I wasn’t as impressed with the E72, but the E73 Mode won me back and up until now I consider that my ultimate Nokia front facing QWERTY device. After spending a couple of weeks with my new Nokia E6 I have to say that I find little reason to pull out my T-Mobile SIM card and think this device may just have all that I need in a beautiful form factor and it trumps all other front facing QWERTY Nokia devices.

I also think it easily beats the BlackBerry QWERTY devices as I have said many times because it has dedicated keys for commonly used things such as @, ?, period, and comma that alone make it more functional for me.

The hardware of the Nokia E6 is just about what I wanted with a 640×480 pixel resolution display that rivals the iPhone 4 retina display with a density of 326 pixels per inch (the iPhone 4 is the same). It is only a 2.46 inch display though, which causes some issues with apps (Slacker Radio is offset and doesn’t fill the display). I like the solid metal back plate, huge 1500 mAh battery that matches my other Eseries devices, 8 megapixel camera, touchscreen display, slider/lock switch, and microSD card expandability. There is a lot more to the hardware I will cover in a full review.

Overall, I am pleased with the software, primarily that the E6 comes with Anna loaded out of the box. I still have issues with Nokia’s email solution and Gmail wasn’t working right at first and is still lazy about updating properly. Mail for Exchange works well though and I can now respond to meeting invites. I like the new home screen layout with 3 customizable widgets on the right and three common ones always on the left for time/date and quick alarm access, quick profile switcher, and notifications area. Including JoikuSpot out of the box has been helpful for keeping me connected during my vacation.

I am find a LOT to like with the E6, but also some things that need work. I still thik it is a fabulous Eseries QWERTY and a testament to that is the fact that my SIM has been in it most of these past two weeks. Stay tuned for more thoughts in a week or so.

While I am on vacation this week I still wanted to give you a few of my first thoughts on the device and show you some photos of it. For more in-depth analysis on the Nokia E6 take a look at these great articles:

• The PhoneBoy Blog (Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy)
• All About Symbian, Part 1: Hardware
• All About Symbian, Part 2: Software
• SlashGear

This will void your warranty, risk bricking your device, etc. so I do not suggest any readers take these actions and just wait for Nokia to officially release it. That said, my wife&#8217s blue Nokia N8 consistently locks up and is a piece of crap so I am going to update hers making use of these actions following I test it out on my orange 1 for a few much more days. So far everything seems to be working just fine. There were a couple of Chinese apps on the N8 that I just uninstalled and so far so good. These actions are not too bad truly and didn&#8217t call for any DOS commands or anything like goofing around with my N900 did.

Any readers attempt this update and if so, how did it go for you?

UPDATE: Here is a page describing a new ROM version with the split screen/context sensitive keyboard and other improvements. I am going to put this 1 on my N8 now.

Back in 2009 Nokia had a major lead in the smartphone market and seemed untouchable, but over the last couple of years we have seen how a large company without a clear focus can lose its way and market share. Back when my buddy Ricky Cadden shut down Symbian-Guru I thought of joining him and have had my own ups and downs over the past year. One thing that kept me going here more than the devices was the people of Nokia and those writing about Nokia and I appreciate their friendship over the years and hope we can continue those relationships for years to come.

I am extremely excited to see the Windows Phone OS running on Nokia hardware and while it may not have a major impact on Nokia’s market share I think it is the right move for them at this time. I do still enjoy Symbian and will keep a few devices around to continue using, but my primary smartphone love right now is Windows Phone and I cannot find much motivation to write about Nokia here on this site. Don’t worry though I will include Nokia coverage more on my ZDNet blog so I may not be focused on it here, but will still cover the company and the devices. Nokia’s Windows Phone devices will be well covered by the great folks at WPCentral and I hope to contribute some articles there and across some other Smartphone Experts sites since I enjoy using devices from every smartphone platform.

Thank you again to all of you readers for you support, questions, and die hard attitude. There were not many of us in the United States who discovered and heavily used Nokia’s Symbian and Maemo devices, but I hope I helped some of you out over the past couple of years.

