Phone Review: Nokia Reviews

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Nokia 7270 Reviews

Posted quangtao Monday, February 1, 2010 0 Comment

Review Posted August 22, 2005 by Tong Zhang, Senior Editor

Delightfully impulsive is how Nokia describes the 7270 tri-band GSM mobile phone. Teaming up with the Nokia 7280 and the Nokia 7610 as members of the "Nokia Fashion Collection" of art deco influenced phones, the Nokia 7270 is the only clamshell phone among the three and is the only one comes with textile covers that make the phone truly a fashion accessory.

The Nokia 7270 is a GSM phone operating on 900/1800/1900 MHz bands. It has a Class 10 GPRS radio for data and EDGE support. The Nokia runs on the Series 40 platform and offers a nice set of phone features along with a VGA camera, push to talk, an integrated FM radio, some basic PIM (Personal Information Management) applications and a bundle of deco and modern style themes and ringtones that fit the image of the phone.

Design and Ergonomics

Though decorated with modern shapes and lines, the Nokia 7270 has a retro style that would make it seem perfectly at home in Cary Grant and Greta Garbo's hands. The phone has a black plastic housing and when the clamshell is closed, you will see silver face plates with art deco patterns covering both top and the bottom of the phone. At the same time, these dark silver on light silver lines are reminiscent of a printed circuit board, giving the phone a thoroughly modern appeal.

The naked 7270

You will find the 96 x 65 pixel 12 bit mini display screen, speaker grill and camera lens on the top half of the clamshell. The silver covers make fashion statement as they look striking sitting on the black phone. Going even further with the fashion theme, Nokia includes two user-replaceable textile wraps that can be snapped onto the silver plates. They too have the art deco patterns that match the silver plates, the phone and the themes that come with the phone.

The red textile cover in place

Flip open the clamshell, you will see the bright 128 x 160 16 bit TFT display along with the speaker on the top shell and the a large grid number pad and a five way d-pad, two functions buttons and call send and end buttons on the bottom half. The key pad and buttons are spacious. The built-in grid will help you touch dial. On the left side of the phone, you will find volume buttons; and on the right side from top to bottom: push to talk button, IR port and power on/off button. You will find the power charging port and the pop-port headset connector on the bottom edge of the phone. The rechargeable, user-replaceable battery lives under the back door; and the SIM card is under the battery. The phone is quite small, and is more petite than the smallish Audiovox SMT5600 candybar MS smartphone as well as competing flip phones.

The Sony Ericsson T610, Nokia 7280, Nokia 720 and Audiovox SMT5600 (aka Orange C500)

Phone Features and Reception

For a phone that seeks to attract eyes with its fashionable design, the Nokia 7270 packs plenty of features that make it quite a capable feature phone. The Nokia operates on GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz bands which means you can use it in Europe, Asia and in the US on T-Mobile network. Cingular and AT&T Wireless also use the 1900 MHz band but you will suffer reduced coverage because they do rely heavily on the 850 MHz band in many areas. Nokia phones have a reputation for great reception, but the reception on the 7270 is a little flaky. It generally gets a strong signal in well covered 1900 MHz areas and decent signal strength in fair areas. It does however sometimes drop connections to the tower in fairly well covered areas and doesn't get as strong a signal as do other recent Nokia mobile phones. Voice quality is good and volume is loud.

The Nokia 7270 has voice dialing, voice command and conference calling features. You will need to record the voice tags in Contacts for voice dialing. The 7270 also supports auto redial, speed dialing and has a speakerphone that you can turn on during a call. The phone supports polyphonic ring tones (MIDI, MP3, and AAC) and comes bundled with a nice set of themes that include art deco patterns, techno style ringtones and a lot more. The themes apply to the background, ringtones and mini display and they are a very handy way to personalize the phone without additional downloads. You can set 6 profiles on the Nokia 7270.

The Nokia comes with a set of basic PIM applications and you can access these applications via the phone menu. The Contacts application can store up to 255 contacts with multiple phone numbers for each contact. You can search the contacts database and group your contacts into categories (family, VIP, friends, business, etc.). The Calendar has both a week view and month view, and you can set alarms for appointments and make notes. The Nokia does work with PC Suite for syncing, but the data cable isn't included, so you must purchase it separately. You can purchase it separately and download PC Suite from Nokia's web site for free. Other applications included are Alarm clock, Stopwatch with countdown timer, Notes, To-do list and Wallet.

Data, Messaging and Web

The Nokia 7270 has a Class 10 GPRS radio with support for EDGE. However, in the Silicon Valley where T-Mobile has EDGE deployed, we can only get very slow GPRS data speed (7-10 kbps). We tested the same SIM card on the Treo 650 and could get over 77-90 kbps. The Nokia comes with a WAP 2.0 browser, and you will not be able to display none-WAP sites via the built-in browser. The speed for loading WAP sites is reasonable, and you can expect some basic browser functions such as bookmarks, history and search. The Nokia supports SMS, MMS, Instant Messaging and email. Email works with IMAP4, POP3 and SMTP protocols.

Camera and Multimedia

The Nokia 7270 has a built-in VGA camera that's capable of taking photos up to 640 x 480 resolution and videos at SubQCIF (128 x 96 pixels) resolution. The camera has 4X digital zoom, a self-timer and offers three picture quality levels. The 7270's VGA camera can't compete with the excellent 1 megapixel camera found on its big brother, the Nokia 7610, but it does decent job by phone digicam standards. The camera deals with relatively low light areas well and tends to white out in very sunny conditions which are harsh for most of the digital cameras. The photos have a slight hazy effect that makes the images look "dreamy". The videos are reasonably smooth.

Above: Sample photos, unedited. Taken at maximum resolution. Click on an image to see the full size original.

To accompany the camera, Nokia bundles Media Player. You can view your photos in the Gallery and play videos you've taken using the Media Player. The Media Player also supports streaming content. The video formats supported include 3GPP formats and MPEG-4. You can send photos and videos via MMS or use the IR port to beam them to other devices. If you've purchased the optional data cable and installed PC Suite, you can transfer your photos directly to your PC.

If you like to listen to the radio, the Nokia 7270 will serve you well. It comes with a built-in FM radio that gets plenty of stations in the San Francisco Bay Area. To use the radio, you need to plug in the Pop-port stereo headset included with the phone, and then launch the Radio application in the Media folder. You can search for stations, save favorites and even use the external speakers to listen to the radio.

The Nokia has built-in Java technology which means you can play Java based games and the phone comes with two games: Chic Pinball and Disco which is a disco club simulation game.

Battery Life

The Nokia comes with a 720 mAh (BL-4C) rechargeable battery which is user replaceable. The phone's battery life is decent though not stellar. You will get about one week of standby and 4 hours of talk time. The battery lives under the back door and you can open the battery door by pushing down the latch. The SIM, as per usual for Nokia phones, is located under the battery.

Conclusion

A very fashionable clamshell phone with a good feature set. Clamshell loving cell phone users who value fashion and class should not miss this handset.

Pro: The phone generally gets good reception and has good voice quality and loud volume. It supports some of the essential phone features such as voice dialing, redialing, conference calling, speed dialing and more. The camera takes decent photos and videos. The SMS, MMS and email work well and the web browser works fine if you only visit WAP sites. The FM radio and push to talk are added bonus.

Con: GPRS gets very slow data speed in the Silicon Valley area. Lack of connectivity options to the PC. No Bluetooth.

Price: Approx. $375 from importers, US price not available yet

Web site: www.nokia.com
Shopping:Where to Buy

Specs:

Display: The main screen: TFT display supports up to 65k colors with 128 x 160 max resolution. Mini display supports up to 4,096 colors with 96 x 65 pixels resolution.
Battery: Nokia BL-4C 720 mAh rechargeable Li-Ion Battery. User replaceable. Claimed max talk time is up to 4 hours and claimed max standby time is up to 11 days.
Performance: Nokia Series 40 OS. 21MB shared memory for storage. Heap size: 977 KB, max JAR size: 250 KB.
Size: 3.5 x 1.8 x 0.87 inches. Weighs 4.27 ounces.
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and Pop-port headphone jack. Speakerphone. Supports vibrating alerts.
Network: GSM triband phone, 900/1800/1900MHz. GPRS and EDGE for data. HSCSD (for connecting to an ISP, not to your mobile provider's data service). IR.
Software: Series 40 OS. Organizer apps: phone book, calendar, to-do and notes. WAP/XHTML web browser, Messaging (supports SMS and MMS), camera,Media Player (image and video viewer, plays ringtones and voice recordings as well), voice recorder, alarm clock, Number Entry (for entering numbers to dial), Radio (listen to FM radio with a compatible headset).
Expansion: None.
In the Box: the phone, 2 snap-on textile wraps (black and red), wrist strap, pop-port stereo headset, fabric pouch for the phone, AC charger and a printed User Manual.
( Author : Tong Zhang, Source : mobiletechreview )

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Nokia 6820 GSM Phone Review

Posted quangtao 0 Comment

Posted March 2004 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

The Nokia 6820 has just appeared in the US market and is available online from AT&T Wireless. If you're familiar with the Nokia 6800, this model adds many more features and is smaller. This GSM feature phone has all the bells and whistles that phone power users want, and then some! It's got an integrated camera, Bluetooth, color display, basic PIM functions, and runs on AT&T's EDGE (Enhanced Data rates or GSM Evolution) network. The 6820 isn't a Smartphone, but rather a Series 40 phone with Java. However, it may be the perfect companion to your PDA or notebook thanks to its integrated Bluetooth, IR and fast EDGE network performance. And of course, its most salient feature: the flip open to full QWERY keyboard design, is perfect for those who short message on the go, or need to send quick emails.

