Have you ever thought why Nokia firstly launched the more powerful smartphone (the Lumia 800) being in such a faltering situation when it could release the more affordable Lumia 710 without a risk? That’s Stephen Elop’s strategy, which led to the fact the US starts loving Nokia. Now that the entire globe is talking about Nokia’s first Windows Phone-powered smartphone, the company is preparing for the next strike, the Lumia 710.

The Nokia Lumia 710 was announced by Nokia in October 2011 and released in November 2011 alongside with its elder brother the Nokia Lumia 800. It is the second Windows based phone from Nokia. Company’s CEO has branded these two phones as “the first real Windows Phones.” But he also specifically mentioned the Lumia 710 is more “affordable.”  So this means the Lumia 710 is a mid-range phone, and though it came out simultaneously with its twin brother, it is not the same as the Nokia Lumia 800.  We will try to see what it means in the Nokia 710 preview below.

Design

The Nokia Lumia 710 was codenamed as Sabre, and Nokia is not naming its devices out of nothing. This phone was meant to look like a curved sabre and it does look one. It is beautifully designed in front and back colors and is available in black and white for the front cover and black, white, cyan, fuchsia and yellow for the back cover. So there is a plenty of color combination possibility as to user’s taste. While being only a smaller (and accordingly a weaker) brother to the Lumia 800, this handset’s design is fantastic in the strict sense of the word, it  resembles a highly sophisticated but simple device snatched from aliens, or some say even it resembles a medical tool, used for instance in the dentist’s cabinet.

The front panel features stylish physical buttons below the screen, and that’s all for the front, apart only for the proximity sensor, which can be taken as a front camera, but there isn’t one. The power button, the headset jack and the USB port are all on the port and there is a volume control and camera buttons on the side. The back has a 5MB camera with a single LED flash and there is a speaker grille below.

The device is made from smooth plastic and feels nice in the hand. Its dimensions are 119×62.4×12.48 mm and it weighs only 126 gr.

Display

The Nokia Lumia 710 is equipped with a 3.7-inch TFT capacitive, multi-touch display with the resolution of 480×800 pixels (252 ppi in density). The screen uses ClearBlack technology for better auto contrasting and readability under direct sunlight conditions. It displays nice colorful images with 16M colors and has also light and proximity sensors. You can also be sure your screen is durable as it uses GorillaGlass.

Camera

The handset comes with a 5MP back camera shooting with a 1280x720p resolution, and that’s ok, for this phone is not meant to take professional photos of presidents and then display those images in a photo competition. We can say it is a simple camera for home users; the quality of it is enough to satisfy every good taste. The camera is packed with autofocus, touch to focus, video stabilizers, face detection and digital zoom function. Video shooting is nice, with 720p HD and 30 fps. However, the Nokia Lumia 710 has no frontal camera: but this is not Nokia’s fault, it’s just Windows Phones do not have it on them.

Hardware

The Nokia Lumia 710 is equipped with a single core 1.4GHz Snapdragon processor to enable you to multi-task smoothly. The device has modest 512 MB RAM and 8Gb of internal memory with no memory card slot. The phone comes packed with a standard 1300 mAh Li-Ion battery, which will provide you 400 hours in standby mode (2G), up to 7 hours of talk time (2G) and up to 38 hours of music play back mode (3G).

Software

The Lumia 710 and the Lumia 800 are the first Nokia smartphones running Windows Phone operation system. The current version installed is 7.5 called Mango. So expect to find all standard applications, which come along with Mango. The soft includes smart IE9 for quick navigation and support of HTML5, full integration with the social networking trio: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Gamers are going to get their favorites through Xbox Live Hub. A separate attention should be paid to ESPN’s Sports Hub, which will provide sport fans with access to sports news, scores and statistics. You can watch ESPN sport analysis or selected video clips, plus you can use GPS for finding information on local sports. The app can be customized to the preferred sport type and team. You can send your letter in a more professional way through Microsoft Mobile.

Nokia has packed the phone with its own exclusive applications, like Nokia Drive and Nokia Music. Nokia Drive is also available on the Lumia 800 and it’s basically a sat-navigation application. You can use preloaded maps or download whatever maps you like. It can show 3D maps and is quick to fix your location and guide you step-by–step to your desired navigation, displaying how much distance was covered and how much is still left to get to the destination.

Another exclusive application from Nokia is Nokia Radio with its Radio Mix feature. It boasts of 15 million tracks available, which are divided by genre and artist, and which can be downloaded for offline listening. Create then your offline playlists and turn your mobile into an independent radio station.

Conclusion

To sum up the view for the Nokia Lumia 710 it should be stressed that this phone is produced for mid-range sales, so it is correspondingly priced. The Lumia 710 will launch Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Russia before the end of the year and will cost €270 ($376).

It is customary to write in reviews the phone in question is the latest technological achievement of humankind, but we will not say it for the Lumia 710, which knows the modest place it belongs. But this phone is different from others, because it has its own unique personality, its own soul. It is true that in its white version, it can resemble a small refrigerator, but then who said fridges are bad things (especially in summer time).

The Lumia 710 will look amazingly beautiful if you are traveling by air. Take to any airport and just compare it if you can to the body of any passenger airplane, and you will see what I mean. The Lumia 710 would be equally great for dentists and flight attendants in its white/blue combination, and for teenagers in its various other colors. It is true its elder brother Lumia 800 is much stronger, but to me the Lumia 710 can win the heart by its design, professional character and smooth behavior.

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Announced at Nokia World 2011 on October 26 the Nokia Lumia 800 is the company’s first smartphone running Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. It denoted the turn the company made from previously used operating systems – Symbian and MeeGo. The phone was officially launched in the UK on November 16, and is reported to be available also in the US, though not officially announced. Nokia has stated this was their “best launch ever.”

Nokia Lumia 800 Design

Nokia keeps traditions in letting users see where the screen ends on the phone, that is the screen does not occupy all the front space, but stops a little before the edges thus creating beautiful margins clearly discernible in non-black models. The Nokia Lumia 800 is made from a single piece of polycarbonate and is available in black, pink and cyan colors. The phone comes with dimensions of 116.5×61.2×12.1mm and weighs only 142 g. The corners of the phone are markedly pointed, which makes it very handy, but if you are a fan of roundish phones, this can be uncomfortable for you. On the top you can find the headset jack and hidden microUSB and microSIM card slots, which are a little hard to open. The tradition lovers would find on the back a big metallic oval segment with the camera eye, Nokia and Carl Zeiss brands on it. Right upwards to it there is a smaller oval segment with the flash. On the right there are chrome buttons for volume, power and camera.

Nokia Lumia 800 Display

The Lumia 800 boasts of a 3.7-inch AMOLED capacitive curved glass display powered with Gorilla Glass and Clear Black Display technologies. The first one does not let the display be scratched, and the latter allows users to see the texts and pictures with the same quality under the sunlight. Moreover, the screen can be Swype-ed and supports multi-touch input. Its resolution is 480×800 pixels and it supports 16 million colors.

