Ask a Google Nexus One owner why they chose it over the other Android offerings and chances are they’ll tell you it’s because of the frequent updates. Back in the day you had to take your phone to a Nokia repair center to get a firmware update, that’s if you were lucky. Most of the time the firmware you had the day you received the phone, that’s exactly the firmware it will have at the end of it’s life cycle. But with the increasing popularity of firmware-over-the-air (FOTA) updates, updating using your PC is becoming less popular. The best example of this is the Nokia N900, which got all of its updates using FOTA. So what exactly should can Nokia learn from Google?

The Nexus One not only provides the vanilla Google experience, but also gets lots and lots of updates. Big or small, as soon they’re available to the public, they are available for the Nexus One. This gives you the ability to quickly address issues and give your customers their most requested features that didn’t make it in the initial feature list. The latter is especially important for the mobile enthusiasts that wants the latest features and bugs fixed. Other Android devices with similar specs get the updates many many months later. Better yet, the Nexus One even gets all the major releases. I never heard of a Symbian device getting an update to the next major release.  

In the case of the N900 there has been a lot of improvement when compared to Symbian devices. First of all, because every single update has been done using FOTA, it’s more user friendly. There’s even an early build of MeeGo for the N900, arguably the next major release to follow Maemo. Despite Nokia’s lack of commitment to fully support MeeGo on the N900, we still see the early build for the N900 as a step in the right direction.

A lot is at stake with MeeGo and Nokia should treat it like it’s only child, giving it frequent updates. Listening to community and knowing what they want and putting these in frequently released FOTA’s is a big lesson they could learn from Google.

Do you value frequent firmware updates?

Back in May we brought you the scoop on the upcoming Documents To Go Premium Edition (PE) and now it’s finally here. Technically, Documents To Go Premium Edition isn’t the first documents editor for the N900. That honor goes to FreOffice, but seeing that it’s still in extras-devel repository, it’s not something we would recommend yet. So the first, stable, ready for prime-time release indeed does go to Documents To Go PE.

Now let’s get to the more important details. Buying the full version will set you back $29.99, while the Viewer Edition still costs $9.99. But if you were smart enough to get it during the introduction period, you’ll get the update to the Premium Edition for free!

Where you the one of the lucky ones that go the first version of DTG? Will you be getting the viewer or premium edition?

Nokia never made a USB desktop cradle for the N900. The closest thing from Nokia is the now discontinued DT-13. Brando has released two very interesting solutions for the lack of a proper desktop stand. The first model, the 8500 syncs your N900 using the built-in USB connection and charges the battery in the process.

The second option is basically the same thing, but adds a place to charge a second battery. That last model, the 8600, cost $6 more, but the option to charge a second battery seems well worth the extra.

Both of these cradles seem  a bit plasticky to us, but overall quality seems to be good. Have seen any cool desktop cradles for the N900, let us know.

Nokia phones are known for three things: good reception/call quality, solid build and easy to use menu. While that last one might be slowly slipping away, there’s no denying that Nokia devices are known for their incredible ability to get good reception even in difficult areas. There have been countless cases where I was the only one with reception, while others had 1 or 0 bars. Considering all the news around Apple and the antenna design of the iPhone, one thing is for sure, if the actual phone feature and good reception is a high priority, Nokia is still the best. With all the features being added, sometimes we forget that it’s still a phone and meant for making calls.

This what Nokia had to say about antenna design:

"Antenna design is a complex subject and has been a core competence at Nokia for decades, across hundreds of phone models. Nokia was the pioneer in internal antennas; the Nokia 8810, launched in 1998, was the first commercial phone with this feature.
Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying human behavior, including how people hold their phones for calls, music playing, web browsing and so on. As you would expect from a company focused on connecting people, we prioritize antenna performance over physical design if they are ever in conflict.
In general, antenna performance of a mobile device/phone may be affected with a tight grip, depending on how the device is held. That’s why Nokia designs our phones to ensure acceptable performance in all real life cases, for example when the phone is held in either hand. Nokia has invested thousands of man hours in studying how people hold their phones and allows for this in designs, for example by having antennas both at the top and bottom of the phone and by careful selection of materials and their use in the mechanical design."

So Apple mostly prioritizes form, while Nokia chooses function/performance. What these two are not seeing is that a good device should have both. When you prioritize the over the other you get compromise, a good design closely matches form and function.

Do you agree that Nokia is still number 1 when it comes to antenna performance? Is reception/call quality important for you? Let us know.

