Hello N97

Here comes the little brother…. The Nokia N97 mini...

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:43:16 -0400

Here comes the little brother…. The Nokia N97 mini launched today with the help of Alexandra Burke, Ovi Maps good things and a Leviathan Sign post. I suspect it will do quite well. My only concern about it is that Achilles Heel of all connected phones, battery life.

Price CUT!

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:30:05 -0400

The N97 has had a 10% price cut - from £499 to £449 on the official nokia store. This is consistant with previous handsets which tend to get similar cuts after around 3 months. But interestingly it makes the price difference between the standard and mini only £30 a small amount. That said - the main market for both handsets it the ‘free on a contract’ one. I think the N97 has been a moderate success, having little comparable competition (G1 maybe) and the high street kudos of the nokia n-series flagship (though that didn’t help the N96).

fm transmitter.

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:29:00 -0400

I tried to use this at the weekend - with no luck. Now in fairness i live in central london - and theres not much in the way of free channels. I also had no luck with a simialar stand alone fm transmitter. Part of the problem being my cars tuner only having auto scan - whcih shows station names not frequencies - so its hard to know whats free.

So i ended up randomly trying frequencys with no luck at all.

Your mileage may vary.

UPDATE - outside london it works much better. I also tried an external module - with similar results. Seems London’s wavelengths are saturated.

oh great! - My camera ‘glass’ is scratched by the...

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:46:40 -0400

oh great! - My camera ‘glass’ is scratched by the very pad that is meant to keep it clean. This seems to be a known design flaw, theres lots of forum discussions about it - so I’ve been super careful when opening / closing the lens cover. But even with great care I’ve a scratch after a few days - its very minor - but in a how will it be in couple of months time?

Joikuspot is the awesome.

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 04:40:17 -0400

It’s a really great piece of software and well worth the asking price(s) see below. I’m not sure how it stands with mobile contracts though - O2 charge you a premium to tether an iPhone, this allows any nokia S60 user to tether without paying any extra, is it something that will be cracked down on?

Pricing mismatch: JoikuSpot is £17 via the pre-installed demo...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:50:35 -0400

Pricing mismatch: JoikuSpot is £17 via the pre-installed demo version and £12.99 via ovi store, both via the same device.

broken:For me the one highlight of the N97 is its camera - its...

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:43:25 -0400

broken:For me the one highlight of the N97 is its camera - its not the best in the world but its the best on a touch screen smartphone, and thats important to me.

But its very broken, sometimes crashing when taking photos - and otehrtimes just plain ‘lossing’ them - it seems to corrupt the photos as it saves them. This is a big issue. I’m on the latest v11 software too.

Boom Blox. This is the first n-gage game i tried - it’s a...

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:43:07 -0400

Boom Blox. This is the first n-gage game i tried - it’s a nice puzzler - cost is £4 - theres 40 levels - the graphics are nice, its a game that would be way better if developed for the 5th edition touch, rather than this 3rd edition interface and upsized graphics.

The graphics are nice and simple - so no issues with 3d performance. It’s essentially a 2D game but uses 3d graphics - the original Wii game had obviously far more detailed and depth to the graphics, but as a mobile puzzler this seems fun.

N-gage needs to embrace 5th edition or die. Theres also that confusion between, download, ovi store, software update and n-gage, 4 ways to get new software. erm one app store please!

n-gage. I’ve a bit of a love / hate with n-gage,...

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:29:06 -0400

n-gage. I’ve a bit of a love / hate with n-gage, it’s core idea of a ps network/xbox live style delivery of games is sound. But the implimentation leaves alot to be desired, also nokia phones just dont ‘play’ games well, the d-pads are unresponsive, keys in funny places etc, and resistive screens are useless for gaming. also the whole DRM implimentation is terrible, lose your phone and get a replacement and you lose the games - no downloading tied to your gaming account.

So its here on N97 / S60 5th edition. What we get is a touch version of the n-gage application - though it seems to be very unresponsive and I had to resort to navigating by the d-pad to get it to work. The when you get into the games it’s just back to the d-pad / mystery guess the keys combo - as none of the games have touch interfaces.

Some of the games are nice - but after having played on iPod touch for the last 6 months it all feels very very dated and expensive.

What was installed? well out of my box - uk sim free retail. ovi...

