HappyWakeUp

http://www.happywakeup.com/en/index.htm

HappyWakeUp is a smart alarm clock that aims to improve your mornings by waking you up when your body is the most ready to get up. A friend of mine heard of this software from a Canadian news podcast (CBC) and was wondering if this software actually worked. So she asked me to give it a try and I thought it'd be another review to add to my blog. More importantly, I'm not a morning person, so if this actually worked I'll feel better in the morning.

According to Smart Valley, the software makers of HappyWakeUp, HappyWakeUp is based on medical research of human sleep structure, sleep cycles, and sleep disorders. HappyWakeUp monitors your sleep using the microphone of the phone and makes statistical analysis of your sleep quality to determine when your body is ready to wake up.

For this to all work, you have to place your phone really close to your head while you're sleeping so those of you worried about cell phones causing brain cancer should stay away from this software. They suggest placing the phone in either of the following locations:

• Beneath the pillow or sheet near the pillow with microphone down
• Bed table within 50cm of pillow with microphone up

If you're OK with sleeping so close to the phone then let's check out the software. For my post I am testing Happy WakeUp version 1.15.

HappyWakeUp connects to the Internet to check licenses (scary!)

Available licenses:

If you download HappyWakeUp from the S60 then you can get a 7 day free trial otherwise you have to pay.

This is what you get when you forget the set the S60 alarm first:

It's not the most user friendly interface but at least there aren't many options to confuse users

Starting HappyWakeUp:

After setting up your regular alarm you're greeted by a screen that shows you the current time in large font, the original S60 alarm time at the bottom, and between that is the window (usually 20 minutes before your S60 alarm) for waking you up.

I mentioned earlier that HappyWakeUp will try to wake you up at the best time but of course that time could be anywhere during your sleep since your body will go into the different stages of sleep more than just once. So HappyWakeUp will only wake you up between the window and your S60 alarm. If HappyWakeUp can't figure out the best time it'll just sound the alarm at the S60 alarm's time.

I tested HappyWakeUp for 3 nights straight and set up another phone to serve as my alarm back up in case HappyWakeUp didn't sound the alarm. For the first 2 nights, HappyWakeUp sound the alarm about 15 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was not ready to wake up and just turned off the alarm and waited for my back up alarm to sound. For the third night it woke me up just after my dream got near the end (the dream was actually getting boring) which was about 17 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was so groggy and couldn't get out but I did hit snooze on HappyWakeUp instead of off. Then it sounded at my regular time and I was grumpy as usual. Maybe even more.

I snoozed through every HappyWakeUp alarm. Overall I was still grumpy as usual and sleepy so it didn't feel like it worked for me. Considering I could easily replace HappyWakeUp with multiple alarms, I find HappyWakeUp very expensive.

Software Rating: Not Recommended

Apple's iPhone outsells Windows Mobile in Q3 2008

Yes, that's right, the Apple iPhone outsold all Windows Mobile devices in Q3 of 2008 for, not just North America, but the whole world.

Back in January of 2007, in a CNBC interview, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer grossly underestimated the threat Apple's iPhone with the following comments:

"It doesn't appeal to business customers because it doesn't have a keyboard which makes it not a very good e-mail machine."

"Right now we're selling millions and millions and millions of phones a year. Apple is selling zero phones a year... let's see how the competition goes"

"Motorola Q for $99... it'll do music, internet, e-mail, IM"

Source: Steve Ballmer, YouTube video, January 19, 2007

In hindsight, we can easily laugh at Ballmer's comments. Adding ActiveSync to the iPhone has made it very appealing to business with Congress testing out the iPhone to replace their army of Blackberries. Apple has surpassed all Windows Mobile sales in Q3 2008. And the Motorola Q has come and gone with little impact to the mobile world except to remind us that Windows Mobile is dated/buggy and Motorola makes cheap phones.

