Nokia E72: First Impression: I'm converted!

Under normal circumstances I'd distance myself from any handsets belonging to the e-series. I used to think of them as a phone that got about with conservative looks and an even more conservative feature list. This must be why Nokia/WOM World decided to send in the Nokia E72 to me for trialling hidden inside a box that was part of their "Unboxing Experience". They must've realized I wouldn't want anything to do with it if i knew it was an Eseries beforehand. But guess what, after I got to use it I'm really grateful to them for opening up the Eseries world to me. Infact I think I've just been converted from a guy who swears by the nseries into an Eseries fan!

The things about it that got me hooked instantly:

• 600 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 128 MB of SDRAM  hot!
• Mode Swap Switch for swapping two home-screens.
• Great audio output quality (even though the loudspeaker was a tad disappointing)
• Full Flash support
• The back panel made of cold cold Steel

 
Shooting pictures on the e72 is slicker than on other phones. The camera interface of the e72 has autofocus activated the moment the optical sensor senses my finger tip. It's really cool, and taking a photo couldn't have got quicker. Though I'm accustomed to the tactile feel of a partially depressed shutter button while autofocusing this was more..uhm.. Modern.

Another thing i learned while typing this post is the ability to copy text. Copying whole paragraphs of text is easily done on the e72 by using the 'shift' (you use this to select upper-case) key in conjunction with the 5-way key. Just like on a PC. I was searching for this function when My Nokia sent me a SMS about a feature to "Save Time Now!". Nice timing Nokia.

The availability of a Business mode and a Personal mode is a really neat idea. Obviously i didn't need the business mode so i use it as my school mode. The shortcuts are set to the 2 inbuilt games, chat and a bookmark for blogging =). And then there's one to a calendar for marking exam days.

The display of this nokia phone is stunning. The bland theme that comes with the phone didn't show it off, but when i visited the gallery it was a different experience alltogether. The phone also handles the transition effects reallly smoothly. Be it when you change modes or zoom in to an image - the flow is never lost or cut up like a slide show as on the n95. Must be due to that uber CPU inside the phone.

Honestly I didn't realize these phones came packed with so much power, i blame it on my ignorance. I mean the E72 has a processor that outclocks the N97 while still running on the Symbian platform ! If they hadn't released the N900 in time, all us geeks out here would've had to bear the shame of an office phone out-teching a tech flagship phone. Jeezus!

E61i gets a booster as well

Symbian-Guru brings good news at that the E61i is the latest Nokia E-Series to receive a firmware update, this one takes its current version from v1.0633.22.05 to a v3.0633.69.00.

MESSAGING

Reading of SMS time stamp information unified between regions
SMS sending from SIM Toolkit - Profile 07 improved
Unicode Handling with Turkish characters corrected
Correction to fetching email from freemail server
Intellisync: Slowness of searching a contact for the first time corrected

SIM

After the startup, the phone recognizes the language to use from the SIM card
SMSC is re-read from SIM after switch on

VOIP

Improvement of co-operation of Gizmo VoIP client and Internet voice mailbox
SIP Proxy Authentication corrected in outgoing call if two SIP profiles with same realm and user name

WAP

Correction of Chinese word corruption with WAP browser
Searching in Hebrew from portal corrected
Wap GET/POST forms corrected when using Greek characters
Reset during WAP browsing and MT calls corrected

OTHERS

Operator name list updated
Start-up settings updated
Settings Wizard updated
Start-up date changed to 1.1.2008
Correction of DRMClock behaviour with NITZObserver with negative time zone values
Localization improvements

Courtesy VaibhavSharma.

E66 is almost here!

According to Mobile-Review, we will see two new Eseries device soon. The E71 should be the successor to the Nokia E61/E62/E61i. So, will we see a QWERTY keyboard? However, it will have a 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi, HSDPA. More over it will weigh “only”120 gram and be 57 x 112 x 10 mm. The second device is the E66, the successor of the E65. It will also have a 3.2 megapixel camera, GPS, WiFi and HSDPA. Unfortunately no pictures leaked.

If the rumors are true, we could see the devices on CES or later on 3GSM where Nokia has announced the E90, E65 and E61i one year ago.

It seems the E66 is almost here!

Source Symbianworld.com

PanoMan 3.0

PanoMan 3.0 comes in landscape mode with a preview area on the screen displaying the panoramic image captured so far as well as a small info area showing the frame resolution and the number of frames captured/available.

Due to the improvements made in heap consumption, you can capture up to 12 frames within one session, creating eye-popping up to 360° images with up to 32 Megapixel (on e.g. N95 8GB; maximum resolution on other devices might be actually lower).

Download!

Nokias Text Messnger

Key changes include:

• Installation available also on non-English operating systems
• Corrected bug: If device was connected in Non PC Suite Compatible mode (i.e. MassStorage), it crashed the sidebar. Now it doesn't.
  

Note: When updating the existing version of Nokia Text Messenger, please reboot the PC after the installation, as is instructed in the installation program. If this is not done, application does not find the device.

Vista Users Download here. It isn't available yet for the other operating systems. Wonder why? We are still the majority! :(