Nokia Experts

Stephen Elop stated that a Windows Phone device will be coming out from Nokia in 2011 and that excites me. I enjoy the new Windows Phone operating program and think it much better than iOS and Android for me. I won’t predict that Windows Phone will resurrect Nokia’s sales numbers, but they will have a positive impact. Hopefully the Nokia brand will introduce Windows Phone to much more folks due to the fact I just feel folks require to try it first to see how wonderful it is. At this time people seem to stay away from it due to the fact it is from Microsoft and they have existing feelings about the old Microsoft mobile operating systems.

Nokia is nonetheless creating very very good Symbian smartphones and those of us who nonetheless in fact like Symbian are discovering some fantastic devices in the N8, E7, and E6.

Nokia Specialists

With this acquisition Synchronica will gain the opportunity to service more than six million active end users just in North America. Approximately 250 employees, externals, and contractors are planned to transfer from Nokia to Synchronica.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of July 2011.

Nokia Experts

With this acquisition Synchronica will gain the opportunity to service more than six million active end users just in North America. Approximately 250 employees, externals, and contractors are planned to transfer from Nokia to Synchronica.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of July 2011.

Nokia Experts

This is what is posted on the Nokia USA site:

The Nokia US Online Store has been closed from June 30, 2011. Below you will find information on where to purchase a new Nokia product and/or compatible accessory and information on where to find support for your current online order from the Nokia Store.

The site lists the various questions and answers you may have regarding current orders, promotions, and service issues.

Nokia Experts

Thousands of videos were submitted and judged over a four month period and JW Griffiths, from Great Britain, was selected as the winner with his Splitscreen: A Love Story movie (embedded below). He earned a $ 10,000 USD prize.

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Seven others were selected as finalists and all of these can be viewed on the Nokia Shorts 2011 website. These include the following videos:

1. ‘Pearls of Wisdom ‘
   Jason Van Genderen – Australia
   A unique, short documentary featuring ‘pearls of wisdom’ from homeless and displaced people

2. ‘The Adventures of a Cardboard Box’
   Temujin Doran – UK
   The escapades of one boy and his cardboard box – his own gateway to a million, fantasy adventures

3. ‘Dirt’
   Joseph Marcantonio – UK
   A post-apocalyptic cowboy film

4. ‘The Rider’
   Josh Brooks – USA
   A classic story with a twist set in the hills of Montana

5. ‘Thunk in Public’
   Ryan Maples – USA
   A comedy short on unfiltered thoughts, leading to awkward situations

6. Homecoming
   Teemu Nikki – Finland
   Humourous film featuring key props including salmon, knife and a pair of gloves

7. Daniel
   Aurora Fearnley – UK
   A drama fantasy about one person coming to terms with a special, mystery gift

These are great to view for motivation to capture even better movies myself. Do you capture video with your Nokia N8?

Nokia Experts

I am looking forward to testing it out and sure hope it ends up with Anna soon because at this time I really find Symbian devices without Anna to be way below what other smartphones offer. I do still like my Nokia devices for the outstanding call quality and reception, long battery life, wonderful cameras, and more, but they really need to step it up soon.

Let me know what you would like for me to test out on the E7 and I will include it in my upcoming articles.

Nokia Experts

I will be working on my full review of the Nokia E7 as my T-Mobile SIM is back in the device after sending back the evaluation HTC Sensation 4G. Obviously, I am a fan of Nokia and Symbian or I would not write here on this site. I saw a good post on All About Symbian about the powerful and yet simple home screen we have on Symbian devices and it is honestly one of the reasons I use Symbian devices. If we could just get Anna on the E7 and N8 with the email client, web browser, and other improvements I would be happy until Windows Phone comes to Nokia. Even then, I will honestly miss many features of Symbian and plan to hold onto these three devices for quite some time.

Nokia Experts

I do not live near there so I can’t help Paul test out his application in real-life situations. He is particularly interested in seeing how it works with the Nokia Astound. If there are any Nokia Experts readers in Minnesota or who play to visit the Mall of America, please read below and consider helping give feedback to Paul on his application.

I developed a liking for Flash Lite programming and this has since become my hobby. My particular interest lies with the problems of indoor navigation. I entered an indoor navigation app in the Nokia Calling all Innovators Africa competition in 2009 and came 10th out of 125 entries. This app did not provide turn-by-turn directions along the shortest route but simply static map graphics for a 4-level mall having 320 stores.

