Showing posts with label Symbian Anna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Symbian Anna. Show all posts

Sep 19, 2011

Nokia C7 Chronicle: The Disaster Wedding

The Nokia C7 Chronicle continues, Day 20 of Nokia C7 with Symbian Anna on board, a very busy day with a fully booked event schedule, Disaster Management lecture and Drill in the morning and a wedding of a co-worker's daughter in the afternoon. Well, the Disaster Drill is very important being a core area in the Benchbook Program while the wedding is equally important being given 1 of the most coveted 7 tickets set solely for the hospital staffs. But of course I'm only up to the reception and banquet after the ceremony. It was held in Bethany Gardens and Resort Ozamis City, not an impressive place but its the best that Ozamis can offer for couples with tight budget. Disaster in the morning, wedding in the afternoon, Disaster wedding in short. ;)

06:00 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

As usual, start the day right by doing my morning chores. As I checked my social stream via Gravity, there's a commotion going in the smartphone world as news popped-in that Nokia Windows Phone will not be coming out until Q1 2012. Of course this was just a hearsay and I myself don't believe so having a great confidence that the company will release the phone as planned but will be in gradual phase, country by country. Well, I hope its indeed not true because it will be devastating for Nokia since the competitions were all set to release there own Windows Phone Mango by Christmas or earlier than that.

I did charge my Nokia C7 full bar and decided to test its camera and battery prowess since it will be subjected to 2 photo and power demanding events. Will the phone survive the ordeal?

07:30 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

Left abode for work. The first power consuming application covered was the music player as I turn it on while traveling. I hooked my WH-701 earbud stereo headphone from my lust green Nokia N8 and blast it full volume. Nokia C7 has only WH-102 stereo headphone as a paired music accessory with below average performance so I have to take another headphone with me. I do suggest you get yourself a better headphone for the Nokia C7 if you're planning to buy the phone.

08:10 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

Arrived early at work with a bit of excitement. Emergency drill would mean we get to try fire extinguishers, evacuation and even dodge on the fire trucks hose just like last year but we were disappointment to find out that the fire truck wasn't available and that we will only have to do a lecture on Disaster Management. We missed all the fun parts!

While waiting, I took a few snaps of what was happening around. The images produce by Nokia C7 so far were above average than typical cameraphones. Whats different with the phone was its focal length and aperture giving images a wider photo coverage than usual. The absence of auto-focus did manifest as shown on the first picture below where the announcement paper came out a bit blurry after a close range snapshot. The rest of the images were good given a better lightning condition.

Battery is still full as I checked.









09:30 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

The lecture started and as planned, I took all the live prints that were happening. Well, glad that I did because the lecture was so boring. It was quite the opposite last year since we had all the actions covered. Just watch the faces of the people listening for proof.

Pictures.. I did get a few dark images particularly on the scenario's where I took the it against dominant light. If these were taken on a Nokia N8, flash would have worked. Also took a bit of videos to remind me in the future how boring it was, like really!

















11:30 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

Wrap the lecture up and it was indeed a disaster! Come to think of it, where just setting around and listening, and they call it a drill.

Battery checked, 3 bars down. The phone did drain fast with the use of the camera. I suspect it was due to the GPS tagging feature of the phone that automatically add coordinates to the image taken. It was more of annoying than helpful because it keeps on popping warnings on the screen that it can't detect my location. Well, I hope Nokia will provide option to turn this feature off.

12:30 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

Change course and set myself up for the wedding. I was hoping that it can change my sleepy mode. I arrive in the church past 2 pm, wedding started at 1pm so it means that I missed the ceremony on purpose. I did went inside the church though and take a few snaps. I then went outside and fired the Foursquare using the network data to connect to the internet and checked-in. I do socialize using Foursquare and if your interested in adding me up, Click Here.

Battery Check, another bar down leaving me with only 3 bars left.









15:00 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

After all the hustles and nuzzles, we finally arrive at the reception area. It was quite far from from the church so we have to travel. It actually took 20 minutes of our valuable time making everyone hungry and tired. Good thing that Bethany Gardens has Wifi signal so I got entertain a bit. I checked in using Fourquare again and checked my social stream.

I did another rounds of snapshots, this time in a low light conditions since the reception was indoors. Images weren't very impressive with lots of noise in the background. The flash sometimes illuminates to much that it overexpose images nor completely the opposite. I never had a perfect shoot in short.

Here are some of the sample images taken.

















I did enjoy the reception because the food serve were unlimited. Its like we could eat our hearts out destroying my diet for the day. I also had a wonderful company so it was more fun and enjoyable.

