Nokia N97 Review

While trying to get my hands on a Nokia N97 and write my own review, our friends at PhoneMag posted a full review of the Nokia N97 inclusive of an unboxing video and some great photos. If you are one of those eagerly anticipating to own one, then this review is worth reading.



The Nokia N97 is a S60 5th Edition mobile computer with a large 3,5“, bright nHD (640 x 360 pixels and 16:9 aspect ratio) TFT color display with resistive touch screen and tactile feedback. The device provides excellent user experience for internet and entertainment by combining qwerty keyboard with touch UI and Home screen functionality. Use the N97 to connect to mobile broadband using WLAN or HSDPA (3.5G). Find directions and locations with the integrated A-GPS and included maps. Additional features include game titles with N-Gage, a 5 mega pixel camera with dual LED flash and automatic geotagging of images and videos.

Nokia has announced that the N97 touchscreen smartphone is available to U.S. customers in Nokia flagship stores in New York and Chicago and several online retailers. Nokia is offering the N97 for a commitment-free price of $699. In addition to the flagship stores, the N97 is available at nokiausa.com and through independent retailers.

If you still want more hands-on info about N97, then check out this video.

Sony Designing a New PSP Phone

Reuters report that Sony is looking to develop a PSP Phone hybrid to compete head on against Apple's iPhone. We may have been hearing rumors like these so many times but now it makes a lot of sense. This might be Sony's move to differentiate their PSP from Nintendo and confront the iPhone threat. The PSP has sold over 50 million units worldwide in the past 4 years, while Apple has already reached over 40 million units sold in the past 2 years. It might also act as a decent salve over the lukewarm reception of the pricey PSPgo. But then, if this is a real one, we likely will be waiting for a while before we see any resulting product to come.

Microsoft Windows 7 Pricing Announced

Most of us are excited for Windows 7 but have some reservations regarding how expensive it's going to be. Fret no more, at least now the mystery is over as Redmond has finally made its 7 pricing official. Those of you planning to upgrade from XP or Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium, Professional or Ultimate will have need to come up with $119.99, $199.99 or $219.99 respectively, while those who opt for a brand new retail copy will have to spend $199.99, $299.99 or $319.99. If that’s too rich for your blood, don’t resolve yourself to piracy just yet — limited pre-orders start tomorrow with Home Premium upgrades running $49.99 and Professional upgrades coming in at $99.99.



More good news: If you absolutely need to replace a dying computer ASAP, you should feel pretty good because nearly everyone who buys a new Windows computer as of tomorrow should be able to get a free upgrade to Windows 7 (although not all manufacturers are participating in this program).

Source: Windows Team Blog

Apple iPhone 3G S Reveals Innard on its First Disassembly Guide

Even if it's beginning to get more like a norm to teardown new gadgets as soon as it hits the market, we still cannot help but cringe each time they "dissected" any given gadget.

RapidRepair is the first to take a pristine iPhone 3G S and crack it open, having queued up outside the Orange Boutique in Paris earlier on today, revealing the magic hidden inside its impeccable casing.




The Paris store was selling the iPhone 3G S from midnight local time on July 19th, which basically means 6PM EST on July 18th. RapidRepair couldn’t even wait to get home to get things started, so the first iPhone 3G S breakdown was done in a nearby Mac repair store.

It’s still quite early to identify clearly components in detail, but already the obvious differences with the iPhone 3G have been spotted. The LCD has a new driver package, and components on the end of the cable have been changed. The battery in the new smartphone “looks very similar” to that of the previous, though compatibility is not confirmed as yet.

The brains of the iPhone 3G S is its Samsung SoC S5PC100, with an ARM Cortex A8 processor and Toshiba NAND flash memory. Previous iPhone 3G S leaks suggested it runs at 600MHz and has 256MB of RAM; for full implications of the changes, and what the new SoC brings, AnandTech have a detailed summary.

Intel rebranding with Core i3, i5 and i7 while Centrino shifted to WiFi/WiMAX

Intel announced that it will be rebranding its CPU range to simplify its lineup, focusing on the “Intel Core” prefix and transitioning the Centrino brand to cover the company’s WiFi and WiMAX products. Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 will eventually replace Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad, distinguishing different feature sets; but confusingly, some processors will slot into multiple i-prefix categories, depending on their capabilities.



