Author: All About Symbian

Anyone with a S60 3rd Edition phone might like to dive into the Nokia Store today, as there’s a client update – there are no obvious changes, so presumably it’s bug fixes and tweaks to fit in with Nokia’s Store servers. But, as always, best to stay up to date. Screen proof below.

A Sunday, and April 1st at that, is an unusual day to launch a flagship product, but Nokia has done this with the new E710 Communicator. Seemingly incorporating some of the best bits of both the N8 and E7, we have, at last, a smartphone that we’ll leave no Symbian fan dissatisfied. Press photos and specifications are all shown below.

Onlyfoolsandmobiles has a nice little Sunday post up, eulogising the Nokia N8’s camera (again), specifically for landscape shots, giving a few tips on settings and showing off some truly beautiful examples. Click through his links for Flickr sets from the N8 by other users too.

Yes, yes, I know the OS is supposed to handle RAM for me. And, on the whole, it does a fine job. But I wish Nokia/Symbian would trust me with the salient statistic of how full my phone’s RAM is. It’s a statistic that only an uber-geek would want, but then that’s me. In the past I’ve installed task managers or file managers, just for an incidental RAM reporting menu option, but this is much easier. One tiny and simple (and free) widget and I can now see exactly how much RAM is left with once glance at my home screen.

We’ve enthused about Proporta’s mobile chargers ever since day one, with capacities rising from just over 1000mAh to 3400mAh, then to 5000mAh and now this, the Turbocharger 7000, at a whopping 7000mAh. In this review, I look at what you get for your money and assess its performance, its build quality and its worth, in terms of keeping smartphones, games consoles and even tablets charged and working.

If you’ve been brave enough to throw yourself into the Beta Maps Suite, note that there’s a big update to Pulse, its core module that allows you to share your location and activities with friends and relatives with other Symbian phones loaded with the software. Changelog and links below, and the usual caveats apply about beta software and backups!

The Nokia E7 and 700 – there couldn’t be two Symbian devices that are more different. The E7 is the enterprise-focussed behemoth, and the 700 is the ultra slim device made to discreetly fit into any pocket. Surprisingly, there is very little that you can do with one device that you can’t do with the other. Thanks to Belle’s updated user interface, Symbian’s best in class power management and its general functionality, there is plenty to lament about Nokia’s decision to sunset the platform.

In episode 5, season 2, of the 361 Degrees Podcast the set themselves a ‘fun’ challenge – to choose a new pre-pay mobile phone costing less than £100 to give as a as a Christmas present. To keep thing fair we limited our shopping spree to UK retailer Carphone Warehouse. The underlying idea of the episode was to look at the products on offer at the lower end of the market, an area that doesn’t usually receive much attention.

Another day, another update or two – ho hum… Strictly for those you actually need them, but meriting a quick mention in passing, there are bug fix updates out today to Nokia Maps for Symbian Belle (available via the Store) and to the beta QML Store client for Symbian^3/Anna, fixing a specific ‘black screen’ error on installation (i.e. if it’s working for you, you don’t need the fix). 

There’s a nice piece over on the Nokia Developer blog highlighting the story of ZingMagic, a long time favourite developer here at AAS for polished native Symbian games. The piece covers how the company got started, how its games are built and recent success with advertisement-sponsored versions of its games.