Posts Tagged Nokia

Ovi Suite 2 : Not quite there yet…

Since I got my new phone, I naturally decided to get the lastest Ovi Suite from Nokia for my PC. The blurb on this piece of software is quite interesting. Apparently, they’ve thrown PC Suite out of the Window, and started from scratch for Ovi Suite.

First, a little background info. Ovi is the new service launched by Nokia, to keep your contacts, photos, mail etc. in one place. Sort of like the hub between the PC and your mobile phone. It’s not exactly 100% original (ref. MobileMe from Apple), but it’s the gesture that counts… In the new Ovi Store, you can buy applications and music for your phone as well.

One small point, from your PC, you can browse around in the Ovi Store, but to download anything, you’ll have to do it from your device. This is pretty crappy, mainly because, without a dedicated data plan on your connection, it will cost you an arm and a leg to download anything at all.

I’ve been using PC Suite for a while, with my old mobile, and it’s been great. It was relatively light weight, and syncing contacts, messages and the calendar didn’t take anytime at all. The inbuilt music manager was a bit weak, but it was soon replaced with Ovi Music (not to be confused with Ovi Suite). One thing I liked about PC Suite, was that it was fast, and it looked clean.

Ovi Music is good, but it’s extremely resource hungry, takes ages to start up, and worst of all, doesn’t read IDv3 ratings from the files. This is very important for me, because I keep all my songs rated, and create auto playlists to manage syncing to my iPod and mobile. So, I don’t use Ovi Player much. Plus, there’s no way to transfer ratings from any other player to Ovi Player, so there was no way I was going to be using that software on a daily basis.

So, let me get back to Ovi Suite, the software. First thing’s first, it’s kinda huge. 93MB huge to be precise. On the home page, you’re presented with 4 things – Contact, Photos (and Videos), Messaging and Music. All of them are really self-explanatory. Once you hook up your phone, it takes a while for it to recognise it.

One really irritating thing is that each time you connect your phone, it will go through the entire process of identifying and syncing. And it is terribly slow, when it comes to syncing contacts. I mean, all the contacts put together will be well under an MB, but it still takes a couple of minutes to sync them. Then it starts syncing photos and videos. Listen Nokia, if I move my files after syncing them from my mobile, does not mean I want another copy in the folder YOU choose. Geddit?

And the absolute worst thing about is is that it’s hellbent on syncing stuff when you connect your mobile, even after you uncheck all of the auto-sync options. Couple that with the fact that you could erode a mountain by the time it syncs contacts, and that it will not let you copy anything into or out of the mobile before the sync is over, means that it’s very frustrating working on this application.

Plus, once you install it, it still looks user friendly but it is not resource friendly at all. The bloody thing idles at 200 MB! Plus, it is extremely sluggish, when you change tabs. The map loader is a good thing, but now a separate app is available for that, so it’s kind of pointless.

On a whole, I’m extremely disappointed with Ovi Suite, will recommend that they cut their own legs off before installing it. I for one, am sticking to good ol’ PC Suite.

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My Nokia 5230 : Update

  1. Battery life seems relatively poor. Even with the brightness turned down to 25%, and the backlight timer at 10 seconds, with a lot of MP3 playing and quite a lot of GPS tom-foolery, the phone’s battery runs dry in about 2 to 2.5 days. Not as great as I’d have liked it to be, and definitely lower than my old 3109c.
  2. Speaking of GPS, Nokia, in a bid to compete with Google’s offerings, has now made Ovi Maps a completely free service. This is applicable only for a few select devices i.e. X6, N97 mini, E72, E55, E52, 6730 Classic, 6710 Navigator, 5800 XpressMusic, 5800 Navigator, and of course, the 5230. Click here, to go to the download page.
    • Download the application for your phone. Before you can install it, you must have started and closed Maps at least once on your mobile, else the new version will refuse to install.
    • Once it’s on your phone, you should download the Nokia Map Loader from here. Once done, download the maps for your country, and you’re done. Sadly though, you can’t download maps for individual cities, you have to download maps for the entire country in one go. For instance, maps for major cities of India weigh in at 103 MB. Voice navigation is optional, and will be another 4-5 MB, depending on the language you choose. Also, the index for the continent will be automatically downloaded, so that you cans search for places offline
  3. My old number is back. Apparently the first time I called, the fact that my SIM documentation hadn’t been processed yet, coupled with the fact that my number had been barred, was too much for the poor girl at the call centre. I called again today, and a guy smoothly asked for some details about my address and last recharge and I was done.