Nokia Lumia 800 Hardware

The Nokia Lumia 800 is quite powerful, when it comes to hardware. The phone is packed with a 1.4 GHz Scorpion processor with Adreno 205 GPU meaning we are dealing with a high-speed CPU. This processor is in a good collaboration with 16GB of internal memory and 512MB of RAM. The memory can’t be expanded, because Microsoft has its limitation on this. The device comes with a 1450mAh battery and from a single charge it will provide 9.5 hours of talk mode, 7 hours playback, 55 hours music playback and 335 hours standby time. As for connectivity, it is a “beast.”

Connectivity specs:

• WEP
• WPA
• 802.11b/g/n
• WPA2-Personal
• WPA-Enterprise

1. Data synchronization

• ActiveSync
• Microsoft Zune for PC and Mac Connector Software

2. Local connectivity

• WiFi
• Micro USB
• Bluetooth 2.1 +EDR
• USB 2.0 High-Speed
• 3.5mm AHJ Connector
• Bluetooth Stereo Audio

Nokia Lumia 800 Camera

The handset is equipped with an 8MP camera from Carl Zeiss Optics, an autofocus, a dual-LED flash and is able to record HD videos at 720p and 30fps. There is no front-facing camera; it’s not Nokia’s fault, but Microsoft’s. Unfortunately, the phone lacks zooming option, which is not that good. You can make nice videos during the day, but the camera seems to be a bit slow to respond to the sudden brightness change and the focal range is poor. In low light condition, the Lumia 800 gets more nervous to focus, but the dual LED flash can be turned on permanently while videoing and enabling focus and color settings to achieve closer to daylight quality.

Nokia Lumia 800 sample photos

Nokia Lumia 800 sample video

Software

The Lumia 800 runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, which provides an ultra-simple exploitation experience. The WP7 enables you to run several applications in the background, but only selected apps can do so, while the rest are just disabled (suspended). There are a couple of exclusive applications installed, including Nokia Drive, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music, App Highlights and Contacts Transfer app, which lets you quickly transfer contacts from your old phone. Add to it such indispensable tools as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, Chat and SMS. The Symbian users were already accustomed to Nokia’s profile situations like General, Silent, Meeting, Outdoor, Pager and Offline, but they all disappeared on the Lumia 800, except for the Flight Mode and putting the phone only into vibrate mode. Many people were viewing these profile options as redundant, but just now their presence could be very handy considering the currently abound development of location and time based auto profile switching applications. As to closing applications, the previous Symbian experience of hitting the back physical button is gone, but it is done through the screen back button.

Nokia drive

For drivers, there is a very useful Nokia Drive navigation application, which is very similar to Google’s Maps or TomTom. This can display the map of your position, the directions to drive, the car’s speed and the distance to your destination. It supports 2D and 3D maps, a night mode and satellite view, you can download (via WiFI) maps from over 100 country locations and it shows the distance to be covered.

Nokia Music

Nokia Music opens to show the number of tracks saved on the phone. A quick tap then opens an A-Z list showing Artist, Album, Song, Genre or Playlist.

A swipe to the left from the main Nokia Music screen takes to the Mix Radio, which is a streaming service transmitted through the data connection. The playlists are refreshed each week and there’s a choice of genres to pick from. The Mp3 Store is accessible with another swipe, and one more swipe will give you information on local gigs with prices and other info. It is a standard FM radio, requiring the headphones to act as an antenna to connect to the station. There is also the Marketplace, which provides access to purchase additional music for your personal collection from the Microsoft store.

Nokia Lumia 800 Unboxing

So you have bought the smartphone and now it is time to extricate it from its box, which is pretty attractive and implies there is a high-end device inside. Apart from the phone itself, there is a rather impressive pack of manuals in different languages, and this is not surprising remembering this device has quite different specs compared to Nokia’s previous handset both on technical and operational side. Then there are the charger, the USB cable and a headset. Nicely enough, there is a casing to be found inside just like it was in case of the Nokia N9, which makes protecting the phone from scratches possible right from the unboxing stage. It fits perfectly and smoothly and makes noticing there is a case virtually impossible.

Conclusion

The Nokia Lumia 800 is a new generation high-end smartphone and an amazing thing to own, to feel and to want. It can inspire to new levels and dimensions of experience and experimentation. Judging by the reactions coming from the countries where it is officially available we can deduce it gets and will continue to get very good reception among general public and it seems irrespective of where it is. This of course comes as a disappointment to those, who think the Finnish company is dead, and cannot compete with its main competitors , but again, factual responses prove this is just an illusion and has nothing to do with reality. One of the main advantages this smartphone has is it is very simple to use; it just speaks to you, it responds to your demands very smoothly.

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The Nokia Lumia 710 is one of Nokia’s two available Windows Phone Mango handsets. While cheaper in price, the handset does win the Nokia Lumia 800 in terms of design. The handset comes in candy bar form factor with a 3.7-inch display covered with Gorilla Glass technology. Here it kind of resembles the Nokia 603.

The handset is available only in two color options, black and white. But this doesn’t mean you need to get additional cases to make your device colorful; the manufacturer gives you a list of interesting back cover options, including black, white, fuchsia, cyan and yellow. And when purchasing the handset you get a chance to choose one more color option in the form of the cover.

WP Mango means the handset comes with typical Windows Phone screen tiles. To make them more matching with the handsets, Nokia and Microsoft decided to offer customizable colors for the tiles. WP Mango OS saves the situation with the small dimension of the display allowing to have large icons and larger texts.

The display of the handset is protected with ClearBlack technology, accordingly the users will not have any trouble while reading texts under direct sunlight. The LCD type of display might not be as great as the AMOLED one, which comes with the Nokia Lumia 800, but trust me, the difference is not that significant.

Below the display we have the WP typical buttons, Back and Search. The buttons lay on the slim curved plastic bubble. Working with the design the manufacturer did a great job, while the same cannot be said about the responsiveness: some of the customers claim this design doesn’t allow them to finger where to push not getting to the button next to it.

The Nokia Lumia 710 is basically made of plastic. Even the battery cover is made of plastic, in contrast to the latest models, such as the Nokia 701. It’s good the manufacturer decided to avoid matte cover, as in the case of white and black options the overall elegance of the handsets could be lost. As for the rest of color options I think it would actually make sense.

The plastic makes the handset lighter. It weighs only 125.5 g, which is in average 40 grams less than the handsets of the same form factor. But we should consider it also makes the handset less shock-resistant. Still one material usage allows avoiding the use of expensive cases, which are designed to protect each material of the handset separately.

On the upper part of the front we can find the loudspeaker and sensors. If this speaker is placed conveniently, then the same doesn’t go for the back loudspeaker. It turns out to be way too large, which means while listening to music or watching videos, at least part of the speaker is being covered either with the hand or with any other surface. Still in terms of design, this large speaker looks amazingly attractive.

