Nokia E90 (2)

Nokia E90 review: Heavyweight champion

Size doesn’t bother you? Then get ready for the stars and the moon, for the communicator gives it all: internet, GPS, excellent camera and many others.

The Nokia E90 Communicator is the latest addition to the set of contemporary high-performance devices for executives. We had to wait three years since the last Nokia 9500 Communicator appeared. Our patience was duly rewarded at the 2007 3GSM Congress, when Nokia unveiled the ultimate no-compromise mobile communication device. It remains faithful to some of the family traditions, others it forsakes, but the outcome is downright worth it. Nokia E90 has the familiar body construction: a hefty handset, which opens up to reveal a wide landscape display.

Nokia E90 Communicator official pictures

Before the E90 appeared, communicators used to be a class on its own in the Nokia portfolio. They had their own UI, which brought forth a number of issues. Above all, every application had to be adapted to the uncommon S80 UI. Quite unaffordable and therefore rare, communicators were ostracized by software developers. That’s exactly the flaw, which has been addressed in the new Nokia E90. The phone features a standard Symbian 9.2 and 3rd edition S60, working on a giant display and ensuring far greater compatibility.

First live photos from the 3GSM in Barcelona • also available in red

In closed position E90 looks like a traditional, though well oversized, Nokia bar. For the lack of a better reference point for size and weight, we compare it against the older Nokia 9500. The newer release has notably reduced size and still packs in near full contemporary functionality. The table below compares the essential features of the last two Communicator generations.

Nokia E90

Size is the first thing you’ll have to put up with about the Nokia E90. And it may as well be the last. What you get is unmatched keypad space and display size.

E90 is a direct descendant of the Nokia 9500. Different age, different design

	Nokia 9500	Nokia E90
Size	148 x 57 x 24 mm	132 x 57 x 20 mm
Weight	230 g	210 g
Outer display	128 x 128 pixels, 65K colors	240 x 320 pixels, 16M colors
Inner display	640 x 200 pixels, 65K colors	800 x 352 pixels, 16M colors
OS	Symbian 7.0s Series 80	Symbian 9.2 S60 3rd Edition
Memory	80 MB + MMC	128 MB + microSD
Camera	0.31 MP	3.2 MP
Connectivity	GPRS, EDGE, Wi-Fi	GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, HSDPA, Wi-Fi

Key features

• Full-fledged keyboard
• Big and high-resolution display
• Integrated GPS
• Built-in maps and basic navigation without charge
• 128 MB memory
• 512 MB microSD in the standard package
• Integrated WLAN, HSDPA
• Quality e-mail client
• Office applications, document creation and editing enabled
• Seamless synchronization with computer (PC Suite)
• MiniUSB universal connector (Mass storage enabled)
• Built-in camera with autofocus
• Stereo FM radio and A2DP-enabled Bluetooth for wireless stereo headphones
• Quality loudspeakers
• VoIP support
• Elegant and presentable appearance
• Quality construction
• UI compatible with other Nokia phones
• System speed

Main disadvantages

• Size and weight
• Third party applications incompatible with the built-in GPS
• Charges for navigation capabilities
• Multitasking still not perfect
• Inadequate battery life
• No small-size charger like in the N95
• No camera lens cover
• Wired headset with a 2.5mm jack, no volume control on the remote
• No USB Mass Storage for the phone memory
• Price

Opening the treasure chest

Not that it’s that important, but the most expensive Nokia comes in a plain box, like most of the brand’s common models. Nothing ostentatious, nothing of the 8600 Luna stuff. Who would want that in a device that means business anyway? Purpose is what matters. You get a stereo headset, a 512 MB microSD card, miniUSB cable, a battery and a charger. The package also contains a Quick Start guide and a User Manual. The latter is 120 pages and still fails to cover all the features. The enclosed DVD ROM has the essential PC Suite application.

Out of the box and down to business

Nokia has learnt a lesson from constructing communicators, the touchy hinge now has metal reinforcement. The E90 proudly puts its shiny ends on show. Two distinct stops are noticeable when opening the device: one at near 100 degrees, the other in full flat position. None of them is perfect though, the good thing is that the device is stable in almost any selected angle in-between.

Two working positions to choose from: the cover at 100 degrees or fully flat. Virtually all positions in-between are comfortable to use.

Although the casing looks uniform, the materials used are not the same. The front is almost all made of metal, except for the plastic keypad. The rear side is plastic, the battery cover the only metal element. Surfaces are of exceptional quality, the finishing of all elements is excellent.

As we already mentioned, in closed position the handset looks a classic Nokia bar, a generously sized one, that is. The traditional layout has taken advantage of the available space and all controls are ample enough and very user-friendly. The D-pad is brilliant, comfortably raised and with a very well-sized confirm key. The keypad is a truly up to the highest standards of the brand. The external display supports QVGA resolution. Though smaller than the inside one, it’s by no means secondary, as it takes the better part of the phone-related workload of the communicator. An interesting detail halfway down the right side of the display is the ambient light sensor.

Space on the front is more than enough, even to spare below the keypad. At the right corner of the display is the power key allowing, as usual, quick access to profiles.

On the side: voice key, infrared port, capture key • at the bottom: mini-USB port, charger connector, 2.5mm jack

The soft and smooth backlighting of the alphanumeric keypad is atoned to the display

The multimedia elements are at the back. The lens of the 3.2 megapixel camera is unprotected and risks suffering damage. At least, it’s sunk half a millimeter inside its nest, thus out of contact with the surface when using the communicator in open position. Next to the lens is the LED flash. Two tiny grills mark the loudspeakers. The sound they produce is loud and fine.

The camera and the LED flash

Did anyone say notebook?

Comparing the Nokia E90 to a laptop computer could be a little too far, but certain similarities can’t be overlooked. Opening the communicator gives the user a QWERTY keypad of unrivaled size and a huge landscape display.

There are five rows of slightly elevated alphanumeric keys, with control buttons on both sides. Made of hard plastic, the keys are very responsive. Marked by a delicate click, every press is precise and perceptible. Although we’re talking of unmatched keypad size, in mobile phone terms of course, all-finger typing is still out of the question. The perfect setup seems holding the communicator with both hands and using both thumbs to type.

Typing on E90 in the best possible way

You maybe interested how the two parts of the Communicator behave in the hinge area. When you’re closing the Communicator, the display hinge starts to fold first. Only when you’ve reached its closing point, the keyboard hinge will start to fold too. If you deliberately change that order, the two parts will touch indeed, but this time it doesn’t seem to be a problem. Just the opposite, the two halves are easy to fix at a comfortable angle for working with the device. With the keypad part considerably heavier than the lid, the E90 is very stable in laptop-like use. You’re only likely to break the balance when using the control buttons on both sides of the internal display.

Back to the QWERTY keyboard, on the right, above the Enter and Backspace buttons, is the 5-way navigation key. It’s almost identical to the one on the front cover of the handset. Reasonably enough, this time it’s a tad smaller and flatter, and therefore a little less comfortable to use.

The Bulb key on the left turns the keypad lighting on

Backlighting does look pale, especially compared to the bright display. Surprisingly enough, that didn’t stand in the way of working with the E90. Much to our disappointment, the main control keys aren’t backlit.

A row of seven application keys and the Symbian key are framed in chromium above the alphanumeric keypad. With them, Symbian multitasking gets a whole new dimension. On the sides of the display there are two pairs of buttons: the Call and End keys on the left, and the Selection keys on the right.

Another point of interest is whether the keypad is touching the display in closed position. We regret to inform you that it does. We did a few tests moistening several keys and closing the lid with as little pressure as possible. Folding the Communicator open revealed moisture stains on the display, and that’s bad news given our experience with notebooks. With laptops the contact area is incomparably bigger, but the display of the Communicator is also facing problems in the long run. Folding it hundreds of times with the keypad obviously touching the screen, you’re in for a trouble. Pity, raising the rubber cushions in the corners of the lid by an extra millimeter could’ve been enough.

Another downside we came across is that the keyboard layout seems market-dependent. We failed to find a setting allowing to switch form QWERTY to an alternative QWERTZ layout. Changing the input language didn’t do either. It looks like it will take a third party application to address this issue.

The internal display is the pivotal aspect of the Communicator. It will only take a few seconds to see the point in carrying an oversized brick in your pocket. With the E90, mobile web browsing is a truly novel experience. Some people on the team claimed they came across noticeable shades when changing images but I have to disagree. On the other hand, I can’t afford to overlook the excellent color rendering, outstanding contrast and fineness without visible rasterization.

The big display

Feed it before bedtime

Let’s take a brief look at the charger. Across-the-board testing managed to get our E90 pretty starved. In extreme cases, when using it as an HSDPA modem with a laptop for example, we were forced to charge the Communicator twice within the same day. A less busy schedule could have seen the E90 going for a good 3 days, but a Communicator is likely to get heavy workloads, so don’t expect the battery to last for more than two days. That makes the charger an essential accessory and we’re therefore disappointed the E90 doesn’t feature the mini version available with the Nokia N95.

Chargers for Nokia N95 and E90: the smaller could’ve been better • taking out the battery: luckily you won’t have to do this too often

The rear metal cover is firmly fixed, but once you’ve released it the battery will just fall off. We came to wonder why it wasn’t a little more secure. Anyway, you’ll only have to deal with that when inserting SIM, so this isn’t much of a worry. The memory card slot has its own little cover at the bottom side of the device, which we found quite practical.

Press to open the cap, push and easily remove the microSD card. We tried both the included 512MB card, and the 1GB Kingston we had at the office.

Music: Let down by the details

Let’s begin with the last element of the accessory package: the stereo headphones. The difference from the older model is clearly noticeable as soon as you open the box. The remote control pad is smaller, undeniably better looking and of higher quality. It still has the Made in China tag but somehow that’s not as stigmatizing as it used to be with some older Nokia models.

Headphones: a result of compromise.

It won’t be long though, before you get the first disappointment. The remote control pad has no volume controls. The E90 has the wide multi-pin Pop-port replaced by a miniUSB and a 2.5mm jack. The miniUSB is of course more than welcome, but the 2.5mm jack is beyond comprehension. Nokia E90 is clearly a business device and that’s one possible reason for not making it like the N95. Could the Communicator have then been much more attractive? If cost was the issue, it may have been worth it.

Headset design with Nokia N95 seemed perfect. Why did they change it with E90?

The sound quality of the original headphones will please all but the most undemanding users. Using alternative headsets will require a jack adapter, plus you’ll lose the handsfree functionality. All that may seem as hairsplitting, but it does compromise the music player capabilities of the E90 Communicator.

In terms of software, things are almost the same as in other Symbian handsets of the Finnish brand. The appearance of the music player application is the only novelty.

Music player: Symbian classics. Volume can be controlled trough an active item on the taskbar on the main screen.

Nokia E90 features a built-in FM radio. It doesn’t support RDS but is stereo, and can even play on the loudspeakers but the handsfree should still be plugged as usual to ensure reception. The Auto settings are worth praising, they scanned the whole FM band in about 10 seconds.

Simple interface of a simple radio: stored stations can be given custom names

Leave the compact camera home

As it does with music, the E90 is lagging behind Nokia N95 in terms of camera capabilities. A camera lens cover is missing, and resolution has dropped from 5 to 3.2 megapixels. LED flash is present (probably the exact same one) and autofocus is available too. Luckily, the E90 proved consistent in terms of photo quality too.

Camera interface

The camera interface is very similar to that of the cameraphone frontrunner N95. Different functions are displayed in the Camera Toolbar at the right side of the display:

• The top one is the Still Camera / Video mode switch
• Shooting mode for getting the right color and lighting settings for specific scenes. The available options are: Auto, Custom (allowing you to set focus, flash, exposure compensation, white balance, color effects, sharpness, and contrast), Macro, Portrait, Landscape, Sport and Night Mode. The Automatic mode is sufficiently reliable; Macro is better set up manually.
  
• Flash – automatic, off or user-defined. A red-eye removal setting is available too.
  
• Self-timer – off, 2, 10 or 20 seconds.
  
• Sequence mode – burst or consequent shots in user-defined intervals of up to 15 minutes.
  
• Color effects – the classic set: standard, sepia, black & white and negative, topped with a vivid color mode.
  
• White balance – a very reliable Automatic mode, plus several light-specific presets.
  
• Exposure compensation – setup in a ± 2EV range; 0.5 EV step
  
• Light sensitivity (ISO) -setting it to low will eliminate noise, but you get lower shutter speed; and vice versa. Available are three sensitivity levels and an automatic mode. The option to set ISO manually is a step forward, but it works best only when combined with manual exposure setting, which is lacking. Holding the phone still, switch on the self-timer and set a low sensitivity level. Expecting a decent night shot, you will only get a dark picture. The automatic mode does not allow you to extend shooting time too much, so that you don’t get a blurred image. In other words, manual exposure settings in cameraphones remain a thing of the future.
  
• Contrast – to be used for enhancing colors in a dull scene. Since Nokia N95 captures images of high contrast, this function is likely to be used rather seldom. Sometimes you may even need to lower the contrast levels.
  
• Sharpness – the handset’s software can make the outlines of the object you’re shooting more clear-cut or blurred. You can be as creative as you please using the three settings available: Sharp, Normal and Soft.
  

The digital zoom is activated by scrolling left or right on the Navi scroll key. Zooming crops out the image, and as a result you get less sharpness and lower picture quality.

Sample pictures with three zoom levels: no zoom • halfway zoom in • full zoom

Autofocus takes its time but does a perfect job. It allows Macro shots of 7 cm.

Photos taken in good lighting give nothing to grudge about.

Making proper indoor shots requires some playing with the settings.

The white balance is right but Auto flash spoils everything • better off without it

Although the E90 is 2 megapixels behind N95, video recording capabilities are on par. Video can be captured in several resolution levels. The lowest available, and thus ideal for MMS, is in 3GP format. The top one is VGA at 30 fps. recorded in MP4 format, and – just to let you know – a minute long recording will cost you near 20 MB of memory. Recording length is unlimited and only depends on the free memory you have.

The range of settings for video recording is considerably narrower than that in still camera mode. The available settings are Night Mode, White Balance and Color Effects. Digital zoom can be applied when shooting video too, but zooming isn’t smooth and considerably lowers image quality. The user can also opt to turn audio recording off.

Video camera menu and setting options

Browsing pictures and video recordings is much more convenient than in Symbian handsets of smaller displays; the preview mode is an extra option. The zoom functionality gets to be appreciated on the large internal display.

QVGA-enabled handsets can only sit in quiet envy

King of the Symbian realm

To put it straight, the E90 Communicator has a lot in common with the other Nokia smartphones, mostly with the N95. What E90 loses in terms of multimedia capabilities, it’s quick to gain as regards user interface and system speed and stability. The huge display makes the difference. QVGA is one thing, 800×352 pixels is another, and the Symbian OS on S60 3rd Edition makes the best use of it. The laborious searching for items in other handsets is just a walk in the park for E90 thanks to the extensive previewing functionality.

There are four graphic themes available. Pity, the internal display won’t show the date when ringing profiles other than Normal are activated. In our case, the Silent profile is shown in the bottom bar.

Different views of the active stand-by mode and setting options.

Displaying the menu as a list is somewhat pointless given the huge display.

Top of the business E-series, E90 is gifted with more than generous RAM. Combined with the already mentioned row of application keys, it gives a totally new perspective to Symbian multitasking. Let’s compare the E90 with Nokia E65, another handset of the business E-series. With E65, launching the web browser turns off the music player in the background. The Communicator, on the other hand, is a lot more like a computer. Switching between tasks is smooth and losing the work in a background application is very unlikely. Yet, even the E90 has its limits. Should you cross the reasonable boundaries, the classic flaw of all Symbian handsets will befall you: an unexpected and uncontrollable halt of all running applications. The E90 is miles ahead of all other Symbian smartphones, but still a little step short of perfection.

