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.

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

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

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.

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

"Phone start-up failed"

I was updating QuickOffice on my phone when it stalled and hung my phone. I did a restart and the unthinkable showed up right after the Nokia hands:

"Phone start-up failed. Contact the retailer"

I first tried removing the memory card and restarting. Failed.
I tried removing the SIM card and restarting. Failed.

You can't re-install the firmware because it doesn't get into any of the data modes. I wasn't going to send my N82 back to Europe for servicing and be without it for a long time. I was cringing at what it would cost at an independent store.

Thankfully Nokia added a fail safe. You can wipe out the phone memory (lose all your contacts if you have it set to phone memory, notes, etc.) and restore it back to the last firmware on the phone by (a method commonly known as the 3 finger salute):

Hold the green call button, the "3" key, and "*" key all at the same time while starting up the phone.

If you have 5800 (firmware V. 20.0.012), hold the green call button, the red hang up button, and the camera button all at the same time while staring up the phone.

If you have N97, hold the "Caps" key, "Space bar" key, "Backspace" key, and "Power" button all at the same time while staring up the phone.

The phone will slightly flicker and prompt you for your country. Now my N82 is back to a factory clean state.

*UpdateYou can also do this on S60 5th edition like the 5800 (firmware V.20.0.012 or higher): hold the green call button, red end call button, and camera key all at the same time while starting up the phone.

Note: I'd only use this as a last resort.

Note: This doesn't save you from a botched firmware upgrade using Nokia Software Updater.

Note: Be careful with your phone.

Note: Although I did this with a N82, I'm sure it'll work on other S60 phones like the N95.

Ripping DVDs to your iPod, iPhone, or Nokia S60 phone with Free Software

The latest series of Nokia S60 third edition phones, such as the N95, N82, and E90, and iPods, such as the iPhone, iPod classic, and iPod touch, support the latest MPEG4 video encoding called H.264/AVC, also known as MPEG-4 Part 10, or MPEG-4 AVC (for Advanced Video Coding). H.264/AVC brings good video quality at a relatively small size to your phone.

For the small screen size of a phone, the quality and size of a H.264/AVC video is on par with DivX but with one major advantage: the iPhone/iPod and built-in Real Media Player in S60 will play H.264/AVC videos.

How to convert your DVDs into H.264/AVC using free software

Screen Resolution:
Most Nokia S60v3 phones, iPod nano (3rd generation), iPod classic (5th, 6th generation): 320 x 240 pixels
iPhone (1st generation) and iPod touch (1st generation): 480 x 320 pixels

Software you'll need:
DVD Decrypter (unofficial site)
Videora iPod converter

For my tutorial I have DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0 (setup file size: 899,414 bytes) and Videora iPod converter 3.07 (setup file size: 7,151,050 bytes) running on Microsoft Windows XP SP2 and converting for 320x240 pixels.

Ripping video from DVD to VOB

• Open DVD Decrypter and place DVD into DVD drive (DVD Decrypter will automatically detect the largest video on the DVD and select it)
  


• Click Mode -> IFO


• Click Tools -> Settings -> IFO Mode (Change File Splitting to None) and click OK


• Change the destination of the export file as needed


• Click the DVD -> HD icon (Decrypt)

Converting the VOB to H.264/AVC

• Open Videora iPod converter
  


• Click Settings, select iPod_5G
  


• Click New Profile, enter a name and select "iPod 2-Pass - FFmpeg VINB". 1-pass is faster but videos can come out "blocky".
  


• Click Video and fill in below:
  Video Codec: H.264
  Profile: Baseline Profile
  Level: Level 1.3
  Mode: ABR
  Bitrate: 256
  Width: 320 (iPhone/touch: 480)
  Height: 240 (iPhone/touch: 320)
  Aspect Ratio: Original
  Framerate: 30
  Max Resolution: 320x240 (iPhone/touch: 480x320)
  Mod16 Size: unchecked
  Total Pixels: unchecked
  


• Click General 2 and fill in below:
  (values here depend on the aspect ratio of the DVD)
  
  Wide screen DVD (16:9)
  Crop Top: 0
  Crop Bottom: 0
  Crop Left: 40
  Crop Right: 40
  
  TV-series DVD (4:3)
  Crop Top: 0
  Crop Bottom: 0
  Crop Left: 0
  Crop Right: 0
  
  iPhone/touch: Leave above all 0
  
  Additional CLI parameters: -async 1
  


• Click Audio and fill in below:
  Codec: AAC-LC
  Mode: ABR
  Bitrate (kbps): 128
  Channels: Stereo
  Sample Rate (Hz): Original
  Volume (%): 100
  


• Click OK


• Click Save Settings


• Click Convert, click Video File, click Power user
  


• Select file, browse output directory, click "Start Converting"

Typical file size: 350MB for 2 hours at 320x240

List of phones that support H.264/AVC (all S60v3 with FP1 or higher are supported):
N71, N73, N75, N77, N80, N91, N92, N93, 6110, 6120/6121, 6290, E51, E66, E71, E90, N76, N79, N81, N81 8GB, N82, N85, N95, N95 8GB, N96
Source: Forum Nokia Feature Table

List of Apple Support:
QuickTime, iTunes, iPod nano (3rd generation), iPod classic (5th, 6th generation), iPhone (1st generation) and iPod touch (1st generation)