Underground SIG-Labs

Nokia and Symbian will never get devorce

Nokia will stick with Symbian while looking another wife like Maemo or Android to become another partner.

Kallasvuo directly addressed recent blog reports that Nokia is replacing Symbian with the Linux-based Maemo OS on its high-end handsets, leading to speculation about what that means for Symbian’s future.

Using Symbian makes good business sense for Nokia, and allows the company to develop cheap smartphones that will democratise the form factor, said Kallasvuo.

Today, the biggest drawback with Symbian is its user interface, which hasn’t kept up with touch-based user interfaces on devices like the iPhone and phones based on Google’s Android OS.

In the middle of next year, a new version of Symbian will make a first step toward a better user interface, and this time next year the user experience on Symbian will be a non-issue, according to Kallasvuo.

Upcoming versions of Symbian will reduce clutter, decrease the number of clicks to get to features like music and email and offer a much faster user interface, promised Kai Öistämö, executive vice president of devices at Nokia.

Kallasvuo directly addressed recent blog reports that Nokia is replacing Symbian with the Linux-based Maemo OS on its high-end handsets, leading to speculation about what that means for Symbian’s future.

Using Symbian makes good business sense for Nokia, and allows the company to develop cheap smartphones that will democratise the form factor, said Kallasvuo.

Today, the biggest drawback with Symbian is its user interface, which hasn’t kept up with touch-based user interfaces on devices like the iPhone and phones based on Google’s Android OS.

In the middle of next year, a new version of Symbian will make a first step toward a better user interface, and this time next year the user experience on Symbian will be a non-issue, according to Kallasvuo.

Upcoming versions of Symbian will reduce clutter, decrease the number of clicks to get to features like music and email and offer a much faster user interface, promised Kai Öistämö, executive vice president of devices at Nokia.

As per said, Symbian is the great OS especially when we talk about 9300 communicator. People always love it and will have no replacement for them (memoryland).

Tags: android, Maemo, Nokia, symbian

Nokia X6 think his touch screen is greater

Nokia X6 claims that the capacitive touchscreen is far more responsive to human touch than the resistive screens found on its N97, or the 5800 XpressMusic especially. This was made abundantly clear when using the on-screen keyboard although some of our swiping gestures were inexplicably ignored in other elements of the interface. But given the choice of the screen being awesome or super-awesome (remember, we’re comparing it to Nokia’s resistive touchscreen legacy), we’ll have to settle on the former for now. Of course, underneath you’ve still got S60 5th, for better or worse, pumping away inside a chubby little candybar — no screen tech can change that. See the action in the video after the break then jump into the gallery to see it sized up with a few of its S60 cousins five times removed.

Nokia’s just confirmed on its official blog that the X6 will hit shelves in Finland and the UK starting next week, with other countries to follow soon after

Tags: 5530, 5800, 5th, capacitive, featuers, hands-on, ifa, ifa 2009, Ifa2009, n97, Nokia, resistive, s60, s60 5th, S605th, touchscreen, x6, xpressmusic

Gartner report : Nokia still leads the market

Gartner has just released the results of a study of third quarter mobile phone shipments. Compared to the IDC report last month, Gartner had a little rosier outlook for the quarter. The 308.9 million units shipped resulted in a 0.1% increase over 3Q08. In contrast, the IDC report had found that shipments for the third quarter were down 6% from a year earlier. Regardless of how each looked at the quarter, both seem to agree that the holiday season will drive a strong fourth quarter. Gartner even believes that the fourth quarter will help keep 2009 sales flat over 2008.

Gartner’s report had Nokia well out in front with a 36.7% market share which was down just 1.5% from a year ago. Motorola and Sony Ericsson saw their market share cut in half while LG and Samsung showed some respectable gains.

The category showing double-digit gains for the quarter was smartphones whose shipments were up 13% compared to 2008. Nokia remained on top for smartphone sales with a 39.3% market share followed by Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple. Apple is just 3.7% away from overtaken the BlackBerry maker in the runner-up slot.

It’s going to be a battle to the finish for Research in Motion and Apple as we move into the holiday season. Unfortunately, Apple remains limited due to their exclusivity agreements globally. When exclusivity agreements begin to end, some next year, I predict we will see RIM move into the #3 slot for market share while Apple takes the #2 slot and continues to nip at Nokia’s lead. The second half of next year will indeed be interesting to watch should Verizon Wireless offer an iPhone as it has been rumored.

Read more at the Gartner press release.