For instance, the upcoming Lynnfield desktop processor will be an Intel Core chip, but have various models that slot into the i5 or i7 segments. Broadly speaking, i3 is an entry-level chip, i5 is a mid-level chip and i7 is the flagship high-level processor. It’s not all change, though, as the Celeron and Pentium brands went on to cover “affordable entry-level” and “basic computing” respectively.

Finally, one of the most popular chips over the last twelve months, the Atom range of processors, will also survive, and vPro technology will be offered on certain i5 or i7 chips. There’ll also be a new star-system, shown under the Intel Core logo, which indicates whether its feature-packed or not.

First look at iPhone 3G S Which Starts Selling Friday June 19

The iPhone 3GS will be coming out Friday June 19 tomorrow. From the looks of it, it looks just like the iPhone 3G, but it does sport some serious differences, and some serious addons you should know about. And while nothing is perfect, we think it’s a step in the right direction for Apple.



Let’s start it off with the best stuff. The iPhone 3GS is fast. They say it's what "S" stands for, "Speed". And while it might sport similar feature set to the 3G, the 3GS’ speed boost makes it worth it. The screen has an oleophobic coating, that’s meant to repel grease and fingerprints. And while it might not look much different in the grease department than the 3G, it really does work better, even if totally coated.

Everything really loads much faster now. That includes turning on the phone and loading up apps. This also means there are more opportunities for apps and games now, with a 600MHz processor and 256 RAM.

Other new features that are pros in our opinion includes the updated 3-megapixel camera, which sports auto focus and video recording capability. But still, the lack of flash is still disheartening, but the video quality is pretty impressive. It’s capable of 30fps and really smooth in motion. There’s even limited clip cropping abilities on the phone.

The Compass is cool, simple and easy to use. It detects North easily, no matter how you hold the phone and syncs up nicely with Google Maps, showing you precisely where you are at any given time. More good news is that Voice Control works pretty well. It recognizes what you’re saying fairly well, though background sound tends to cause issues.

Battery life has improved. The only real negative we’ve noticed so far on the iPhone 3GS which I believe everyone will agree is the price it’ll cost you to upgrade if you’re still on an AT&T plan and the AT&T network in general. With numerous problems with the network, it’s kind of a shame such a high-featured phone is limited to a feature-lacking network. Also, if you already have the iPhone 3G, this model might not feel like a worthy upgrade to you to justify buying a whole new phone.

Apple's retail stores open their doors on Friday, June 19, at 8 a.m. local time. AT&T's retail stores will open an hour earlier, at 7 a.m. local time, but only for people who pre-ordered via the Web or at a store. (According to The Boy Genius Report, AT&T had sold out its pre-order allotment by Saturday, June 13, and any subsequent pre-orders won't be shipped to a local store for pick-up until seven to 14 days after the order date.)

AT&T will let customers who didn't pre-order into its stores starting at 8 a.m. local time.

Best Buy and Wal-Mart, the other two outlets selling iPhones, will open at their usual business hours on Friday.

What countries get the iPhone 3G S on Friday? Apple said that customers in the U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the U.K. get first crack at the new iPhone. Other countries will begin to sell their shipments of the upgrade starting July 9.

Anything for someone has an iPhone but doesn't want to shell out $200 (or more) for a new one? You get iPhone 3.0, the newest upgrade to the iPhone's software, which Apple launched on Wednesday, June 17. Among the new features: copy-paste, MMS, Spotlight search and landscape-mode keyboard.

iPhone 3.0 is free to iPhone owners, but costs iPod Touch users $9.95.

Apple and AT&T also reduced the price of the existing iPhone 3G 8GB to $99, so if you have $100 and an aging first-generation iPhone, you can go that route. Have a little more cash? For $149, you can pick up the 16GB iPhone 3G from AT&T and Best Buy.

Nokia N97 Mini Coming Late this Year

A moderator at the Vodafone View forums has claimed that the carrier will be releasing a “Nokia N97 Mini” in Ireland later this year. The phone is described as “competitively” priced, which the rumor suggests will “appeal to a wider segment of customers”; as such, the Nokia N97 will not be launched in Ireland.



