What do you get when you combine the Nokia E72 with the Nokia BH-905 Bluetooth headphones?

Elegance and style and an awesome sound experience.

I was amazed how good my music sounded through the Bluetooth headphones. I have had the Nokia BH-905 headphones for 9 months and use them daily with my Nokia N900. Today was the first time I have paired them with the Nokia E72 and the sound was immense. I had to turn the volume down on the headphones and the phone was already on 1 bar above mute. In fact they were much clearer and louder than my N900 if I have to be honest. That was a pleasant surprise.

Once connected or paired the headphones buttons will work with “most” media applications on the E72:

• The default music player works perfectly. Navigating forward and backward through a playlist, pausing, stopping and playing songs all work really well.
• Likewise for the video player, all buttons work as intended. Holding the fast forward or rewind buttons down for longer than a second moves the film forward or backwards slowly at first then it goes fast. You can see this happening on the screen. In the video playlist one can use the forward and back buttons on the headphones to move down or up the list of videos. Pressing play and the video starts up. (very clever, a truly hands free experience).
• In Real player the controls again work perfectly. There is a demo video called “Miniature” and the sound is absolutely awesome in relation to the video.
• I tried them out on the Radio application. The FM Radio only works if one connects a wired headset. This is because the aerial is in the cable. Kind of pointless for a bluetooth headphone don’t you think?
• However the Internet Radio worked perfectly, although you would need to use your data connection for this and the radio is only available while you are within range of a mobile phone mast. All the button functions on the right headphone worked great.
• I tried the voice recorder but discovered you need to manully press the record button and the stop button on the phone. Naturally one can play back the sound through the headphones but there is no controlling the audio with the headphone buttons.

I just so happened to receive a phone call from my wife today while I was listening to some music and the music was briefly paused while the phone was ringing through the headphones. One then has a choice to accept the call by pressing the function button on the headphones, or ignoring the call and sending it off to voice mail.

I noticed the sound was crystal clear and in stereo. I am told the clarity of my voice was good and there was no surrounding noise. I have the noise cancelling (ANC button) on by default, and one can talk freely without distraction. Of course everyone around you thinks you are a madhatter talking to yourself out aloud.

Let’s face it, a work phone at the best of times is more of a pain than an advantage because some companies expects you to be on call 24/7 or at least be looking at your emails all the time. It is not my scene at all to be honest, especially after hours when all I want to do is play Angry Birds on my Nokia N900

Jokes aside, my preference would be to have one phone or device that doubles as a work phone for handling lots of emails, contacts and calendar entries, and a home phone that meets my ‘out of office’ needs which are music, video, not so heavy gaming, social networking, web surfing etc.

So as you can see, I received the Nokia E72 today and I am going to be trialling it for two weeks. Many thanks to WOMWorld/Nokia for sending me the phone. The photo above shows my work phone, the Blackberry Curve 8900 and the Nokia E72 side-by-side. For this first post I am going to compare the two phones visually.

My initial thoughts on looks and design:

