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!

Nokia Download! Review

It seems like every smartphone manufacturer has or is introducing an App Store of their own. When you mention App Store most people will think the first was Apple iPhone's App Store. There's little doubt that Apple was the first to successful make consumers aware of the concept but only diehard Nokia fans know that Nokia phones have been carrying the feature for the past few years in the form of Download!

Until recently, the games and applications available for your phone were either from your carrier's online WAP site (for some reason, most of them call it "mall") or something you found on the Internet and you manually loaded. Cellphone manufacturers have traditionally been locked out from creating their own App Stores as it would compete directly with the ones hosted by the carriers.

In 2007, Apple's iPhone totally changed the entire cellphone industry. I know it's been said again and again but I have to mention it again as Apple resisted all pressures to do things the way the carriers wanted. This meant no branding, no carrier control on the phone software, and the manufacturer could sell directly to the consumer (Apple with the iTunes store). The last fact opened up the door to Apple's App Store so consumers could download applications and games without them being heavily filtered by the cell carriers. This has allowed Google, Microsoft, RIM, and Nokia to similarly push their own App Stores directly to consumers.

Being one of the oldest app stores of the bunch, does Nokia Download! really have what it takes to compete? Let's take a walk through Download! and if you have a S60 device on hand you should go take a visit. Make sure you have a SIM card in your phone as Download! uses that to determine your region and what applications you will see...

For this review and all screen shots, I am running Download! version 3.2.818 on the Nokia E71 with a AT&T SIM.

Nokia's Download! opens up to a grid view:

It looks just like the regular S60 interface of your phone but just without your custom icons

Clicking on any of the folders switches you to a list view:

This view takes more screen space yet doesn't give you any more information than the grid view. That little green phone with orange screen icon at the top right of Mail for Exchange shows that I have the application on my phone and clicking on it will run it on my phone instead of trying to download it. If you see a blue phone it means an update for the application is available.

Clicking Option > View Details gives you a description of the application:

I have a hard time making a downloading decision based on this description. Imagine making an actual purchase for paid software based on it

You can download and install applications directly from Download!

If your phone gets wiped out you'll have to re-purchase everything since you don't get the SIS install file with your purchase

Purchase history (Options > My items):

This list is stored on your phone unlike Apple's App Store. Purchasing software from Download! usually involves a credit card so make sure the connection to the software vendor is secure by clicking Options > Security Details when making a purchase

You can see from the screenshots that Nokia designed Download! to work seamlessly with the S60 UI. You can even run applications you already have on your phone from Dowload! Download! is a great way for Nokia to centralize all their software and list only software designed to work for the consumer's handset.

Without comparing Download! to any other App Store you can see there are numerous improvements that Nokia make to Download! There is no list of new software so you have to search each folder to see if anything has changed. No search function so, again, you have to search each folder to find the software you want. The UI needs to be reworked so it shows more information about the applications. It's tedious to have to click "show details" for each application just to see what each does. Moreover, there's just so little information that I can't make a download or purchase decision on it alone. Lately, Nokia has been updating their software catalog so software like Nokia Sports Tracker are finally showing up on Download! after being listed on Nokia's mobile download sites for a few months. But Download! is missing a lot of great well known software such as Mobitubia (YouTube client), Screenshot, fring, and CorePlayer. Overall the Download! experience is fairly inconsistent with the view switching from grid to list for no obvious reason, purchasing something can be secure but not guaranteed, and the little icons shown at the top right of application icons are not clearly described (I'm not sure if it's even consistent because I saw a blue icon so I was downloading the update, cancelled the install, and the icon turned black. It wasn't orange to show I had it and not blue to show there's an update available).

With Nokia making Download! required for downloading some of their latest software like viNe and free software like Birdstep Smartconnect, there's no real point to recommending or not recommending as it's already on your S60 phone and sometimes there's no way around it.

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

Vampent vBagX Review: Gameboy Advance on your S60

http://www.vampent.com

While Nokia is trying to build creditibility to their N-gage mobile gaming platform, much of the portable gaming market was and continues to be held by dedicated gaming systems like Nintendo's DS and Sony's PSP. Just the number of top rate games available on one of these systems far outweigh all the games available on the S60. One way to quickly increase the number of top quality titles is bringing it onto the S60 through emulation.

The power of S60 phones have dramatically increased in the past few months and software like vBag make emulation of yesterday's dedicated portable gaming systems like the hugely popular Nintendo Gameboy Advance possible. With vBag your phone can play any number of games from the GBA's huge library of portable games. Imagine classic like Super Mario Advance 2, Super Mario Kart, and the Legend of Zelda on your phone:


It may sound impressive so find out if the claims are true that you can really get the GBA experience on your S60 phone by following the jump to read the full review...