Hopefully this is a wake up call for Microsoft to focus on the complete experience rather than rely on manufacturers like HTC to slap on bandaid solutions like the TouchFlo UI.

Nokia 6650 (AT&T) Review: The latest stylish metallic S60 flip

Nokia has been trying to break into the North American market for the past few years and now Nokia has unveiled one of the phones that was designed with North America in mind by adopting the popular flip format. Partnering with a US carrier helps as well with AT&T releasing the 6650 a few weeks ago. After a few visits to a local AT&T store, there isn't a lot of focus on the 6650 and the sales staff rarely recommend it so it's going to be a silent seller only to those in the know of its powerful S60 operating system. The firmware on my 6650 is V 03.25.01 10-02-08 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone, AC-4U charger, and manuals.

Thanks to WOM World for supplying me this 6650 for their Nokia Chronicles.



The last AT&T S60 device, the N75, was buggy and bloated with AT&T software. Does the AT&T 6650 suffer the same fate?
Quick facts:
Name: 6650d-1bH (RM-324)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 112 g
Dimensions: 47.3 x 99.7 x 16.2 mm
Battery life (stand by): 350 hours (WCDMA/GSM)
Battery life (talk): 360 minutes (GSM), 240 minutes (WCDMA)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S
RAM: 128 MB (accessible: 20 MB)

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Mexico.

Closed:


Opened:


Aesthetics
Although it's only 16.2mm thick when closed, the 6650 looks big compared to current phones in the market. Its boxy appearance makes this phone much more suited for men. The brushed stainless steel battery cover and front give the 6650 an classy expensive appearance. The 6650 exhibited no creaking.

Stainless steel adorns the front of the phone:


The phone interior is glossy black that smudges very easily:


Nokia E71, Nokia 6650, Nokia N82:

The 6650 looks right at home with its S60 brothers.

Thickness of the 6650 compared to the E71:

The side of the 6650 is fairly flat so nudging your finger between the top and bottom halves to flip open the phone with one hand is tricky. I kept getting one of my fingers caught between the two metal parts when the phone flipped open. Ouch

Similar to other Nokia phones, no status LED is present.

The keypad light is relatively weak but does not bleed. Like most flips, lighting is not controlled by a light sensor but turns on when you open the phone.


The SIM mechanism is similar looking to the ones found on the N82 and 6680 but doesn't hold the SIM itself but just keeps the SIM pushed against the connectors.


Display
The 6650 uses a small 240 x 320 pixel 2.2 inch screen as its main display. For some reason I didn't feel it was small and suits the phone's size well. But putting it up against any other S60 you'll notice the difference.

The 6650 display is brighter but smaller than the N82

I had no difficulties viewing the screen under direct sunlight.

External Display
The 6650 uses a 128 x 160 pixel screen. The secondary screen is usually the one that gets all the left over technologies like CTN with lots of problems like ghosting or lack of colors. But the 6650 surprises me with a screen that's adequate for photo taking without the ghosting typically found on external displays.

Image Quality

The brightness and contrast are not as good as the main display but the ghosting isn't too bad

A major bright spot to the external display is that it's not limited to telling time and giving status icons. You actually have a separate menu for the external display. Available applications are: Music Player, Camera (photo only), Profiles, Stopwatch, Timer, Calendar.

Calendar gives you a quick way to see what you have scheduled for the day.

Music Controls:


You can actually read incoming messages from the external screen but you can't access the messaging application from the external display's menu.

Unlike most screens, the standby clock never dims:

I was wondering in my preview if this was an OLED but turns out it's a TFT.

Keypad
The keypad is large but flat. The tactile feedback is similar to the RAZR. There are no easily feelable bumps to sense the difference between each row or column of keys. Each number is coated with plastic so perhaps you could use that to feel your way around the keys but I had a hard time doing that. I just ended up looking at the keypad more than any other phone I've used in the past:


There are some differences in the AT&T model compared to the non-branded 6650:

You can use MagicKey to remap the AT&T keys to something else. I found myself accidently hitting the GPS button pretty frequently when I was trying to find "2"

The D-pad is also completely flat with the D-pad ring being fairly wide and has the same glossy texture as the 1,4,7 column and 3,6,9 column but different than the center key and 2,5,8,0 column. The two tone black glossy and smooth grey columns help you to visually find the keys easier.

