Tag: Handset
Nokia pumps out three new music phones, and comments on the N97, Spotify and Comes with Music
Nokia seems to have decided that music is where it wants to be. The Finnish handset-maker has announced three new handsets today – the 5730 XpressMusic, the 5330 XpressMusic, and the 5030 – which doesn’t have an XpressMusic suffix, but does have an XpressRadio one.
The handsets range from budget to high-end. Starting at the bottom, the 5030 XpressRadio is a candybar with a built-in FM radio antenna, not the internet radio that Nokia’s been pushing to date. It’s very cheap, at just €40 before contracts come into play. Budget-tastic. It’ll be available in Q2.
Then there’s the 5330 XpressMusic, which has a different design to many Nokia handsets. More square. It’s a slider, and it has a 3.5mm headphone jack, 24 hours of listening time battery life, and some sort of crazy light thing going on. If you have any idea what that’s about, then free free to comment. Unfortunately, the 5330 won’t be running S60 – just the cut-down S40 version. It’ll cost €184 before taxes or contracts get involved. It’ll be available in Q3 2009.
Then, at the top of the range is the 5730 XpressMusic which comes in black/red, black/grey, grey/blue and black/pink. It’s got both a numeric keypad and a slide-out QWERTY, which shrinks the screen down a little, but it’s the only phone of the three to be running S60.
Specs-wise, the 5730 has got Wi-Fi, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a 3.2-megapixel camera, HSDPA, and GPS. You can also access your media from the home screen, which will be handy for those who want easier access to their content on the go. It’ll cost €280, and will be available in Q3 2009.
The phones were announced with a webchat this morning, and as part of that chat, the Nokia team also answered a few random questions from the audience. Here’s a few interesting tidbits that they came out with.
Firstly, when asked about the N97, Product Manager for Music Solutions, Steven Stewart, said the handset is “like sex in your hand”(!). The device hasn’t been announced as a Comes with Music device, but Stewart said it would be “perfect for getting unlimited free music downloads”, which sounds like a hint to me.
The inevitable question about Spotify was asked – Nokia responded: “Yes, the music team is aware of most all types of music services and devices. Spotify is one of many interesting new services. Social Music is an important part of the music experience which our teams are busy as beavers working on!”. Given Spotify’s now-officially-announcedmobile ambitions, a tie-in could be very powerful.
Discussing Apple and competition, Stewart said: “Nokia is doing many exciting things with music that apple is not. Nokia has a large range of devices for most every taste, style, and use. Nokia also has a subscription model for unlimited free music that users keep even AFTER the membership ends. But we do look at ALL of the competitive intelligence to make sure we are developing music experiences that consumers want.”.
Lastly, with regards to Comes with Music, the service will shortly be announced in Italy, Sweden, and Mexico. There are no current plans to unbundle the service from handsets, so that it’ll be usable with any device. I suspect that’s because, like Apple, Nokia wants to carefully control the ecosystem and not have to deal with supporting other manufacturer’s handsets.
The DRM on the service is “a requirement of the labels and publishers at this point”, says Stewart. “Nokia Music team is looking for the best experiences for Music Lovers. Getting DRM free music is one of the things which we are in discussions with the labels and publishers about.”
Nokia 5730, 5330 and 5030.
Ballmer: We could be working faster on Windows Mobile
At a conference in Microsoft’s hometown, Redmond, CEO Steve Ballmer admitted yesterday that the company could be working faster on Windows Mobile.
Responding to a question from an audience member who complained that his employees were bringing in iPhones and Android Phones that were tricky to support, and wanted Microsoft to up its game significantly so that he didn’t have to deal with that situation as much, Ballmer responded: “There’s opportunities for us to accelerate our execution in this area, and we’ve done a lot of work to really make sure we have a team that’s going to be able to accelerate.” Here’s the full Q&A:
Mystery mobile phone found in bag of crisps
Last week we had “phone found in fish” and this week it’s “phone found in chips”, if you’ll excuse the slight Americanization. A lady in Wisconsin, one Emma Schweiger, found a Nokia 6810 in her bag of Clancy’s Ripple Potato Chips.
The phone wouldn’t turn on (probably out of battery) but it had a T-Mobile SIM card inside. There was also a “discoloured circle” of some sort on the back. Yuck. She didn’t finish the packet of crisps, but did get a free packet in replacement. She politely declined.
No word if the handset’s owner has been traced yet. I imagine they might be quite happy to see it again, but not as happy as the owner of the codded mobile.
Have you ever found a mobile phone in an odd place? No, not that place. Leave us a comment below, and we’ll see if we can turn two news stories into a TECH TREND.
