One week ago, as I was trying to wake up from my sleeping comma on the bus of my university, I saw something that was very strange and stupid, I saw a HUGE street ad of the N96 with the subtitle The Web, Now Made By Hand, At first I thought it was some kind of an error, maybe the Nokia head office in Egypt posted this ad by mistake, why would there be an N96 ads on Egyptian territory, it’s almost illegal :P, Until just Today, where all this got explained by a simple SPAM SMS!

I was in the university lab trying to finish up what I was asked so I could catch the early 4PM bus when I received a message from Raya, one of four Nokia distributors in Egypt that stated:

Nokia N96 soon in Egypt with 16 GB memory, 5 mega pixel camera,n-gage games and music.Visit your nearest Raya Store and book now. For more info call 19900.

I didn’t buy it at first, It was almost too good to be true until I went to the nearest Raya Store and the salesman confirmed this release, but and there’s buts, The Phone’s GPS chip will be disabled by firmware, and Nokia’s remaining GPS line won’t be released, just the N96, limited shipments available, It will start selling this week for 4700LE, equivalent to 840$, In case you’re interested, you can rush into the nearest Raya store and pre-order the device.

So, Thank you Nokia, Thanks for listening to me and following HTC’s footsteps “You probably did this without listening though :P”, hopefully more devices to come, and to you the fellow Egyptians that’ll buy the device from Raya, make sure you keep checking this blog as I’ll be posting the guide to unlocking the GPS chip trapped into your devices.

Oh, and incase if you’re wondering, I caught the bus. :D:P

Related Posts:

• August 30, 2008 — Once Again, We’re Ignored
• November 21, 2007 — Nokia Facing Trouble in Egypt

Yupp, reports are coming in that Fennec isn’t quiet the Opera killer we expected it to be, but still, it’s an alpha version, I’ll start blaming when I see an S60 version of it.

Tip: If you don’t own an internet Tablet like me, you can still experience Fennec on your PC or Mac, There’s a version for computers to give people who don’t have a Nokia Internet Tablet the ability to localize, experiment and build add-ons.

More info @ BGR and Darla Mack. Download link here.

Main Features:

Easy navigation to Web content:

• Bookmarks, including tags
• Smart URL bar (”awesome bar”)
• Tabbed browsing with thumbnail images
• Integrated Web search - built into the URL bar
• Easy access to multiple search engines

Web content:

• Maximize content by auto-hiding controls and URL bar
• Zoom in and out

Security:

• Instant Web site ID (”Larry“)
• Password manager
• Popup blocker
• Clear private data

Devices services integration:

• Click on a phone number to initiate a call
• JavaScript API to get device location
• Popup blocker
• Clear private data

Also:

• Searchable download manager
• Preferences pane

Related Posts:

• June 27, 2008 — A-GPS For N810
• April 2, 2008 — WiMax N810 Finally Announced

The Nokia 5800’s main specs include a 3.2″ screen with a resolution of 360 x 640 pixels, Nokia’s best screen to date, a 3.2 Megapixel camera with dual LED flash, WiFi, 3.5G HSDPA chip, GPS “Oh! Noooo” chip, and all the other specs you’d find in any regular phone, and as a topper, the 8GB MicroSD is bundled with the device, letting the RocknRoll experience start from switching on the device.

I am absolutely in love with this device and it looks, it’s just amazing!, and it’s one hell of a start for Nokia in the touchscreen market, the videos I’ve seen of the system itself, and the accelerometer being implemented more, from auto-rotation to gaming is a nice touch.

The device itself has a new touch sensitive button introduced called the Media Bar button, once touched, it pops up a menu that gives you access to your music, pictures, share, videos and web. which a replacement of the Ovi Menu found in most new Nseries devices, and actually more useful, by a mile.

The S60 V5 OS features also a new desktop mode for favourite contacts, handwriting recognition, a virtual keyboard that is seamlessly easy to use, and a new updated web browser that is based on the new Webkit and supports flash out of the box thanks to flash lite 3, For more info about the OS, head to AAS.

The Nokia 5800 will be released in Q4 08 for an estimated price of 280€ before taxes and subsidies, which is, for me, a great price, but I won’t be falling for one of these, I believe the best is yet to come.

Image Gallery: (Click to enlarge)

Related Posts:

• September 24, 2008 — Hands on with the HTC Touch Pro: Things I miss most in Nokia Phones
• September 4, 2008 — NEWS: N95-1 30.0.015 Firmware On NSU
• September 3, 2008 — It’s Official: Nokia N96 Starts Shipping
• August 29, 2008 — Nokia Nseries Designers: Out Of Ideas?!
• August 28, 2008 — Nokia N79: Entertainment Powerhouse in an Ugly front design

devices, moving to an independent host, getting to know a lot of great bloggers.

Being an Nokia-related blogger, I got to learn a hell lot more about the company, it’s strategies, it’s way of thinking and it’s products.

