By now you all must have seen the  myriad unboxing images / videos from around the internet, if not go check out this particularly well done unboxing by our good friend Clinton Jeff . Unlike conventional reviews , we’ll be taking a look at the phone in terms of usability and what we think of it. So with that set aside , lets go ahead with the review.

The C3 is Nokia’s first S40 based QWERTY device and indeed it seems to have been developed to compete with India’s homegrown market of low end QWERTY devices. The cellphone is solid to hold and feels great in the hand. It definitely feels to come from the same heritage as the E71`and E72 but the differences are equally apparent. The plastic front is a testimony to the fact that this is through and through a low end phone. It took just a few days for prominent scratches to start appearing on the front panel of the phone and to say that it becomes irritating is an understatement. Protecting the screen of the C3 with a scratch guard should hence be a priority for all prospective buyers. On the other hand , the battery cover on the back phone is made of aluminium and truly feels great. The matte finish really does make it look good. Over all we were fairly satisfied with the build quality though we wish that the front plastic was a bit less scratch prone. The screen is 2.4″ with QVGA resolution and looks great. Sunlight readability is also adequate.

As you can see above , the camera lens is surrounded by a silver bezel. Though the lens is small (being just a 2MP camera) the design is such that it allows a large amount of light to enter the lens and as such it takes pretty nice images during adequate light conditions. Next to the lens opening is the speaker which is surprisingly loud.

The keyboard on the C3 is generally great but we did get the feeling that it was a bit extra soft and mushy for our tastes. However typing on it was never an issue. We would rate it just a step below the awesome keyboard on the E72. The negative point due to the mushy feeling which made us feel that something was off but was never an issue while actually typing. We’re confident that sms addicts will really enjoy texting using the qwerty. Above the keyboard are a few shortcuts for oft-used apps / services. The nicely sized D-Pad is full configurable and so are the three keys which flank either side of the keyboard.  Two of these are specifically marked for contacts and messaging but it is a simple matter of going through the settings to change these to apps of your choice.

The C3 is powered by a 1320 mAh BL-5J battery. 1300mAh for an S40 device is huge but when you realize that even a modern Nokia smartphone like the N8 comes with just a 1200 mAh battery, you know that you can expect monster standby times from the C3. Our tests were right in line with our thoughts as a fully charged C3 lasted over a week for us on standby. Active usage could not drain the battery in anything less than two days so Nokia has been very accurate ( conservative is what we’d say ) while stating that the C3 will deliver atleast 7 hours of talktime. Even if you couple in WLAN usage , two days of battery life should never be a problem.

Coming to the homescreen , you see the next generation of the S40 user experience which takes more than a few cues from S60 v3. Gone is the blank front with spartan details and changeable wallpapers in the name of customization. The C3 brings with it homescreen widgets. Sure, you can’t install any third party homescreen widgets but atleast its a start. Some of the useful widgets include the customary shortcuts widget , favorite contacts and the WLAN scanner. It is possible to have upto three of these on the homescreen.

Inside the menu , the C3 has the standard grid of icons like just about every other Nokia. Nothing much to see there other than the S40 interface styled to look like S60.

Something which a lot of users complain about is the lack of multitasking on S40. No , S40 still doesn’t offer it but instead gives you an alternative which *should* make it a bit easier. Case in point , the homescreen social widget. The widget updates your social networking information automatically and does not require to be switched on as it baked into the firmware itself. So with the social networking taken care of , you can run a J2ME application alongside.

Messaging is an integral part of this phone and it provides a reasonable good experience. You get the threaded messaging just like that on the latest Symbian 3 phones and can input emoticons as well. The email client performs incredibly well for an S40 device. It supports multiple inboxes and works with works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols. As it supports SSL , you can use your Gmail account with it. Email set up is simple and just requires an id and a password.

