Nokia N85 Nseries Reviews One of the most the Nseries from Nokia, got a new high-end device that strongly resembles the older Nokia N81. The fresh N85 kept the same slider form and keypad layout as its N81 predecessor, but this time, Nokia made an effort to get some stylish look into the handset. Also, the new Nseries device will be available on the market at a much lower price, even though it is stuffed with all the "goodies" of a usual high-end mobile phone. Announced in August 2008, Nokia N85 was made available on the market in October 2009. There are two colors available for users : Copper and Black. Design The Nokia N85 smartphone features a stylish slider form, but misses the 'wow' factor so needed for the latest phone to be able to have some success on the market. While most Nokia slider phones are not that appealing in terms of design, compared with other brands, users’ interest for quality is still more powerful. I think that Nokia N81 can be considered a failure in terms of design and functionality, thus I didn't expect to see another Nokia handheld with almost the same design. I was pretty reluctant at first, but after spending a few minutes with N85, I could notice the improvements Nokia did compared with previous sliders. The big 2.6-inch display makes a good impression at first glance and is well protected against scratches. Above the screen, there's a secondary videocall camera, the earphone speaker, and a very small light ambient sensor. Below the display, Nokia kept almost the same layout of the keys as N81. Unfortunately, this doesn't go well in terms of ergonomics. The Accept and Reject calls key have been placed on the edge of both sides of the phone and are somewhat tricky to use. The Navi-wheel has been improved and can now be used to browse the menu much easier. The Shortcut key has been placed to the right of the Navi-wheel, while the Symbian menu key can be found to the left. The numeric keypad is revealed when you slide up the device. Nokia N85 is a dual slider introduced by Nokia when launching Nokia N95 on the market. The right side of the phone features two stereo speakers, a dedicated camera key, a dual volume key and a Lock/Unlock key. The left side of the smartphone only includes a small microSD memory slot for storage space expansion. On top of the phone, there's a Power on/off button, a 3.5mm jack port and a small microUSB port that is used for charging or synchronizing the phone. The 5-megapixel camera on the back of the phone features dual led flash and Carl Zeiss optics. I have noticed that the phone lacks the usual charging port, so you'll have to use the microUSB port to charge the phone, either through the PC or you can use the charger that comes in the sales package. Overall, Nokia N85 will probably not attract people that are interested in design, but visual improvement compared with N81 is clearly one step forward for Nokia. Display and Camera Nokia N85 features an AMOLED screen that measures 2.6", supports 16 million colors and a 240x320 pixel resolution. The AMOLED screen features an accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate, but as with all AMOLED screens, it doesn't have eligibility under sunlight. Even if it can barely be used outdoors, the large display performs very well when the phone is used for Web browsing, movie watching, or gaming. In terms of image quality displayed, it is excellent. The 5-megapixel camera embedded in this Nseries device seems to be much better than N96's, but also much lower in quality than N82's. Featuring Carl Zeiss lenses, auto-focus and dual LED flash, the module camera appears to be a little bit smaller than that of N95 (5.45, compared with 5.6). While not the best 5-megapixel camera on the market, compared with N96 camera, you can actually take decent pictures with N85. The camera features geotagging and protection for the lenses. The user interface boasts extensive settings, much like Nokia's N95 8GB camera interface, but you can now choose what settings you want to be displayed on the toolbar. Camera activates pretty fast when you slide down the lid covering the lenses. The same goes for the video camera, which can capture VGA (30fps) clips in MP4 format or 3GPP, depending on the quality you choose. Menu and Software Nokia N85 runs the Symbian 9.3 operating system, with an S60 3rd Edition and Feature Pack 2 interface. Feature Pack 2 brings both visual and performance improvements, which otherwise wouldn't be available for devices that only run Feature Pack 1, unless they're updated. This does not mean that you can get all the features of the FP2 on FP1 devices, as there are still exclusive ones that you can only take advantage of on an FP2 handset, such as Nokia N85 or N96. The latter enables users to bring up on the Home screen a lot more shortcuts than usual, such as game, application and link shortcuts. The Task manager now appears on top of every menu option that the user opens. The main menu can be accessed by pressing the left key, right next to the Navi-wheel controller. In addition to the usual options and applications