The handset comes with only a rear camera placed on the back. This doesn’t have to deal with Nokia itself, but rather with the impossibility of Windows Phone OS to support front-facing cameras. As for the rear camera, we have pretty large lens, coming with a round-edged design, which ideally fits into the overall style solution of the handset.

The 3.5 mm audio jack and the power on/off buttons are placed on the top of the device. Interestingly, the micro-USB port is also located on the top. This is a sign showing you will not find any ports on the sides of the handset, well, except for the camera and the volume up/down button (which seem to be smaller than those on Nokia’s previous models). This is not that great if we consider the lock button is on the top, so you need to stretch for unlocking the handset every other time. The inconvenience is basically caused by the “not that small dimensions” of the handset. Still this fact is pretty awesome for those in love with special protective cases, as they will not have that many cuts, protecting the smartphone in the best way possible.

And the final interesting feature of the handset is its thickness. The device is only 8.11 mm thick. So it’s one of Nokia’s slimmest handsets.

The only component missing on this device is the Eco-friendliness. If on the Nokia 701 the manufacturer used materials, which can be safely recycled, then this is not the case with the Nokia Lumia 710.

Overall, the design of the handset is pretty attractive. It will definitely attract the attention of the young segment of customers. While I think it can look good in the portfolio of businessmen and business ladies as well.

The Nokia C7 is the second device from Nokia coming with Symbian^3 operating system. The original name of the model used to be the Nokia C7-00, which was then officially cut to the Nokia C7. The handset is also known as the Nokia Astound. This device and the Nokia N8 simply have almost the same software package. The basic difference here is the camera and the design. In both cases the winner is the Nokia N8, coming with a 12 megapixel camera and a buttonless touch display. The customers will be required to pay way less for the Nokia C7 and this is where the situation will shift in favor of the Nokia C7.

For the first time Nokia is trying to show the camera emphasize is not the most important criterion for a smartphone. Interestingly, with the introduction of the Nokia Astound the manufacturer also decided to introduce its luxury version called the Nokia Oro. This handset comes at the price of  $1635. It’s made of 18 carat gold, sapphire crystals and hand wrapped leather featuring the same specs as the original device.

The Specs of the Nokia C7 include:

Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900, HSDPA 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz
Operating system: Symbian^3, upgradable to Symbian Anna OS
CPU: 680 MHz ARM 11 processor, Broadcom BCM2727 GPU
Screen: 3.5 inch, 640 x 360 pixel, AMOLED, capacitive
Camera: 8 megapixels, dual LED flash, face detection and geo-tagging features
Memory: 8 GB storage, 256 MB RAM, 1 GB ROM, expandable through memory card Micro SD
Connectivity: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, NFC, compass
Battery: 1200 mAh, BL-5K
Size: 117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5 mm
Weight: 130 gram

Design

Externally, the model looks like a typical Nokia device, but with some sort of innovative touch. The handset comes with a plastic casing similar to those of the Nokia C6 and the Nokia N97. But luckily the back cover of the battery is made of metal. But to call the sense of the device the same as those of metal bars will not be true. It’s mostly plastic, and it’s obvious when you hold the phone.

The handset turns out to be slightly sleeker than the rest of smartphones using 3.5 inch displays. While still an older model the handset comes with 10.1 mm thickness, which is pretty slim for the devices of its kind.

Display

The screen is similar to other models from Nokia, e.g. the Nokia X6. Its resolution is 640×360 pixels and 3.5 inches. It’s covered with special plastic glass, displaying up to 16 million colors. The screen Type is AMOLED, but it cannot be compared with the Super AMOLED from Samsung, this technology is of a different generation. The screen is comparable to the Nokia N8 and the Nexus One. Under direct sunlight it comes with a good picture quality, and it’s here that it triumphs over other handsets.

The display accommodates up to 16 lines of text (not in all modes), supports three font sizes chosen by your phone. It somewhat fades in the sun, but it is typical of this type of screens (exception — all the same Super AMOLED).

This is one of the first products from Nokia, supporting multitouch, you just have to make moves with your fingers (pinch-to-zoom), so that the image gets separated. The screen is capacitive, similar in execution to that of the Nokia X6 and behaves exactly the same way. Sensitivity of the display in most cases is satisfactory, but sometimes it does not react to clicks (software flaw, just like that of the X6).

Connectivity

This is the second version of the Nokia with Bluetooth 3.0, which is also called High Speed. When transferring files to other devices with this technology it activates Wi-Fi 802.11 n, a theoretical transfer rate is about 24 Mbit/sec.

The model supports various profiles, particularly, Headset, Hands free, Serial Port, Dial Up Networking, File Transfer, Object Push, Basic Printing, SIM Access and A2DP. Working with the headset does not cause any difficulties. It also supports standard Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g n. It’s not the first device on the market with such a set of connectivity, still it’s kind of nice to see all of the features available on a single device. And everything works like a clock, without causing any problems.

Camera

The Nokia C7 comes with an awesome 8 megapixel camera with an autofocus, which is great. It just walks behind the 12 megapixel camera of the Nokia N8, but I don’t think it’s a big deal. Originally these two cameras cannot be compared due to the difference in megapixels, still both of them are capable of using f/2.8 aperture rating for low-light shooting. The Nokia C7′s camera is using a dual-LED flash and an EDoF focusing system, but the Nokia N8′s camera is using Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and Xenon flash.

With the Symbian Anna update the Nokia C7′s camera got much improved.

Memory Capacities

The device comes with 8GB of built-in memory, plus there’s a chance of microSD expansion for up to 32GB. The RAM of the device is 256 MB (in contrast, the Nokia N97 Mini has only 128 MB of RAM). For Nokia this is a giant leap forward, which means an increase in the stability of the system and speed.

Battery

The capacity of the device battery is 1200 mAh. The phone can work up to 390 hours in standby mode and from 5.5 to 12 hours in talk time mode (UMTS/GSM).

On the downside is that the battery will require charging in two days. Against the background of many competitors, who do not live more than one day, this is a good indicator. The main energy eater is the desktop with widgets. The total time for recharging is about 2 hours.

Software

Unfortunately, in all its glory this model shows that Nokia’s efforts to create social applications for its Symbian^3 smartphones were futile. In contrast to previous trend of different apps for different series, Nokia’s now decided to have identical apps for all Symbian^3 devices.

The manufacturer has created a separate application, which brings together all the accounts of social networking websites, while the authentication occurs via Ovi. This is an attempt to artificially increase the number of Ovi users.

The handset comes with three different homescreens. The shift to another homescreen can be obtained with the use of Swype technology. This time the homescreens are more widgetized, thus you get a chance to optimize widgets for each of the homescreens.

Ovi Store

The handset comes with Ovi Store allowing to have a large list of free applications and games for download. Due to the fact that at the moment Angry Birds is also available for Symbian^3 devices, the Nokia C7 gives you the chance to experience this Apple-designed game on your device.