No other details regarding the “N97 Mini” have been disclosed, but if this is real, it is presumably a simpler and smaller version of the N97 which has just launched in the US.

The moderator goes on to confirm that Vodafone Ireland will not be offering the Palm Pre, due to another carrier having exclusivity. It’s unstated, but previous rumors have tipped rival O2 as clinching the Pre. Finally, it’s confirmed that the BlackBerry Storm 2 is coming to Vodafone Ireland as well, though there’s no word on exactly when that might happen.

Source: MobileBurn

Xbox 360 with Jasper motherboard and 512MB storage hitting US stores

We were all excited when Jasper motherboards started showing up in Xbox 360 consoles late last year -- quieter fans, more efficient design, and 256MB of internal storage to set gamers free of overpriced memory cards. Now Xbox 360 with Jasper mobos are receiving an unannounced storage boost, with an XboxHacker forum member braza noticing that his Japanese Arcade model sported a 4Gb (gigabits) Samsung NAND chip. That's twice the size of the old one, giving the equivalent of a 512MB internal memory unit. That first system was manufactured in April, and they're starting to hit US Arcade units as well. As of now we're not sure if there's a way to tell from outside the box whether you have this revision of Jasper, but we're sure your local retailer wouldn't mind if you just bought their entire stock of consoles and ripped them all open to see.



Source: Xbox-Scene

Nokia E72 And 5530 XpressMusic Are Now Official

After a successful promotional video leakage over the weekend, Nokia have officially unveiled the E72 - their new QWERTY smartphone followup to the fantastic E71- at the Connection 09 event in Singapore.



Compared to its older brother, the E72 will see its camera upgraded to 5 megapixels along with the addition of an integrated compass, an optical navigation key (not unlike the BlackBerry Gemini's) and sensibly a 3.5mm headphone jack. Nokia say the S60 handset features a "desktop like email experience" and will begin shipping third quarter of 2009 for $485 without contract.

Also revealed was the 5530 XpressMusic - essentially a smaller, cheaper 5800 - featuring a 2.9 inch widescreen display, 3.2 megapixel camera with LED flash and a 4GB memory card. The GSM/EDGE phone doesn't use 3G but can at least connect via wifi; it will also be available third quarter of 2009 for around $275 unsubsidized.

Olympus E-P1 Micro Four Thirds camera early revelation

Olympus’ E-P1 Micro Four Thirds digital camera is expected to make its official debut on Tuesday, but it looks like Olympus' Micro Four Thirds tribute to the classic rangefinder has leaked out and looking every bit as handsome as ever. The E-P1 is, according to the latest spec-leak, expected to have a 13-megapixel sensor, 200-6400 ISO range and 60-1/4000 shutter speed, together with supporting 720p video recording.



According to the leak, the E-P1 will also support up to 7 minutes of 720p recording or up to 14 minutes of 480p resolution recording. Stills can be captured in RAW, JPEG or RAW plus JPEG formats, and there’s a Liveview LCD with electronic shake correction.

Eleven-area autofocus round out the leak. It’s expected to be priced at ¥90,000 ($917) for the kit, with a bundle including both 17mm and 14-42mm lenses coming in at ¥130,000 ($1,324). Alternatively the 17mm lens is believed to be priced at ¥10,000 ($101) while the 14-42mm version is ¥35,000 ($356).

Sony PSP Go! Drops Mini USB, Requires New Accessories

Sony’s PSP Go! might be the latest miniature masterpiece you'll get, but it can also shrink your wallet, too. Set to conquer the handheld gaming world in the US on October 1st, the all-digital UMD less PSP will not only cost twice as much as its bigger sibling, but require all new accessories thanks to a crafty change of port type.



Rather than using a mini USB port, as with previous PSP does, the PSP Go! has a new, multifunction socket on the bottom of the handheld. That keeps down space, of course, but it also means that accessories existing PSP owners already have will not be compatible anymore with the new console.

