Time for an upgrade. I have been using the Nokia 6120c as my main phone now for nearly a year and it has been a mixed blessing. The camera is useless, the memory is limited, the speaker turns off at random points and you have to reboot to get it back, it gets confused and won't make a data connection on times. On the good side it is running S60 which is a pretty nice OS. It may look a little dated next to an iPhone but I quite like it.

I have been looking at reviews of all the new phones that have been coming out and I think that the N85 is one of Nokia's best so far. I can't wait to see how the N97 turns out but for now the N85 is the one to get.

So I brought a N82.

A couple of reasons drew me that way. The first was cost. You can get a N82 for less than £170 on ebay while the N85 is still over £300. The second and this was the main one for me, it has a Xeon flash. I have been really annoyed with the 6120c camera for some time now so I think that I wanted the best camera I could on the next phone.

I decided some time ago that I would get another S60 phone as I really like the OS and the community that it has. Nokia are doing great things with their beta labs and most mobile applications that create.

Right now I have the following running and in RAM with still 40Mb free.

• Web Browser - I quite like the standard webkit based browser and by default it is opened when you click on a link in other applications.
• Web Server - Just 'cause I can. It is a cut down version of Apache and you can visit it at http://choffee.mymobilesite.net
• Music Player - It works okay. It has problems reading some tags but it works nicely with all the buttons. Ogg support would be nice.
• Fring - Mobile IM. Google chat, msn, jabber, and Skype support. Sending files and VoIP. This runs all the time.
• Contacts - It's just running right now.
• File Manager - I used it to install an app uploaded from my PC earlier and it just still running. It's basic but it does the job.
• Swim - This is a bit of a fix that runs the sync to http://scheduleworld.com/ with all my contacts and calendar. This should be part of the base os if you ask me.
• n-Gage - Play server. I have tried a couple of games and they are pretty impressive. Using the camera to look around a virtual room is quite cool. But I don't really play that many games.
• Shozu - For automating picture uploading. It just runs in the background, when you take a photo it pops up and says "Upload this?" you press yes or no and it goes away and deals with it.
• ?T9Nav - This is new but at the standby screen if you start typing as though you where entering text eg. 5646 it will search your contacts, apps, bookmarks, images, videos, calendar entries and music and give you list of things to choose from. I think this could be a keeper app.
• Nokia Image Exchange - This just syncs your photos with an online site. It is dynamic so if you change a picture name on your phone or the web that info is reflected on both sides. It's from Nokia Beta Labs and has some rough edges but I quite like it.
• JBakTaskMan - A little task manager that give you a list of running apps and some shortcuts and some important OS stats such as memory.

All that and I still have 50Mb of RAM free for things like the light saber that is controlled by the way you move the phone, tetris, frozen bubble with phone movement support, twitter apps if you don't like fring to handle that and many other apps that I have not mentioned here.

It's got GPS built in and it pretty quick taking only a few seconds to pick up a signal and 10 or so to get a fix. I would imagine this would be a little slower if you don't have internet access for it to get the A-GPS info. I had some fun with Nokia maps the other day which is pretty good for giving driving directions. I like the fact that I can use Google Maps and it's mega powerful local search to find somewhere, save that as a favorite in google maps then load Nokia maps and have it available to navigate to. I probably won't pay Nokia for Driving directions when my trial runs out in three months but I shall try to use it as much as possible until then.

The N82 does have some bad points. I think that I have mentioned before that I don't like the headphones at the top because as you get the phone out of your pocket or bag it is always up the wrong way. It does have the same charger as other modern Nokia phones but the USB connector is some crappy micro version that is just a tiny little bit smaller than the ones that everybody else uses. Why would they do that? The 3G reception is still a bit flakey but I think that is a general problem with three in some areas as the change over to 2G is slow and drawn out. This is probably not helped by my office being clad in metal and having generally poor phone reception.

Generally it all works better on the N82 than the 6120c. A lot of the little niggles are gone. I can mount it as USB drive and manage music and podcasts without having to shutdown the whole phone. I can install loads of apps in the main memory without running out of space. I can run a lot of those apps at one time and not struggle for memory.

There is loads more to talk about but for now I will leave it there. There are loads of other reviews of this phone on the web so I won't add to that noise a great deal. I may post some more on the apps that I like. Nokia is struggling to get an app store in the same way the iPhone does but there are some really good apps out there. You just have to look for them.

Did I mention that it can make phone calls as well?

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Skype, Fring, Google Chat and more

I have installed Fring on my phone and given it a go. I now have Skype and google chat but no Battery.

Installing it is simple, go to the site select the link and you are off. You then setup and account, put in you credentials for the services you are interested in in my case Skype, Google talk and twitter. Then you are online. You can chat with contacts, make skype and google calls and post to your twitter thing.