Side view of the hinge as the phone opens.

Design and Ergonomics

Those of you who are familiar with the 6800 will feel at home with the 6820. Both models look like a standard Nokia phone, but flip open to reveal a QWERTY keyboard. While the 6800 was by no means a large phone, Nokia managed to pack many more features into the 6820 while reducing its size noticeably. The 6820 is quite small and light, and sports an attractive silver, blue metallic and white finish. The screen orientation automatically changes to landscape when the phone is flipped open to reveal the keyboard. The four control buttons that flank each corner of the display automatically switch functions as well, so all controls and features are available in both modes.

The Nokia has a standard number pad, call send and end buttons, a power button on the upper right corner and three control buttons whose functions vary depending on the current context. In addition it has a mini 5-way joystick which you'll use to navigate on-screen menus, move the cursor in text messages and speed launch selected apps (left=SMS, right=calendar, up=camera, down=contacts. Right can be reassigned to launch the app of your choice). When in a call, moving the joystick left and right will raise and lower call volume.

The 6820 has a Pop-Port for use with Pop-Port headsets and car kits. It comes with an 850 mA removable battery, and ran for 3 days on a charge with moderate phone use and light Bluetooth use. Like most recent phones, the Nokia supports profiles and comes with six: General, Meeting, Silent, My style 1 and My style 2.

The Nokia 6820 opened for keyboard use.

The Nokia 6800 left, and the 6820, right.

Reception, Voice and Phone Features

The Nokia has a lighted number pad, and both the numbers and two vertical bars that run between the number keys illuminate white when you first wake up the phone from standby or press a key. The backlighting will turn off at the same time the screen backlight turns off to conserve power. The phone has keyguard, which you can activate by selecting Menu, then pressing the asterisk (*) key. You can turn off keyguard by selecting Unlock, then pressing the asterisk key, or simply by pressing the Talk button when a call comes in. Voice features include speed dialing, call waiting, caller ID, speakerphone, conference calling, SMS and MMS. The 6820 comes with 14 polyphonic (MIDI) ring tones (you can install more if you wish) and 8 color themes.

The phonebook can hold up to 500 entries, has speed dial, supports up to 10 voice dial numbers (you'll record your own voice tags), offers voice commands for up to 9 available menu items (5 active at the same time) and can record memos/conversations up to 90 seconds in duration. The unit has a call log that tracks missed calls, received calls and dialed calls. As you'd expect, you can dial using a call log entry, and reset the call log whenever you wish. The call log also tracks GPRS connection times and the amount of data transferred.

Keyboard and Display

The Nokia has a full thumb-typeable QWERTY keyboard, and it and the 6800 are the only models with a traditional phone form factor to offer this useful feature. Flip open the phone and you'll be greeted by a keyboard that has 5 rows: the top row is dedicated to numbers, the next three rows are for letters and the bottom row has shift/caps lock and a space bar on both the right and left sides. Kudos to Nokia for giving us two shift keys, an easy to find "@" symbol and on-screen as well as keyboarded common punctuation and symbols. While the keys are quite small, the keyboard is still quite usable and it certainly beats T9 as an input method! It can't compete with the Blackberry thumb keyboard, but the Blackberry is large and unergonomic as a phone. The keys don't automatically light, so you'll press the keyboard light button on the upper left corner of the keyboard to turn lighting on and off.

At 128 x 128 pixels, the display is just large enough to work with SMS messages. Of course, if the screen were larger, the phone would be larger and battery life shorter. The 12 bit display has 4,096 colors and looks decent when viewing photos and great when playing games. The LCD is very viewable outdoors in direct sunlight.

Synchronization, EDGE and Bluetooth Connections

The Nokia uses PC Suite for Windows to sync data between phone and a computer. You can sync using Bluetooth, IR or via the optional cable. In addition, the phone supports syncing over the air to an online sync service. Yyou can also transfer data between the phone and a PDA using Bluetooth or IR— for example, you can send a contact to the phone from a Palm Tungsten T3 via Bluetooth. Using PC Suite, you can sync contacts, calendar items, to-do items and notes, as well as transfer photos and videos taken with the camera to your PC. You'll use PC Suite to install Java games (or you can download them over the air), and it includes modem drivers for the phone.

Nokia does an excellent job with Bluetooth, and I had no trouble pairing the phone to a Tungsten T3 (note the T3 has been hard to pair for some users), and to Pocket PCs such as the Dell Axim X5 and Toshiba e805 using Ambicom's Bluetooth CF card for Pocket PCs, as well as an HP iPAQ 5555 using built-in Bluetooth (note that there seems to be a problem with the iPAQ 19xx and 22xx Bluetooth firmware and these won't work correctly with the 6820). Once paired, I used the 6820 as a wireless modem for the PDAs on AT&T Wireless' EDGE network. I got speeds in the 40k range in Northern California. EDGE is an enhanced GPRS wireless data connection that should offer speeds close to 100k (rivaling Verizon and Sprint's 1xRTT service), but so far speeds have been closer to the top end of GPRS. Speeds will likely be a bit faster if you're using the phone as a modem for a notebook computer since those are able to sustain faster network connections compared to current PDAs. Hopefully as the network matures, speeds will increase. The phone will automatically connect to the EDGE network if available, so you don't have to do any configuration.

In addition, we tested the Nokia with a variety of Bluetooth Headsets including the Bluespoon Chameleon and the Logitech Mobile Headset and had no trouble pairing and using them with the phone.

Camera

What feature phone would be complete without a camera? The Nokia 6820 has a CIF camera capable of shooting still JPEG images at 352 x 288 pixels resolution and it can also shoot video with audio. Camera modes include Standard photo, Portrait photo, and Night mode. The camera has three quality settings, allows you to turn the shutter sound on and off, and manually specify image titles. Videos are saved in H.263 (SubQCIF) format and are limited in duration only by the amount of available internal memory. Audio quality is very good (excellent for subjects within 5 feet of the phone), while video and still image quality are average for a camera phone of this resolution. Images and videos are good enough to send to other multimedia phone users, and sending them via MMS is quite simple: just choose Send from Options when viewing the image/video.

Included Applications

The 6820 comes with a suite of PIM applications including contacts, calendar, to-do list, notes and an alarm clock. You will also find applications that will work with your camera, images, videos and voice recording. The connectivity tools include built-in Bluetooth and IR. The 6820 supports Java and comes with a world clock, calculator, Wallet (for storing credit card info for online transactions), a WAP browser and a converter. In addition, several games are bundled with the phone: Bounce, Bowling, Chess Puzzle, Water Rapids and Backgammon.

Contacts- Contacts supports up to 500 entries, with up to 9 fields per entry. You can attach an image to a contact (JPEG, GIF, WBMP, PNG and OTABMP). The number of contacts to whom you can assign an image varies depending on the amount of remaining phone memory. You can assign speed dial and voice dial entries to contacts.
Calendar- The calendar has a day view and a month view. Dates with appointments appear bolded in month view. You can send appointments (called Notes in Nokia-speak) to a compatible phone devices via Bluetooth and IR as calendar entries, SMS or MMS. You can set old calendar entries to be deleted automatically after a period of time, though repeat events such as birthdays won't be deleted.
To-Do list- This is a very simple to-do list where you can add new to-do notes, view the current to-do items or mark to-do items as done. When you add a new to-do note, you can specify the Due date and Priority (high, medium or low).
Notes- You can write notes up to 3,000 characters in length using the built-in keyboard (or number pad, but why would you?). Notes can be sent via IR, Bluetooth, SMS and MMS. Using Options, you can insert the current date and time into the note. The phone will warn you if you try to send the note via SMS and the maximum length is exceeded.
Email- This is a Java program that runs faster than the 6800's Java email client. It supports POP3 and IMAP for incoming servers and SMTP (including SMTP Auth) for outgoing mail servers. You can manually specify the server port.