Sony, unsurprisingly, are lining up a new range of PSP Go! accessories - including USB cables, AV cables, AC adapters, wrist-straps and screen protectors - that will play happily with their new gadget, but that’s no use to the people who have already spent significant amounts of money on older PSP models like the PSP-2000 and PSP-3000 add-ons. The company’s own GPS module and chat keyboards won’t work, and neither will hundreds of third-party accessories.

Palm Pre Goes on Sale Today

Palm Pre officially goes on sale today from Sprint, its first multi-touch phone and what's been regarded as the most promising contender with the iPhone. Initial reports of stocks show that both supply and demand vary heavily depending on the region: Sprint stores, particularly in major cities like New York, have relatively large supply of as much as 100 or more. However, third-party stores like Best Buy and Radio Shack have relatively much smaller supply and little to no queuing.



Leaks from within Best Buy ahead of the launch had suggested the retailer may not have healthy supply until July this year, prompting speculation either that Sprint's stores were favored much more heavily than others or else that supply was so low that third-party stores couldn't be guaranteed reliable quantity of stock. However, nothing surfaced about Radio Shack's availability ahead of today's debut.

The Pre's key selling point is its webOS, which debuts on the phone. Besides offering a comparatively intuitive, finger-driven interface and full HTML web browsing, it offers a handful of key features that will be absent from its Apple rival even with iPhone OS 3.0, including true multitasking for features such as background Internet radio, universal search that includes Google, Twitter and Wikipedia, and an online sync concept known as Synergy that can merge contacts and calendars from the phone, Google and Facebook while automatically eliminating duplicates. Lighter restrictions on third-party apps allow PalmOS emulation.

A 3-megapixel camera and a slide-out hardware QWERTY keyboard are its key advantages over the current iPhone; otherwise, it has 3G, 8GB of built-in storage, GPS and Wi-Fi much like its key challenger at the $199 price point.

Both Palm and Sprint are depending heavily on a successful launch to turn around struggling businesses but have been helped by mostly positive pre-release reviews that praise the operating system while raising concerns about the keyboard and some minor but notable build quality concerns.

3rd Gen iPhone Photos Leaked

Are these really photos of the new iPhone? It’s a question that will keep on bugging us until the real one is officially revealed. This could also be something related to Apple’s WWDC on Monday. This leakage came from an Italian iPhone site iSpazio that released what are claimed to be shots of the upcoming model, complete with shifted ports, new controls and a tweaked chassis.





The leaked photos show a redesigned fascia with two slots at the top, as well as a different casing shape and an apparent matte finish. Plus a discrete LED indicator embedded in the front panel.

The headphone socket has also seemingly moved, from the top edge of the handset down to the bottom as on the iPod touch, and there appears to be a button on the lower right-side edge of the handset that, given similar controls on other cellphones, could be a camera button. The lower slot on the fascia could be front-facing camera, its been suggested, with the LED an indicator as on the iSight webcam embedded into MacBook notebook displays.

Personally I'd like to be skeptical about these photos, but I have to admit, these pictures do look promising. What's your verdict? Could this in fact be a first look at the next iPhone?

Source 1
Source 2

Sleek Black Nintendo Wii and Red Hot DSi Coming This Summer

A sleek black Wii and a red hot DSi are coming straight out of Nintendo Japan. The black Wii (or what they call "KURO Wii" to be precise) is particularly interesting as it's been rumored for over almost two years now. Maybe not that very interesting but hey, it sure looks snappy... right? Expect the ¥25,000 black Wii with matching black-colored Wiimote, nunchuck, and classic controller to hit Japan on August 1st and the ¥18,900 red DSi on July 11th.

Finally, Nokia N97 Launching This Month

Nokia have announced that N97 will go on sale worldwide this month. No word on pricing yet for the 3.5-inch touchscreen handset, nor specific availability dates, but UK will apparently get it unlocked and SIM-free from Nokia in June 19.



SIM-free, the N97 is priced at around £500; that will be followed by a June 26th launch on the various carriers in the UK, with no word on pricing but a clear possibility of picking up the N97 free with a sufficiently expensive tariff. The N97 is already available to preorder in the US, priced at around $455 after discounts.

Your money gets you a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, S60 5th Edition OS, WiFi, GPS, HSPA and of course that 3.5-inch resistive touchscreen. However we’re also wary of the potentially low-powered CPU Nokia have fitted the N97 with; we’ll have to wait for the final model to see if that undermines the smartphone.

