Had an informal gathering with Nokia, Text100 and several bloggers at The Straits which is located at 31 Pekin Street, Far East Square. At first when I heard of The Straits, it was referring to the The Straits Kitchen located at Hyatt Hotel. Luckily the full address is given, if not I will be going to the wrong place. The last informal Nokia event was held on the 13th June 2008. How time flies, 2 months just passed like that.

We get to play with the Nokia N79, N85 as well as the long due N96. I would like to say that my views are PURELY based on the prototypes as N79 and N85 will not be launching that soon. For the N96, it is quite closed to the final as it will shipping next month (September 2008) and the RRP for it is SGD$1258.

Nokia N79
The first phone that I got to play with is the N79 and it is the successor of N78. It is the smallest Nseries device that is built by Nokia so far and indeed it is small. The build quality of it is solid, similar to that of my N82.

As you all may know, the Xpress-on cover is back. I have not heard of that term for a long time. This time instead of paying separately for the covers, Nokia has decided to bundle 2 other colors cover within the package. 2 colors of the N79 will be available, Canvas White as well as the Seal Grey. The Canvas White will come with the the cover color of “Olive Green” as well as “Light Sea Blue” and the Seal Grey will come with the cover color of “Coral Red” and “White”. Both sets of the N79 will come with a default cover color which is Espresso Brown.

I am quite impressed by the Xpress-on cover. For example, if you change the cover to Olive Green, your S60 OS’s theme will also change to Olive Green. There is a chip located below at the back of the cover that does the magic.

The shutter speed for the N79 has been increased and hence it takes lesser time to snap a photograph an hence when taking a slow moving object, it will not be that distorted anymore.

Nokia also added Nokia’s Widsets to the phone. WidSets is a clever service that brings the Internet to your cell phone. You can have your Twitter, Friendster, Flikr, Digg, Wikipedia, etc services within the application.

The N79 also has an accelerometer and this time it can rotate any screen within the OS itself (even the main menu). Just rotate the phone, and the screen will be rotated as well. It is much better than my N82 when they first introduce the accelerometer where it can only rotate certain screens.

The N79 will have the common stuff such as 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

The only thing I do not like about N79 is the menu key as well as the clear key. The left and right screen key as well as the answer/hang-up key are “popup” but on the other hand the menu key as well as the clear key are flat and hence it is a little harder to press the menu and the clear key or worst still you will press the wrong key like me. I tested it and when clearing my message, instead of pressing the clear key, I pressed onto the right screen key.

Nokia N85
The Nokia N85 is the direct successor of N81 and N81 8GB. It is built for playing N-Gage games similar to the N81. The N81 is a normal sliding phone but the N85 is a dual slider phone.

The N85 spot a new OLED screen never seen before in the Nseries. With this screen, whatever is displayed on the screen is brighter, sharper and consume lesser power. You can definitely notice the difference.

The keypad on the N85 is very flat and hence it is very difficult for me to press. I have to press the menu key quite hard for it to recognize my action.

Similar to the N79, it also have faster shutter speed, Nokia’s Widsets, accelerometer, 5 megapixels camera, dual LED lights as well as GPS.

A lot of people are saying N85 is the N96 killer as N85 has better screen and much better battery life. You can read about the comparison here.

Nothing to say much about the N96 as I have discuss it many times. I personally think that it is a long due phone since February 2008, it has been more than 6 months and finally it will be launched next month. If Nokia were to launched it before June 2008, I think it would be good as I think that the N85 will eat into the market share of N96 as they are very similar and DVB-H is not ready in Singapore.

Nokia N79 and N85 will launched sometime in October 2008.

Once again, do note my views are still based on early prototypes and some of this problems may get solved before the actual release.

PS: I forgot to bring my Canon iXUS 860IS as well as my Nokia N82 and hence when I use my iPhone to take the pictures of the phones, it turns out to be crap and hence I did not upload it. iPhone camera really not up to standard.

