With just a few hours to go, I want take the opportunity to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Looking back at 2007 it’s been an incredible year and I wanted to thank my readers for the support for making The Nokia Guide what it has become in just 3 months. Through the Nokia Guide I’ve met many people and made many friends in the mobile community for which I’m very grateful for. I also wanted to say a special thanks to the guys over at WOM World. I’m really looking forward to 2008 as the battle between Nokia and Apple is going to be ferocious and it’s also the year that it seems that we can finally get touch screen, QWERTY keyboard and numeric keyboards all in one device! With the latest S60 devices being so fine tuned to our needs, in part due to the word of the mobile community, it’s going to be interesting to see where things go from here. In the end we can only benefit from it, but as always keep the blogging voice alive. Happy New Year!

While browsing the Nokia Sports Tracker site I noticed that Nokia is offering a limited edition version of the N82 in the form of the Nokia N82 limited edition Adventure Pack. The package is said to include the N82, the Nokia Sports Tracker software preinstalled and the choice of either a Salomon Raid Revo 20 or Salomon Thruster Backpacks. I do have to mention though that the package is only available to the UK, Spain, France, Germany or Italy for about 599 Euros or 559 Euros (Spain). They mention the fact that the Nokia Sports Tracker is included in the package, but this is something that can easily be downloaded from the net. They should have included something more useful to the adventurer like let’s say a few months of turn-by-turn directions in Nokia Maps. Being a limited edition package they seem to have just a few of these packages. At the time of writing they had about 380 packages available. More info can be found here.

Nokia N82 Adventure Pack now available to Europe.

This has got to be one of the most useful and definitely one of the top 10 apps for 2007. After being spoiled with NokMote, Emtube and RotateMe we can now add Insfast to the list! One of the most annoying and time-consuming tasks on these Nokia S60 devices is having to reinstall every single app after a firmware upgrade or hard reset. If that wasn’t enough you’ll have to deal with several security warnings and popups. InsFast is a type of batch installer that solves this by allowing you place all the .sis, .sisx, .jar or jad installation files and it will take care of the rest. It’s a not a “set it and forget” solution as you’ll will still have to deal with a few popups and security warnings, but these are much less than you would usually get and in the end you’ll have your programs installed and ready for action! How cool is that?! One thing I would advice is to place the installation files in the memory location (card of phone memory) where you would want the program to be installed. So it would make sense to group your apps into two groups: those to be installed in the memory card (or built-in memory in the case of the N95 8GB, N91, N91 8GB and N81 8GB) or phone memory. After that, all you’ll need to do is point InsFast to the desired location. One word of warning is that the file is not signed, so you’ll need to sign it to install. Does anyone know if this will uninstall unsigned files and make them work without signing them?

Download insfast.zip

Via: Symbian-Freak

Image Courtesy of: Symbian-Freak

At the Nokia N82 Launch the product manager confirmed that a white version would be available in 2008 and that black is another color that they were looking into, so news of these two new colors comes as no surprise to us here at The Nokia Guide. But confirmation that they are pretty close to being released comes from other pre-order pages at Mobile City Online for the Nokia N82 in white and black. The expected arrival date of Feb. 15, 2008 also stays true to the Q1 08 time frame that the product manager had given us back in November.

After seeing the N82 8GB popping up at the Nseries US portal I’m hearing consistent rumors of a redesigned N82 with a larger screen, black color, media keys and 8GB of storage. It seems like they are keeping us happy with these sought-after colors just before releasing an updated N82 8GB. I’m really starting to doubt if that that N82 8GB was indeed a typo, but I’m sure I’ll get more info soon enough. No word on a possible N82 US 3G.

Remember the N95 8GB NAM that I wasn’t too sure whether it was a typo or not?  I speculated that after the N82 8GB was removed, the N95 8GB must have been real because it was still left standing on the Nseries US Portal. We can now put the rumors status aside as the N95 8GB seems to be as real as it gets now that a pre-order page has popped upped at Mobile City Online . It’s good news for the US customers that get to use the full US 3G speeds in the sexy N95 8GB package, although it’s kind of unfair for those that already got the non-US 3G N95 8GB. Nokia, next time please release the EURO and US version of your devices at the same time, because this is just unfair treatment to your loyal customers!

Now that this device is confirmed, I’m still left with a few questions. Like: Is the N82 8GB real? Will it have the reported larger screen, media keys and black color? Will the N95 8GB NAM be the Spider Man 3 edition with the included movie?

Thanks to Ricky, from the Symbian Guru for the tip!

The N95 8GB may be one of the most advanced devices on the market, but that doesn’t mean it’s perfect. There are a few software issues that I believe need attention and can be easily fixed with a software update. So Nokia please take note and include these in your next firmware update.

