Sixty phones
news and opinions about Nokia Series 60 Symbian phones and other high-priced Finnish trinkets
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
3250 is here
The first phone with Symbian 60, Third Edition, is now available.
¶ 10:02 AM 3 comments
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Friday, March 03, 2006
Wifi Roaming on E61
Wow! I occassionally read the user manuals that get posted on the FCC site for upcoming phones. I just spotted the user manual for the E61. Page 69 blew my mind, man:
Email data roaming
Select Menu > Tools > Settings > Connection >
Access point groups.
Your device allows roaming between wireless access
technologies, such as WLAN and GPRS, for e-mail. For
example, you can start an e-mail session at home and
continue the session on your way to work. While your
session continues uninterrupted, your handheld device
switches from WLAN to GPRS and back to WLAN when
you arrive at your workplace.
This is big. First of all, there is a default setting that will cause the device to automatically to roam on wifi when gprs is absent. On WM5, you have to switch manually. That will give greater overall coverage (gprs + wifi) at lower costs and higher speeds.
This implies a seemless handoff. This big trick is not in the Windows Media 5 playbook right now, and could give Symbian a big boost in the OS race -- this function could save a lot of dough for corporate customers with international roamers who don't rack up extra charges roaming on gprs when they could be on low-cost wifi.
I assume this is a basic function of Symbian 9 and not unique to the E61. ¶ 8:26 PM 2 comments
Email data roaming
Select Menu > Tools > Settings > Connection >
Access point groups.
Your device allows roaming between wireless access
technologies, such as WLAN and GPRS, for e-mail. For
example, you can start an e-mail session at home and
continue the session on your way to work. While your
session continues uninterrupted, your handheld device
switches from WLAN to GPRS and back to WLAN when
you arrive at your workplace.
This is big. First of all, there is a default setting that will cause the device to automatically to roam on wifi when gprs is absent. On WM5, you have to switch manually. That will give greater overall coverage (gprs + wifi) at lower costs and higher speeds.
This implies a seemless handoff. This big trick is not in the Windows Media 5 playbook right now, and could give Symbian a big boost in the OS race -- this function could save a lot of dough for corporate customers with international roamers who don't rack up extra charges roaming on gprs when they could be on low-cost wifi.
I assume this is a basic function of Symbian 9 and not unique to the E61. ¶ 8:26 PM 2 comments
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Origami vs. N770
Microsoft is going after the tablet internet device market that Nokia identified with the N770.
Interesting to see how Microsoft and Nokia are going head to head in several different areas -- on the mobile device os (Symbian vs. WM 5), push email (Nokia Business Center vs. Exchange Server), and now tablets. It's sad for me to say, but it's hard to see how Nokia can win any of these fights for a couple of reasons: first, Microsoft's natural advantage because of dominance on the desktop plus dominance in the email server market leading to easier transition for end user and IT staff; second, Microsoft's ruthless price competition -- basically giving away WM5 for free in order to get a foothold in mobile email; and third, getting quantity of devices to markets in more channels than Nokia can accomplish (witness the new WM5 quadband/wifi devices released simultaneously in both T-Mobile and Cingular retail outlets -- and where's the N61?).
They need to flood retail channels with Symbian devices in the US, fast, or risk being shut out. They are behind 14-0 at the end of the first quarter, to use a football analogy. While I haven't used Symbian 9, I'm confident it will be a better product. The question is, will most people in the US ever get to see it? ¶ 7:32 AM 0 comments
Interesting to see how Microsoft and Nokia are going head to head in several different areas -- on the mobile device os (Symbian vs. WM 5), push email (Nokia Business Center vs. Exchange Server), and now tablets. It's sad for me to say, but it's hard to see how Nokia can win any of these fights for a couple of reasons: first, Microsoft's natural advantage because of dominance on the desktop plus dominance in the email server market leading to easier transition for end user and IT staff; second, Microsoft's ruthless price competition -- basically giving away WM5 for free in order to get a foothold in mobile email; and third, getting quantity of devices to markets in more channels than Nokia can accomplish (witness the new WM5 quadband/wifi devices released simultaneously in both T-Mobile and Cingular retail outlets -- and where's the N61?).
They need to flood retail channels with Symbian devices in the US, fast, or risk being shut out. They are behind 14-0 at the end of the first quarter, to use a football analogy. While I haven't used Symbian 9, I'm confident it will be a better product. The question is, will most people in the US ever get to see it? ¶ 7:32 AM 0 comments
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Big N80 news
Friedbrains on Hofo, who always spots the S60 phones the SECOND they get Bluetooth certification posted, saw that 2 variants of the N80 got approved - one with 2100 band WCDMA and one with 1900 band. That means the US will likely see the phone sooner rather than later (before Cingular gets a dual 850/1900 WCDMA band phone to sell) and the whole world may see it by the end of March.
¶ 4:36 PM 0 comments
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Nokia's Blackberry Killer - from Red Herring
Article on 9300i and E61 in Red Herring.
¶ 7:23 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Yahoo! Go? Yahoo! No! (from the Reg)
This post by Andrew Orlowski is largely on target. I also found Yahoo! Go to be a massive memory suck that didn't do much that I couldn't already do with other services and utilities (push email - using the built in 6681 client and Seven Always on mail -check; Yahoo! news and info - using my wap browser - check; synchronization of my snaps with my desktop using Nokia PC suite - check). I liked the Yahoo! messenger software as well, but this can be done about as good as with IM Plus that also does other IM services as well. I do think that v2 of Yahoo! Go could be better if they listened to users and made it less intrusive regarding alerts and slimmed down the memory usage so it doesn't interfere with other apps.
(And by the way, email push on a more frequent basis would make that function more useful.) ¶ 11:17 AM 0 comments
(And by the way, email push on a more frequent basis would make that function more useful.) ¶ 11:17 AM 0 comments