Proof, not just talk: several applications running simultaneously getting hard on RAM

Taking the huge display aside, we’re still talking of the good old S60 3rd edition user interface. There is therefore little point in looking closely at all menus and sublevels. Let’s instead try and highlight the areas where the E90 is different (read: better). Upon opening the Communicator, the internal display takes over and the transition is seamless. Not always so though the other way around. Some applications (like Maps, and other GPS related) didn’t have a problem, but in some cases folding the handset closed resulted in getting a stand by view of the display. That’s not that bad after all, as the applications didn’t shut down and could be easily recalled through the multitasking key.

That the system is not specially tailored for a wide display is only obvious in some of the menus, where the descriptions are shortened. This does seem out of reason as there is more than enough space around the violently shortened rows. Otherwise, the Symbian adaptability to wide spaces is admirable, we didn’t run into problems even with third party applications.

Was it that necessary to save space?

You should know by now the key advantage of the E90. The number of running applications is obvious by the marks on their icons.

Office in the pocket

The ultimate business device, E90 excels at office work. Let’s look at its messaging capabilities, along with its performance in viewing, browsing, composing and editing documents.

No more clicking on items in the phonebook, all is displayed in preview windows.

The File Manager and search application also have a practical preview.

Ringing profiles

That’s where the user-friendliness of some applications in the handset came to beat PC. The Communicator beats MS Outlook with its preview of daily appointments.

Active notes is an extra option.

Messaging: SMS

Excellent handling of email.

Received attachments can be instantly opened and edited.

The proprietary Maps application and built-in GPS are powerful tools.

Internet on your mobile: with E90 it’s more than just a phrase.

Internet browser settings.

The functionality and performance of all the applications above are described in detail in the following chapters of our extensive Nokia N95 review:

• Telephony, ringtones, phonebook, messages
• Emails, organizer, office, Internet

Nokia is traditionally sparing of words when it comes to built-in components of their handsets. The type of GPS chip integrated in E90 is thus quite obscure. Our head-to-head testing of E90 and N95 indicate the chips in both handsets are quite possibly the same. At least in terms of performance, sensitivity and speed. The built in GPS related applications are also identical, which – again – takes you to the respective chapter of the N95 review.

Connectivity

The E90 package includes the latest version of the Nokia PC Suite. You get full synchronization and modem connectivity, phone memory back up, phonebook editing, composing and sending messages directly from the computer and upgrading the phone firmware. Quick transfer of images and music is also available. Mass storage mode is enabled.

The phone gets connected via a miniUSB cable, infrared port or Bluetooth • modem functionality is also available

Having mentioned the modem functionality, let us look closer at the HSDPA abilities of the Communicator. Our tests have shown that download speed when using the E90 as a modem is considerably lower than what a notebook with an integrated HSDPA card can achieve. This result of course depends on many variables: network status, time of day, number of users logged on.

HSDPA speed test

A pocketful of skills

You may be under the impression that the Communicator is an N95 in disguise. That maybe true, but at least, the disguise is a good and thorough work. Nokia have undoubtedly succeeded in creating the ultimate business device. For those, who can live with the few compromises we outlined, the E90 is an all-round tool, with multimedia and navigation just part of its armory. When makers of navigation software achieve better compatibility with integrated GPS, the Communicator may be a full fledged in-car navigation device. Its navigation skills have already been proven in a weekend of geocaching. As regards its Internet capabilities, the Communicator is beyond comparing with regular handsets.

Nokia E90 and N95: look-alikes on the inside only

So… Is Nokia E90 the new ruler? The mobile realm has long gone beyond mobile phones and portable computers. We now have UMPC and its derivatives and, what’s more, we cannot afford to overlook competitive communicators powered by Windows Mobile. The answer is up to you. Anyway, we think the throne befits the E90.

Still, it goes without saying that Nokia E90 will not be a mass device. Size is hard to swallow, not to mention price.

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_e90-review-164p5.php

Nokia E90

Wait a minute – I hear you say – how can I be delivering a verdict on the Nokia E90 when I haven’t really covered all the things it can do yet? In addition, surely it’s not even in production yet?

True, true, but I’ve been using the E90 on and off for the last two months. And this is such a significant device in terms of form factor and appeal that I wanted to get my verdict out first. During the next few weeks I’ll be covering all the individual aspects in more detail, including a special ‘away with the E90’ experiment.

The E90 is undoubtedly a niche device – luckily for Nokia it’s a niche that’s very well defined and one which already has buyers queueing up for the latest and greatest Communicator. The concept of a laptop-like text entry device which is genuinely phone-sized is still a valid one. The E90 follows a line of similar devices with ever increasing basic specifications but a subtly changing interface, from the original (non-Symbian) 9000 and 9110, to the 9210 and then 9500.

What’s compelling about the E90 is that the hardware extras match anything else in the world, even including Nokia’s own N95 wonder-phone. Output from the 3 megapixel stills camera is quite superb and arguably as good as anything from the N95, N93 or N73, video recording at VGA and 25fps is smooth and bright and again comparable to the best footage from the N93 and N95, stereo music output over built-in speakers is louder and of higher quality than any other smartphone or communicator (N95 included), and GPS navigation is as good (or maybe that should be as adequate) as on the N95.

All of this on a business-focussed communicator with many optimisations of its own for professionals, i.e. the smallish but usable (this review is being typed on the E90) qwerty keyboard, the huge 800 by 352 pixel display and the many dedicated application keys (for all the core apps, plus profiles and custom application assignments).

The build quality, even on the prototypes I’ve looked at, has been exemplary and there’s no suggestion of any weaknesses, with a combination metal and plastic body and industrial strength hinges. The E90 exudes confidence and it’s a pleasure to pick up and use. The keyboard, seen from the perspective of the old Psions from the late 1990s and also from the larger keyboard on the 9210 and even that on the 9500, is disappointingly small, although in fairness the E90 itself is smaller than any of its flagship predecessors and the increasing miniaturisation by necessity means smaller keys – at least the E90’s keyboard is much better than that on the 9300 smartphone. Part of the problem is that the feel of each key is quite hard, but you do get used to it fairly quickly.

The number one question hanging over the E90 is the switch by Nokia from their Series 80 interface (and associated Psion-derived applications) used on the 9500, to a tweaked version of S60, as seen on (for example) the E61 and E70. S60 (or Series 60 as it started out) was originally designed for a tiny 176 by 208 pixel (portrait) display with input via a numeric keypad and here we have essentially the same interface running on a screen with almost ten times the area, the opposite aspect ratio and a full qwerty keyboard. It’s quite a leap.

The problem Nokia faced back in 2004 was what to do about its diverging product range. The mass market Series 60 smartphones were taking off in a huge way, while the Series 80-based communicators had a dedicated but smaller market. And changes were afoot behind the scenes, with Symbian OS 8 and then Symbian OS 9, bringing in all the needed changes for 3G/HSDPA compatibility, cutting edge multimedia, single-processor designs and (eventually) dramatic changes in the application/security model. In theory, the Series 80 interface could have been worked on, adapting it to the new OS versions in the same way as Series 60, but I’m guessing even Nokia’s pockets aren’t limitless and Series 80 never received the necessary resources.

Back in 2007, we have Symbian OS 9 and S60 3rd Edition well established and stable, but Series 80 is now way too far back in the roadmap to continue working with. With the perceived need for a replacement for the 9500 and 9300, and with the qwerty-based E61 and E70 proving surprisingly successful, a S60-based Communicator seemed the way to go. Based on my tests so far, I’d rate the experiment as a success:

• The E90 works superbly as a phone.
• The E90 is a capable email device, with the standard S60 POP3/IMAP4 email support and retrieval, plus support for all push email systems if you want to sell your soul to the ‘push’ devil and also hammer into your E90’s battery life.
• The E90 is a capable document editor and PIM tool, about as good as you’ll get on a ‘phone’ for Office editing and Outlook mobile office organisation (note that the various Windows Mobile touchscreen devices don’t really count as ‘phones’ here).
• The E90 is, amazingly, (in my opinion) as good a stills camera and camcorder as the N95: (click each image to see the original E90 photo)
  
  
• The E90 is a splendid music player with all the modern frills and loud stereo speakers (with the caveat that there are no dedicated playback control keys, you have to use the standby screen or the Music player application itself).
• The E90 is the best web browsing tool in the S60 world at the moment, thanks to S60 3rd Edition FP1’s version of Web, the presence of a keyboard and the large 800 pixel wide screen. It still falls some way short of the full 2007 Flash-infested experience though, we’ll have to wait another year or so for that… (click each screen thumbnail to see it full size)
  
  
• The E90 is a good navigation tool, with free street maps and routing wherever you happen to be in the world, all linked to a built-in low power GPS that’s well behaved provided you give it a couple of minutes to work out where all the satellites are and which ones to lock onto.
  
• The E90, by virtue of running S60 3rd Edition, is immediately able to run a fair number of useful third party applications (plus all Java apps, of course). The number is limited now partly because of the necessary restrictions imposed by Platform Security in Symbian OS 9, which has constrained the growth of add-on software, and partly because not every S60 3rd Edition application runs well yet on a FP1 device with a new display size. Still, even gems like Mobipocket Reader, Opera Mini, Handy Safe and Python make the use of S60 worthwhile: (click each screen thumbnail to see it full size)
  
• The E90, with its 1500mAh battery, has superb longevity and I’ve happily thrashed it and its camera/GPS/Wi-Fi and managed two days between recharges. Unlike the N95’s battery-eating Carl Zeiss camera, the unit in the E90 seems much more frugal.

Add up the attributes above and add in quite a few other features and utilities that I’ll be exploring over the next few weeks and you end up with a largely satisfactory and impressive ultra-converged communicator.

So, who are the target market for the E90 and what are they already using now?

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Psion palmtop users: Yes, there are still tens of thousands of these, mainly in the UK, hanging onto hardware that’s no longer supported and very unreliable, simply because they’ve never found anything to replace it. Moving from a Psion Series 5mx or Revo, users will notice the following ‘cons’:

• No touchscreen – probably a blessing, the absence of a touch layer on the E90 (and on most other S60 devices) increases contrast outdoors, though its absence does mean that Sketch-like graphical applications and a number of popular handheld games aren’t practical.
• No Data – probably the long lost Symbian application, although hopefully Contacts and the 3rd party HanDBase can replace Data between them….
• A less usable keyboard – a necessary but noticeable downgrade in order to get a much smaller device and with so many other miniaturised features.

On the plus side, the Psion owner can leave their old phone, camera, camcorder, MP3 player and GPS at home (wow, did we really have to worry about so many ‘boxes’?).

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Existing users of the Nokia communicators (9210/9500/9300): These are still very widespread, of course. Users will notice the following cons:

• Despite the external similarity, the Series 80 interface is no more. S60, it has to be said, doesn’t use the screen real estate as well and you can’t tab across to the other ‘side’ in any of the split screen layouts (e.g. Contacts or Calendar). Going from one interface to the other does jar every now and then.
• The multi-card Series 80 menu in each application has been replaced by the single card ‘Options’ menu, which, although more context-sensitive, has generally fewer functions and real options.
• Only two right-of-screen function buttons (rather than four).

On the plus side, the E90 is smaller than all previous communicators apart from the 9300 and has considerably more functionality, including the aforementioned superb camera, GPS and HSDPA data.

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What about those currently making do with an existing Nokia Eseries device, perhaps the E61 or E70, also with qwerty keyboards (albeit smaller)? For them, possible cons are:

• Larger size and weight (obviously)
• Some third party applications won’t now work (because of FP1 and the new screen size) and will need an update from developers.

It’s mostly gain for existing Eseries owners though, with a better keyboard and bigger screen, more flexibility, an insanely great camera, HSDPA, FP1 improvements and GPS.

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The Nokia E90 will also probably appeal to those using keyboarded Windows Mobile devices like the HTC Wizard and TyTN. Cons for them:

• A new interface to learn (no stylus or touchscreen).
• Third party apps from the Windows Mobile world are unlikely to have E90-compatible versions, there’s certainly less choice with the latter.

On the plus side, there’s a far bigger screen and one with better contrast outdoors, a more phone-like form factor, faster data speeds, built-in GPS and a far, far better stills and video camera.

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The Nokia E90 is the single most ‘converged’ device I’ve ever seen. And remember that I”ve had plenty of time on the N95…

To have a single device on my belt that’s a phone, PDA, keyboarded communicator and mobile office, Internet browser, camera, camcorder, GPS navigator and music player, with no extra accessories or dangly bits, is utterly awesome. From filming my family playing by the river yesterday, I sat down on a bench and replied to email, then used the same device again to voice-navigate us all home, answering a call on hands-free en route.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be looking at specific areas of the Nokia E90’s functionality – nothing’s perfect and I’ll be exploring both the good and bad:

1. Nokia E90 as PDA: how well have the S60 PIM applications been adapted to the larger screen and what limitations are there?
2. Nokia E90 as mobile office, handling documents, email and the Web.
3. Nokia E90 as camera, camcorder and music player.
4. Nokia E90 in other roles: as navigator, phone(!), general computer – what else can you do with it?

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_E90-the_early_verdict.php

Nokia 6290

Review of The Nokia 6290: Anyone fancy a curry?

The 6290 isn’t being promoted by the huge hype machines of Nokia’s sub-brands such as Nseries, Eseries or XpressMusic, and many people might not even realise it’s a smartphone from the way it looks and the way it’s advertised.

Once you take a closer look at the 6290 itself though, you realise this isn’t any old phone. Nokia’s marketing of the 6290 so far is incredibly bland, as is the box it comes in, and the €320 sim-free price tag puts it in the mid-range feature phone bracket, yet the device itself is in the same technological league as higher profile, more expensive models such as the N75 and N76 which cost over €520 sim-free.

What’s going on here?

The Handset

Physically, the 6290 looks like a normal phone instead of a multimedia behemoth. It’s compact and curvy, not angular and bulky.

The hinge feels very solid when open and closed, it feels like a fairly durable mechanism.

The most striking feature is the main QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) screen. It’s wonderfully large, bright and flat, with the actual LCD pressed right up against the protective plastic layer so it looks like the phone’s surface itself is glowing. Because it’s not in a pit, you can view the screen from virtually any angle.

The keypad has nicely-sized buttons, large enough to make texting easy. They’re made from individual bits of plastic so they click separately, but they’re also flushed together well enough that your fingers can glide smoothly across the keypad from button to button. The direction pad is also part of this separate-but-smooth surface.

There’s also a smaller (and not as good) external colour screen and buttons mounted on the front of the phone, which allow functions such as reading text messages, rejecting calls, and operating the music player and radio. The 6290 is relatively tricky to open with one hand as there’s no spring-loaded mechanism, but closing it is much easier.

The sides of the phone have various external controls and features: The left has a hotswap microSD memory card slot, a Push To Talk button and the left speaker. The side has a mini-USB port, a volume/selection control, an infrared port and the right speaker.

There are hinged plastic doors over every socket which protects them from dirt, but they also mean that people who’ve chewed their fingernails off when they were at school may find using the phone a bit difficult. Opening the microSD card slot door automatically shuts down all active applications, whether they use the card or not.

The battery casing is simple to remove, but you only need to remove the casing to change the SIM card or battery. Battery life is what you’d expect from a smartphone or high end feature phone, with charges required every two or three days on average.

There’s no Pop Port on the 6290, instead there’s a mini-USB port which handles all the old Pop Port’s duties including file transfers, firmware upgrades and other interaction with a PC or other devices. It’s a very sensible change, as the mini-USB end of the cable is far easier to use, and replacement USB cables are incredibly cheap and easy to get hold of.

The 6290 as a Phone

The 6290 makes and receives calls without any problems, and it also has no problems getting a signal. Calls can be answered and ended by opening and shutting it, or you can use the red and green buttons. The exterior screen displays the caller’s name or number, and you can reject a call using the external controls.

It’s physically very pleasant to talk on the 6290. The clamshell is the right shape for the human head, and most of the phone’s weight is in the keypad, which makes it easier to hold the phone for long periods of time.