1) Slow Gallery load time, especially after picture was taken: The N95 8GB is overall a pretty speedy device, but when it comes to the Gallery load up time, it’s pretty slow. This is a behavior that seems to affect only the devices with the built-in 8GB. When I had the N81 8GB it too exhibited the same behavior, until it was supposedly fixed by the version 10.0.058 (N81-1) / 10.0.035 (N81-3) software update. The software update for the N81 8GB description said: “This software version includes improvements in WLAN performance, memory transfer and camera stability.” The key words are “memory transfer”. It seems they fixed the issue on the N81 8GB by improving the memory transfer and things got a lot faster. I believe the same thing is affecting the N95 8GB and just like the N81 8GB it can easily be fixed. To retest my findings, I took a test shot with the camera, which by itself is pretty fast. But when opening the gallery to see the picture I had just taken, it took me almost 40 seconds before I could actually see a thumbnail of the photo!  The same process on the N82 took 5 seconds.

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Yesterday I found what may be confirmation that a North American Nokia N95 8GB and a Nokia N82 8GB were on the way. I wasn’t too sure about as it easily could have been a typo. Following my post, the device known as the” N82 8GB” has been mysteriously removed from the page, but the best thing of all is that both N95 8GB and the N95 8GB NAM are still there. Basically if they fixed the list by removing all typos, than this N95 8GB NAM they mention here must be real, right? It might seem like Nokia is going all US friendly again by releasing  US based N95 8GB. This is good news for those in the US that wanted the 8GB version, but didn’t get one yet, but not so for those that already got the non-US version. I feel the pain. Nokia how about releasing both versions at the same next time?

New pictures have leaked of a new dual slider device, supposedly the N96 with a design that resembles the N81, but with the dual sliding function of the N95. Another familiar design element is the two-coat material used on the back with the lines running across the device, similar to the N82. Inspecting the pictures, there is one odd thing I can pinpoint: if the Media Keys are near the D-Pad, what is the dual slider function used for? If you remember on the N95, this is used to house the media keys. So it remains to be seen what interesting feature they have incorporated here. Compared to the N81 it seems to be much wider to fit in particular the larger screen, which seems like 2.8’’ or maybe bigger? New functions apparent from the pictures included S60 feature pack 2, dual LED flash and some sort of a stand which allows the device to stand upright. Some time ago I suggested  the idea of incorporating the same “stand” that pictures frames have into Nseries devices and it seems this idea has made its way into the N96. Personally I’m thinking that it might seem that this device is not sporting any new features, but logically thinking every N9x device pioneered something new and I don’t think the N96 is going to be an exception. As 5megapixel cameras are becoming the norm and not exception (N95, N95 8GB, N82 and now N96) it would be logical that Nokia would release not only this device, but two others. As you know Nokia has been making it a habit to release just one device at a time. Because of the fact this device “only” sports a 5megapixel camera it would make sense that they have another one or two devices with a higher megapixel count ready to be released. It’s for this reason that I believe that the N96 is not going to be the only devices released when it becomes official. This is all speculation at the moment, you could even say wishful thinking, but in the mean time we will have to just wait and see. What do you think of this device and do you think we will see more devices released at the same time?

I was browsing on my N95 8GB and decided to check out some of the bookmarks, one of them is the Nokia Nseries US Portal(www.nseries.com/usportal) and went into the Download! section. While looking at the list of supported devices I noticed a few strange names that were unfamiliar to me. Especially interesting were the so called “N95 8GB NAM” and “N82 8GB.” As you know there are no North American version of the N95 8GB or an 8GB version of the N82, so I guess I’ll file these under typo, but just in case I thought I’d mention this. Could there be a North American version of the N95 8GB on the way? And what is this N82 8GB that they speak of? I have no idea about this one. It doesn’t seem that farfetched, what do you think?

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but it seems that black is one the most if not the most wanted color when it comes to phones and is going to be a very important deciding factor when it comes to purchasing one. I visit several mobile forums and there are plenty of threads requesting info regarding black housings or asking for manufacturers to make a black version of these devices. It seems Nokia is aware of this trend and is going all black when it comes to their phones:  In what color did they make the Music Edition of the N73, N91 and N70? After coming out with N95, they fixed most complaints people had with that device and made the N95 8GB. Guess what color they chose for it and why? Black of course! The reason why is that many users requested this color and many reviews commented that a black version would look hot! Personally I like black phones not only because they won’t get dirty easily, but especially for the fact that the color makes the device look a lot more elegant. When it comes to colors, pink is also very popular with the ladies. I talked with several mobile phone store owners and many told the same story: women want a feature packed phone, but the second most requested attribute is that it comes in pink! Again manufacturers are cashing in on this trend by releasing several “special edition” devices made in various shades of pink. I have several female phone lovers in the family and just the fact that a device is pink with some trendy design is enough reason for them to buy it. It’s a fact that color affects our decision when buying clothing, cars and yes even mobile phones. What do you think: is the future of mobile devices colored Pink and Black? And how does color affect your buying decision?

Image courtesy of: Joeweiderx