I tried playing Tetris on the 6650 but the clicky feedback and flat D-pad was really bad for gaming as you can easily switch directions as you do by rocking a real d-pad ring.

I'm not a fan of the keypad in terms of use but it is nice looking. Fans of the RAZR keypad will feel right at home with this one.


Software
The 6650 runs S60 3rd edition with feature pack (FP) 2. With FP2, the 6650 is slightly sluggish when navigating in and out of folders and opening applications.

Since my review unit is an AT&T branded 6650, it includes some software unique to AT&T:


Software additions include:

• Cellular Video
• Yellowpages
• AT&T Mall
• AT&T Music
• AT&T GPS
• Shop Apps
• Shop Games
• MobiTV
• Mobile Bank
• PTT

None of the AT&T applications can be uninstalled from the App. Manager. Most of the AT&T applications can't be moved either.

Some of the re-labelled functions are:

• Gallery -> My Stuff
• Web -> MEdia Net
• Installation -> Games&Apps
• Contacts -> Addr. Book

And some custom icons were applied that don't change with a different theme:

• Messaging
• Calendar
• Gallery
• Installation
• Contacts
• Web

Missing typical Nokia S60 applications:

• GPS
• Download!
• QuickOffice (read only)
• Zip
• IM
• Music Store
• Podcasting
• Switch
• Setting Wizard
• Nokia Maps

Stability
During my time with the 6650, it never rebooted or hung on me.

Multimedia
Those who say S60 is designed mainly for creating and not geared as much to consume multimedia must not fully use their phone. Out of the box the 6555 supports H.264 video, the same video format used by the iPhone. With some added third party software like Coreplayer and MobiTubia, the E71 can open DiVX movies and stream YouTube videos. With the included 2.5mm stereo headsets (or get yourself a pair of AD2P stereo Bluetooth headsets) and music player supporting album art, you can easily have your favorite MP3s blasting in your ears. If you're an audiophile then you can install OggPlayer. S60 gives you more flexibility than both the locked down iPhone and the "lacking in software" Blackberry.

Camera
The E71 includes a 2 MP camera with no autofocus and no macro mode. Keeping it real basic this time.


Nokia kept it classy and didn't label it with flashy words like "2 Megapixel"


The external display helps for self portraits

These are the available quality settings:
Image Quality: Basic, Normal, High
Image Resolution: 480x640, 864x1152, 1200x1600

Additional settings:
Flash: On, Off, Auto
Night Mode: On, Off
Self-timer: 10, 20, 30 seconds
Sequence Mode: On, Off
White balance: Auto, Sunny, Incandescent, Fluorescent
Color tone: Normal, Sepia, Black & White, Negative


The 6650 doesn't use the N-series photo software but a much more basic one:


Camera uses the center key for taking photos so the menu is hidden by default unlike other s60 devices with a dedicate shutter button. Since the center key takes photos and makes menu selections, you can't take a photo with the menu displayed. press the left soft key or right on the dpad to show menu and hit left on the dpad to hide the menu.

You can't silence the camera on the AT&T firmware.

Outdoor photos:


Night photo:

Without night mode it's noisy. With night mode you have to be very still which I wasn't able to do

Close up photo:

Without macro mode and autofocus, the 6650 doesn't fare well in close up photos.

The images turned out grainy in almost all situation. After hitting the shutter key, a still picture is shown on the screen of when you clicked the shutter key but that isn't the photo you've taken since the camera is slow. After a few seconds, the still picture is replaced with the actually photo. I'm not sure how much lag there is but it feels like it's half way between the shutter key is pressed and the actual photo shows up. This makes it very annoying to take photos of fast things. You need to stay very still for taking photos.