that we find in almost all Symbian-powered handsets, Nokia N85 features Search and Maps utilities. Maps is used together with the GPS receiver and enables owners to use Nokia maps, localization and directions when they're on the go. Lots of maps can be downloaded from Nokia's website and then used to pick the shortest route from one point to another. Under the Office category, we find QuickOffice applications, used for reading Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Users won't be able to edit any files without upgrading the application, which, of course, costs money. There's also a PDF reader, a notepad, a Zip archivator, and a currency converter. The Video center connects the phone to a bigger screen (projector, monitor, or TV) through the TV-out cable, in order to get a better view of the videos. The phone features a wide range of 3D games (trial versions) when the N-Gage menu is accessed. The most thrilling feature of the device is the Motion sensor that grants it the Automatic rotation ability. This means that, every time you want to use your phone's screen in landscape mode, you'll only need to turn its upper left side down, and the interface will automatically reshape in landscape mode. Compared with N95, the accelerometer now works with all menus and applications compatible with this feature, which is a great asset. The phone includes everything a user may need on the road or in the office, pre-installed on the handset: email, web, calendar, organizer, IM, office tools, messaging, applications manager, connectivity wizard, synchronization tools, GPS navigator, themes, profiles, and even more. Nokia N85 seems to be what its predecessor N81 should have been. Communications Nokia N85 is a quad band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) handset, HSDPA compatible, which features GPRS class 32 (107 kbps), EDGE 32 class (296 kbps), High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (57.6 kbps) and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g. Tested on the EDGE and 3G networks, the phone has performed pretty good, as you can see from the screenshots. The WLAN wizard helps you search and define your WLAN network connection settings. You can do that by going to the Main menu / Tools / Settings / Connection / Access points, and define which access point to be used whenever a network connection is required (Main menu / Home network / Settings). Other connectivity tools include Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, and microUSB for PC synchronization (charging included). When connecting the USB cable, you'll be able to choose from four modes: PC Suite, Mass storage, Image transfer and Media transfer. In terms of messaging, the phone accepts all available message types, but, given the not-so-friendly keypad, it will be hard to enjoy texting. Anyway, the handset includes no less than four message editors, one for each type: SMS, MMS, audio message and e-mail. The message client works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols, and supports more than one email account. The quad-band (GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) network compatible slider has a very good GSM signal reception. UMTS signal reception is likewise excellent. Processor and Memory Nokia N85 is powered by a dual ARM11 family processor running at speeds of up to 369 Mhz. I have noticed some lags and hiccups during games. The handset embeds an 85 MB user free internal memory and 128 MB SDRAM memory. Furthermore, the device comes with an 8GB microSD card in the sales package, so there's no need for supplementary expenses. Multimedia Nokia N85 is a multimedia device, thus the 3.5mm jack port doesn't come as a surprise. The jack port enables users to attach any compatible headphone, which will improve their experience. The integrated music player looks very cool, and supports almost any type of music file you can think of: MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA, M4A, as well as playlists. Files are automatically sorted by artist, genre, and albums, or by using the PC Suite. The music player can be easily controlled with the Navi-wheel, but you can also take advantage of the four music keys, which are revealed when the phone is slid down. There's also the option to take advantage of the Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, which will enable users to listen music wirelessly. The music player features all kinds of options and settings: Equalizer, Visualisation, Balance, Loudness, Stereo Widening, or Shuffle. Some of these are also available for the included FM Radio, which can memorize up to 50 base stations and features RDS and Visual radio capabilities. Battery The 1200 mAh Li-Ion (BL-5K) battery has an officially stated life expectancy of 363 hours in standby (360 hours for 3G) and of about 6 hours and 50 minutes in talk-time mode (4 hours and 30 minutes for 3G). Impressions Nokia N85 seems to be a good choice for slider fans, especially as it includes so many features at a decent price. The Good Everything stuffed into this smartphone works pretty much