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My Nokia 5230

Further reading : The Hunt – Part 1

Yup, it’s finally here. After a great deal of cajoling my Mom, a task which requires almost infinite patience, she finally gave in. Plus, when she had a look for herself, she rather liked it, and is very, very jealous…

But first, a bit of background info. Before the release of the 5230 and the 5530, the 5800 was the prime offering in this category by Nokia. It sported WiFi, 3G, a 3.2 MP camera and a better pair of built in speakers. It was launched at around Rs. 19,000, but it’s come down to around Rs. 13,000.

The 5530 and 5230 were released together. The 5530’s got a new design with a bit of metal thrown in, a 2.9″ touchscreen, a 5MP camera, Wifi, but surprisingly, no 3G! You can get it for about Rs. 12,000, which means that Nokia still wants to keep the 5800 as the flagship all touchscreen phone in that price bracket. All the phones run on the Symbian 60 (S60) operating system.

The Bundle

  • Nokia 5230 (duh)
  • Battery (BL-5J)
  • Charger (AC-8N)
  • Nokia Stereo Headset (WH-102)
  • Plectrum Stylus CP-306
  • User guide

To be frank, it’s poor. No bundled memory card. Not even a sodding data cable! But the phone does come with a stylus, and little wrist strap with a guitar-pick-shaped plastic thingy to use with the touch screen.

The earphones bundled are the standard Nokia earphones, which are just about bearable. The cable, as usual, is way too long. The charger is kind of scary. It’s bigger than it needs to be, but has the same port that most Nokia phones nowadays use.

You also get 10 free songs from Ovi Music, which I am yet to redeem.

Nokia 5230The Looks

Well, I can understand why Mom’s jealous. It’s almost identical to a 5800. The phone is definitely a head-turner, as is with most touch screen phones. It’s got a 3.2″ widescreen display with a resolution of 360×640, which is quite high, compared to my old 3109c. The phone sports 3 buttons on the front, the green one on the left for making calls, or bringing up the call log, the middle one for bringing up the Menu, and if you press it for a couple of seconds, will bring up the list of running applications (will get to that in a minute). The red right button is to end calls and close applications. The phone has a proximity sensor on the front, which disables the touch screen and dims the display while making or receiving calls. Speaking of the screen, it’s extremely vibrant and supports 65k colours if I’m not wrong (which I probably am).

Nokia dudes have been considerate enough to supply a plastic film cover for the screen. It will come off soon, and I intend to replace it, because scratches on plastic are not a problem, but if it gets on the screen, it’ll be scarred for life.

The phone has volume control buttons, and a little touch button right above the right corner of the screen, which causes a little drop-down menu to appear, from which you can choose the media player, video player, web browser etc. Apart from this, the phone has a spring-loaded Hold button. This button locks the screen and disables the touch screen till you toggle it again. My major gripe is that this button looks like the kind which might fall off soon, mainly because it wobbles ever-so-slightly on the spring. But seeing that I had the same misgivings about the volume buttons on my old Nokia 3109c, and they never came off, I can safely assume that Nokia build quality won’t fail me.

The phone has a Nokia-specific mini-USB port, which is just a little different from the normal mini-USB, but effectively renders the cable useless. So you’ll have to purchase a cable separately, unless your PC/laptop has Bluetooth, in which case you could use that for transferring data.