Conclusion

A great phone packed with features! It's a very small and light mobile, yet thanks to the clever design it packs a full thumb keyboard. Excellent Bluetooth implementation, EDGE high speed data connection, and a camera in one small and reasonably priced package. It runs on AT&T Wireless' new 850 MHz band (as well as the standard US 1900 MHz band) for best coverage. Definitely a must have for those who message on the go, and competes nicely with the Sony Ericsson T610/T616.

Suggested list price $349, currently $229 from Cingular Wireless in the US with contract

Specs:

Display: TFT color LCD, 12 bit, 4096 colors. Screen resolution: 128 pixels wide x 128 pixels high.
Battery Lithium

Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 850 mA. Claimed battery life: talk Time 3 hours (according to Nokia's web site, 7 hours according to the manual), 12 days standby.
Performance: ~4 megs internal memory.
size: 4.69 in. x 2.17 in. x 0.91 in. Weight Approximately 3.5 oz.
Expansion Slot: None.
Phone: GSM triband world phone GSM/GPRS/EDGE 850/1800/1900 MHz. GPRS and EDGE for data. A GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz version is available for carriers other than AT&T Wireless.
Audio: Built in speaker and speakerphone. Mic with voice recorder functionality. Supports Pop-Port headsets and Bluetooth headsets.
Software: Series 40 operating system. Java support. WAP browser, Messaging application for email, SMS and MMS. Also supports Instant Messaging via AIM and ICQ. Image viewer and video player, Camera application, Call Log, Calculator, Wallet (for storing credit card info to be used for online purchases), Calendar, Contacts, Notes and To-Do list. Preloaded Java applications: E-mail Client, Instant Messaging, Converter, World Clock, Portfolio Manager and games: Bounce, Bowling, Chess Puzzle, Water Rapids and Backgammon.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

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Nokia 7280 Review

Posted quangtao 0 Comment

Posted March 20, 2005 by Lisa Gade, Editor in Chief

And now for something different, truly different. The 7280, a member of the "Nokia Fashion Collection" of art deco influenced phones, owes absolutely nothing to mobile phone looks and everything to style. More closely resembling a very large tube of lipstick than any communications device you've seen, the 7280 is a device you've got to love for its daring and all-out good looks even if you find it less than usable as a phone. Available overseas since the Fall of 2004, the phone is now sold direct in the US by Nokia and is also available from independent cell phone shops.

Above, the slider open, revealing the inner red tones. That's the display on the left and the jog dial surrounded by four control buttons on the right. The speaker is located in the fabric-clad panel to the left of the display. Like a pair of Levi's jeans, the phone has a little Nokia fabric tag on one edge.

Despite its diminutive size, the Nokia 7280 has a color display, VGA camera, Bluetooth and a jog dial to navigate the user interface. While it has call send and end buttons along with two soft buttons for menu interaction, there is no dial pad. That's right, lightening-fingered dialers and texters, high fashion and petiteness mean there's no way to fit a numeric dial pad on this device. Instead you'll use the jog dial and on-screen input system to enter phone numbers you wish to dial and text messages. To make life much, much easier, the 7280 comes with voice dialing software so you need not resort to the jog dial number input, and syncing software to get your contacts into the phone. If you usually call the same cast of regulars, voice dialing can work well for you. However, if you frequently need to dial numbers not in your address book, you'll need a good deal of patience.

The Nokia 7280 is a Series 40 GSM triband phone with EDGE and GPRS for data. It's sold in Europe and though it's not currently offered by US carriers, it is available from importers, independent T-Mobile dealers, and appears on Nokia's own USA web site.

Design and Ergonomics

This is simply a stunning phone. The gloss black finish and white deco patterned contrasting lines could gain the Nokia a seat in the Museum of Modern Art. Two suede-like panels, one over the earpiece, the other on the side, give the phone grip and interesting tactile accents. While as tall as the Dell Axim X50 Pocket PC at 4.53" , the 7280 is only 1.26" wide and .75" deep. Weighing in at 3 ounces, it's the bantam weight among phones, and won't add heft or stretch today's trendy micro-purses. The phone's curving edges and rhomboid shape are interesting and surprisingly comfy, making it easy to keep the phone securely in hand. Should you prefer to dangle it from your wrist, the included leather black and red strap which mounts to the Nokia's bottom edge will do the trick. The included wrap-around leather case fastens shut with snaps and is black on the outside, red inside.

Above: top edge. You can see the phone has a rhombus shape rather than rectangular. The white accent on the end glows red when the phone is powered on or off and when the phone goes to sleep.

The phone's color display doubles as a mirror when the display is turned off. Perhaps we could say this is the first phone that helps you look your best? The display itself is quite small at 1.5" and 104 x 208 pixels, yet it's sharp and easy to read. It's colorful as well and comes with a selection of themes and screen savers that make good use of that color and blend well with the phone's aesthetics.

Back view with slider open showing camera lens.

Front view, slider closed.

How do you hold and use this phone? To talk you'll hold it upright in a vertical orientation. The earpiece and mic align perfectly with the face and it's surprisingly comfortable to use the phone. When interacting with the on-screen menus or shooting photos, you'll hold the device horizontally, as shown in the photo at the top of this review.

The Nokia takes a new spin on the slider design. The slider opens 1/2" to reveal the camera lens and some artistic red highlights (all phones in the Nokia Fashion Collection are black and white with red accents). Want to answer a call? Slide open the phone to automatically answer, or you can use the call send button if you're feeling retro. To end a call, slide the phone shut or press the call end button.

To navigate on-screen menus and input numbers and text, you'll use the two soft keys next to the display and "Nokia's Navi™Spinner keyless dial". The spinner works in a similar fashion to the Apple iPod control wheel, allowing you to move up and down among menu items and select them by pressing the action button in the center of the spinner. After a day's practice, the spinner is reasonably easy to use and you'll find yourself hitting the mark most of the time rather than spinning past selections or failing to nudge the dial sufficiently. While menu navigation is fairly easy, entering numbers and letters by spinning through the alphabet and numbers will likely keep you busy much longer than you like. Give yourself a full minute to enter a 10 digit phone number.

Phone Features, Reception and Data

If you're in Europe, Asia or use T-Mobile in the US as your carrier, then this triband phone can work for you. It supports the 900/1800/1900MHz bands but lacks the 850MHz band used by Cingular and AT&T Wireless in the US. Those carriers also use the 1900MHz band but you will suffer reduced coverage because they do rely heavily on 850 in many areas. T-Mobile uses only the 1900MHz band in the US which makes this phone a good option for use with their service. If you travel to Europe (900MHz) or Asia (1800MHz) the 7280 will be a good international traveling companion. The 7280 is commonly sold unlocked for use with any GSM carrier.

We were underwhelmed by the 7280's reception, due in part to the high standards set by most recent Nokia phones which have some of the best RF in the industry. The 7280 had average reception for a GSM phone, pulling in a moderate signal that's good enough to hold a call with one or two bars but not on par with the truly excellent Nokia 7610. The Nokia has GPRS and EDGE (aka eGPRS) for data. You can surf the web using the included WAP/XHTML browser, or use the phone as a wireless modem over Bluetooth with a PDA or notebook.

The 7280 has voice dialing, voice command, and a 1,000 contact address book. Before using voice dialing, you'll need to record a voice tag for the desired contact. The Nokia uses tags which tend to be very accurate, though they are tied to the person who recorded the tag and you will need to record a tag for each contact you wish to voice dial.

Volume through the earpiece is quite good, especially for a phone of this size. Sound clarity and both incoming and outgoing voice are excellent, as you'd expect from Nokia. The speakerphone is adequate and voice call quality is both good and loud using wired and Bluetooth headsets. A 2.5mm stereo earbud headset is included with the phone.

Camera

Nokia makes some of the best camera phones and even their VGA offerings don't disappoint. Images are sharp, reasonably color-accurate and have fairly low noise for a VGA affair. That said, the 7280 isn't among the best of recent Nokia camera phones. Images are pretty good, but they have more noise than those taken with the admittedly higher resolution Nokia 7610 and the VGA palmOne Treo 650. However color accuracy is good and the camera does well with low light settings. Given the device's design and small lens, the 7280 lends itself to stealth photo taking with a James Bond flair. Images are saved in JPEG format and you can send them via MMS, IR, Bluetooth or transfer them to your PC using PC Suite.

Syncing

Like many higher end Nokia phones, the 7280 ships with PC Suite. This is certainly a blessing given the cumbersome method of entering contacts, appointments and other data directly on the phone. Less than a blessing is the challenge of establishing Bluetooth communications with your PC using PC Suite and Windows XP service pack 2 which insists on manhandling your existing Bluetooth drivers and replacing them with Microsoft's own de-featured set. That said, should you have a happily functioning Bluetooth adapter on your PC, or an IR port, you'll be able to sync PIM data and photos with your desktop machine and backup the phone.

From left to right: Sony Ericsson T610, Nokia 7280, Nokia 7270 and the Audiovox SMT5600 (aka Orange C500).

