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

T-Mobile Astound (Nokia C7) Full Review

My two week trial of the Nokia C7/T-Mobile Astound is over. A big thanks to WOMWorldNokia for letting me get extensive hands on with this pre-release device, which is now available from T-Mobile USA for $79.99 after rebate on a two year contract. The off-contract/prepaid price is  $299.99. Here’s a wrap up of my experiences with what I consider (thanks mainly to the updated “pre-2.0” firmware) the best Symbian phone yet. The Astound is  newsworthy for a couple of reasons.  … 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

Browser Test: Opera Mini 6 and Opera Mini 4.3

Click images to view full size Last week at CTIA, Opera Software released three new mobile browsers, Opera Mobile 11, Opera Mini 6 and Opera Mini 4.3.  I covered Opera Mobile 11 a couple of days ago.  Here’s my take on the new Opera Mini versions. Opera Mini 6 and 4.3 can be downloaded from m.opera.com using your phone or from opera.com/mobile/download/ with a PC. The Android version is also available from the Android Market. Opera Mini 6 is latest … Continue reading

Browser Test: Opera Mobile 11 For Symbian and Android

Opera Software released a trio of new browsers last week at CTIA. They are: Opera Mobile 11 for Android 1.6 and later and Symbian 3rd Ed and later. There are also experimental “labs” releases of Opera Mobile 11 for Maemo, MeeGo and Windows (for Windows 7 tablets). Opera Mini 6 for Android, Symbian 2nd Ed and later and BlackBerry OS 4.2.1 and later. iPhone and iPad releases will be available soon. Opera Mini 4.3 for Java ME and BlackBerry. The … Continue reading

New Symbian Browser: JavaScript Benchmarks and HTML5 Test Results

I’m pretty happy with the new “pre-PR 2.0” Symbian browser on the T-Mobile Astound version of the C7. Not only is the user interface nicer and the feature set improved but browsing seems a lot faster than the E7/N8 browser. To get an idea of the HTML5 support in the new browser I ran the HTML5TEST.com and W3C HTML5 test suites in the old and new Symbian browsers as well as in Opera Mobile 11 (on the Astound) and in … 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

CTIA is Wild This Year and it Hasn’t Even Started Yet.

I’m at the big CTIA Wireless trade show in Orlando this week as the guest of WOMWorld/Nokia.  The event doesn’t start until tomorrow but, thanks to a couple of huge pre-show announcements, it’s already shaping up as an especially interesting show this year. Yesterday, AT&T announced that it is acquiring  T-Mobile USA.  The match-up, if it passes regulatory review, would make AT&T the largest US operator. As a long time satisfied T-Mobile customer who also briefly used AT&T a few years … Continue reading