Symbian Foundation

I admit I'm late to publish this. I thought better late than never.... The main attraction to me was to see Indian companies on the list... Go India Go....

Well those wondering whats this Symbian Foundation.... Its an Open source Symbian OS and a universal standard which is likely to be followed by most mobile companies... Good to know that na???

Nokia has bought roughly €264 million worth remaining 52% of the Symbian shares that it does not own. This is to make Symbian an Open source platform and also a standard. Hats off to you Nokia for this effort. The first Symbian Foundation device also will be released once this starts operating in 2009.

Casio Protrek Watch

As promised, I will introduce to you some of my gadgets that are a part of my everyday living.... Introducing the Casio Protrek watch.

Some of the Key features of this watch are
>Barometer
>Thermometer
>Digital Compass
>Altimeter
>5 Alarms
>30 World Time Zones
> Auto EL Illumination
>Tough Solar

The watch has a huge display and you can be sure to catch a glimpse of the time no matter what situation you may be and the AutoEL illumination helps you do the same at nights without pressing a button. I checked some reviews of the Protrek series of watches and I came to know that timekeeping is perfect and so did I also find it. I've been using it for the past 5 months. As you see its thick and huge and is an Eyecatcher. It will look like a wall clock on the hands. People around can know time without even asking you. Best of all its Tough Solar and doesnt need a battery change.

Now lets see the USP's of this watch.

Altimeter: Purely based on the barometer, this will only help you approximately know how high you are. When I compared it with the GPS values, it had a difference of 60m.

Barometer: The screen has a small graph which helps in predicting weather. This just gets the job done and one cant expect accuracy here.

Digital Compass: This is probably the most accurate which is great to see it work at.

Overall a good watch that helps you get loads of info....

Gadget freak...Where are the gadgets???

Well all of you visiting my blog might be wondering why I'm posting only about symbian phones and software... You see, basically I'm a gadget freak, but for the past two years or so I started liking the advancements in mobile technologies very much.

Well, this week my focus would be on other gadgets. I will review some good stuff... Watch this space...

Global Race On Nokia E61

Yes guys, you read it right. Global race works on the E61. It was great playing on the E61's screen. Its sad that Nokia dint bother to bring good games like these before for the E61. Though this game is not designed for the phone, it still works perfectly. You can download this game from the E71's software site here: http://europe.nokia.com/A41073165
The game works absolutely well and is smooth. You may be wondering how this works on the E61. The E61 doesn't have 3D support, also the E71 doesn't have 3D support and hence a separate version of Global Race was made for this phone, which works on E61 also. Check the screenshots :)

UPDATE: Works on the Nokia E61i also.

Nokia Email: Beta PUSH

Nokia Email Service is a new beta service offered by nokia for free(until its in beta). All you need to do is sign up for the service here https://email.nokia.com/ . Installation is easy and so is the entire setup..... Once you signup you get a one year service for the nokia email.

The very good feature I found was that the Email creates a new plugin for active standby even in the E61(Screenshot below)



The interface is good and smooth, but takes lot of time to load, even the Inbox.

However I found that some special notifications were added to my phone after the software was installed. These notifications are displayed anywhere we perform copy, paste...etc operations.

However, on my E61 the OS now frequently shows error messages when I open Web or similar apps. Will post pics of em soon....

Iphone3G in India

The iphone 3G is expected to be available in India in around september 2008 thru airtel and vodafone. You can preregister your iphone now at these sites. The pricing seems to be a mystery still.

http://www.airtel.in/iphone3g

http://vodafone.in/existingusers/iphone/pages/preregister-iPhone.aspx

Nokia E71 In India

I got a quick demo of the Nokia E71. The Nokia Rep. brought this phone to my house, and I got a chance to have a good look at it.

This phone was released in India on 4th July and is priced around Rs. 22,949/-.

More impressions after the break....

For now, check out these pics that I quickly shot before the Sales rep left.

After the Break
The E71 I got to handle was the grey metal color. I was greeted by Mr. Pradeep(the Nokia Eguru) at my house when I was coming back from work. My dad was playing with the E71 and I was surprised and shocked to see its size. Its extremely small, cute and sturdy metallic phone. I was amazed at what this small gizmo could do and what my hefty E61 couldn't....

The Hardware
The Keys of the phone are more raised so it was easier to type than the E61/E61i. No creaks and squeaks of plastic sounds. It was a great feeling on Hand. I had some quick views all over the phone and was rather depressed seeing the Nokia 2.5 mm Port. When will Nokia learn its mistakes?? Wasn't its POP PORT a huge let down in the most amazing phones?? C'on Nokia you have to have the standard 3.5mm headset jack on all phones. The other side the Mem-card slot and micro-USB were under independent covers made of plastic. Rest all were the standard volume buttons, mute button...etc The loudspeaker placement I thought was excellent. Its on the Top, so if you keep it in your pocket, the ring tone will be still loud as against E51 which has its loudspeaker at the back of the phone. The screen again is a pleasure to watch.

The Software
The OS was fast and I could quickly connect to my wifi router and check some sites on the Internet. It was fast enough I thought. The menu navigation was fast and the GUI felt similar.
Music playback was OK. It was in fact waaay better than E61(connected thru Ad-41 to my headphones) when I tested on Jabra BT3030 BT headset(With the same headphones). Actually I thought was the Bass was great, and so was Pradeep astonished at the sound. I dint have time to do any further testing....

Oh I almost forgot... The phone still needs a good firmware update. The bar code reader crashed again and again. The camera dint feel like a 3.2 mega pixel cam, the imaging algorithms need to be fine tuned.

The Best:
Great handy size.
In built GPS
Loads of RAM
Very fast
Flash Lite 3 Support
Upgrade upto 8GB(theoretically SDHC cards can be made till 32GB)
Wonderful Keyboard
Great screen, can be viewed under direct sunlight.(QVGA is enuf for me)

The Worst:
GUI looks sick, icons could have been more flashy or coloured. GUI does not match the phone.
2.5 mm Headset jack
No TV out.
No Accelerometer(I wanted this very much on a QWERTY)

I'm BBBBBAAAAACCCCKKKK

Hi Everybody,

Sorry to keep everyone in gr8 anticipation!! I was tied up with my work and couldnt find time for blogging. However, I will make it a point from this time along that my blogs will be regularly updated.

Also partly to be blamed is lack of Nokia's commitment to the Indian Market and to people working in secure areas. I find that Nokia releases a lot of devices, but they are not available in India. Examples are Nokia LD-3w(I got Holux GPSlim instead), N810, BH-500(Got Jabra BT3030 instead). Also camera free version of Nokia E51 is not yet available in India... WHY NOKIA???? I almost lost interest in Nokia this time around until I saw the E71..:-) Hope they release a camera free version of it. :-(

I'm starting this new blog http://www.thegadgetfreak.net or http://thegadgetfreak.blogspot.com/ aiming at all types of gadgets and my experiences with them and will not be updating http://rockure61.blogspot.com/ anymore. Thanks ....