The Nokia C7 comes with pre-installed Adobe Reader and QuickOffice, but for the editing of the documents you will be required to get a paid update from Ovi Stores. The smartphone also supports Flash Lite 4.0 allowing to watch videos with the YouTube app (also coming as one of the pre-installed apps).

Conclusion

Describing my impressions of the Nokia C7 I should mention it’s among the top smartphones on Symbian^3. Judge yourself, it does not support HDMI-output, and a 12-megapixel camera, but there are other features of the Nokia N8 available on this device.

At this point in the C line there is the Nokia C6, which has a QWERTY-keyboard, is expensive and is not very attractive. Thus this model comes to fill the gap. It’s a nice device for those accustomed to Symbian. Coming with a small number of interesting games and an old interface, the device features several high-end specs. It can be called a great device running Symbian S^3 in terms of price/quality ratio.

The Nokia 701 is the new business device from Nokia coming with the Symbian Belle. Earlier it was known as the Nokia Helen. Its design is very similar to that of the Nokia C7-00, but the specs of the device and the software are very different. I must firstly note that it’s working on the latest OS  from Symbian, which strongly differs from the previous generation of smartphones. In addition to this, the Nokia 701 comes to be one of the first devices from Nokia using the latest version of codenaming.

The specs of the Nokia 701 include:

Network: GSM / EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 MHz
Operating system: Symbian Belle
CPU Speed: 1GHz
Screen: 3.5 inch, 640 x 360 pixel, LCD ClearBlack
Camera: 8 megapixels, LED backlit, fixed focus, HD video smka
Memory: 8 GB internal memory, expandable through memory card Micro SD
Connectivity: Wi-Fi b / g / n, Bluetooth 3.0, A-GPS, NFC, compass
Battery: 1300 mAh, BL-5K,
Size: 117.3 x 56, 8 x 11 mm
Weight: 131 gram

Unboxing

The Nokia 701 comes in a box with only a few accessories, which is the typical package for most of the latest Nokia devices. The box includes handsets, typical charger (no wireless charging accessories unfortunately) and USB cable. The rest of the accessories need to be purchased separately. The simplicity of the box is also reasoned by the fact that the device will come at somewhat higher price and thus there’s no need to add more accessories, which will raise the price of the box even more.

Design

The device is quite thin. It’s not among those less than 10mm devices, but still 11mm is not a big deal. The Nokia 701 is partially made of elastic plastic. This means it’s not that heavy. The only component, where the device is made of metal is the back part. The battery is covered with a special detachable metal piece, which makes it comfortable in touch and easy in changing the battery.

The edges of the handset are pretty rounded. This gives the handset a somewhat childish appearance, though I would say round edges are great anyway.

The smartphone is the “greenest” handset in the company’s portfolio. The device is made of “green” materials, as well as plastic and metal, which can be decomposed by microorganisms. This is a good step towards attracting customers who prefer “green” lifestyle.

The device comes in 4 different colors: Steel Dark, Silver Light, Amethyst Violet and White.

Display

“The brightest display in the world today.” This is how the representatives of the company introduce the handset to public. And they’re not mistaken because the display of the new phone comes with an innovative technology. It’s built on the IPS ClearBlack technology, which provides the best display experience among the high-end devices. The resolution of the display is not that large, reaching 360 x 640 pixels with a diagonal of 3.5 inches, this is good enough for the smartphones of this class. The display of the Nokia 701 is larger than the display of the devices of the same series, that is the Nokia 600 and the Nokia 700. It’s also protected by Gorilla Glass technology.

Hardware

Just like other smartphones based on Symbian Belle, the Nokia 701 runs on a 1 GHz single-core processor, has Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n, chipset, GPS, 3,5-mm jack, Micro USB connector (USB2.0), accelerometer, ambient light sensors and proximity. The built-in memory of the device is 8 GB; in addition there is a slot for microSD memory card up to 32GB. The main improvement in the hardware is the GPU. Its performance has been increased four-fold compared with the previous generation of Symbian phones.

Camera

The camera of the Nokia 701 is simply great. It’s an 8 megapixel one, which is the latest trend among the high-end devices of its class. The camera allows to shoot pictures with a resolution of 3264 x 2448 pixels. The video capturing capabilities allow to shoot videos in HD format (720p). The camera comes with Dual LED flash but unfortunately autofocus is missing. Nevertheless, for a camera like this the lack of the autofocus cannot be regarded as a disadvantage.

The handset is also using a front VGA camera designed for video chatting.

Battery

The device comes with a 1300 mAh battery. At first glance it’s too weak for such a smartphone. But as the company says, it provides 17 hours of talk time and 71 hours of music playback, which is not bad. At any moment the battery of the handset can be replaced.

Software

The device comes with the possibility to support multiple homescreens coming with their individual wallpapers. The choice of the widgets is not that large, but obviously the basic widgets have gone through interesting changes and you can always get more of them from Ovi Store.

The handset comes with the latest version of Nokia Maps. The application will allow to have free-offline worldwide voice navigation, including such territories as the U.S.

The device comes with the same virtual keyboard option, which is basic for all Symbian Anna devices. This is something great, as the keyboard is quite large and allows to have a great typing experience. In addition to it, there’s a predictive text input feature, which helps avoid making too many typing errors.

The rest of the interesting apps and features of the Nokia 701 include NFC support, SNS Integration, Photo editor and organizer.

Symbian Belle

At the moment the Nokia 701 is running Symbian Belle. But the manufacturer got this version of the Symbian OS to the handset as an update as originally the smartphone used Symbian Anna. Now we have the last version of the Symbian operating system. It has gone through a list of improvements compared with Symbian Anna. A set of applications for Symbian Belle will include a number of programs from Microsoft, including Microsoft PowerPoint Broadcast, Microsoft Lync 2010 Mobile, Microsoft OneNote and Microsoft Document Connection.

Symbian Belle adds contextual navigational buttons, which used to be the prerogative of MeeGo- Harmattan. It includes typical back, search and context buttons, which are being modernized by the page you are in adding something like attachment button while writing an email.

Pros

• Bright display
• Small dimensions
• Symbian Belle OS

Cons

• Fixed-camera not supporting macro shots
• Default browser has some bugs

Conclusion

Nokia 701 is a great smartphone that runs on a platform of Symbian ^ 3 Belle with an ARM 11 1 GHz processor and has IPS-display reflecting up to 16 million colors. This means the device is ideal for using outdoors without worrying that the display will get blurry under direct sunlight. It looks elegant and most importantly, without any kind of unnecessary details as kickstand.

The specs of the smartphone are also amazing. It has a great 8 megapixel camera (it’s the best option and will be the best until the time Nokia releases a 12 megapixel camera), noise cancellation option, Nokia Maps and Symbian Belle. Let’s say this is currently one of the best options available on the market.

Some or many, you and may be myself as well, just people around claim the Samsung Galaxy S2 is the best Android-based smartphone in the world at the moment. Samsung’s device heads many lists of top Android smartphones and plays a draw with high-end smartphones like the HTC Sensation.