The camera (2 mega-pixel, more on that later) is housed in a little bevel, presumably to protect the lens from scratches. There’s also a camera button on the side of the phone. Speaking of bevels, all around the touch screen, there’s a slight raised border, to prevent if from getting scratched if its dragged across a table or something (not that I intend to try).

The SIM card and the memory can be removed without opening the back cover. The memory card is hot swappable, but I wouldn’t say the same about the SIM because I haven’t tried. Speaking of the back cover, it’s a tricky thing to get open. Requires you to dig your nail in a groove, yank, and hope the thing doesn’t break. Surprisingly, to attach the wrist strap, you open the back cover, thread the loop through  a hole in the side of the phone, and grab it and loop it around a screw of sorts. The speaker is a mono-speaker on the left side of the phone. It’s reasonably good, but not as good as the one on a 5800.

The Interface…

rocks. As can be expected from a touchscreen phone. The one major problem with the 5800, was that it was a bit sluggish. This problem isn’t noticeable in the 5230. The one problem I had was that it wasn’t as sensitive, as say, an iPod Touch, and I wonder if its because of the difference in technology (capacitive v/s resistive), or because the plasic film gets in the way. Still, it’s pretty responsive, but scrolling using the scroll bar can be a bit cumbersome. But scrolling with a flick of the finger is easier, especially with kinetic scrolling, which keeps the list scrolling after you flick it.

The phone also has an accelerometer, which adjust the screen according to which orientation you hold it in. But it’s a bit sluggish, and only works when you turn it anticlockwise (i.e. on its left side), not all the way around.

Typing in T9 is amazingly easy, because the buttons are so huge. But when you turn the phone, in landscape view, you can type on a full QWERTY keyboard. This might take some time to get used to, and I’m still making tyops typos.

The home screen houses a little side scrolling carousel at the top, where you can keep your most used contact for quick access. You can also assign a picture to be displayed with each one. Below that is the mail application. Apparently a trial version of  Nokia Mail is available. But don’t worry, even after the trial expires, you still have the standard messaging e-mail interface to use. Below that media keys appear when your listening to music. At the very bottom is a shortcuts bar, where you can keep your frequently used bookmarks/applications.

Managing network connections (like EDGE, is very easy, because touching a small icon near the battery meter gives you access to the Connection Manager. Alarms can be quickly set by touching the clock. Naturally, the phone has voice recognition, which is surprisingly accurate. Also, the phone has handwriting recognition, but I don’t advise using that, mainly because it’s pretty time consuming. And handwriting recognition with your finger is nigh-impossible.

You can customise the phone to a great degree. You can set the screen brightness, backlight timer and loads more.

Applications

The 5230 comes preloaded with a ton of amazing applications. There are apps for YouTube, Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, Amazon and Hi5 (sic) preloaded. The browser in the phone is very decent, and I haven’t needed to install Opera yet.

The music player is pretty good. Displays album art, and has an 8-band equaliser, and you can store your own presets as well. It can play mp3, .m4a, .aac and .wma files. You can create your own playlists on the go, but the only gripe I had with it, was that there’s no way to access the Now Playing playlist.

The video player is also well done, and I have to tell you, videos on a 640×460 widescreen look amazing, even if it’s just a silly YouTube video you made. There’s also RealPlayer for streaming video, but unless you’re some bloke called Sunil Mittal, I advise against it.

There’s also a radio application, which, predictably, uses your headphones as an antenna. That’s decent, and supports RDS, which allows you to pick up the name of the station and the current playing song, if the station’s transmitter supports it.

But perhaps the most outstanding feature is Ovi Maps. This phone supports GPS, and paired with Maps, means you’re unlikely to get lost again. Agreed, transferring maps over GPRS will be expensive, but there’s an alternative. You can download all the maps for a country, if you’ve got the Ovi Suite. India’s maps weigh around 103 MB, but they’re incredibly accurate. The Map application is a bit sluggish, but predictably so, because the application isn’t exactly lightweight.

