I have a new Nokia N95-4 8GB NAM to play with for a few weeks courtesy of Nokia’s WOM. I already own the previous North American 3G version, the N95-3, so here are my impresssions of the 8GB compared with the older model. Physical changes between the N95 NAM and the new 8GB model are fairly minor, being limited to a larger screen (and smaller d-pad and softkeys), all black color scheme and the replacement of the micro SD slot … Continue reading
I’m a mobile geek and I like my smartphone toys but I’m starting to wonder if they are really necessary. Smartphone sales are increasing but I have this wild theory that in a few years they will cease to exist as a separate class of devices. First a definition. Not everyone even agrees what constitutes a smartphone. For the purpose of this argument it’s a device running a named mobile operating system including Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry and the … Continue reading
Motorola phones have plenty of detractors, but one great thing about them is that they are the most hackable of all mobiles. I’m talking about the good kind of hacking, figuring out the secrets of hardware and software and making it work better. Unlike most phones which require special expensive hardware to update the firmware, with Motorolas all that’s needed is software and an ordinary data cable. There’s also free software available to extract, modify and replace almost any file … Continue reading
Courtesy of Apple Early reviews of the iPhone are starting to trickle in from the handful of mainstream tech reviewers who have been blessed with review units. Reviews are all rather positive as expected. These reviews do give us a better picture of the phones capabilities. My take: The pluses: Battery life is amazingly good, around 8 hours of talking, browsing or video playback – easily double what other phones of this size and capabilities can muster. How did Apple … Continue reading
Last month I went to a UIQ Developer Fast Track event in San Francisco. I haven’t done any UIQ development but was curious about the platform. The Fast Track turned out to be more of a high level introduction which was OK with me. Actually the main draw was that attendees were promised a UIQ 3 phone. Half got a Sony Ericsson M600i immediately, the other half would have the Z8 shipped to them “when it was released”. I was … Continue reading
I just got back from a week in Tokyo, paradise for mobile geeks. 3G seems to be taking Japan by storm. In wandering around the city, I saw many of the latest 3G handsets in use. One of the most popular seemed to be NEC’s Linux based N902i on the DoCoMo FOMA network. The selling point of this phone is the 2MP camera with image stabilization and auto focus, but the nicest part for me was the Netfront browser on … Continue reading