After reading some reviews about the Samsung Galaxy S2 and after holding it in my hand and enjoying its good-quality build and stylish design, I thought if Nokia has a smartphone powerful and cool enough to compete with it. The first candidate that came to my mind was the Nokia N8. And now I will try to compare it with Samsung’s latest smartphone to find out which one is cooler or hotter – whichever you like! Samsung Galaxy S2 deals (and its white version as well) are long available by most of the carriers worldwide, so of course, not only technical aspects matter but as well pricing of the phone. So stay with us after the cut to know more.

Design

The Samsung Galaxy S2 and the Nokia N8 are both well-made touchscreen-only smartphones, but I guess that’s the only thing they have in common. Nokia’s device has a metal body made of a single sheet of anodized aluminum, but it’s not as heavy as you could think – only 135g. The Galaxy S2 – one of the best Samsung Phones ever – is plastic, very thin and very light (116g). Both smartphones have well-crafted and responsive physical buttons around.

As for overall design, the Nokia N8 is kind of more “edgy,” while the Galaxy S2 is sleek and elegant. I guess both will find their fans, but I personally like the Galaxy’s sleekness more. On the other hand, Samsung’s device is available in one color only, and those who don’t like dull black phones will surely pay more attention to the bright colors of the N8, which is available in Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange and Pink (I guess this pink version is the most popular one now, especially among girls).

Display

The Samsung Galaxy S2 features a 4.3-inch Super AMOLED Plus display (480 x 800 pixels) and the Nokia N8’s display is a 3.5-inch (360 x 640 pixels) AMOLED touchscreen. Which one is better? Of course the Super AMOLED Plus one, this goes without saying… It’s clearer, it’s thin and it consumes less energy than a regular AMOLED screen.

Of course, I can’t say the N8’s touchscreen is bad, no. It’s really good, it shows clear and bright colors, but the Galaxy S2’s Super AMOLED Plus is cooler anyway. Period.

By the way, both displays are protected by the Gorilla Glass technology, so both are rather durable and scratch-resistant.

Processor

Many people wonder why Nokia has decided to equip one of its best smartphones with a not that powerful 680MHz processor if its next phones (not that powerful ones) are going to come with better CPU. Well, anyway, Nokia’s 680MHz ARM 11 can’t compete with the dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor Samsung has used in its flagship, but it provides steady performance and it’s still much faster than many 1GHz processors, even dual-core ones. I remember once we compared the single-core 680MHz processor of the Nokia N8 and the dual-core 1GHz processor of the Motorola Atrix 4G. Nokia was the winner. I don’t think Nokia’s CPU will still win in a fight against Samsung’s one, but still no one can say it’s to weak, it’s too slow or something.

Besides, Samsung’s device is faster not only because of the more powerful CPU, but thanks to its RAM amount (which is much more than the N8’s –1024MB against 256MB) as well.

Platform

I’m not in the mood for comparing the Nokia N8’s Symbian^3 OS (recently upgraded to Symbian Anna) and the Samsung Galaxy S2’s Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Both have their stronger and weaker sides, and this topic has been discussed for many, many times. It’s not that Android has many fair advantages over Symbian OS, just many people prefer Google’s OS, and it’s just a matter of taste. If you’re one of those people, the Samsung Galaxy S2 should be your smartphone of choice. If you like Symbian, too, maybe you should pay attention to the Nokia N8, I’m sure it’s worth it.

However, I can’t help mentioning that Android Market has much more apps (about 300,000) than Nokia’s Ovi Store (less than 50,000, if I’m not mistaken). So if you’re an app fun, Android with its Android Market will seem more attractive to you.

Camera

Here is where the Nokia N8 is the confident winner. Right now Nokia’s smartphone has the most powerful camera in the market, able to take huge 4000×3000 pics, highly detailed and beautiful as if taken with a professional camera. Well, a 12MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and auto-focus isn’t a joke!

The camera of the Samsung Galaxy S2 is much weaker – it’s only an 8MP camera usual for all high-end devices found in the market. It has LED flash and auto-focus and takes 3264×2448 pics that are maybe a bit worse than those taken by the N8, but look very good anyway.

As for videos, the N8’s camera shoots 720p videos at 30fps (upgraded from 25fps with a camera update). Maybe it’s a bit strange, but the videos shot by the Galaxy S2 are 1080p at 30fps.

Battery

So the Samsung Galaxy S2 is a great smartphone that needs a powerful battery. The manufacturer has equipped it with a standard Li-Ion 1650mAh battery that provides about 18.3 hours of talk time and 29.6 days of standby time.

The battery of the Nokia N8 is weaker, only 1200 mAh (standard Li-Ion again). It provides up to 12 hours of talk time (more than 50 percent less than Samsung’s battery) and 16.2 days in standby (about 80 percent less). It’s enough for many people, so I can’t say a weaker battery is a terrible shortcoming. But the fact that the battery of the N8 is not removable is a serious shortcoming, I think  – you won’t be able to replace it if you want a more powerful one.

Price

So we see the Samsung Galaxy S2 is a great smartphone, and it’s more powerful than the Nokia N8 in many aspects. That’s why it’s much more expensive, too. If the Nokia N8 can be bought for about 260 Euros (about $376), you’ll have to pay about 550 Euros ($795) for the Galaxy S2 – it’s almost twice more.

So if you want a really powerful smartphone – the best Android smartphone in the market – and can pay about $800 for it, go for the Samsung Galaxy S2. And if you want to pay less and get a weaker, but still a very good device with a powerful camera, the N8 is your choice.

One more thing – it’s not really easy to find the N8 in the U.S., especially if you want it with a contract with a carrier. But you won’t face the same problem with the Galaxy S2, which is available in all corners of the world – you can easily find many affordable Samsung Galaxy S2 deals both in Europe and in the U.S.

galaxy s2 schutzfolie

Last year we thought Nokia was going to release several MeeGo-based smartphones. But later we learned that the Nokia N9 was going to be the only MeeGo device of the company. Before it’s released, I would like to write a Nokia N9 preview to understand what specs, what advantages and what shortcomings this upcoming Nokia smartphone has.

Design

The Nokia N9 comes with an innovative design. So far all Nokia devices had at least a few buttons on the display, but the Nokia N9 is an exception — it comes with a blank screen totally relying on the touchscreen capabilities. I think this was a good chance for Nokia to work over the Swype technology to make it as perfect as possible.

Anyway, there are still three buttons on the side of the device, one of them is definitely for the camera, but the functions of the other two are yet unknown.

The homescreen menu gives a chance to store more icons, so it seems to be rather good. The color versions of the device are rather interesting, too. Instead of the classical green and silver, we get black, magenta and cyan versions.

Display

The Nokia N9 is equipped with a 3.9-inch AMOLED display with a resolution of  480 × 854. It’s rather small — a blank screen with no buttons should’ve provided a larger display… Still this is a good choice for those who enjoy watching videos on their handsets. The device comes with ClearBlack technology, which makes the colors look even brighter. Besides, the display is protected by the famous Gorilla Glass Technology.