Mac users aren't left in the dark. Nokia Collector is included for syncing and transferring files such as images and videos. This software uses a drag and drop interface for file management and doesn't support PIM syncing. Nokia recommends using iSync and iCal to sync your contacts and calendar on the Mac under OS X.

Sample photo, above: Sammy the cat, on a gray day.

Bluetooth

Indeed, the Nokia 7280 has Bluetooth, though some might think it a shame to keep the phone hidden in a pocket or purse when chatting on the phone. In Europe, wired headset users are considered fashion newbies, so Bluetooth is a must. And we love Bluetooth headsets for their convenience and safety when driving or doing anything that requires manual dexterity while on the phone. As with all Nokia phones, Bluetooth pairing and functionality are top notch. We tested the little beast with a variety of current headsets supporting the required Handsfree profile and experienced no troubles and good range.

Battery Life

Battery life is a weak point, and the 7280 didn't come close to the manufacturer's quoted standby time of 10 days, and the quoted 3 hour talk time fell a bit short at approximately 2.2 hours. If you're a heavy phone user, you'll charge the Nokia 7280 every other day. Light phone users will get by with 3 days between charges.

This is one of the few cell phones that does not have a user replaceable battery. With other phones, you can open the battery door and swap in a new battery if you own a spare. The 7280 has no battery access door and will have to take a trip to the repair center when the battery no longer holds a charge (fortunately that shouldn't be for at least two years).

Conclusion

When extreme good looks, uniqueness and beyond everything else, fashion counts, this is the phone for you. Undeniably classy and attractive, this phone also offers good usability in every department except the missing number pad. Sporting some of today's must have features such as a camera, Bluetooth and voice dialing, the phone is nonetheless expensive by feature and fashion phone standards. Then again, nothing else quite looks like it and you'll never complain about its size and weight. The large 1,000 contact address book, voice dialing and voice command make the phone usable if you generally dial mainly from contacts and not the local yellow pages.

Pro: Has extreme good looks and makes a stunning fashion statement. Slide open to easily answer calls. Good voice quality and volume. Has voice dialing and command, speakerphone and Bluetooth for headsets. Display is sharp despite its small size.

Con: No number pad! Battery life isn't stellar and battery isn't user replaceable. VGA camera is just adequate.

Web Site: www.nokia.com, www.nokiausa.com/phones/7280

Price: approx. $499 US, less with contract (price varies with carrier subsidy)

Specs:

Display: 65K color t ransflective TFT color LCD. Screen size diagonally: 3.5". Resolution: 240 x 320, supports both portrait and landscape modes.
Battery: Lithium

Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1000 mA. 1800 mA extended battery available for purchase.
Performance: Intel XScale PXA 255 400 MHz processor. 64 MB built-in RAM (55 megs available). 32 MB Flash ROM with 2.85 megs available in File Store for your use.
Size: 4.47 x 2.78 x .53 inches. Weight: 4.67 ounces.
Phone: GSM
Camera: 1.3MP
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Voice Recorder and Windows Pocket Media Player 10 included for your MP3 pleasure.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b (also supporting LEAP) and Bluetooth.
Software: Windows Mobile 5.0 Pocket PC Phone Edition operating system. Microsoft Mobile Office suite including Mobile versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint (view only), Internet Explorer, and Outlook. Also, Terminal Services, MSN Instant Messenger for Pocket PC, Windows Media Player 10, Solitaire, Bubble Breaker (game), Voice Recorder as well as handwriting recognition. Additional applications: Camera, Wireless Manager, GoodLink requires account), Wireless Modem (use the phone as a modem over BT, IR or USB), Audible Player, Clear Storage (wipes out all data and resets unit to factory defaults). ActiveSync 4.0 and Outlook 2002 for PCs included.
Expansion: 1 SD (Secure Digital) slot supporting SDIO and SDIO Now!.
( Author : Lisa Gade, Source : mobiletechreview )

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Nokia Twist 7705 Review

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What's hot: Head turning design. Cool Habitat mode.

What's not: Must twist open the phone to answer a call (unless you're using a headset).

Reviewed September 21, 2009 by Tong Zhang, Senior Editor

If you are looking for a phone that turns heads, the Nokia Twist 7705 will do just that. Shiny, unique and modern, the Nokia 7705 Twist makes the diminutive Motorola Karma and Verizon Blitz look like chunky monkeys. The Nokia has a swivel design and it feels natural to open the phone like fanning open a deck of cards. When the phone is closed, it looks like a makeup compact with a screen; but swivel open the QWERTY keyboard and the phone looks much more like a normal phone. A large LED-lit ring anchors the two panels and offers notifications in different colors.

The Nokia 7705 Twist is a digital CDMA phone with EV-DO Rev. 0 for data, and it’s exclusively available from Verizon. In addition to a roomy QWERTY keyboard, the Nokia Twist has a built-in 3 megapixel autofocus camera with video capture, aGPS that works with VZ Navigator, V CAST Music and Video and Bluetooth with A2DP. The phone runs Verizon’s UI and comes with the Polaris web browser that’s on many of Verizon’s feature phones.

Design and Ergonomics

The Nokia Twist 7705 is a perfect square when closed, measuring 2.71 x 2.71 x 0.59 inches. The phone feels small when it’s closed, but when the keyboard swivels out it actually feels very wide. It’s wider than the iPhone 3GS which is just about the widest phone currently on the market. The 2.4” landscape display dominates the front of the phone, but the large LED ring that anchors the two swiveling panels vies for attention. The LED ring can flash in different colors (6 colors) for different contacts (you can select ring colors in Contacts), and the ring can send notifications (missed calls, messages, etc.) by “breathing” the LED color of your choice. A normal d-pad lives in the center below the display, and two shoulder keys and the “CLR” key are touch sensitive keys with haptic feedback. The d-pad feels good to use even for gaming, but the touch keys are easy to press by accident. There are options that allow you to set the sensitivity and vibration feedback for the touch keys. There is also a proximity sensor above the screen.

The wide body affords the Nokia Twist a good size landscape display and a very roomy four-row keyboard with an additional launcher row above. The keyboard is extremely easy to use, and the keys have both a tactile click and audio feedback when pressed. The number keys are embedded in a block (phone dial pad arrangement), and those who favor large space bars on their mobile phones will appreciate Nokia’s keyboard. Dedicated launcher keys include messaging, music player, web browser, voice command (Nuance voice command onboard), speakerphone, camera/camcorder as well as call Send and End buttons. For mobile messaging addicts, the Nokia Twist offers one of the best keyboards in a mid-sized phone.

The Nokia Twist 7705 has minimal side buttons. Side ports include the charging port, the microSD card slot, the 2.5mm stereo headset jack and the volume rocker. There is also a holder for phone charms, and the speakerphone fires to the right through the speakerphone grille. The Nokia Twist comes with two back covers, one in black and one in purple. The back cover is easy to take off, just release the small latch to unlock the cover. The 3-megapixel camera with flash lives on the back of the phone, and when the phone is open, the back of the display panel does double-duty as a mirror.

Phone, Messaging and Web

The Nokia Twist 7705 has good reception, getting full 1X and 3 out of 4 bars of EV-DO in very strong coverage areas. The phone has not dropped a call but in spotty coverage areas it occasionally lost the EV-DO signal. Voice quality on both incoming and outgoing ends is good with clear audio and loud volume. The Nokia Twist supports common call management features such as call forwarding, 3-way calling and call waiting. It also works with Verizon’s Visual Voice Mail service (it’s not free), and the phone book can store 1,000 contacts. Habitat mode really stands out on this phone, and it comes with 2 themes and 400 avatars that you can assign to your contacts. The Habitat themes give you 3D visuals of your friends: when you select an avatar that represents a friend on screen, you’ll see a list of calls and messages between you and that friend. It’s a very cool social networking centric UI, but the phone slows down a bit when in Habitat mode.

The roomy keyboard on the Nokia Twist 7705 is perfect for messaging, and the phone serves up SMS, MMS, web-based email (Hotmail and AOL) and IM (MSN, Yahoo! and AOL). The Nokia supports threaded messaging which makes it easier to keep track of the conversations especially if you’ve got several of them going on at once.

Sorry Nokia web-kit based browser fans, the Nokia Twist 7705 doesn’t have Nokia’s browser. It comes with the Polaris 6.1 web browser found on most current Verizon feature phones. The web browser supports full HTML and can render web pages in a desktop style with images and tables intact. Web pages load reasonably fast and the browser offers options and setting for cookies, certificates, SSL and more. It’s not bad at all for a feature phone, but it’s not as awesome as web-kit browsers when viewing desktop formatted sites.

The phone comes with a second back cover that's purple.