That pretty much settles the OS part of the phone. This phone really left me with a mixed bag of feelings. Yes, the phone is rather excellent and is easy to use. The battery life is top notch and audio quality is great too BUT the phone has been priced to compete with the 5230 which at just a little more than the C3 offers a touch screen and a proper smartphone OS. Why won’t the consumer just go in for that ?

Final Impressions

If you are in the market for a cheap , solid , easy to use QWERTY enabled phone , the Nokia C3 makes for a solid choice, else there are better options in the market not counting those in the Nokia stable itself. It would certainly make for a nice phone to gift to your mom or girlfriend especially in that pink color. But would i buy it ? No , not a chance.

ABBYY Fototranslate is an application which you will never realize you needed until the time the need arises and when it does, you’ll be glad you had it. What the application does is that it enables you to translate foreign text into a language of your choice just by pointing the camera at the text. The application supports 8 languages. These languages include English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Russian, Spanish and Ukrainian and can translate in 30 directions between them. It uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to take in raw image data , analyses it to judge text and then converts it into the language of your choice.

Key Features and Benefits

• Quick and accurate words translation without manually entering
• Offline work without internet or network connection
• Up to 8 languages and 30 directions for translation
• One click for words and phrases input
• Detailed translation with high-quality dictionaries

One qualm which we had with the application was that it translates only one word at a time. While thus should not be a problem for converting a small amount of text such as sentences , street signs. However converting passages can quickly become painful. But it must be said that the conversions were very accurate. We were easily able to point at text and get almost instant translations , word-by-word. Another minor niggle was one which plagues almost every OCR software. The camera requires you to take an extremely stable , straight image for it to work its magic. This can become a little tough when trying to get a quick translation and should be adapted a bit considering the use case scenario.

The ABBYY Fototranslate app holds a lot of promise for frequent international travelers. Some minor niggles aside , the application works as promised. Now if ABBYY could integrate passage level text conversions, we would gladly call it a must have application ! ABBYY offers a 1 day trial version for the application. I would recommend all travelers to go ahead and buy this application or at the very least give the trial app a spin.

Get the application at the link : [Download Link]

One Word : AMAZING ! That is what comes to the mind when you first switch on the device and hold it in your hands. The device is certainly large but it suits the category. The target demographic would use nothing less than its large touchscreen coupled with the hardware qwerty keyboard. Without going into in depth details (we’ll do that in subsequent posts) i can say that the hardware is rock solid, no creaks and cracks, the keyboard is easy to slide open though i wish it had spring assistance.

The first impressions of the touchscreen make it apparent that this is probably as good as resistive touchscreens get. Other than the obvious lack of multi-touch gestures, the touchscreen on the N900 could easily stand up against any capacitive touchscreen. Being resistive, it also brings the added advantage of precision.

The top of the device brings the volume/zoom rocker , the centered powerkey (emphasizing the landscape orientation of the device) , an IR Port. On the left we have the micro usb port for synchronizing with your PC and also to charge the device. While the right side of the device has the screen lock key, 3.5mm headset jack. The stylus sits flush with the device in the bottom half of the N900.

On the back, we have an understated engraved Nokia N Series logo, 5MP camera with dual led flash and protected by a lens cover. The kickstand popularized by the N86 is also present here but unfortunately is not active in nature.

Keep checking back more often for more updates about the N900 !

Here we are again with another stereo Bluetooth headset courtesy of WOMWorld/Nokia , the most awesome guys in the world . After having used the device for over 3 weeks now , we have a pretty strong opinion about the headset and we’re bring you the entire breakdown in this post. Lets start off with the mandatory unboxing images.

BH505 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Packaging

The Nokia BH505s come in a pretty slick packaging with a focus on minimalism. You basically get a plastic blister pack with the headset fully visible and a box with all included accessories.

The accessories included in the packaging are 6 pairs of plastic ear buds of varying sizes namely small , medium , large. You also get a travel charger with the headset and a pair of manuals.