Hardware

The CPU packaging of the handset is going to include 1GHz Cortex A8 CPU, PowerVR SGX530 GPU, TI OMAP 3630 chipset, which will allow the users to get most out of their device, including such features as fast web-browsing and high-quality display.

The most disappointing thing in the device is perhaps its battery. There’s a rumor that it will be a standard 1450mAh battery, which will not be strong enough to support a long run of the device, so the users will have to get an additional battery.

There are two versions of the Nokia N9 — 16GB and 64GB, while the RAM and ROM capacities are going to be correspondingly 1GB and 512MB for both of the versions. And there’s unluckily no chance for expanding the memory due to the absence of the microSD card slots.

Camera

The camera of the Nokia N9 is going to be 8MP with a list of improvements and nice features. Instead of the previous 3MP usage for the widescreen mode, the users will now sacrifice only 1.6 megapixel of it. You are getting 8.7 million active pixels supporting 1.45:1 aspect ratio, which is ideal for shooting in 4:3 and 16:3 modes. The second optimization is not only the use of the Carl Zeiss lens, but the idea of having it with its largest aperture.

That’s why the shots of the Nokia N9 are expected to be around 75 percent brighter than those of the Nokia N8. And finally we have the Xenon LED Flash with a 20 percent improved performance.

Software

The Nokia N9 comes with a list of interesting and useful applications and features. Most of them come available straight from the display with interesting and elegant icons. This makes the applications even easier to use with a quick access.

Homescreen

MeeGo OS allows to have 3 different options of homescreen — “Events,” “Applications” and “Open Apps.” The first one is designed to demonstrate the social networking alerts (including pre-installed Skype, Facebook, GoogleTalk and Twitter) and system notifications. The second one is for those who are spending most of their time on apps, allowing the user to customize various apps on the homescreen in a desired order. And finally, the “Open Apps” feature is rumored to deal with a list of third-party apps, which didn’t get the chance to get placed among the basic applications of the handset.

Apps

RSS Feeds

This application will help the customers to be updated about what’s goin’ on around. The system of the features is as simple as in case of the typical PCs. You should head to the websites you want to get the updates from and subscribe. Then all of these news will appear on your screen in the chronological order, similar to one for Facebook news feed.

Email App

This is an ideal option for all those who have multiple email accounts. Sometimes it’s too hard to have a quick shift between them. This application allows to use your email accounts simultaneously. You just need to head back to the homescreen and go to the account that you need at the moment. The application also seems to be good for working with the email attachments.

Notes

The idea of making notes for not forgetting your duties is really fun in this application. Here you can use various font styles and colors for different events. The application has an icon on the homescreen, which means that you can always have quick notes if required.

Availability

The Nokia N9 was rumored to come with a “worldwide edition.” But afterwards Nokia changed its mind removing the device from a list of countries, including even such territories as the U.S., Germany, the UK, Switzerland and Austria. Those countries are going to wait for Windows Phone devices from Nokia. Meanwhile such countries as Russia and Khazakhstan are going to get the device! Still both in the UK and U.S. some retailers will offer the unlocked version of the handset.

The price for the unlocked version from Amazon is rumored to be $650 and $500 correspondingly for the 16 GB and 64GB options.

Pros

• Swype technology
• Gorilla Glass technology
• 8MP camera

Cons

• Small display
• No physical keyboard
• Limited availability

Conclusion

The Nokia N9 is a great device featuring MeeGo “Harmattan” build. This is the first buttonless device from Nokia coming with great Swype technology and great features. It comes with interesting color options and seems to be cheaper than most of the other smartphones with the same features. Nokia has promised to release updates for its only MeeGo-based device, so you shouldn’t be afraid that the smartphone will be forgotten.

So… I guess the Nokia N9 is a good device worth being bought when it’s released!

Several days ago I read a post comparing the HTC Thunderbolt and Apple’s iPhone 4 and thought it would be interesting to try to compare the iPhone 4 with the upcoming Nokia N9.

Display

The Nokia N9 has a 3.9-inch Amoled capacitive touchscreen the resolution of which is 480 x 854 pixels (238 pixels-per-inch (ppi)). The iPhone 4’s display is smaller – 3.5-inch (LED-backlit IPS TFT capacitive touchscreen) – but it has a higher resolution – 640×960 (with 326ppi pixel density), so it should be cleared and probably brighter.

Both displays support the multi-touch input method, have accelerometer sensors for UI auto-rotate and proximity sensors for auto turn-off. The Nokia N9, however, used the Gorilla Glass technology to protect its touchscreen from scratches and has an anti-glare polarizer. The iPhone 4 has a scratch-resistant oleophobic surface on its screen.

Gorilla Glass is great, of course, but iPhone’s screen is not too vulnerable, too. Besides, it has a higher resolution, as I mentioned above, so it seems to be even a bit better than the display of the Nokia N9. But let’s not hurry to jump to conclusions and have a look at the other features of these two smartphones.

Hardware

Both devices have single-core 1GHz processors (Cortex A8 CPU with PowerVR SGX530 GPU and TI OMAP 3630 chipset will be found in the Nokia N9, and ARM Cortex-A8 processor with PowerVR SGX535 GPU and Apple A4 chipset make Apple’s iPhone 4 work).

The hardware features of the Nokia N9 and the iPhone 4 are equal overall, with only a few differences: Nokia’s chipset is slightly better, but the iPhone’s PowerVR SGX535GPU seems to be a bit more powerful.

So none of these smartphones is a winner in the hardware aspect – both are equal.

Storage

The Nokia N9 comes in two versions with different storage capacities — 16GB and 64GB. The iPhone also comes in two versions, but while the lower-end version is 16GB, as its rival phone, the version with the biggest storage is only 32GB – twice less than Nokia’s 64GB version.

Both versions of the Nokia N9 have 1GB of RAM and 512MP of ROM. Apple’s iPhone 4 comes with 512MB of RAM. Well, it’s not that bad, too, but still it’s behind the N9.

The N9 and the iPhone 4 don’t have microSD (or any other) card slots, which is very bad for both. But since the Nokia N9 has a higher maximum storage capacity and twice a bigger RAM, its advantage in relation to the iPhone 4 is obvious.

Platform

The iPhone 4 runs iOS 4.3, and the Nokia N9 runs a very “original,” if I can say so, operating system known as MeeGo. Let’s try to understand the main differences between them and find out which is better.

First of all, I have to mention what everyone first says when hearing about the iOS – it’s easy to learn, you can understand how it works without reading the User Manual even if the iPhone 4 is your first smartphone ever. It has many useful apps and features that are also easy to use.

Several changes were made in the new version of iOS, including the following: the Safari browser has become much faster, some multimedia utilities were upgraded and improved (Airplay and iTunes, for example) and much more.