Texts and multimedia messages worked fine, both sending and receiving. As stated above, the design of the keys has been well thought out and the keypad is easy to use.

The 6290 is a quad-band GSM and UMTS/WCDMA 2100 3G phone, which means you can use it as a GSM phone worldwide, and also as a 3G UMTS/WCDMA phone across Europe. It has Bluetooth and Infrared compatibility, a mini-USB port, but no Wi-fi.

The 6290 has support for Push To Talk and a dedicated PTT button, however I could not get the service to work with my phone network so I cannot comment on this feature. I didn’t have a chance to try the videophone feature either, but there’s a dedicated call camera above the main screen.

The speakerphone feature works fine, many of the people I tried it with said they didn’t notice I was using a speakerphone.

The red “End Call” key doubles as the power switch. The # key trebles as itself, the shift key (replacing the old pencil/edit button) and the silent mode shortcut.

For those of you who buy phones sim-free, my network operator automatically sent all the settings as a self-installing text message a while after using the phone for the first time. The 6290’s Settings Wizard application also carries built-in settings for a large number of phone network operators, and the phone was actually up and running before the operator’s message even arrived.

The 6290 as a Multimedia Player

Apart from the phone, the most used role of the 6290 will undoubtedly be its multimedia side: the Music player, the FM radio, the internet radio and the video player.

The Music Player
The 6290’s built-in S60 Music application can play back MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and MP4 audio tracks, which can also be used as ringtones and alarm tones. The external microSD memory card slot is compatible with capacities up to 2 Gigabytes, enough to store up to 1000 AAC music tracks (the actual number depends on the sound quality you want and the lengths of the tracks).

The basic functions of the Music player (selecting tracks, playing, pausing, volume) can be operated without opening the phone, using the external screen and its three soft keys along with the selection controls at the right side of the phone. Advanced options such as the equaliser, reverb stereo effects etc. can be accessed from the Music player’s main screen by opening the phone. You can open and shut the phone as much as you want throughout playback, it doesn’t interrupt the music at all.

The music automatically pauses when calls or texts are received, and texts can be read from the external screen if the phone is shut.

There are stereo speakers on the right and left sides of the phone. They have a good volume and various optional 3D effects that can make ringtones and music tracks float around you, but at the end of the day they’re still built-in phone speakers and nowhere near the quality of large separate speakers.

Tracks can be transferred to the phone by USB cable or Bluetooth from Windows Media Player, or from Nokia’s own Music Manager software which is part of the Nokia PC Suite. The recently-upgraded Nokia Music Manager now includes automatic track recognition, which means you just insert the CD to be ripped and it adds the track names and other details automatically from an online database. The database had track information for fairly obscure Finnish CDs, so I assume it’s a pretty comprehensive service.

The Music player app also allows you to transfer tracks directly from one phone to another via Bluetooth or infrared.

Music quality on the 6290 is fine, however the headphones themselves aren’t fine as they kept falling out of my ears due to their symmetrical shape. I eventually used my own third party 3.5mm headphones using an adaptor that plugged into the 2.5mm port, which felt much more comfortable and sounded better too. It’s a mystery why this kind of adaptor isn’t bundled with the 6290. It’s also a mystery why the 6290 doesn’t have a built-in 3.5mm port in the first place.

According to Nokia’s specifications, the 6290 supports the Bluetooth headset profile required for listening to stereo music through Bluetooth headphones, however I didn’t get the chance to test this feature.

The FM Radio
The FM tuner on the 6290 has pretty good reception, and its most impressive aspect is the ability to fill in the presets automatically using the “Station Directory” option. You select a region and town from a list, the radio application looks up all your local stations from an internet database, and you can then add some or all of them to your presets. This is very useful when you’re travelling from one city to another, you instantly get a radio full of stations when you arrive.

The radio application also includes Visual Radio support, however I couldn’t test this as my phone network doesn’t support the service.

The Internet Radio
Perhaps the coolest and most useful unadvertised feature of the 6290 is its official support for internet radio via the mobile phone network, which means you can listen to internet streams on the move. The sound quality from major internet broadcasters such as the BBC can be as good as FM radio, in high quality stereo, although this will vary a great deal depending on which station you listen to and how good your phone network’s connection is. You also need to have a very cheap or unlimited data plan from your phone network, otherwise it will cost far too much to use.

Some of you may remember the unofficial method for listening to internet radio on older S60 3rd Edition phones which AAS reported last year. It was very fiddly, involving text files and the file manager, but it worked. Thankfully, S60 3rd Edition FP1 introduces official support for radio streams so you can enter any RTSP address directly in the Gallery application. Once the address is entered, you can listen to the station at any time by selecting it from the Gallery’s “Streaming Links” section, just as if it was a radio preset.

If RTSP means absolutely nothing to you, don’t worry, it’s very simple: The RTSP address is the internet address that’s actually used by the RealPlayer application to find audio streams, and it always begins “rtsp://”. You can search Google for tips on how to find the RTSP addresses of your favourite stations. Of course this method is still too fiddly for most people, largely because most major stations refuse to give out their own RTSP links as they don’t want people listening to their streams without visiting their web site. However, it’s still a huge improvement on the unofficial text file method.

There are a couple of major drawbacks to the 6290’s internet radio. The first is that broadcasters occasionally change their RTSP addresses without warning, rendering their existing links useless. The second problem is that the Gallery itself automatically cuts off the stream if you close the 6290 or even just switch to another application.

The Video Player

The 6290 comes with RealPlayer as its built-in video playback application, though of course you can install and use third party video apps such as the acclaimed SmartMovie if you prefer.

What’s new and greatly improved about the 6290 isn’t the actual video app or phone itself, but the supporting software on the PC, the recently published Nokia Video Manager. Video Manager makes conversion of video files for phone playback much easier, and also produces a much higher quality result. The MP4 files produced by the converter look and sound far better than the jittery 3GP files produced by Video Manager’s ancient predecessor, the very primitive Nokia Multimedia Converter. The MP4 files can be watched horizontally on a partial screen (which lets you hold the phone normally) or vertically on the full screen (which requires you to hold the phone sideways).

Once you’ve installed Video Manager on your PC and attached your phone using the USB cable, you simply click a button to let Video Manager scan your entire PC for suitable video files, which you can view or transfer to the phone at the click of another button. The resulting videos are in the MP4 (H.264) format, and transferred to the phone’s memory card or internal memory. It’s pretty much identical to the process used for transferring music, and indeed the Video Manager looks and feels very much like the Nokia Music Manager software.

Video Manager officially only works with numbered S60 3rd Edition FP1 smartphones, which at present include the 6290, 5700 and 6110. Nseries and Eseries aren’t mentioned on the compatibility list at all, probably because they’re not made by Nokia’s Mobile Phones division, but Nseries 3rd Edition FP1 models are apparently compatible.

There are still some major bugs to be ironed out in the software however. For example, it continually claimed all Windows Media Video files were in use by other applications and refused to open any of them. It’s still very early days for the software as the first version was only released a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully the first updates will deal with these problems.

The 6290 as a Computer

The 6290 is an S60 3rd Edition smartphone (with Feature Pack 1 knobs on), so it can run all S60 3rd Edition games and applications suitable for a QVGA screen, which is pretty much all of them. As with other 3rd Edition devices, applications can be transferred and installed to the phone using the Nokia PC Suite software via USB cable or Bluetooth. Applications can also be downloaded and installed directly onto the phone either from a developer’s web site using the web browser, or through the built-in “Download!” application.

Interestingly, the 6290’s application installer now has the “Signed Software Only” and “Online Certificate Check” options both switched off by default.

There’s not much to add to this beyond what most readers will already know, except that FP1 adds a few new features, some of which are very useful and some of which aren’t.
Very Useful:

– Both folders and sub-folders can now be created by the user, just as you would on Windows and other computer OSes. You can also create sub-folders within sub-folders to as many levels as required, and move any icon into any folder or sub-folder. This is a great help for those who use the menu system a lot, as it means you don’t have to use the folder structure that the phone is supplied with, you can make your own.

– S60 settings are now all unified under a single Settings folder, something that has been desperately needed as more and more features have been added over the years. It’s a big improvement to the splintered and scattered settings of the previous versions of S60, but it still has some important options buried too far under the surface. For example, to alter ringtones on Nokia’s latest Series 40 non-smart phones, you just click Settings, then Tones, which is so straightforward that one could imagine a new user discovering this by accident. With S60 it’s far less intuitive: you click Settings, then Profiles, then General, then Personalise, then Ringing Tone. S60 and Series 40 both use a profiles system, so why do S60 phones make things like changing a tone so much harder?
Not So Useful:

– Applications running in the background have a blue circle appear next to their icon and all the folders and sub-folders that they’re in, so you know if an app is running. In practice, not all applications did this, for example the included game Marble made a blue circle appear but the other game Snakes didn’t. It’s also questionable whether there’s much point in this feature, as it only lets you find an app that’s running, something you could already do in all versions of S60 by holding down the menu key. Indications of recently opened or frequently opened apps would probably be far more useful than this blue ring system.

– As well as the standard grid and list views of the S60 menu system, there are now a couple of 3D options – Horseshoe and V-Shaped. It’s a matter of personal taste of course, and any new form of UI takes time to get used to, but I personally didn’t find much help from these modes. It’s absolutely great that Nokia are experimenting with radically new interfaces, but these new modes need either refinement or a rethink before they can rival the default grid view.

The 6290 as an Internet Device

The Web
The 6290 contains the latest version of Nokia’s S60 OSS web browser, which is based on the same open source core as Apple’s Safari. It can handle most web sites in the same way that a PC browser can, including technologies like Javascript and Flash.

The 6290 can display Flash files within web pages, just as a PC browser does, so for example HomestarRunner.com works, as does Nokia.com. However, there are unpredictable gaps in the compatibility, for example the official N-Gage site won’t display any of its (much simpler) flash content.

The new browser also supports Firefox-style saving of passwords independent of cookies, so it can automatically save and re-enter login form data if you tell it to when prompted. This is very useful, it saves a lot of fiddling about with the keypad.

One frustrating thing about the browser is that it still forces you to use the screen vertically, there’s no facility for viewing pages horizontally. With a bit of zooming out, Homestar Runner could fit perfectly on a horizontal 320×240 screen, but on the 6290’s vertical 240×320 screen the sides are cut off and require horizontal scrolling. (This problem will apparently be dealt with in the next version of S60, 3rd Edition FP2, however.)

Another problem, possibly outside Nokia’s control, is that some sites (for example the BBC’s main site and news site) now default to the mobile version even though the 6290’s browser is perfectly capable of handling the full version. If you enter the full version’s URL directly, it displays without any problems, but trying to go in through the BBC’s front door gets you diverted to a WAP site. Hopefully future S60 browser upgrades will give users the option to disguise the kind of device they’re using.

Email
The 6290 doesn’t have push email support, but does have the usual support for POP3 and IMAP email, handled by the Messaging application, and email is edited, received and sent almost exactly like a text message. Any kind of file can be sent or received as an email attachment, including multimedia files such as photos, videos, sounds and documents or anything else. Attached files can be many megabytes in size.

POP3 and IMAP email require the user to either manually check for new messages, or have the phone check automatically. Unfortunately the minimum autocheck period in the S60’s built-in email software is 30 minutes, which may be too long for some. Fortunately, email addicts can install third party S60 email software such as ProfiMail, which allows autocheck periods of as little as a few minutes.

The 6290 as a Camera

The 6290 has a 2 megapixel still camera with built-in flash, and you can also record video at 320×240 (which is, incidentally, the resolution used by most online video services such as YouTube). The video function also records sound through the phone’s microphone. There’s a smaller VGA camera on the inside of the phone next to the main screen, which is intended for videophone calls but can also be used for still and video self-portraits.

Using the camera is fairly easy thanks to an on-screen icon menu similar to those on standalone cameras. The options are limited to the usual range: still mode, video mode, night vision mode, rapid fire sequence mode, main or secondary camera, and settings for the flash.

Here are some sample photos taken on a cloudy day using the normal quality setting: Photo 1 – Photo 2 – Photo 3

Overall

Good-looking S60 clamshell models seem to be like London buses: you wait ages for one and then three come along all at once. The 6290 deserves far more attention than it has received so far, as it’s got all of the technical bells and whistles that make the upcoming N75 and N76 clamshells such high profile devices. It’s also got a significantly lower price, making it an attractive alternative to the Nseries models, and a more plausible purchase for the average phone buyer.

The 6290’s design strengths are in the way it reaches out to a more general market, for example the external controls and screen make it as easy to use as a dedicated music player. Conversely, the 6290’s design weaknesses are where its phone-based origins still make life more difficult than it should be, for example the lack of a standard 3.5mm headphone connector, either built-in or bundled.

The 6290 has clearly been made for ordinary people, not technophiles or business users, and it would be missing the point to complain about the lack of Wi-fi, push email or a higher megapixel camera. This is a phone that’s meant to be somewhere between the McDonalds of a basic handset and the Michelin Star Restaurant of an N95. The 6290’s mid-range price, combined with its well-chosen, mostly well-executed features and low profile make it the equivalent of that great little curry house near you that does an absolutely delicious Chicken Tandoori and Lemon Jeera Rice.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_6290_Review.php

Nokia N95 (7)

A ‘breakthough device’

Listening to David Wood from Symbian at the recent Future Technologies conference, I heard him refer to the N95 several times as a ‘breakthrough device’. Now, this is no doubt a pre-programmed PR line when talking about the N95 but it’s also pretty accurate. The important thing to remember is that the N95 is the first of its kind and, as such, we’re still on the bleeding edge when it comes to the technology and minaturisation involved.

Which all sounds a bit apologetic on my part, as if I’m about to explain away any disappointments that Rafe and I have come across in our months (since Dec 2006, in Rafe’s case) of testing. There’s certainly no desire to cover anything up, or to sugar-coat any deficiencies, but there IS a plea for you, the reader, to cut Nokia just a little slack here and there – this IS a ‘breakthrough device’ and the N95 will doubtless be followed by an N96 and many other models with many of the same features but positioned differently in Nokia’s product range. And, too, by then the Nokia N95’s firmware will have been perfected too, in the same way as previous S60 smartphones have been progressively improved throughout their life.

Even in its current form, the Nokia N95 is stunning. It’s a ‘breakthrough device’ in several ways, being the first real high street flagship. Yes, the Nokia N73 has been there in plain sight, but positioned very much as a simple camera phone and with less-than-impressive build quality. Yes, the N80 has been around but noone really knows how it’s supposed to be positioned and it’s been dogged by bugs and criticism. And yes, if you looked hard enough, you’d find the odd N93 on high street shelves, but few general users would sign up for something so (apparently) big and clunky.

Enter the N95, with huge posters and displays in every single phone shop I’ve passed in the last fortnight – Nokia and the networks and the high street retailers all expect the N95 to be huge.

And this time there’s no confusion about where the device is positioned – this is simply ‘the phone that does everything’.

Although many people still swear by a two or even three ‘box’ solution, there’s undoubtedly a big demand for devices which are more and more converged. The Nokia N95 takes that idea to its ultimate, with every communications technology known to man (including the future-looking Universal Plug ‘n’ Play – UPnP), plus the best camera in any current smartphone (5 megapixels with Carl Zeiss optics), plus a GPS receiver, 2.6″ display and stereo speakers, all in a diminutive phone form factor and only weighing 120g with battery. No wonder even the likes of Stuff magazine and TV’s Gadget Show have been raving about this one.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_N95-The_Conclusion.php

Nokia N95 (6)

Attacked by the blogosphere

After various references to the camera and GPS being big drains on the Nokia N95’s battery in previous parts of our Nokia N95 review, it’s time to investigate whether the 950mAh BL-5F slimline battery really is up to the job or not. True, the N95 is a long way from having a good battery life, but it isn’t so unusable that the buying hordes from the High Street are going to be returning them en masse.

The initial reviews of the N95 have been by tech journalists and bloggers who have only had their devices for a couple of days, during which they’ve been thrashing the N95 to its limits and never letting the thing alone. GPS, Wi-Fi and especially the camera have been used intensively.