Janesville Gazette (via CrunchGear)
Nokia wants to ditch DRM from Comes With Music
Nokia’s “Comes With Music” service, which offers unlimited music for a small amount bundled into the price of the of your phone, is unfortunately hobbled with DRM.
The ways things are set up means that any tracks you download are locked to one handset and one PC and if you want to do anything else, then…. well, you can’t do anything else.
However, Nokia doesn’t want it that way. Nokia understands that music should, in its very nature, be sharable with people you love. That’s why it wants to get rid of the DRM. Nokia’s director of global digital music retail, Adam Mirabella says:
“We have dialogues going with all of our partners and Digital Rights Management-free is also on the roadmap for the future integration of Comes With Music.”
Don’t hold your breath – I doubt we’ll see this for at least a year – but it’d certainly be nice, and would certainly make me retract most of my criticism of the service.
(via Music Ally)
O2 and Orange refuse to stock Nokia N97
A row has erupted between Nokia and network operators Orange and O2 over Nokia’s plans to pre-load the Skype VoIP service onto the N97.
The N97, Nokia’s flagship touchscreen phone due in June, is eagerly anticipated around here, but networks fear that including Skype on the device could cause them to lose voice revenue, with customers opting for cheap unlimited data plans over plenty of free voice minutes.
It’s prompted “high-level discussions” between the companies, which is code for “someone up top is very angry”. O2’s official comment says “We are currently working with Nokia to understand their Skype service and the business model around it.”
It’s interesting that the major operators have such a problem with the service, especially given the runaway success that Three has seen with its Skypephone and followup Skypephone S2, and the awards that the Facebook-and-Skype-integrated INQ has recieved. I’m sure Three will happily take O2 and Orange’s customers for the N97.
(via Pocket Gamer and Mobile Today)
Cod eats phone, fisherman catches cod, phone returned to owner
Andrew Cheatle is a lucky chap. He lost his phone on a beach a couple of weeks back and assumed it’d been lost at sea. On a shopping trip to replace the handset, however, his girlfriend’s phone rang. She handed it to him, saying it was some guy going on about a cod.
On the end of the line was fisherman Glen Kerley. He’d found a handset in the belly of a cod, and figured he’d try and return it to its owner. After going to meet him, he was reunited with his (rather battered) handset, and after it dried out, he was amazed to find it worked perfectly.
So what was the handset that survived a week in a fish? I wasn’t sure, so I consulted the masses on Twitter. The wonderful @lovelychaos was first with the answer – it’s a Nokia 1600 – a handset designed for use in developing countries. Well, I guess it’s proved its worth!
Top 5: Tips to make your mobile phone battery last longer
I always run out of phone battery at the most inopportune moments. Like just as my mum calls me, so she then thinks I’m avoiding her calls, or just as a lost friend is trying to track me down on a busy street.
Well, I’ve had enough, goddamnit. From now on, I’m going to make sure that my battery’s always in tip-top condition. Here’s how I’m going to do it:
One: Switch off features you don’t use
Seriously, how often do you use Bluetooth? Even if you use a headset on the go, you’re probably sat at a computer for a good proportion of your day, when having Bluetooth on is a waste of time. If you just turn it on when you need it, you can save a massive whack of battery life.
While we’re at it, there’s also 3G (do you need your email checked every minute? even overnight?), GPS, Wi-Fi and screen brightness. Turning them all down or off when you’re not using them could double your battery life in one fell swoop.
Two: Don’t let it run out totally before recharging
With Ni-MH batteries, it’s good to let them drain properly before charging them again, thanks to ‘battery memory’, but most cellphone batteries these days use Li-Ion batteries instead. These don’t suffer from the same problem, and can in fact be damaged by letting them go flat.
For best results, charge your phone when it gets to about 30% remaining. Think of the extra capacity as backup. Then, when you’re stuck in a situation where you can’t charge easily, like a festival, you’ll have maximum possible battery life.
Three: Don’t carry it around in your pocket
Turns out that carrying your phone around in your pocket is actually pretty bad for battery life, because you’ve got hot legs. By you, I mean “humans”, not specifically you, though your legs are rather hot. *cough*. Ahem.
Lifehacker suggests that it’s much better to keep batteries as cool as possible – meaning in your bag or jacket, or even on a belt clip. If you want to go overboard, keep your phone in the fridge at night, or just, y’know, turn it off.
Four: Turn it off when there’s no signal
While we’re talking about turning the phone off, turn it off when you go on the tube or metro, or if you’re going somewhere that you know has low signal issues. The lower the network availability, the harder the phone chip has to work to get a usable signal, so the more battery it uses.