I have since developed an indoor navigation app targeted at the Mall of America (4-levels and 520+ stores). The app provides turn-by-turn directions along the shortest route as well as reporting on the distances to walk for each leg of the journey – rather like your motor car gps. I haven’t added voice but this will be the next upgrade to the app. Also – being man-alone I don’t have the expertise to research mobile device tracking in an indoor environment so to locate themselves the user simply enters the name of a store at their location. Glad to see though that Nokia are developing a dynamic tracking system. Hoping to one day hook into their technology.

Having developed this in South Africa I haven’t had the opportunity to test it in the Mall itself – however I have confidence in my construction. I don’t claim it will bring you right to the very door of the store that you are seeking but it will bring you close enough to see the store front. I am DESPERATELY looking for someone to test the app in the Mall. I have contacted the Mall itself but they seem rather closed-minded and are not even interested to look at it since it is a “third party app”. I am not necessarily asking you to test the app as I am certain you are very busy and you are probably nowhere near Bloomington Minnesota.

You can find his application for free in the Ovi Store and if you do get a chance to try it out, please leave a review with feedback on its performance. Here are a couple videos so you can see how it works.

Nokia Experts

Speaking of existing devices, I had to pass my orange Nokia N8 on to my wife since her blue one is a lemon and hangs and shuts down on her all the time. You do not want a wife with a goofy phone that you recommended and since I prefer the E7 to the N8 myself I have no problem passing it along to her.

Hopefully, Nokia can keep this August date at least since I told my wife when we bought her blue N8 back in February that Swype in portrait would be coming very soon and these update delays are killing my reputation.

Nokia Experts

Their press release states it will ship later this year and honestly I would rather just see Nokia devote these resources to Windows Phone or even improving Symbian rather than spending time on a phone that will appeal only to the most die hard Nokia fan who doesn’t care about smartphones being part of a complete ecosystem.

The N9 specifications include the following:

• 1 GHz Arm Cortex A8 OMAP3630 processor
• MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan operating system
• Penta-band 3G radio (Yeah Nokia, why can’t anyone else do this?) at just 14.4 Mbps
• 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with dual LED flash
• Front facing camera for video calls
• 3.9 inch AMOLED display at 854×480 pixel resolution
• NFC chip
• Bluetooth 2.1
• 802.11 b/g/n WiFi
• A-GPS
• 1450 mAh battery
• Dimenions of 116.45 x 61.2 x 7.6 mm and 135 grams

It looks to have specs matching current devices, except for the processor and slower wireless cellular radio and in six months won’t stand out in the crowd at all. There are no buttons on the front and everything is controlled by the touchscreen interface. The N9 will come in Magenta, Cyan, and Black and the design does look beautiful with the curved Gorilla glass.

Check out some Nokia N9 resource sites for more information:

• Nokia N9 main site
• Nokia N9 UX Guidelines
• Nokia N9 specs (PDF file)

Nokia Experts

I understand that the meeting was an internal meeting and someone, either accidentally or purposely, leaked out the video where Mr. Elop showed off this slick Windows Phone device. There are still a ton of questions about the device (processor, camera, Nokia Maps, etc.) and I am sure there is a lot of work to do, but the fact that it looks to be just about the same as the N9 is promising.

Both the N9 and this Sea Ray device show me that Nokia continues to create nice hardware and I look forward to both MeeGo and Windows Phone devices. Shoot, I am still buying Symbian devices since I like what Nokia has to offer. After seeing the N9 and playing more with my Nokia E7, I also came to realize it isn’t that important to have thousands of 3rd party apps when the operating system itself provides nearly all the functionality that you really use on a daily basis.

Nokia Experts

The Eseries with front facing QWERTY was always one of my favorite form factors that I found extremely useful and functional. Nokia provided some optimal calendar and messaging experiences with the Eseries and they were all built like tanks. The Nokia E6 has that same wonderful form factor with the addition of a touchscreen and Symbian Anna OS. Here are some other key specifications that look to make this the best front facing Eseries device ever:

• Quad-band GSM and penta-band 3G (Thank you Nokia!)
• Symbian Anna OS
• 8GB internal memory and microSD card slot for up to 32GB more
• 8 megapixel camera with dual LED flash and 720p video capture
• Front facing VGA camera
• 2.46 inch 640×480 pixels touchscreen display (That’s 326 ppi which is the same as the iPhone 4 retina display.)
• Dedicated graphics processor with OpenGL 2.0 support
• BP-4L 1500 mAh battery
• A-GPS
• WiFi (802.11 b/g/n)
• Bluetooth 3.0
• FM radio with RDS
• USB on-the-to support
• 3.5mm headset jack with TV-out support
• Both microUSB and 2mm charging ports

My only real complaint with the last front facing QWERTY Eseries I tested, the Nokia E73 Mode, was the lower resolution display and this E6 fixes that with specs that sound fantastic for such a small display.