This is far from the real world use of the device. Away from the absolute cutting edge geeks, journalists and early adopters, users will be more forgiving. And I’ve got the proof.

Having charged my production Nokia N95 overnight, I’ve been logging everything I did with it during the day, trying to enact a ‘typical’ day in the life of a real world N95. No extended two hour navigation tests and no hour-long camera sessions.

Here’s how I got on…

A Day in the Life

07:30 ‘Battery full’ (7 bars) Phone set up with Wi-Fi scanning off, Bluetooth ON and visible and connected to my PC while in range, network set to GSM only, display brightness set at default, in other words a fairly typical mid-range configuration. Let’s see how it fares during the day….

09:00 Some PIM use, plus took a couple of photos
09:46 Alarm went off
09:47 until 10:00 Used Maps/GPS to navigate to a customer’s house
10:50 used Nokia Software Update on the N95 to check firmware was latest (it was)
10:55 Another alarm
10:56 until 11:30 Music playback via headphones
11:30 Received phone call, spoke for 5 minutes
12:00 More PIM use, lots of Calendar browsing and data entry, 5 mins

N95 still shows 7 bars on display

12:10 Did 4 minutes of video recording using the camera
12:18 Another phone call in, only 1 minute this time
12:27 Created 4 screenshots and transferred them to my PC. The N95 is connected via Bluetooth most of the time, remember
12:59 Browsed the Web over GPRS for 20 minutes
13:19 Read an eBook for 10 minutes
13:29 Took a couple more photos
14:30 Browsed the Web over Wi-Fi for 5 minutes as I was at a hotspot
14:45 Took 3 more 5 megapixel photos
15:00 Checked email over GPRS

N95 now showing 6 bars on the battery meter

15:27 until 15:40 PIM use and starting using the N95 with the Nokia Bluetooth keyboard to type the first few paras of this article(!)
15:41 Did a PC Suite sync via Bluetooth
15:42 Did an Image store sync via Bluetooth, to get my new photos onto my PC
15:50 Had another phone call, 1 minute again

N95 now showing 5 bars

16:00 Played Oval Racer for 5 minutes (I came 5th) in the smallest room in the house(!)
16:10 until 16:31 Used the N95 to voice-navigate me to a destination 3 miles away

N95 now shows 4 bars

17:25 until 18:25 An hour of continuous music playback, half of it over speakers (quality is pretty good considering their size)

Hanging on in there, the N95 still shows 2 bars…

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Verdict

Think back a few years (around 2000) to when mobile phones were phones and sending a text message was the height of high tech. Think back also to when the first handheld GPS receivers appeared. I had one and it ate four alkaline AA cells in four hours straight. Think back to the first digital cameras – these were almost as hungry on battery power. Ditto the average iPod, which will drain a full charge in a dozen hours of use.

Now consider that the N95 ‘phone’ is handling Internet, Bluetooth and voice communications, monitoring your Calendar and Clock, providing GPS and stills/video camera functions when needed, and so on. And, with the ‘typical’ (actually fairly intensive) day outlined above, it managed to get through with enough power left to make a few last calls if needed.

So, your ‘old’ phone could go several days without a recharge? Well, guess what? With all the things it does, the N95 won’t. Get over it.

And, if you decide to take it in-car, as your navigation device, guess what – you’re advised to plug it into a 12V charger (though I didn’t in my car-based sections of the battery run-down day test above). And if you should use it to film an entire day out with the family (instead of taking your standalone camcorder) then take along the Proporta device charger or similar for a top-up if needed.

My aim in logging a day’s use was to see how the N95 coped with a barrage of ‘real world’ tasks. That my N95 has already been through dozens of full recharge cycles probably helped too. But the end result, a device that worked to the end of a long day, albeit without that much charge to spare, shows that some of the damning criticisms of the N95’s battery life are somewhat premature.

I maintain that, used sensitively, the N95 will get you through most days too – at least get you through to its nightly mains recharge. Yes, I’d have loved Nokia to have sacrificed a little in terms of low weight in order to have squeezed in a battery with 50% more capacity. Maybe there will be an after-market extra-capacity battery, with replacement sliding battery cover? Calling Proporta – now there’s your next project!

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_N95-part_5_Battery_life.php

Nokia N95 (5)

Camcorder

What with all the other convergence goodies in the Nokia N95, you really wouldn’t expect it to slouch too much in the video recording department, would you? And it doesn’t. For a ‘phone’, the video specs from the built-in camera are pretty impressive, with Carl Zeiss optics and VGA (640 by 480 pixels) capture at up to 30 frames per second.

These specs may sound familiar, in that they’re theoretically the same as those for the Nokia N93 and N93i, with the former having been out in the wild now for nine months and quite familiar. Unlike the two N93 models though, there’s no optical zoom here, though this is unlikely to be a major problem – despite having a proper zoom on my N93, I almost never used it.

The other major difference to the N93 models is the placement of the microphone for the recorded video soundtrack. The N93 has proper stereo microphones, pointing forwards towards the video subject and separated by the width of the device. The N93i has a half-hearted pair of mikes pointing upwards and close together by the power switch, with a resulting dull and unimpressive soundtrack to recorded videos. The N95’s video recording uses the standard quality phone microphone, pointing directly to the right (if you’re holding the device in standard landscape ‘camera’ position) and as there’s only the one, it’s definitively mono.

The mike seems to be of slightly lower quality than those in the N93, but there’s one other factor that’s significantly different and which also affects audio – there’s heavy automatic gain control. What this means in practice, on the positive side, is that the N95 will record an audible and non-distorted soundtrack for everything from birdsong to a rock concert (unlike the N93, which famously chokes completely when faced with loud music), with the level being sampled several times a second and automatically adjusted. On the downside, as anyone who’s ever recorded anything seriously will know, automatic gain controls produce ‘ugly’ output, with background noise and hiss varying wildly depending on what the loudest sound being recorded is.

In addition to the variable audio gain, whether you consider this a blessing or a curse, there’s a very audible and slightly annoying constant hiss on the soundtrack caused by the N95’s electronics.

Picture quality on the N95’s videos is roughly comparable to that from the N93 and N95. Coming to it from a humble MMS-grade feature phone, it’s an utter revelation (see the sample sequence below), coming from an older Nseries device (most of which capture video at 352 by 288 pixels by 15fps) it’s very impressive, coming from the direction of even a budget home camcorder, the N95’s video quality is average at best. It all depends what you used before and what you expect from a tiny phone-sized device.

Add the video picture and audio soundtrack attributes of the Nokia N95 together and you get a device that, as with the edge-enhanced photos from the stills side of things, is designed to be impressive enough for most situations for as wide a selection of buyers as possible – without ever really encroaching seriously on the territory of more serious recording equipment.

What you’ll use the Nokia N95’s camcorder most for is shooting completely ad-hoc, unplanned scenes. Friends and family having fun, capturing that amazing street performer you just chanced across, that sort of thing. Yes, you’ve probably been doing the same with your N70 or N90 or E70 or N80 (etc.) But, while captured videos look great on the smartphone screen on these models, the output is very blocky, jerky and unsatisfactory when played back later on TV/DVD/Monitor. Whereas videos from the N95 will be quite presentable and you’ll not get any serious complaints about picture quality or smoothness.

Working with video

The N95 comes with not one, but two video editors, though neither are new for this device. There’s the simple ‘Create muvee’ (sic) for quick and dirty packaging of a video inside a predefined picture template and with cheesy background music, ostensibly for sending off to someone via MMS. This ‘muvee’ option has been present in most S60 smartphones for some time and is neither sophisticated nor quick.

The second option is simply referred to as ‘Video editor’ and is accessed through Gallery. It’s a surprisingly capable little application (considering it’s running on a ‘phone’) and is essentially the same program that ships in every other Nseries S60 smartphone, although the larger screen, the landscape viewing mode, the faster processor and the potential for TV-out to show off your creations all help to raise on-device video editing to the point where it’s finally practical for occasions when there’s not time or opportunity to get to your desktop computer. Video editing and rendering (with images, transitions, soundtrack, etc) still isn’t quick though, digital video is always processor-intensive to work with, with longish waits whenever there’s a new file to save.

Playing back your video

Simplest of all is watching your new videos back after shooting, in landscape mode of course and with a ‘Play’ icon optionally foremost after completing each clip. Alas, while at this point, Camera is still active and, with the first N95 firmware at least, there’s a fair chance that the starting up of RealPlayer in order to play the video will bring up an ‘Out of memory’ error, i.e. the combination of usual phone applications, Camera, parts of Gallery and RealPlayer is enough to hit the RAM buffers. Luckily, simply trying to play the video again (by which time the OS has closed some other background apps down) almost always works.

Gallery is the other obvious choice for playing back videos, helped by the dedicated Gallery button on the right-hand side/top of the device. When landscape mode is already active, videos appear by default full-screen and picture clarity on the 2.6″ display is superb.

Plugging in the supplied 3.5mm composite ‘TV-out’ lead provides a mirror of the N95’s display to any RCA/composite-input-equipped TV set and, as with the Nokia N93/93i before it, the N95 intelligently drives the TV at full VGA resolution when playing back VGA-recorded videos, so you’re not having to accept 320 by 240 downsampled versions. Pretty cool.

The TV-out even works when the camera itself is still active and an extra and unexpected use for the N95 is creating psychedelic videos for your friends/band, by videoing your TV set screen showing the output from the N95 camera which in turn is videoing the TV screen etc. [Come on Steve, that’s just sad and geeky…. Rafe]

Although many people still use PC Suite to grab all their new videos and store them on a PC for further editing and inclusion in DVDs (though, as with the N93 bundle, avoid the copy of Adobe Premiere Elements like the plague unless you have a state of the art multi-core PC), with the N95 having Wi-Fi (again as with the Nokia N93 and 93i) you can also use any convenient Wi-Fi hotspot to upload your new videos directly to the Flickr or Vox online services. Mind you, at almost 30MB per minute of video, this isn’t that practical even at Wi-Fi or HSDPA speeds – we’ll have more on online service integration in another article shortly.

Battery issues

Having used the Nokia N95 intensively over the last two weeks, I can state categorically that the single biggest drain on its slimline BL-5F battery is video recording, closely followed by taking photos. When you think about it, this isn’t perhaps surprising, with camera electronics, full display backlight and (in the case of video recording) flash memory card writing all going at once. Record video for 45 minutes and you’ve basically gone through most of a battery charge. Still, as long as your recordings are fairly ad-hoc, you don’t need to worry too much. Ten minutes here and there isn’t going to cause a problem, especially if you know you’ll be recharging each night anyway.

Samples

To illustrate all the video and audio quality points above, I’ve included some brief video samples taken on the N95 in the last week or so. Each is in raw (at least, cropped on the N95 itself, so no resampling or reprocessing) MP4 format so that you can examine them with confidence(!)

Size	Thumbnail, right click to download, left click to open in your media player directly	Notes
5MB		Introduction, bright, overcast landscape
6.6MB		fairly sunny, water sounds, close-up to landscape pan
7MB		experimenting with video feedback – filming the TV while plugged into it via ‘TV out’!
3.4MB		trying out audio limits by filming next to a rock drumkit – thankfully no saturation or serious distortion, even if it’s not quite hi-fi!
8.6MB		a quiet garden, birdsong – until interrupted!
6MB		a noisy outdoor scene – 200 people singing at an Easter service in the shopping centre
4MB		a very dimly lit indoor scene, you can see digital picture noise, but it’s really pretty impressive considering how bad the N93 and N93i are at the same thing
4.6MB		driving at night – again, turned out better than I’d have guessed
7.9MB		the British seaside – note the lack of palm trees(!) – and note the susceptibility to wind noise

Fit for use

As the guy who films the Smartphones Show on a smartphone, the Nokia N93, I wouldn’t be able to replace it using the N95 because of the more erratic audio quality. But then this is only one very specialist use. For almost every other bit of ad-hoc camcording, the N95 wins out because it’s smaller, more unobtrusive, and can cope with a much wider range of light conditions and sound levels. The hit on battery life is a worry, it’s true, but as with the other aspects of the N95, you just have to live with the laws of physics and consider in-car charging and occasional use of a portable or solar charger when out of the house or office for days at a time.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_N95-part_4_the_Camcorder.php

Nokia N95 (4)

It’s true that megapixels aren’t everything when it comes to digital photography. Good lighting, good composition, a steady hand and an interesting subject all spring to mind as more important, for example. In fact, I leave my Nokia N95’s camera set to 3 megapixels by default, as this gives me more than enough detail while keeping the photo file sizes reasonable.

But there are times when you want to impress, or to produce something that’s got high enough resolution to be printed very large, or to have an original that you can crop a bit out of and still have resolution to spare. You’ll still need the attributes listed above, of course, and armed with these it’s possible to produce image files that are something special.

But how good, at the end of the day, is the camera on the Nokia N95? Behind the bare specs (Resolution: 2582 x 1944 pixels, CMOS sensor, Mechanical shutter:1/1000 to 1/3s, Focal length: 5.6 mm, F-Stop/Aperture: f/2.8, Focus range: 10 cm to infinity, Auto Focus, Carl Zeiss Optics, Flash, Red-Eye Reduction), how does the camera compare to a top standalone camera of the same resolution? Is it close enough that the standalone can be left at home for all intents and purposes?

A wide range of uses

Let’s start with some images of my own, taken for the purposes of this review on the N95 with default settings, embracing a wide variety of subjects. In each case, click through for the full (approximately two megabytes) 5 megapixel photo, unprocessed, from the N95’s camera:

See the conclusion at the bottom of this review for my opinion on how good or bad the images are, but for now it’s enough to note the decent performance (even for an Nseries smartphone, check out the clarity of the sea spray image, for example, and the use of the N95 as a colour photocopier in the map example) but tempered by fairly obvious and over-zealous edge enhancement. But does every digital camera apply similar image tricks to try and make its images more pleasing? And how good or bad are the Carl Zeiss optics in the N95 when compared to those in a larger, dedicated camera?

N95 vs Standalone camera

To test this, we took Rafe’s Sony DSC-W12 and shot the same subjects in exactly the same lighting conditions with both devices.

Thanks to Rafe for the full set of photos, which you’ll have already browsed through in his N95 photo set, posted a day or so ago. But, for the purposes of this article, I’ve also grabbed his companion set of photos from the Sony and zoomed in a little and cropped a few highlights, so that you can see the differences more clearly.

Sony on the left, N95 on the right. Both are quite impressive, but the N95’s image isn’t as sharp or as colourful

Again, Sony on the left, with slightly better colouring, although this one’s a close run thing. I’d say that the N95’s camera algorithms are tuned for exactly this sort of detail at this sort of range

N95 on the left this time, you can see that the standalone Sony on the right brings out greater detail in areas of shadow, such as the dog’s face

N95 on the left again, with redder sky (that red tint effect shows up most obviously in this sort of shot, although it’s not displeasing) and, despite the edge enhancement, not quite as much detail as that in the photo from the Sony

Sony on the left, N95 on the right, although again the N95’s camera algorithms work brilliantly and, if anything, the smartphone’s photo is the more attractive of the two

N95 obviously on the left, its LED flash is only effective for objects about a metre away and anything else is just hopeless

Sony on the left, with proper optical zoom. The N95 has been used here with its digital zoom and, not surprisingly, the result is hopeless. As ever with digital camera, AVOID DIGITAL ZOOM LIKE THE PLAGUE! If you must zoom, do it by cropping a full size photo later and then resampling and applying effects in PaintShop Pro or similar on your desktop

Operation

As with the camera on the other S60 slider, the N80, opening the lens cover is enough to fire up the Camera application in whatever mode (photo/video) you last used it in (although all individual settings within a mode – e.g. exposure, sharpness – are NOT restored). In terms of features, Camera is a gentle evolution of that in previous Nseries devices. With the N95 designed to work just as well in landscape mode as in portrait, it’s very natural to hold it like a traditional camera and use the provided shutter button.