Audio Quality

If you have read our previous post regarding the Nokia BH905, you would know that we were extremely impressed by the headset. It was incredible comfortable and sounded great. The BH505 is a behind-the-ear type headset with in ear speakers so the general experience of using this is very different from the BH905.

Having used several Bluetooth headsets we were not really impressed by the BH505. The noise isolation is pretty good but then that is a given considering the in-ear design of the speaker buds. Our audio tests were focussed primarily on music playback considering this is a stereo Bluetooth headset. We did not like what we heard though, the audio quality came out harsh and bass was quite boomy. We noticed that the highs in the audio were a bit too bright for our taste coming out very harsh and causing fatigue while listening. Bass was present but we had to really push in the buds to hear it properly and this too was an unnecessary strain. We could easily get over 15 hours of continuous music playback from the headset. Audio quality during calls was crisp and clear.

Comfort Level

Comfort level was a very interesting topic of discussion. After having spoken to several bloggers about it, we have come to the conclusion that the headset seems to have been designed keeping the European market in mind. Funny thing is that all my European blogger friends found the headset extremely comfortable with Jay Montano from MyNokiaBlog even going as far as calling it the best and most comfortable headset he had ever used. On the other hand Clinton Jeff from ZomgItsCj and several other bloggers from India who tested the device seemed to agree with me on the fact that this headset actually hurts while wearing. Could this be the reason that this particular headset has not been launched outside the European market ?

Coincidently, the box highlights the BH505 as a lightweight headset but we found that the rear band which houses the battery was actually pulling down on the headset while wearing it and this caused the headset to hurt our ears while using it.

Final Remarks

In our opinion , the BH505 looks extremely gorgeous but falls short on the audio quality and comfort front. This is one headset where we really don’t know whether to recommend it or not as we have conflicting opinions on comfort levels. It is best that you should try out the device for yourself and see how much you like it. At $50, these headsets are priced very well to be competitive in the market.

The Nokia BH905 is Nokia’s top end , do-it-all bluetooth stereo headset which has been designed to obliterate the competition and appeal to the audiophile masses. Well with that overblown introduction aside, lets start off on an honest , unbiased review of the Nokia BH905 !

HARDWARE

The BH 905 comes in one of the prettiest packaging i have seen in a long time. The headset is neatly packaged in a leather case with a HUGE amount of accessories added in for good measure. The amount of adaptors included with the headset show that it is definitely meant to be used with high end audio equipment along with your cellphone.

Now onto the description of the headset , the basic design has a leather covered headband with the earcups having a chrome finish on the outside. The leather extends to the earcups with a cloth centre which we personally didn’t like.

The cloth centre shown in the image above had a tendency to tear apart from the leather which showed that the joint was not as seamless as it could have been. A bit of a worry in such a high end headset in our opinion. Though we should also add that the other joints in the headset were absolutely sturdy , no issue whatsoever.

Controls / Connectivity

Switching on the device was as simple as switching it on and allowing it to connect with your PC or Cell phone. Yes , these babies also connect to a PC We had loads of fun doing chores around the house while enjoying the amazing audio quality of these streaming music from the laptop. Connecting it was a very simple affair as they auto connect to the Bluetooth connection detected. Note that when using the wired connection, the Bluetooth connection is automatically disconnected and you lose connections made with your cell phone. The unit is capable of running on power just from a wired connection and do not require an extra amp to drive them. There are standard music controls on the right side which can be used to control the music player on your phone and on the PC as well.

Active Noise Cancellation / ANC

On the left ear there is the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) switch which activates the 10 microphones to cancel out surrounding noise. This particular technology has been developed in collaboration with Wolfson Technology. What Nokia has done is basically included 10 …. yes TEN microphones into the headset and 8 of these are given the task of detecting and cancelling out ambient noise. The remaining two are instrumental in providing audio communication.