• The 8900 is sexier than the E72 and has a smoother, rounded feel.
• Both phones are surrounded by a metal edge. It might be plastic although I am not sure, but it feels tough and gives the phone a strong appearance.
• The E72 is noticeably thinner although only by 3mm (E72 is 10mm thick versus the 8900 at 13mm).
• The 8900 is about the perfect size for a mobile device as it’s not too big and not too small. The E72 feels too long unless one has big hands.
• The weight in hand of each phone feels the same although in reality the E72 is heavier by 18g at 128g (still light overall).
• Both phones have a 2.4″ screen which is okay for the small size. Both screens are bright although the 8900 has a 480 x 360 pixels resolution where as the E72 has a 320 x 240 pixels resolution. More pixels mean a clearer screen, so the 8900 should win but the E72 can display up to 16 million colours where as the 8900 can only show 65000 colours. To be honest I can’t tell the difference. They both look fantastic.
• On the back and at the top of the E72 is a 5MP camera with LED flash where as the 8900 has a 3MP camera and LED flash.
• The 8900′s camera is flush with the back cover so there is no movement when the phone is placed on a table, where as the E72 has a raised cover protecting the camera and flash. The E72 is not as study on a table and when typing and there is a distinct wobble.
• On the right side of the 8900 there is a 3.5mm headphone socket, a double button that acts as volume rocker, a shortcut button and a micro USB port for charging / data transfer, whereas on the E72 there is a separate button for increasing the volume, the middle button is for voice commands, and third button is for decreasing the volume.
• On the left side of the 8900 is another shortcut button which can be assigned to any function. The same goes for the shortcut button on the right. On the E72 there are no buttons, but flush with the edge are two covers hiding the micro USB port and a micro SD card. It is a nice touch to see the covers protecting these ports from dust. The micro USB port doubles as a data transfer port as well as a charge port.
• On the top of the 8900 there are no visible buttons but there are two hidden buttons on either side of the top of the phone, that need a little pressure to activate. Pressing down on the top left side locks / unlocks the device and pressing down on the top right side puts the phone into sleep mode. (Very useful if your phone is on a belt or in a pouch and there is no fiddling around with combination key presses to lock or unlock the device). On the top of the E72 are the power button and a 3.5mm head phone jack. Good to see the location is at the top.
• On the bottom of the E72 is a standard Nokia charging port, but remember it can also charge via the micro USB port on the left.
• Finally my thoughts on the keyboard and mouse wheel/optical pad. It took me ages to get use to the keys on the Blackberry. The keys in my opinion are too small. My poor thumbs struggle at the best of times and I have to resort to holding the phone in one hand and using my left 2nd finger to type with my right thumb. On the Nokia E72 the keys are slightly larger and squarer and bevelled, which feel a lot easier to type on.
  • It almost seems that the E72 has tried to squash too many keys onto the phone (39 keys including the spacebar versus 35 keys on the 8900), plus above the keyboard there are an extra 8 keys along with the D pad. The 8900 only has 4. The E72 certainly feels cluttered against the 8900.
  • The optical pad instantly annoyed me as it was too easy to move away from a menu or icon if your finger moved over it in a certain direction. I turned the sensitivity down but it only made using the optical pad slower. Fortunately there is the D pad with its 4 directional keys and a press to bring up menus or run a command. On the 8900 there is mouse ball, which is simple and effective.

I gave 1 point for a winner and 1/2 a point for a draw, and each phone came out with 9 points.

Did you know you can trial a Nokia device without even going into a mobile shop? In fact all you need to do is vist WOMWorld/Nokia and go to their Trial a Nokia page, fill in a few details and explain to them why you want to trial a Nokia device and you might be lucky enough to receive an email back offering you a two week trial of one of their devices.

That is exactly what I did a few weeks back. The trial page is very simple, just fill in all the required details, pick the Nokia device you want to trial, give them a few lines explaining why you want to trial their device and submit.

Back in December 2009 I was dead set on getting the Nokia E72 for it’s size, fast processor, latest version of Symbian software, multiple profiles and it’s all round appeal, but then along came the Nokia N900 with its large bright screen, large hard disk, large slide out qwerty keyboard and open source operating system and so the E72 was a mere twinkle in the sky. On paper the two devices are very similar if not the same in processor power, but that is where it ends. I will do a comparison of the two phons in a couple of days.

Now that I have been using the N900 since February, I want to see what it would be like to go back to a light, small mobile with a qwerty keyboard. The E72 is very similar in size to the Blackberry Curve 8900, a mobile I use at work, so another chance for a comparison.

Before the N900 I had the Nokia 5800, Nokia’s first touch screen and the original Nokia N95.

The good news is after a few weeks of waiting, I finally got  confirmation today that the E72 should be with me tomorrow.

In preparation for the two week trial I have signed up with giffgaff.com – They offer a free PAYG SIM card and once you are registered you can top up and buy Goodybags, which are a mix of UK minutes, texts, and mobile Internet that lasts for a month.

I did a post on giffgaff.com not so long ago (giffgaff.com not quite a better deal and misleading), after I received my SIM card and was in the process of registering when I discovered their website didn’t quite match up, so I didn’t actually try them out because of the various issues I had with them. Having the E72 now will be a good time to give them a chance. I know they have changed a lot since then so hopefully they will be getting a good review from me.