Tags: 3Q09, Apple, Ericsson, Gartner, mobile phone shipments, motorola, Nokia, research in motion, Sony

Nokia N900 gives more than what you need

Nokia’s first Maemo powered handset, the N900, already hit others badly. The handset has many great features like Adobe Flash 9.4 support for the browser, a 3.5 WVGA touchscreen, a 5MP camera and Wi-Fi. The video below starts off with some talk about apps, a game called Bounce Evolution and then we see the browser in action. The screen is smooth and responsive and the browser zooms in/out by using your finger to make a circular motion on the screen, as if you were turning a dial. Clockwise zooms in, counterclockwise zooms out. A YouTube video is played in the browser and while the picture was clear, the movement was a little herky-jerky. Then we briefly get a look at a YouTube video playing from a thumbail in the UI. All in all, enough action to make you sit up and take notice, all the while hoping that a U.S. carrier will grab up this device. T-Mobile has been mentioned by one of our tipsters as a possible January destination.

Tags: linux maemo 5, Nokia, nokia N900

Nokia goes to laptop

Nokia has shocked the world by announcing their new product, Booklet 3G, a 10.1″ laptop. Not sure whther the device falls under laptop or netbook since the monitor is bigger than normal netbook but using processor similar to netbooks, Atom processor. It looks to be running Windows 7, which isn’t particularly netbooky, and also has integrated A-GPS with a copy of Ovi Maps, HDMI output, a rated 12 hour battery life, and the usual Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity, all in a 2cm (.78 inch), 2.7lb aluminum body that’s understated, sophisticated, and should make most Nokia fans very happy — Nokia fans who are looking for a tiny laptop, anyway.

Seems the rest of mobile manufactures like to follow nokia`s step, really? asked blackberry though…….

Tags: booklet 3G, Nokia, nokia laptop, windows 7

Nokia N97 to boost internet user

When I was having fun with my Nokia E90 for about 4 months, I have to admit that is a great warrior, for its simplicity, stylish, elegance and powerful. Nonetheless, I found a little bit difficulties in browsing internet when no ” mouse” for me to scroll down/up the the screen.

Maybe Nokia N97 will give some answer for my problem. Most people might agree that N97 is more for the social networker than the businessman as the interface is not quite as tuned to instant email access as on E-series phones like the new E75.

Like the N96, there’s a 5-megapixel camera with a dual-flash Carl Zeiss lens for some super detailed pictures that can be easily geo-tagged through the A-GPS and uploaded through OVI-share.

Size-wise, the candy bar-shaped N97 isn’t burdened too much by the array of mighty specs. It’s longer, but no thicker than the N96 despite the addition of a keyboard and the huge 32GB (48GB with a microSD card) on-board memory.

Tags: Nokia, Nokia N97

Nokia E75 : the most funniest phone

The first time I saw its photo, just wondering, why Nokia put hard themselve to design dual keypad, QWERTY and alphanumeric. Do they really love redundancy ? maybe in case of any keypad out, the secondary will take place. Still no news on its advance feature or even capabilities have been reveiled. However I guess there is nothing special about this phone, in fact look very similar to Nokia E71, except its new QWERTY bundle.  

Look at the screen, I think I should go for Nokia N97 rather than confusing myself to use which keyboard, QWERTY or Alphanumeric.

Tags: Nokia, Nokia E71, Nokia E75

N97 : New Mobile evolution ….

People Say, Nokia`s big ambition is to transform the way people connect to internet and each other. And it seems that Nokia is moving towards their crazy ambition. They believe people will drive their computing activities from desktop to laptop and fastly going towards working from their slimmer mobile. Then Nokia start thinking about N97,as per said the world’s most advanced mobile computer. A very especially design for internet savvy consumers,the Nokia N97 combines a large 3.5” touch display with a full QWERTY keyboard, providing an ‘always open’ window to favorite social networking sites and Internet destinations.
Nokia’s flagship Nseries device introduces leading technology – including multiple sensors, memory, processing power and connection speeds – for people to create a personal Internet and share their ‘social location.’

Apart from great design for internet savvy, Nokia N97 seems to be very comfortable to proceed their second edition of touch screen UI and not only that, they enhance the UI with Symbian OS S60 v5, which features the 5800’s quick contacts bar and adds an assortment of customizable desktop widgets that can pipe in your Facebook info, RSS feeds and the like, much like those found on Nokia’s internet tablet OS.

Frankly speaking, I have been using Nokia E90 and I like very much the way Nokia playing around with their hardware and software application and only blackberry could compete their brilliant solution.

Tags: blackberry, Nokia, nokia E90, Nokia N800, Nokia N97

Blackberry Storm : New evolution to keep running with Iphone..

Since recently, a lot of mobile products are moving towards similar to Iphone (design and features). Nokia, Samsung, LG, O2 and the latest follower is Blackberry mobile phone maker has come into Iphone`s trap so far.

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Research in Motion has finally announced details about its long-rumored iPhone competitor, an almost-all-touch-interface 3G handset with a twist: The screen itself is a big hardware button.Here it is: the first ever BlackBerry with a touchscreen, long anticipated and rumored for the past few months - after all the blurry photos and patchy info. And this time, it looks like Apple really has competition.

