Rumours: Ultimate Nokia Cameraphone, 12MP and Optical zoom coming early 2010

July 1, 2009 at 12:40 am | In Nokia, Rumours, Suggestions, Symbian | 1 Comment
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nzAccording to PhoneReport.info, 2010 will be the year Nokia will “surprise the market with its offerings”. It bloody better be! :)

First on the device list maybe wielding a 12mp with optical zoom. Whilst 12MP is not anything new, with the Satio from Sony Ericsson coming in October and from Samsung, the M8920 and Pixon 12, the Nokia and Carl Zeiss relationship should ensure that consumers aren’t being fooled by numbers, and are actually getting effective use of each and every pixel, e.g. the slow entrant N86, has been shown to be a great performer in all but the lowest lighting conditions.

Some basic things this supposed 12MP shooter needs:

  • Xenon Flash! I need not start on why.
  • dedicated camera/video SWITCH. A physical switch is better than a button, as you can set the camera to how you want it to start, rather than having to starting on the wrong format and being forced to switch to the other.
  • Media button. Quick gallery access from anywhere in  your smartphone. No wading through menus.
  • Improved camera interface. If this 12MP phone is going to have touch screen, it needs to revamp the Imaging UI to take advantage of “buttons” capable of being anywhere, so image settings can be changed with minimal screen tapping.

On the wish list, but not essential:

  • Large screen, 3.5″ minimum, optimally, touch.
  • 16:9 photos (with the whole screen as view finder, and camera settings laid on top)
  • Optical zooming during video
  • HD video
  • Tap-autofocus (if touch screen)
  • Automatic macro
  • Dual LED for video. Though I’ve found it much more useful as a torch – and they make for really good torches.
  • Smoother video zooming.
  • Faster sequence “burst” modes.
  • Slim body. Nothing too anorexic, but nothing fat like the N93.
  • Autofocus during video
  • Macro mode during Video
  • DLNA

HD video

As Meraj Chhaya notes, it’s possibly that we may hear official announcements later this year, or early 2010.

Is it going to be a separate imaging flagship again (i.e. N86), leaving a space for an alternative successor to the current Nokia flagship, the N97, or will we finally see Nokia returning to their convergence ideals and bring us the ultimate in mobile phone hardware with a handset really deserving of the flagship title?

Will it still be Symbian? Will it even still be part of Nseries?

phonereport via MobileBurn

Nokia’s New Mobile OS: Maemo Harmattan

May 19, 2009 at 2:13 pm | In Linux, Nokia, Rumours, Symbian | 2 Comments
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In an interview about a couple of weeks back at the Nokia Developer Summit, David Rivas – Nokia VP, discussed the Nokia’s strategy for having multiple software platforms – basically stating that different devices need different OS for different tasks – not one OS fits the bill. The three major OS used by nokia are S40 which drives the “volume” division, S60 which drives the “value” and Maemo (built on Linux) for the internet tablets and “other interesting products”.

S60 for Value? This and the excerpt below sides with Eldar’s speculations about a month ago when we heard about the Nokia Nautilus and other new Nokia Touch screens, where Nokia maybe shifting S60 (or Symbian Foundation) into mid range/mass market handsets, and possibly have Linux reserved for the high end devices. Many, including myself, have been a little underwhelmed with S60 touch, especially  with the first ghastly demonstration – , it was embarrasing to be a Nokia fan – it had no optimisation for finger touch, it just looked like they slapped on a touch screen to normal S60 3rd edition. It’s evolved somewhat since then, as we have from both the 5800, N97 and even from the Samsung camp with the i8910 with S60 5th edition. However, it still lacks complete finger friendly optimisation, or really any new innovation – much of which is hampered by the fact that it is S60 with touch and has a lot of legacy and compatibility issues to deal with. The only real solution is to start from scratch. Much like what Palm has done with the Palm Pre and WebOS – delivering an unexpected dish of usability and intuitiveness to the table, last brought onto our plates by Apple’s iPhone.

Whilst we can go on to bash S60 5th edition for not being a completely dedicated touch UI, it maybe worth considering (or just hoping) that S60 touch is just an interim solution for Nokia’s REAL touch UI. Get some user base familiar with S60 touch, roll out some important services (Ovi) whilst silently working on what maybe Nokia’s game changer.