Finally WOMWorld/Nokia wanted to send me a pair of BH-905 bluetooth headphones, but I told them “No need, as I have them already” , so I will definitely be putting them to the test on the Nokia E72.

I was walking towards Bank Station this evening when behind me I heard what sounded like a flute playing. It’s quite an unique sound so I turned around and behind two police horse riders were a squad of men slow marching behind a man that looked a little like the Pied Piper of Hamlin. To his left was a drummer keeping the beat.

The men were dressed in tradional red uniform with armour plates on their chest. Some of the men were holding pikes (a long pole with a spike on the end), while the others at the back of the squad were holding old style Matchlocks.

The matchlock was the first mechanism or “lock” invented to facilitate the firing of a hand-held firearm. This design removed the need to lower by hand a lit match into the weapon’sflash pan and made it possible to have both hands free to keep a firm grip on the weapon at the moment of firing, and, more important, to keep both eyes on the target.

The main disadvantage of the matchlock was the time it took to reload after each shot. To solve this problem, musketeers in the front line fired their matchlocks and then they retired to the back to reload.

The pikeman carried pikes that were between twelve and eighteen feet long. When the enemy employed a cavalry charge, the musketeers sheltered behind and between the pikemen. During the cavalry charge the pikemen aimed their pikes at the chests of the oncoming horses.

Something was definitely going on, because behind the Pikemen & Musketeers were a few fancy cars, a Bentley and one very large black Rolls Royce. Normally the number plate is a give away, but this one had normal letters GCX 342J, so it wasn’t immediately obvious. It turns out that one of the duties of the Pikemen & Musketeers is to escort the Lord Major to civic functions. So there is the answer I think! I didn’t catch a glimpse of the Lord Major, but it was wonderful display of history.

The Company of Pikemen and Musketeers are veteran members of the Honourable Artillery Company, the oldest regiment in the British Army.

The HAC can trace its history as far back as 1296, and received a Royal Charter from Henry VIII on 25 August 1537.

Related Sources and Links:

• Pikemen and Musketeers.
• The Queen laughs as a 17th century military officer clad in armour has trouble sitting next to her.
• The English Civil War.
• Wikipedia – Matchlock.
• City of London – Lord Major.
• The Naseby Battlefield Project.
• THE MONARCHIST.

The 1st, 4th & 5th photos and video were taken using my Nokia N900

The world cup starts today in my homeland South Africa and keeping up to date with all the latest scores over the next few weeks is going to be critical especially if your name is Bowen and you have multiple bets running on the various games that are being played. So I am pleased to report a little football widget / application called Pelota for the Nokia N900 /N97 and Nokia 5800.

Funlabs have realeased the widget called Pelota, which run in a real-time mode. It informs you about the status of the world cup games being played. For every goal that is scored, the widget beeps and vibrates and displays the score on your screen.

Update @ 1703: The widget works brilliantly, beeping loudly when a goal was scored.  What an exciting game that was?

So it now possible to run most applications on the Nokia N900 in portrait mode by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+R together and then closing the keyboard. In the example below you can see Witter working in portrait mode, with an onscreen keyboard that can be turned on or off.

OVI store are currently offering a seven day trial of Sygic Mobile Maps 9 for the Nokia N900, so we thought we would give it a try out. We are driving west to Swindon today to pick up our new family member, a little expensive ball of fluff called Bailey. He is a Tonkinese kitten. So we plan to use the Nokia and Sygic Mobile Maps 9.

It’s a known fact that the OVI Maps application on the N900 is not the greatest or not on par with the OVI Maps on other Nokia devices, so a company called Sygic have brought out their Mobile Maps 9 application which offers a whole plethora of GPS goodies. It is really slick and finger friendly. I just downloaded two maps from the OVI Store, one of the UK /Ireland and the other of France. That is one of the advantages of the application in that the maps are stored locally, therefore there will be no data costs to us while using Mobile Maps 9.

Another feature I can’t wait to test is the real-time traffic feeds, which are based on feeds from local road authorities, police departments and systems that track traffic flow.