Music and Video

The Nokia 7705 Twist is a good music phone if you have a Bluetooth stereo headset or can find a wired stereo headset that’s compatible with the Twist’s 2.5mm jack. The built-in media player can play music in MP3, WMA and AAC/AAC+ formats. The Nokia works with Verizon’s V CAST Music with Rhapsody, which means you can buy songs and download them over the air or via PC. The tunes download reasonably fast thanks to EV-DO 3G speed. The phone can store music either in internal memory or on microSD cards, and it supports high capacity cards (up to 16GB tested). The built-in speaker on the Nokia 7705 isn’t that big, and it doesn’t sound very loud nor very full as a result. We have a lot of wired headsets in our toy box, but we couldn’t find one that worked with the Twist (Verizon does list 2 Motorola stereo wired headsets as compatible with the Nokia). We tested the phone with several Bluetooth wireless headsets including the Jabra HALO and the Samsung SBH-500, and the audio quality was excellent and volume super loud. If you plan to listen to music on the Nokia Twist, both these Bluetooth stereo headsets will provide excellent audio quality.

The Nokia Twist 7705 also works with Verizon’s V CAST on-demand video services. The phone has very good performance in video playback and the landscape screen is handy for full screen playing mode. V CAST on-demand videos look smooth with audio in sync to the video. There are occasional frame drops and refresh delays in full screen mode, but most videos are very watchable.

GPS

The Nokia 7705 has built-in aGPS that works smoothly with Verizon’s VZ Navigator. The landscape screen is good for viewing maps and is viewable outdoors as long as it’s not directly in sunlight. The phone gets fixes fairly quickly and navigation calculations are reasonably fast. The Nokia Twist had no problem following us driving and the turn-by-turn directions were accurate. The phone’s speaker wasn’t very loud and we did have some trouble hearing it on a busy highway, but it sounded fine for city streets. VZ Navigator isn’t free, but it offers 2D and 3D maps, trip planning and navigation, re-routing and traffic check in real time and allows sharing locations with family and friends.

Camera

The Nokia Twist 7705 has a 3-megapixel camera that offers auto focus mode and flash. It’s interesting that you can turn the auto focus feature on and off, and auto focus doesn’t make a huge difference in picture quality. The Nokia 7705 takes good but not exceptional photos by 3-megapixel camera phone standards. The images have saturated colors and look balanced, but some outdoor shots have inconsistent exposure. Indoor shots look good and the flash is really bright and effective for taking good photos in low-light environments. In general, pictures taken with the Nokia look sharp and pleasing. The camera software offers white balance, color effects, capture mode, shutter sound and other settings.

The Nokia 7705 Twist can also take video with audio. MMS videos are 176 x 144 pixel resolution and max length videos are QVGA. The video looks smooth and the audio is in sync with video.

Battery Life

The Nokia Twist 7705 has a rechargeable Li-Ion battery (model BL-4C) that’s user replaceable. Battery life isn’t stellar with 860 mAh in capacity especially if you use EV-DO for music download or watching V CAST Video frequently. The claimed talk time is 4.5 hours and claimed standby is 13 days. Our battery tests showed the claimed numbers were overly optimistic, and we only reached about 4 hours of talk time and a week of standby. Using GPS navigation and watching V CAST video will drain the battery at an accelerated speed. If your daily usage includes these tasks, get yourself an extra battery if you are on the road a lot.

Conclusion

Nokia doesn’t make many CDMA phones, and the Nokia Twist is a winner. The phone has a unique design that should please those who want something unusual and fashionable. It’s also great for texters thanks to the excellent keyboard. The LED ring is fun and the Habitat mode makes it easy to keep track of your communications with friends and family. With GPS and real time navigation, V CAST music and video, a full HTML browser and messaging onboard, the Nokia Twist 7705 is a good all around phone with a form that looks unlike anything else on the market.

Price: $99.99 with 2-year contract after discount.

Web sites: www.nokiausa.com, www.verizonwireless.com

Specs:

Display: 2.4” QVGA 262K color TFT screen. Resolution: 320 x 240 pixels.

Battery: Lithium

Ion rechargeable battery, 860 mAh, user replaceable. Claimed talk time: up to 4.5 hours. Claimed standby time: up to 13 days.

Performance: 128MB internal memory. Phone book can store 1000 entries.

Size: 2.71 x 2.71 x 0.59 inches. Weight: 3.44 oz.

Phone: Digital CDMA phone 1X-EV-DO Rev. 0.

Camera: 3 megapixel with flash. Still image resolutions: 2048x1536, 1280x960, 800x600, 640x480, and 320x240. Can take video with audio. Video resolutions: 320 x 240 and 176 x 144 pixels.

Audio: 72 chord Polyphonic/MIDI/MP3 sound support. MP3 player onboard to play music in MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA formats. Mono speaker and 2.5mm stereo headset jack. Supports A2DP Bluetooth stereo.

Networking: Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR. Bluetooth Profiles: Headset, Hands–free, Dial–up Networking, Stereo, Phone Book Access, Basic Printing, Object Push (for vCard & vCal), File Transfer, Basic Imaging. USB 2.0.

Software: Verizon UI with Habitat mode. Polaris 6.1 HTML browser, Web-based email and IM on board. PIM tools include Contacts, Calculator (Basic & Tip), Converter, Calendar, Calendar Preview, Alarm Clock, World Clock, Stopwatch, Notepad, and USB Mass Storage.

Expansion: 1 microSD card slot. Supports SDHC cards.

In the Box: The Nokia 7705 Twist phone with standard battery, AC charger, an extra back cover and printed quick reference guide.

( Author : Tong Zhang, Source : mobiletechreview )

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Nokia 7510 Review

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Reviewed February 9, 2009 by Tong Zhang, Senior Editor

Known to Europeans as the Nokia 7510 Supernova, this GSM flip phone now makes its US appearance on T-Mobile. Introduced at 2009 CES, the T-Mo version of the Nokia 7510 joins a wide selection of low end Nokia phones and higher end ones like the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and Nokia 5610 XPressMusic. The Nokia 7510 is a quad band GSM world phone that’s offered by T-Mobile exclusively in the US. The phone supports EDGE and GPRS for data, and has Wi-Fi for UMA calling. The phone runs on Nokia’s Series 40 platform and has a 2 megapixel camera, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR and a microSD card slot for music, video and image storage. Like the higher-end Nokia N79, the Nokia 7510 comes with interchangeable Xpress-On covers in three colors.

Design and Ergonomics

The Nokia 7510 is a slim flip phone that feels well built. What’s different between the Nokia and other flip phones? The secret is in the cover. The Nokia 7510 comes with the Xpress-on covers that do what Nokia calls “hidden until lit” which shows patterns and the time while the phone is in standby mode. If you have music playing in the background with the flip closed, the front cover can display artist and track names. T-Mobile includes 3 covers in the package (currently in Emerald Green, Expresso Brown and Fatal Red) and you can interchange these faceplates or mix them up in two-tone combos. While the rest of the phone has a brushed metal look with the flip, open the flip and you'll see a mirror-like metallic surface on the keypad and the bezel surrounding the display. The metallic finish looks great when it’s spotless but it shows fingerprints like crazy. The keys and d-pad are large enough to operate easily, but the slippery surface and very small travel make the keys difficult for blind dialing or playing fast-paced games.

The Nokia 7510 has few side controls and ports which include volume up and down buttons, a charging port, a 2.5mm audio jack and mini-USB port. The 2-megapixel camera lives on the front flip with the LED flash. The SIM card is under the battery, but the microSD card slot isn’t. It’s under the battery door, but it doesn’t require you to take out the battery or shut down the phone to access the card slot.

Video Review

Here's our 5 minute video review of the Nokia 7510:

Phone and Web

The Nokia 7510 has very good reception in well-covered areas and can get at least half of full bars in spotty coverage areas. Avoid holding the phone by the bottom area below the keypad: reception drops two bars. Voice quality is quite good and the Nokia 7510 has very loud volume both via the earpiece and the built-in speaker. The phone supports common call features such as caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding and speed dials (2-9). The Nokia also comes with voice command and voice dialing that worked reasonably well in our tests. Like all recent Nokia phones, the Nokia 7510 supports T-Mobile’s MyFaves and offers a built-in phone book.

The Nokia 7510 has Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR and supports the following profiles: headset, handsfree, SIM access, Object push, file transfer, DUN, generic access, serial port, generic object exchange, A2DP, AVRCP and generic audio/video distribution. We tested the Nokia with the Jabra BT530 and the Jawbone 2 Bluetooth headsets, and the phone worked with these headsets reasonably well. Audio quality was good enough to carry on conversations and the DSP worked effectively against road noise.