But I was extremely disappointed when I found out that driving and walking instructions were paid services. You can set a destination, but it’ll give you the directions only for about 15 seconds, because transporting you to the store to buy a license for the service, and it ain’t cheap. Rs. 99 for one dayRs. 3000 for an year! Still, you cans till set destinations and just get Maps to point you to it, which is still fine. Plus, this is a phone, not a dedicated GPS device, but the fact that they didn’t advertise the fact irks me. .

UPDATE : Nokia has released a new version of Ovi Maps, which you can find here. This version has free navigation instructions as well!

The phone also supports A-GPS (Assisted GPS), which connects to an online server to get satellite data to quickly get a GPS fix. I used the GPS on a bus, and it worked flawlessly, and drew eyeballs!

There are 2 preinstalled games, and both are pretty poor. One is a 2D rollercoaster game, which isn’t particularly interesting, and then there’s the DJ Mix Tour, which is like a touch-based game like Guitar Hero, bu supports MIDI like music (sic). But the Converter and Calculator and very bad. The Converter has no presets, and the Calculator has no scientific mode!

One thing I noticed about this S60 phone is that file management is rather automated. Unlike in my old 3109c, which had S40, where I could specify exactly where I want my files, in this phone, the File Manager is hidden away under the Office subfolder inside Applications. Alternatively, you can arrange stuff after connecting the phone to your PC.

There’s an Application Manager, which allows you to delete applications and specify settings for ones you want. There’s also a separate Application Settings menu for the pre-installed applications.

The camera, being just a 2 megapixel camera, isn’t spectacular. It supports a maximum resolution of 1600×1200, and works best in landscape view. The best thing, is unlike some S40 phones, I can instantly delete a picture if I don’t like it. There’s also an image editor, which is pretty decent. But video recording is amazing. The resolution is widescreen (you can specify what size you want), and the framerate is around 24-30, I think.

Althought the phone came without a memory card, it supports microSD cards upto 16GB. The phone itself has 70MB internal memory.

The Verdict

Eagle-eyed readers would’ve missed one detail – the price. This phone – this S60, 3.2″ widescreen touch interface, 2MP camera, GPS enabled with navigation, 3G enabled phone  – retails for Rs. 8,500. The MRP is a bit higher, but I bought it from a Nokia Priority dealer in Malviya Nagar.

Honestly, at this price, I can ignore all the little niggles – the lack of a memory card and USB cable, the flaky hold button, the not-as-sensitive-as-an-iPhone touchscreen, the lack of full GPS functionality, the trial e-mail service, the poor camera. This phone is amazing value for money, and I expect people to buy it in droves.

I might post a battery life update later on, so watch out for that as well.

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My Nokia 3109c

I’ve been simply itching to write this post, since ages, but was a bit busy to actually sit down and give it time. Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, that alibi no longer holds water.

Mom went to the UAE, for work, and on her way back, bought me a mobile phone. I didn’t really want one and had not specifically asked for one, but it was a pleasant surprise to be gifted one. My ideal mobile, earlier, had been a simple, black and white display, monophonic ringtone, just-call-and-SMS kinda phone. What I got, was something totally different. She got me a Nokia 3109c…c stands for classic.

Nokia 3109c

My Nokia 3109c

Well, I did not take pictures of unpacking it, and of the bundle, but I’ll tell you that it came with no frills…not even a pair of earphones. Thank god they included a charger. They also had a manual, half in English, half in Arabic. Actually, in the case of both languages, it would be at the beginning of the book, since Arabic is a right-to-left language. The battery is a BL-5C, one that Nokia has been providing for a long time, and also one that was in the news.

I had a bit of trouble inserting the memory card. It involved sliding the card into the part of the lock which came up while unlocking the card slot. I though that it was to be directly inserted into the card slot area. I tried to be delicate with it, because I knew that I could easily damage both the phone and card beyond repair very easily.