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 05:24:09 -0400

What was installed?

well out of my box - uk sim free retail.

ovi store was preinstalled

maps 2 - updated to 3 via software update

music - links to player, nokia music store and Radio.

games dir had rock tour in - n-gage gets added via software update app.

applications directory has:

notes, clock, camera, office directory, search, share online, recorder, help, real player, location, my nokia, welcome, SW update, Msg reader, log, settings wizard, podcasting, access setup, about, download!, MfE directory (empty need to set up a mail account for it to install) Drawing, FM transmit, jokuspot premium (30 free trial), world traveler, you tube, accuweather, amazon, ap news, bloomberg, facebook, hi5, bbc iplayer, slideshow, boingo, qik, brain challenge and spore (oddly why were the last two not in games)

the office folder has

File manager, dictonary, quick office, converter, zip, calculator, active notes and adobe PDF.

I haven’t tested all of them to see if any are trials. adobe pdf reader seems to be a fifteen day trial.

my first crash

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:32:07 -0400

ah bless. I was taking photos, i took one using the zoom, and it just hung after taking the photo - displaying the previous photo i had taken and saying ‘processing image’. I had to reboot - and the photo i had taken was lost. Later in the day i had another hang. I’m on V11.

No Nokia multimedia transfer (or iSync) but thankfully when...

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:27:00 -0400

No Nokia multimedia transfer (or iSync) but thankfully when connecting and selecting mass storage iPhoto just sucks up your photos and videos :)

You can also just copy music to the mass storage to get some sounds on board too.

Heres a typical video - a tourist shot in trafalgar square. I...

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:24:00 -0400

Heres a typical video - a tourist shot in trafalgar square. I did this yesterday - a the time it was bright but cloudy. kinda grey not sunny and colourful.

Getting iPlayer to ‘play’ with wifi for...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 11:04:00 -0400

Getting iPlayer to ‘play’ with wifi for stream/downloading.

Every time I try and start it up - it asks for permission to use the internet
then goes to o2 mobile web - rather than the wifi that is connected to - the lil icon is in the top before starting iPlayer.

In the connections settings it’s wifi first 3g second - but I never seem able to get on wifi.

So i found a solution:

go to browser - settings. -> general - accesspoint

change to ‘ask when needed’ , mine was ‘o2 mobile web’

now iPlayer will ask which connection to use and you can select your wifi point

PHEW

what a pain

gallery of iPlayer photos here

Also it seems impossible to remove the time progess bar at the bottom!!

Don’t panic. I’ve updated to V11 software. No OTA...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:32:37 -0400

Don’t panic. I’ve updated to V11 software. No OTA available yet, so I had to nab an eeePC only slightly bigger than the N97 to do the update via nokia software update program. Seemed to be pretty painless, and as the N97 support data preservation no installing everything again afterwards - it just updates and works as it was. I did have to turn on the home screen widgets as they seemed to go offline/hidden after. Photos here.

unboxing photo fest!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 07:34:21 -0400

unboxing photo fest!

Here’s an oddy - out of the box - none of the live widgets...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 06:27:52 -0400

Here’s an oddy - out of the box - none of the live widgets worked. With my t-mobile sim installed. I popped in my O2 sim - and without even running settings wizard again they all burst into life.

SYNCRONISE!

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:04:00 -0400

ok so i decided to go with google sync - as all my contacts are in gmail.

a bit of a pain to get Mail For Exchange working

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=7ce16458872eaae3&hl=en was helpful - i set up a fake email address and then edited it to sync my contacts.

a manual sync and hurrah - who needs iSync - ok well i do - for getting photos etc. off :)

to be honest at the moment its the only way to get my contacts on without a PC or using a hacked iSync profile.

I’ve had to dig out my old eeePC netbook to prepare for software updates. The software update app on the phone says theres an update v11. but it is not available Over The Air, only via the pc software :(

Hello N97, for real - I took the plunge and bought one today. ...

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:25:00 -0400

Hello N97, for real - I took the plunge and bought one today. So far so ok. Physically it’s a lovely phone, the battery was charged out of the box. So instant playtime. Now I’m installing the missing bits for all I’m worth. After much hunting for .sis files I realised some are available via the new ‘software update’ which is kinda conflicting with Download! and Ovi.

Still no iSync support for macs - so I’m contact less! help.

These cards were being handed out, and instore. you can use...

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:36:09 -0400

These cards were being handed out, and instore. you can use them to interact with the giant N97’s in store by waving in front of a camera. Though i found it a bit erm, whats happening.