The following bit of information comes from NokiaLino.it- An Italian blogger who recently attended a Lumia 610/900 launch event in Italy; he got some very interesting pieces of information regarding practically all the current Handsets that were announced last February.

The most interesting of which is the fact that “Nokia Carla” Which was supposed to be the successor to Nokia Belle is no longer a thing, apparently Belle FP1 is the same as what Nokia Carla could have been (with other changes maybe coming in FP2). The other interesting fact is that the N8 our beloved Retired Camera Phone king will be getting a “FP1 Lite” as Jay mentioned earlier today (lite obviously due to it’s ridiculously under-powered CPU- I still can’t get over the fact that the Asha 302 that I was playing with had more power- Insert Jeremy Clarkson shouting POWER!~); however he also mentioned that the N8 would get a second update or Belle FP2. FP1 on the N8 will mainly feature the new browser as well as the new Nokia social (maybe the new status bar notifications integration for messages?).

Here’s the original post (after running it through google translate)- whoever he was talking to seemed quite open about Nokias roadmap and plans:

What are the actual dates of the output of the phones announced today?

Then, the dates are approximate because it depends on our willingness volume (said in a nutshell: to fill the warehouses of stores NDR) but by June they will all be available on the market.

The 610 is already out in white and black version, when will the next color?

The other colors will be available within 3 months.

Can you tell me something about 610 NFC?

610 NFC is a different version from that produced at this time and will be available around the end of August.

To answer this question … definitely not upgrade to Windows 8 Phone Lumia also cover the market today?

We say that this is not a question for Nokia but it is a question for Microsoft(I asked the question but I’m sure that will come … I’m a mentalist expert! ahahahah NDR)

A few days ago a story circulated on the net when he was told that Nokia would bring an application to bring the exchange of files via bluetooth on Nokia Lumia, confirmation?

This I swear that I will not say I know! I was not informed about it!

As Nokia is contributing to the development of Windows Phone 8?

We are of course very important partners for development and we are intervening in many areas to bring their own experience of Nokia to Microsoft and then be able to create and innovate with them.

More details on the processors of 808? Models, acronyms and more technical information …

As for the 808 are secret the details of processing, but they are powerful processors, has well 3: for the graphics processing, one for the processing of 41MP and one who supervises the processing of the software.

The contents of the sales package contain dell’808 enclosures with cover lens and tripod?

The sales package is similar to other phones (earphones, charger and USB cable) , you mentioned accessories are sold separately.

One can say that Symbian FP1 and Symbian Belle Carla or this latest update will be released in the coming months?

Then: Carla is no longer a name we use. FP1 is pretty much that was once called Carla.

Nokia Italy is satisfied with the sales results in our country, particularly Lumia?

Clearly, the Lumia is reaching a moment of popularity that meets and makes us proud every day to go to work and produce something that will delight our consumers.

My interpretation/Notes:

• Phones announced today = Lumia 610 & 900- released in June which is less than a week away now.
• The Lumia 610 with NFC will come in August (isn’t that when WP8 is supposed to come out?? Which supports my previous theory
• Microsoft sure have the wraps on the whole WP8 situation, nobody knows what’s going on!
• Partners in Development of WP8 = Some Nokia UI customizations???????
• More vague sales references, hope they really are good.

Source 1 & Source 2

Here’s a pretty cool game that was just released for Symbian devices- it’s called iBomber Defense and it’s pretty sweet.

I think the N9 did a pretty decent job focusing on such small movements on the screen- quite impressive.

http://store.ovi.com/content/224846?clickSource=search&pos=1

Source

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

For quite a few N9 users, Ubuntu is the main OS on their PC. Now, thanks to a member of the Ubuntu One team, an unofficial version of the cloud storage system is now available on our Harmattan devices. It is developed in QML and is quite slick for the little bit that I used it.

In the current release, there are only a few features implemented;

• Browsing files
• Downloading files
• Slick UI

Don’t worry, it won’t stay like this.