As for apps, you can find many of them (more than 350,000) in the App Store. All those apps are verified by Apple, so you can download them without being afraid of infecting your smartphone with viruses or malware that usually come with downloadable apps.

As I said above, the Nokia N9 runs the MeeGo 1.2 ‘Harmattan’ build, thanks to which the device doesn’t have any hardware buttons – you’ll use the special gesture-based control and input method to go to Home, Menu or Back.

There are three homescreens in this OS – “Events,” “Applications” and “Open Apps.” The first one shows you different system notifications and social networking alerts. Maybe SMSs and mails will also find a corner on this screen, but I’m not sure about this yet. The “Applications” screen will give you the chance to organize your apps. There is a separate homescreen for open apps, but I can’t understand why they didn’t place the functions from this screen in “Applications.”

By the way, several social networking apps (Facebook, Skype, GoogleTalk, Gmail and Twitter apps) are coming pre-installed in MeeGo.

I don’t want to write too much about the differences between these platforms – or it will take the whole post. Soon I’ll try to write another post only about these two operating systems.

And from what I said above we can make the following conclusions. MeeGo seems to be rather good, but we must admit we don’t know much about it yet. Will it function well? Will it be easy to use? Will it have many bugs or problems? We’ll be able to find the answers to all these questions only after the N9 with its MeeGo is released. And before then, Apple’s iOS seems to be the winner, since it’s more “complete,” it’s tested and proven.

Camera

Nokia has always been famous with its good smartphone cameras (remember the Nokia N8!). The Nokia N9 is no exception – it’s going to get a cool 8MP camera with auto-focus, dual LED flash and Carl Zeiss optics. The camera of Apple’s iPhone 4 is much more modest – it’s only 5MP, with auto-focus and LED flash. Of course, the pictures it takes are smaller – 2592 x 1944 pixels against the N9’s 3264×2448 pixels.

Both cameras can capture video at 720p. As for the rest of the features, both cameras have geo-tagging and the option of choosing touch-focus. Nokia’s camera has face detection as well.

Both smartphone have secondary VGA cameras supporting video-calling (the iPhone 4 supports video-calling only via Wi-Fi, and nothing is known for sure about the N9).

The camera of Apple’s iPhone 4 is good. It takes good bright pics and decent videos. But the camera of the Nokia N9 is way better anyway.

Design

The design isn’t the most important feature in a smartphone, of course, but many people pay much attention to it when choosing one. So let’s try to compare the designs of the Nokia N9 and the iPhone 4, too.

The iPhone 4 is designed in the same style as all the older versions of Apple’s smartphones. It has rounded edges, and it’s slightly more compact than the Nokia N9, which comes in different colors, has a nice curved glass screen and is more “edgy.”

Design is a matter of taste anyway, so no comparison in this area can be objective. I personally like the appearance of none of them. However, there are many people who like how the iPhone 4 looks. And the Nokia N9 has its fans, too.

Prices

The retail price of iPhone 4’s 16GB version is $649.99 from Verizon, but you can also pay $199.99 to get it with a two-year contract. The 32GB version of the iPhone 4 costs $749.99 without a contract and $299.99 with a two-year one.

As for the Nokia N9, no exact prices are yet known. But there are several guesses: it can cost $869 (16GB) and $941 (64GB) in Russia and $686 in Khazakstan. But remember that these are just guesses – we’ll find out the real retail price of the smartphone only after it’s released, and I don’t think it will cost that much.

Conclusion

So what do we have here…

The Nokia N9 and the iPhone 4 have much in common, however, each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The iPhone 4 has a better (though smaller) display with a higher resolution and a better-developed, a more “complete” platform – iOS. The Nokia N9 has more storage space, more RAM and a stronger camera. And it comes in different colors, which is very good for those who are tired of dull black smartphones.

Apple’s iPhone 4 seems to be more reliable, since it was released long ago and it’s tested. However, the Nokia N9 is also a great choice, especially for those who like testing new devices. The only minus of the N9 seems to be its OS, but if Nokia supports it the way it has promised, the N9 will turn into a great phone.

I have heard this smartphone is called a “BlackBerry” killer, and taking into account all the facts I can say it really is. Of course, you can guess I am speaking about the Nokia E6 — the worthy successor of the Nokia E5 with improved features. Moreover, it sports the best camera among the Nokia’s E-series handsets.

The Nokia E6 introduces a perfect pairing of a QWERTY keyboard and a touchscreen that is smaller but brighter than we used to see. It’s clear such handsets are designed for business persons, since it is very comfortable to use on-the-go. Moreover, the Nokia E6 costs cheaper than BlackBerry phones — it is priced about £320 with monthly contracts expected to start at £15. This is an affordable price, as BlackBerry’s similar handsets come at a higher price tag, say, the non-touch BlackBerry Bold 9780 is available for £340.

Design

The developers have made a great work creating a perfect phone that looks rather attractive. The Nokia E6’s design is one of the key features of the phone. If we compare it with other similar handsets, we’ll see the E6 differs with its compact form-factor.

The phone’s dimensions talk for themselves and I guess everyone will agree 115.5x59x10.5mm is surprising, because there are many smartphones with this form-factor in the market, but most of them are bulky.

Generally, the Nokia E6 is the best smartphone from the E-series handsets, and if we compare it with other smartphones like the Nokia C3, we can surely say the difference is obvious in favor of the E6.

The device is armed well, it has all the needed features for us to feel confidence when we hold it in our hands. The volume buttons are located on the right side of the phone with the lock slider. On the left side we can find the micsroUSB port. The charging port is on the bottom, while the top of the handset has a number of ports and buttons — the power button, the 3.5mm headphone jack and the microSD card slot are located there.

The Nokia E6’s back is even more attractive as the 8MP camera with dual-LED flash and the loadspeaker are located there.

Hardware

This smartphone is classified as a mid-range handset, but it sports many features other devices don’t have. Just imagine — 1GB of ROM, 256MB of RAM, 8GB internal memory that can be expanded up to 32GB, a 680MHz processor with 2D/3D Graphics HW. If you think 680MHz is not enough for a handset that wants to conquer the world, I’ll recommend you to have a look at other handset with such a processor (like the Nokia N8), and you’ll understand the number of “MHzs” doesn’t mean anything. Moreover, the phone uses OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 technologies, so you’ll have no trouble with it, I assure you.

The phone is equipped with a powerful battery, Li-Ion 1500 mAh (BP-4L), which means it provides up to 14 hours and 48 minutes (2G) and up to 7 hours and 30 minutes (3G) of talk time, up to 681 hours (2G) and up to 744 hours (3G) of stand-by mode.

The Nokia E6 has an additional microphone to suppress noise, which is a plus, undoubtedly. And this handset is a hard nut to crack.

Display

The phone boasts only a 2.46-inch VGA touchscreen with resolution of 640×480 pixels, which means we are dealing with a rather sharp screen. If you are interested in such things you must know it is almost the same screen as the iPhone 4 Retina Display. Though Nokia has other handsets with more impressive screens (like the Nokia X7’s TFT LCD 16.7m color panel with a Clear Black technology), this one is quite attractive, too. So we can say its screen is almost perfect, and it “cooperates” well with its QWERTY keyboard.

