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.

It has only been three days since I ordered the Mede8er from Digital Era and  when I got home today, there it was on the table alongside my repaired Xbox 360.

So this post will be an “unboxing” since it seems to be “the thing to do” these days for gadgets. There will be no video, as I am not vain enough to hear my own voice, so you are only getting a few photos.

Box contents:

• Carry bag (nice touch),
• Full colour manual,
• Euro Adapter plug, power plug with fuse (wow),
• Batteries, Remote Control,
• Screws and vibration sponges,
• Stereo RCA cables (video, audio),
• HDMI cable (nice),
• Composite video cable,
• USB cable, extender cable for USB hard disks or USB keys,
• Mede8er with removable under cover, SATA power supply cable, SATA data cable.
• Western Digital 2.0TB SATA II Hard Disk (not included but displayed).

The box is fairly colourful with a lot of it’s features scattered on the front, back and sides. (a lot more visual than most commercial devices would show on their boxes). There are also colour photos of various screens, the remote control and the mede8er case. There are six languages listing the features as well, so it’s aimed at quite a broad international community. With the box open I can see two sections. The media player itself is wrapped in plastic and is surrounded by a protective sponge thingy and there is a half sized box containing all the cabling, remote control and manual as described above. I would give the packaging 10/10 as it perfect.

I’ve taken a few more photos of the box contents. They can be found in my photo gallery or by clicking on the image below.

Related Posts:

• Mede8er – Made in South Africa
  

This is my 2nd XBOX 360 in se7en years of owning consoles and I’ve had the misfortune or fortune (depending on how one sees it) of having the RED RING OF DEATH as pictured appear after a boot up.

It normally occurs when you are starting up your Xbox and about to play a game and it is extremely annoying as there is little one can do to fix it. If you search the Internet there are a few fixes available, which take time and effort and they will cost YOU money and most likely void your warranty completely.

DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME AS THERE IS A FREE SOLUTION:

Go to the XBOX Live website and register your console, then submit a ticket to them describing the error and you will find the “red ring of death” is covered by them regardless of your warranty, as it is a known XBOX fault. – Well that was my experience as my Xbox was over 3 years old and had definitely passed it’s warranty date.

After a successful fault submit, Xbox send you an email with your a UPS barcode stamp that covers the postage. All you need to do is buy a box to hold the console safely. My total expense was £5 and UPS delivered my broken Xbox to Microsoft Repair Centre in Germany within a day. I received an email from them saying they had my Xbox and it would be repaired within 2 weeks.

Well, imagine my surprise when I received my Xbox today (it took 10 days from the day I sent it off, to receiving it back in working order). That is incredible if you consider the UK had a bank holiday weekend in between.

That is fantastic support and service from Microsoft / XBOX.com and UPS.  Well done to all concerned.

One cannot fault Overclockers.co.uk for their delivery speed. I placed an order on Sunday evening for a 2TB Hard Disk and true to their email, the delivery arrived within 10 minutes of the estimated time of arrival. They use a company called DPD for parcel delivery and it looks like they are top notch.

Well done Overclockers and DPD on a speedy delivery.

It just shows you how brilliant the Internet can be when on-line shops give good service and the whole process works effortlessly.

After reading many reviews, comparing dozens of media centre devices, and waiting for over 2 years for the ultimate media centre to arrive, I have finally settled on a product made in South Africa of all places. It’s called the MEDE8ER. I will be blogging and giving my opinion of the device as soon as I get it! I just ordered it from Digital Era.

Some of the highlights that ticked my boxes was that it supports the latest 2TB SATA hard disks, is HDMI 1.3, has SD card support, NTFS / FAT32 file system support meaning connecting to will be a breeze from any PC in the house. It’s got a remote that exists in the Logitech Harmony One database and has some awesome recommedations from the likes of MPC Club.

