We have more Lumia 800 accessories to check out – thanks again to MobileFun. I wanted to find a similar product for the N9 but mobilefun was out of stock so that’ll have to wait some other time.

http://www.mobilefun.co.uk/nokia-cp-022n-nokia-lumia-800-alpha-flip-case-white-p33194.htm

There are a myriad of cases available for the Lumia 800 but this is the nicest one. The flippy part connects to the magnet the moment you close it. In other ones you have to fold the flap that has the magnet to catch the magnet at the base to keep the case closed. It’s also quite easy to just flick it open with a finger.

I wasn’t usually a fan of such cases but what I like about this is that it’s always on. When i have a pouch, the pouch ends up going on an excursion and isn’t seen for a couple of days.

So this is great for me as it will protect both the screen and that metal strip at the back – both the weakest points on the N9/800. They won’t break as such but they will get minor hairline scratches from dust/pocket lint. Knives/nails/concrete – ok but place it on a table that isn’t smooth as a baby’s bum and it’ll get scratched. :/ You only see the scratches when the screen is off or if you take a picture of it with flash on so for those who want to be using their Lumia but keep it pristine, this is a good option and a great case for that.

Durability wise, the only thing that concerns me is the plastic stubs on the side that keep the Nokia Lumia 800 held in place. Steve had a similar case where in the sides broke as he kept taking the 800 out too much (to show other folks how nice it looks) and had dropped it.

The N9 fits this case as you’d expect but the flash would be in the wrong position.

So earlier this evening, I attended Lumia Lounge, Nokia Australia’s event to introduce the Nokia Lumia 610 and Lumia 900 to the Australian media. I got to play around with the 610 and 900 all night. I am really surprised at the size of the 900. Initially I thought it would be too large for me, but I think it fits quite well in your hand. However, any bigger, would definitely be rather uncomfortable.

On to the devices. The Lumia 610 and 900 will both be arriving in Australia next month. Upon launch, the 610 will be priced at AUD$329, and available with Boost Mobile, and later on with Vodafone in July. No comment was made regarding this 610 having NFC, so assume it doesn’t. The Lumia 900 will launch on Optus, next month, retailing for AUD$699. The Lumia 900, sadly for those wanting to get it on Telstra, will not support their 4G network. Although, it has HDSPA+ Dual Carrier support, compared to the Lumia 610 supporting HSDPA.

Colours of the Lumia 610 will range from glossy white and blue, to matte black and magenta. I like the way the bezel on the 610 is coloured to match the device. The Lumia 900 of course comes in glossy white, matte black and blue, with no confirmation of magenta. The matte black had a textured feel to it, very different to the 800, and seemed to be a lighter shade in my opinion.

After using the devices throughout the event, I found the Lumia 610 to be a little bit snappier, compared to the Lumia 900. Both of these will be launching with the latest update, “Tango”, and have WiFi tethering out the box. Great news for those who have been complaining that the Lumias are missing this feature. They both also have the new “Nokia Marketplace” logo.

The general feel seemed to be rather positive, especially towards the affordability of the Lumia 610, and impressed by the beauty of the White Lumia 900. At the event, there was a DC-16 charger getting lots of exposure and heaps of positive feedback. Hopefully we will see that come here, in the near future.

I should be getting a Lumia 610 and Lumia 900 fairly soon to review, so I will hopefully have a detailed video comparison soon.

If there is anything you want to know that I’ve left out, just comment or send me a tweet.

Michael

HtheB posted his process as follows;

I bought a cheap iPhone bluetooth slide-case, and a cheap N9 case on eBay.

I unscrewed the case to get rid of the iPhone case, to just have the bluetooth keyboard with the slider.

Then, I just made holes in the cheap N9-case and screwed the slider on it.

Turn on the device, pair them and the result: N9 with a keyboard!

So essentially, all this “mod” is, is swapping out the iPhone case on a BT keyboard, for the N9 case. There are still drawbacks, like being able to hide the VKBD while using the BT keyboard, but that is being worked on. There have been posts in the past (don’t remember where I saw them), where the community was trying to get these keyboards made specifically for the N9. At the moment, this is the best solution.

He has posted several photos as well as a video. Take a look below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-9GuzIT8_8

Source: TMO

Michael

I’ve been itching for one of these for a long, long time but Nokia UK/Nokia Connects didn’t (and still don’t) have any trial units. Fortunately Nokia Australia had one for Michael – you might have seen his post back in February:

http://mynokiablog.com/2012/02/10/accessories-nokia-play-360-speaker/

That was based on two weeks of use.

