Nokia E75

The Nokia E75 is a high-end, high quality E-series smartphone with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. The E75 is a compromise between utility and size. It is not as slender as the Nokia E55, nor as slim as the E71 - with which it shares a similar specification and could be considered a direct alternative - but the E75 packs in an all-important full QWERTY keyboard. Considering this, it’s relatively slim and compact, just 14.4mm thick. The steel plated back of the phone oozes quality and style. Sadly this doesn’t continue around to the front of the phone, which is the same glossy plastic found on the Nokia N85 and N96 and may not be to everyone’s taste. The slide out keyboard is in a different class though, it is framed with chrome, very solid and is a joy to use.

The Nokia E75 undoubtedly appeals to professionals on the move, with its business-oriented software and Symbian S60 OS. The 2.4 inch screen is among the best on the market and remains legible in direct sunlight. There are a whole host of email clients supported. With 3G, HSDPA and Wi-Fi, this is a very handy device to have outside of the office. GPS is also present and a 4GB memory card is included.

Symbian S60 Feature Pack 2 is included, which means numerous software updates, making the E75 even better than the class-leading E71 when it comes to messaging and organisation. The camera and multimedia functions are not the main features of this phone; however they are still reasonable with a decent music and video player, FM radio and a 3.2 megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic

Nokia's first touchscreen phone is impressively good. It may not have quite the polished feel of the iPhone, but with so many good features, it's in many ways better than the iPhone. Headline features include the very high resolution touchscreen with 16 million colours, the 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 3G video calling, an excellent web browser with support for Flash, the music player & FM radio, GPS positioning with Nokia Maps, WiFi, Bluetooth and an 8GB memory card. Available in black, red or blue.

General	2G Network	GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
	3G Network	HSDPA 900 / 2100
		HSDPA 850 / 1900 - American version
	Announced	2008, October
	Status	Available. Released 2008, November
Size	Dimensions	111 x 51.7 x 15.5 mm, 83 cc
	Weight	109 g
Display	Type	TFT resistive touchscreen, 16M colors
	Size	360 x 640 pixels, 3.2 inches
		- Proximity sensor for auto turn-off
		- Accelerometer sensor for auto-rotate
		- Handwriting recognition
Sound	Alert types	Vibration; Downloadable polyphonic, MP3 ringtones
	Speakerphone	Yes, with stereo speakers
		- 3.5 mm audio jack
Memory	Phonebook	Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
	Call records	Detailed, max 30 days
	Internal	81 MB storage, 128 MB RAM
	Card slot	microSD (TransFlash), up to 16GB, 8GB included, buy memory
Data	GPRS	Class 32
	HSCSD	Yes
	EDGE	Class 32
	3G	HSDPA, 3.6 Mbps
	WLAN	Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
	Bluetooth	Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
	Infrared port	No
	USB	Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Camera	Primary	3.15 MP, 2048x1536 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, LED flash
	Video	Yes, VGA@30fps
	Secondary	Videocall camera
Features	OS	Symbian OS v9.4, Series 60 rel. 5
	CPU	ARM 11 369 MHz processor
	Messaging	SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging
	Browser	WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML, RSS feeds
	Radio	Stereo FM radio with RDS
	Games	Yes + Java downloadable
	Colors	Black, Red, Blue
	GPS	Yes, with A-GPS support; Nokia Maps 2.0 Touch
	Java	Yes, MIDP 2.0
		- MP3/WMA/WAV/eAAC+ player
		- MPEG4/WMV/3gp video player
		- TV-out
		- Voice command/dial
		- Document viewer (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF)
		- Photo editor
Battery		Standard battery, Li-Ion 1320 mAh(BL-5J)
	Stand-by	Up to 406 h (2G) / 408 h (3G)
	Talk time	Up to 8 h 45 min (2G) / 5 h (3G)
	Music play	Up to 35 h
Misc	Price group	Reference Price : RM 1230 - 1260 RM 1115 - 1145 (AP)

We've waited a heck of a long time for Nokia to catch up with Apple, LG and Samsung and launch a touchscreen phone. And here it is at last! It's a 3G smartphone, and belongs to Nokia's XpressMusic range.