Thanks WOM World, the things you do from letting strange people and bloggers like me trial devices to blogging about

every important article written in the Nokia blogshpere in your website whether it praises Nokia or rants about it is simply unprecedented!

Thanks to all the fellow bloggers that made me learn alot about the whole Symbian platform, I’d be typing till midnight If I write names.

Thank you to the blog sponsor, MobyMemory (btw people the 16GB MicroSD is on sale there now for a great price), I’d also like to thank companies like Proporta and Sygic that gave me the opportunity to trial their devices and products.

Finally, a big thank you to YOU!, whether you’re a first time reader who stumbled upon this post, or a reader that got stuck with me from the beginning.

To end this post in a fun way, here’s Nseries Blog Trivia:

• The Blog received 287,568 Pageviews to date (Both old URL, and new one).
• 133 Posts published.
• 207 approved comments.
• 104 comments waiting for approval at the old wordpress.com blog, but I’m too lazy to go through them.
• 10,637 SPAM comments recieved, Thanks Akismet for the filtering.
• 864 Tags.
• 172 Feedburner subscribers
• The Blog was moved two times! from blogetery.com to wordpress.com then to the self hosted domain name Nseriesblog.com.

All I’m wishing right now, is to get the chance to write an article just like this, one year from now, with better numbers, and perhaps more complex vocabulary

Random Posts:

• December 16, 2007 — RotateMe Final Beta Released…..For Free !
• March 26, 2008 — New N95 Blue Colour, Embraced Only By Japanese People!
• November 13, 2007 — New Phone : Nokia 8800 Arte
• October 29, 2007 — Nokia is Buying Navteq
• November 20, 2007 — The Making of Nokia N82

Just  go to any Nokia flagship store in either Chicago or New York, and ask for the free Star Wars The Force Unleashed game for N-Gage, you’re going to get the game for free (cool, huh?!) and as a topper you’re getting the 15% discount!

So, Now there’s no reason for you not to upgrade your phone, if you’re living in any state other than NY and IL, I’d highly recommend getting into your car right now (not kidding) and driving at 200 miles per hour (now I’m kidding!) to any of the nearest two states to get your phone.

Random Posts:

• November 1, 2007 — Symbian Freeway
• August 27, 2008 — Cheap N96 Alternative announced: Nokia N85
• June 26, 2008 — N78 Gets It’s First Update
• January 26, 2008 — A Glimpse Of My Next Episode : My Designer Themes
• February 5, 2008 — N81 8GB Review: IV-Conclusion

This post is basically me trying to add a personal touch to this blog, If this topic is of no interest of you, please don’t unsubscribe

I’m gonna try to make this thing short, apparently Nokia wants us Egyptians to hate the whole company, First, for not releasing GPS devices in Egypt with a tailored software that disables the GPS (GPS devices are banned, in-depth article here), but we also don’t get access to Nokia’s services, apparently Nokia blocked the Share on Ovi service (and recently, MOSH) in the whole Middle eastern region due to the fear of being blocked by ISPs in the region (Gulf countries block websites that contain pornography, freedom of speech, even voIP), so without proper filtering options, they could be blocked for good.

But, apparently (3rd time :P)  the Nokia employee who decided to include Egypt in the ban didn’t know we are a free democratic country (Cracks me up, at least we pretend to be a free democratic country), and blocking websites is illegal, we get full web access, and we don’t need the content filtering.

So, in short words, remove this F***ing block, we hate you enough already.

Related Posts:

• August 30, 2008 — Once Again, We’re Ignored
• March 3, 2008 — Nokia Announces 2 New Locked Phones at CeBIT
• January 2, 2008 — 2007…Best Nokia Year Ever Part II- Software & Internet Services
• December 17, 2007 — MOSH Redesigned !
• November 7, 2007 — N81 8 GB Hits Egypt Stores

This wasn’t the first Windows Mobile powered device I’ve got my hands on, matter of fact, Windows mobile wasn’t quiet my favourite OS, and dragging it to this device is a poor addition, but HTC TouchFLO, a flashy snappy program (it’s not quiet a program) that runs onto the desktop of HTC devices gives you access to anything you need, and letting you ditch native Microsoft applications, like Windows Media Player, the infamous File Explorer, even Internet Explorer can be ditched with the installed Opera Browser, in short words, Lipstick on a pig and I don’t mean Sarah Palin.

The things I liked about this device is mostly hardware wise, the only thing I liked software wise is the TouchFLO interface, and I believe Nokia should try to do such an interface to all it’s devices instead of the boring S60 shortcut filled desktop, But hardware wise, this baby boosts stuff Nokia never had, like 3.75G HSDPA (Gives you speeds up to 7.2 MB/s), which is great for people who likes to tether and connect, Higher screen resolution (very very VERY noticeable), the materials used in this device aren’t the cheap ones found in most Nokias, as I said before it feels great to have the

device in hand, and that rock solid slider, The device’s slider doesn’t shake like a belly dancer when the QWERTY keyboard is revealed, something Nokia should focus on, well, at least the Nseries team.

