After deciding that the Sharp Hiptop wasn’t really the uberphone I wanted in the end (though the contract you get with the handset is pretty freakin’ sweet), I went on a quick hunt for a new smartphone.
The end result was the Nokia N95-3, essentially the original N95 with a few cosmetic and hardware upgrades. Armed with an 8GB microSD Card, I immediately went on the hunt for nifty little applications to check out and play around with.
In the short time I’ve had it, I love the phone to bits. While it certainly has it’s faults, it’s quite possibly the best phone I’ve had to date. It includes a 5.0mp camera with a Carl Zeiss lens and digital zoom, DVD Quality MP4 video recording, WiFi, GPS, Music player, Office applications and more. Armed with 3D hardware accelerated graphics and 128mb of RAM, the N95-3 is pretty much up there with last-generation computers in terms of processing power (seriously, you can run Quake 3: Arena on this thing).
Sadly, all the praise I’m throwing at this little phone of awesome comes with a price. The battery life clocks in at about 3 or so days of moderate use, the menu lags a bit and I’ve noticed the WiFi to be a bit touch-and-go with some applications. Firmware updates have amended the menu issue -among other things, but it’s still a bit of a problem if you’re without a charger for an extended period of time. The N95-3 also seems to be getting a raw deal when compared to it’s other bretheren, the N95-1 and N95i, Unlike these two, the firmware updates lack a few features and -for some inexplicable reason, lacks N-Gage support it seems, with my attempts only installing the base application and not have any games load properly.
Like seemingly every other Nokia on the planet, the N95-3 is pretty simple to get the hang of. The menu system -powered by the Symbian operating system is really intuitive and fully customisable. Being on the Symbian/S60 platform also means you can add your own applications and increase the basic featureset of the phone… Which brings me smoothly to the main point of this article.
For the sake of keeping this article informative, I’ll only be listing applications that provide added functionality to the phone. Later on I might do one for other applications, but I’d rather focus on some useful applications for now.
Gmail for Mobiles
While the minimalized website m.gmail.com provides a pretty decent service for the person on the go, Google have bought out a dedicated application for mobiles.
Gmail for Mobile's main window
The Gmail app provides basic email functionality, hotkeys for searching for or composing an email, support for multiple accounts and a special offline mode so you can read your existing email without having to connect to the internet. I couldn’t really find any faults with the application at all, though admittedly, it’s hard to bugger up a basic email application.
Gmail for Mobiles is available for Nokia Smartphones here
Google Maps for Mobiles
While the N95 and other phones already come with a working GPS, there’s nothing wrong with looking for an alternative, especially considering how the “Nokia Maps” application tends to be a bit finicky when it comes to getting a signal.
Like the Gmail app, Google have bought out their own “Google Maps” application for mobiles. Google Maps provides both overview and street view modes, Turn-By-Turn directions, business listings and a new feature called “My Location”, which provides you with your location within 3000 metres even if you don’t have GPS on your phone. When you need to head somewhere, Google Maps gives you directions for not only driving, but walking and public transport too.
overview mode
While the app certainly works and has a lot of features the Nokia Maps app doesn’t, it tends to be a bit dodgy at times in finding places. I’ve also noticed that the “My Location” feature is sometimes off by a long shot, though “My Location” is still in Beta at the time of this writing.
Google Maps is available for Nokia Smartphones here
You Tube Mobile
The last app I’m reviewing that’s associated with Google is the new YouTube application. The application provides very basic functionality for YouTube viewing. You can search for videos, see related videos or look for “most viewed” videos. That’s pretty much it. Other features are available on the m.youtube.com website that aren’t on the application for those looking to login to their account and upload movies.
YouTube Mobile, main window
I’ve also noticed not a hell of a lot of content is really available for the application. I’m not sure if the case is the same for the youtube mobile site, but it’s still a bit of a letdown.
The most I’ll say about this application is that it works well, but for those out there who want to do more than just watch videos are better off with the website. I’m hoping this is amended in later versions of the application.
You Tube Mobile is available for Nokia Smartphones here
Calcium
Calcium is a calculator application by S60 developer mtvoid. Calcium takes an already pretty simple application and makes it much more streamlined and easier to use. All basic fucntions (addition, subtraction, etc) are done via the directional pad with the “confirm” button being the equals-sign. Calcium has the look and feel of a normal calulator and in extremely intuitive to use.
Calcium is available for S60 devices here
Opera Mini
This is the second time in about 3 years I’ve dealt with the web browser Opera. The first time was back when I did a reinstall of my desktop PC and gave it a go before switching to Firefox. Thankfully, my opinion of Opera Mini is somewhat higher than the PC variant.
Opera Mini is a minialistic web browser for java-based phones and boasts improved speed and peformance over the Nokia N95′s default browser. From the looks of things, all of the boasting seems to be correct. The data sent to the browser is compressed before being displayed, so it improves load times by a lot. It’s also capable of displaying full internet pages with little or no slowdown and suggests the user where to start. The homepage also lists your last-visited pages and bookmarks for quick navigation, and supports RSS feeds as well.
Opera Mini is also skinnable, allowing you to customise the look of your browser if the default white isn’t your thing.
I haven’t played around much with Opera Mini, but so far I’m happy with it. I’ve noticed it does spaz out a little when using a WiFi connection and tends to switch to the default browser when downloading files. Aside from that, nothing particularly major to report in the faults department.
Opera Mini is available for Java based phones here
Fring
One thing I missed about the Sharp Hiptop (aside from the full QWERTY keyboard) is the built-in MSN Messenger software. Sadly, the Windows-developed application is subscription-based, so I -being the incredibly stingy person that I am, decided to look for a freeware alternative.
I happened to come across a nifty little program called Fring, which -while it sounds like a euphemism for a multitude of swear words, is a multi-platform chat/IM program that supports Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, and other services and social networking sites. It also allows voice-over-IP calls via Skype.
The latest version is their most stable and feature packed yet. On previous versions I had multiple dropouts and the Twitter feature wasn’t all that great. This time around they’ve included Twitter 2.0 (which looks more like the site itself, rather than a chat window) and it seems to drop out a hell of a lot less.
Fring’s UI is a little bit intimidating at first, and you’ll need to sign up for a Fring account to use it, but other than that I can’t think of any major issues I have with it.
That’s it for this entry. Stay posted for a few more Symbian apps to check out and some other odds and ends.