One of the biggest advantages with the Nokia 7510 is that the phone supports UMA calling over Wi-Fi (the $9.99 T-Mobile @Home service is required to use this feature). If you have a Wi-Fi access point at home, office and Hotspots, you can make domestic calls over the Wi-Fi without using your mobile minutes. The Nokia 7510 comes with software that will help set up UMA calls including searching for access points and connecting to them (if you can provide access code or the network is open). You don’t need to know a lot about Wi-Fi to set up the UMA. Calls over Wi-Fi sound great and if you walk out of Wi-Fi range, the phone seamlessly switches to T-Mobile’s cellular network without interrupting your call. If you initiate a call using UMA, even after you walk out of the Wi-Fi range, the call still counts as an UMA call and won’t use your cell minutes. But the reverse is also true: if you start a call on T-Mobile’s GSM network and walk within range of Wi-Fi and the phone switches, your entire call will count against your mobile minutes. UMA calling worked very well in our tests, and the only negative effect it had on the phone was the battery life: Wi-Fi killed the battery within 24 hours even in standby.

The Nokia 7510 comes with Nokia’s own Web Browser that’s based on the WebKit engine. The browser can work with both WAP and full HTML sites, though you will need to get a full data plan (not just the T-Zones plan) to access sites outside of the T-Zones portal listing. The browser supports cookies, history, security and more, and also has support for xHTML, Javascript and some dHTML. It renders full HTML pages quite well with images intact and page download times are acceptable but not great over EDGE. For those who wish to get advanced applications such as Google Maps, Opera Mini or view YouTube videos (even the mobile version), don’t bother. You can’t do it, at least not yet. Opera doesn’t recognize the phone and serves up the desktop version of the operamini.com site, and thus doesn’t provide a mobile-friendly download link. And the Nokia 7510 balks on the unsigned version of Google Maps (the only link Google’s mobile maps site served us). The Nokia 7510 comes with Flash Lite 2.0 but it can’t play YouTube mobile videos, though the embedded media player automatically runs and tries before throwing an error.

Music, Gaming and FM Radio

Though not labeled as XpressMusic phone, the Nokia 7510 has an excellent media player onboard for music and video playback and a full and loud speaker. As good as the speaker sounds, the music playback sounds fuller via the included wired stereo headset. The Nokia 7510 has Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR and supports A2DP and AVRCP for Bluetooth stereo headsets. We tested the Nokia with the Samsung SBH500 Bluetooth headset, and the sound was also very good through the headset. The media player can play music tracks in MP3, AAC and AAC+ formats, and offers playlist, shuffle, repeat equalizer, stereo widening and theme settings.

The Nokia’s 2.2” screen supports 16 million colors and looks bright, sharp and color saturated in video playback and gaming. Like the new Nokia Nseries phones (N96, N85 and N79), the Nokia 7510 has a square d-pad with a large center button. The good news is that the directional band surrounding the center button is relatively large compared to the Nseries phones and works fine for gaming. T-Mobile’s portal for game downloads can be flaky at times as we got error messages a few times when we tried downloading games. While all the games we tried played smoothly on the Nokia 7510, a few games like Galaga and Pac Man had some audio bugs (missing or disappearing sound effects) but that didn’t affect gameplay much.

The Nokia 7510 has an FM radio that uses the included wired headset as its antenna. The FM radio didn’t find a lot of stations (7 stations total) in the Dallas metro area but the stations it did find sounded great. The radio software on the Nokia offers visual radio and save station features.

Camera

2 megapixel camera phones are entry-level for Nokia. The 7510’s 2 megapixel camera takes decent photos but not outstanding ones. There is a noticeable amount of noise in indoor shots and contrast is low. Outdoor pictures look better, showing some noise, some oversharpening and white out, but colors are mostly balanced and bright. The camera phone can take pictures in 6 sizes and 3 image qualities and has white balance settings, effects and a self-timer.

The camera phone can also record video with audio at 15 fps. You can record videos in two resolutions (176 x 144 and 128 x 96) and two sizes (MMS length or max storage length). The videos look smooth and deal with low lighting conditions well.

Battery Life

The Nokia 7510 comes with a rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery that’s 870 mAh in capacity. That’s average power for a non-3G phone and the claimed 3-hour talk time seems on target. But the battery is no match for UMA calling – even in standby the Nokia can barely survive 24 hours. If you use Wi-Fi a lot, make sure you get an extra battery unless you wish to charge the phone every day.

Conclusion

It’s good to see T-Mobile adding a little pizzazz to its feature phone line. The Nokia 7510 has the right ingredients for a low-priced phone: it’s quad band, has a cool faceplate design, excellent voice quality and a good media player for music and video. Higher end shoppers will note the lack of GPS, YouTube playback and 3G support; but the phone boasts a very good web browser and UMA calling to gain points back. The Nokia 7510 has a good set of features with a pretty face and a sturdy build. If the battery life was better, particularly on UMA, we’d be jazzed.

Pro: Good looking phone, slim and sturdy. Good reception and voice quality. UMA calling is a huge plus for those who talk a lot on the phone but don’t want to use up their mobile minutes. Great media player for music and video playback. Excellent speaker and very sharp and bright display. The phone has a very good web browser.

Con: The keypad is too slippery and flat for fast typing or blind dialing. Wi-Fi drains battery very fast. Currently no way to get Opera Mini and Google Maps running. T-Mobile download portal is sometimes flaky.

Price: $49.99 with a 2-year contract after mail-in rebate and discount. $199.99 without a contract.

Web sites: www.nokiausa.com, www.t-mobile.com

Specs:

Display: 2.” QVGA 16-million color TFT screen. Resolution: 240 x 320 pixels.

Battery: Lithium

Ion rechargeable battery (model number Nokia BL-5BT), 870 mAh, user replaceable. Claimed talk time: up to 3 hours. Claimed standby time: up to 12 days.

Performance: 26MB internal memory.

Size: 3.6 x 1.8 x 0.7 inches. Weight: 4.4 oz.

Phone: Quad band GSM world phone. 850/900/1800/1900MHz. GPRS/EDGE class 32 for data.

Camera: 2 megapixel with 4x digital zoom. Still image resolutions: 1200 x 1600, 96 x 1280, 600 x 800, 480 x 640, 320 x 240 and 120 x 160 pixels. Can take video with audio. Video resolutions: 176 x 144 and 128 x 96 pixels. MMS length and max storage length.

Audio: Media player onboard to play music in MP3, AAC and AAC formats. FM Radio. 2.5 mm stereo audio jack. Can record voice memo. Supports vibration alert.

Networking: Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR. Supported profiles: headset, handsfree, SIM access. Object push, file transfer, DUN, generic access, serial port, generic object exchange, A2DP, AVRCP and generic audio/video distribution. USB 2.0.

Software: Nokia Series 40 platform. Supports myFaves. Full HTML browser and Web-based IM on board. PIM tools include Phonebook , Calendar, Calculator, Alarm Clock, Countdown timer, Stopwatch, World clock, Converter and Notes.

Expansion: 1 microSD card slot. Supports SDHC cards.

In the Box: The Nokia 7510 phone with standard battery, AC charger, wired stereo headset, faceplates and printed manual.

( Author : Tong Zhang, Source : mobiletechreview )

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Nokia N900 Review

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Carrier: Unlocked GSM
Manufacturer: Nokia
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Where to Buy

What's hot: Best web browser on a mobile phone, elegant multi-tasking.

What's not: Portrait orientation not available in most apps, WiFi kills battery life.

And now for something completely different. The N900 is Nokia's first Maemo OS smartphone and it's their first Maemo version 5 device. Maemo is a Linux-based OS, and prior versions powered Nokia's non-phone Internet tablets like the N770, N800 and N810. Maemo has morphed significantly since the N810 and it's now more of a consumer device than a geek tool. The User interface is impressively modern, slick and fun with its cool sound effects, animations and transitions, and the ARM Cortex A8 with GPU is very fast. The N900 is in some ways a developer's platform since it's Nokia's first foray into what may become the eventual replacement OS for Nseries high end phones, but that doesn't mean it requires a degree in computer science or that it's not a pleasant product to use. It means that Nokia wants to attract more developers to their new platform since the world's abuzz for phones with strong app stores.

The N900 is an unlocked GSM world phone with EDGE that will work with any GSM carrier. It has 3G HSDPA 10 Mbps on the Euro 2100MHz band and on T-Mobile's US AWS 1700/2100MHz bands. T-Mobile users: this is definitely a phone worth looking at! We don't see that many cutting edge, high end phones with T-Mo's US 3G bands and it's pleasantly surprising that Nokia made one since they usually opt for the larger installed base of AT&T users and their 850/1900MHz bands. Do you use AT&T? You'll get EDGE for data but not 3G since the N900's cellular radio doesn't support those bands.