QWERTY keyboard

Though we can’t say the developers have made something new here as it features almost the same keyboard we have seen in the Nokia E5, it is perfect and easy for use. But let’s talk about everything in order. Below the screen we can find Call and End buttons. The keyboard has a five-way d-pad and four shortcuts to home, calendar, messaging and contacts.

When we type a text on this smartphone it becomes clear how a phone designed especially for messaging must work. The only worrying thing is related with the narrow keyboard, which can become a problem for a user with larger hands.

Cameras

As I have already mentioned, this smartphone sports the best camera in its line — 8MP is not a joke. It takes pics with a resolution of 3264×2448 pixels, has fixed focus, dual-LED flash, and if the last one is an advantage, the lack of auto-focus is a real issue for those who prefer to do everything (well, almost everything) with their phones, even capturing HQ photos and recording HD videos. Anyway, you have nothing to worry about, since the Nokia E6′s camera is capable of shooting videos at 720p and 25fps.

The Nokia E6 is packed with a secondary camera, too, as it was expected, since the phone is dedicated to social networking where video calling is necessary.

Here is a Nokia E6 camera video sample:

Connectivity

This is the area where the Nokia E6 feels free, because it supports GSM 850/900/1800/1900 bands and the 3G network. But this is not all, as I have said earlier, it has everything the users need, so it comes with a GPS receiver, Bluetooth 3.0 ith A2DP and Wi-Fi b/g/n.

Software

This handset is one from those smartphones that come with Symbian Anna, and as you are aware it is welcomed by users, because unlike Symbian^3 it has many improvements and provides better performance. While other devices are waiting for their turn to get Anna on their board, the E6 owners are already enjoying it. To understand what I am talking about let’s see what provides Symbian Anna.

Symbian Anna

At first it adds some curved corners to icons. But this is not the main improvement, as it became easier to add and change widgets and swipe between the homescreens. Generally, the whole view of Symbian^3 was overhauled with Anna, and now all the handsets that have this update look different. The browser is changed in a god way, too.

But I don’t want to spend much time on introducing Symbian Anna, as we have talked about it for many times, and it’ll be more productive if you check out our older posts. I’ll only add that the Symbian Anna update is not perfect, and there are many shortcomings that will probably be fixed with Bell.

Pros

• Stylish design
• Sharp display
• Physical QWERTY keyboard
• Cheap price tag
• Symbian Anna

Cons

• Lack of auto-focus
• Small RAM
• Processor

Conclusion

So what can we say about this handset… It is almost lonely in its type because other handsets are either expensive or sport weaker features. Not in vain geeks called it “BlackBerry killer,” and taking into account the fact it is launched in the U.S., too, I think RIM has lost a huge number of consumers regardless the fact Nokia is refused by the U.S. smartphone users.

As I mentioned at the beginning, Symbian Anna defeated the attitude the U.S. smartphone users had. The design of this device is really cool and if you don’t look at the brand when buying a phone but look at its features, I guess the Nokia E6 will attract you with its specs. Personally, I wish the Nokia E6 to succeed.

Thanks to 1 2 3 4

Several days ago I tried to compare the upcoming Nokia 500 with the HTC Wildfire S, and it came out that in many aspects Nokia’s entry-level smartphone is even better than HTC’s mid-range device. Now I want to compare the Nokia 500 with the Samsung Galaxy Ace, and I have personal interest in this comparison, since I’m an owner of a Galaxy Ace.

So, let’s see which phone is better – the Nokia 500 or the Samsung Galaxy Ace.

Design

As I said in my previous post, the Nokia 500’s design is at least original and recognizable. The Samsung Galaxy Ace, on the other hand, looks like a typical Android smartphone, but a very stylish one for sure (I bought it only because I likes its design, and only later I found out it that has good specs, too). Both smartphones have interchangeable battery covers, the only difference is that the Nokia 500 offers a wider range of color choices, while the Galaxy Ace comes in two colors only – black and white. Besides, the Nokia 500 is 1mm shorter, 6mm slimmer and 20g lighter than Samsung’s device.

So those who prefer more original smartphones with different colors will most likely choose the Nokia 500. And those who like the sleek shapes of Android phones will give preference to the Samsung Galaxy Ace. Design is a matter of taste anyway, I personally like the Galaxy Ace more.

Display

The Samsung Galaxy Ace is larger, so it offers a larger screen size – 3.5-inch (the Nokia 500’s screen is 3.2-inch), but at the same time its resolution is lower — 320 x 480 against the Nokia 500’s 360 x 640. On the other hand, the Nokia 500 is an upcoming device yet, so we can’t be sure it will really appear with such a display (and will it really have a high quality?), but I can touch and see Samsung’s display, and I say its quality is good.

Processors

The Nokia 500 is going to have a 1GHz processor, while the processor of the Samsung Galaxy Ace is only 800MHz. However, I think Nokia’s CPU has yet to be tested, while as an owner of a Galaxy Ace I can say its processor is rather good, and I’ve never experienced any problem with it.

Platform

The Samsung Galaxy Ace runs Android, while the Nokia 500 runs Symbian Anna. Of course, Symbian Anna is much better than the previous Symbian^3, but still it’s Symbian… Android is the most popular platform now, and almost half of all smartphones work on Android; this means it has many useful apps and a huge community… I don’t know, maybe there are people who will prefer Symbian, but I prefer Android anyway.

Camera

Both smartphones have 5MP cameras, but Samsung offers auto-focus and LED flash with its device. Nokia always makes very good cameras for its smartphones, and I’m sure the one for the Nokia 500 will be good, too. As for Samsung, maybe this company isn’t known for its cameras, but the Samsung Galaxy Ace’s camera is already tested – at least by me – and takes quality pics, really quality ones.

Other features

The Samsung Galaxy Ace has only 158MB of storage, and it’s a big shortcoming – even I have to admit this. And 2GB of internal storage is the big plus of the upcoming Nokia 500. However, a microSD card can even the odds. On the other hand, the Galaxy Ace comes with some features the Nokia 500 lacks (DLNA support, Wi-Fi hotspot and others).

So…

Both smartphones have their stronger and weaker sides. The Nokia 500’s display has a higher resolution, its processor is stronger and it has a bigger amount of internal storage. The Samsung Galaxy Ace runs Android, the most popular OS, has a camera with LED flash and auto-focus, it also has some features the Nokia 500 doesn’t and is more beautiful (IMHO). I think those who love testing new devices will surely buy a Nokia 500, and those who love older but tested devices will prefer the Galaxy Ace after all.

So it’s up to you to decide which one is better for you. But I would like to add that the Nokia 500 is yet to come (some of its features can still change before it’s released), and the Galaxy Ace is real, it can be touched, felt and bought right now. I have always thought that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And the rest is up to you