above average, except maybe the screen, which is low consuming (AMOLED), but can barely be readable outdoors. Nokia N85 is solid built and offered at a decent price, which should attract more people than the actual design. I should enlist almost all the technical features that the phone includes, but also the quality of music sound. The Bad I think the layout of the external keys, the Navi-wheel, which is still hard to control, as well as the AMOLED screen are the only letdowns of the device. Also, I was surprised to find that Nokia dropped the usual charging port and chose the microUSB port as the only method of charging. Available sales package : Nokia N85 handset Nokia Battery (BL-5K) Nokia Travel Charger (AC-10) Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U) Nokia Connectivity Cable (CA-101) Nokia Music Headset (HS-45, AD-54) Nokia 8 GB microSD card (MU-43) Review N97 Nokia series The Nokia N97 combines a large 3.5? Nokia’s flagship N series device introduces leading technology - including multiple sensors, memory, processing power and connection speeds - for people to create a personal Internet and share their “social location”. With the Nokia N97, Nseries leads the charge in helping to transform the Internet into your Internet”. The Nokia N97 introduces the concept of ’social location’. With integrated A-GPS sensors and an electronic compass, the Nokia N97 mobile computer intuitively understands where it is. Nokia N97 Mobile Phone With Widescreen - Internet and entertainment The home screen of the Nokia N97 mobile computer features the people, content, and media that matter the most. Friends, social networks and news are available by simply touching the home screen. The 16:9 widescreen display can be fully personalized with frequently updated widgets of favorite web services and social networking sites . The Nokia N97 mobile phone is also perfectly suited for browsing the web, streaming Flash videos or playing games. The Nokia N97 Mobile Phone supports up to 48 GB of storage, including 32 GB of on-board memory, expandable with a 16 GB microSD card for music, media and more. Samsung Pixon12 Shows Up in Alive Images Samsung's aboriginal adaptable buzz to backpack central a 12-megapixel photo snapper (soon to become the aboriginal 12MP cameraphone accessible for acquirement on the market), the Samsung Pixon12 has been acutely alien at the alpha of the month, and now we apprentice that the aboriginal alive images with the high-end accessory are accessible on the Internet. The South Korean adaptable buzz maker, as abounding of you ability already know, brought the 12MP behemoth forth at the ComunicAsia 2009 bazaar in Singapore, area these images were taken. Fortunately for us, now we are able to booty a afterpiece attending at some of the capacity of the Pixon12, including the microSDHC anamnesis agenda aperture on the larboard side, the covering blanket on the lower aback side, or the microUSB anchorage on the top of the device. At the aforementioned time, the company's already appear TouchWiz 2.0 interface can be acutely spotted on the adaptable phone, akin the attending that it has on added handsets that accommodate it, such as the anew appear Samsung Jet. At the aforementioned time, we can additionally accept a attending at the capabilities of the 12-megapixel camera the buzz packs inside, through a alternation of images taken with it. According to the account on the Web, the interface of the phone's camera is rather simple, alms a advanced ambit of options, including altered cutting modes, arena settings, and added others. The accessory additionally sports a 3.1-inch AMOLED WVGA screen, as able-bodied as abutment for amusing networking sites like Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, MySpace, Photobucket or Friendster, acceptance users to calmly upload there the images taken with the phone's camera. According to some of the contempo rumors on the Web, Samsung ability additionally basic the absolution of a additional cameraphone that sports a 12-megapixel camera, admitting annihilation has been accepted until now. Another handset to accommodate such a high-quality camera should be the Sony Ericsson Satio, which was ahead accepted as Idou, and which should acreage in the fourth division of the advancing year.
Sony Ericsson W902 Review One of the nicest surprises advancing from Sony Ericsson aftermost summertime was its top-of-the-line Walkman-series handset – W902. Alike admitting the Walkman alternation focuses on multimedia features, the W902 includes some Cyber-shot ancestry such as 5 Megapixel camera with geo-tagging, autofocus, LED beam and angel stabilization. Moreover, the affection of the bore camera seems to be on par with high-end Cyber-shot-series handsets, which makes it the aboriginal adaptable buzz that can be tagged both as music accessory and a camera phone. Add to that the aberrant angle included in the amalgamation and the 8GB M2 anamnesis agenda and you accept one of the best able handsets advancing from the Swedish-Japanese company.
