Archive for May, 2009

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Nokia E55 Theme Review: Mono by PiZero

Sunday, May 31st, 2009

If you read my previous reviews of PiZeros S60 themes then you should know by now that I am a big fan of his works. This is because his themes are plain awesome, some more than the others. This one which I’m presenting to you now is called Mono. I don’t like it as much as his previous themes because the main theme color is just not my taste. But just because I don’t like it much doesn’t mean that I will contain myself to write something about this theme.

mono3rd Nokia E55 Theme Review: Mono by PiZeroThe main theme color is somewhat of a “bluish grey” (don’t really know what to call it). The wallpaper has many thin lines going through it which seem to start on the middle of the left side and spread over to the complete right side causing a small visual illusion. Those lines are slightly brighter than the wallpaper.

The toolbar in the home screen is in an off white color. The same color is used as the icon surrounding and as the indicating color in the main menus. They all have a shadowy/ glossy effect.

A simple white serves as the main font color. The secondary font color is the weird “bluish grey”. The simple looking analog clock on the home screen is also in white as you would expect it to be.

This theme comes with PiZeros and Jandells icon packs. Like most of PiZeros themes this one also has a lite version with default icons and fits both landscape and portrait mode very well.

To download it visit PiZeros website.

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Nokia E51 Evolves Into Nokia E52/E55

Saturday, May 30th, 2009

The E51 was announced back in September 2007. Almost one and a half year later Nokia introduced the successor of this device as their first compact QWERTY keyboard smart phone. For customers who prefer an alphanumeric keypad over a QWERTY keypad Nokia announced the E52 at the beginning of this month.

e51 e55 Nokia E51 Evolves Into Nokia E52/E55

Both the E52 and the E55 seem to be an evolution of the older E51. Therefore let’s take a look what Nokia changed to create the E51’s successors. The main focus while creating the E51 and the E52/E55 was to make a compact smart phone with a reasonable price. The E51 has almost the same size as the E55/E52. It is two millimeters thicker and one millimeter shorter than its successors. The unsubsidized initial price of the E51 (without camera) was 250€. For the E51 with camera you had to pay 100€ more. (E55/E52: 265€ unsubsidized)

Other than the small differences in size and price what are the major changes between the 2007 smart phone and the 2009 smart phone?

1. Updated OS: From S60 3rd Edition FP1 to S60 3rd Edition FP2.

2. Screen size from 2” to 2.4”

3. From 96MB SDRAM to 128MB SDRAM

4. CPU clock from 369MHz to 600MHz

5. Camera from 2MP or rather non to 3.2MP

6. New E-Mail client in E52/E55

7. Battery from 1050 mAh to 1500 mAh

Of course there are several other differences like video recording, the GPS feature in E52/E55 and support for certain image and video file formats. But all in all it shows that the E52 and E55 are worthy upgrades from the E51.

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Nokia E55 App Review: Shazam iD

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Many of you guys may know the application TrackID which has been a part of Sony Ericsson phones for quite some time now. As the name indicates TrackID helps you to track songs by recording a small part of it. If there is a match (which is the case in most of the times) you will get detailed information about the song e.g. song title, artist and album.

shazam Nokia E55 App Review: Shazam iD

Shazam iD does the exact same job as TrackID but only for S60 cell phones. I often hear songs which I find interesting. But most of the time I don’t know what they are called or who the artist is. In these situations Shazam iD is really helpful. As long as the song is audible, in English and not several centuries old matches are almost guaranteed. If the song you are looking for is brand new there may be no search result.

If there is a song from which you want to know the id just start up this app and choose “Tag Now”. “Tag Now” records several seconds of that song and asks you to connect to the internet. Additionally to the basic information on the song you will get to see the album art and have an option to buy the song itself or a ringtone version of it. The process of recording, sending and receiving the desired info doesn’t take much time.

Sadly this app is only available in the UK (officially at least). There is a 30-day trial version which you can get at the Shazam website. After the trial is over it will cost you £2 a month.

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Nokia E55 Theme Review: DarkStar by PiZero

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

Here is another PiZero theme review. This one is called DarkStar. It is a dark theme with a beautiful background image/ wallpaper. The whole theme looks great once it is installed on your phone.

dst09 Nokia E55 Theme Review: DarkStar by PiZeroLet’s start with the wallpaper. On the bottom third of the wallpaper there are some silhouettes of houses (not too sure about it). A long tree without any leaves is seen in the middle of the image. Behind the tree is a huge “DarkStar” which looks more like an overgrown moon. Only a small part of the actual star is visible in the wallpaper. Aside from the “DarkStar” and the grey sky everything is black.