Video
The maximum video recording resolution supported by the E71 is 320 x 240 pixels which is perfect for uploading to YouTube.

These are the available quality settings:
Maximum Length: MP4, mp4v-es, 320x240, 377 kbit/s
Short Length: 3GPP, h232-2000, 176x144, 81 kbit/s

Sample video:


Reception
The 6650 had similar reception to the E71 which is a little weaker than the N82. I had a number of times the 6650 switch to EDGE instead of using the faster 3G HSDPA network. Voice came out loud and clear through the speaker.

Speakerphone
The audio is loud but there is a lot of distortion at the higher volume levels.

Headset
I didn't have a chance to test this.

Connectivity
Unlike the Blackberry and iPhone, the 6650 offers a wealth of Bluetooth profiles that allows you to share files with other devices, listen to music over a wireless stereo bluetooth headset, or sync data to your home computer.
As with all E-series devices, infrared is included to share data with older devices or laptops without Bluetooth.
connecting the 6650 to a computer using a USB cable will automatically keypad unlock the phone allowing you to select the connection type (mass storage, nokia suite, etc.) This even works with the phone closed.

WiFi
None.

Global Positioning (GPS)
The 6650 has an integrated GPS chip to get an accurate position of the phone.


However the internal GPS is hidden behind AT&T's Nav solution since no Nokia built-in GPS applications are included with the 6650. Thankfully AT&T hasn't locked the GPS as Verizon typically does so you can get it working with 3rd party applications.

Here's a photo of it working with Nokia Maps 1.2:


The 6650 was consistently faster at locking a position and much more sensitive than my N82 and leap years ahead of the E71.

Time to lock is dependent on your location and weather conditions. Turning on assisted GPS in Tools > Settings > General > Positioning > Positioning Methods will reduce lock time but requires a data connection.


External Memory
Unlike most other S60 Nokia handsets, the 6650 does not include a memory card with the retail package. However it easily supported the 2GB microSD and 8GB microSDHC cards I had on hand. The small slot and rubber cover make inserting the memory card very tricky. Make sure you don't insert the card upside down because it's really hard to take out. The memory card goes gold connector side facing up when you're looking at the keypad.


Battery
The 6650 uses the same long lasting battery as the E71: the BL5L, with 1500mAH. The 6650 consistently lasted at least 4 days of usage before needing a charge. I spent a whole weekend without a charge and this included having the phone on dual mode (3G and GSM), e-mail synching throughout the business day, send about 8 MMS per day, and occasional phone calls for about 30 minutes total. A great battery where i didn't need to think about charging as i do on my N82.



Conclusion
After 2 weeks of testing the 6650, I found the 6650 to be an enjoyable phone that provides a little more flexibility than the typical dumb phone. It's stylish and fits well in a pocket. I really enjoyed the functionality Nokia added to the external display. I can read incoming messages on the external display without opening the phone. It's too bad Nokia doesn't push the multimedia capabilities and strength of the S60 platform in the 6650 but users benefit by not requiring an expensive smartphone data plan from AT&T. The 6650 looks very business-like so it's a good fit for Nokia's Mail for Exchange. I'm testing RoadSync on mine and haven't experienced any hiccups yet.

Ratings:
Performance...........7
Build quality...........9
Keypad...................4
Connectivity...............6
Features for $.........8 ($69 on AT&T with 2 year contract without data plan needed)
Software................8
Camera..................6
Battery life.............10

Overall.....................7.5


PROS:
*amazingly fast locking GPS
*stylish design with stainless steel
*Great build quality
*lots of existing S60 games/apps
*long lasting battery
*AT&T didn't screw up the phone that much

CONS:
*no wifi
*flat keypad with Razr-like feedback
*can't uninstall AT&T applications
*grainy camera
*small screen
*minimal sales package (no memory card, no headset)
*2.5mm headset jack
*sluggish UI with FP2

Freescale powers the Nokia N97 more likely

I just read from SlashGear that All About Symbian is to announce that the much hyped upcoming Nokia N97 is going to use the CPU/DSP/3D TI OMAP2420 platform found on some of Nokia's older phones like the N82,N95, and E90. It is also used by other manufacturers such as Motorola (Q9h) and Samsung (SGH-i617). The OMAP2420 platform includes a 330 MHz ARM1136, 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP, and PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator providing a powerful solution for highend phones.