D-pad select activates the top on-screen icon, toggling between still and video modes:

With a scrollable strip of extra icons beneath for:

• scene mode (auto, user, landscape, close-up (macro, very useful, auto-focus then works down to about 7cm), etc.)
• flash mode (auto, on, off, red-eye reduct)
• self-timer, sequence mode (for arty effects)
• exposure adjustment (+2 to -2EV at 0.5 step, excellent for shooting important shots on very sunny days)
• white balance
• colour tone
• light sensitivity (ISO)
• contrast
• sharpness (edge enhancement)

This last is the most controversial setting – in my opinion, the default sharpness setting is too sharp, with artificial elements to photos, artefacts of an over zealous algorithm rather than anything in your original image/subject. The presence of a ‘User’ scene mode thankfully means that if, like me, you want to reduce the edge enhancement then you can, saving the settings in User mode and using this for photos that you want to be more ‘accurate’.

The difference between sharpness being turned down (left) and up (right) – which do YOU prefer?

I have to say that I’ve never had a camera of ANY kind with quite so many things to fiddle with, although thankfully for most people it’ll be quite enough to set the desired resolution and snap away, leaving everything on automatic. Having to stop and scroll down to make adjustments slows down the photo-taking process a lot, making it suitable only for semi-professional setup shots.

As mentioned in a caption above, there’s no optical zoom here, but the basic resolution is high enough that you can snap away and crop images later – as ever, there’s little point in using the ‘digital zoom’ unless your eyesight isn’t good enough to make out what you’re trying to take a picture /of/. If you really must zoom, the side up/down controls work well, as do navigator left/right.

Resolution is set in ‘Settings’, though I suspect that most people won’t actually need the stated maximum resolution most of the time, the 3 megapixel setting is quite sufficient for day to day casual use, with a large corresponding increase in the number of photos that can be fitted into the free space on your expansion card.

On the production N95 with first release firmware, the N95 camera software was frustratingly slow. At least, frustrating from the point of view of snapping people (who tend to move about and get impatient). Auto-focus takes around a second, which is just about acceptable. Having pressed the shutter, there’s thankfully only a minimal shutter lag for actual image-taking, although the camera shutter sound sample takes a good extra second to start playing and there’s up to a four second pause for the image just taken to be displayed. At least half of this is down to physically saving the image, with the rest taken up with rendering it to the screen. Let’s hope that firmware updates will quickly make a dent in this shot-to-shot time. Yes, there’s a ‘burst’ mode that you could shoot quick-fire snaps in, but it’s not really the same.

One change which is worth mentioning is that ‘close-up’ mode now allows auto-focus, unlike on (for example the Nokia N93 and N93i). This means that you can get a proper focussed image of objects as close as 7cm, with care. As with all Nokia’s focussing cameras, the extra clarity is immediately noticeable for anything closer than about a metre.

The verdict

In a way, it’s a tribute to the Nokia N95’s photographic ambitions that I’m comparing it directly to what, a year or so ago, was a top of the line standalone digital camera. But from the samples above, there are distinct limitations to having a much smaller sensor and lens, with slightly less detail in many images. Every digital camera has algorithms built-in, to reduce sensor noise (usually by blurring the image very slightly) and then to sharpen up the result in terms of edges and contrast, to give a more ‘pleasing’ result. The N95 has to work slightly harder at this, since it’s got lower quality input that the Sony camera tested, and the results can sometimes be a little artificial.

The whole concept of ‘pleasing’ is vital to understand here. A photo that is optically perfect would be dismissed as inferior by most people when compared to the printed output, at 7″ by 5″ (or similar), of a camera such as that in the N95. The extra contrast adjustment, colour correction and edge-enhancement are all designed by Nokia to produce an image that’s pleasing to the people in its target market. In fact, many phone cameras have different processing algorithms for Europe the Far East, for example. The name of the game is creating images that will ‘please’ as many people as possible. Which usually means working well when viewed on a screen, when printed or when uploaded to a web page or blog.

The Nokia N93 produces optically perfect photos but with lots of the original sensor noise and (sadly) over-enthusiastic compression artefacts. The N93i had a tweaked algorithm, with deliberate blurring applied in order to reduce the apparent noise, at the expense of loss of detail. The N73, at 3 megapixels, and the N95, at 5 megapixels, add an extra processing layer, extra edge-enhancement, to attempt to compensate for the noise blurring. For ‘natural’ shots, with leaves, twigs, human features, animals, and so on, this works very well most of the time, while for arty shots and special effects, the artificial edges really stand out and annoy.

Which is better? It’s down to your own eyes and preferences. To be honest, for most occasions outdoors, my (ok, Rafe’s) Nokia E70 (fixed focus, 2mp) produces wonderfully coloured and ‘pleasing’ photos that are ‘good enough’ a lot of the time. But the Nokia N73, N93, N93i and N95 are about more than just pleasing snaps. They all have semi-professional aims, with focussing abilities that encourage experimentation and unusual subjects. That none of these devices really stands up under scrutiny in comparison with a standalone camera shouldn’t come as a surprise – my current favourite phrase (from Star Trek) ‘Ye cannae beat the laws of physics’ applies here (as it will again in my N95 review feature on battery life) – there’s simply no way a tiny smartphone lens and sensor can compete with dedicated camera optics and electronics.

BUT. Nokia has aimed the Nokia N95 unashamedly as a premium phone for the high street. This is the one they want every Tom, Dick and Harry to aspire to and they want to ensure that the device gives pleasing results for typical subjects (friends, family, pets, hobbies, etc). With the hope that newer firmware improves camera speed, I think Nokia will get more praise and respect than criticism.

Source : http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_N95-part_3_the_Camera.php

Nokia N95 (3)

Nokia N95 Music Focus

Digital music on the move has been one of the biggest growth areas for consumer electronics in the last decade. The iconic iPod has been at the forefront of this digital audio player charge, but it has become increasingly threatened by the inclusion of music playback in mobile phones. The Nokia Nseries phones are no exception, indeed they have been leading the charge, together with Sony Ericsson’s Walkman branded phones and smartphones. Through the XpressMusic branding, Nokia has sought to emphasise the music capabilities of its Nseries portfolio. The N95 continues and adds to this trend. It is a very good digital audio player and, thanks to its smartphone background, boasts features that leave many digital audio players behind. Here we take a closer look at its implementation and explore its capabilities.

N95 Hardware

The N95’s dual slide design clearly has multimedia playback in mind. The top slide of the N95 reveals 4 back-lit shortcut keys (from top to bottom: forward, play/pause, stop, backward) which can be used to control both video and music playback. If it is not already running, a press of the play/pause key will start the Music Player application. Otherwise the keys behave as you would expect with fast forward and rewind available via a long press of the backward or forward keys. If the keys are when used outside of Music Player there’s an on screen indication showing the key pressed and the current track.

On the right hand side of the N95 there are the volume controls (also the digital zoom controls in the Camera application). On the left hand side of the N95 there’s a 3.5mm (composite) audio jack. In the N95 retail box, Nokia supply a headset that comes in two parts. The first part contains the microphone and remote controls (answer/make call, play/pause, forwards and backwards) while the second part is a matching set of headphones. The connection between the remote and headphones is also a 3.5mm (standard) audio jack. This means you can use your own headset either plugged straight into the device or plugged into the remote control/microphone unit. I did notice a faint hiss when using a high end (Ultimate Ears) headset when plugged directly into the N95. It was only really noticeable when listening to Piano music, and it was lessened when using the remote unit. It is not audible on lower quality headsets, including those supplied with the N95, presumably because they lack the range of the Ultimate Ears.

On either side, at the top of the N95, there are stereo speakers. The output from these is obviously limited, but is good enough for desk music when nothing else is available. It is particularly good for the spoken word, such as that found in many podcasts or audio books.

On the left hand side of the device there is a microSD (TransFlash) card slot. This supports cards of up to 2GB in size, a 2GB card should give enough space for around 500 tracks (depending on length, formatting and encoding). The slot also supports hot-swapping (switching cards while the device is on) which means it is practical, if a little fiddly, to have a card dedicated to music usage.

At the bottom of the device, there’s a standard mini USB 2.0 port which is used for PC connectivity. The USB connection supports PC Suite (Music Manager), MTP (Music Transfer Protocol as used by Windows Media Player) and Mass Storage (phone appears as an extra drive on the computer).

Internally the N95 has an FM Radio, WiFi connectivity with support for UPnP and Bluetooth with support for the A2DP and AVCRP profiles (for Stereo Music and Remote Control over Bluetooth). We’ll have a closer look at the implications of this later in the article.

Music Player Application

The N95 has the most recent version of the Nseries Music Player application, as seen on the Nseries Music Edition devices. The application presents your music library in the typical hierarchical approach (All Songs, Play lists, Artists, Albums, Genres and Composers), through which you can drill down to access the music you want to play. Once the music starts, the Now Playing screen is shown, with the usual music playback controls. These controls are associated with the cursor keys for quick access, for example left and right on the directional controls skip tracks on a single press or fast forwards/rewinds them if held down.

The application includes a variety of features beyond basic playback. Shuffle and repeat modes and Album Art are present as expected, but there’s a user programmable equalizer together with a number of presets, visualisations (relatively basic), audio settings (that control stereo widening, loudness and balance) and playlist management. Playlists can be managed on the device, with full editing capabilities, and there are a number of predefined smart playlists too (Recently Played, Recently Added, Most Played).

A welcome change from earlier devices is that the Music Player now recognises when new music has been transferred to the phone (for me it worked for Windows Media Player and after downloading podcasts) and will automatically update your music library. Previously this was a manual process and there’s still a manual update option in the menu for instances where you want to force an update of the library.

Music Player is also integrated into the Active Idle screen. The current track is shown and clicking on the item will take you back to the Music Player. This, together with the Multimedia shortcut key (on which a long press will start Music Player) and the hardware shortcut keys on the top slide mean music control is never far away.

In terms of formats, Music Player supports MP3, (un-DRMed) AAC, AAC+ and WMA, which should cover most people’s collections.

Radio Application

The N95 has the standard Nseries/Nokia S60 radio player which includes support for Visual Radio. Visual Radio is a little used standard that aims to deliver extra information to listeners over the air. When it’s available it can be a useful extra service, but unfortunately it is not very widespread. Details of the stations using Visual Radio can be found here. For the radio to work, you must plug in a headset or the remote control, sound can then be channelled through the phone’s loudspeakers, but unfortunately can not be channelled to a Bluetooth headset. Radio may seem a bit old-school these days, but is still very popular. It is a nice extra for where you get bored with your onboard music or want to listen to the latest headlines.

Outside of traditional FM radio, the N95 also has support for Real Audio streams, thanks to the inclusion of Real Player. There are a great number of radio stations that make Real Audio streams available, there is a comprehensive list for UK stations available here. Once loaded in RealPlayer, stations can be saved as streaming links and stored in the Gallery application.

Getting Music to the N95

As hinted at earlier, there are a number of ways to copy music to the N95. One option is to use Windows Media Player 11. When you connect the USB cable to the N95, you are asked to choose the connection mode (e.g. ‘Media Player’). The N95 is automatically recognised by Windows Media Player and music can be dragged from your music library onto an icon representing your device. Once you decide which music to copy, a single press of the sync button starts the process. Thanks to the USB 2.0 connection, sync speeds are reasonable. There are some advanced features too, such as the ability to transcode formats and bitrates to optimise file size or to make the entire process automatic with a random collection of songs from your library copied to the N95 at each sync. Windows Media Player can be used to rip CDs and manage the PC side of the music collection.

The N95 supports WMA files protected by the Play4Sure DRM, but these must be coped using Windows Media Player in order to ensure that the appropriate license files are also copied across. Play4Sure DRM is used by a number of music subscription services which allow unlimited downloads and playback of music provided you continue your subscription. For example, Napster to Go in the UK charges £14.99 for their unlimited service, which gives access to some 3 million or so tracks. If you’re the sort of person who buys a couple of CDs a month this service will be well worth investigating as it could save you money in the long run. Yahoo Music Unlimited is a similar service which is available in the US with a price point of $14.99. Neither of these services yet list the N95 as a compatible device, but in my tests Naspter to Go certainly worked without any problems, and there’s a free trial available for both services.

For those who do not wish to use Windows Media Player, Nokia provide Music Manager as part of PC Suite. It is also a sensible choice for those who are not already using their PC for digital music as it is easy to get to grips with and is better at ripping CDs into a format that is optimal for the N95 (AAC+). Music Manager works in a similar way to PC Suite, with the ability to drag and drop files from your PC to the N95. It too has a random transfer feature and allows you to set a maximum space to be used by music files.

If neither Windows Media Player nor Nokia Music Manager appeal to you then you can copy music files across manually. You can either do this using the File Manager portion of PC Suite or use the USB Mass Storage mode of the USB connection. In this mode the phone will appear as a disk drive and this should enable you to use it with a number of other Music Management tools, including WinAmp, Music Match and, with third party plug-ins, iTunes. If you are on a Mac you can use the Nokia Music Manager for Mac; this is intended for use with the N91 but it should work just as well with the N95. Finally, it is also possible to copy music to the N95 using UPnP (which I discuss below).

UPnP

The N95 has support for the UPnP protocol. UPnP is aimed at making it easy for devices to interact over a network, be it wired or wireless. On the N95, UPnP shares content stored on the phone with other UPnP devices (acting as a server) and can access content on other UPnP devices (acting as a client); the connection to other devices is made via WiFi.

On the N95, the UPnP functionality is set up through the Home Network application. Here you specify the wireless network to connect to and what content to share from the N95. In order for the N95 to share content (act as a server) you must explicitly turn sharing on. For accessing other UPnP devices (acting as a client) you use Gallery. On the CD that ships with the N95 is a program called Simple Center. Simple Center is a UPnP server/client for Windows PCs and will scan your PC for music and video files and make these available.

One you have set up UPnP on the N95, a Home Network section will appear in Gallery and from here you can browse other UPnP devices (including your PC, if you have installed Simple Center). Gallery will automatically search for, and list, other UPnP devices on your network. The devices can be browsed (in a similar way to a filing system) and you can choose to ‘copy to your device’ (thus giving you yet another way to get music to your device) or ‘show via home network’ (allowing playback or showing of content on other UPnP devices). If you have a friend with another UPnP enabled Nseries device (N80, N93, N93i) you can also share content from your phones back and forth using this functionality.

With Simple Center installed on your PC, it is possible to copy or sync content between the N95 and the PC in both directions. You can also use your N95 in a remote control like fashion to play music on your PC that is also stored on the PC thanks to the ‘show via home network’ functionality (illustrated below).

UPnP really comes into its own when there are other UPnP devices in the home. There are a number of UPnP media streamer devices on the market from the likes of Netgear, D-Link and Phillips. These are generally attached to a television or a stereo and act as client devices, playing back content from UPnP servers (usually on a PC) on their respective hosts. In the case of the N95 you can use a media streamer to access content stored on the N95 (such as your music library). However, more useful is using the N95 as an UPnP remote control, browsing content from a UPnP server (e.g. one running on your computer) and playing it back over another UPnP device (e.g. a media streamer). One real world example of this would be sitting on your sofa using your N95 to control the playback of music that is stored on your PC on your UPnP enabled home stereo.

Selecting an album on a remote UPnP device and then playing it back on the remote device all controlled from the N95.

I’ve focussed on the music aspects here, but the same applies for pictures and videos. You can, for example, use UPnP to show a video that is stored on your N95 on your PC (via Simple Center) or on your TV (via a media streamer). Similarly you can use the N95 to control a slideshow of images.

The problem with UPnP is that it is still a relative young standard and there are a limited number of UPnP devices available. Although they are theoretically all interoperable, this is not always the case (for example, not all devices can play back all music formats). I think the greatest benefits come with using the N95 in conjunction with a media streamer, but even if you just use the N95 and the Simple Center software on your PC there is still a lot on offer. It is impressive stuff and shows the virtues of using open standards.

