Nokia E7 Review

I sent my Nokia E7 loaner back to WOMWorld/Nokia last week and I was sad to see it go. The E7 is not perfect but my overall experience with it was very good. The E7 is the successor to Nokia’s successful Communicator series (image of 1998 9110 Comunicator below) which were clam-shell devices featuring a large screen and spacious QWERTY keyboard.   The Communicators were pocket-able devices that provided a near-laptop experience and were popular with professionals who wanted to be … Continue reading

Video: T-Mobile Nokia Astound Run Over By A Bus!

Last week at CTIA WOMWorld/Nokia‘s Tom Messett came up with a crazy idea. He wanted to run over a brand new T-Mobile Astound (Nokia C7) with the four ton, 15 passenger Ovi Maps Bus! I told Tom he was crazy, the phone would surely be smashed, but there was no dissuading him. The results surprised me, the Astound not only survived and but it still worked and looked great. See for yourself in this HD video that I shot on … Continue reading

The T-Mobile Astound’s (Nokia C7) PR 2.0 Browser and Email App

WOMWORLD/Nokia lent me the new T-Mobile Astound (aka Nokia C7) which I’ve been using as my main device here at CTIA for the last 36 hours. Here are my impressions. The most exciting thing about the C7 is brand new firmware. It’s custom firmware for T-Mobile that’s “almost” PR 2.0 in that it has most of the features of of the much anticipated PR 2.0 firmware for Symbian^3. The Nokia reps I’ve spoken to insist that the new firmware isn’t … Continue reading

Nokia E7 Unboxing Gallery

I’ve took some unboxing photos of the E7 trial device that WOMWorld/Nokia sent me. Click the thumbnails below to view full size. The most remarkable feature of this particular E7 is the custom slip cover personalized with a Tweet from me about the E7 (pasted into a text message on the E7 screen). The cover is also signed by Nokia’s new CEO, Steven Elop. Sliding off the slip cover reveals the normal retail box. I understand that a number of … Continue reading

Using a $63 Palm Pixi+ on Prepaid For $2.50 per month

I just posted an item on Prepaid Phone News about using a closeout Palm Pixi Plus on the US prepaid MVNO PagePlus.  These phones are going for $65 or less brand new on Amazon and elsewhere.  They are Verizon CDMA models and as far as I know won’t work on any operator except Verizon or an MVNO that uses the Verizon network like PagePlus. However, the Pixi Plus has WiFi and it’s possible to use one for app development or … Continue reading

CTIA: The Coming Tablet Revolution – It’s Not About the iPad

Yesterday’s “iPad and Tablets: Publishing and Entertainment” sessions at CTIA were an interesting experience. The main thing I took away from them is that some smart people with extensive mobile and computing industry experience believe tablets will be very big and will eventually largely replace netbooks and PCs. That was the message from several of the speakers including Zigurd Medniks who works with OEMs to adapt Android to a wide variety of devices and embedded systems. The reasoning is that … Continue reading