I know a lot of you like Videos, so here’s one. It isn’t on the device itself, but using the QT emulator( or VNC?) Xephyr and scratchbox.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6SmAmkLuRw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Z6SmAmkLuRw

It’s not yet available on the Nokia store (although there are plans), but can be downloaded from the source link below.

Source: kryogenix via OMGUbuntu

Cheers DM for the tip!

Prashant sent us the following NaviFirm screenshots which show off two unannounced items in the list, one is something called the “Nokia Reaction” or BH-907, this is obviously a bluetooth headset; but what’s interesting is that it’s the first Nokia accessory to have  FW support; possibly a new item in the range of the Monster Puirities?

The second device is RM-568 (listed as N/A), which is probably NOT a WP device as almost all of the released WP devices start with the code RM-8XX; my guess is that the 568 is probably a Symbian device possibly even an Asha/S40 device; but most probably a low end device.

Apologies in the large gap between the last comparison and this one; but I’ve been swamped with midterms and now finals in a couple of weeks, so many things going on so little time to nap. Anyways today’s comparison is basically a look at  the preloaded functions and capabilities of each device when it comes down to random everyday things that you usually don’t consider while purchasing a device.

What’s covered:

• Alarms- As I mentioned I find both alarms a nuisance to use simply because it takes to much effort to set something so simple, the Lumias is quicker to set due to the presence of an AM/PM toggle; but the double confirmation usually leads to me forgetting the second one and missing the alarm all together. (I know I’m over-complicating things but I’m really a Lazy person so forgive me.)
• Notes- Notes on both devices are great and extremely functional, much more functional than  Symbian, Android or iOS; bringing an almost Office/Word experience to your phone. The ability to sync your notes online practically got rid of any need for Evernote for me; but the downside is that it appears to require an internet network to save any form of note.  (not sure about that.)
• Audio Recording- This might not be high on many people’s lists but it’s important for me as a student- and the fact that it wasn’t included by default on either device is a real shame (also there doesn’t seem to be an option to record phone conversations either), but thankfully there are 3rd party applications to cover that shortcoming on both devices.
  *Note: although you can add audio notes to the Notes app in WP it doesn’t really count as it’s not a standalone app and it can’t record while the screen is locked.
• Calendar- Calendars are pretty straight forward and simple on both devices (a bit more-so on the N9); but to be honest I’m not the sort of person who jots down everything on his calendar, usually just Exams and flights- and hardly any are synced through Gmail or any other Email service so can’t give an honest opinion there.
• Calculators- I love the WP calculator on the Lumia  as it’s not just one nor two calculators but actually three (Props to Kunwar91 for tipping me off in the Youtube comments section); the Lumia actually has a normal basic calculator in Portrait mode, and two different ones depending if you rotate it right or left (Trignometric & Complex Decimals).
  Actually I saw this image online today and thought it fit my post perfectly:

Added bonus that it's a WP; shame it's not a Lumia :/

•  Wifi Tethering: As mentioned it’s ready out of the box on the N9 and should be coming soon to the 800 (and 710)- if you’d like to check it out on WP just check the video of L900 hand’s on from MWC

I think that’s about it; as mentioned HOPEFULLY I can push out another video or two comparing Location/Maps services as well as one about Telephony as soon as I grab my brothers sim from his iPhone; if not sorry but I got finals coming up and then some Vacay time.

Cheers.

Quick heads up- I had planned for this post to be Video + Photos + Camera UI but when I viewed the video samples on my PC and saw the HUGE difference in quality and the Minor rant that this was going to lead to; I though it would be best to split the two.. Anyways.

I took the N9 & L800 for a day out in some nice good’ol sunlight to get some video comparisons and honestly I was shocked at the results- considering the fact that N9 takes WAY better photos and the fact that they both have the same 8MP camera Sensor with a  f/2.22 aperture I was honestly expecting it to be a close fight or even a slight advantage to the N9…

(Excuse the shakiness the first 15 seconds or so as I was focusing on trying to re-adjust my grip on the phones without faceplanting them)- and in case your wondering why I didn’t do that cool split screen thing that everyone seems to be doing it’s because my laptop would probably die before processing it (new 8GB DDR3 Ram/2GB  AMD graphics/ i7 coming in this summer!) and also I have no idea how to do those effect