For this post I will be reviewing vBagX x1.20 S60v3 on the most common Nokia S60 architectures:

Architecture	Details	Phones
32bit Freescale MXC300	369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP	E63, E66, E71, N78, N79, N81, N85
Texas Instruments OMAP2420	330 MHz ARM1136 + 220 MHz TI TMS320C55xDSP + PowerVR MBX 2D/3D Graphics Accelerator + IVA	N82, N95

I don't have all of these phones so I'll be testing on both a N82 and a E71 to cover both of these architectures on vBag 's performance. A SanDisk 8GB microSDHC class 4 on the N82 and a Nokia 2GB microSD on the E71 memory card were used during this review. vBag was installed on the memory card in both cases because all GBA ROMS (.gba) must be placed in \Data\Others\vBag\

Graphics
vBagX gives you the option to use Bitmap (software rendered) or Direct (hardware rendered) but Direct has never worked for me on either the N82, E71, or even other Vampent products on my 6682.

From my experiences, the E71 renders games exactly as they are on the GBA but some games do run into issues with sprites not appearing in the right spot (see compatibility).

Super Mario Kart Advance runs smoothly with all image layers on the Nokia N82

vBagX comfortably handles the portrait layout found on most S60 phones like the N82 and the landscape layout like the E71. It can also handle screen rotations but the rotation must be done before starting a game otherwise the rotation will cause a screen problem. You can also manually change the screen orientation under Graph > Size (you can rotate the screen 90 degrees left or right, keep it at original reolution or expand to fill the screen).

You do encounter some frame drops here and there even on the higher powered N82/N95. The E71 is more choppy. You can adjust how much frames (0-9) you're OK with vBagX skipping to keep a consistent game speed.

Sounds
vBagX supports full stereo audio on the GBA. However there is a very very minor lag in audio on the N82 but the audio was very out of sync on the E71 by about 0.5 seconds.

Performance
This is highly dependent on the model and firmware of your phone.

My E71 encountered choppy frame rate and lagged audio. There was no way I could play Street Fighter II the same way as I did on a GBA.

I didn't experience any of the lag with the dual core architecture of the N82. But there were a few dropped frames here and there in high speed games like Super Mario Kart. It was very playable but not as smooth as playing on a real Gameboy Advance.

Compatibility
There is currently a running thread of compatible games on Vampent's forum. Here is a list of games I've tested and played:
Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Advance 4 (Super Mario 3)
Super Mario Advance 2 (Super Mario World)
Contra Advance (Contra 3)
The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cup
Final Fantasy Advance Tactics
Mario Pinball Land
Super Street Fighter II

All of them worked for me running on compatibilty mode 1. That's the scary but powerful thing. Vampent thought to add a compatibilty setting that goes from 1 to 3 (where 3 is slowest but closest compatibility with GBA) in vBagX so some games work in one setting but not others.

The single core architecture used in the Nokia E71 lends itself better to RPG games like Final Fantasy Tactics Advance

Phone keypads for gaming
You're playing games designed for the GBA's keypad. First off you're losing out on the left (L) and right (R) buttons at the top of the GBA since no S60 phone features these. Secondly, the ring D-pad of most S60 phones don't lend themselves well to diagonal (ie. left-right) presses. Similar to the keyboard on computers, a certain combination of simulataneous key presses can register an error on the phone and thus ignoring the key press. It's annoying when you have to hold one key while tapping another like flying in Super Mario Advance 4.

If you can get past all those physical limitations, vBagX allows you to map any GBA key to almost any phone key. Unfortunately only the volume up/down media keys are currently supported for N95/N96.

I've frequently referred to vBag, vNes, or vBoy under the keypad sections in my reviews as these games were designed for the highly comfortable, high quality, and dedicated to gaming keypad of the Nintendo Gameboy Advance. More often than not, the keypads of a phone aren't built with gaming in mind so button placement is compromised and button quality isn't high on the priority of phone manufacturers. If you plan to game a lot on the road then I highly recommend bringing along a Wii-mote and downloading Mobipad so you can use the better Wii-mote controller for gaming.

Playing GBA games with a Wii-mote paired to your S60 phone via Bluetooth is a lot more enjoyable and comfortable

Overall
vBagX delivers high quality gaming to the S60 platform by giving users access to Gameboy Advance's library of games. Most of my Gameboy Advance games ran fine on vBag with an acceptable framerate, little to no graphical errors, and mostly synchronized audio playback. Since most games require quick reflexes and timing, you need to get either a N82 or any flavor of the N95 to fully enjoy vBagX. I highly recommend downloading the trial vBagX to your phone to test before purchasing it to ensure it runs your favorite games smoothly and you're confortable with the keypad on your phone. If you do decide to purchase vBagX, Vampent offers lifetime upgrades of the vBagX product and I've heard their customer service is really good.

Software rating: Highly Recommend