“Internet tablets and other interesting products we have maemo built on linux. Why are we building linux based software? Very clearly maemo has been a very important part of the product line, for tablets and such. But the thing that most people miss is that we’re in a unique position at Nokia and we’ve got very successful software platforms in S40 and S60 and it gives us the leeway to experiment a little. So I think the biggest benefit we have with maemo is that we start with a clean slate. We get to start without any legacy, without any support issues, to build the best possible software platform for the products that we are centering around maemo. That allows us to include new innovation, in a way that doesn’t/isn’t burdened by existing legacy. It’s actually a really exciting time right now for the maemo platform.”, David Rivas, Nokia VP.

So what exactly is the future for Symbian and Maemo? An integration of the two? Or is maemo just the testing platform for Nokia to reintegrate features back into Symbian? As for the future of Symbian, David Rivas states:

“Symbian is going to continue to leverage the benefits it has right now, the technical benefits and the market adoption benefits. It’s going to continue to add functionality and features as appropriate. I think we’re going to see multiprocessor support in symbian very very soon, and I think we’re gonna see fairly significant innovation in user interface over the next few months and years”

It’s possible that the Nokia’s next mobile OS: Maemo Harmattan, maybe just the dedicated touch UI Nokia fans have been waiting for. But 4th Quarter of 2010? That’s so far away. That’ll either just be too late for when other manufacturers have given us extremely mature outstanding UI or perhaps blow us away by changing yet again how people consider and use mobile phones.

We can’t really tell much from the screenshot other than the homescreen (if that’s what it is – ) is very widgets based. Much like the upcoming N97. It’s apparently  just one big vertically scrollable page – although I would have been more impressed if this was everything that could be seen in one glance, but that maybe a little too cluttered for some.

maemo1

Via Mobile Crunch

Videos: More Nokia N97 demos!

April 29, 2009 at 10:53 pm | In 5th Edition, Nokia, Nseries, Rant, Rumours, S60, Suggestions, Symbian | 5 Comments
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Here’s the Nokia N97 being demoed at the developer summit. Here it is again, if you so wish, at another angle.

There’s nothing to be gained from either video except the noticing the gradual growth of the N97’s UI. I still hate the wasteful menu of S60 5th edition – at least for phones with screens as big physically and pixel wise as the N97 (and 5800!). I don’t know if we’ll ever get a more decent 4×5 grid, and leave the back button to the red button (with long press to exit fully) or have the options bar autohide in the menu! Urgh! It just wastes so much space, dammit!!

The kinetic scrolling is nicely demonstrated again in the twitter application; changing in speed to the level of drag. Pity we don’t see this in the menu, where scrolling is quite painful to watch.

Transition from Landscape(Qwerty) mode to portrait(candybar) takes the N97 an excruciating 3 seconds  with no animation. By launch this better be instant or close to that! It needs to feel more fluid! Take a look at how relatively quickly the Nokia Photobrowser from Nokia Beta Labs changes from portrait to landscape. The wait, if any, between screen orientation should be so minimal, you don’t notice that the computer is processing such changes, instead appearing to be in natural sync with the motion of your hand. Like moving a spirit bubble.

During the video, the guy mentions that “the  N97 is very efficient on power and computational ability“. Is that marketing speak for “it has to do the best it can, given that the processor isn’t as powerful as it actually needs to be“?. The guy does point out that this is “a rough version of the software and that the teams are working hard“.

The N97 may be able to pull it off when it’s officially available in June/July, but how will it’s endurance/longevity be when users start filling it up with applications/videos/photos and developers produce more power hungry applications? Will potential buyers have to look for a rehashed “i” version or another quick replacement flagship? Will that be the keyboardless and super slim N97?

With about a month or two to go, is there time for any pleasant surprises from the N97, or are all the cards already on the table and all Nokia has are a couple of jokers?

Nokia 5800 mods: Nokia 97’s widgets and capacitive screens!

April 18, 2009 at 10:03 pm | In 5th Edition, Nokia, Photos, Rant, Rumours, S60 | 3 Comments
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This is two separate news but I’m covering them both in this post.

Nokia N97 firmware on the N97

The first is the 5800 with N97’s firmware – this means the coveted active widgets that N97 product managers have said would be exclusive to the N97.

nn11n3n2

[via JUSTAMP]

New Nokia 5800 to get Capacitive displays?