Introduction
Nokia announced the N-Gage platform last August during Nokia: Go Play event held in London (global press conference) as well as in Singapore (Asia Pacific press conference). As some of you might recognize N-Gage as being referred to as gaming mobile phones ( N-Gage Classic and N-Gage QD) 5 years ago. Nokia has since moved on to using a software approach where N-Gage can be accessed on almost all the later mobile phones rather than being tied down to specific devices. N-Gage games used to be cartridges but now it is distributed straight to the N-Gage platform using Ovi (Nokia’s “umbrella concept” Internet services).
I was invited by Nseries WOM World to beta test the N-Gage platform and share my views and thoughts with the rest of my readers. They sent me a Nokia N81 8GB all the way from UK to Singapore came fully loaded with my N-Gage Profile and 4 unlocked (full version) games.

I am not really a mobile games person as I normally do not play games on my mobile phone. But after playing around with N-Gage for about 1 week, I am kinda addicted to playing games on the N-Gage when I am waiting for someone or I got nothing to do.

In this first impression review, I will do a walkthrough of the N-Gage application came installed in N81, N82 and N95 8GB.
Read More (753 More Words, 12 More Images)

Nseries WOM World has selected me to help Nokia beta test N-Gage and they even sent me a Nokia N81 8GB all the way from UK to Singapore by DHL.

According to the user agreement, the phone will be on loan to me for 2 weeks, but hopefully they can extend it for me as I am still waiting for my Nokia N82 from Nokia Singapore (it has been 3 months, sigh).

The N81 come with 4 fully unlocked games. Space Impact is a plane shooting game, Block Breaker is like Pong, System Rush Evolution is a futuristic racing game (similar to Wipeout). Among all these 4 games, my personal favorite is the Block Breaker. It is quite additive and I am stuck at the 1st boss stage!

Feel free to add me as a friend on N-Gage. My N-Gage profile is 1stGamerz.

I would like to thank Donna from WOM World for selecting me =)

DHL Parcel

DHL Parcel Opened (Bubble Wrap Protecting The Phone)

Nokia N81 8GB

I was not at home when the delivery man came at 11am as I was in school and when I got back home about 9pm, I called the DHL hotline and I am so surprise that a real human answered my call immediately. I always have the impression that those large corporations always use machine voice asking you to press this and press that before you can speak to a real human. While I was on hold with the customer service staff, I heard my door bell ring and when I opened, it was the DHL delivery man! He was making his 2nd attempt delivery for my parcel. Thumbs up to DHL for the excellent service.

Bored? Never again – Nokia N81 8GB now shipping
October 22, 2007

Get and play music and games on the move

Espoo, Finland – Mobile entertainment just got more fun with the Nokia N81 and Nokia N81 8GB multimedia computers now available globally. Designed for the best in music and gaming, these devices come with dedicated music and game keys and are loaded with memory so you can store more and play more.

The 3D Multimedia Menu introduced in these devices is the first step to bringing a new user interface to the Nokia Nseries range. The new menu makes it easy to discover and enjoy your digital content and the Internet, and share your experiences with others.

“Accessing your portable music and games collection is not enough anymore,” said Jonas Geust, vice president, Multimedia, Nokia. “Today people want to be more in control of how and where they consume their digital entertainment. They want to discover new favorites and share them without being confined to one location – and it’s devices like the Nokia N81 that facilitate this.”

The Nokia N81 and Nokia N81 8GB also offer the discovery of millions of tracks through the Nokia Music Store*. And, with their integrated Nokia Music Players, creating playlists and managing music collections on the move is a breeze. For enhanced sound quality, compatible high-quality headphones or speakers can be used with the standard 3.5mm headphone connector.

A preview of the N-Gage games service is also available in the devices, including playable demos of EA SPORTS(TM) FIFA 07, Asphalt 3: Street Rules and Space Impact Light. After the launch of N-Gage later this year, the full N-Gage application will be available for download. Players can then try all N-Gage games for free and buy only the ones they want.

The estimated retail price of the Nokia N81 is 360 EUR before subsidies or taxes. The Nokia N81 8GB is expected to retail for 430 EUR before subsidies or taxes.

Source: Nokia Press Release