It could be a simple S60 phone, no WiFi, maybe a 2.2″ screen, 3.2MP camera with 1 LED flash, big keypad ala 3110 classic and a memory card and decent battery life.

I most definitely buy it. If not this an accessory which would protect our precious phones from water.  Imagine how many people would buy it. Think how much the device would integrate into our lives, how many unique moments we could capture and upload on Ovi. Nokia is missing a huge opportunity here!

What do you think about this idea? Do you have similar ideas or concepts, Tell us! Leave a comment below…

N85 Review Part-3: Software, Music, Battery and Screen

Firstly I’m sorry for such a long sabbatical from blogging. I’ve been busy with a lot of things lately. A couple of days back I bought a new PC- a netbook actually. I bought the Asus EeePC 1000H at a really cool price (at least in India) and I’ve been busy getting it up to the condition I need. In fact this review has been written on it.

Well lets get back to what this blog and this post is about, phones and in particular the N85. Now I’m sure you have read about the first two parts of the N85’s review (click here for the first part and here for the second part).

For this post I shall concentrate on the factors that can make or break a device in an instant. First, it’s the Software.

Software:

Now the N85 has the famous S60 OS doing duty inside it. The S60 on  the N85 is quite different from the N96’s, though both were V3 with FP2. It seemed that the N85 seems to have a better rendition of the S60 within it compared to the flagship N96. I wonder why it is so? The transitions on it are reminiscent of the N78’s transition effects. I thought that this version of the S60 to be really good. It’s more fluid than the N96’s transition effects.

Tilt the screen and the screen adapts to the new dimensions almost instantaneously and it’s a pleasure watching the N85 transition from landscape to portrait.

If you have read my post on the N96’s software (click here to check it out), you will see how the S60 V3 with FP2 is different and definitely an evolution from the FP1. The N85 is very much the same. there is however but one difference, the Active Standby. The Active Standby on the N85 seems a step ahead and is a ‘real’ step forward. if you saw, the there were only 4 icons on the N96’s Active Standby. vis-a-vis the N85 which has a full complement of icons in the Active Standby, 7 to be precise. With these 7 (configurable) icons you can pretty much do everything you want on the phone. Wonder why the N96 could not have such an implementation.

I would give the N85 a very high 9.5/10 in this parameter.

Music:

Now music is one place where the N85 really disappointed me. With the memory of the N96 fresh in my mind (and ears too ), I was expecting something similar, but was letdowwn, the N85 performs nicely but it lack that ‘wow’ factor. Personally the N82 is much better here on both counts, viz. the speakers and the headphones.

The N85’s speakers aren’t made for listening to songs, and I thought that it could have been much better. It lacked any depth and every song sounded pretty much flat to me on the speakers. But when you connect the headphones, you realise a marked difference in the sound, though it’s still lacking that punch. I was left waiting for something like that to hit me.

What this means is that, if you are looking at using this as your MP3 player, you could probably use it, but it just can’t replace that 2GB sansa clip or iPod shuffle. Also since my N82 performed even better on both counts I was left wondering what went wrong with the N85 then?

A rather poor 6/10 for the N85’s music capabilities. Really thought a lot was lacking here.

Battery:

Battery is the one place where the N85 reclaimed itself. with a huge battery, I was expecting it to perform really well and it did not disappoint, I got close to 2.5 days on regular usage and even with heavy usage I was able to get 2 days worth of battery life (the screen brightness cranked to max.). The N85 has superior energy management systems in place. The addition of a ‘Power saving’ option allowed me to stretch the phone’s battery life to about 3 days.

I think this makes the N85 a worth buy. My N82 lasts me about 2 days with light usage and about a day if I used it heavily. I don’t one needs to even ask where the N96 falls. The N85 gets a very high 9.2/10 from me on this parameter. A good battery life means that it allows you to do more.

I won’t give you a list of what I did to get battery life like this, just go to the N96’s review on the same parameters and scroll down you will get an idea. The screen brightness on the N85 was max.

Screen:

The screen is another area which needs an extensive post, but I won’t do that, I’m sure you know how good AM-OLED is compared to the traditional TFT screens. in case you don’t a quick ‘Google’ will throw a lot of information towards you. the AM-OLED screen allows you to see more clearly with better contrast. In the sun however, you just cannot read anything on the screen. Tilt the phone and the screen’s orientation also changes quickly. The phone’s screen is definitely a must have for all phones. I love it, it makes my N82 look like an ancient baby. the N96’s 2.8″ screen in AM-OLED would have been very ‘revolutionary’ for the company. the N85’s screen is a comfortable 2.6″ screen and is capable of reproducing 16.7 million colours like all the other smartphones’ screen. I think the N85 deserves a 9.5/10. Simply marvelous.

Gravity, the new Twitter S60 client

It has been launched, the Gravity application, the new Twitter S60 client.

Gravity allows you to send a Direct Message to another member and it also let’s you to add several Search items.

Like we have said in the beginning, the Gravity app is for S60 devices and it has been tested by the guys at Symbian Guru. You can watch a video above showing how it works.

Source: Symbian-Guru

Read this post in portuguese, press the link http://Nokia-Blog.net