The clock on the homescreen looks really nice because of its grey color in combination with a glossy effect. Once you enter the main menu you will notice that there is somewhat of a blurred layer over the wallpaper. This way the icons are better visible. The icons included are Hybrid PiZero icons and the Touch icons.

The primary font color is white which is very appropriate for a dark theme. The secondary color is grey. The color of the indicating field is white. Everything is easily readable including the calendar. The background color of the calendar is a really dark grey with the digits and days being presented in white.

This theme has also a lite version. The difference between the full version and this is that the lite version has the default Nokia icons. Download it over at PiZeros website like usual.

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Nokia E55 App Review: X-plore from LCG

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

A smart phone power user most of the time needs to hack his phone so that he can improve the operating system (with additional system files) and install certain apps. To do that you have to get access to all files including the system files on your phone. Since manufactures like Nokia don’t want you to have access to those files they lock them. To get closer to those files you need a file manager like X-plore from Lonely Cat Games which has the option to show/ hide system files.

lcg xplore copy Nokia E55 App Review: X plore from LCGAfter opening X-plore it will display your drives (C-drive, E-drive…). To get to a specific file you have to click yourself through the folders like in Windows Explorer. So that you don’t get lost in the file manager the directory is always present. In the app itself you can choose menu to do some advanced operations like search a certain file, rename it, send it and show the details of it. A really interesting feature in the menu is the “Quick Folders”. In those you can add some folders which you frequently use. This way you have quick access to them. Almost every command in the app can be executed through key shortcuts.

The app also comes with some nice additions like a zip creator/ opener. The zip archives are handled just like folders so opening or creating them is very easy. The other additions are an image viewer, an audio player and a video player. The audio and video players only play a preview of the media file.

The full version of X-plore for S60 will cost you $10. There is also a trial version available on the LCG website.

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Ovi Store-Worldwide Launch

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

The Ovi Store was announced in February this year at the Mobile World Congress. It is Nokia’s official application store for their cell phones. Via the Ovi Store you will be able to download application, games, themes, wallpapers, videos clips and ringtones for your phone. Nokia revealed that at the launch of the store there would be over 20.000 items available for download.

Nokia stated May as the launch date for their application store. Since then the store has been hotly anticipated by many Nokia cell phone owners. Some of them were put to rest after there were several reports stating that the Ovi Store had unofficially launched in several Countries like Australia, Singapore and Ireland yesterday. Only a day after that (today) the Ovi Store officially launched worldwide.

ovistore aus 1 Ovi Store Worldwide LaunchTo download Ovi Store go to Download on your S60 cell phone menu and refresh the content. After that you should be able to see the Ovi Store icon. Download and install it and you are ready to browse the store content. Browsing is done according to categories like Games, Apps, Recommended etc.. The UI of the store seems to be OK for the time being. But there are some sub-categories needed. Information about whether an app is java based or a native S60 one is also missing.

Like in every application store this one also has free items and items that you have to pay for. The typical price for a game/app is 4,99€. You have the possibility to rate the items in the store and write a comment about them so that other users may know if the item is useful or not.

If you somehow can’t access the store via you cell phone you can also visit the store on your computer.

This store should have been released a long time ago since Nokia was one of the only major smart phone manufacturers who didn’t have their own application store. At the moment there isn’t a huge amount of useful content in the store but hopefully that will change soon.

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Nokia E55 Theme Review: Zune Themes Vol.1 by Flahorn

Monday, May 25th, 2009

zune themes vol 1 by flahorn 458x1023 Nokia E55 Theme Review: Zune Themes Vol.1 by FlahornLet me present you a series of Flahorn themes which are all identical to each other except for their main wallpaper/ background image. The last theme I reviewed from Flahorn was the Touch theme which was inspired by the Nokia 5800 XM. This new series of themes were inspired by Microsoft’s PMP, the Zune. The Zunes brand logo is colored in orange and pink which fade into each other. Therefore these colors appear at least once in every menu. May it be as an icon color or as a frame color.