Battery check, on the red bar. The use of flash is a big factor here as I suspect and also that the area doesn't have a SIM signal, so the phone keeps on checking and refreshing its status.

16:00 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

Head back home and call it a day. I was very uncomfortable the rest of the night since I'm very full and that I felt guilty of what I've eaten. A day of disaster for my diet.

18:00 Hours, +8 GMT, September 15, 2011

Set aside my geeky lifestyle and face my Law books. I need to catch up with a lot of stuffs that I missed from my absent last weekend.

C7 also drained this time performing only within 9 hours from its last charge. Quite impressive actually after exposing it to a harsh ordeal. Most of the time, it last more than a day or two when used normally.

Sep 10, 2011

Microsoft productivity apps to all Nokia Symbian Belle smartphones

Symbian Belle as well as the current Symbian Anna phones will be transformed to a powerful mobile business devices as Nokia announce a forthcoming update that will add a free mobile office called Microsoft® Apps, delivering a suite of Microsoft productivity applications to its compatible Nokia smartphones to add to the comprehensive security and manageability features. Requiring no additional infrastructure, these apps help add immediate business advantage to the first Symbian Belle devices as well as delivering significant additional value to existing Nokia business customers who upgrade to Symbian Belle.

Available by the end of 4Q 2011 with broad consumer availability at the beginning of 2012, Microsoft Apps will bring collaboration and productivity tools including Microsoft® Lync(TM) 2010 Mobile, Microsoft OneNote(TM), Microsoft PowerPoint® Broadcast and Microsoft Document Connection (which provides Microsoft SharePoint access) to Symbian Belle. An update in the first half of 2012 will introduce Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint as native applications for the first time outside the Windows platform.

Microsoft Apps will be delivered via software update over the air or via PC download and will function on the Nokia N8, Nokia C7, Nokia C6-01, Nokia E7, Nokia E6, Nokia X7, Nokia 700, Nokia 701, Nokia 600 and Nokia Oro.

Additionally, Nokia is working with Microsoft to provide mobile device management of Symbian Belle devices through Microsoft® System Center Configuration Manager 2012.

Aug 28, 2011

Nokia C7 Chronicle: A Life With Anna Day 1

18:00 Hours, +8 GMT, August 22, 2011

Got my confirmation from Nokia that I can now download its latest and greatest Operating System upgrade of Symbian^3 dubbed Symbian Anna and in no time download it over the air (OTA) via WIFI. Downloading takes for about less than an hour which will then prompt users install the operating system that will also take another few minutes. Then after the reboot, bunch of software updates will be prompted for download which will take another hour to download and install.

Gone were the days when the upgrade is via NSU were users will have to manually connect the phone to pc and pray that nothing goes wrong because one wrong move will damage the phone forever.

19:30 Hours, +8 GMT, August 22, 2011

Got the first glimpse of Symbian Anna on my phone with a white middle rotating circle loading mechanism. This will open the Log-in procedure to all services that users were currently subscribe which in my case, all Nokia services, then after which the colorful Homescreen opens which now have transition effect’s making it more lively, barraging new youthful icons. On plain view, everything looks fresh, simple and delightful.

Just like any other users who got hold on the touchscreen phone, side swipe in between Homescreen will be the first gesture that I did, and the Symbian Anna’s swipe interface gives users a notion of fastness because of the new slide mechanism that was implemented even though it registered the same time of completion as that of the Symbian^3 in my observation. I call it a half slide full acceleration implementation rather than the across the screen full finger slide. The swipe mechanism was the key here which came out very effective.

Then I did a fast run through to all areas of the phone and found quite a few new applications installed. On the Office folder under Applications, Communicator icon appeared which is very common among E-Series devices being a business related application. Notification also pops out on the Applications folder which I believe will list all important updates of the phone. Then the NFC related applications such as Share and NFC tutorials icon. Only the Nokia C7 got this feature among the current Symbian^3 phones so this will become its unique feature for now. Angry Birds Magic was also installed adding to the list of free pre-installed games on the phone.

21:30 Hours, +8 GMT, August 22, 2011

I was ready to send my very first tweet and status update using the phones updated Nokia Social App. Though I could not see any visual improvement on the app’s interface, the message writing mechanism of the phone became easier than ever with the new virtual QWERTY keyboard for portrait mode. I have never enjoyed the use virtual keyboard before than now because of the accurateness I get from the current keyboard. I even start to enjoy Swype now because of the said keyboard.