The N900 is full of flagship specs-- gone are the slow Symbian OS CPUs and paltry RAM. The smartphone runs on a 600MHz ARM Cortex A8 CPU with hardware 3D graphics acceleration in the form of the PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support (same as the iPhone 3GS). The N900 has 256 megs of RAM and can use virtual memory up to 1 gig. It has 32 gigs of flash storage and an SDHC microSD card slot. The 5 megapixel autofocus camera has a dual LED flash and a Carl Zeiss lens that's up to Nseries standards. The phone has WiFi with seamless switching between WiFi and cellular data networks (no there's no UMA calling but there is VoIP), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR with a full set of profiles and a GPS that works with Nokia's own Ovi Maps. The resistive 3.5", 800 x 480 pixel display has an accelerometer, ambient light sensor and a proximity sensor.

The N900 ships with a micro USB cable, micro USB terminated charger, a stereo headset, TV out cable and and a stylus. It's currently sold direct by NokiaUSA.com and online retailers with a US warranty but no US carrier offers it, so there's no contract-based subsidy (nor is there a contract requirement).

What is the N900 and what is Maemo?

While the N900 certainly is easy to use (and don't be fooled by the Linux underpinnings-- the iPhone, Palm's webOS and Android all use some form of Unix or Linux inside), it's a hard smartphone to pidgeonhole. Though Nokia bills their Nseries phones as multimedia computers, in truth they're incredibly phone-centric and a joy to use one-handed. They're phones first, while the iPhone, Android phones and even the webOS Palm Pre are pocket Internet machines and mini-computers first. And so the N900 follows their lead rather than the Nseries: it's more a data-centric phone than anything else. It's exceptional for multi-tasking, surfing the web, reading RSS news feeds, and good for email and getting info like weather, news and sports scores. But if you were hoping for that Symbian OS dedication to easy calling with plenty of phone features and a hardware number pad, the N900 isn't for you. It's for the touch screen, pocket computer crowd. If the Motorola Droid tempts you more than the Nokia N96, the N900 should be your cup of tea.

Most applications currently run only in landscape view, which is great for viewing web pages, spreadsheets and videos but not so great if you want to use it one-handed. The phone dialer and contacts work in both portrait and landscape modes, so it is possible to use and hold the N900 in a phone-like orientation for calling. In fact, there's a setting that automatically launches the phone app when you turn the phone to portrait mode. You can also get to the phone app when in any application by quickly pressing the power button and selecting "phone" from the pop-up menu. From Nokia's developer pages, we gather that portrait mode may spread to other applications, and 3rd party developers can support one or both orientations as they see fit. The 4 screen panoramic desktop (5 if you count the running applications screen) runs only in landscape mode much as the HTC HD2 and HTC Pure's work only in portrait mode. The N900's screen is designed and optimized for landscape mode and I have no desire to run it in portrait mode; but then I'm using it like a pocket computer and don't expect it to act like a Nokia N95.

The HTC HD2, Nokia N900 and Motorola Droid.

The UI is completely finger-friendly and is in direct opposition to S60 5th Edition with its touch UI glued on top of S60 feel. Maemo is a completely separate OS with none of the legacy baggage of S60. Scrolling through lists works much like the iPhone or other well-designed touch screen phones and there's no odd reverse scrolling or tiny scrollbars as there is with S60 5th Edition. Nokia includes a stylus in the phone's silo, but there's no need for it unless you want to write, draw or click in tiny web page links (a fingernail also works well for link tapping). The UI is fairly fresh and unique (there are a few design elements that are similar to Android) and we enjoyed its consistency and intuitiveness. For example you can tap on the screen in any application to bring up a close box "x" in the upper right corner and a minimize and return to desktop function by tapping on the multiple window symbol at the upper left corner. When a screen or dialog demands your response, background windows are blurred out of focus, so you're not confused by stacked windows and wondering which one you're supposed to tap on. You can get out of any window by tapping in the upper right hand corner of the blurred background.

Though the screen is resistive rather than capacitive, we had no complaints with responsiveness and control. It requires a slightly firmer touch than the capacitive iPhone but a softer touch than most S60 5th Edition and Windows Mobile phones. There's no multi-touch for things like pinch zooming, so you'll have to double-tap on the screen to zoom in the web browser, or use on-screen zoom controls in applications like Ovi Maps. The display is easily viewable outdoors.

Video Review

Here's our video review of the Nokia N900, and you can get a much better feel for the user interface and responsiveness of the phone by watching the video. We also cover the web browser, GPS mapping, video playback and more.

Design and Ergonomics

The N900 has a side-slider design with a full QWERTY keyboard. It's a minimalist and not unattractive device but it doesn't have the sexy wow-factor of thin phones like the HD2 and iPhone. I'd say it's more attractive than the Droid, but looks are subjective. Though shorter and narrower than the HTC HD2, it's much thicker and you'll feel the N900 in your pocket. It has a rounded rectangle design and it looks, well, like a Nokia. The build quality and slider mechanism are solid and the non-gloss back is a plus. The screen does attract and hold onto fingerprints, though it's bright and sharp enough to be readable even when totally mucked-up with grease. The keyboard has fairly low key travel but the keys are clicky and you can turn on sound effects for key presses which helps. After using it for a day, the keyboard really grew on me and I found it easy to type quickly, despite the offset spacebar.

The N900's hardware keyboard. You can also turn on the on-screen keyboard if you like.

In keeping with the minimalist design and touch screen focus, there are very few hardware buttons. The combined camera launcher and shutter button are on the right side for natural placement when held like a camera. The power button, midway down the right side turns off the phone when pressed and held and with a short press brings up a set of menus to switch to offline mode, lock the screen and keys (the phone automatically locks when the slider is closed and you unlock it with an on-screen slider or the hardware slider), switch to silent mode and when in an application there's a menu item to bring up the phone dialer. The volume keys are on the upper right and the hardware screen/key lock is on the bottom along with the micro USB port and 3.5mm stereo headset jack. There are stereo speakers on the top and bottom edges (or sides when held in landscape mode) and an IR port on the right side (most likely use would be home theater remote control applications developed by 3rd parties). There are no buttons on the front face. A front-facing VGA camera lives above the display, but the phone currently doesn't support 3G video calling and there are no VoIP apps that currently support video calling (we'd love to see video calling via Skype!).

The camera lens lives on the back and is protected by a sliding door. Open the door and the camera application automatically launches. As with the Nokia N96, a pop-out ring surrounding the lens doubles as a desk stand.

Phone and Internet

As per usual with Nokia phones, the N900 has excellent reception and call quality. We've never seen so many bars of 3G HSDPA on T-Mobile's US network here in the Dallas area. Both incoming and outgoing call quality are impressive though we wish the earpiece were a bit louder for use in noisy places. We had no trouble hearing callers in in the office but it was hard to hear when in a noisy big box store. Reception in our area is relatively strong and we had no dropped calls nor did calls suffer when transitioning from GSM to 3G. The N900 lacks advanced call features like voice dialing (though given Nokia's track record with voice dialing, we're not sure we want to see it on the N900) and last number redial. It does have speed dialing, reliable voicemail notifications (though the number 1 isn't automatically assigned to voicemail, but should be in a future firmware), call history and an impressive selection of well-integrated Internet calling services. From the standard phone dialer you can make calls using Google Talk, Skype, Ovi, Jabber and SIP. Simply enter your login credentials in the phone account setup screen and select a contact to call. You'll see options for cellular calling and any VoIP internet calling services you've set up. Very, very nice! No separate application and geeky settings to fight with.

The contacts application is the poster child for multi-paradigm communications. Select a contact, and assuming you've got email, mobile, land line and etc. entered for that contact, you can tap buttons to call the person, Internet call that person, SMS them, email them and so on. Contact fields generally mirror Outlook with multiple email addresses, phone numbers, note, job title, nickname, web page and physical addresses. There are no categories however.

Bluetooth headsets were a mixed bag. We found that the Plantronics Discovery 925 and the Plantronics Discovery 655 both had good voice quality for incoming and outgoing calls. The Samsung WEP870 sounded overly digitized and hard to understand on the outgoing end and the Jabra Stone sounded just OK. The Jawbone 2 sounded tinny on the incoming end and distorted for outgoing voice. Perhaps Nokia needs to tweak their Bluetooth in a firmware update.

The web browser is the best we've ever seen on a mobile platform. If you're totally into the web, this is your phone. This is the "real Internet" and it's better than the iPhone's Safari web browser since it supports Flash 9.4 and plugins. The Mozilla-based browser handles AJAX, Javascript, frames, CSS and most everything a desktop browser does. The only thing missing is pinch zooming but that's impossible on the N900's resistive screen. Instead you'll double-tap the screen to zoom or use the volume up/down buttons or swirl your finger in a circle (our least favorite since it's hard to control). The browser works with the desktop version of youtube.com and with youtube videos embedded in web pages (such as the page you're reading now). While Nokia S60 phones have offered Flash support, their low resolution and slow performance hampered the experience. The N900 does a very good job of playing Flash video as long as you have a good 3G or WiFi connection. Nice! Web pages look like their desktop counterparts and you get the desktop version of the New York Times, CNN and BBC rather than mobile versions. Embedded video on the New York Times home page didn't play (we're not sure what format they're using) but Flash-based ads run for better or worse. If you get sick of seeing ads, there's an ad blocking utility you can download using the app download program on the phone.