Specifications
Processor: Realtek RTD1073 – 128MB SPI Flash – 128MB DDR2 SDRAM
Video Codec Supported: MKV, H264, DVD (VOB – IFO – ISO), DIVX, XVID, DAT, AVI, MPEG, HD MPEG-2, TS, HD MPEG-4, SP, ASP, AVCD (H.264), MTS, M2ts, WMV9, FLV, VC-1, Real Networks (RM/RMVB) 8/9/10, up to 720p

Audio  Codec Supported: MP3, MP2, OGG Vorbis, PCM, LPCM, AAC, RA, Dolby AC3 Passthrough, Dolby AC3 Downmix, DTS Passthrough, DTS Downmix, FLAC, WAV,
WMA Standard (DRM, & Advanced Profile not supported)
HD Audio support
Dolby digital                  – support decode & bypass
Dolby digital Plus            – support decode – bypass is in testing
Dolby digital EX              – support – compatible up to 5.1
DTS digital Surround       – support decode & bypass

Photo format Supported: JPEG, BMP
File System Supported: FAT32, NTFS – UI Format Feature

Input / Output
•  HDMI 1.3, Component video, Composite Video
•  Stereo RCA audio for analog audio connection
•  SD / Sony Pro Duo Card Slot
•  S/PDIF optical Output / Coaxial Digital RCA Output
•  Video output resolution – NTSC, PAL, 480p, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 1080p24hz
•  USB – 2.0 HOST port x 2 (compatible to USB 1.1)
•  USB – 2.0 SLAVE port
General
•  3.5″ SATA Internal Hard Drive Bay up to 2TB compatible
•  Built in 40mm cooling fan – TPE mounts for low noise
•  Playlist creation from remote
•  Built in NFS Client
•  Screensaver – Selectable in GUI setup
•  In folder JPEG preview feature
•  Easy navigation button use (excl DVD files)
•  Time Bar FF/FR and Time Bar jump
•  Media Library Jump To file number feature
•  Resume playback feature
•  Photo slide show with background music
•  Network – Ethernet 10/100 Mbps – Streaming MAX Samba 26Mbps / NFS 36Mbps
•  Optional Wi-Fi (802.11b/g/n)
Achievable Streaming G router – Samba 12Mbps – NFS 18 Mbps @ 1m – unprotected
Achievable Streaming N router – Samba 14Mbps – NFS 22 Mbps @ 1m – unprotected
(Typical MKV 720p Play 10Mbps max FF/RW 15Mbps)
•  Samba server – NAS storage
•  A/V streaming via UPnP Media Server (CNN – YouTube etc via optional program such as PlayOn, Tversity etc)
•  Internet Radio (SHOUTcast)
•  File Copying – Card, USB, HDD and Network
•  Subtitle: SRT, SSA, SUB, SMI format

The Internet is an amazing place for fixes and solutions and this post will explain why?

Gone are the days when something happens and you have to trudge down to the store where you bought something to find out how to fix it or waste time sending  the item back because it broke unexpectedly, and electronics can be a bitch sometimes. One minute they can be working and the next thing they are dead.But not all electronics are stupid like that, normally there is a back door or secret pass code that allows you in.

I have had my Nokia BH-905 headphones for little over 7 months now and I cannot fault them, in fact whenever I can emails or comments from people asking what I think of them, I can only praise them. They have been fantastic.

Today the unexpected happened. They just stopped working. I was listening to music via Bluetooth on my Nokia N900 and received a phone call through Skype. The music stopped like it should and the headphones picked up the call. I could hear the other person talking, but they couldn’t hear me back. I switched between headphones and phone and could hear fine, but still the other person couldn’t hear me because the microphone in the headphones had control. I switched off the headphones after the call was lost and then attempted to switch it back on – nothing. No green or red or orange or blue lights, just nothing. You know that sicking feeling!!!

Strangely though the noise cancelling light (orange), which is on the left headphone came on when I switched on the ANC button. Aaah, I thought, so the battery is not dead and the noise cancelling was working in both headphones so that was a good sign that all was not lost.

I decided to recharge the headphones before attempting any fixes. Once charged, I did a search on Google using the following keywords – “nokia bh-905 not switching on” and found a Nokia Support Discussion from the 14th of October 2009, where someone had a similar problem. Reading through the forum, I noticed some folk had the exact problem I was experiencing. One smart person (mseln) even wrote what he had tried to fix the problem, followed up by another post stating he had fixed the problem and gave the solution. It’s people like this that make the Internet work.

So here is the solution or fix as I have tried it and it worked just fine:

Hold down “pause + rewind + volume down” on the right headphone for about 15 to 20 seconds and you will see an orange light then a fast flashing blue light appear.  The headphones are now in search mode looking for a pairing. I was able to connect immediately on my Nokia N900 and everything is working again.

I recently upgraded my T-Mobile contract to a Sim Only deal where by I get X amount of minutes and X amount of voice calls and unlimited internet usage.  I took this option because I bought my phone outright.

T-Mobile were very quick to point out that the “unlimited internet usage” was not actually unlimited but instead capped at 1GB.

