Mobile Phone News

20
Nov

Boards Don’t Hit Back, Nokia N96 Bruce Lee Edition DOES.

By Ernest Doku

Best. Limited. Edition. Ever.

The ‘Game of Death’ Bruce Lee figure (complete with l’il yellow Onitsuka Tigers on his feet!) would have been enough for me, but to add a brilliantly and tastefully liveried up Nokia N96 in the deal…SOLD.

Yes, it’s currently only available in China. Yes, it costs 8788 Yuan (around £860). But when I go off to China to buy my Android-packing Sciphone Dream G2, I’m picking it up too.

Nokia in their infinite wisdom and infinite money, have accompanied it with an awesome viral video of some Bruce Lee ping-pong. Why would they ban nunchaku in the UK when they can bring so much joy?

Whoever keeps burning the N96’s marketing budget with martial arts epics, thank you.

Source: Engadget

19
Nov

Sky Mobile TV Now Available on 3 Mobile Network

By Ernest Doku

3 subscribers in the United Kingdom can now enjoy a selection of premium Sky output on their mobile phones, as the television service can now be streamed over the air on the 3G network.

Separate from the existing ‘Planet 3′ media service for customers, Sky are offering this for either a monthly fee of £5, or a daily rate of £1.

This now allows customers a choice of live streamed content over the air to their handsets, from channels including Sky News, Sky Sports, CNN and The Box.

There is also load of looped mobile content, offering the best bits of Sky’s other channels to be viewed at any time. Sky Mobile TV is also available in the UK through Vodafone, Orange and T-Mobile, with the company claiming over 200,000 subscribers across the networks.

BSkyB General manager of mobile David Gibbs commented: “We are excited that 3 UK customers can now watch the latest breaking news from the RTS award winning Sky News; the best of the FA Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Premiership Rugby Union or Test Match cricket from Sky Sports, 3 UK customers need not miss a minute of the action.”

Sounds great, yes? However, the only setback is the fact that the service is being offered by Sky rather than 3 themselves, which means data charges can be incurred whilst viewing. A safe bet is to purchase an unlimited Internet add-on if you haven’t already got one, at a cost of around £5.

This means that all your web downloading will be covered, and no nasty surprise bills in the post!

Not sure if the whole ‘TV on the go’ thing will necessarily catch on. The Nokia N96 touted BBC’s iPlayer and bite-size shows as a reason to purchase, but all of that online multimedia content is often ignored in favour of chucking some favourite movies and music on a memory card and watching those.

Perhaps looped videos of the ‘new’ Gladiators and watching Ross Kemp speak in a gruff voice to ex-cons could be the content that changes everything.

Or not.

Source: What Mobile

11
Nov

The Future Of Nokia Phones Leaked Online?

By Ernest Doku

You may think that Nokia are foolish not to have entered the touchscreen or the megapixel arms races, but rest assured they have some dynamite handsets lined up for next year!

Someone has managed to sneak a look at Nokia’s crystal ball in the form of the ‘Roadmap’, which shows the entire range of phones that have been knocked up in their R&D labs since 2007, projecting well into 2009. Being a nice person, they have also given it to Engadget so we can all have a Mystic Meg at what Nokia are up to!

Looking at it in detail, there is so much diamond dust to speculate over in here! The presence of the ‘Tube’ and the ‘Lumiere,’ which became the 5800 XpressMusic and N96 respectively, lend this list some legitimacy.

What about into the future? Well, we have picked out some of the best-specced devices (with suitably ‘covert’ codenames), sure to get Nokia fans’ blood pressure up when they are eventually announced!

Click on below!

Read the rest of this entry »

10
Nov

LG Prada II Fashionably Late, Now On For A November Release Date!

By Ernest Doku

Electric Pig has managed to coax a little gem of information out of LG regarding the Prada II, a keyboard-packing remix of their highly successful fashion phone.

Originally earmarked to grace catwalks this October, they report that a spokesperson became deliberately vague regarding a release: “It might be this month, it might be Christmas”. They soon cleared it up, however, confirming the Prada II will indeed be out at the tail end of November.

This delay may have been a wise move considering the avalanche of handsets falling upon us at the moment, a brief respite might get the Prada II a few more column inches in the glossies than it would have.

Going up against supermodel snappers du jour like the Samsung Pixon, Sony Ericsson C905 and Nokia N96 at the height of their success would not be wise…

23
Oct

Samsung i7110 Hands On : Gets Fondled, Likes It

By Ernest Doku

Only a couple of days ago was the Samsung i7110 announced, and we managed to get up close and personal with the device at the Symbian Smartphone Show in Earl’s Court yesterday.

The handset has all the hallmarks of a decent multimedia phone, with enough in its slender candybar frame to give the Nokia N96 a run for its money!

With video playback even outperforming the i8510, this little device could upset a certain Finnish manufacturer this Xmas. Don’t believe us? Check this video!

It just seems SO much clearer, and a bit smoother too!

More pics of Samsung’s latest addition to the Symbian family follow…

21
Oct

Samsung i7110 Announced, Is It A Nokia N96 Slayer?

By Ernest Doku

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

Shakespeare put it best, when you’re number one, there is always some whippersnapper at your heels, eager to snatch the glory away from you.