The ability to mechanically click the entire screen (RIM calls the feature Click-Through technology) is the centerpiece of the BlackBerry Storm’s touch interface. As with the iPhone, you can scroll and select by dragging and tapping with your fingertip. But to initiate action, instead of double-tapping, you confirm a selection by physically depressing or clicking the screen.

Four hardware buttons at the bottom offer additional–and traditional–BlackBerry and phone navigation aids: Red and green phone buttons for accessing phone features and ending calls, a button with the BlackBerry icon for accessing menus, and a return button.
The Storm also supports both assisted and standard GPS (assisted GPS works with the cellular network to speed up location fixes) and Bluetooth. (However, unlike the iPhone, it does not support Wi-Fi.)

While the Storm dispenses with RIM’s signature QWERTY hardware keyboard in favor of a capacitive touch-screen interface, it’s clearly no iPhone clone. RIM’s device is both shorter (4.4 inches versus the iPhone’s 4.5 inches) and thicker (0.55 inch versus the iPhone’s 0.48 inches) than Apple’s; the touch screen is also somewhat smaller (the iPhone’s is 3.5 inches, while the Storm’s is 3.25 inches). Nevertheless, the display’s 360-by-480 resolution looks pretty sharp at that size.

Also making a good first impression is the 3.2-megapixel camera with autoflash, autofocus, 2X digital zoom, and video-capture support.

The Storm, in landscape and portrait modes; click for full-size image.The Storm has 1GB of internal storage, but it also has a MicroSD slot and will ship with an 8GB MicroSD card. Also present: a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, and a second external mic (on the back, in addition to the one for voice on the front) that picks up ambient noise data for the built-in noise reduction technology, which in theory should improve voice call quality. The Storm, like the iPhone, has an accelerometer that adjusts the display’s orientation as you rotate the device.

But the Storm’s most interesting and potentially controversial innovation is RIM’s implementation of a touch interface, especially for typing. The Storm provides three different software keyboards: When you’re holding it in landscape orientation and you need to enter text, a standard QWERTY software keyboard appears; the keys flash blue when you depress them.

Only time and hands-on testing will tell whether the Click-Through technology will make text entry and navigation easier (for example, by helping to avoid inadvertent finger taps) or more confusing (the device has a number of tap-and-click shortcuts that take some getting used to).

Really can compete Iphone?

When it comes to web browsing, it seems quite similar to iPhone’s when the device is held in landscape position. An automatic tilt sensor is not mentioned but the video shows some sort of auto screen rotation feature.But the speed? I might love Iphone more on its mobile safari.

As BlackBerries are famous for their keypad, The speacial feature is a “click touchscreen” that brings “smooth, precise text input that feels like a keyboard.” And if this wasn’t enough, with Storm you will even get Visual Voice Mail, just like the iPhone does.However, a Blackberry without the signature keyboard/kekpad I love is not a real Blackberry, I think. I don’t know what is RIM`s planning on future mobile development but for sure they will lose their identity if they continue doing this, like others.

Tags: blackberry, blackberry storm 9500, iphone, LG, Nokia, O2, samsung

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic: An attempt to kill multiple birds with half diamond….

Nokia mobiles are well known to be a good partners of teenagers and adult for their user-friendliness and simplicity.in fact, they are the dominant of this market for quite some times. However, Since the new evolution brought by Iphone, Sony Ericsson and O2 somehow, has made them feel  uncomfortable to just play what they has mantain for so long. The new revamp should begin. Since Sony Ericsson is known to be a walk-mobile (walkman + mobile) , Iphone as HDiTV-mobile, and O2 as a PDA-mobile , Then Nokia attempt to merge these three evolution into one single horizon, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Believe to be released in the middle of October, This mobile would hold a strong position in the very competitive market. With the Music + Touch UI, and very much faster than O2 since this device use light Symbian S60 V5. These device equipped with 3.2″ nHD (640 x 360 ), which is pretty as large as its rival, Iphone ;3.5″ HD (480 x 320), but the image quality is better due to higher resolution. With tendency to put Sony Ericsson into the basket, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic integrated its stereo speaker with surround system. Not only that, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be able to store up to 12,000 songs with its optional 16GB MicroSD card.

Nonetheless, I am quite disappointed when its camera never improve from its elder brothers. Still maintain 3.2 Megapixel camera but slightly lens improvement with Carl Zeiss will give a good image but not better than LG KG920 , which is using 5.0 Megapixel camera. It is also has only 81 MB internal memory, which is almost half than its elder S60 brother, Nokia E90.

I do believe this device will still give a great honor from mobile fans for all its features. Since it will be available soon, grab it and feel it your self, and you decide whether this Nokia 5800 XpressMusic will be able to kill others or just sit as a substitution player.

Full specification here…

Tags: LG KG920, mobile phone, Nokia, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic