23 posts tagged “n73”

The above is a web-only clip from British channel Five's 'The Gadget Show'.  It features presenter Jon Bentley testing out and musing over VOIP* application Fring.  The demonstration doesn't go too smoothly, which is a shame as Fring is pretty good IMHO and if I were to criticise it it wouldn't be for anything seen in the clip.

I noticed that the two handsets used were on Three and that one of them was an N73** (X-Series by the looks of it).  Hardly cutting edge, is it Five? ;-)  I'm just about to give mine to an eleven year old (and I imagine they'll be less than impressed!)  As they're using Three I think they needn't worry about the data plan.   VOIP isn't barred in Three's T&Cs (unlike with some other operators) and the price of the plan (presumably they'll be on £5 per month) would ensure a lot of very, very cheap calls and IMs!

Five, Three?  What is it with company branding these days!?! ;-)
*VOIP = Voice Over IP (voice calls routed over the internet)
**the other one being a 6120 classic I do believe...

Back to using my N73!  It's been tough, especially since I discovered the Flirtomatic service (well I am single and it's mobile tech, I consider it research!)  Typing on the N73 is way more difficult than on the N95 8GB.  The keys are too small to begin with and the silly joystick on the N73 ...well I'd gotten so used to it I'd forgotten how truly awful it was!  It's very easy to hit send/OK when you don't want to.

So despite what may have appeared as a generally unimpressed take on the N95 8GB, it's only when it's gone that you appreciate it.  I guess things like Maps, Sports Tracker and Podcasting would impress me more if I hadn't already been aware of them.

And the N95 8GB's WiFi was a lifesaver (not literally mind!) when my laptop went M.I.A.

I now have in my possession the rather nice N95 8GB (cheers to the also rather nice Siobhan at WOM World for said phone device).

I'm now nearly 24 hours into my two week trial and it's been er, interesting.  The phone is great, the screen is big and bright, nice and clear.  Navigating the menus is lightening quick (at least compared to my N73) and it's a pleasure being able to have so many applications running at the same time without the phone slowing to a halt or shutting down a bunch of them.  I could go on, and will, later.

There are some bad points though and these include the frustrating and confusing variety of download sources on the device.  Having everything available from one place might be a bit easier.  Getting Nokia Internet Radio was unbelievably difficult and will be the subject of a future post.  And, Nokia Sports Tracker kept crashing yesterday for no apparent reason.

For those not versed in Cockney rhyming slang: Dog and bone = phone

The old dog and bone I'm talking about?  My geriatric Nokia N73 of course!  So, what new tricks has it got up it's sleeve?  Well, now running on mine: an amazing Resident Evil-style 3D game and a sound synthesizer/music composer.

The Resident Evil-style game is called 7 Days Salvation and when I say amazing, I mean it looks amazing, controls are responsive and there's no lag.  The gameplay may well be amazing too, but I haven't delved much into it thus far.

The synthesizer/music creation app is called Syntrax and does stuff that shouldn't even be possible on a phone!

There's still life in the old dog and bone yet!  The links have screenshots and I'll up some video ASAP

Brief note: I wrote this up on Firefox on my Eee and for some reason it didn't format right.  Trying to clean it up a bit on my PC and it's acting strangely.  For some reason what-you-see-is-what-you-get has turned into what-you-see-is-a-little-bit-like-what-you-get-but-not-really.

Three bill

From next Tuesday I'll be spending a week in New York.  As I'm going to be using my phone for GPS, listening to music, taking pictures etc, I thought it might be a good time to see if I could get an early upgrade on my mobile contract.  My current phone, the N73 was great but after 15 months of use and abuse it can behave erratically (to say the least).  Trying to take pictures, especially, has become such a difficult proposition that I often don't bother any more (it's to do with that silly shutter and how the phone sometimes thinks it's closed when it's actually open).

It's not just that my phone is acting up in it's old age - I want, no NEED, WiFi in my phone!  I'm sure it's something that will be immensely useful in a country that isn't included in 3's generous 3 Like Home offering.

So, after a bit of homework, I decided to try my luck with 3's upgrades team.  I was told I could upgrade now but that I really should wait until the 11th April (the official start of my early upgrade period).  I asked the nice lady how much a Nokia N95 8GB would cost today and she told me it would be £350.  That would be the price of the handset itself.  That would be on top of what I'm paying a month (which is quite a hefty amount I should add).  What would the price be if today was the 11th April?  She told me it would be free!

So I'm going to have to wait five more weeks and put up with my current dilapidated phone in the meantime.  On a positive note it appears that 12 month contracts are still an option when dealing with them direct - I know I'm not going to get another 18 month contract if I can help it.

You may have noticed (if you've had the pleasure of owning a Nokia N73) that in my last post I had the boring default theme.  I also have no wallpaper.  Do I like the default one?  No.  So why do I have it, why am I not more adventurous?  Simple - my phone runs better with less customisations.

Having a couple of things running can be a problem and I like to have a couple of things running... Skype, Sports Tracker, Maps, Internet Radio, Opera etc.  When my phone runs out of memory it will start closing down these applications one-by-one until it can cope!  Using the default theme means more apps can run at the same time and stay running for longer.

I also have a theory that the new Google Search widget for the idle screen ("desktop") is a problem for the smooth running of older devices such as the N73.

This here blog is in desperate need of video.  And what better way to show off some 'fresh plastic' than to film myself playing Super Mario Brothers 3 on my Eee PC?

The footage is shaky because I was holding the cameraphone (in this case my ageing Nokia N73) whilst attempting to play the game.  Let me tell you, playing the game using a keyboard is a skill in itself.  I'm right-handed for a start and was using me left hand - and just two fingers.  Hmm, no matter how I try describing that it just sounds wrong.

Anyway check out the video and ignore the sound problems (why is it when you want technology to behave it plays up?)

Actually make that 500 days (and counting) since I've written that headline!

Me thinks my N73 isn't suitable for the latest Nokia Maps 2.0 beta.  I figured I'd give it a try anyway.

Deja vu time, new Nokia Maps version just about to be released (is it that time of year again?) and it looks like it could be the answer to many a mobile navigational prayer.  Hopefully this latest update won't make it less functional and any slower (the last update made a perfectly usable experience as frustratingly slow as walking through a British supermarket on pension day).

Major improvements we can look forward to:

• On foot navigation
• Satellite/aerial maps
• Improved search and POIs

One rather interesting thing I've gleaned about the new update is that once you download (over-the-air) satellite images they remain in the cache.  This will be handy abroad where data roaming would make it prohibitively expensive to download those data hungry images.