Well, last week I got contacted by Katie who’s working on something called ‘Best British Bloggers’ and wanted us to take a look at some accessories from www.phones4u.co.uk, one of the major UK mobile phone retailers. Thanks Katie!

http://www.phones4uaccessories.com/11523/product.htm

I was so excited to see the Play 360 on their list. I’ve only had a brief try of these myself at Nokia events, and yesterday at 6am, the postman brought this mystery package in (I wasn’t sure what it could be at the time as I was expecting another similarly sized box).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJNvKNGmE-k

I really wanted to get two to try out the stereo thing, but they could only do one unit per person. You can also find these on Amazon.

Nokia Play 360 Black - £87.82
Nokia Play 360 White - £107.88
Nokia Play 360 Blue - £119.99

I picked Blue due to it matching the Cyan pair of Monsters I had last week, and of course the Cyan N9.

http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/28/accessories-nokia-purity-hd-cyan-monster-with-nokia-n9-huge-gallery/

Here’s an unboxing and a quick demo again for you guys. This was unboxed yesterday but it took absolutely forever to process (5h -__-) and upload  (estimated 3h) so it’s appearing today instead .

Quick summary of below: I’m really surprised and pleased by how well this works and how good it sounds. I’ve demoed this with the N9 but it works with all bluetooth music capable devices, and those with NFC give it a quick initial pairing touch.

The speakers are quite something. I’ve not had much time with it but all my housemates are impressed, with the volume, the clarity, the bass and how it can just connect by tapping. With the latter, the NFC tapping actually works very well when done properly. Just bring the N9 over to the label that says NFC and tap. I did this wrong the first time in the unboxing as the NFC positioning has to be right and I was not allowing them to make proper contact. You can also see in that video later, how quick NFC connects (and it’s this quick on my subsequent attempts). But without NFC, pairing is also simple. Just hold for 1.5s on the BT button, find and click connect. Subsequent attempts, you can just press the BT button.

For small(ish) portable speakers, it really does pack a punch. I may not use it much around the house as I already have some speakers set up, but when travelling, or having a BBQ outside, or going to the park etc this is absolutely perfect. Pretty much anyone can connect to it and share their music as long as they have bluetooth (that can send music) or 3.5mm jack

They feel great. They’re weighty, but not too light or too heavy. The main body is a cold blue metal.  This is studded with what looks like a speaker grille though the sound does not come out of the side but out of the top.

The top is a cloth material and the bottom is plastic.

The base has a rubber ring to help grip onto surfaces.

There are four buttons in total.  At the front,  (volume +/-), one bluetooth button  (which lights up white when on, blue when connected and pulses blue when trying to pair/find bluetooth device). There’s also a charging light. This is red when charging and turns off when charged.

On/Off button at the back along with the microUSB port and 3.5mm port.

This comes with a pouch that is lined blue on the inside.

It doesn’t fully cover the Play 360 though that does mean it can still be used when in the case (if  you put it in upright with the material bit exposed).

It goes really well with the Cyan N9

BTW, this works for audio of everything except calls. That’s games, incoming messages (which can be read) the keyboard tapping, videos etc. It’s consistent that it will slowly increase the volume of incoming BT transmission as opposed to just suddenly being blaringly loud – this is most useful when playing music and it not suddenly shocking you.

This is a rather loud speaker, definitely enough to fill a room without having to put on maximum volume (yet whilst on max volume, it is not distorted – but make sure the music source is of decent quality).  Very excellent job, Nokia Accesories folks!

Here’s the full gallery:

So, third unboxing, second Monster for the day. This is the official Nokia Purity HD headsets, in Cyan. This arrived just as I finished recording the unboxing for the Beats, but the latter was a replacement so I had some experience with it already.

With this post, I’ll leave it as an unboxing for now, and I’ll get back to it in about a week for some real thoughts. It’s quite a bold attention grabber of a headset, especially in Blue/White/Magenta. Very comfy, very light, almost feels like you’re not wearing it at all.

Thanks Nokia Connects for the trial (I think I still called them WOM in the video ). There are 46 pictures in the gallery, but here are some I’ve selected.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpYedFTBn1U

Amazon Prices for the Nokia Purity HD varies with colour. As of today::

• Black £135.56
• Cyan, £138.74
• Magenta, £124.81
• White, £136.61

The packaging is very much Monster Like: Sleve on outside (with a flap) and folding cardboard box inside. Seems sturdy.

