To kick-off our coverage of Nokia’s new budget QWERTY slate smartphone , the Nokia E5-00, we have our usual gallery , with commentary, showing off some of the key hardware features. In summary? The E5 has rock solid build quality, good design and a decent hardware specification, but there’s are some budget-linked constraints to note. All-in-all though, it is an attractive entry into the mid tier smartphone market.  Read More →

The saga of continually improving user firmware for the Samsung i8910 HD continues with the  Read More →

In a report from the IFA Consumer Electronics show,  Read More →

Orange UK have announced a new service called HD Voice, which will give superior audio call quality over its 3G network on selected phones. Available free of charge, the service will initially be available to a small set of phones; Nokia’s 5230 , X6 and E5 , plus the Samsung Omnia Pro. Having listened to test calls, it is a vast improvement, but not quite up to the claimed “Crystal Clear” quality as claimed. Click through to read... 

And so we come to what we suspect will be the most contentious piece in Ewan’s quest in comparing a  Read More →

Nokia Experts reports that Ovi Files , Nokia’s remote file access and cloud based file mirroring / storage solution, will be discontinued on October 1st .  Read More →

Nokia Experts reports that Ovi Files , Nokia’s remote file access and cloud-based file mirroring/storage solution, will be discontinued on October 1st .  Read More →

Swype, an alternative text entry system, is now available, via Nokia Beta Labs, for most Nokia S60 5th Edition devices. Swype works by tracing one continuous finger (or stylus) movement, across an on-screen QWERTY keyboard, when entering a word. It provides, potentially, a much faster and more accurate way of entering text on touchscreen devices, albeit with a small initial learning curve.  Read More →

Nokia’s marketing campaign for the upcoming Nokia N8 is starting to kick off. Released today is a (potentially) viral video showcasing a prototype hamster-powered charging accessory for the N8. The charger in question was the result of Peter Ash’s GCSE coursework . Originally it was powered by Elvis the hamster, but we suspect, five years on from the original construction, that Elvis might have left the building. So it’s Elvis... 

Heading out into the wilds of Devon a week ago, for my annual vacation, I wanted to try the smartphone equivalent of going ‘commando’ – travelling light, one device only, one SIM only, one chance to get it right for all my phone, communication and entertainment needs. No laptop, no iPad, just the smartphone. I had the choice of over 40 devices – and I ended up going with the much-maligned Nokia N97. Here’s why  Read More →

In All About Symbian Insight 133, we start with news of the Nokia 5250, Nokia’s cheapest ever smartphone, following which, Steve shares some more detail from his recent reviews of Let’s Golf and Mommax’s Mains Battery Charger. Rafe talks about Nokia and Intel’s new joint laboratory for 3D mobile user experiences. Finally Ewan gives us his commentary on the the re-branding of Nokia Music to Ovi Music. You can  Read More →

Applications are rarely completely static. Anything with a decent amount of functionality is bound to have either flaws – which then hopefully get fixed – or  Read More →

Released a day or so ago and looking mightily interesting is a detailed promo video for FX Studio on the Nokia N8 , embedded below. An add-on through the Ovi Store (similar to the way iMovie is an add-on for the iPhone in its App Store), FX Studio superimposes 3D animated special effects on real world videos, using augmented reality-style black and white markers to control the integration. Watch the video below and you’ll see what I mean.... 

There’s something appealing about Ivan Mavrovic’s case mods on his Nokia phones . Starting from a base of the Nokia 2330, these steampunk inspired phones are still in working order, and look fantastic. I wonder what he could manage with an N97 mini? Pictures after the break.  Read More →

You may remember Rafe talked about SugarSync in the last AAS Insight podcast ? Now Rita el-Khoury (whose Symbian blogging death has apparently been exagerated!) has employed a little lateral thinking to combine SugarSync with Dropbox to provide a native client-based way to get at the latter’s files . Pretty neat, though it’s S60 5th Edition only and limited in terms of capacity (for free).  Read More →