If this were true it would be a complete backtrack for Nokia after switching most, if not all, of their phones to the the Freescale solution such as the N85, N79, E71, E66, etc.

A number of sources suggest that Nokia will be using the Freescale MXC300-30 that's also found in Nokia's only other touchbased S60 phone, the 5800. The Freescale MXC300-30 supports an ARM11 processor up to 532MHz and StarCore SC140 DSP up to 250MHz so Nokia has a lot of space to grow before reaching the limits of this platform.

Considering Nokia had worked together with Freescale to produce the single core design of the MXC300-30 and the inclusion of a large 1500mAH battery, I tend to believe Nokia will use the Freescale solution as they have with many of they most recent phones to provide optimum performance for battery life. Not even N-Gage requires hardware 3D acceleration so there's little need for the N97 to have it. Sorry, you won't be able to run Quake 3 on the N97.

Although prototypes of the N97 were available during Nokia World 2008 for the press to test, it is still possible (but very unlikely) the N97 hardware can change so anything is speculation until the N97 is release in Q2 of 2009.

Nokia N97 Announcement

Yesterday morning the Internet was abuzz with news of Nokia's latest announced N-series device, the Nokia N97.

Sporting a haptic 3.5 inch (360 x 640 resolution) touchscreen and running S60 5th edition, the N97 echos similarity to Nokia's just released 5800 XpressMusic. But adds a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Being a N-series it also adds TV-out, uPnP, 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 5MP autofocus Carl Zeiss optics camera with 640x480 30FPS MPEG4 video capture.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia N97-1
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Weight: 150 g
Dimensions: 117.2 x 55.3 x 15.9 mm
Battery: BP-4L 3.7V 1500 mAh
Battery life (stand by): 430 hours (GSM), 400 hours (WCDMA)
Battery life (talk): 400 minutes (GSM), 320 (WCDMA)
Source: Nokia

Reaction on the Internet to the N97 has been generally positive. Most people feel this is a worthy phone to fight Apple's iPhone, the form factor resembles a lot like HTC and Samsung's latest touch screen phones, and Nokia has been slow to adopt this form factor.

I feel Nokia took too long to announce a phone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. It would've been a very competitive phone if this was released a year ago. Apple's App Store and the stability of the iPhone 3G variant will make adoption of the N97 a challenge in North America. However, for the rest of the world, where Nokia holds a dominating marketshare, the N97 is going to sell very well with its unique form factor in Nokia's line up. This is a critical and necessary phone for filling a void in Nokia's portfolio and looks to have what everyone wants in a phone. A North American variant of the N97 with 850/1900 HSDPA 3G has not been announced which is necessary for Canadian Rogers or US AT&T to adopt the phone. I'm still hoping a well executed mass produced QWERTY slider/bar E75 is released to help Nokia improve its marketshare in North America.

Nokia Maps & internal GPS on the Nokia 6650

http://maps.nokia.com

The AT&T branded Nokia 6650 includes AT&T Navigator powered by TeleNav.
Unfortunately this requires a subscription of $9.99 per month plus data charges for route information (no charge for maps). But if you're in the know with Nokia products and services then you might have heard of Nokia Maps or non-subscription based mapping solutions like Garmin.

I've heard the 6650 has an internal GPS but I didn't see any of the customary Nokia GPS related applications like GPS data to show satellite and position information.