8GB M2 anamnesis card 930 mAh Li-Polymer Battery Data Cable Stereo HPM-77 headset Travel Charger CD-Rom User Manual M2 USB adapter. Review : BlackBerry Bold 9000 Recently entered on the touchscreen smartphone market, RIM decided to give one more shot to its traditional smartphone lineup with no-touch displays. One of the last such devices was BlackBerry Bold 9000, which should've been one of the best in its line. Thanks to PureMobile, we will see whether or not this good-looking smartphone rises to the challenge of its touchscreen disciples. Boasting a full QWERTY keyboard and a nice leather-like material, BlackBerry Bold 9000 is a business-oriented smartphone that intends to offer its users, above all else, a complete email solution.Announced in May 2008, BlackBerry Bold 9000 hit the shelves in August 2008. There's only one color available for this product and as a business phone this should be Black. Blackberry Bold is no cheap smartphone and even today, one year after its launch on the market, you can buy it for at least 500USD unlocked and without any plan. Design There's not too big a difference between BlackBerry Bold 9000 and its older predecessors, except maybe for the leather-like compound of the back cover. The same 'pie form' so recognizable from afar and the same medium-sized weird display are still among the main attractions of the smartphone. Measuring 114 x 66 x 14 mm and weighing 133g (including battery), RIM proved that it could shorten the size of its devices, even though it kept the same form factor. The handset feels great in hand, but I have noticed that the back cover is slightly moving, like it's not firmly fitting into its slot. The right side of the smartphone features a dual volume key and dedicated camera key. On the left side there's a lot of activity, which implies a 3.5mm jack port, a small miniUSB port, a dedicated Voice command key and a microSD slot. On top of the phone there a special button that locks the keypad, while on the button there's a small slider that opens the back cover. The 2 Megapixel camera embedded on the back of the phone features flash and is protected by a wide metallic frame. The same metallic compound surrounds and covers the edges of the smartphone, while the back hood is made of a leather-like material that feels exceptional to the touch. The QWERTY keyboard features 35 keys, which have been wisely placed. Still, the numeric keypad has been moved to the left side, which makes it a little bit annoying for left-handers. The keypad benefits from a great and even backlighting, which makes the use of the phone in dark areas perfectly possible. Between the display and keyboard there are four buttons common to almost all BlackBerry devices: Accept Call, Menu key, Back key and Reject call. In the middle, the famous trackball that make browsing through menus very easy. The 2.6-inch display is covered by a protective foil, which can be removed as the device is not a fingerprint magnet. Above the screen you can notice the usual earpiece and a status LED, which blinks when you have a missed call or you have received a message. There is definitely some classy look here, but I could not get past the fact that Bold 9000 doesn't feel too solid and compact. Nevertheless, I'm almost sure that BB fans will be happy to find it much better looking that its predecessors. Display and Camera Blackberry Bold 9000 features a 2.6-inch display, supporting 65k colors and a 240x320 pixel resolution. The secondary one also supports 65k colors and 480x320 pixel resolution. The medium-sized screen does its job very good. Just wide enough to provide a smooth Web browsing experience, with excellent brightness, vivid colors and very good contrast, the screen is perfectly visible in strong sunlight, which has become quite a standard for Blackberries lately. The two themes included with the operating system make the phone's interface even more appealing. Overall, the quality image is quite high for a Blackberry business device. In terms of performance, you can check out some of the tests I made below. The 2 Megapixel camera isn't worth too much attention, but for a business phone this is not such a tragedy. Without being the lowest in terms of performance, it only meets the minimum requirements for a user who intends to take some pictures. The device features flash and 3x digital zoom, but lacks autofocus capabilities. Overall, images are saved pretty fast, but most of them aren't focused and the noise effect is at a high level. Menu and Software Blackberry Bold 9000 runs Blackberry 4.6.0 operating system, platform 4.0.0. This is one of the latest OSes from Blackberry, but if you have an older one, it's usually better to update it to the latest version. The interface of the smartphone hasn't changed and if you already own one of RIM's devices this won't come up with anything new in terms of productivity tools. The only improvement that you cannot miss is the look of the interface, which is more eye-candy than its previous versions. Colors of the icons you'll find in the main menu are softly lighted in contrast with the dark background, and make a very good