At first glance, it looks like it was worth the wait. It's a very stylish handset. All touchscreen phones tend to look pretty much the same to be honest. What distinguishes the 5800 is its sleekness: it's much narrower than the iPhone 3G, in fact with a width of 52mm, it's probably the narrowest touchscreen phone around. This means that you can easily operate it with one hand. It has a lovely big screen too, with a very high resolution (640 x 360 pixels), which helps to make the user interface easier to use. The device has a wide range of input options: finger touch, stylus and plectrum with a virtual alphanumeric keypad, full and mini QWERTY keyboards and handwriting recognition. The display will rotate automatically when you turn the phone to landscape mode. Normally the XpressMusic phones have dedicated buttons for music, and the 5800 has a dedicated virtual media bar for quick access to music controls, as well as functions like the gallery and web browser. There are also physical keys for power, send and end, menu, screen lock and volume. The big question is: "Is the touchscreen on the 5800 as good as the iPhone?" Sadly, no. But it isn't at all bad. It's just that you need to use the stylus sometimes and the whole experience isn't quite so much fun. But stick with the review, because the 5800 has a lot going for it, and beats the iPhone in a number of departments.

The 5800 has a proper camera for a start. At 3.2 megapixels it isn't the best camera phone by a long way, but it uses Carl Zeiss optics, has autofocus and a double LED flash and leaves the iPhone standing. It also has a decent video camera, which can record at up to 640 x 480 pixels and at 30 frames per second, with stereo sound. A front-mounted video camera enables you to make video calls on a 3G network.

The music player in the 5800 is excellent too. We found the touchscreen controls to be very easy here, and all the features that you'd hope for are here, including an 8-band graphic equaliser and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The phone is supplied with an 8GB memory card, which can store up to 2,000 MP3 tracks (or 4,000 in AAC format), and if your music collection grows even bigger, you can upgrade this to a massive 16GB. The optional Comes With Music feature gives you unlimited music downloads for a whole year! There's also a built-in FM radio. No complaints for music then.

The 5800's big touchscreen is ideal for web browsing. With very fast download speeds thanks to the 3G HSDPA implementation and a quality web browser, there's nothing to hold you back. The 5800 beats the iPhone here too, with support for Flash meaning that you can watch videos from YouTube and other sites on your phone. The phone is also WiFi compatible, so you can get super fast data transfer speeds in the vicinity of a WLAN network or a WiFi Hotspot.

GPS is included too, together with Nokia Maps. As well as 3G and WiFi, the connectivity options include Bluetooth and USB, plus a TV-Out connection (cable supplied.)

The 5800 XpressMusic is a Series 60 phone, and potentially there are going to be a lot of third-party apps available for downloading too. You get a couple of games and the standard Series 60 organiser applications with the phone, including document browsers and a good organiser.

Finally, we want to mention that the battery life is very good. Phones like this do tend to get used rather a lot, and big screens are hungry for power, but the battery capacity seems to be up to the job.

The sales package is generous, including all the cables you'll need, a stereo headphone, an 8GB memory card, a case, a stand and a stylus. The phone is available in black, red and blue too.

We weren't sure what to expect from Nokia's first touchscreen phone. It's obviously spent a lot of time in the design studio, and it looks like Nokia wisely resisted the temptation to rush something out. The 5800 no doubt has the occasional bug (all smart phones do), but these are few and will probably be ironed out pretty quickly with firmware updates. The 5800 XpressMusic manages to combine the benefits of touchscreen, without many downsides, and avoids being just another iPhone clone thanks to Nokia's attention to detail. It may not be perfect, but we're impressed by just how good it is, and it would be churlish to award anything less than 5 stars.

Just a footnote: some people have got the impression that the 5800 automatically includes Nokia's "Comes With Music" service, which gives you free music downloads for a year. This is not the case. Unless the product is described as "Nokia 5800 Comes With Music" then it's just a standard Nokia 5800 XpressMusic phone. Hope this clears up the confusion

Reference Price :

RM 1230 - 1260
RM 1115 - 1145 (AP)

Symbian vs Windows mobile

When you are looking for more functionality than the average device offers, you have the choice from a broad range of smartphones and PDAs. Both types of devices not only differ physically but also as far as operation system is concerned. The better you know which functions you are going to use on a frequent base, the easier it is to make your choice.

Symbian OS:

• [+] Symbian OS is the market leader with large installed based devices. It has been growing very fast too.
• [+] More and more third party applications are developed for Symbian OS. Symbian claims there are already more than 4400 applications for Symbian OS.
• [+] From the technical point of view, Symbian OS, which is originally from EPOC, was developed from the very beginning as the operating system for mobile devices. It is designed for devices with limited processor power, low memory, always on, limited battery power and most importantly always connected.
• [-] Symbian dominates the market is mostly because of Nokia. What is going to happen if Nokia switch to another operating system? We have seen Nokia just released Linux device, Nokia 770.
• [-] The learning curve of Symbian OS is very steep. There are a lot of “strange” concepts in Symbian OS from developer’s point of view, such as active objects and cleanup stack. It might affect the growing number of third party applications.

Windows Mobile:

• [+] No single company dominates Windows Mobile devices, unlike Symbian OS.
• [+] The users, who are familiar with Windows 2000/XP, will feel “at home” when using Windows phones. It is one big advantage.
• [+] We can expect to see third party applications will grow very fast. Windows Mobile has .NET Compact Framework, which make porting applications from PC is very easy.
• [+] Since it is a Microsoft product, it integrates with other Microsoft products very well, for example Office, Outlook and Exchange.
• [-] Windows Mobile is originally an operating system for PC. Although most of Windows Mobile codes are written from scratch, some mobile features are one step behind Symbian OS, for example telephony stack used for voice calling. However, Bill Gates recently said the telephony stack should be better in Windows Mobile 5.0. Another example, the first 3G Symbian OS phone was released about 3 years ago in Japan, while the first 3G Windows Mobile phone was released just last month.

Firmware and Flashing FAQ

Firmware and Flashing FAQ

What is Firmware?

Firmware is the coded instruction and Operating System, OS (e.g. Symbian, Windows Mobile, Proprietary OS) in the phone. Simply said,

QUOTE(Wikipedia)

firmware is software that is embedded in a hardware device

What is Firmware Flashing?

QUOTE(Wikipedia)

Flashing is the process of replacing a cell phone's firmware, usually to replace the original firmware with updated or custom firmware. Flashing is often performed to remove restrictions put on a phone by that phone's wireless carrier. While flashing is not illegal, it usually voids any warranty offered by the service provider.

Flashing is accomplished by connecting a phone to a computer using a data cable and copying new software from the computer onto the phone.

QUOTE(symbian-freak.com)

Flashing is changing the phone's internal software, also known as firmware update.
This can be done to upgrade to a newer version which has bugs fixed, modify the phone's features or modding (usually on S30 or S40 phones, add ring tones, change graphics, add features).

It is called "flashing" because the phone's operating system is not stored on a memory such a hard disk, they are stored in a chip which need direct programming (ROM), but with flashing possibility "flash memory" chip, that's mean "flashing".

What is branding/debranding and firmware customisation?

QUOTE(SE-NSE: thanks to iRonTech)

Customization is changing or replacing original content of the phone, like ringtones, wallpapers, icons, themes, that come with branded or unbranded phones. It also includes removing text message storage limit, mute camera shutter sound etc.

Branded Phones = Some network providers place their own ringtones, themes, icons, links etc within phone's software. (eg. vodafone/telenor, orange, t-mobile, rogers, cingular etc.) Debranding means removing all this content and restoring phone to it's original factory/generic condition. This will not damage phone in any way!

Updating Firmware?

Nokia Phone Software Update

Sony Ericsson Update Service (SEUS)

Motorola Software Update

How To Save A Wet Mobile Phone ? icon_question.gif

How To Save A Wet Mobile Phone ?

1. Get it out of the water as soon as possible.
The plastic covers on cell phones are fairly tight, but water can enter the phone over time.
But this time may be quite short - 20 seconds or less. So grab your phone quickly!

2. Remove the battery.
This is one of the most important steps.
Don't take time to think about it; electricity and water do not mix.
Cutting power to your phone is a crucial first step in saving it.
Many circuits inside the phone will survive immersion in water provided they are not attached to a power source when wet.

3. Remove your SIM card.
Some or all of your valuable contacts (along with other data) could be stored on your SIM.
To some people this could be more worth saving than the phone itself.
SIM cards survive water damage well, but some of the following steps are unnecessary i.e. don't heat it.
Just pat it dry and leave it aside until you need to connect your phone to your cellular network.

4. Dry your phone.
Obviously you need to remove as much of the water as soon as possible, so you can prevent it from getting into the phone.
Use a towel or paper towel to remove as much of the water as possible.

5. Allow the phone to dry.
Since you do not want to ruin your phone or lose all of the numbers in your phone book, you need to allow the phone to dry.
Also, ringtones and graphics stay with the phone - not the SIM.
Don't try putting the battery back on to see if it works as this would risk damaging the phone with a short circuit.

6. Wait.
This is the hardest part - leaving your phone alone, with battery and SIM card out, while it dries slowly.
Tricks like leaving your phone in a bowl of dry rice will help to expedite moisture evaporation.
They might also have side effects like getting rice in your phone.
Just put it someplace reasonably warm and dry, uncovered so water can evaporate, and wait.