Official Nokia Press Release:

Nokia N97 mobile computer to begin selling worldwide in June

Espoo, Finland - The highly anticipated Nokia N97, Nokia’s flagship mobile computer, will begin selling in June in more than 75 countries. Along with a tilting 3.5″ touch display, QWERTY keyboard and a fully customizable home screen, the Nokia N97 will offer instant access to the full range of Ovi services.

“The Nokia N97 is an important step towards our vision of delivering a highly personalized Internet experience,” said Jonas Geust, Vice President and head of Nokia Nseries. “Fuelled by a multitude of music, maps, games, media and applications via Ovi, the Nokia N97 transforms the Internet into an experience that’s completely tailored to the tastes and interests of its owner.”

The Nokia N97 is Nokia’s first device to feature a personalizable home screen, which can be customized with a range of widgets which bring live information directly to the device. These widgets include key social networking destinations like Facebook and Hi5, news services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as shopping and weather information. The Nokia N97 is the first device to ship with the Ovi Store, which offers easy access to applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services, and much more. Ovi Store has paid and free content from a range of global and local content providers and developers, including Paramount Pictures, Facebook and Qik, as well as a selection of Twitter applications.

Enjoy your upgrades
The beauty of this Nokia device is that taking it out of the box is just the beginning. As with any computer, people can constantly improve and refresh their Nokia N97 with new features, functions and fixes so they can do even more with the device. An exciting roadmap of new features and functions is planned to roll out in the second half of 2009.

Entertainment ensured
The Nokia N97 also has direct access to the huge catalogue of music in the Nokia Music Store. With multiple high-speed connectivity options and 32GB of storage (up to 48GB using a microSD card) it is possible to directly download and store tens of thousands of songs on the handset. And you can listen to your favourite music on the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-905, which Nokia also launched today. This headset brings crystal clear sound, eliminates background noise, and is the ideal accessory for listening to music and making calls on the Nokia N97, as well as being compatible with a diverse range of other mobile and music devices.

High-quality images and video clips at 30 frames per second (fps) can be captured using the 5 megapixel camera with integrated Carl Zeiss optics. Images can also be geo-tagged to specific locations and shared instantly with friends or uploaded online via Ovi Share, Twitter or Flickr.

About Nokia
Nokia is a pioneer in mobile telecommunications and the world’s leading maker of mobile devices. Today, we are connecting people in new and different ways - fusing advanced mobile technology with personalized services to enable people to stay close to what matters to them. We also provide comprehensive digital map information through NAVTEQ; and equipment, solutions and services for communications networks through Nokia Siemens Networks.

Microsoft Bing Search Engine Goes Live

Microsoft’s new search engine has created quite buzz since its introduction a few days ago. Finally, the search engine is now live for everyone to test. But Microsoft seems to have it optimized for English speaking users from the United States and the UK who get more functionality than someone from non-english speaking countries.

Users from the United States get previews of the contents of each site by hovering the mouse cursor over a search result while users from unsupported countries do not get these previews. The previews can contain up to five links to other content of the site which is a very interesting feature as search engines usually limit the exposure to one or two links to a site on each page. Many aspects of Bing look like Google Search (But It's Not Google - BING). There are also sponsored advertisements on top of the search results pages and on the left and some content related images will be added where appropriate to the results.



Bing also categorizes search results appropriately. A search for let's say a city like New York will start with all results on the top and display categories like maps, weather, travel or attractions below each with a handful of search results. This is actually an interesting concept as it might aid inexperienced users in their search. Experienced users on the other hand will perform targeted searches to find the information they are looking for.

Bing will display the categories, related searches and the search history on the left. The image search of Bing displays image results on an infinite scrolling page with some nice features like an option to filter images by size, layout, color, style or people, and a virtual map that can be displayed for location based searches. It will for instance link pictures to locations on the map.

Bing's Video search makes it possible to play videos directly on the results page. This can be done by hovering the mouse over a video or by clicking on the play button that appears when hovering over the video. Videos can also be filtered by length, resolution, screen size or source. Bing seems to have improved over Windows Live, especially for popular search terms.