For the same reason, if you know you have to call someone, do it somewhere with good signal, oh, and keep it short. No yapping about whether or not your friend saw Neighbors last night. Save that for the pub. It sounds harsh, but think of the hours of battery life you’ll get in return.
Five: Cycle your spares, and don’t store them with a full charge
Lastly, if you’re serious about batteries then you’ll almost certainly be carrying around a spare for emergencies. Don’t just use one and keep the other as a spare, or when it comes time to plug in the spare, it’ll be dead. Instead, rotate which battery you use every couple of months or so.
Don’t keep the spare fully charged up. A full charge puts too much strain on the terminals, and can damage it if it’s kept full for a long time. If you carry the spare around with you all the time, then keep it charged about 70-80%, but if not then keep it at 30% or so and in the fridge (not freezer). Then just charge it up when you think you’ll need it – if you’re going to a festival, for example.
Conclusions
So there you go. My tips for making your batteries able to make it through two months before needing a recharge. Have you got any tips, or things you’ve found useful in the quest for battery life? Share them in the comments.
Samsung promises "more than three" Android phones this year
Over here, we’re well in favour of handset makers experimenting with different operating systems. That’s why I was filled with glee this morning after reading that Samsung’s planning not one but “more than three” Android phones this year, as well as one running LiMo – a mobile OS based on Linux.
We’ve been praying for more Android phones ever since the G1 turned out to be not *quite* the iPhone-beater that everyone was hoping for. Hopefully Samsung will take note of Dan’s shopping list for the perfect smartphone, and build one accordingly.
(via Reuters)
MWC 2009: LG's G910 "Touch Watch" and Arena phones get official
Wow, things move fast from prototype to production these days. The LG GD-910 that we saw at CES is now the LG G910 Watch Phone, and due for release later this year.
It’s got a 1.4″ touchscreen face, HSDPA, and video calling capabilities. There’s also a text-to-speech engine for reading out texts to a bluetooth headset, and voice recognition stuff too. For maximum geekiness, precede every voice command with “Computer:”.
As well as the Touch Watch, there’s also the Arena, previously written about here. We were promised specs and a release date, and by jove, we’ve got them. Or most of them, anyway.
There’s a 3″ touchscreen, running at WVGA resolution. It supposrts DivX and Xvid codecs. It can record DVD-resolution video, and video at up to 120fps for super-slo-mo playback. There’s 8GB of internal memory, and that can be expanded by another 32GB of MicroSD action.
There’s an immensely joyful 3.5mm headphone socket, and the aforementioned HSDPA, GPS and Wi-Fi. There’s a 5-megapixel camera, too, and geotagging for photos. There’s a tonne of inbuilt Google apps, too. All this is packed into a 105.9 x 55.3 x 11.95mm shell.
What’s missing? Well, I’d like a flip-out QWERTY keyboard, and maybe an upgrade on that camera, but beyond that, I can’t think of too much. The Arena seems like a very capable handset. I hope that it delivers on its promise, but I don’t think it’s topping the N97 in my “can’t wait for” phone list. How about you?
MWC 2009: HTC shows off Touch Pro 2 and Touch Diamond 2
This is the HTC Touch Pro 2, newly announced by HTC in Barcelona. HTC claims that it delivers “the most powerful productivity experience available on a mobile phone”, and who are we to argue? Let’s talk specs.
The phone has a 3.6″ touchscreen at WVGA resolution, Windows Mobile 6.1, 512MB of memory (but with a microSD card slot), HSDPA, GPS, Bluetooth, a 3.2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, FM radio and a five-row QWERTY keyboard. Phew.
Conspicuously missing when compared to rival phones are a 3.5mm headphone jack, decent operating system (Android, Android, Android), 5-megapixel camera and more internal memory. When put against the N97, this phone doesn’t really stand up too well.
Then there’s the Touch Diamond 2. It’s rather similar to the Touch Pro 2, but doesn’t have the QWERTY keyboard and has a slightly smaller touchscreen at 3.2″. It does have a slightly nicer 5-megapixel camera, though.
Other than that it’s mostly identical. Same WVGA resolution, Windows Mobile 6.1, 512MB of memory (with microSD card slot), HSDPA, GPS, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and FM radio. Still no 3.5mm headphone jack.
Both are arriving this year, with the Diamond “Touch”-ing (sorry) down in Q2 and the Pro showing up in early summer. No pricing info yet. Personally speaking, I’d rather plump for the QWERTY over the 5-megapixel camera. How about you? Which is your favourite of the two? Let us know in the comments.