That's the theory but I found that it was not that simple. I have not been able to make any calls except to the test number and nobody has responded to my chats!

The phone keeps searching and switching between 2G, 3G and 3.5G all the time and fring keeps dropping off. Then it stops and asks me if I want to try to reconnect. In this day and age no mobile applicaiton should be asking be for a retry. It should just back off exponentially then when the phone gets some signal have aother go.

Anyhoo the result of all this activity is that it managed to drain my batttery for the last two days in a little over 5 hours. So that is getting the bin for now. Nice idea just that the technology is not quite there yet. I am not to sure if it's the phone or fring or both that need the extra work but perhaps when the next version comes out I will try again.

It does do SIP as well though which is nice as this is going to be the new Skype.

I may do another post later on how I think that all this is a waste of time anyway as it wants to be a nice open standard and built into the phone as a service. S60 has SIP so we are getting there.

Nokia please name your photos in a nice way.

My phone, the Nokia 6120, names it's photos in the format DDMMYYYY(nn).jpg. So you get listings like the one below:

01122007.jpg 02102007.jpg 04112007.jpg 04112007(1).jpg 11102007.jpg

Talk about useless. How many years have we been naming files in the format YYYYMMDD so that they sort really nicely?

Nokia. Please find the engineer who made that decision and beat him round the head with the printed source code of the ls command.

Thats all.

Keep it simple

I know you, my reader, have been hanging off the edge of your seat waiting to find out about my phone purchace. Did he go big? Did he keep it simple? Did he get the same again? To put you all out of your misery I got the the Nokia 6120 Classic in the end.

Pretty good choice if you ask me but why not the N95 for it has all the features, I hear you cry. Well there are a couple of reasons. Battery life, I have heard that some people have made it last nearly 8 hours. Cost, it would have been an extra six pounds a month. Camera, no really, I know it has a 5Mpix camera but to be honest the photos that people are getting with it look not that much better than the 3Mpix ones of the SE K800. Speed, most reports that I have read say that it is a little sluggish, the camera takes about 10 seconds to start up for instance. So all in all it's not the bargin that I was thinking off. Lets hope the N82 is a bit better.

The Nokia 6120 on the other hand is tiny, has a reasonable battery life, really fast and runs all the Series 60 apps that everybody is developing. Best of all it's free! I have to say I am impresessed about he buzz that Nokia is creating around the S60 operating systems in terms of developers. There are loads of Nokia hosted resources for that one.

I have so far opted for the the x-series silver tariff for data. This means that I have an unlimited* data allowance for using the internet from the phone. Including email. I have to say that I have been using that pretty heavely right now and it's quite cool to try things like streaming radio and not to have to worry about the cost.

Bad points so far. I have noticed that sometimes it's struggles to get an internet connection hopping from 3G to 3.5G and back before finally settleing back on 3G. This may be just because I am in a bad reception area but who knows. I have not used the voice much yet as I am trying to use up the last of the old voda contract first.

There are loads of apps to download and I am trying them all! I will report back if I find any good ones but please feel free to make any suggestions.

What do you want from an camera phone

It's time for a phone upgrade or at least a change of tariff. To this end there has been much searching on the internet and visits to the fine houses of information know as mobile phone shops.

From some research it appears that Three are doing the best deal on tariffs and with their X-series deal they have Unlimited* * browsing and such. But they have a more limited range of phones available.

I currently have a ?SonyEricsson K800i which is a pretty nice phone. The camera is okay at 3.2Mpix and the music player does it's job but can't be use it on three as they have very strict rules about it and will bar your sim if you use a non-three phone apparently. So this would seem to be a fine opportunity to get a new phone.

There are four main reasons for a phone in my view. To make calls; to take pictures, to use the internet and to listen to music. The first of these is covered by just about any phone on the market and so can be ignored for now.

Starting at the bottom and working up. Music playing this is covered in all but the most basic handsets but is worth mentioning as there are a couple of extras to be included. Playlist, currently only supported by the K800i if you use the Windows GUI to upload, not good the average Linux users so .pls or m3u support would be nice. A remote play/pause button is essential, either on the remote or on the phone but you should not have to get your phone out to pause your music or for that mater of, change the volume.

The third use, the internet, is quite vague but includes web browsing and email on the phone, access to the internet from things such as an N800 or laptop. Mind you while they still think that 1Gb is a lot of data laptop use will be fairly limited. (Note to self, a fairly restrictive firewall may be required to stop updates downloading etc. although it would be good if like the N800 the Linux desktop could notice it was on dialup and not do that sort of thing.)

