Read the rest of this entry »

Gaming on the N97 mini is easy, but gaming on the #N97minitrunk is not. Not only does it lack power, but the lack of QWERTY keyboard and directional buttons make things a bit difficult. Thankfully it’s loaded with goodies that made gaming on a large scale possible. Only problem is that it did require lots of energy to play a simple game of Snake. Next time I’m sticking to the N97 mini.

Earlier parts of the story can be found here: Unboxing, Challenge 1, Challenge 2 and Challenge 3.

Challenge 3

Both mini and the trunk showed Denirah that here music listening habits were more 1940s than 2010. With the press of the multi-tasking button she got the gear to match the year: N97 mini and full wireless sound with the BH-905. Denirah, your sound has officially been pimped!

Read the rest of this entry »

Challenge 2

Move over Stavros, there’s a  new guy, err…new girl in town and her name is Denirah! And she will be creating the SECOND greatest work of art EVER!

Position art is created by moving while tracking your GPS location. This is the story of how we created our Position Art.

Direct link to this video can be found here.

Earlier parts of the story can be found here: Unboxing and Challenge 1.

Challenge 1

And so our apprentices head out into the world and this very first image forever immortalized in a Comic book and on the Nokia N900.

Read the rest of this entry »

Read the rest of this entry »

No, it’s not the attack of the giant N97 mini, but close. Thanks to our friends @WOMWorldNokia I received the biggest mobile box I’ve ever seen! And inside this giant box a Nokia N97 mini and a lot of goodies for another crazy and fun challenge. The E75 was the subject of the previous Teach the Technophobe: Challenge, but this time it’s the N97 mini’s turn in this #N97minitrunk Challenge. Who else to help me with this challenge, but Denirah, from the previous challenge.

The idea is to complete the 5 tasks using a red disposable camera with just 27 shots to capture the moments using the giant N97 mini trunk. Using the included photo album, we have to create the best “N97mini trunk album.” The winning team wins 2 N97 minis.

Read the rest of this entry »

                                                Get your TV Wall Brackets here!

We’ve known for a while that the N900 is supposed to receive a firmware update before the year ends, bringing the much request portrait mode.

Now we have confirmation that the N97 will also be getting an update before the year ends, specifically “mid-late December 2009.” No word yet on what it will bring, but at least now we know it’s coming.

In terms of firmware updates, the period between the current and upcoming updates is considered very short, clearly illustrating that a short period between updates is a sign of how important a device is to Nokia.

Via: N97fanatics

In an earlier post, I talked about how a hard reset or firmware upgrade on the N97 erases many pre-installed widgets and apps on the device. The situation has gotten better as almost all of these are available for download from Nokia’s OVI store. Well, all of them except for the Amazon widget, which can be downloaded right here.

As we expected, firmware version 20 (Also known as V2.0) for the N97 has appeared in the very last week of October, keeping true to Nokia’s promise of an “October 2009 release.”

The firmware has yet to appear for some product codes and as a FOTA update on the N97’s SW Update app. The SW Update on the N97 does inform the user that an “important” “Phone Software” is available for the N97, but it doesn’t allow for updating over-the-air, well at least not yet. But it does point to the www.nokia.com/softwareupdate site to update the phone via the PC.

The download on Nokia Software Updater (NSU) ranges anywhere from 130 to 150MB and overall I can report that the update on my N97 went smoothly.

Improvements in firmware 20.2.019 are (Thanks to Allaboutsymbian):

• A reworked memory mapping model – this means that applications use the (relatively) limited RAM much more efficiently and you should rarely see any memory errors. Note that the available ‘Free RAM’ after booting is now a lot less (around 47MB), but don’t take this raw number too literally – apps apparently use less RAM than before
• Kinetic scrolling in the User Interface in all lists and larger-than-screen views
• The keyboard driver has been enhanced so that a long press on any key brings up its associated ‘function’ symbol (or number)
• Music player shows album art more reliably, plus extra MP3 ID3 information
• Half a dozen new social media and services widgets have been added by default
• Camera still and video improvements
• Improvements to stereo speaker volume
• Offline mode for homescreen widgets (shown below)
• Ovi Maps 3 is now included (shown below, saving 7MB of your C disk, compared to the current situation)
• Ovi Store client now integrated (saving more space) (Ovi Contacts also not in the final distribution as expected)
• More responsive touchscreen driver (so fewer ‘missed taps’) and the usual minor bug fixes across the board
• Improvements to Sync system (hopefully paving the way for more reliable syncing with, among others, iSync on the Mac)

The feature that stands out the most however is the Kinetic scrolling implemented throughout the UI, making the N97 feel like a completely new phone. This is especially handy in the Music Player. With the added speed and smoothness, this updates breathes much needed life in the N97, making it even more pleasant to use.

Skype is missing, but what we are hearing is that this will be added soon as an update in the SW Update application. We were also promised several new built-in widgets and apps, but I have yet to find a new app or widget other than Vlingo.

What new feature did you find in this new update? Did you find any other apps or widgets other than Vlingo? Let us know.