The Active Noise Cancellation basically listens into the surrounding and detects ambient noise. The harsh noises from these are cancelled out then by generating white noise in the headset. This is setup works quite brilliantly. We were able to hear music perfectly in the Delhi traffic and that i think proves that it works

Sound Quality

I am personally a big fan of the Metal music and even play a bit. So to test out how good the BH905 sounded in live music , i actually connected these to my amp via the adaptors provided and played a few riffs.

I can say that they sound pretty good. The lower ranges were a bit muddy but i did like them. Coming to music , i played a wide variety of music on these and the general consensus was that the bass was very good , mids were also pretty ok though the highs were a tad bit bright for my taste. However as music is highly subjective , i would recommend you to try these out yourself before investing in them.

Call Clarity

The BH 905 stereo headset has more focus on music however it also definitely does have call connectivity in mind. In typical Nokia fashion , the call quality is excellent with clean audio quality on both ends. When connected to the PC , these also act as a Skype headset. + 1 to Nokia.

Battery Life

Battery life is a no brainer on the BH 905 , it ROCKS ! We could playback music over 2 days ( about 10 hours each day ) with the ANC switched on.  With the 905s with you , you will not have to hunt for a power socket for your music at the end of the day.

Overall

I personally think that Nokia has done a commendable job and the BH 905 is definitely worth a look. The impressive package , excellent audio quality are totally worth the price premium which is paid for these. Another point to be mentioned is that these offer an extremely comfortable listening experience. In fact , this is the first time I have been able to tolerate an over the head design

I would personally rate this a resounding 4.5/5

Good Job Nokia ! And a very special thanks to our dear friends at WOMWorld/Nokia for providing the review headset.

One Word : AMAZING ! That is what comes to the mind when you first switch on the device and hold it in your hands. The device is certainly large but it suits the category. The target demographic would use nothing less than its large touchscreen coupled with the hardware qwerty keyboard. Without going into in depth details (we’ll do that in subsequent posts) i can say that the hardware is rock solid, no creaks and cracks, the keyboard is easy to slide open though i wish it had spring assistance.

The first impressions of the touchscreen make it apparent that this is probably as good as resistive touchscreens get. Other than the obvious lack of multi-touch gestures, the touchscreen on the N900 could easily stand up against any capacitive touchscreen. Being resistive, it also brings the added advantage of precision.

The top of the device brings the volume/zoom rocker , the centered powerkey (emphasizing the landscape orientation of the device) , an IR Port. On the left we have the micro usb port for synchronizing with your PC and also to charge the device. While the right side of the device has the screen lock key, 3.5mm headset jack. The stylus sits flush with the device in the bottom half of the N900.

On the back, we have an understated engraved Nokia N Series logo, 5MP camera with dual led flash and protected by a lens cover. The kickstand popularized by the N86 is also present here but unfortunately is not active in nature.

Keep checking back more often for more updates about the N900 !

Today we will be covering the basic hardware and software aspects of the device.

When you first pick up the device, you will notice two things. First is the uncanny resemblance to the 5800 (Seriously , this thing looks almost exactly the same !). The second thing is that it looks cheap. There is a LOT of plastic all around on this device. In our previous post we have already given you an overview of all the buttons around on the 5233 so we’ll skip that part.

Moving in , Lets take a look at the homescreen, shall we ?

Now as you see above in the image , Nokia has got quite a cool homescreen here on the Nokia 5233. The homescreen allows for 20 contacts at a time which you can flick through to get to your favorite. Pictured below it is the music player widget which shows up only when the music player app is on. It is good enough for basic play/pause/next/back operations. Below it are shortcuts for four of your favorite applications. Pressing the menu key brings you to the familiar S60v5 menu layout.

Our great friend,CJ , over at ZOMGitsCJ.com has come up with a cool video showing the home screen and contacts.

The basic design is a candybar with a 3.2″ touchscreen (16:9 aspect) , the touch screen is of the resistive variety with decent sensitivity. Th device is a low end one and definitely looks the part with thick plastic everywhere.

