Shout About Mobiles

Despite Maemo being no more (thanks to the software merger of Nokia and Intel producing the love child that is Meego), Nokia are still looking after their N900 fans. The latest Maemo update has just been released, which offers, as always, minor fixes to little bugs. And this update offers one important change, and that is video calling – Woo!

Despite the N900 having a front facing camera, which we all presumed was for video calls, the Maemo software restricted the camera so that it could only be used as a camera – so our inner vanity was appeased, but not the need to see those we were chatting to. Boo!

Along with the announcement of the Maemo update, Nokia have said they are going to start releasing more apps and games for the N900 on the Ovi Store, so good news all round.

The Palm Pre has been on sale in the USA for quite a while now, while us Brits have been stuck playing with the old Palm Pre. Boo!

However, that is all set to change soon with O2 announcing yesterday that they are going to be selling the device from the end of May. O2 have even released the price plans for both the Palm Pre Plus and for the Pixi Plus.

The Palm Pre Plus will come free on the £35 per month price plan - if you are happy to sign up for a 24month contract! If not, you are looking at a £40 monthly charge.

All the price plans come with unlimited internet (both data and wi-fi) as well as unlimited texts, with the only limit being on how many minutes you can use per month.

The phones are available on 18months price plans but you will be subject to another £5 a month.

The Palm Pre Plus comes with an increased hard drive, packing a double its processor at 16GB, and also double is the phones ram, holding a nice 512 ram chip inside its little case. And the casing, I’m afraid, is the only thing that Palm decided not to improve from the original; so it is the same cheap plastic feeling material and the sharp keypad. Bleugh.

But, all in all, a nice phone.

It seems that the biggest feat for the iPad to date, is that it managed to make the latest iPhone become relegated to the back of our minds and hearts, albeit temporarily.

A couple of months ago, with all the hype of the iPad being released, a few snapshots of it leaked out onto the internet. These pictures actually included the latest version of the iPhone, however no one noticed it at the time, so now with new pics of just the iPhone, and people have spotted it.

The latest iPhone has taken on a new shape; kit seems to be more like the iMac form with straight edges rather than being curved to fit the hand like all the previous iPhones and the iPad itself. The photos that were leaked were meant to be from an iPhone that was found lying on the floor in a pub in San Jose - that is one lucky find! (Although the iPhone doesn’t boot so not really useful for much apart from bragging rights)

It seems yet another mobile OS is about to hit the market (well I say “about to” but it is only in the planning stage at the moment)!

The rumours floating around about HTC are that they are producing their own mobile device; it will give users greater control over their mobile phones, and HTC should be able to make them more suited to their customers.

This does come as a bit of a shock to me, as they were doing well with the mass of android handsets that they are rolling out, and these new plans would have to have half their number of handsets running android this year.

However it would be a bigger shock, and more of a worry, to Microsoft mobile division, as HTC was, and still are, their biggest customer for their windows mobile OS.

HTC have stated they will use the WM7 platform, but will they do much with it? Especially if they come out with their own OS? Lets wait and see…

Nokia are now really starting to push the NFC technology. NFC stands for Near Field Technology, which means that devices can transfer information just by being near or ‘tapping’ each other. This is mainly expected to be used for ease of transferring pictures, videos and music, but it is hoped to use it for billing transactions, were you can swipe your phone to make a payment. For all those geeks out there, you may also like to know that the NFC technology is kinda like an upgrade of the RFID which is a already existing proximity card standard.

Nokia have released their third device that includes this technology, with the Nokia 6216 classic. But being the third isn’t that important, what is important about this device is the fact that it now uses SIM orientated information. This means that we are one step closer to being able to just pay for everything with only your mobiles. That means that when you forget your wallet, you can still buy lunch or fill the car with petrol – fewer things to take with you as you go about your day.

However, my phone bills are big enough as it is, without having the option to use it as a credit card! So I may have to restrict myself and not get a phone like this. :o(

The Nokia 6216 is a pretty basic, mid-range handset, with a 2MP camera and only the standard features - this new technology is the only thing that sets it apart.

At the moment, I am trying to make myself a guide about Nokia’s push email (that I am currently running on my lovely E71). It is almost complete, just need the pictures to make it look oh so brilliant (and give me a visual reminder of what I am talking about!).

However there is a little snag - at the moment, my phone keeps crashing and I am not sure if it is the Nokia messaging that is doing it, or if it is the updated software (you see, I very cleverly installed them onto the device at the same time, so I am not sure which one is causing the problem now).

I know, I know - if I go without Nokia messaging for a week I can simply wait to see if it crashes. Great idea! But I am a gadget freak and I cannot go for a whole week without push email.

I suppose I could get the Blackberry Connect set up on the phone, but then I have the issue of it not being able to deal with large emails (anything over 0.5mb).

Oh, for those of you that haven’t read some of my previous blogs, then you may not know of Nokia messaging - it is Nokia’s answer to push emails.

As Blackberry Connect is currently the king of push email, the connect version for Nokia and Sony Ericsson phones, does leave users lacking quite a bit of its functionality.

Remember the other day, when I was talking about the new software (’Media Go’) that Sony Ericson were releasing for their mobile phones? And I said that the software was being labelled as Sony only, and it didn’t have Ericson mentioned?
Well, one of my sources have heard rumours that the two companies, Sony (being a media giant) and Ericsson (being a sweedish network), are not having the best of times together anymore.

