Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Nokia 3555 (T-Mobile) Preview

Coinciding with T-mobile's announcement of limited 3G deployment to a number of large US cities like New York City and Los Angeles, I will be reviewing one of the most affordable 3G enabled handset available in T-mobile's line up, the Nokia 3555b.

Sporting quadband (850, 900, 1800, 1900) GSM and WCDMA 1700 support, a stylish smooth casing, the Nokia 3555b may just be the phone for you:


Packed with the basics such as phone (6555b), battery (BL-5C: Extended 850 mAh), charger (AC-3U), and mono headset (HS-40):


The Nokia 3555b in action:


First impressions are very good with a bright high quality screen (but smallish at 1.8 inches) and excellent build quality with no creeks at the hinge, around the screen, or the keypad area.

The Nokia 3555b is available at T-mobile for $0 with a 2 year contract.

Stay tuned for the upcoming review as I take the Nokia 3555 around the block.

Thursday, April 24, 2008

AA.com on the Move - Win a N95 8GB



To promote American Airline's new mobile targeted web site, they're having a 61 day give away. The grand prize is 2 tickets to Los Angeles and spending money. For each of the 61 days, they'll be giving away a Nokia N95 8GB.

So if you don't have a N95 yet then here's your chance to win a Nokia N95 8GB.

For more information visit: http://www.aa.com/promo

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Nokia N82 Wins TIPA 2008 "Best Mobile Imaging Device in Europe" Award

We all knew the Nokia N82 was one of the best camera phones available on the market and now it's been seconded by Europe's largest photo and imaging press association, Technical Image Press Association (TIPA).



The Nokia N82 features a 5MP CMOS with a highspeed f/2.8 autofocus Carl Zeiss Tessar lens. To aid in night photos, the N82 is equipped with the brightest camera xenon flash. Although there are a number of other 5MP phones available on the market such as the Sony Ericsson K850 and LG KU990 Viewty, the N82 arguably wins in noise suppression and colour rendering. With the latest firmware (V 20.0.062), you can even geotag your photos.

You can find my review of the Nokia N82 here.

TIPA was founded in 1991 as an independent, non-profit association of European photo and imaging magazines. At present, TIPA includes 31 member magazines from twelve countries.

Source: Yahoo

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Nokia N95, N82 Turn Off Camera Sound

Since there are a number of people out on the web searching for turning off camera sound or shutter sound, I thought I'd post an entry on how to do it.

First try changing your phone to silent mode. Try taking a photo with the camera. If that didn't work then your phone's regional firmware probably doesn't allow silencing or disabling the camera sound so you'll need to read below.

Note: I do not endorse this but if this makes you happier with your Nokia S60 then it's worth it.

Warning: This involves updating your phone firmware so it's a risky procedure. Updating your phone is at your own risk.

Pre-requisite:
- Installed Nokia Suite Software that came with your phone
- Installed European Nokia Software Updater
- Phone
- Nokia USB Cable

First Part: Changing the product code on your S60 phone

Warning: This first part voids your Nokia warranty

Update 10/06/2008: 1.0.38.14 fixes a bug that prevented NSS from comunicating with the new Nokia Connectivity Cable driver
Download Nemesis Service Suite Beta 1.0.38.12 1.0.38.14 from B-pheaks (NSS103812.exe, 6,629,190 bytes) (NSS103814.exe, 6,514,081 bytes)

Note: Updating Nokia Software Updater will override your USB drivers and prevent NSS from properly reading your Nokia phone. I would suggest using the European Nokia Software Updater 1.4.23. - fixed in NSS 1.0.38.14
  1. Install NSS and restart computer

  2. Connect your phone to the computer via USB cable and set to PC Suite mode.

  3. Open nss software click on magnifying glass in top right.




  4. Click phone info and scan your phone just to make sure its connected

  5. To the right, click read to bring up your product data.

  6. Write down your product code.

  7. Change the product code one for EURO 1, 2, or 3 (see here for a listing of product codes for your S60 phone, I use EURO 3 - N82 RM-313 = 0551521) and check enable box then click on write.

  8. You must reset the phone in NSS software. Click on tools tab then factory settings tab.


  9. Check the full factory circle and click reset.

  10. Restart your phone (I don't think this step is necessary but let's do it just in case)



Second Part: Update Phone Firmware


  1. Update your phone as you normally do and remember never to turn off your computer or phone. And remember it's normal for the phone to blink a couple times. Don't do anything to it and don't run anything on your computer at the same time.



That's it! Try out your camera now.

I would suggest changing your phone's product code back to the original value using the first part of this, just in case.

Monday, April 14, 2008

MobiPad - Control your S60 with a Wii Controller

So you have an S60 phone and a Wii with a bunch of controllers, what can you do with all that?

Use your Wii controller to play Super Mario World (or any other Gameboy Advanced, Super Nintendo, Nintendo, or Gameboy game) on your phone of course!

Download and install mobiPad from http://mobi-pad.com/download.html (mobiPad_1.0_S60_3rd.zip at 67,045 bytes) to your S60 phone.

Turn on Bluetooth and mobiPad.

Pair your Wii Controller to your S60 by selecting "Discover Wiimote" in mobiPad and hitting the red button inside the battery compartment of the Wii controller:


Fire up the emulator of your choice (mine is vBag):


Rememeber to re-map the buttons to the wii mote in your emulator.

I have my N82 in portait mode right now but emulators look a lot better in portait view. It also lets you turn your Wii mode on its side and handle it like a NES controller with the D-pad under your left thumb and 1/2 buttons under your right thumb. One trouble is hitting the -/+ buttons if you have them set to L/R in SNES or GBA emulators. I found myself accidently hitting the Wiimote's trigger button under the D-pad a few times which pauses the emulator.

The phone-wiimote set up is really stable and fast. The controller is confortable enough for me to perform Ryu's fireball in Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo and fast enough to perform combos in the same game. Super Mario is no problem on the Wiimote.

Note: For Vampent emulators, such as vBag and vNes, remember to rotate the screen before running the emulator because they don't handle the screen rotations well (i.e. screen positioning is all wrong and cropped)

Note: I was really surprised to learn that the Wiimote uses Bluetooth.

Note: You can not re-map wiimote buttons in this version of MobiPad.

Source: http://mobi-pad.com