Email and Syncing

The Nokia has good email support as well as IM, and there's SMS but no MMS (again, something we're hoping for in a future firmware update). The email client supports POP, IMAP, gmail and Exchange email (via Mail for Exchange). The phone supports HTML email, checking email on a schedule and checking email only when a certain connection is available (i.e.: WiFi). Currently the phone only supports MS Exchange 2007 sync, but Exchange 2003 should be coming in a firmware update. Google sync of contacts and calendar items over Mail for Exchange is sadly not supported. Though MfE sync with Google works fine for us as long as we set it to sync calendar and contacts but not email (you can set up email separately in the email client). PC Suite syncing (not the newer Ovi desktop sync) works well with Outlook in Windows, but there's no iSync plugin for Mac OS X. The N900 doesn't sync with Nokia's Ovi online yet either.

The stylus, 3.5mm jack, screen/key lock slider and speaker.

GPS and Ovi Maps

Yes, the N900 has a built in GPS with aGPS and it comes with Ovi Maps 1.00 for Maemo. The GPS worked well in our tests, and managed a fix even indoors and kept up with brisk driving. No, there's no Google Maps, at least not yet. But Ovi Maps has attractive and clear maps, good US POIs and passable turn-by-turn on-screen directions. There are no spoken directions, making the N900 less than a perfect co-pilot when driving. Will spoken directions come in a later Ovi Maps release, will 3rd parties release navigation applications for Maemo 5? We hope so. In the meanwhile, Ovi Maps' price is hard to beat: free. You can download maps over the air as needed, or side load them.

Camera

The news is all good here: the N900 has an Nseries level camera that takes excellent photos and very good video. The 5 megapixel camera has a Carl Zeiss Tessar autofocus lens and a dual LED flash. We like the active lens cover that protects and launches the camera application when you slide it open (and exits the camera when you close the lens cover). The camera button functions as the shutter button, which is more stable than tapping on the display like the HTC HD2. The camera can also shoot video at 848 x 480 resolution at 25fps with 48 kHz AAC stereo audio, and quality is quite good as you'd expect from a high end Nokia. When shooting video, the lens does an initial focus on the center of the frame rather than using a fixed focus on infinity. The N900's images are comparable to the N95 and N96's, and are far superior to the HTC HD2's. Here's a comparison of two cropped photos from the N900 and HD2:

Nokia N900

HTC HD2

As you can see the Nokia's image is sharper with much more detail. The photo is just slightly too cool, but the HD2's is overly skewed to the magenta and lacks real detail.

The N900 ships with a TV out cable that terminates in standard RCA connections. You can view photos and videos taken with its camera on the TV, and in fact you can view anything on the TV, even games.

Multimedia

Older Maemo Internet tablets were picky about video file formats but the N900 is the swiss army knife of mobile video playback. It can handle MPEG4, Flash Video, AVI, 3GPP, H.264 and WMV formats. We found that even high bitrate videos encoded at 1500kbps played well as long as we kept the resolution at 800 x 480 or less (comparable to DVD resolution). The N900's multimedia player reminds us of the clean and simple Sony/Sony Ericsson UI with a large icon-based launcher for songs, video, Internet radio and song shuffle playback. The main UI tells you how many songs, video tracks and Internet radio stations are available/stored on the 32 gig flash drive and microSD card. The music player starts with a large album cover view that's attractive and modern. The player itself is fairly basic with shuffle and playlists but no EQ. Music playback quality is very good with a decent set of headphones (Nokia includes a better than average set of stereo earbuds with interchangeable ear gels) and pleasant through the built-in stereo speakers.

The video player is thumbnail based and shows duration for each clip along with the title. There are 48 preset Internet radio stations from around the world (in other words, not all are English) and you can add more but that's not a simple task. Internet radio worked well for us over T-Mobile's 3G HSDPA connection and WiFi. The phone has an FM transmitter so you can stream audio to your car or home stereo but there's no FM radio application. Happily, there's a basic FM radio app available for free download and it gets good reception.

The N900 has mass storage mode so you can mount it on the desktop using the included micro USB cable to copy music, videos and other content to and from the phone.

App Story

It's all about the apps these days, or so some folks think. The magic actually comes when a good platform with appealing hardware and a great OS meet with a large selection of applications. Maemo 5 is a new OS and the N900's job in part is to get developers on board. Given Maemo's open source history, applications have so far been free and many have been ports from Linux. With Maemo 5 we're starting to see more "Joe Normal" apps instead of geeky ones. These include Documents To Go for viewing MS Office docs (currently the only pay-for Maemo 5 application, it costs $9.99 after the 30 day trial ends), an AP news widget, several weather widgets, games (so far mostly 2D though we expect some impressive 3D games given the Nokia's serious GPU and OpenGL ES 2.0 support), sketching applications, Witter (a Twitter app), a Facebook widget and more. Nokia's own Bounce game is a 3D showcase of what the N900 can do. It's as impressive as an iPhone 3D high quality game and we can't wait to see more. And yes, you can play it while the phone is hooked up to a TV!

A shortcut to Maemo Select showcases current applications (around 50) but the Ovi Store for Maemo isn't yet up and running. We hope it will be available by January 2010. There's also an application manager so you can download apps from additional application repositories. But at the moment, the app story is that there isn't a huge selection but there seems to be significant developer interest. Only time will tell...

Conclusion

The N900 is what we'd hoped the Nokia N97 would have been: seriously impressive hardware matched with a fresh touch-based operating system. I'll stop just short of saying that the N900 puts the N97 and N97 Mini to shame because the N97 line has stronger phone features and these are phones, after all. But in every other way, the N900 is superior thanks to its truly modern, touch-optimized OS, fast CPU, excellent video playback performance, best in class web browser, Adobe Flash support and seamless switching between cellular and WiFi networks. If you're looking for a pocket computer first and a phone second, the Nokia N900, though still immature, earns a place with the HTC HD2, Motorola Droid and even the iPhone 3GS. Though we'd say that the iPhone's appeal is different-- it's better suited to those who prefer a super-simple user interface or who want myriad application downloads to keep things interesting. Things we'd like to see on the N900? More apps of course, more advanced phone features and better Bluetooth performance with headsets. All in all, a great start from Nokia after the mild disappointment that was S60 5th Edition. Maemo 5 is an OS that can compete with Android, webOS and HTC's Sense on Windows Mobile. When the first firmware update comes out (supposedly by the end of 2009) we'll update this review to cover what's changed.

Website: http://www.nokiausa.com/

Price: Approx. $550 with no contract, unlocked.

Specs:

Display: 3.5", 800 x 480 pixel resistive touch screen. Most applications run in landscape mode. Has an accelerometer, proximity sensor and ambient light sensor.
Battery: Lithium

Ion rechargeable. Battery is user replaceable. 1320 mAh.
Performance: ARM Cortex A8 CPU 600 MHz processor (TI OMAP 3430). 3D GPU: PowerVR SGX with OpenGL ES 2.0 support. 256 megs of RAM, can use virtual memory for a max of 1 gig. 32 gigs of flash storage.
Size: 4.36 x 2.35 x 0.71 inches. Weight: 6.38 ounces.
Phone: GSM unlocked quad band world phone with EDGE 850/900/1800/1900MHz. 3G HSDPA 10 Mbps on the 1700/2100MHz bands (compatible with Euro 3G and T-Mobile's US 3G network).
Camera: 5.0 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss autofocus lens and dual LED flash. Max photo resolution: 2584 x 1938. Video resolution: 848 x 480 pixels (MPEG4, 25 fps). 5.2mm focal length, f2.8, focuses 10cm to infinity. Front facing VGA camera (currently not used by built-in applications).
Audio: Built in speaker, mic and 3.5mm standard stereo headphone jack. Has a music player and an FM transmitter. There's no FM radio built in, though there's a free 3rd party download available.
GPS: Internal GPS and Ovi Maps software.
Networking: Integrated WiFi 802.11b/g and Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR. Bluetooth profiles: A2DP, AVRCP, FTP, HFP, HSP and OPP.
Software: Maemo 5 operating system (Fremantle, Linux-based). Mozilla-based web browser with AJAX and Flash 9.4 support, email, Nokia Conversations, Mail for Exchange, , media player, photo viewer, PIM applications (calendar, contacts, notes), PDF reader, file manager, camera, phone application, RSS reader, backup, X Terminal, app manager, Ovi Maps, Documents to Go 30 day trial, a few games and a variety of desktop widgets including Location (shows your current GPS location on a moving map), Facebook, RSS, calendar, Google search and more).
Expansion: 1 SDHC microSD card slot.
( Author : Lisa Gade , Source : mobiletechreview )

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