The gallery below should help you get an idea of the looks of the device. Expect a lot more VERY soon !

With the last review of the N97mini happening so late and a lot of things happening at my end (chronic backache, transfer of work location and some personal issues) I’ve been unable to bring you the remaining parts of the N97mini review. I apologize for the same.

Well anyway, without wasting time let me finish this most important part of the review.

Software:

The N97mini employs the latest version of the firmware, a.k.a V2.0, this version of the S60 5th edition, was hotly anticipated by the owners of the N97 as the saviour of the N97. While it did set a few things right, it could not do enough to mend what was committed at the hardware stage. The N97mini seems to have benefited most from the mistakes made by the N97. the mini has a larger internal memory (240MB + compared to 72MB on the N97). The screen is definitely more responsive. It seems Nokia has been really working on their screens.

On the software part, there is little difference with the N97. Everything is just as is on the N97, though I will have to say that things seems much better executed by the phone. Multitasking is much better and overall the mini does seem snappier than the N97. The N97mini also comes preloaded with a huge bucket load of widgets and apps, it also has space for lots more.

Let me list out what came with our review unit,

1. Drawing

2. JoikuSpot

3. Qik

4. Boingo

5. Traveler

6. YouTube

7. AccuWeather

8. Amazon

9. AP Mobile

10. Bloomberg

11. CNBC TV-18

12. CNN Video

13. Elle

14. Facebook

15. Friendster

16. Hi5

17. MySpace

18. Slideshow

19. Vlingo

20. Asphalt4

21. Spore

22. Marble Maze

23. BDayLauncher

This surely makes it a loaded phone. Despite all of these apps being there the phone had an amazing 240MB+ of available memory, meant that one could run Nokia Messaging and install a few more apps and the phone would not slow down or hang like it’s big brother.

A gallery of images will show the N97mini’s OS.

I’d give the entire experience a 8/10. The S60 5th edition works well, but still feels clunky.

Music:

When it comes to music, the N97mini did not disappoint. It was loud and clear. The dedicated audio chip allows one to experience good quality music. The earphones supplied with the mini are also pretty good. Though on the BH-905 is when you can actually really feel the clarity. Devices in the price range of US $300 and above are now mini stereos without the huge speakers now a days. The N97mini is no less. It’s own stereo speakers being pretty loud. In a noisy environment (Indian conditions) it does get difficult to hear the phone.

The music player on the mini is the standard music player on any S60 5th edition, which means it offers shuffle, repeat, equalizer settings. The look of the player remains unchanged and that’s a bit bad as it is beginning to look old already. Nseries definitely need to make the player more appealing to their target audience. Adding a few more features would definitely help.

The music store which is tied to the Nokia Music store works very nicely on the N97mini. Once you log in and enter the serial no. for the free 100 tracks that come with the phone, you can download straight onto your phone. Should you choose to send it to a friend or a PC, you can do it too. Nokia Music Store has a continuously growing library of music and features the latest content and some other content which can be hard to come by these days.

And if all of these things still leave you wanting for more, FM radio should help you. The N97mini has FM radio, so you can listen to all the music you want over the airwaves. Absensce of an FM transmitter is glaring here. I am left wondering why it was not retained for the N97mini?

Overall the N97mini gets an 8/10. If one takes out the Music Store, the score comes down to 7. The Music Player app needs urgent help, in my opinion, when it comes to aesthetics.

Battery:

The battery on the N97mini is not the same that did duty on the N97. Since it has a smaller screen and a few other things missing over the N97, Nokia decided to give it a smaller battery. The Nokia BL-4D does duty on the mini. It is rated at 1200mAh, a full 20% lesser than the N97′s 1500mAh. While in the normal course you would not feel it. But if you are a heavy user the charge awaits you by the time you reach home at night. I’ve been able to squeeze 2-3days from the battery with moderate usage. Heavy users are likely to find it tough to manage that feat.