According to DIGITIMES, Nokia is going to replace future batches of their popular 5800’s resistive screen with capacitive displays. You most likely know what the differences are; if not – the basics are that currently, capacitive is a lot more sensitive to finger touch whereas resistive needs a little extra pressure.  Although with resistive you can use other things other than your finger – stylus, finger nail, even if you’re wearing gloves. I’m not really sold on those apparent advantages of resistive myself, although the whole handwriting recognition is quite useful for input of non standard latin text, e.g. Chinese/Arabic/Farsi etc.

It seems these new 5800s with capacitive displays maybe available as soon as May-June.Will this mean real multitouch capabilities for future 5800 users? (Probably the bigger advantage of capacitive; 5800’s resistive display is really good, it’s the NON touch centric UI that hampers it)

Here’s sort of a multitouch solution for current 5800 owners though:

If Nokia can change hardware of current models, can they do it before the debut launch of one? I.E. the N97? How great would it be if the N97 had a capacitive display? Whilst Nokia are adding changes, please get rid of the dual LED flash and replace it with XENON. Pretty please ^_^? Brightly lit pictures > half assed attempt of video light which is apparently one of the main reasons why the N97 has LED flash rather than Xenon…or being greedy, lets have both! Xenon and dual LED! Haha.

Anyway, if not the N97, more capacitive display handsets may be coming within the third quarter to Nokia’s portfolio of touch screen phones.  Hurray!

Via digitimes.

Hmmm…XENON…We’ve waited so long for the N97, October doesn’t seem that much further away – and you know what October means: launch of the 12.1MP XENON monster from Sony Ericsson.  se-idou-silver-back-open-cam[Via boy genius report]

This also comes in a white/silver colour scheme.

Swivelling Nokia QWERTY ?

April 13, 2009 at 8:44 pm | In Nokia, Rumours | Leave a Comment
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nokia-swivel[From Boy Genius Report]

Shield your eyes; a swivel style S40 phone with QWERTY keyboard is coming to Verizon  around July/August. I’m hoping the image above was made in paint just for visualization purposes.

BGR

More Nokia Touchscreens!? What’s the Nokia Nautilus?

April 13, 2009 at 9:48 am | In 5th Edition, Nokian, Nseries, Rumours | 1 Comment
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Apparently there’ll be three slim touch screens coming out from Nokia as early as fall. By Christmas, there maybe an addition to the internet tablet family with a new device musch like the N810, sporting 4.2″ touch screen and hidden slide out keyboard.nokia-eco-sensor

[Concept Nokia Phone - I'm loving the screen realty here - no space wated top or bottom]

The most exciting is the codenamed Nautilus. This is a very slim device with sensor activated ultrathin slideout keyboard featuring buttons that rise up for easier typing. According to Pocket-lint, the keyboard maybe extended through gesture based input.

nautilus

[Captain Nemo's Nautilus, from League of Extraordinary Gentlemen]

In “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea”, the Nautilus submarine is a masterpiece of technology, described by Jules Verne to as  “a masterpiece containing masterpieces”.  Is Nokia’s project Nautilus the ultimate convergence device ever to be made by Nokia, containing everything great they’ve been able to put in previous handsets so far?

Or is it just another living fossil of old handsets, with touch piggybacked onto button directed UI?

nautilus2

[Nautilus - living fossil]

Maybe Nautilus is all about Linux? Nautilus file manager/Gnome/Linux?

The latter is most comprehensible as it looks like it won’t be sporting S60, instead having a radically different UI. There’s hints that Nokia is pushing S60 to the mid-range/mass market devices, moving to Linux for the premium Nseries.

Based on Eldar’Murtazin’s blog/podcasts via  unwiredview:

  1. Nokia is committing very serious resources to the development of it’s own new Linux platform (originating from Maemo but significantly rewritten and much more advanced). It will be launching the new type of mobile devices/computers/communicators based on it later this year.
  2. These Linux based devices will  start the new Nokia high end product line, which will take place of the current N-Series. Nokia S60/Symbian devices will be moving from the top of the line to the mid tier/mass market segment of Nokia inventory.
  3. The new Linux platform and devices most likely will be unveiled in late summer/early fall  at a big launch event in Germany

This makes some sense since S60 is amazing for traditional keypad handsets, but suffers in terms of touch. Take the 5800 – it doesn’t feel completely optimised for touch input. Some reviewers and consumers have already wished Nokia to start from scratch for an entirely touch driven UI. Perhaps, through Linux, will we finally a Nokia touch UI optimused for finger gestures/strokes? Or can the N97 show that S60 touch is more than capable?