impression on the user. The usual Office package, called Documents To Go, developed by DataViz, is also included in Bold's operating system. Unfortunately, as you can see from the screenshots, you can only read or edit Word docs, Excel docs, and PowerPoint presentations, but need to pay if you want to make new documents. Instead of getting more new features that might not come in handy at all, RIM preferred to keep all the old stuff and give everything a shiny look. Not too bad, as Blackberry's all productivity tools are pretty solid. The phonebook can store an unlimited number of contacts, as long as your available memory allows it. Each contact can be filled with multiple numbers, e-mail addresses, birthday and anniversary information, a picture and a slot for both work and home addresses. Communications Finally, one of RIM's few devices that include the whole connectivity package: HSDPA 3.6 Mbps, Wi-Fi, EDGE and GPRS class 10. Fans of the brand can now benefit from any of the above-mentioned connections when needed. Although the integrated browser is not that good, as rich-in-graphics pages are loading pretty slowly, you can easily change it for the MiniOpera browser, which is perfectly compatible. Tested on EDGE and HSDPA networks, the device's results were pretty good: 120 Kbit/s download and 79 Kbit/s upload (EDGE), 1117 Kbit/s download and 321 Kbit/s upload (HSDPA). In terms of messaging Bold 900 features the standard Blackberry package. Should you either want multiple emails or instant messaging, this smartphone has it all. Unfortunately, you will be limited to BlackBerry Internet Service email accounts on the Storm. The same goes for the instant messaging application, which only features a proprietary BlackBerry service. Furthermore, to fully integrate the BlackBerry into a company's system, the installation of BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) is required. Synchronizing the smartphone with the PC can be made very easily with the Blackberry Desktop Manager. The transfer is very fast, should you either be syncing emails and messages or simply filling your smartphone with music files. If that is still not enough for you, then note that Bold 9000 also features a built-in GPS receiver with A-GPS support and BlackBerry Maps. The GPS module works perfectly and completes the technical features of a smartphone that has all the BB fans wanted included in a single device. Blackberry Bold 9000 is a quad-band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) and tri-band HSDPA (850 / 1900 / 2100) smartphone, which features GPRS, EDGE, and HSDPA. Other connectivity tools include the Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP and the miniUSB for PC synchronization (including charging). The call quality is exceptionally good, almost impressive. You'll thus be able to talk on the phone even in more crowded areas. The GSM signal is also very good on the EDGE network, as well as on WCDMA. Processor and Memory Blackberry Bold 9000 is powered by a single Intel XScale 624MHz CPU, which makes it one of the fastest BlackBerries up to date. While modern Blackberries incorporate ARM9-family processors, there are some that are added ARM7 CPUs, which are a little bit slower. Unfortunately, this is showing especially when browsing the menu, using multiple applications and especially when 3G connectivity is used. I have experienced some lockdowns when I have tried to open multiple apps within the device's menu. Overall there are some hiccups that could've been avoided if a more powerful CPU had been embedded. The smartphone embeds 1GB user free internal storage memory and 128 MB Flash memory, which makes data processing much faster. Storage space can be expanded up to 8GB through the hot-swappable microSD slot card. The sales package also contains a 1GB microSD card, depending on the location. Multimedia There's not much to tell about the multimedia just that it bears the same conservative and business-like look, which is quite understandable as it comes from a business smartphone. The built-in music player supports album art features, but lacks any Equalizers. It supports MP3/WMA/AAC+ music files, which can be sorted by Artist, Albums and Genre. Users will be able to make their own playlists within seconds. Furthermore, even if these are only basic features, I was surprised to find out that the quality of the sound was pretty high, especially when using your own headphones. Thanks to the 3.5mm port you can now change the included headphones, which are not that bad though. One more drawback that I noticed was the missing Repeat feature, which was present in previous models. Battery The 1500 mAh Li-Ion battery has an officially stated life expectancy of 310 hours in standby, and of about 5 hours in talk-time mode. Our test unit made it for about 4 days at medium use. Heavy users will need daily charging or 2-3 charges per week. The autonomy is pretty acceptable for a Blackberry owner that only uses the specific Blackberry services, namely messaging capabilities.
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