7. Test your phone.
After you have waited 3 days, make sure everything is clean and dry looking and re-attach the battery to the phone and see if it works.
If your phone does not work, wait another few days.
If it still won't work, try taking your cell phone to an authorized dealer. Sometimes they can fix it.

Alternate Alcohol Soak Method
(not recommended if u donno wat u are doin)

Dry your phone by soaking it in alcohol or distilled water.
This method is controversial and considered risky by some, but the proponents believe in it strongly.
Using alcohol is more effective than distilled water because not only does it displace the water and sediments,
it also evaporates faster with less residue.
It will not harm a mobile phone. Preferably, use denatured alcohol or a 95% alcohol solution.
Denatured alcohol may be purchased at any hardware store and is used to clean electronics because it evaporates quickly and leaves no residue.
You should check to see what the alcohol is denatured with.
If it is anything other than methanol (some are denatured with very hazardous chemicals such as methyl ethelyne ketone [MEK]) you should not use it, as some denaturants can melt plastics.
Most drugstores or larger retailers carry 91% rubbing alcohol. Regular rubbing alcohol is only 70% and is not recommended.
Distilled water also displaces water and is a viable alternative because it is non-conductive.
Prolonged exposure to other liquids will cause corrosion of the copper traces within the mobile phone, and will most likely cease its operation.


The less risky ways to dry your phone

1. Set it on top of the vent of a cable box, monitor or TV for at least 24 hours (up to 3 days). The low heat emitted is enough to gently dry out the phone.

2. The longer your phone is wet the more likely it is to be damaged. To dry your phone more quickly than room temperature air can manage, immerse it in a can of dry, uncooked rice. The rice will absorb excess moisture, drying your phone from the inside out.

3. An alternate drying technique is to seal the phone (battery, SIM card, SD card all removed) in a plastic bag with a few of the silica packs that come packed with shoes, coats, electronics. Leave the phone in the bag for a day or 2, and the silica packs will absorb the moisture.

4. One other way to assist in the drying process is to put your cell phone in a disposable baby diaper. Works for babies and can work for the cell phone as well.

TIPS

* Don't put the battery in for at least three days, or longer if your digital screen is foggy.

* If your phone falls in the ocean or other salt water, rinse with fresh water before crystals can form after removing battery.

* Try opening your phone if you can. You'll probably need a TORX screwdriver for that, but it's worth it. This may void your warranty, but it is likely the water damage already has.

* It is likely that the dunk in water will kill the battery. The phone itself usually survives.

* Corrosion is a threat. You may want to consider soaking your phone in distilled water to wash away any minerals it picked up from the original water.

WARNINGS

# Don't heat the battery or it could leak or explode.Lithium-ion batteries are sensitive. If you use an oven or hairdryer, make sure to remove the battery first.

# If you use alcohol make sure to do so outside, and do not apply heat in any form, not even the gentle heat of a monitor. Do not hook up the battery till the alcohol smell dissipates.

# Do not apply too much heat to your phone, as mentioned above. You don't want to melt or burn your phone.

# Most modern phones have more than one liquid damage indicator (stickers that change color when wet) on them, only one visible to you (and sales/technician agents), and chances are, if the sticker under the battery is triggered, then the odds are that the internal stickers you can't access are tripped as well. This will still result in you paying a voided-warranty fee in the long run. Warranties don't cover water damage, insurance does. And not all insurance companies or plans will honor water damaged phones.

# Even if all these steps are followed, minerals dissolved in the water can precipitate on solder and component pins, causing corrosion or shorting. Components pins are packed so closely together in a modern cell phone that even a small encrustation can create a short, rendering the phone inoperable.

# Be warned that manufacturers place stickers that will display "void" once peeled and some will change colors in the presence of a liquid (usually turns blue or red). This helps techs know that you have dropped it in the water, as most cell phone insurance coverage policies don't cover water damage. Also note that these stickers have been known to change colors in extreme humidity as well.

# Do not put the phone (or any electronic or metal-containing object) into the microwave. You will destroy electronic components and potentially the microwave.

Top 15 Phone

Nokia N82

Nokia 5310 XpressMusic

Sony Ericsson C905

Nokia 5610 XpressMusic

Sony Ericsson K850i

Nokia N95 8GB

HTC Touch Diamond

Nokia 6500 Slide

Sony Ericsson W910i

Sony Ericsson W902

Nokia N81 8GB

Nokia N95

Sony Ericsson W960i

Sony Ericsson K810i

Nokia N96