Since this is my first phone review, expect it to be pretty haphazard.

First Impressions

Well, before I switched it on, I decided to give it a proper physical analysis. The phone feels sturdy. It exudes confidence, that it can survive a one or two-story drop, and live to talk about it. I’m not joking. Compared to a lot of ultra-entry level stuff being offered by Nokia in India, this is has decent build quality. The colour I’ve got is the same as that in the picture – 2 tone gray, with silver navigation keys.

The keys are large, easy to use, and you can pretty much enter text with your eyes closed. I’ve seen some other mobiles with cramped keypads, and have learnt to hate them. The D-pad is a bit of a let down. I’ve seen a similar D-pad in other Nokia models, and I find that this one a bit unintuitive. Just seems a bit too fragile and well, click-click-click…no organic soft touch to it. The center button for selection is fine, though.

The charging port is not the old Nokia one, rather a smaller one, recently launched by Nokia. There’s a USB port as well, which required the DKE-2 cable from Nokia. Or you could get a twin from China for a few bucks less.

I did not like the way the battery compartment cover comes off. You have to use your nail to press slide a button and yank up the cover from the same grip. Then, you need to just get hold of the sides of the cover and somehow get if off. Very un-Nokia-ish. By the way, the phone supports a microSD card. I’ve got a 256MB one. I have no idea what caused Mom to buy it, but thanks Mom!

And the thing I absolutely dread about the mobile, is the volume buttons. They’re situated on the right side of the mobile, and they seem as if they’re gonna come off in a few weeks time. Plus, there’s no camera. Mom though it would not be wise for a schoolkid to have a camera phone. She should know I’m not a perverted ass. By the way – Nokia 3109c + Camera = Nokia 3110c

Fire ‘em Up

I put in the battery, charged it for several hours, as the manual says you should, and switched it on. I was caught unawares, coz the 3109c vibrates when switched on. Nevertheless, I’m used to it now. Well, let me go through the features one by one.

I can make calls with it and send SMSes. Big deal…any phone can do that. I can also check my mail, through POP3, IMAP and send mail through SMTP. Thing is, that for some reason, it couldn’t connect to my GMail account. It wasn’t as if it was giving an explicit error message, but it just waited for something to happen. By the way, I’ve got a lifetime prepaid, with a validity till 8th April, 2011.

The phone book automatically generates voice tags, which I can’t change. So Indian names get pretty badly skewed, like Ponnappa for example. :-P One thing I like is the Call Log. Rather than having separate missed call, dialled calls and received calls registers, this phone integrates all of them together, and I can access it by pressing the ‘Call’ button in standby. It’s all given in chronological order.

The phone’s got 4 default profiles, and 2 user-configurable ones, besides the flight mode. You should be knowing this, but Flight mode simply switches off all transmissions, but you can use your phone, in the sense, play games, listen to music, read received messages etc. This allows you to use the phone while…well…when you’re in a flight of course!

The only problem I notice in the way profiles are managed, is that, if I need to change my ringtone, I’ll need to modify each profile individually. This has the potential to become a pain in the ass.

The phone comes preloaded with 2 themes – Nokia Original and Marbles, both of which suck. While experimenting with these 2, I ended up unlocking a hidden theme. All I needed to do, was to enable a theme, and then, as the phone was applying it, press the End key several times, to exit to standby. This caused the theme to be incorrectly applied, and the phone reverted to the original theme, a deep blue-themed Nokia theme.

As for tones, I didn’t like the inbuilt ones. The phone can apply as a ringtone, anything it can play. This includes AAC, MP3 and MP4. As I had a memory card, I transferred some music through Bluetooth from Mom’s laptop. The reason I didn’t use the USB cable was that I didn’t have one at the time. So I dumped music from my iPod onto the laptop, and then transferred it onto my phone.