Nokia’s successor of N800 due very, very soon

October 17, 2007 at 8:14 pm | In Rumours | 1 Comment

Although no concrete press release or official news from Nokia is here (yet), more pictures of the long awaited N800 have emerged. Thanks to Internet Tablet Talk for the pics. The device is supposedly going to be known as the N810 and looks very similar to the N800, apart from one major difference in form factor, it is a slider. Nokia seem to have grown a passion for slider devices recently, what with the N95 range and the N81, they have turned their interest for sliders from phones to internet tablets. Here are a few pics of the device, thanks to Internet Tablet Talk:  Now, although the device is rumored to be a Internet tablet only, it does appear to have some common features of a mobile phone. For instance, the front facing camera, which is common on 3G phones like the N95 etc, and it appears to have a earpiece speaker which is interesting. However, saying this, it could well be that they are just for VOIP and Video calling over instant message programs like MSN and AIM, over wifi. I don’t own an N800 at the moment, but I know that Jay does and he loves it, so lets hope this is something that will be just as good, if not better then the N800, and hopefully I will be able to get my hands on one after launch. The WOM world team are in San Fransisco with Thoughtfix from The Tablet Blog, Reggie from Internet Tablet Talk and Jonathan Greene from Atmospheric Endeavours, all of whom I met in LA and are really nice people. They are at the Web 2.0 summit, and the N810 is set to be announced there within the next couple of days. Watch this space, its about to be very interesting….

Nokia N95 with 1200mAh BL-6F battery! It’s possible!

September 28, 2007 at 4:36 pm | In 3rd edition, Accessories, Rant, Rumours, S60, Symbian | 38 Comments

Since the very beginning we’ve been told that the reason the N95-3 and N95-8GB’s shutter was removed was due to the larger battery.

Even though I saw the N95-8GB at London, the model I tested did not have the BL-6F for me to find out wheter it could fit or not. But I was amongst many others that were peeved that they didn’t do something simpler like redesign the back or even the battery to accomodate that extra space needed.

Yesterday at the Nseries event at LA mansion (pics will be uploaded soon) station reps and even the Product Manager said confirmed the same thing about BL-6F is not for the N95 due to size constrainsts.

Recently, due to the shoddy state of my N95 battery cover, I posted a rant about the possibility of using a larger battery on the N95-ORIGINAL, now with the extra space provided by the crystal case that kept the useless battery cover on.

Due to Nokia claiming that the camera shutter cover prevented the BL-6F from fitting, I believed them, and thought that they should have redesigned the battery instead. But even that’s not needed! Look what I found out last night!

Yup, that’s right! It fits! Current N95 original users may be able to use the higher capacity BL-6F if you wanted to (albeit with the use of a crystal case – which is perfect for me since I have to use the crystal case )

r

It’s a perfect fit! The only thing I’m not sure about is whether this would pose any long term problems down the line, since size seems not to be the problem, there may have been another reason not to have included the BL-6F in the N95 original.

I’ve asked to test out the battery to see if there will be any problems, so as a disclaimer, be warned that the BL-6F was not designed for the N95 original and you may put your own N95 at risk by using that battery.

As a power user though, I’m very happy.

  • Longer music playback,
  • Longer video playback,
  • Longer calls
  • GPS use for longer time is feasible(no more, I’ll stay lost otherwise I won’t be able to make a call)
  • Longer camera use!

The crystal case I am using is from ebay. For about £2 I think, you get 3 sets (you only need the back). They are pretty sturdy, but be warned also that they may break (mine hasn’t, only at parts due to my strap, which most people do not have on their N95).

Darla Mack has already performed extensive battery tests with her N95-3 (US) that uses BL-6F and results are very positive as to how much more juice we can expect from the BL-6F and the original N95.

“So exactly what does this mean? It means that Nokia listened to the requests of their users and improved the battery!

Now the next request would be to make a similar battery for existing N95 users.“

Wooo! We can, Darla!

Here’s a video demo to show the N95 working nicely with the BL-6F

Mysterious Nokia, RM-256, gets approval at the FCC

September 18, 2007 at 8:07 am | In FCC, Nokia, Rumours | Leave a Comment

The phone supports US bands (850/1900) and GPRS.  No pics yet though. Any ideas what it could be?

 - MysticGadgets.com

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