Best Buy: Nokia Maps with 1 year voice navigation for $15.99

In the latest Best Buy Mobile Buyer's Guide (11/23/08 - 12/27/08) I found a surprise. As most of us know, Best Buy Mobile sells unlocked Nokia handsets such as the N96 ($599.99) and 8600 Luna. But now Best Buy Mobile also sells Nokia Maps and N-Gage games both for $15.99.

Nokia Maps includes:

• One year voice guided turn by turn navigation
• Completed Nokia Maps: North America
• Choice of multimedia city guide
• 2GB memory card

Nokia Games includes:

• World Series of Poker
• Creatures of the Deep
• Sims 2 Pets
• 2GB memory card
• 14 free trial games from N-gage

The Nokia Games package includes some of the most popular games with World Series of Poker hitting the top 5 games on n-gage for the last couple weeks. They've included a diverse set of games with one being card based, a strategy and more female oriented, and finally a slower paced male oriented. It doesn't really target any particular demographic. This may have been a decision to appeal to a much broader audience but considering each of these games retails for around $5.99 online, you aren't getting a significant discount purchasing the package and getting some games you don't really want. It does include a 2GB memory card but most Nokia handsets already include one with the phone so it isn't a big incentive.

The much better priced package is Nokia Maps by far. To see how significant the Nokia Maps package is, just take a look at Nokia's pricing for Nokia Maps navigation:

3.5 What does the navigation cost?

Navigation license	1 week	1 month	1 year	3 years
Category A	6,49 €	7,99 €	59,99 €	69,99 €
Category B	7,49 €	8,99 €	69,99 €	79,99 €
Category C	8,99 €	9,99 €	89,99 €	99,99 €

Countries and Regions in Category A Navigation Upgrade: Iberia, France plus Benelux, DACH, Italy plus, Alp Region, Nordic Countries, Benelux Plus, British Isles, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Canada, Hong Kong & Macau, Adriatic Plus
Countries and Regions in Category B Navigation Upgrade: Russia, USA, Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan, South-East Asia, Australia, South Africa, India
Countries and Regions in Category C Navigation Upgrades: Middle East, Western Europe, North America, Egypt
Source: Nokia, November 26, 2008

Considering a 3-year navigation upgrade for USA maps (you have to buy all of North America) costs about $149, the new Nokia Maps navigation package for $15.99 with 1 year navigation is much better priced.

I personally wasn't able to find Nokia Maps package at the Best Buy by my office so I recommend calling ahead to ensure they have it in stock.

Oddly, Best Buy Mobile is selling the Nokia Maps package for $99:

Source: Best Buy Mobile, November 26, 2008

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Announcement

After months of leaks and being featured in a movie, the Nokia 5800 has finally been officially announced.


The 5800 is going to be a great phone from Nokia with multimedia at the top of its agenda.

The Nokia 5800 is the first phone running S60 5th edition which brings finger and stylus touch support and a re-worked UI for touch such as an on-screen QWERTY keyboard.


Quick facts:
Name: Nokia 5800
Network:
- 5800-1 EURO GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 900/1800
- 5800-2 NAM GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 850/1900
- 5800-3 China GSM 950/900/1800/1900
Weight: 109g
Dimensions: 111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm
Battery life (stand by): 406 h
Battery life (talk): 525 minutes

Hardware-wise, the 5800 brings midrange N-series specs such as:


- 3.2 MP camera Carl-Zeiss optics with dual LED flash
- WiFi (802.11b/g)
- microSD up to 16GB
- 1320 mAh battery
- 3.5mm headset jack supporting Nokia AV (TV-out)
- integrated GPS

What does stand out is the 3.2 inch, 360 x 640 pixels resistive touch screen. Unlike the iPhone but more like the Blackberry Thunder, the Nokia 5800 needs you to push the screen.

It looks standard fare S60 so I hope you weren't expecting something different.

Watching the hands on videos, the 5800 is going to be slow in transitioning from landscape to portrait and vice versa and switching applications. Not sure I'm digging the idea of so many icons and pushing them. S60 3rd edition has a number of shortcut keys that you're going to miss in this iteration.

I think it was a great move by Nokia to position the 5800 as a midrange phone. This way people will be more forgiving with the first round bugs in the 5800 and not expect it to be as polished as Apple's iPhone. It also gives Nokia space to release a much higher spec'ed phone after they work out the kinks with 5th edition.

One big question for all previous S60 owners, how many of our favorite S60 3rd edition applications are going to work on 5th edition?



List of S60 5th edition changes: All About Symbian
Hands on preview: Engadget, SlashGear
For more information see: Nokia Remix Event

Nokia E72 E63 and E75

A promotional ad from Nokia was leaked onto YouTube (taken down already) and picked up by many phone blogs reveals the E75 slider and the E72 E63 a qwerty phone (a lot of blogs have them reversed with the E71-like device called the E75). Both are expected to be E-series midrange phones sporting the 369MHz Freescale MXC300 ARM1136JF-S solution, 2 or 3.2MP cameras, and GPS.

Nokia E75
It's time Nokia started competing directly against HTC's numerous slider out QWERTY phones. I was shopping Manhattan and I saw a lot of LG QWERTY slider phones and HTC VOX-like phones. This phone will be a big hit for the teenage demographics who want the standard keypad for making calls and the convenience of the QWERTY keyboard for text messages.




Nokia E72 E63
Most likely to be released in North America carriers like AT&T, Fido, and Rogers, I speculate the E72 will be almost identical to the E71 except for minor differences like crippling carrier-specific software and WiFi features (GPS) removed as the E62 was to the E61.




Nokia said they were going to hit North America in a big way this coming year and it looks like their development efforts are finally ready to market. The QWERTY keyboard is a highly desired feature in the North American market (less so in Europe who are accustomed to T9) and these phones stand a good chance of increasing Nokia uptake here. Now if only Nokia can get carriers to sell these phones at a reasonable price.


Here's the Nokia promotional video:

<< Removed by Nokia >>

Source: GSMArena

Updated September 21, 2008:
Some additional photos of the E75:

Based on the size of the screen to the Nokia logo and keys, the screen will be a 2.4 inch similar to the N82


There's a camera! After the E61 mishap, all E-series have included a camera. A single LED can also be seen.


Note the WLAN MAC address on the label. This confirms WiFi will be on the E75 (no surprise to anyone familiar with the E-series)

Boingo goes Mobile! Includes FREE browsing

If you're a frequent flyer then you may have noticed a change in Boingo hotspots on your mobile device. Boingo has just added a mobile version of their authentication page (loads a lot faster and without the annoying Flash splash screen). But the best thing is that they now offer mobile users a chance to browse for free after watching a 15 second ad.

10/31/2008 Update: This offer has now expired so there's no more free Internet but you still get a mobile version of Boingo.

Here's the old un-optimized Boingo page:


So here's how the new Boingo page works:


After watching 15 seconds of ads you get 15 minutes of free web surfing:


Unfortunately this only applies to mobile devices so laptops still see the standard screen. Let me know if this offer changes by leaving a comment.

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