The second reason for a modern phone is the reason for this post. Phone cameras are no replacement for a decent portable camera but you get used to having a camera with me at all times. Some times for simple things like photographing a poster or advert for looking at later or positing off. Other times for trying to capture a moment, a sunset, a group of people, an interesting landmark or a smiling face. But just how important is it to have the best camera?

The Nokia N95 is supposed to have a good camera but some of the shots look over processed and some people say that it is a little slow. The K800i has a reasonable camera but in comparison with the N95 it's a close thing and more a matter of taste than either being better. The Nokia 6120 only has a 2MPix non-autofocus camera but runs the same software as the N95 and some say it's quicker. Cost wise you can get the 6120 and the K800i for free while you have to pay approx £200 for an N95.

So now comes the question should I get another K800i, try a 6120 or go for broke with a N95. I do fancy a change as I have had SE phones for the last seven years. The N95 has loads of other features such as GPS, TV-out, VGA 30fps video, and more but it's also got a bit of a reputation for being sluggish and the battery life is poor to say the least.

Perhaps I will get the 6120 for now and if I find it lacking get the N95 upgrade via ebay or even the N82, which sounds a better phone, when it comes out.

Thanks for listening, any comments or suggestions gladly taken.

• Unlimited is of course limited to 1Gb but apparently a star makes that no problem for the ASA or trading standards. Note also that most providers will not include VoIP, skype, IM etc in their Unlimited tariffs even if you pay £30 a month extra for their full internet package.

At last a p990 upgrade that works!

I have been using the ?SonyEricsson p990i as my regular phone now for a couple of weeks and I have to say that I am not happy with it. The menus are dog slow and everything keeps crashing or closing down due to lack of memory. I was just getting ready to sell it on ebay when SE announced a new firmware version. I read the forums and everybody said that it was a lot faster and that the multitasking was a lot better and that things did not crash as often so I took the plunge.

What a cuffufel. After I had waited for the upgrade program to upgrade, I was then able to upgrade my phone but then it told me that it would wipe the contents off my phone so I had better backup first. Off to the SE site to download their PC suite and after a 20min download we where backing up. ( You may have guessed that I am using one of the windows PC's at work now as there is no support for Linux!). Backups completed it was time for the upgrade and another cup of tea, for this takes some time. Now a reboot of the phone and it's up and running, snapper than before but I only tested it for a short while before restoring all my data.

Whoops, that confused it. Although it restored fine the phone was now slow and things where crashing, stopping and just not playing along all over the place. So I decided to backup the contacts to the memory stick and format the internal memeory again. Just for good measure I did the upgrade again. Restored the contacts only this time and all was fine.

What a difference, it's more like the machine that I expected now with things happening at a speed that you can tollerate, I would not call it fast, and most important most of the apps playing nicely together. The browser now hardly every shuts down, the email sync to my IMAP server with ease.

I now think that I am going to keep it. So if you have a p990 go and upgrade today.

Useless P990i fact for the day.

The flip sensor is a little magnetic switch on the right hand side of the screen at the top of the closed flip. So when you put it into your case with the magnetic clip on the front, the phone thinks you are opening the clip then closing it again. That is why the screen comes on every time you try to put the phone away and not because you are pushing any of the buttons. Tune in tomorrow for more exciting trivia

( A geobar for the first to guess what my latest toy is.)

( Hint: It was upgrade time on my phone contract!)

It's all in the name.

If you have been on the Internet at all over the last few days then you have probably read all about the new iPhone from Apple. They hype is stifling. The device is nothing really new. Yes it has a swanky large touch screen but other than that it is not a lot different in essence from the devices available from Nokia or ?SonyEricsson so why is it getting all the fuss?

Apple has a reputation for cool stuff not a necessarily technically better but just cool enough to make you want it. They used to be exclusive and cool as they would be priced just above the average and so people desired them. When they released the iPod they hit a sweet spot. Now you could own a trendy Apple product for only a couple of hundred pounds. People rushed out and brought. They ignored the faults with the device concentrated on how cool the scroll wheel was and traded their freedom to do what they wanted with their music for a piece of Apple cools.

The hype continues to this day, Apple are still the brand to be seen with and they go out of their way to keep that mystique. Steve Jobs is working the customers with skill! Looks at the SE P990i and tell me what the iPhone will do that this does not (other than not have 3G), movies, music, camera, organiser, Wi-Fi, and phone it's all there. Look at the Nokia N93i again doing all that apple is promising tomorrow but doing it now. But they are not cool and so people who did not give them a second look will already be saving for the iPhone.

My only hope is that it will stimulate people into noticing that they don't need a phone, a camera and an ipod nano and can just get a SE K800i or Nokia N73 and do it all in one.

Me I am going to get me a FIC Neo1973 Phone or possibly a Nokia N800 and just stick with my K750 for now.

(Other phones are available but the Nokia and SE ones I know of now!)