Bluetooth

The N95 supports the A2DP and AVCRP Bluetooth profiles, which allow the playback and control of stereo audio over Bluetooth. At first, doing away with wires might seem like something of a novelty, but it does save hassle and means you can leave your device safely tucked away. I tested the N95 with Nokia’s BH-501 and Sony Ericsson’s HBH-DS970 and both gave excellent quality audio. The DS970 includes full remote control of music playback (AVCRP) and was, for me, more comfortable. The BH-501 was better for making calls because it supported voice dialing.

UPnP might be the most feature rich way to wirelessly connect an N95 to a stereo but it is not the only way. For those without a WiFi network or a media streamer, a Bluetooth Audio Gateway such as Nokia’s AD-42W is a good solution. The AD-42W is a small box that you connect to a stereo via a RCA (phono) cable; the Gateway receives a Bluetooth audio stream and sends it in stereo via the RCA cable. The Gateway utilizes the same A2DP profile as stereo headsets to stream the audio and they are paired with the N95 like any other Bluetooth device.

Further A2DP Bluetooth devices are coming out all the time. Parrot has been showing off an A2DP-enabled ‘boom-box’ and I’m sure there is lots more on the way too. All of the Bluetooth accessories mentioned above are an extra purchase, but this is a not an uncommon pattern in the digital music world.

TV Out

The N95 ships with a TV Out cable, which plugs into the same composite 3.5mm port as the headphones. While the obvious use of this is showing pictures and video on the TV, it can also be used to play back music. The TV Out cable will work with most stereos too (the composite video, yellow lead, can be left disconnected). It may not be as elegant as the wireless solutions mentioned above, but it is available out of the box.

Third Party Software

Since the N95 is running on an open software platform, it is of course possible to add additional functionality through the installation of software. For example, there is Nokia’s free Podcasting application (available via the Downloads! application on the N95). This application allows you to subscribe to podcasts (episodic audio shows) and download them to your device. Features include an in-built podcast directory, podcast search and scheduled downloads. Podcast can be downloaded using a cellular connection or WiFi and played back using the Music player application (audio podcasts) or Real Player (video podcasts). Also available from Nokia is the Internet Radio application, which lets you listen to the SHOUTcast audio streams which a number of Internet radio stations broadcast.

There are an ever growing number of applications from third parties too. These include Audible Player, which lets you download and playback Audible content, such as audio books, on the N95.  There is also the MyStrands Social Player which is a Music player replacement, but also adds online services (download album art), music discovery (recommendation based on your tastes) and community features. The Filter, which will automatically create playlists from the contents of your music library and Pocket Ogg, which is a music player supporting the open source .ogg format.

All of these applications mean that you can significantly extend the music and audio related capabilities of the N95 beyond what is available out of the box.

Conclusion

The N95 is an impressive music device. There are five ways to get stereo audio out of the N95 (stereo speakers, headset, Bluetooth, TV-Out, UPnP) and even these can be further broken down (e.g. FM Radio transmitter via the 3.5mm jack anyone? – hey, I’m reviewing one of these next week! – Ed). It is amazing to see this level of versatility in a single device considering that the N70 (the hot Nseries phone this time last year) only had one of these. PC connectivity is good although perhaps, overall, not as cohesive as the iTunes/iPod combination and the lack of an integrated music store is a current omission, though this is likely to change in the near future.

The quality of the sound produced by the N95 is excellent. The clarity and accuracy of the sound is now dictated more by quality of the headset and the encoding of the music file or stream rather than any hardware limitations. Audio buffs will notice the usual problems with digital music, but the average user will have no complaints.

The N95 integrates well with third party services and its capabilities can be extended through third party software. It is theoretically possible for any software-based DRM mechanism to be added to the N95. This reflects an important difference in attitude between digital music market leader Apple and Nokia. Apple prefers a proprietary ‘walled garden’ approach whereas Nokia has chosen to integrate with other products via open standards. Consequently Apple is able to closely control all aspect of the user experience, but locks customers into its own solutions. Nokia’s more open minded approach will appeal to the technical, but may not resonate with the wider public since the user experience can be less cohesive. However, experience in other areas does suggest the open approach does offer better longer term prospects.

When assessing the music functionality, the obvious question is: Is it as good as a standalone player? Here it is worth drawing a distinction between the different types of standalone players. The large hard-disk based players such as the iPod or the Zune are not going to be directly replaced by the N95. However, they are threatened by the convenience of the one device solution. It comes down to the question of which is preferable – having your entire music library available or having to only carry one device. More at risk are the flash memory based players such as the iPod Nano or SanDisk Sansa. Why would you carry one of these devices when the N95 can replicate or better the functionality?

The main ‘problem’ issues with the N95 in this area are memory (realistically you will need to buy a 2GB card – at a cost of about £25-30), battery life (not as good as standalone; also shares battery with a GPS/Wi-Fi/Camera-bearing phone) and cost (more expensive). Each person is going to assess this differently, but for me none of these outweigh the benefits of carrying around one device. In making this calculation it is also necessary to evaluate the wider picture since the N95 is much more than just a music player. At one time I would have added ease of use as a problem in common with most other converged devices, but thanks to the top slide, good software and good PC connectivity there is little to complain about here.

Overall, the N95 scores highly as a music device, offering excellent functionality and a good user experience. There is room for improvement (lack of cohesiveness of the user experience, lack of an integrated music store) and device convergence brings its own problems (shared battery, complexity), but measured against the overall abilities and appeal of the device, these will not trouble many of the N95’s potential buyers.

Source: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/item/Nokia_N95-part_1_Music_Focus.php

Sony Ericsson K850 vs. Nokia N95: 5 megapixel shootout

Introduction

This year several GSM cameraphones have already reached the 5 megapixel barrier. The Nokia N95 has been out long enough now that it’s even got an update – an 8GB version with a larger screen and a larger battery so obviously it will stick around as a Nokia flagship for quite some time. The Sony Ericsson K850 will be out selling really soon and it’s surely going to be the Sony Ericsson cameraphone of cameraphones. Taking those two with a pinch of the 5 megapixel LG KU990 Viewty must surely add for one interesting comparison. And since we were curious probably as much as everybody else out there, we didn’t lose any more time and we set off our GSMArena heads-on 5 megapixel cameraphone shootout – we thought that it would be fun and we really like to… well, shoot things. And it really turned out to be fun.

Official photos of Sony Ericsson K850

Official photos of Nokia N95

Before we start though, we should point out that it’s really hard to tell which of the 5 megapixel shooters is the best. First off, our Sony Ericsson K850 test unit is actually a pre-release version (expect our detailed review really soon), so changes in the camera algorithm are likely to be made. They all pack top-notch camera performance and there’s not an easy way to announce a clear winner. As each of them has its own quirks we’ve tried to apply a scoring system that would evaluate their overall performance based on their particular performance in different shooting scenes. Each handset can get a maximum of 5 points for its performance in the individual tests. But bear in mind that we haven’t applied any weight factor to these tests which simply means that shooting in the dark is equally important as shooting under bright sun. In real life however this is not always the case – many of you shoot only during the day, while others will find themselves with the lens cover open only at night-time parties. So in the end, it’s up to you to decide which cameraphone will suit your shooting preferences the best. Enough small talk, let’s get to work.

The two rivals

Taking a peek at the EXIF

Both mobiles save detailed EXIF information to the JPG files. This fact helps us a lot in our test. The focal length of the Sony Ericsson K850 is recorded there as 5.18 mm, while the one of the Nokia N95 it is 5.60 mm. That along with the fact that the two phones have the same field of view means that Nokia N95 has larger sensor and we can expect better performance from this phone in terms of noise and dynamic range.

Studio, moderate light

We started off with several studio trials in order to determine how the handsets deal with several controlled lighting situations.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops • LG KU990 Viewty (full)

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

LG KU990 Viewty (full)

Even from the thumbnails you can see the different color reproduction from the two photo mobiles. Neither of the phones is spot-on, but the real poster looks closer to what Nokia N95 shows. Sony Ericsson auto mode chooses 1/30 sec and ISO 64, which is a good choice, while the Nokia strangely prefers to shoot at 1/111 sec and ISO 200. No idea why N95 needed the ISO boost.

Bear in mind that the ISO and the shutter speed are the single two elements that determine the amount of light that is to be captured, when you have a fixed aperture size. A slower shutter speed allows more light to reach to the matrix. A higher ISO makes the matrix more sensitive to the light that comes in. However it’s a really fine balance between these two, since the higher the ISO is, the more noise there is on the image. The slower the shutter speed, the more likely you are to get a blurry picture due to camera shake. The camera software has to balance those two in the best possible way to avoid both blurring and noise. Sometimes one is taken care of at the expense of the other – it’s up to the camera to decide, really.

At first look N95 surprises us with a cleaner looking image (look at the first crop or at the sky). Very good ISO 200 performance indeed. However, looking a little bit deeper we’ve noticed the price paid. Nokia has implemented some clever noise suppressing technique, which delivers smooth image. In some cases however, it also results in a loss of detail, look at the second crop – the fine texture of the chair is missing and the sand looks very strange. The noisier image of K850 presents the sand a lot better. The file size of the K850 is twice as big, which is not a surprise, the noise reduction in Nokia N95 loses a lot of fine detail. You can see the same effect in some outdoor photos if you look carefully at the foliage. Overall, we’ve decided that the Sony Ericsson approach is slightly better, as image noise can be fixed with specialized software, while the lost detail in the N95 photo cannot be recovered.

Bear in mind that the ISO and the shutter speed are the single two elements that determine the amount of light that is to be captured, when you have a fixed aperture size. A slower shutter speed allows more light to reach to the matrix.

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We’ve also added a sample from a pre-beta LG KU990 unit (expect our detailed KU990 review soon). It doesn’t show bad results, but the JPG compression is pushed a little too much and this can be seen in the sky, and we expect this to be fixed in the market version. With such file is too hard to compare the LG to the other two, but it looks like a strong player.
K850 vs N95 – 4:3

Studio, poor light

We’ve decided to test what will happen if we use a considerably poorer light.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

Nokia N95 kept the ISO 200, just slowing the shutter to 1/17 sec. K850 used even slower shutter – 1/10 sec and increasing the ISO to 125. Note, that with shutter speeds like this you will usually end with unusable photos, because of the motion blur. Anyway, here Nokia is a clear winner, not much to explain.
K850 vs N95 – 2:4

Flash photos

We’ve tested the flash performance in almost total darkness. We expected Sony Ericsson K850 to win easily, because of the xenon flash and it did. Because of the weak LED light, N95 had to pump up the ISO up to 800 and even underexpose a bit.
K850 vs N95 – 4:1

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

Outdoor, strong light

Taking a step out the door brings us to this next test – the outdoor shooting.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)• 100% crops

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)

Here, with the help of the strong sunlight, both cameras can really show their best. The details are high for both of the contenders, but in most of the photos we can see a certain advantage of Nokia N95. The colors are not correct again, especially the reds. Anyway, our subjective opinion is that the Nokia colors are more pleasant for the eye and closer to the real scene. We can also see some color aberration in the Sony Ericsson K850 samples. In rare cases you can see an evidence of noise suppression in the Nokia results – the tree foliage turns into a green cloud (check the second crop).
K850 vs N95 – 3:4

Close-up photos

Well, making some wonderful macro shots can really make the difference when you boast with your cameraphone in front of your friends.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

It’s a good opportunity to examine these photos, because finally the two camera automatics decided to shoot with the same parameters – ISO 100, 1/100 sec. Again, the colors are not correct in neither of the two cameras, but N95 is closer to the real colors. Also, it turns out that the noise suppression technique implemented works best with plastic objects like these. Sony Ericsson K850 produced noisier image, but with no additional detail.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

We have no idea what is causing trouble for the K850 with this shot. We took four shots and we present you the best of these, which is still not good. Nokia N95 copes with this installation a lot better.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full)

When going really close, Sony Ericsson K850 has one advantage, demonstrated in this set of photos. The smaller auto focus frame helps you to select which part of the object you want to be in perfect focus, in this case the center of the flower. The large auto focus frame in Nokia 95 fits the whole flower and as a result the top edge of the flower got focused, wrong choice in this case. Of course, with some practice, you might learn to overcome this fault.
K850 vs N95 – 3:4

When going really close, Sony Ericsson K850 has one advantage, demonstrated in this set of photos. The smaller auto focus frame helps you to select which part of the object you want to be in perfect focus, in this case the center of the flower.

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Dynamic range, handling highlights

While also a macro shot, the purpose of this shot is to show what happens when the contrast in the scene exceeds the sensor capabilities.

Sony Ericsson K850 (full) • Nokia N95 (full) • 100% crops

Nokia N95 has an advantage here, because of the slightly bigger sensor and you can see from the crop that indeed it has smaller overexposed areas and they are presented in a more natural way. In the Sony Ericsson photo you can see some purple fringing too.
K850 vs N95 – 2:4

Video

We can announce the winner here by looking at the specs only. Nokia N95 records in VGA, while K850 reached just QVGA, both in 30fps. This means that the Nokia records 4 times more information, so as you may guess there is no competition. Anyway, just for the record we are publishing video samples of the two mobiles. We should note that at least Sony Ericsson are moving in the right direction with the K850 – K810 records video in QCIF and P1 in QVGA at 15fps, so the video in K850 is a step ahead.
K850 vs N95 – 1:5

Camera features

Although they differ in terms of looks, camera interfaces of the two phones have very similar functionality. And naturally, both possess extensive setting – white balance, ISO settings and effects work in the same way on Nokia N95 and Sony Ericsson K850. Slight differences start with the shooting modes – the Sony Ericsson K850 has Panorama mode in addition to the ulra fast BestPic – a burst mode that allows you to take several quick snapshots and then choose which ones to keep. The Nokia N95’s has a sequence mode with a user-defined interval which works great for making time-lapse movies for example. It does allow for Burst shooting too, but it’s way slower than the BestPic mode. The preset shooting modes equal in number on both devices – seven different modes as well as automatic settings. The picture size is of course user configurable varying from VGA to 5MP resolution. Both handsets allow you to turn the autofocusing off. The flash modes include red-eye reduction on both handsets. With the N95 you can also choose whether the flash should fire every time you shoot or automatically according to the available light.This setting is needed when you want to use the flash as a fill light for shooting portraits when there is a bright background behind the subject. The Sony Ericsson K850 doesn’t have that option and it’s a real pity as the xenon flash could work out great as a fill light. There is a slight difference in self-timers in favor of Nokia N95 – the delay period is adjustable, while K850 doesn’t sport such an extra. On the other hand the K850 features metering mode settings and focus-assist beam settings. Nokia N95 lacks both (the latter quite naturally as it has no focus assist beam light) but has sharpening and contrast settings. Strangely enough N95 doesn’t have a setting for picture quality (JPG compression) either.

Shooting with Sony Ericsson K850 and Nokia N95

Overall, the Sony Ericsson interface outperforms the one of Nokia. The camera istelf starts more quickly and the menus are easier to go through.

Finally, we need to mention the dedicated camera keys of Sony Ericsson K850. It is equipped with a sliding key to switch between camera, video and review modes and a separate on/off camera key. When you turn on the camera, several keys from the alphanumeric keypad light up and allow quick access to some of the features. We shouldn’t forget the automatic camera cover, too. Nokia N95 has quite a modest answer here – only a manual slider for the lens protector, which actually acts as an on/off button too.
K850 vs N95 – 4:3

Overall camera speed

The Sony Ericsson handset scores by a good margin when it comes to the speed of autofocusing and the general shot-to-shot time. In most of the scenarios that we used in our tests, the K850 managed to focus more quickly than the Nokia and showed a shorter shot-to-shot time.
K850 vs N95 – 4:2

Previewing you photos

We all know how good it is to preview your shots as soon as they’ve been made. It allows you to go immediately for a second shot if something has ruined your composition or you can simply brag about your super cool snapshot in front of everybody. When it comes to previewing your pictures both handsets score equal. The Sony Ericsson K850 shows a somewhat more detailed image, while the N95 results look more washed out. The animated slideshows the K850 creates are also better than the ones by Nokia. It has a snappy zooming on the photos that works in large steps, while the N95 zooms slowly in small steps. The Nokia N95 however wins our hearts with the large screen and when it comes to legibility under sunlight, Nokia displays have no competition at all. So we will simply write down this test as a draw – each gets 4 points.
K850 vs N95 – 4:4

In this heavy-weight championship series the Sony Ericsson K850 managed to collect a total of 31 points, while the Nokia N95 managed to beat it by a slight margin with a total of 34 points.