Nice case that stores the Nokia Purity HD

There’s actually a sleeve where you can pop in stuff like the extra cables.

You would find the cables in that box that says Purity HD

Now the headphones

Partnering perfectly with Cyan Nokia N9 (headphone cables with buttons don’t seem to work)

Here’s the 46 picture gallery:

The case/headphones have a curious earthy smell about them, as in it actually smells like soil for some reason.

Got a couple more unboxings to go today (actually filmed yesterday). This is the first of the Monster branded headphones, the ones they’re probably most known for now, Beats. These come in various ranges, with the actual headphones starting at the Solo, Studio and then Pro.

To see what the fuss is all about we have these to try. I actually had the black one only last week, but contrary to reviews it’s not quite built like a tank as one of the hinges just became really lose, flopping around like a broken arm. With the replacement we also picked the alternative ‘white’. Oddly they seem a lot more comfortable than the black one (they didn’t squeeze my ears so much). They are heavy, a lot heavier than say the BH-905 or the Purity that you’ll see in the next post.

This was meant to be more of an unboxing but I thought I’d share some more info since I’ve had a pair of these for over a week and I’d like to concentrate more on the Purity HDs next week (and possibly some Play 360s).

These can be picked up for around £160 on eBay but I’m not sure those are real.
On Amazon they retail for £279.90 (the black was previously £230)

• Beats Pro, White
• Beats Pro, Black

Packaging/Box

Clean, premium looking. The sleeve houses a box that comes in either red (for the black Pros) or white which folds open to reveal the accessories.

Build/Materials:

• Mix of metal and leather, with strong rubbery plastic for the cables, and plastic(?) for the outer cups.

• The leather will either be all black or all white. Cables always red.

The cable is awesome. This is detachable to either left or right side. It is thick and tangle free. Try to bundle it into the usual pile that would cause reverse Houdini knots to spontaneously form in lesser cables causes this to spring back. The thickness is also good for durability. They’ve also attached a 6.5mm jack which can screw over the 3.5mm if you need it. This is attached by a rubbery band that you can loop around the 3.5mm jack if you wanted to take it off. There’s also a telephone cord like portion that’s quite excellent for extending and stretching the cables slightly without pulling on them.

You can attach the cable to either left or right side, and the opposite free 3.5mm becomes a line out where you can ‘daisy chain’, i.e. attaching another headphone to listen to the same song.

Appearance

They look great, certainly eye catching, if not more so simply because of the silly red b.  The two main styles available are the white and black, both with the metal cups. There is a ‘Detox’ Edition that’s mostly all black.

I’m guessing most people would opt for Beats because of their brand presence. They’re the headphones people know about, and without much experience, attribute that they’re something good to consider. Furthermore, they’re more of a fashion thing. I’m seeing a lot more bright big over-ear headphones now than the past few years when it was mostly hidden away in those earphones/in-earphones. I someone like the shape of the ‘studio’ version of these better but I do also really like this outrageous huge over ear thing. In fact, I would actually like the cups to be even bigger.

Comfort

Perhaps it’s something I got used to, but with the black ones, the first time I used them, they really hurt my ears after just an hour of using them. My ears felt warm and for very long periods, they got slightly sweaty. This primarily because the cups can’t fit around your ear if you just rest the headphones on (some other headphones can sit on your ears like a cloche)

Sound

Sound quality – will need to get back to you on this too. I’m not an audiophile but I can say the sound is quite alright if you’re into hip-hop/r’n'b, bassy tracks etc, though there are other options to look into if you’re really just after a particular sound of headphones. Note, also make sure the source/output of your music is high quality, e.g. 320kbps.

Some say the bass is heavy but I’d say that even cheap in-ears have more of that rumble due to the nature of passive vacuum seal. It is quite distinct enough. Mids and highs are quite ok. The overall experience to the sound is very pleasant, though purist after sound quality first may wish to steer away. You will definitely hear some good instrument separation. I haven’t been listening through decent headphones in a while so I was really surprised to hear the same track I’ve been listening too for a while sound so different/clear.

Volume differs greatly depending on what device you plug this into. With phones I can put them to about 60-70% to cut out the surroundings without being too loud. On laptops, well, let’s say Spotify is on Max, I’d put the volume at about 5%. This will again vary. Point: sufficiently loud, especially on laptops (actually painfully loud).