If you are watching one of the three preloaded movies on the N97mini (Da Vinci Code, Spiderman, My Best Friend’s Wedding) you will see the bars drop pretty fast. The device will also heat up from the bottom.

I’d rate it at 7/10. This is a mixed bag and though the battery life is good on it, with one doing many things on it, don’t expect it to last that long.

Gallery:

The affair started off with a viewing of the global webcast wherein Nokia announced its plan to offer free turn by turn navigation to all its GPS enabled devices. This was followed by a Q&A session with Joyse and Jasmeet Gandhi from Nokia. Read on to get a better idea of the application.

Nokia made it a point to compare itself with a company it refers to as the one with ‘The Two O’s’. Thats Google for those who couldnt make out lol. The point that Nokia was trying to get across was that Google Maps is a very data intensive application. The requirements are pegged at about 2MB for a 20km trip versus 200kb on Ovi Maps. This data difference is extremely important in countries like India where getting a reliable data connection is a tough job and where 3G services do not exist. Hence by providing OFFLINE maps , they have eliminated the need for a constant internet data feed.

Another point worth noting is that Nokia Ovi Maps has data for over 180 countries out of which turn by turn navigation data will be available for 74 countries at launch and this number is definitely expected to increase. Central Africa is not yet covered by the map data but Nokia was quick to point out that they are working on plugging that void. So suffice it to say that for all practical purposes you will be able to navigate for free in any country you are visiting.

With this one move , Nokia has certainly shaken the Cell Phone Navigation business. Nokia Ovi Maps will , in my opinion , play a dominant role in the resurgence of brand Nokia.

PREMIUM CONTENT

Local content plays an extremely important role in Nokia’s strategy for Nokia Ovi Maps. By partnering with companies like Lonely Planet and Michelin for location specific content , Nokia hopes to engage the users at a local level and provide a new level of integration with a users life. In India , Bird will be providing location specific data , including a real time feed of events occurring around your current location. The scope of the content to be included will range from eateries around you to local events ,  music performances , theatre , movies , etc. All this will be FREE.

Another service has been added to Nokia Ovi Maps and that is WEATHER. The Weather service integrated with the latest build of the OVI Maps will provide real time access to weather conditions around you and also to where you are headed.

HANDS ON WITH OVI MAPS

When you first turn on the application , you are required to enter Ovi Account details signaling the start of a new trend in Nokia focussing on bringing the OVI Network together.

Next you are faced with a Home Screen with shortcuts to various functions of the application. Lets do a quick run down of some of the more interesting icons…

-My Position

As the name suggests , this allows you to pinpoint your current location on the map. Along with the AGPS included in the devices , this will allow you to get lightning fast fixes on your current location.

-Find Places

Quickly search for nearby locations and cities.

-Location Sharing

With this feature it is possible to share your current location on Facebook and let the world know where you are. This has the potential to be the indispensable tool for social media junkies.

-Weather

The weather application is probably one of the components which has taken advantage of the WRT underpinnings of the new Nokia Ovi Maps application. The weather app is capable of providing up to date real time location specific weather reports along with 5 day forecasts.

-Events

Events is a location specific category wherein country specific providers will provide real time data and information regarding events around a particular location. In India this data will be provided by ‘Bird’.

-Lonely Planet/Michelin Guides

The previously chargeable content including the Lonely Planet Guides are now available for free. Lonely Planet and the world renowned Michelin Guides provide access to 1000′s of eateries , restaurants and places to visit. All data is location specific.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Map Upgrades – 2 major upgrades every year.

Google Street View Equivalent planned.

SDK will soon be available to registered developers on the OVI Store.

Developers free to use map data as they please

S40 Devices will be supported , the first being the 2710

Nokia Maemo device support will be added soon.

N97 support will be added on the 28th of January

Videos

DOWNLOAD THE NEW OVI MAPS HERE