While writing this post, I have been fiddling with various settings and I am super impressed already by the simplicity and quickness of the menus. Definitely a good start.

I will update this post tonight when we get back.

Are you getting the following browser screen when clicking on the OVI icon on your N900? Before flashing your device (I took these drastic steps twice with little success although knowing how to flash your device is useful), check out the little application called Browser User Agent if you have it installed.

I must admit it caught me by surprise. I have been on various forums asking for help with little success until I got a reply from “noobmonkey” in the Talk.Maemo.org forums. Noobmonkey questioned whether I was using the application “Browser User Agent“, which installs itself in the Settings area of the N900.

This rang warning bells as I had used the “Browser User Agent” in the past. So I referred back to a backup, and restored Browser User Agent, and what do you know?, I was indeed using a custom setup. I removed it completely and logged into OVI Stores immediately.

Thanks Noobmonkey. You can check out noobmonkey’s website over at Greg-Roberts.com

It is inevitable that there will be some application errors on a device after a firmware upgrade, and below are the ones I am encountering with the latest firmware release PR1.2. I have included screenshots to make it easier. If anyone can help explain why it’s happening and provide a solution, it will be much appreciated.

For starters I have these two applications in my Update screen but I am unable to update them.

And here is the error for the second application:

Related Links:

• NSU showing new Nokia N900 firmware 10.2010.19.1 (PR1.2).
  

Great news!!! Firmware PR1.2 for the Nokia N900 is definitely available via the Nokia Software Updater. Typically on starting my NSU software, I had to upgrade it to the latest version, but afterwards it picked up my N900 just fine.

Before I began I took a back up my Nokia N900 using the software on the device. I then copied off the backup files onto my computer. Always back up if you do not want to lose your  applications, settings, calendar entries and conversations.

I started the Nokia Software Updater via the Nokia PC Suite and it recognized the old version and the new version immediately.

The firmware is 187.9MB in size, which is quite a large file but over broadband it downloads really quickly, which is why I didn’t use the Over The Air update (OTA).

The update took about 2 minutes to download and then started updating the software on the phone.

The update took a little over 2 minutes to complete.

The N900 was automatically restarted and then prompted me for my pin number and then showed me the Nokia Tune Handshake Video (opening video), which means it has wiped out my Nokia N900 swish video. Lucky I have backups.

Screenshots to follow shortly….

It then presented me with a summary of my settings and an option to Save.

• Language: English (United Kingdom)
• Region: United Kingdom
• Time:  9:19am
• Date: 26/05/2010

The Nokia Restore is telling me it’s going to download and install 1.4GB’s worth of software from the Application Manager that I had in my application list, and presented me with a list of software that was in the restore file. (Very clever, but I am starting to think it has wiped out everything ).

40 minutes later: Software is indeed downloading and installing. Thank goodness I didn’t start this procedure outside of my wifi network as I would have already maxed out my data limit.  There are a few prompts for software that cannot be installed (I expect those to be the dodgy applications I hacked onto it. All in all if you have the time, it’s good to see what is happening, how it installs etc. I am playing with the phone as it’s doing its thing and it’s super quick.

Note: I am seeing lots of comments from people saying it didn’t work for them for whatever reason. Guys if you want help, please give a good description of your circumstances, the error you are seeing, the version of your previous N900 firmware, the version of NSU, the version of your OS etc, and then perhaps others can help. Just saying “it’s not working or it’s doing the same as XYZ is useless information and not helpful to anyone.

One thing I noticed was that the Nokia N900 would not connect correctly if you selected PC-Suite on your N900 when you plugged in the USB cable. The only way I got it to work was to plug the USB cable in and not select anything on the phone (as if you are only charging the phone). Then the Nokia PC Suite showed a connection and you are able to click on the NSU option to upgrade the firmware.

Related Links:

• Check out my Nokia N900 page for application links, modding, videos, websites, news and reviews.
• Opera mobile 10 browser on N900 is awesome.
  
• Don’t be a fool avoiding the N900.
  
• An awesome wallpaper manager called Prismic for the N900.
  
• Simply Electronics Service Review – N900 online purchase