All About Symbian - Feature Articles - S60 3rd Edition

Features - S60 3rd Edition - How To

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Two-box solution or one? Symbian/iPad versus the Galaxy Note

12 years ago, I remember demonstrating to a packed room of enthusiasts to delights of pairing up my Psion palmtop with the Ericsson SH888 (titanium, indestructible), which possessed an infrared modem, meaning that I could get my palmtop online at a whopping 9.6kbps via Circuit Switched Data (this was before GPRS!) It was a working two box communications solution and it's with a certain nostalgia that I remember it as I look a modern 'two box' solution. How do the pros and cons of splitting one's electronics work out in practice?

# Posted by Steve in How To, Hardware at 11:14 UTC, Jan 31st || Comments

How to: Get your Gmail through Nokia Email on your S60 3rd Edition smartphone

With Google withdrawing its Java-based Gmail client from general circulation and with no guarantees that it'll carry on working, many S60 3rd Edition phone owners will be looking at other ways of getting their Gmail fix. The most obvious solution is one that many of us have avoided for several years, with memories of the first few iterations of Nokia Email (née Messaging) still shrieking horrors in our minds. But, with a few caveats, Nokia Email now works surprisingly well - it's certainly worth giving it another chance. Here's a walkthrough and a few tips/pointers.

# Posted by Steve in How To at 7:12 UTC, Dec 19th || Comments

Voice recognition and control on a budget - and all the things which can go wrong!

We've all been impressed by Apple's launch of their 'Siri' voice interrogation technology in the new iPhone 4S. But it should be borne in mind that something along the same lines (though admittedly nowhere near as adaptable) has been possible for ages on Symbian, even on extreme budget hardware. Just as a reminder, and with some comments on whether this is the way forward for smartphones generally, here's a demo of the free Vlingo in action on an old S60 3rd Edition handset.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Software at 6:37 UTC, Oct 19th || Comments

How to: Move your information in Handy Safe Pro from Symbian over to Windows Phone

One of the longest serving 'stars' in the Symbian software firmament has been Handy Safe Pro, working on every device from 2004 up to the present day. It's an encrypted database, of course, a way of keeping all your PINs, passwords, logins, reference numbers and much more, all safe from prying eyes. One key feature is that every entry can have a note and this can often run to dozens of extra lines. Which makes the tool very flexible, but how to get all of this information over to a new smartphone on another mobile platform? In this case, Windows Phone?

# Posted by Steve in How To at 15:33 UTC, Oct 17th || Comments

Gravity - the Facebook client you didn't know you had

We all know and love Gravity as a Twitter client par excellence - and most of us probably had an idea that it could 'do' Facebook too. But, following my look at the top standalone Facebook clients, I was curious as to how far Gravity went, in terms of covering the same functionality. Surprisingly far, as it turns out, though there are still Facebook core functions which you'll need a separate client for. Read on for my walkthrough and summary.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Software at 12:29 UTC, Sep 22nd || Comments

How to: Take better videos on your smartphone

By popular request, here are my tips on shooting better videos on your smartphone. If you've been to an event, whipped out your phone and been disappointed later by blurry, jerky, muffled, badly lit footage, then these tips are for you! From light to movement to mundane practicalities, it's all covered below.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Hardware at 8:20 UTC, Sep 16th || Comments

Anatomy of a camera-phone photo

It's all very well me posting the odd snap onto Twitter and occasionally writing a generic 'how to' for All About Symbian. But I thought it might be instructive to take a few photos from my three current Symbian smartphones, taken in the last week, one from each, and put you inside my head, hearing my thought processes as I snapped the shot and looking at any important settings changes or physical setup that were required. At the very least, some of the same ideas might help you when you venture out into the real world, whichever camera-toting smartphone you own.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Hardware at 11:20 UTC, Aug 21st || Comments

Pimping the Nokia N86 8MP

This is the biggest and most comprehensive - and last - in my series of "Pimping" features - for S60 3rd Edition smartphones. And as such, I've saved the best until last, as they say. The Nokia N86 featured here is one of my all time favourite phones and the ultimate incarnation of the original N95 dual slide concept. Just read the list of unique selling points below and you'll see what I mean. Can the N86 still 'cut it' in 2011? It depends what your smartphone needs are, to be sure. Certainly it's a great second hand bargain these days and hopefully this feature will show any new users some tricks and tips for setting it up.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Software, Hardware at 14:56 UTC, Jun 8th || Comments

How to: sidestep Nokia Messaging on the Nokia E52, E55 and E72

Nokia Messaging (/'Email') as a server-side push system works very well when it works. But what happens when, as for me, it's completely and utterly broken? On recent devices, you can simply 'decline' the terms of service at set-up time and IMAP access to your mailbox is used instead - problem solved. On the S60 3rd Edition phones, there's no such question screen and things are less trivial. But there is a way forward. Read on...

# Posted by Steve in How To, Software at 6:20 UTC, May 31st || Comments

Six of the most common camera phone mistakes

Following on from comments in this week's Insight podcast, I thought it might be useful to work through some of the most common 'mistakes' beginners make when snapping away with a camera phone. These apply specifically here to Nokia's devices, which tend to have cameras of reasonable (and sometimes excellent) quality, but also more generically to those from other manufacturers to greater or lesser degrees. If you're a beginner with camera phones then read on to see what you can do to improve your casual snaps.