Would AT&T lock out the internal GPS like the Verizon's Blackberry GPS while AT&T's Nav relied on network assisted GPS? If the internal GPS was working, would GPS applications other than AT&T's Nav work with the internal GPS? Let's find out...

First, let's download and install Nokia Maps onto the 6650.

Go to http://maps.nokia.com and click download. You will see the screen below to choose your phone:


You won't see the Nokia 6650 on the list so choose the Nokia E50 (it's close to the 6650 as they're both portrait oriented). Although the Nokia 6650 runs S60 3rd Ed. FP2 like the N85, Nokia chose not to include the additional S60 packages needed to run the later versions of Maps. So we're stuck with Nokia Maps 1.2.

I connected the 6650 to my computer using a USB data cable (CA-101, not included with 6650) and installed it via Nokia PC Suite but I'm sure you can do it by Bluetoothing the SIS to the 6650:

Seeing the install message is a good sign it'll likely work

Opening Nokia Maps from the 6650, click Options > Map Options > Satellite Info and you'll see the screenshots below:

Satellites connection strength:

The dark blue shows I'm locked on!

Satellite relative positioning:

The darker blue are the locked satellites

With maps loaded on Nokia Maps and a GPS lock:


To avoid data charges for downloading maps I suggest turning off network use in Settings > Network > Use network = Never and pre-loading maps from your computer via Nokia Maps loader.

I was very surprised to find out the Nokia 6650's internal is open for other applications to use and it's a real GPS. Not some lame network based GPS. It's also a very fast locking GPS taking less than half the time of my N82. I'm very impressed with the Nokia 6650's GPS but too bad AT&T's Nav services will prevent the GPS from being the strong selling point of this phone.

Nokia 6650 (AT&T) Preview

A month ago I was asked by WOM World to trial the Nokia 6650 and take part in their promotional activity for the AT&T release of the 6650 called Nokia Chronicles (I'm getting featured on Dec 8-14 but you might see some odd photos/videos of myself here just for this activity).

It has been a long time since AT&T has released a Nokia S60 handset to their phone lineup so I was quite eager to see what Nokia has built to cater to American needs and hopeful that this will get S60 in more hands in the US.

I just got the Nokia 6650 in the mail so follow the jump for my initial impressions:


Opening up the box:

The inside felt very empty compared to other phone sales packages I've opened. The Nokia 6650 sales package includes: 6650 phone BP-4L battery wallcharger Manuals It's a very basic sales package that really needs to include a memory card like a 1GB. A pair of cheap headphones wouldn't hurt profit margins too much and meet the needs of most casual music listeners.

The Nokia 6650 out of box:

The 6650 looks really good with the brushed metal exterior. The etched AT&T logo is quite classy too.

With the Nokia 6650 powered up and ready to go:

The 6650 fits comfortably in my hand

The AT&T default theme and wallpaper. I wasn't liking it.

It's really hard to see the standby icons and text with the bright colours and details on the map

The external display is really neat:

There are three touch sensitive buttons below the screen that can launch and control the music player, start/stop timers, view your calendar, and take a photo. In idle an anlogue clock is continuously displayed. I wonder if this screen is OLED.

At first the 6650 felt fairly large but I think I've been spoiled by the Nokia 5310 and the E71. It's still thinner than the blocky N82. The S60 3rd edition FP2 feels slow on the 6650 compared to FP1 on both the N82 and E71. Moving in and out folders and launching applications included a slight delay I never had with the E71 and N82. I really like the external display on the 6650 and the added functionality Nokia gave it. I wished it could display incoming text message but it's a lot better than nothing.

To be truthful, I was initially disappointed by the 6650. It looked big to me, slow, and filled with odd AT&T customizations like the wallpaper. But switching the theme to a basic one sped up the UI and I started noticing the subtle features, like the external screen, really impressed me. The phone also looks really nice sitting on the table too. I'm looking forward to reviewing this phone so stay tuned!