My phone also featured Nokia’s Active Standby feature. It allows me to put some frequently used items within easy reach. In my case, when the phone is in standby, I can access the music player, some shortcuts, and my calender, through the D-pad. The only downside is that regular D-pad tasks, like accessing the phonebook, writing messages are not possible. But you can either add these tasks to the Go to menu, accessible by the top-left nav key, or add them to the list of shortcuts in active standby.

Oh yeah, and the phone features Bluetooth and IR, although I haven’t yet figured out how infrared works. I can find the port easily enough (on the left side), but I have no idea where to find it on my mom’s phone, which also boasts of IR connectivity.

Unfortunately, this mobile can’t play FM radio. But that’s not a big problem, because I’ve loaded up my memory card with music. Now, you’ll be wondering, how much music can be put on a puny 256 MB card. Well, I’ll tell you, a lot! If you know which format to put it in. I recommend MP4. It offers great sound quality, at a measly bitrate of 48 kbps. That’s not a typo. If you have softare to convert to MP4, well and good, if not, download PC Suite from Nokia. Be sure that you download the right version for your phone.

Once you’ve set up PC Suite, make sure it’s not set to start each time you start Windows, because that’ll just eat up valuable RAM. Once you start PC Suite, click on the File menu and uncheck Invoke at startup. Then, start the Nokia Music Manager. In the NMM, go to Options -> Settings. Under the Conversion tab, select Always Convert, and select the appropriate bitrate. Then, add music to your collection by first searching for music on your PC (hint: press Ctrl+F). Once you’ve added music from your PC, you need to move them to your collection. Check the files you want on your mobile, and click on the bottom-right button. This converts the files and keeps them in a separate folder. Then, connect your mobile, and select those songs from your collection, and click on the same button, except that when you select files from your collection, it’ll transfer them to your phone, and not convert them, because they already are.

The music player is decent. Assuming your IDv3 tags for your music are in order, it allows you to browse your music by Artist, Album, Genre, or Track Name. You can also create Playlists in the Music Manager from PC Suite. Sweet! (bad one…:-P) The control is by the D-pad, and it’s pretty good. No album art though. But that’s OK. The phone also has video support, but I haven’t tried it. I think it needs to be in 3GPP. Not sure though. Haven’t tried it.

By the way, I find that Nokia really makes good looking utilities. I was really impressed by the look and feel of all of the PC Suite software, even the installer!

The phone also has an equaliser, with 5 presets and 2 user-configurable presets. The phone also has an option for Stereo Widening, although the effect while using the loudspeaker is negligible. Maybe while using headphones, there might be a noticeable difference. Both of these options can be accessed under the Media sub-menu.

The phone has the standard organiser stuff – a calender, a to-do list, an alarm clock, a stopwatch, a timer, a calculator and an application for storing notes. By the way, I extensively use the calender, to schedule daily reminders for me to take my medicine. This way I never miss a dose.

Among the inbuilt application, there are 3 games – Canal Control, Snake III and Sudoku2. Canal Control gets a bit boring, to be honest. Sudoku has 100 preset puzzles, but I’m yet to complete them all. Snake III is my favourite, by far. It’s…well…Snake…in 3D! And the look on the poor guy’s face when he bumps into a wall, it’s priceless!

Among the other applications, there’s a World Clock, that doesn’t even include New Delhi in it’s list of cities. Stupid thing. There’s Catalogs by Nokia, which, I guess provides catalogs for shopping. Not for me. Sensor is interesting. It requires Bluetooth to be on, all the time, so that means less battery life. Sensor looks around for other Nokia phones with Bluetooth who have Sensor installed, and you can see their profiles.

And last but not least, there’s the web browser. That works. I can even view my blog! Heck, I can even write posts! But I’d rather not spend the money, since I’ve got a PC at home. I tried going to GMail for mobiles, and it told be to download an app, which I did, but GMail still isn’t working on my phone. :-(

Anyway, it’s a brilliant phone and I like it. My brother hates it though, telling me it’s too boxy in shape, but I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just plain candybar.

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