# Posted by Steve in How To at 16:11 UTC, May 4th || Comments

The Ultimate EDoF Challenge

OK, I promise this will be my last piece on EDoF (Extended Depth of Field). Following on from my treatise on why Nokia has gone with EDoF for most phones in 2011, I had the idea of giving the technology an ultimate 'real world' challenge. I took an average standalone camera owner, armed in this case with a Olympus FE-5035 (14 megapixels, 5x optical zoom, cost just under £100) and shot some typical 'normob' scenes with him. Me on the EDoF-equipped E7, he with his dedicated camera (with which he was very familiar). Could Nokia's EDoF hardware get remotely close, in terms of results, to the Olympus?

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Hardware at 6:29 UTC, May 2nd || Comments

Pimping the Nokia E72 - software for 2011

You'll recall that last year I wrote about 'pimping' the Nokia E55 (and E52), in terms of the software needed to bring them up to 2011 standards? Quite a bit of this feature is also relevant to their qwerty candbar cousin, the E72, but I thought that, in the light of my recent hardware pimping of the editorial E72, it would be handy to bring the feature right up to date and to explicitly talk about what works and what doesn't work on the landscape screen and different form factor.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Software at 6:02 UTC, Apr 28th || Comments

Time for a spring clean and makeover? Starring the Nokia E72

The sun is shining (here in the UK at least), spring is in the air and I thought I'd give the trusty Nokia E72 a little makeover. And you're invited to watch. Maybe it'll inspire you to deliver some TLC (Tender Loving Care) to your own Symbian smartphone(s)? Comments welcome on makeovers that you've attempted.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Hardware at 7:24 UTC, Apr 20th || Comments

EDoF versus Auto-focus: Understanding the compromises involved

Nokia's seemingly massive push behind EDoF ("Full focus") cameras has been a mystery to many onlookers. Though to be fair, the reviewers and users doing the complaining are the very 1% of users who need more than EDoF in a smartphone. And there still seems to be huge confusion over what EDoF is whether it's a showstopping limitation or not. In this feature, I want to summarise the technology and its use cases. Why has Nokia gone all out for EDoF in the face of auto-focus from every other manufacturer?

# Posted by Steve in How To, Hardware at 20:12 UTC, Apr 17th || Comments

How to: Six tips for getting started with Nokia Internet Radio

If you have a touchscreen Symbian phone then there's a good chance that you've never even tried Nokia Internet Radio, since it was omitted from device firmwares for S60 5th Edition onwards. However, first for these phones and then for Symbian^3, it has appeared in the Ovi Store and is a highly recommended (and completely free) install. But the sheer number of genres and stations (tens of thousand) is overwhelming. I reckon you might need a little help finding your way round.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment at 16:21 UTC, Apr 2nd || Comments

Touchscreens through the years - and my new party trick

I have a new party trick and you won't be surprised it involves my smartphone. And a kitchen knife. All of which has got me musing about the nature (and role) of touchscreens on handheld devices through the years. Expectations and roles sure have changed. Though it's tempting to say that there's nowhere else for the touchscreen to go. The rest is surely up to the programmers behind the glass?

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Hardware at 10:31 UTC, Jan 13th || Comments

Pimping the Nokia N96

I just can't resist the challenge of taking something old and unloved and making it useful. And my latest target is the much misunderstood Nokia N96, from 2008, still one of the largest-screened non-touch Nokia smartphones and with more gadgets than you can count - yet a device that was panned on release, plagued with performance problems and never sold as well as it should have done. In the latest in my series of 'pimping' articles, I look back at the Nokia N96 and what's needed to keep it topped up and current.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Software at 14:32 UTC, Dec 16th || Comments

Camera Nitty Gritty - the 2010 Update!

Throughout 2008, I worked through a series of features, entitled 'Camera Nitty Gritty', looking at specific aspects of camera phone performance, with special focus on Symbian-powered hardware and on exploding (and expanding on, as appropriate) some mobile photography myths. Two full years on and with the new Symbian^3-powered generation of devices now available from Nokia, it's high time for an update, although I'm not going to make you work through another series of twelve articles - this time I'll keep it concise and keep everything in the one feature!

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Hardware at 10:10 UTC, Dec 1st || Comments

Pimping the Nokia E55 (and E52)

The current wave of all-singing, all dancing capacitive touchscreen Symbian phones have their attractions, surely. But we shouldn't write off some of the classic S60 3rd Edition FP2 phones, some of which still have world beating characteristics and, with a little tweaking here and there, make a smartphone to be reckoned with. As evidence of this, here's the latest in my 'Pimping' series of tutorials: Pimping the Nokia E55. As you might expect, virtually all of this also applies to its sister device, the E52.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Software, Hardware at 7:29 UTC, Nov 20th || Comments

How Nokia could extend the battery life of their new smartphones - and a classic top 5!

A smartphone with a dead battery isn't very smart, I think we'd all agree. Constantly overlooked by many of the world's smartphone manufacturers, battery capacity and the efficiency with which it is used is often shoved to the back of the priority pile, behind exciting bullet points like 1GHz processors and 4.3" screens. In this feature, I quote an old rant and embellish the point, before launching into a passionate plea to the guys behind Nokia Social Networking - and then, for fun, I list my top 5 battery champions of the Symbian smartphone world in the last 10 years.

# Posted by Steve in How To, Comment, Hardware at 7:18 UTC, Nov 15th || Comments

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