They work quite nicely on both my N9/800 on identical tracks (identical bitrates to desktop). The L shape of the 3.5mm jack connector is very welcome as it bends around the device and doesn’t just stick out.

Sound Isolation/Leakage

Depending on how loud your surroundings are, these have very good passive sound isolation as they create a good enough seal around your ears (with the headbands pushing tightly to cup around your ears).

They aren’t as good in passive sound isolation as in ears that create that sound vacuum in your ears but they’re pretty good. If you try some in-ears and walk along busy traffic, it’s almost impossible to hear that though you would still hear some slight murmurs with these but none too distracting. A comment made by friends are that they can’t hear what I’m listening to, as opposed to others with over ears where there’s annoying sound leakage.

Accessories:

There is a leather bag that’s pretty much useless. I’d prefer a harder case. They don’t really fit the headphones.

There’s also a cleaning cloth and some manuals.

Well, not really but Gerii who tipped this in pointed out that this would make a good companion for your Nokia 808 PureView as it could show the pictures from the 808 at 1:1.

http://www.theverge.com/2012/4/27/2979902/panasonic-nhk-145-inch-8k-plasma-display

Image via http://www.diginfo.tv/

This features an 8K screen, 7680 x 4320 or 33MP.

Now whilst 145″ might be impractical for everyday use, 8K is certainly where we’ll be heading in screen resolution. This reminds me of a post I intended to make some time ago where James Burland talked about the possibility of the Nokia 808 recording 4K video.

There’s no one quite like James Burland when it comes to speculations about technology. Whether it be about Apple or more appropriately for us, Nokia, if you’ve been following him for a while, he’s freakishly always on the money.

James, Mr B has long been passionate about mobile imaging, and for a very, very long time, Nokia has been at the forefront in driving innovation in imaging forward. Here were some links I dug up from his archive, some very, very smart speculations (well I thought I had more links but seem to have lost that draft).

• http://web.me.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/Blog/Entries/2012/4/9_Could_PureView_technology_from_Nokia_support_4K_video_capture.html
• http://web.me.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/Blog/Entries/2012/3/7_Why_a_good_enough_camera_is_no_longer_good_enough.html
• http://web.mac.com/jamesburland/Nokia_Creative/Blog/Entries/2007/9/7_Speculation%3A_Nokia_N99_with_HD_Video_Capture.html

On 4K video, James says it’s about Future Proofing. We’re always hearing now how some phones ‘aren’t doing 1080p’ as if it’s now a standard, but so many years ago, that would be considered crazy on a phone. If you jumped back in time to 2006, I’m sure you’d also get asked why on earth you’d consider recording 1080p or why even you’d have HD screens on a 4.5″ device. James reckons 4K displays will be the norm soon enough.

Imagine if screens would eventually have the same pixel density as the latest HD phones. That would be some insane screen (requiring some insane powering) but it wouldn’t be impossible.

Sources:  theverge.com, jamesburland

Cheers everyone for the tip

Remember that guy who went crazy happy after getting a Nokia Lumia 900?

http://mynokiablog.com/2012/04/11/guy-goes-crazy-happy-after-getting-his-nokia-lumia-900/

I don’t actually know what happened since but somehow Chris Weber (Noki US President) apparently gave him a bunch of Nokia accessories as a gift, including Monster Nokia Purity Headphones, a Play 360, a Nokia shirt and some screen wipes. Neat.

I think it’s cool of Nokia to reach out and get people who love their products (and love to talk about their products) more Nokia Original accessories to play with. The guy still likes every other tech too, but now he has some Nokia Accessories to use and show off to his friends/family/interwebs. It’s not really a new thing. The original Nseries blog, then WOMWorld, now Nokia Connects started by looking for Nokia fans around the world, seeing the vocal ones and getting them connected with Nokia, trying new Nokia stuff (so any conspiracies can stop right there that this is just Lumia).

I picked up a pair of my own Monster b headphones yesterday to see what the fuss is about (Good, though not that good). I hope some day, Nokia UK will get some of these Nokia Purity headphones in stock so I can compare. Their trial people don’t have any it seems (or other stuff I’ve asked to try :s).

By TheTechSurge

Nanko from PhoneArena takes a look at the Nokia Purity in ear phones.  I don’t think they liked it that much.

The written review can be checked out here:

http://www.phonearena.com/reviews/Nokia-Purity-Review_id3000

by PhoneArena