Overall, the device is pretty neat, and I’d kill to see an S60 version of it (I know that’s never gonna happen), HTC TouchFLO attracts (or, literarily tricks) customers to fall for a crappy Windows mobile OS, matter of fact, it is the number one reason people go for the HTC touch.

So, I think Nokia should start focusing on making better useful eye candy just like the HTC TouchFLO, I know you’re thinking the N78, N96 and other FP2 devices have very cool eye candy, I am a big fan of the snappy transitions too, but it’s time for Nokia to do some USEFUL eye candy, like perhaps renovating S60 desktops, removing the clutter and adding some user friendly useful software that makes you hit less buttons.

Here’s a video of TouchFLO:

Related Posts:

• October 4, 2008 — S60’s First Touchscreen Announced: Nokia 5800 Xpress Music
• September 4, 2008 — NEWS: N95-1 30.0.015 Firmware On NSU
• September 3, 2008 — It’s Official: Nokia N96 Starts Shipping
• August 29, 2008 — Nokia Nseries Designers: Out Of Ideas?!
• August 28, 2008 — Nokia N79: Entertainment Powerhouse in an Ugly front design

To update your phone, download NSU on your PC machine and make sure you backed up the phone memory onto the memory card.

I’ll keep this post updated as soon as I have the 30.0.015 up and running on my N95.

Update: it took a long while to install the new firmware on my phone, and to tell ya the truth, the firmware is amazing, Automatic screen rotation is there (disabled by deafult), the N95 8GB theme is in there, updates to the music application, new Maps 2.0, N-Gage 2.0, new Download, search application updated, Flash lite 3 updates and lots more under the hood.

Source: P@sco

Related Posts:

• June 26, 2008 — N78 Gets It’s First Update
• April 4, 2008 — N-Gage 2.0 Released : Get Out and Play!
• March 14, 2008 — New N95-1 Firmware Expected This Week
• October 29, 2007 — N95 iPhone Style !
• October 4, 2008 — S60’s First Touchscreen Announced: Nokia 5800 Xpress Music

If You’re not familiar with the N96, it’s Nokia’s top-notch device with 16 GB on board memory, a 2.8” LCD screen, 5 Megapixel camera with dual LED flash, WiFi, 3.5G HSDPA and of course GPS.

The N96 will be available on sale for 550€ before taxes and subsidies, and as reports are coming from reviews, it’s performance is not as high as it’s price.

Read the press release

Related Posts:

• October 4, 2008 — S60’s First Touchscreen Announced: Nokia 5800 Xpress Music
• September 24, 2008 — Hands on with the HTC Touch Pro: Things I miss most in Nokia Phones
• September 4, 2008 — NEWS: N95-1 30.0.015 Firmware On NSU
• September 1, 2008 — Is There Really A Difference Between OLED and LCD Screens?
• August 29, 2008 — Nokia Nseries Designers: Out Of Ideas?!

But first. what is an OLED screen? and what’s so different about it? Well, I had to put my geeky glasses on and start the hard process of researching (i.e searching for OLED in Wikipedia), in a non-confusing non-scientific vocabulary, organic light-emitting diode (OLED) are screens that depends on very minute diodes that light up forming what we see, thus it doesn’t need backlight and this reduces the power consumption dramatically, while the traditional Liquid Crystal displays is made of pixels that require backlight, so the battery charges is drained faster, But that’s not it’s only pro, it’s also known for forming more realistic more lively photos that looks more real than the ones showed on LCDs and last but not least the Cost of production of OLED screens is much less than that of LCDs, cool, huh?!

I wanted to see if the above statement is true or not, but living in Egypt with no GPS allowed, it’s impossible to test the N85″I Know I said I won’t drag this into my posts anymore, but I’m still filled with Anger!”, Luckily, Guys over at Smape.com had the chance to review both the N85 and N96 and managed to compare the N96’s 2.8″ LCD screen with the N85’s 2.6″ OLED screen, and the results was stunning! Yes, there’s a huge difference between both screens, the N85’s screen rendered photos in an amazing N96-killing way, making me wanting one right now!

And, If that’s not enough proof for you, Rita Khoury a.k.a dotsisx from Symbian guru also managed to compare the N81 LCD screen with the N85’s, and the results were as if the N81 screen \and I quote “white-tinted”!

(Photo courtesy of Smape.com)

Related Posts:

• September 3, 2008 — It’s Official: Nokia N96 Starts Shipping
• August 27, 2008 — Cheap N96 Alternative announced: Nokia N85
• February 11, 2008 — MWC Night:Final Thoughts
• December 21, 2007 — More Thoughts On The Leaked N96
• December 20, 2007 — New Phone Leaked : N96