I went ahead and purchased one from Star Telecom Mobile on eBay since the tax alone for me to buy from Amazon was nearly $ 50 over the purchase price and they have the E6 available NOW! Stay tuned for E6 coverage here on Nokia Experts since the E6 should arrive next week.

Nokia Experts

While Nokia’s market share is falling during this transitional phase and increasing competition from Apple and Google, they still are due recognition and payment for the billions they spent on R&D over the years as they led the world in wireless technologies. It is nice to finally see Apple realize Nokia was due such payments and will be making a one time lump sum payment followed by future royalty payments so when Apple succeeds Nokia gets a piece of the pie too. The length and financials of the agreement were not disclosed.

Nokia Experts

I agree with much of what Rita wrote, except I am not willing to give up on the lack of the Anna update for existing N8, E7, and C7 owners because they should have the update if there are devices shipping with it too and there are no excuses as we approach one year without the update that was promised when the N8 was released.

I do think it is ridiculous to make any judgements about the success of Nokia with Windows Phone since we have no idea when we might see a device and what that will look like with Mango or later on the devices. Like Rita, there is a place in my heart for the people of Nokia and the company itself with its Finnish heritage. I wish Nokia would have seen that Symbian needed to be refreshed earlier because I honestly still do like Symbian and am loving this Nokia E7 and Nokia Astound devices.

It’s good to see Rita is excited about Nokia and Windows Phone as I thought I was one of the few that is looking forward to two of my favorites getting together. I would LOVE to see a Nokia E7 device with Windows Phone 7.

Do you agree with Rita that Nokia deserves a break?

Nokia Experts

Getting application update notices is essential in today’s mobile world so I am happy to see it finally come to Nokia’s Symbian line. According to the guys at AAS, here is what is improved in the new Ovi Store client:

• Users are able to review and apply updates to apps they’ve downloaded from the Ovi Store. The server now sends version numbers automatically down to the client on the phone.
• Nokia’s algorithm for delivering ‘Top Free’ and ‘Best Sellers’ has been tweaked, to “make app and game listings more relevant for consumers”. Internal rankings are now filtered better by device and region, so that popularity in one niche won’t skew the whole.
• Finding relevant apps has been made easier, with the addition of a “users who downloaded x also downloaded y” system.
• Localization of S60 clients to Arabic Store clients for S60 5th Edition and S60 3rd Edition.

My new Nokia E7 also received the update the first time I launched the Ovi Store on it. I also fired up my Nokia Astound to check for the Ovi Store update and found it too had the update available so now all three of my newer Symbian devices are running the latest Ovi Store client!

Nokia Experts

I also served as the technical editor for one book, wrote another (Facebook Companion), and just started writing yet another (BlackBerry PlayBook Companion) so I am one busy guy. That said, I am making it a point to get back into writing here on Nokia Experts and getting back into the groove again. Thanks for your patience and I look forward to hearing from you all again.

Nokia Experts

The one issue I do have with this clock screensaver is that at night when my Nokia N8 is next to my bed the clock can be a bit bright. Nokia provides a fix for this though with the Nokia Sleeping Screen utility available now on the Nokia Beta Labs site. By installing this utility you get nine new clock screensavers to choose from, with color, and the automatic capability that turns it off when your device is covered (such as when in your pocket or a bag). You set the range of time when the screensaver will turn off so you can sleep at night.

After installation you go then go to Settings >> Themes >> Screen saver to choose your clock and set the time period for night clock mode. There is no application icon or anything on your device after you install this utility so you must go to this settings area.

Have you found any other cool utilities or apps in the Nokia Beta Labs that you enjoy?

Nokia Experts