Dug down further to individual applications which have reportedly been upgraded trying the new Browser first being one of my most used phone feature. Well. I have to say that it was indeed a lot better than the previous cutting the loading time to almost half. Just like the Safari browser on iPhone, the phone‘s browser will open a customize mobile version of any webpage first with an option to access the full webpage afterwards. But either which, the browser is blazing fast in rendering pages.
Messaging has always been a strong area from Nokia, and the phones Nokia Messaging feature just got even better nowadays with a full image rendering.

23:00 Hours, +8 GMT, August 22, 2011

Hit the bed early since I still have to recuperate from my sleepless nights brought about by our exam last weekend. Things are getting better so far for Nokia C7, my chronicle continues as I discover more features of the phone and stay tuned for my upcoming re-review which will be due in a weeks time.



Aug 19, 2011

Symbian Anna Rolling In.. Finally!

Symbian Anna, the most awaited Symbian^3 upgrade starts to roll out! I have just posted an article about this 4 days ago and Nokia answered back with a surprise release 10 days before my predicted date.

At the moment, feedback's were coming in from Europe and Asia enjoying the said upgrade but not here in Philippines yet as of post time, might be in a few days.

I'm more than excited to test this out and share my thoughts.

Symbian Anna key features:
- Virtual portrait QWERTY for fast, one handed typing
- Split screen view while typing; so you can see message threads, webpages, contacts or email
- An easier to use and faster browser, delivering quicker page loads and improved navigation
- Refreshed Nokia Maps including simpler search, new public transportation routes and the ability to check-in to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or local social networks
- A feature to share your location via email and SMS (even to non-Nokia phones)

Features for business users:
- Instant messaging and presence with Microsoft Communicator Mobile
- E-mail enhancements including full meeting request support
- True business grade security with hardware accelerated encryption
- Easy and secure intranet access for business users who want to access their company intranet

My Nokia N8 gets continuous auto-focus in video recording plus a higher video framerate (30fps), while the C7's NFC capabilities are also finally enabled.

Aug 15, 2011

All Set For Symbian Anna...

Nokia announced a month ago that the Anna upgrade on existing Symbian^3 will be coming end of August, well, today set mark half way to that and I'm very excited to try it on my lust green Nokia N8. I do hope it won't be extended again because they broke their promise twice already as the awaited upgrade was suppose to be release June, then it became July and now August.

Why am I excited on the upgrade? Its a given fact that it gain a good review from critiques because of its noticeable improvement from the previous, I would like to affirm or deny this personally and share my thoughts on it. Symbian Belle, the next upgrade to Anna was even appearing now on videos showing a more improved user interface specially on the Homescreens versatility and degree of personalization but lets not cross to that line as it is not official yet.

So Anna, what to expect with the sweet femme name?

1. The new Symbian icons, the circular, colorful and playful icons that emanates the new direction of the operating system. I have used quite a few themes that replicates the icons and I have to say that I'm not very much sold out to it. I find it a bit simple and not very much creative.

2. Text input has also been improved: there’s the long-awaited portrait QWERTY input, plus a split screen when entering text into web pages and apps, so you don’t lose sight of what you’re filling in.

3. The browser now offers faster performance and is easier to use. I need this more than ever being a frequent user of the application. The current browser is fine but compared to the competition, its behind in few features and savvyness.

The enhanced browser (v7.3) has high value touch UI improvements, including URL entry bar, always visible ‘Go Back’ and extended toolbar buttons and search-integrated address field; better user responsiveness, faster history navigation and page loading, split screen virtual Qwerty keyboard.

I do hope the upgrade will close the gap down or even surpass the current mark set by competing systems. Looking forward to the text flow after zooms, a more fluid scroll and faster page loading.

4. The usability of the photo gallery has also been improved. Just like the browser, I expect a more fluid scroll and a faster loading of images after zoom.

5. Enhanced Ovi Maps (v3.06) is said to have a smarter search, check-in to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or local social networks, ability to share places via email and SMS, and also with friends using non-Nokia phones, public transport network lines view and update and download full country maps via WLAN.

I do hope these were true because my Nokia N8's Maps and Navigation is performing peculiarly after a reboot and after installing the Nokia Maps v3.08 via BetaLabs. At the moment, the phones GPS won't work with the use of WIFI to check in to Foursquare, Facebook or Twitter, it needs operators mobile internet connection to be able to do so. Anything to figure out here?

Oh well, as mentioned earlier, the upgrade is coming in 15 days time so that won't be long enough. Will the Anna make the grade?

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