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Conclusion

Here we are at the end of this shootout. GSMArena was once again an arena for the battle of the titans. We hope that this article will help you decide between the most popular 5-megapixel choices on the market if you are going to buy your next phone based on its photographic abilities. In this heavy-weight championship series the Sony Ericsson K850 managed to collect a total of 31 points, while the Nokia N95 managed to beat it by a slight margin with a total of 34 points. Those numbers are indicative only and you should give more weight to the results of the tests that matter most to you. It was a close call, but this time we prefer the Nokia model. The main issue with previous Nokia cameras – the overprocessed look is gone with the N95 and the experience Nokia had with their photo mobiles so far seems enough to compete with the years of Sony know-how in the field. As a last note, let’s not forget that Sony Ericsson K850 firmware is still in beta. If the photo quality changes significantly with the final version we will revise the article.

Total 5 megapixel shootout score: K850 vs N95 – 31:34

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_k850_vs_nokia_n95-review-162p3.php

Sony Ericsson K850

Sony Ericsson K850 review: 5 megapixel Phone-and-Shoot

We called Sony Ericsson K810 the rebirth of the Cyber-shot. We’re now looking at a great leap forward in developing the company’s cameraphone lineup in the face of the glamorous Sony Ericsson K850. It brings a bunch of novelties in design, navigation and functionality. The quality 5 megapixel camera enhanced with camerawise hardware buttons, along with the brand new Media Center application, make the Sony Ericsson K850 a landmark product in the company portfolio.

Sony Ericsson K850 official pictures

Key features

• 5 MP autofocus camera with automatic lens cap and three dedicated hardware keys
• Tri-band HSDPA (3.6 Mb), EDGE.
• New Media Center, smart search, Manage Messages application
• Monolith body with digicam-like battery cover
• Brand new three soft keys
• Innovative D-pad layout
• Dedicated call and end keys
• Large crystal-clear 2.2″ display
• Memory card slot with dual card support and hot swap functionality
• FM radio with RDS
• Bluetooth (with A2DP)
• Multi-tasking support

Main disadvantages

• Awkward D-pad
• Dust easily accumulates behind the protective lens cover
• Reversed soft key funtions, atypical for Sony Ericsson
• No Wi-Fi and infrared
• Fingerprint magnet

In June Sony Ericsson revealed its hottest addition to the Cyber-shot line: Sony Ericsson K850. The phone was labeled a milestone product not only for the Cyber-shot family, but for the entire Sony Ericsson portfolio. It is clear why it scores high with its wealth of features using the latest technologies. The K850 brings several brand new software and hardware solutions we pay special attention to later on. Make sure you keep in mind the three Cyber-shot handsets we reviewed most recently – the budget Sony Ericsson K550, the high-born Sony Ericsson K800 and its successful inheritor Sony Ericsson K810.

Cyber-shot evolves

The soft and rounded Sony Ericsson K850 visually differs a lot from the Sony Ericsson K810, not to mention its predecessors. At least it stays faithful to the bar-shape form factor. K850 accommodates some notable construction and navigation novelties: dedicated call and end keys, new D-pad layout, three-position camera key, as well as an on/off camera key and a digicam-like bottom battery cover.

Sony Ericsson K850 • compared to Nokia N95 • compared to Sony Ericsson T650

The large 2.2″ quality TFT display takes up most of the front panel and scores notably higher both in brightness and contrast, compared to the 2″ TFT display of Sony Ericsson K810. Keeping almost the same dimensions while building larger displays is an issue that constantly nudges handset designers. In K850 the obvious solution is integrating the D-pad in the keyboard, thus making some room for the larger 2.2″ display. The display, and the entire front panel, has a nice mirror-like finish, but again it catches fingerprints rather easily, like the K810 and K800. Above it, a small secondary VGA camera is discretely located, along with the earpiece. The camera is beneath the panel surface, leaving the even surface of the front unspoiled.

Sony Ericsson K850 – speaker and secondary camera

Right below the display, we find the three brand new sensor like soft keys. They perform multiple functions varying by the context of different applications. The sensor like soft keys offer a truly novel experience in handling the Sony Ericsson K850. The diehard Sony Ericsson user will immediately notice that the location of the soft key functions are reversed. In other Sony Ericsson phones the More soft key is located on the right, whereas now it is called Options and corresponds to the new left soft key, with several exceptions. The proprietary “Back” key is absent, now replaced by the right soft key. The center soft key performs variable functions within applications. The logic behind all this is simple – in menus, where in other Sony Ericsson phones you have only one active soft key, the center soft key is to be used. Alternatively, in menus where both soft keys have functions (for example messaging -> templates), in other handsets you would have “Select” and “Info”, while in K850 you have “Info”, “Select” and “Back” soft key order. Reviewing the K850 was fun, as we often pressed the wrong soft key, driven by the force of habit. However, using the device for a week was enough for us to get the hang of the new allocation, owing to the simple fact that most leading phone manufactures use the same soft key order in their devices. The new soft keys in K850 are also a design decision, driven by the lack of space with the large display on pretty much the same dimensions as K810. We welcome this innovation by the Sony Ericsson team, which to us is an attempt to respond to users’ demands.

The three soft keys and the keyboard

A bit below the three soft keys are the brand new dual-function Call / Quick Menu key and Clear / End key, that make the phone handling even better. The dedicated Call and End keys, along with the tree soft keys and the D-pad novelties are inconsistent with the longstanding way of doing things, but take the K850 closer to the mass market. Under the Call and End keys is the keypad with the T650 cool styling, however the keys have grown bigger. The rightmost column of the alphanumeric keys serves a double purpose: in Camera mode they’re used for changing the shooting mode, scene mode, self-timer and flash options. Icons with blue backlighting explain the function of each key. The D-pad can also be used for zooming in and out when taking pictures, while scrolling up or down on changes the exposure compensation. Most of the Sony Ericsson users out there would be happy to see that Sony Ericsson has again used the sleeker D-pad instead of a joystick. It’s now a thin color plastic rectangle, placed right within the keypad and enfolding the 2 and 5 key. A bold and controversial design indeed, as most Sony Ericsson phones have a confirming center of the D-pad or a joystick. In K850, the Confirm function is entrusted to the middle soft key, right above the D-pad – another decision that raises doubts about user-friendliness.

The debatable D-pad

The Sony Ericsson K850 left side features no keys. Neat and simple, all you see is the color stripe that runs along the side parts of the phone.

Left side: neat and sweet

The bottom part of the K850 features a digicam-like battery cover, which shelters the phone’s battery, the SIM card, and the memory card slot. The latter deserves special attention since this is the first Sony Ericsson attempt at dual card support. Two cards are compatible with the slot: M2 and microSD.

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The bottom part of the K850 features a digicam-like battery cover, which shelters the phone’s battery, the SIM card, and the memory card slot. The latter deserves special attention since this is the first Sony Ericsson attempt at dual card support. Two cards are compatible with the slot: M2 and microSD. One is inserted face down, the other one face up, and both are hot-swappable. Apart from this, you will find the regular Fast Port, the mouthpiece and a wrist or neck strap eyelet. If you remove the SIM card in active phone mode, the phone will restart after a good delay and will start the demo mode. It would’ve been great if the phone was able to work in flight mode, without an inserted SIM. This drawback aside, handling the SIM, the memory card and the battery is effortless, thanks to the integrated push-to-eject mechanism. The same we see used in digicams nowadays. The design of the battery cover is a nice novelty, but we think it has one disadvantage. The lower end of the rear panel wobbles noticeably when typing on the keypad.

Digicam-like hatch at the bottom

The top part of the device holds the On/Off key only, which can also be used for fast switching between the ringing profiles.

Power button on the top

The right side of the Sony Ericsson K850 immediately got our attention, as things there surely look like a regular digicam. Very close to the end key is a three-position button for switching between the camera modes – camera, video recorder, and preview mode. Right above it is the shutter key, and the adjacent smaller on/off camera key. There is no other mobile phone of the other leading manufacturers, except for the LG KU990 Viewty, which comes with such a bunch of dedicated camera keys. A convenient feature is that the on/off camera key is independent of the key lock. At the upper part of the right side we find the elevated V-shaped volume rocker, which also can be used for zooming when taking or browsing pictures.

Talking Cyber-shot: shutter key, three-position camera button and volume/zoom key

Turning the phone over reveals an entirely flat monolith surface, only broken by the xenon flash and the camera lens ring, as well as the elongated grill of the loudspeaker. All of them are placed beneath the panel surface, so if you look at the phone sideways you will see no dimples or bulges on the back panel. Next to the lens cover stand two essential symbols – the Cyber-shot logo and the 5.0 megapixel sign. Below the lens is the Sony Ericsson logo. Where the monolith surface ends, you will see the tiny battery cover, with its rubber-like finishing, that is supposed to keep the phone firmly in your arm, or if laid on a tilted surface. Where the back panel ends, two delicate curves that slightly lift the phone can be spotted, a resourceful way to protect the sleek surface from scratches and dust. Another probable reason, given they’re level with the loudspeaker, is an attempt to ensure some kind of a sound-screen.

Glossy back: lens cap, flash, loudspeaker, Sony Ericsson and Cyber-shot logo

The Sony Ericsson K850 is powered by a Li-Poly BST-38 battery with a capacity of 930 mAh, a substitute for the standard BST-33 Li-Poly battery used in the other Cyber-shot handsets K550, K800 and K810. According to the manufacturer, the battery is capable of up to 400 hours of standby mode and up to 9 hours of talk time in GSM networks. Under very intensive usage, i.e. Bluetooth always on, 3G network, an hour of calls, an hour of media player, a good deal of trying the camera, gaming, browsing, etc., the battery hardly lasts for 36 hours. However, if used only in GSM networks and not excessively strained, the phone will last for a good 3, even 4 days.

K850 battery, memory card slot and SIM card holder

Generally, we’re quite pleased with the ergonomics of the Sony Ericsson K850. It feels nice when held in hand and fits perfectly in your palm. The three soft keys, the dual Call and End keys, the D-pad do take the phone handling to a higher level. However, after due examination, a few shortcomings get exposed. The excellent response of the three sensor-like soft keys is in great contrasts with the angular hard-to-push D-pad, which but ruins the navigation experience. The confirming center soft key is too close to the D-pad up key. Simultaneous keypresses occur now and then, resulting in undesired confirmation of a function – for example in a delete contact dialog window, the center soft key corresponds to YES.

K850 hands-on

Display enhanced

We were delighted with the Sony Ericsson K850 crystal clear display. It is a 262K-color TFT display with a QVGA resolution and has grown from 2″ (in K810) to a 2.2″ diagonal. In the world of numbers this is not a big deal, but it does matter in terms of display real estate. Furthermore, the display quality is tangibly improved in terms of both contrast and brightness. Dark colors are really dark. And that’s verified: we compared it to the display of the same K810 we used in the previous review. Legibility in bright light conditions is another improvement, in comparison to the forerunner, going close to T650’s level.

The K850 display in the dark

The keypad of the Sony Ericsson K850 offers square keys set sufficiently apart from each other, reminding of the keys of T650. This time they are made of rubber-like soft plastic and need more pressure when typing. You can hardly make any typos since the keys are wide apart. In our case, the keypad was evenly illuminated in blue as we were testing the Velvet Blue variety. With the added wave-like light effects it gains points on both usability and looks. Nicely, the D-pad is also illuminated in blue. The quality of the keyboard backlighting is just the same as in Sony Ericsson T650, again comparing with the handset we used in a recent review.

Keypad backlighting

High level telephony

Sony Ericsson K850 is great at making and receiving calls. The loudspeaker is one of the loudest and crispest we’ve tested in a Sony Ericsson and you certainly wouldn’t miss an incoming call even in noisy surroundings. It’s excellent at bass and treble. This shouldn’t surprise though, as the phone is media oriented too, featuring a Media Center with interface similar to Walkman 3.0.

Calling Dexter

Cool user interface

The user interface in K850 is the well known Sony Ericsson standard non-smartphone one, yet livened up with some refreshments and applications. The most important ones are the Media Center and the Flash Lite theme support, as well as the stylish light effects for incoming calls and the video ringtone support. As most previous models, the Sony Ericsson K850 comes with a dedicated Flight mode. When turning on the phone, you may opt to start it directly into Flight mode. Unlike its Nokia S40 rivals, the Sony Ericsson handsets cannot work in Flight mode unless a SIM card is inserted.

The most important ones are the Media Center and the Flash Lite theme support, as well as the stylish light effects for incoming calls and the video ringtone support.

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In active stand-by mode the screen displays information about the network signal, battery strength, current date and time, plus the next alarm due. Pressing the navigation pad in any of the four directions can start a user-programmed feature or application. The main menu itself is a 4 x 3 grid of animated icons. All sub-menus are in list view with tiny icons on the left side. Response is fast in every submenu and application.

Standby view • the main menu • a listed sub menu

Like Sony Ericsson T650, the K850 also supports Flash Lite themes, even some of the preinstalled themes are Flash-based. They change not only the color scheme and the wallpaper, but also the menu icons themselves. We tested K850 with the default theme from T650 and sadly found out that the home screen animations didn’t affect the keypad lighting in any way. We came to miss the captivating lighting effects of the T650. It is possible however that the lack of this functionality is only due to our handset being a pre-release unit.

Three of the preinstalled themes

There is an Activity menu which has a dedicated shortcut key on the keypad. The Running Apps tab of the menu offers multi-tasking – for example you can run two Java applications and listen to the radio or to the music player simultaneously. A new feature allows minimizing the dialog window when you receive a file via Bluetooth and opening the window on demand through the Running Apps tab on the Activity menu. This is really convenient, as now you can explore the phone in the meanwhile, as opposed to other Sony Ericsson phones, where you have to wait until the transfer completes. Strangely, this is not the case if you’re sending files from K850 to another Bluetooth device. The two available options are “cancel” and “back” and both result in interrupting the file transfer. The Activity menu also offers quick access to recent events, the web menu and the My Shortcuts menu which contains a list of favorite features and can be modified to the user liking. The TrackID service is present here too, and is found in the My Shortcuts menu, in addition to its original location in the radio options menu.

The only change in Activity menu is the added TrackID feature

TrackID at work

Phonebook: thank you soft keys

The phonebook interface has undergone several changes with the introduction of the three soft keys. Now, in contacts you can directly open any contact with the center soft key. The old More key is renamed Options and is now on the left side, while in old models, it was inevitably stuck in the right. The third soft key corresponds to “back”. Another practical use of the middle soft key is the Send Message option, available when a contact is open and a number is highlighted. A new feature is the Smart Search, which lists all available contacts in the phonebook starting with the digits typed in the standby screen. The search engine looks for both a combination of letters in names and a phone number that starts with exactly the same digits entered. This function is well known in Windows Mobile based devices, and we even saw it in Samsung E950. Here in K850 it can also be switched off if not needed. Also present is the Send All Contacts option, that transfers the entire phonebook to another compatible Sony Ericsson device. Now, apart from sending the phonebook via Bluetooth, it is supposedly possible to transfer “as text message”, “as picture”, and “as email” too. However, we were unable to test these options, as they were “currently unavailable”. We managed to successfully transfer a phone book of about 500 entries, each one with multiple numbers, emails and other data to a Sony Ericsson T650 in 7 minutes.