The Nokia N96 has barely gotten comfy in the multimedia smartphone throne when Samsung comes out with a lithe new handset ready to claim dominance!

The i7110 is a sleek little handset (literally, it looks the spitting image of the U800 Sleek!), boasting a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, a massive 2.6″ QVGA screen, and wi-fi connectivity. It also runs those videos you downloaded legitimately purchased from the internet without any trouble, as it runs DivX and XviD format material with ease.

It even has GPS and 3G support, making the i7110 an embarrassment of riches on the specs front! The real question is, will the user experience be a nice enough one to drag the Nokia N96 from clutches of Symbian lovers everywhere?

Probably not, but you have to hand it to Samsung, they are not putting a foot wrong at the moment. With a line up of handsets to suit all pockets this Xmas, it will be interesting to see whether Nokia’s Comes With Music and a promise of the 5800 touchphone in 2009 can stave off the Samsung onslaught of the high end i8510, the higher end M8800 Pixon, and the touchy feely Omnia.

That’s not to mention the barrage of phones on the way from LG, BlackBerry, even T-Mobile’s own puppy.

The crown is certainly slipping…

06
Oct

The Nokia N96 Reviews Are In!

By Ernest Doku

Arguably one of the most exciting handsets from Nokia in a long time (until they went and unveiled the 5800!), the N96 with it’s focus on multimedia playback and digital TV awesomeness has got a lot of websites excited, but some are underwhelmed…

GSM Arena is impressed by the phone in general, but have a few minus points including the battery life, a lack of USB charging and the hefty price tag. Having said that, they loved the camera and extra memory the N96 provides…

An excellent point which they raised was the DVB-H digital TV functionality. As awesome as it is, if you aren’t in the big universites of Oxford and Cambridge then no TV for you! Check out this list for which places in the globe currently support it. Lucky Nigerians.

Stuff.tv have a glowing 5 star review of the phone, stating that it picks up the mantle from the Nokia N95 in impressive fashion, and bar an 8 megapixel camera it provides to be everything a smartphone should.

If only it could cut down on the pies a bit and had a more svelte, Samsung i8510-esque look, the N96 would have torn the industry asunder! As it is, features like the vibrant 2.6 inch screen and BBC iPlayer will be more than enough to convert mobile phone fans to pray at the altar of the N-Series.

As soon as we can have a sneaky peek at one, we’ll let you know our take on it…

01
Oct

Nokia N96 Out Today! New Firmware Update Messing With It?

By Ernest Doku

Good news for those who didn’t win the Euromillions this weekend, as the N96 is now a little cheaper having been released on Pay Monthly at the major retailers!

I’m slightly biased, but Omio have some really great Nokia N96 deals which went live today.

£35 a month for 600 minutes and unlimited texts on Orange with the phone costing only £29.99 from Dial-A-Phone is our most popular one, and it’s not hard to see why!

Quite the bargain for the super multimedia successor to the N95, complete with digital TV, BBC iPlayer and a whopping 16GB of storage for all your music and movies! If you’re in two minds about taking the plunge, get an in-depth rundown on the Nokia N96 features page!

Slightly less happy news from some early adopters is that the newest firmware update released by Nokia is making their gorgeous new handsets play up a little. The v11.018 update seems to wonkify call quality and speaker output a little bit, but this is the opinion of big time Nokiaholics in the official forums so we’ll wait and see whether these problems are widespread…

Source: Pocket Picks

25
Sep

Hello Nokia N96!

By Ernest Doku

Some enterprising fellow has bitten the bullet and bought the a Nokia N96 straight from the flagship Regent Street store in London, and has been nice enough to start a blog to relay his adventures!

Hello N96 has a very detailed account of the unboxing, a first play around, the iPlayer and live TV service, even video recording with a nice touristy shot of Nelson’s Column. However, he does mention it crashing, so maybe we should expect the N96 to change our lives forever after all…

A great place to go if you want to know more about the phone, including how much slimmer it is than the N95, and what gaming using the N-Gage service is like. He will keep it updated with further impressions as time goes on, so it might be a good ‘un to bookmark!

22
Sep

Nokia Capsule N96 : Give Us 96 Seconds, And We’ll Give You The World

By Ernest Doku

Nokia’s push for the N96 as an all-in-one multimedia handset has stepped up a gear with their new downloadable ‘webisode’ service for the handset, offering bite-size chunks of entertainment with ‘Capsule N96′.

From fashion to funny stuff, Nokia has secured five of the brightest British talents to front programmes, which will then be available to view and download from the official Nokia site. Here’s a sneak peek:

Red or Dead creator Wayne Hemingway gives the low-down on cultural topics with Pulse, the fashion scene is analysed by up and coming actress Margo Stilley in Portfolio whilst motoring, gadgets and homes will also be covered.

The video morsels will last only 96 seconds, but they promise to be jam packed with features and depth despite their brevity. They will become available from the 1st of October, and new episodes will be available weekly until the end of November.

It is unclear whether an N96 will be essential to view them, and it is a bit of a shame that it will only run for two months, but it is an impressive and UK-centric idea which is greatly appreciated!

Source: ShinyShiny