The Zune Themes Vol.1 is made of three themes. They are called Phyta, Everglade and Organica. Phyta’s wallpaper/ background image contains the colors pink, a very light orange and a strong white. The image also contains a white flower pattern which is visible in the pink parts. The Everglade wallpaper has a strong white color as well in combination with an olive-green which is fading in some parts of the image. Lastly the Organica wallpaper starts with a grey pattern at the top and fades very fast into the usual white.

Flahorn used an improved version of his S60 Prototype Icons. Most of them have a glossy effect now. The main font color is black and the secondary one is a shade of “dark beige”. The distinctive Zune color (orange to pink) is used as the color of the clock, the indication frame and in the calculator.

These themes are really nice and you don’t have to be a Zune fan to appreciate them. To download them visit Flahorn at Deviantart.

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Nokia E55 Game Review: Metal Gear Solid Mobile

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

Metal Gear Solid is one of the most popular stealth game series to date. Up until now most of the games were released on gaming consoles. But since 2008 there are some mobile releases of this series such as the Metal Gear Solid Mobile game for N-Gage. Being an owner of all three Playstations aside from the PSP I am very familiar with the major Metal Gear Solid games. The N-Gage release of Metal Gear Solid is not as great as the Playstation releases but in my opinion it is a satisfying game and worth playing. Metal Gear Solid Mobile relies heavily on stealth game play so if you want a game where you have to shoot everything that is on the screen then this game is nothing for you.

mgs copy Nokia E55 Game Review: Metal Gear Solid MobileThe game has two viewing modes. The first being a top down view and the second one being a first person view. In the first person view you can’t move around but only look around you by moving your cell phone or use the cursor keys. The controls are fairly easy. Most of the time you hide behind boxes and take out guards without making some noise (just things that you would expect from a stealth game). You are also able to jump.

Like all of the Metal Gear Solid games this one also has a pretty interesting plot. The story takes place between MGS and MGS2 and is based around Snake.

The game isn’t too hard and if you are a fan of the MGS series you should at least try out the demo.

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Nokia E55 App Review: Official YouTube App

Saturday, May 23rd, 2009

With YouTube’s rapidly growing popularity it was only a matter of time until an official YouTube application for S60 was released. This new app makes watching YouTube videos on your cell phone as comfortable as possible. Since the release of the N95 there were many 3rd party YouTube apps but because of some missing resources they didn’t work on all S60 3rd Edition phones. This official app supports almost all of the FP1 and Fp2 devices. So there shouldn’t be any compatibility issues.

The app is easy to use and really fast. Over Wi-Fi the videos were loaded much faster than with the normal browser. The simple user interface and the smooth transitions are also some positive things of this app.

youtube Nokia E55 App Review: Official YouTube AppThe app itself has a search bar at the top which shows you your search history and checks for matches while you are typing. On the bottom left there is the menu where you can change the connection and some other things. From the home screen you have the possibility to sort the videos according to the categories most viewed, most recent and top rated. Once you choose a video to watch it is directly shown in full screen.

Since this app is still in its first release version some things like video downloads and access to your YouTube account are missing.

To download this nice little application you have to visit m.youtube.com on your mobile browser and choose “Download the YouTube application” at the top. This app is free but if you are planning to use it in combination with 3G you should have a good data plan since it streams a high amount of data.

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Nokia E55 Game Review: MicroPool 2007

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

MicroPool 2007 by Gabor Fetter is a nice pool game for S60 cell phones. I’m really fond of MicroPool since pool is one of my favorite games.  If you are a fan of pool games you should take a closer look at this.

table2 Nokia E55 Game Review: MicroPool 2007

MicroPool contains four different gaming modes. Those are US 8-Ball (where you have to pocket all your striped/ solid balls and then have to move on to the solid black ball to win), 9-ball (where you have to pocket the balls in a specific order), Killer (you and your opponent are allowed to miss five times after which one of you looses) and Speed (where you have to pocket the balls as fast as you can). Besides choosing one of the game modes you also have to choose your opponent when starting a new game. You can choose to play against the computer or against a friend of yours.

In settings menu of MicroPool you can change the computer strength, the sound effects and the color of the pool table.

The game is mostly controlled with the d-pad. To apply spin on the ball you have to use *,# or 0.

MicroPool is a top-down game like most of the cell phone pool games. Because of its graphics this game looks really great and its realistic sound effects are also very nice. The most important things in a pool game are the ball physics and the animations. MicroPool does a great job in generating precise and realistic physics. The animations are decent but not very close to the reality since the balls don’t move as fast as they should.

The full version of this game costs $9,95. There is also a demo verison available here.

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