Contacts list • Smart search located in the Calls submenu

As usual, you can choose whether the SIM contacts or the phone contacts should be default for the phonebook. Displaying both lists simultaneously is impossible. Otherwise, a nice option allows you to auto save to SIM any new contacts that you’re saving in the phone memory. The maximum capacity of the phonebook is 1000 contacts but you can save up to 5000 phone numbers. Contacts can be ordered by First or Last name. They are searched by gradual typing of the desired name.

When adding a new contact, there are several phone number fields available: Mobile, Mobile (private), Mobile (work), Home, Work, Fax and Other. This is the first tab of fields for the new contact. The second one is for email and web addresses. The third is for assigning a picture, a custom ringtone and a voice command. The fourth goes for Title, Company, Street, City, State, ZIP, Country information. The last, fifth tab, is for additional information and birth date. When you add the birth date, the phone asks you whether you would like to add it to the calendar and set a reminder for it, which we found out to be a handy feature.

Contact details

Call management

The Calls log is divided into four different tabs. They are: All, Answered (Received), Dialed and Missed. The maximum number of records is 30 altogether, shared between the separate tabs. When there are several calls made to a single contact, only the last call gets recorded.

No news in Calls log

Messaging is improved

Among the new enhancements are Manage Messages, Manage Email, plenty of settings for accounts, and assigning categories to messages. All messages, except emails, use one Inbox. No matter what kind of message has been received, it goes to the shared Inbox. Only email messages have their own dedicated Inbox.

Messaging menu

However, you may opt to sort messages to category list, if you previously had defined a specific category for each message. Six of them come preinstalled: Business, Favorites, Follow Up, Fun, Holiday, Important, but categories are fully customizable as well. If sorted by category, a big icon with an Inbox By Category tag appears instead of the standard small Inbox icon. Under it the categories are displayed, but only the ones with messages are shown, which is convenient. You can also delete all messages in a given category. However, there is a glitch in the system – in the general inbox there is no indication if a message has been assigned a category. The same holds true for messages that are opened. In an open message the applied category can be viewed or changed by pressing options -> category.

How Categories work

Another new thing is the Manage Messages application located in the Messaging section. It consists of three tabs. The first one is All Items, There’s also an On Mem. Card and an In Phone tab, each including Drafts, Inbox, Outbox, Saved messages, and Sent messages folders. The options menu allows messages to be moved to memory card or phone memory, arranged by categories, date, size, and contact as well as other functions. Generally Manage Messages, together with Categories, offers wide-ranging customization options and improved message handling.

Manage text messages

When typing a message, there is a character counter, which would alert you when you get close to the 160-symbol limit. The T9 dictionary goes without saying. Although the K850 has a standard phone keypad, its email client supports dozens of settings and all types of encodings, inherent to more complicated messaging devices. Again, for the email there is a separate Manage email application, with the same structure and features as the one for SMS, we’ve already discussed.

Standard email interface

Variety of customization options

Setting protocols

Multimedia: High five

If we have to pinpoint the major novelty in the phone, it should be the Media Center. It is important enough to have a dedicated shortcut on the left soft key in standby. The interface, with its totally renovated dark-blue design, reminds of Sony PSP.

If we have to pinpoint the major novelty in the phone, it should be the Media Center. It is important enough to have a dedicated shortcut on the left soft key in standby. The interface, with its totally renovated dark-blue design, reminds of Sony PSP.

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The Media center menu lists the Photo, Music, Video, and Settings icons. The current pick is highlighted and the count of included files is displayed. The Media Center is also accessible through the sixth icon in the main menu. The settings menu is simple – you may opt for portrait, landscape or auto rotate screen orientation, thanks to the integrated motion senzor. It would’ve been nice to have at least a basic set of customizable features like, for example, sorting files according to their size. Anyway, if you’re very particular about track order, you can always rely on custom playlists.

Media center step-by-step structure

Sony Ericsson K850 is equipped with Music Player 3.0, which is almost the same as the newly announced version 3.0 of the Walkman player to be seen in Sony Ericsson W910. The player supports MP3, AAC, and AAC+, E-AAC +, WAV, WMA, M4A and MIDI file formats and sports the MegaBass equalizer preset. The player can naturally be set to run in the background. Sound is audible, crisp and even – as long you’re using the player with a good headset, that is. Further on, the K850 comes with stylish light effects to make listening to music on the handset even more enjoyable. If you are not willing to use the media player step-by-step structure, you can directly play a file through the file manager with its classic flat tree structure.

The revamped player now has mega bass

The video player, previously found in the entertainment sector, is now accommodated in the media center as well. This time it supports fast-forwarding. The interface is simple but stylish, although it fails to impress from a functional point of view. Much like the W910, the Sony Ericsson K850 has a built-in motion sensor allowing the video player to auto rotate. Again, the video files are accessible via the file manager, but there you cannot opt to auto rotate the file according to the screen orientation, which we found a bit odd.

Video player in Media center

Using the video player in landscape mode is much more comfortable

The third application in the Media Center is the Photo gallery. It consists of: Latest Photo, Camera Album, Photo Tags, Photo Feeds, and Pictures. Latest Photo provides quick access to most recent photos. Camera Album is a thumb list for each month of the year. When a month is open, it reveals a 4×3 grid of thumbs of photos. Scrolling down shows all the photos taken in the corresponding month. The highlighted photo is a bit larger for a better browsing experience. The Pictures section opens again as a 4×3 grid of thumbs with non-camera images, as the preinstalled wallpapers. When exiting the full screen view of a picture, it smoothly zooms out to thumb view.

Photo viewer in Media center

Generally, the Photo gallery is a powerful tool for conveniently managing a vast collection of camera photos with great customization capabilities. Photo Tags is a new feature for displaying previously marked favorite photos. The Up key on the D-pad offers quick access to sending options like: send as Picture Msg, as email, to blog, via Bluetooth. Other than that, you can set a photo as wallpaper, screen saver, startup screen, and contact picture straight from the gallery. There is a new option called Pan and Zoom and an amazing slideshow revealed when you further scroll down the submenu. Pan and zoom is a menu shortcut to the familiar zoom view mode in other Sony Ericsson phones. Slideshows in K850 are just amazing – before they start you are asked to pick a mood and the handset plays the animated slide shows with background music to suit the chosen mood. The transition style of the slideshow also varies according to the mood.

An open photo • favorites dubbed photo tags • quick send as key • options menu

Accordingly, picture browsing via the classic file manager is still possible, but kind of pushed aside with the timeline view missing. This is quite a pity, having in mind, that T650 and K810 have it.

Picture browsing through file manager is also available

Editing a photo in PhotoDJ is just the same nice experience with the available rich options.

PhotoDJ is the same nice piece of software

You can zoom in to the actual size of the picture or even beyond. That would be useless though, especially given the available megapixel count. Extreme zooming in won’t really reveal more details. All you’d get are smudged spots as a result of the interpolation. We were pleased to find that viewing images one by one didn’t involve any lags at all. The high-res photo loaded immediately, which was not the case with picture browsing in K810 or T650. However, when you are zooming in your pictures the phone preloads a lower quality preview.

Zooming in on a photo

The integrated FM radio of the Sony Ericsson K850 has memory for 20 preset stations and supports RDS.

Tuning in a station • options menu with TrackID • channels Auto save is convenient

Camera: 5 megapixel Cyber-shot monster

The Sony Ericsson K850 has a thrilling 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a powerful xenon flash and automatic lens cover. Upgrades are serious in both interface and ergonomics. There’s only one thing the Cyber-shot logo, the 5 megapixel sign and the digicam-like design and keys can’t make up for. And that’s a common drawback of all cameraphones: the lack of real quality optics. As the megapixel count in cameraphones will continue to go up, developing quality optics should be the first thing to address to give cameraphones some competitive edge against low and mid-end digicams. As to the interface, Sony Ericsson K850 is the first Sony Ericsson cameraphone to offer Cyber-shot SE v2.0, inspired by Sony’s T series digital cameras. The major amendments are the pop-up sub-menus enhanced with icons, or even embedded color photos, for even more intuitive performance, and the Multi Menu packing all the available settings. Autofocus mode automatically changes to macro, when a close object is chosen to shoot at and that’s another handy option.

Holding the K850 • dedicated camera keys • camera open

The camera has a toolbar with options, including shooting mode, scenes, picture size, focus, flash, self-timer, ISO, metering mode, white balance, effects, and settings Multi Menu.

Some camera menu options

As most of the options are well known since K810, let’s highlight the novelties only – the ISO sensitivity setting and the settings multi menu. The ISO setting is offered for the first time in a Cyber-shot handset. It allows the user to choose among four light sensitivity settings: auto, ISO 100, 200 and 400.

The Settings multi menu is the second new feature. It looks pretty much the same as in standard digicam menus. All the camera settings are displayed in two menu columns: the left displays the features and the right shows which setting is in use. Pressing the Down key of the D-pad lists all options of a certain feature. The settings on the menu are: Picture Quality, AF light, BestPic, Review, Stabilizer, Save to, Auto rotate, Shutter sound and Reset counter. Thankfully, taking photos with our K850 with the shutter sound switched off is possible. However, autofocusing is still marked by a confirmation beep, but as you already know, it can be muted by turning on silent mode.

Multi menu and some of its options

The Sony Ericsson K850 comes with a Photo Fix application, that provides quick remedy for some defects in the pictures. It is integrated into the camera interface, so a picture can be fixed right after it was taken.

Judging the camera quality of a beta unit is a risky business. Even so, it’s clear the K850 camera is a match for the release version of the camera in Nokia N95. This conclusion is based on our recently published in-depth shootout.

Sony Ericsson K850 sample photos

This 5 megapixel head-to-head covered different shooting conditions for a thorough comparison. We welcome you to read it. We suppose the final version of the camera may perform better and we’re ready to update the shootout if we see considerable improvements in its quality.

The Sony Ericsson K850 has a thrilling 5 megapixel autofocus camera with a powerful xenon flash and automatic lens cover. Upgrades are serious in both interface and ergonomics. There’s only one thing the Cyber-shot logo, the 5 megapixel sign and the digicam-like design and keys can’t make up for.

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The videos taken with K850 are captured in QVGA resolution at 30fps, not a big deal at all. Frankly, we expected at least VGA resolution at 30 fps. The options for the video camera are pretty much the same as those for the still camera with very minor differences. It’s about time Sony Ericsson upgraded the video recording capabilities of their mobile phones.

Sony Ericsson K850 sample video

Video interface

Settings menu

The functionality of the secondary VGA camera is adequate. The other party’s video feed is viewed in a large frame in the middle of the screen, while you view your own image in a small frame in the lower left corner. You can also have your image in mirror-like view, which is much more natural. 2x digital zoom in on your image is also available, as well as the option to replace your live video feed with a picture of your preference. You can also do that during an actual video call, and it’s handy when, for example, you want to show the other party an interesting picture you’ve taken. The options don’t end here. You can further control the exposure compensation of the camera or even switch it into night mode. There are 3 different video quality modes: Smooth, Sharp and Normal. Smooth delivers a smoother picture, while Sharp provides more detailed images.

Video-call camera and options menu

Browsing

Besides the full HSDPA (3.6 Mbps), 3G, EDGE and GPRS for fast data transfers, video calls and content-streaming, the handset offers the usual connectivity capabilities such as USB and Bluetooth with A2DP support.

As we tested, the integrated HTML Access NetFront Internet browser is good enough and does more than an all-right job. It has plenty of options – you can view the pages fullscreen with no menus showing and you can even browse your Web pages in landscape mode. It has WAP and picture modes. It supports content created for HTML 4.01, xHTML 1.0, CSS and Java script, WAP 2.0. The supported security protocols are SSL/TLS. A new option for browsing sites is to use the pan & zoom view mode, and it works much like zooming photos. There’s a connectivity sub-menu added, where you can set the preferred connection, default page, or local connection. The NetFront web browser offers an RSS-feed reader.

Browsing GSMArena.com • some of the browser options • browsing in landscape mode

Generally, the Smart-fit function of the browser does well fitting the web content onto the screen. Scrolling is fast once the page has loaded completely. Our impression is that the Smart-fit function has got an upgrade and does a better job than the one in previous Sony Ericsson models. Other view options are shown below, as well.

Browsing in pan-and-zoom mode • full screen mode • normal screen mode with Smart-Fit off

The Sony Ericsson K850 supports Bluetooth 2.0 with the Human Interface Device (HID) profile, which allows the phone to be used as a remote control for PC and other Bluetooth-enabled devices. Furthermore, the phone could be used as a Bluetooth modem for accessing the Internet on a PC or notebook computer. Bluetooth support also includes the A2DP profile, allowing listening to music on a stereo Bluetooth headset. The K850 supports local and remote synchronization of contacts and calendar events. The local one is with Outlook and a PC, while the remote synchronization works with remote servers. The USB connectivity of the phone has three modes – one for file transfers and one for USB Internet – to put it simply, the second one is for using the phone as a modem. The new one is the media transfer, which directly connects to the Windows media player, and gives full access to tracks placed on your phone, synchronization, play or sorting in playlists.

USB modes and remote control list of options

Tasks & more

The Sony Ericsson K850 offers many time-management features. There is an Organizer icon in the main menu and it contains several applications: File manager, Applications, Video call, Calendar, Tasks, Notes, Synchronization, Timer, Stopwatch, Light, Calculator, and Code memo. The Calendar offers monthly, weekly and daily views. When you add a birth date in the phonebook, the phone prompts adding it to the calendar. Tasks can be two types: simple Tasks and Phone calls. Notes are written similar to messages; T9 dictionary can be used here as well. The Light application let’s you control the LED video light and use it as a flashlight.

The Alarms are part of the main menu. There are five alarm slots available. Each one offers a lot of options – you can choose to repeat the alarm on chosen days of the week or everyday. Text and a picture can be added to the alarm. Furthermore, the alarm’s behavior can be defined in case the time it is due to go off comes while the phone is in silent mode.

Organizer menu • Calendar • Alarms

The Voice recorder has no limit to recording length, making the free memory available the only restriction. The Calculator is the regular Sony Ericsson one, which you should have already seen. It offers the basic functions, no bells and whistles. The stopwatch and countdown timer are also the well known basic applications.

Voice recorder • Calculator • Stopwatch • Timer

Some other applications include the MusicDJ and VideoDJ. VideoDJ is for making your own video clips by mixing already existing ones with still pictures, text and a variety of effects or for making basic cuts using special transitions and adding background music. This can be a very entertaining, indeed. MusicDJ is a very simple application for creating custom polyphonic melodies.

List of applications • MusicDJ main view • MusicDJ options

As for additional applications, the Sony Ericsson K850 comes with HP Print preinstalled.

We believe the Sony Ericsson K850 lives up to the responsibility of being a landmark product in the company portfolio. With rich camera settings, the K850 comes incredibly close to stand-alone digital cameras.

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Gaming

There is only one game preinstalled in our test Sony Ericsson K850. Marble Madness 3D is a about guiding a ball through a 3D map by simply tilting and shaking the phone. It’s motion-oriented game, making use of the handset’s built-in motion sensor, and you may find it quite amusing.

Marble Madness 3D game

Final Words

We believe the Sony Ericsson K850 lives up to the responsibility of being a landmark product in the company portfolio. With rich camera settings, the K850 comes incredibly close to stand-alone digital cameras. The novelties in navigation suggest the K850 will not resort to simply being an upgrade to older Cyber-shot handsets and will be aiming beyond the brand-loyal consumers. However, the first 5 megapixel Cyber-shot will be forced to handle a lot of pressure. It’s been a year since Nokia N95 was introduced, which indisputably outruns K850 in non-cam features. Other tempting 5 megapixel mobiles as LG KU990, Samsung G600, Samsung F700, and Nokia N95 8GB will soon be crowding the cameraphone market. With an expected price tag of about 430 Euro, some users will think twice before buying a K850 at its very release. If the mentioned rival phones get launched at the same time, the domination of Sony Ericsson K850 will be put to a serious test.

Source: http://www.gsmarena.com/sony_ericsson_k850-review-165p6.php