How ridiculous?

Ridiculous for many reasons as the phone I recently purchased is totally geared towards the Internet and for social networking (Skype, Gtalk, MSN, Facebook, Twitter, has a full internet browser, access to everything internet related). The Nokia N900 is a mini computer or tablet device with a phone function.

The Nokia N900 is not the only phone offering such features, there are many other phone makes (Blackberry, Apple, Motorola, Samsung, HTC, LG etc) and models offering fast download speeds (7.2MBit, 10MBit).

T-Mobile bragged that they were streaks ahead of the other mobile ISP’s because they offered 1GB instead of 500MB. All very well, but that is a pathetic statement to make!

I consider myself a heavy Internet data user on my mobile and by that I mean:

1. The Nokia N900 is a multi-tasking device, therefore it is possible to open multiple web sites in the real internet browser, which is similar to what you would find on your desktop PC, and it is able to load up all the graphics, video and sounds that are normally present on a website quickly, which obviously uses a lot of data. I regularly browse;
   1. BBC, Sky News, Engadget, Wired, Netvibes, Youtube, Wilkinsonsworld, Crunchvictims, FT, CMAVision, Gmail,  etc.
2. On top of that I would have open Facebook, an online scrabble game,
3. Multiple Twitter accounts,
4. Last.FM scrobbler, or Shoutcast music streaming, or E-Book reader,
5. I am downloading a few podcasts on a daily basis,
6. Reading and replying to my various Email accounts,
7. Instant Messaging through Skype, MSN, GTalk and Facebook (all possible in one place on the N900),
8. Blogging on my various websites,

I had a look at my data usage after a week of using the Nokia N900 and it’s up at 450MB. (Doh! after a week). There is no way on earth the 1GB limit is going to last me. I will reach that cap by the end of next week!

T-Mobile already offer broadband via a USB Dongle. They are quite generous in the amount one can download with their USB dongle (£ 10/mth – 4.5 Mb/s  – 3 Gb cap). – Check out wifi.co.uk

What they need to realize is that with the new mobile technology coming out with bigger and better devices with lovely large screens and qwerty keyboards, that devices such as the N900 are similar too and / or if not better than a netbook or a laptop with a USB Dongle, since they incorporate the internet technology in the device.

For a Sim Only contract with unlimited Internet at a cost of £15/mth, one would expect T-Mobile to offer a larger download limit!

Come on T-Mobile, please review your Interet download policy!

I am currently listening to a wonderful story called “DECIDER” by Dick Francis on my Noka 5800.

I decided (excuse the pun) to put my new bluetooth headphones (BH-905) to the test. They have 8 noise cancelling microphones that are meant to block out the surrounding noise.  So far they are doing an excellent job. Noise is non-existent with one switches on the ANC button.

I am using a very cool audio application called “PowerMP3″ on the Nokia 5800.  I downloaded this from Symbian World and I would go as far as saying “it is better than the default music player on the Nokia 5800XM”.

Dick Francis – Decider, Architect Lee Morris has plans to restore Stratton Park racecourse to its former grandeur. But the combative Stratton heirs have violent plans of their own.

Related Links:

• Out with the Sony BT50 and in with the Nokia BH-905!

I’ve been supporting Play.com for quite a while because their prices are very competitive, often the best online and their service is second to none and even more so when things go wrong.

One such example happened recently after I purchased a pair of Nokia Bluetooth headphones (BH-905) from them. The headphones arrived in a timely fashion and I listened to them a couple of times but noticed a problem. I contacted Play.com on the third day by phone and explained the problem and the support guy was very helpful and said “not to worry” and explained what I needed to do to return the goods back to them. I followed all the instructions and sent them back via special delivery.

A day or two later I received an email from them which told me my postage had been reimbursed. That was a nice touch. A few days later I had my second pair of headphones and they have been working perfectly ever since.

Related Links:

• Out with the Sony BT50 and in with the Nokia BH-905!

Damn, I can’t believe I can put a 16GB micro SDHC memory card in my original Nokia N95. There seems no reason now for me to upgrade my phone. It just shows you how smart this little phone is even if it came out over eighteen months ago.

The price of memory especially in the SDHC department has come down so much over the past year. I think I paid £80 for my 6GB twelve months ago, and now the 16GB sells for £50. (Insane)…

Here is a mobile phone compatibility chart from mymemory.co.uk just in case you buy the memory card and discover it does not work in your phone.