Take a good look at the Lumia’s Video quality:

Now prepare to be horrifically shocked by what the N9 claims to be HD:

Video Quality:

• The N9s quality was honestly appalling to me; how could they both have the same sensor yet be completely different! This is apparently due to the fact that the N9 records at almost half the bitrate that the Lumia 800 does- which is never a good thing. (14047kbps to 8590kbps)
• The N9 does get an extra point for handling direct sunlight better than the Lumia did (first 3 seconds or so when I was facing the cameras towards me) direct sunlight completely blacked out most of the image on the Lumia; while the N9 maintained a decent amount of quality- although if You do want to some impressive direct sunlight quality check this out (Front Facing Camera on the One X- yes that’s the FRONT Camera: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoYsYzjYdDw )
• The N9 had some serious pixelation issues going on (look at the cars) as well as some horrifying dropped frames (around second :22-dropped before youtube processing or anything)- this is apparently also due to some software limitations as well as an underpowered GPU.
• The Lumia 800 lacks a specific focus box which enables you to choose where you want all the auto-focusing to be going on; although ti did pretty well int he video test above, it does struggle alot when focusing on a subject with a bright light source behind him- although it’s less then ideal conditions this video should give you a good idea of what I mean.
• Color saturation on the Lumia 800 is LOADS better than the N9- just look at the color of the soil- the N9 gives it a grey dead tint; while the Lumia captured something quite close to the actual colors.

• The N9 admittedly had better sound QUALITY although the capture volume itself was lower than what you got out of the Lumia this is mostly due to the fact that the N9 captures audio at almost 3 times the bitrate that the Lumia does (131kbps to 49kbps).
• The Lumias audio capture seems a bit off after the first ten seconds (very poor quality as if it’s coming through a tunnel) this is actually because I accidentally had my hand on the microphone so it messed around with it a bit- true audio recording is probably best judged after the first minute or so.

Since the N9 had a much lower Video bitrate than the Lumia 800 this lead to the file size being much smaller (not really a good thing; if I wanted a small file I would record in VGA); all in all I think the video quality on the N9 is inexcusable; hopefully they can tweak it a bit in the next software update (similar to what the N8 went through).

Nokia Middle-East has finally followed the rest of the regional websites into Nokias new design (which where updated about 4 months ago or so); the new update brings does away with the old Green style blocks; and brings the Asha series to the front page- but as of yet there is no mention of any lumia devices; (other sites where redesigned shortly before the Lumias were made available to their respective regions). Perhaps this is a sign that Arabic support for WP is almost ready? hopefully so.

Thanks KF for the tip.

I just jumped on Nitdroid to check out the status of its alpha release, and it is there!

As I’m writing this I am setting it up

To learn more head over to the link below

http://forum.nitdroid.com/index.php?topic=94

Sorry about rushed post, too excited!

Update: Here is the official demo of the Alpha Release

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ponaehOrFN8

Warning: Do not rush any instructions. I made the mistake and am currently needing to find a reflash work around.

There is quite a few FM Radio apps for the N9 available now, but this is one of my favourite. Simple, good looking, and feature packed.

It features;

• Auto scan function,
• The ability to save stations,
• Customisable station names
• Manual tuning
• Choice of headphones or speaker (although headphones act as antenna and must be plugged in)
• Simplistic and polished UI

For me, it is one of the best FM Radio apps available for the N9/N950.Only thing that could be better would be LockScreen controls, but I highly doubt this will happen.

Here’s the developer’s blurb;

FM radio receiver. Use your phone to listen to local radio stations! Just plug in headphones which are used as an antenna. This app offers automatic scanning for stations, station list management and a beautiful user interface.
Swype left or right to change station. Move the scale for manual tuning. Tap the headphones to switch to loudspeaker. You can save, name and comment radio stations and also use the quick jump function.

Here is my video demo of the app

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbPLmzi9f0w

The app is on the Store and costs AUD$2.00. Definitely worth it if you are looking for a good FM Radio App on your N9.

You can find out more on the Strix Code website.

Michael