We have seen LG overtake them in the list of leading manufactorsin the world, and Sony Ericson sales have slumped (being a P1 fan, I am personally blaming this drop on their silly decision of cancelling the UIQ operating systems). The combination of all these factors are piling on the pressure and Sony Ericson now seem to bebuckling under it all.

I have gone through many Sony Ericsson phones in my time, and I think that they do have a large amount of dedicated fans. However, it is becoming more and more apparent that their phones are merging into one standard design these days (anyone remembering the disaster that was Sharpe yet?!)

When you buy a low cost device from Sony Ericson, you get a few less features but the exact same operating system as their end, all dancing all singing, devices. How does that work out?!

On the one hand, it is great as it makes the phones easier to switch between. However, when you have forked out a tidy sum, or signed your life away to some greedy network, for your nice shiny new phone, it does make it all seem a bit of a let down.

When you get a budget handset from Nokia, you get a simple basic menu system, designed for those who justwant to call and text, nothing flashy about it. But when you get a Nokia mid range phone, they all run on Symbian S40, bringing a nice style and look to the device. And of course for the Nokia feature handsets,  they use the Symbian S60, giving the device more options and more things to play with on the OS. Nokia up the OS as you up the cost - this seems pretty fair to me!

But what Sony Ericson do not seem to understand is that people know all this! Gone are the days when people use phones they do not understand - phones are more common than DVD players and computers, with most familys having four or five phones in use in the house, and a couple of spares lying around as well.
Sony keep the same OS from one device to the next, and people see this as cheating, they don’t feel like they’re getting a better phone when they pay more for one.

People are asking themselves, “Is having reliable software, the exact same software on one device to the next, software that you know you can always use when you get the next phone at upgrade time, - is it really that worth it?”

A while ago, Sony had promised us that they were going to improve the PC Suite system that they send out with their phones. (To be honest, I am one of the few people that is actually happy with what I have already!) However, quite a few people who first use the Sony software find it hard to work, often getting lost trying to find their way around it. (I think that this is true of all PC Suites no matter who the manufactor is - but I could be wrong!)

Now that all mobile phones are fast becoming more than just a mobile phone (they are a link to the office, a storage facility for memories, ways to keep track of the kids, a directional tool to get yourself somewhere and even find yourself when you are lost!),  it is about time the manufactors went out of their way to make it easy and understandable for us to transfers music, pictures and videos from our phones to our computers (and visa-versa).

And now Sony Ericsson have shown us their latest attempt at an easier to use PC Suite -it is known simply as ‘Media Go’.

This new software is designed to change the format of your music, so that the music is a more phone usable format. This will mean no more running around the internet like a head-less chicken trying to find a file converter just so you can have your favorate song as your ringtone. ‘Media Go’ will not only save you time and money because you won’t have to download different pieces of software, it will also give you Sony as a point of contact for helping you make it work (third party pieces of software from the ‘net can and do go wrong, with  noone to help you!).

The new application is branded Sony rather than Sony Ericsson, and needs to be installed alongside the PC Suite rather than as a stand alone piece of software. However, the new software is still only in beta, so lets hope that they change this for when it gets released.

Good things about it so far are:

• the transfer speeds that it offers - I heard that it can get tranference of about 1mb in 30 seconds, which is great.
• Sony have recognised that nearly everyone uses iPods these days and that means they also use iTunes - so Sony has designed this new software to go grab your libary form iTunes for you.

In a nut shell, from what I have seen so far, it really does seem that Sony has gotten their idea working right from start, with only a few things to iron out before it is perfect.

Sony Ericsson have appeared to have chosen Vodafone as the network set to release the all dancing all singing Walkman masterpiece, the W995.

Although nothing has been confirmed, Sony Ericson sent off one of the devices to GSM Arena to review (and yes I am jealous I didn’t get one to play with!) and it seems that the phone that they sent had the Vodafone ‘find and go’ SatNav software on it.

We have yet to see any confirmation from Vodafone (or any of the other networks) about prices or release dates though.
So apart from this brief glimmer of the phone to wet our whistles with, info is coming up empty. From what we can see (mainly due to the great guys at GSM) the phone seems to be Sony Ericsson’s new flagship phone.

Sony Ericson tend to use their smartphones as the flagship device. Although with poor sales of both the P990i and its replacement the P1i, Sony Ericson must have decided to move the prestigeous title to the Walkman series.

The W995 comes packed a 8MP camera, Walkman 4.0, GPS and WI-Fi.

Sony Ericson do seem to be throwing out all the stops to make this device stand out from the compition - and we like it!

Just the other day I was talking about how well Motorola were doing in the China market; trying to release the first 3G phone on the Chinese network is not an easy task.

However, they have now just let themselves down in my eyes!

Motorola have just announced two new smartphones, the MC55 and the MC5590… which are just plain ugly!

When we see how nice PDA phones can be, like the Nokia E71 or even the HTC Diamond, it astounds me that Motorola (who are normally known for making good looking devices) think they can get away with releasing such a telephonic aberation! What’s going on Moto?!

Both phones look like childrens walkie-talkie’s, and to add insult to injury, both phones are running Windows Mobile 6.1.
** shudder **
Although I am sure Motorola will argue that these devices are part of their Enterprise Digital Assistants range (abbreviated to EDA), and are designed for purpose rather than looks. These devices do include such features as 1D laser scanner and a 2D imager but it’s certainly nothing to write home about.