Via:Engadget

Image Courtesy: S60 Blog

The Nokia BH-214 is probably one of the most overlooked Nokia accessories, standing in the shadows of the popular “single-ear” Bluetooth headsets such as the BH-607 and the stereo Bluetooth headsets such as the mighty BH-905. Considering it’s versatility and performance, we kind of expected these to be more popular, but it seems that the majority of the consumers prefer standard Stereo Bluetooth headsets or the traditional Bluetooth headsets. Next time, should you consider the BH-214 instead?

Read the rest of this entry »

32GB microSDHC card have been announced almost a year ago, but are just now starting to become available. Instead of leaving the memory card business to third parties, Nokia usually follows with their own branded versions of the highest storage capacity  available on memory cards available. This time Nokia has released a monstrosity in the form of the MU-45, their version of a 32GB microSDHC card. This also means that 64GB of storage is now easily available to the masses as flagship devices such as the N900 already have 32GB of built-in storage.

Nokia branded memory cards are usually not the fastest, but very reliable. We still don’t have no word on pricing, but expect something in the range of $130 to just south of the $200 mark. It’s also safe to say that the latest if you bought your Nokia in the last 2 years it should be able to supprt the SDHC standard. Nokia’s own compatibility list can be found here.

Last weekend my Nokia N900 was stolen. With hundreds of contacts, losing the device was horrible, but losing my contacts was a nightmare. I did make a backup a few months ago, but that means that some of my newer contacts are lost. While the N900 does have a backup feature for contacts, it makes a lot of sense to have this process happen automatically and store these contacts into the cloud. We usually don’t think of these until it happens to one of us. This is one of those times where I wished I made more frequent backups, but that I also wished the N900 had feature that stores contacts into the cloud. Funny thing is that Nokia does have such a feature and it’s called Ovi Contacts. Sadly, after many months it still only a Symbian exclusive.

Why? There’s absolutely no reason why the N900 can’t  support this feature. There’s onboard support for OVI chat and even files can be uploaded to OVI, so why no support OVI contacts stored into the cloud?

It’s true that I should make regular backups, doing so would save me a lot of headache! But fact is that the average user won’t bother making any backups and that both the average and power user will simply we forget to this. For this reason  the process should be transparent and automatic, and should at least allow some level of customization when it comes to the frequency it makes backups. Nokia should enable this feature and allow activation through a one-time setup. Such a feature can be a life saver, but Nokia you should at least enable this for us N900 users.

As a N900 owner, do you wish it had an automatic backup feature that stores contacts into the cloud?

Amazon is now offering the Nokia N900 at a great $399 price, with free shipping and no coupons to deal with. While not as good as Dell’s $369 deal, which now officially has gone the way of the Dodo, the Amazon deal is quite a steal for such loaded device.

I might hit the buy button myself.

Know any other good deals on the Nokia N900? Let us know!

That other browser for the N900 has been updated to version 1.1 and in the process gains a few neat little tricks. Firefox for Maemo now includes interesting new features such as Self-Updating Add-ons, Save pages as PDF and context sensitive menus. This build finally integrates portrait browsing, just like the built-in microB browser and zoom using the volume buttons.

Other usability improvements include Start page with for example a list of your tabs history, there’s also a Form Autocomplete and Smart tap.

This update is for both the N900 and N810. Madhava.com has more  details on the new features.

Want to get this browser? Use the built browser and visit: Firefox.com/m

As you might have noticed, we haven’t been covering Symbian-based devices lately, focusing completely on the Nokia N900 and the upcoming MeeGo OS.  We started The Nokia Guide to cover the Nokia devices we’ve come to know and love, which at the beginning were Symbian-based. But as the mobile market has gotten progressively more competitive, especially from Android, we feel that Symbian-based devices have lost their edge to the point where we’re simply not covering them enthusiastically; we won’t buy them and won’t recommend them to our readers. As a result we’re going to make it official what we’ve been doing for a while now: stop covering Symbian-based devices. We feel that Symbian is becoming irrelevant and upcoming Symbian^3 and^4 don’t seem to change that. Other Symbian bloggers, such as our friends at Symbian-Guru are taking it one step further.

Luckily this doesn’t affect the Nokia N900 and upcoming MeeGo devices. I’m a happy Nokia N900 owner myself and would easily recommend it to our readers. Because Maemo serves as the basis for what will become MeeGo we have very high expectations for this platform and for this reason we will continue to cover Maemo and MeeGo exclusively.

Microsoft recently scrapped their plans for KIN and are completely focusing on Windows Phone 7. Nokia should do the same: scrap upcoming Nokia N8 and it’s QWERTY-based version and focus on MeeGo and getting developers on their side.

What do you think? Is Symbian becoming irrelevant?