Nokia 808 PureView for $599.99 at Amazon US

This is a third party seller and there are only two in stock, but Amazon US has the Nokia 808 PureView for just $599.99 now. That’s equivalent to about £316/€400. Amazon UK still has this priced quite high at £474.99, with Amazon Germany at €547.

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Unboxing : Nokia X7

On Thursday we got a sneak peek of the new Nokia packaging for the X7. Here we have a closer look at that new packaging with an unboxing from the folks at techblogGR. Unlike the usual flip boxes, we have one with a sliding sleeve that immediately reveals the device. It’s kinda Apple stylie as some might say. My Omnia 7 came in a similar layout (which of course, copied the minimalistic Apple packaging)

I think I prefer this style of packaging. It’s more compact, you immediately see the device outside the box and the first thing after sliding off the sleeve. Another cool thing is that you can make odd squeaking noises if you pull the packing in and out :p.

Quite smartly, underneath the phone, the tray for the sim card is already removed, indicating to the user that this can come out of the phone and this is how to insert the SIM card. There’s also a clear sticker on the back of the X7 to explain this. It’s a similar tray to the E7 which I really liked. In the case of the X7 though, this is also how you access memory card (which E7 does not have).

The box contents are hidden in smart layers. Peel off the mould for x7 and you have a separating layer, inside of which actually houses a little pamphlet manual. The headphones and USB cable are neatly tucked away in a black labelled box, charger sits open nicely. Opinions on Symbian/EDoF/Processor aside, it’s essentially a good phone. It looks great and seems to perform ok on Symbian Anna (well in other videos, it seems to have an odd lag/freeze in this video). Just imagine the new things Nokia are cooking up with New Symbian, MeeGo and of course the upcoming Windows Phones. I hope we keep to this minimalistic packaging with at first glance just shows the phone.

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Unboxing : Nokia E6 Hands on Review

I didn’t want to post about another E6 hands on/unboxing so soon, but this one is special is not only because it’s in English, 15 minutes and the video is clear. BUT we get a special duo unboxing it for us. 

I really like that back and forth exchange as they talk about the device.

• - Unlike the other vid, you can plainly see the whole draggable Anna homescreen here.
• Half way through you’ll see CJ pull a random E6 out of no where so two E6s in this unboxing for your viewing pleasure.
• The guys reckon this is the loudest Eseries so far speaker wise.
• Vaibhav says having Anna out of the box makes a difference to your Symbian experience. CJ agrees. Vaibhav reckons that’s especially true if you’ve not used Symbian/Symbian touch, but if you have moved on – it feels more responsive/faster..
• Certain apps made for specific resolution crash instantly – Nokia’s supposedly working on it. I thought they had scaling done on Symbian? no? Bit of a pain on the head.
• Core/popular 3rd party apps work fine.
• Vaibhav sums this up as a crowd pleaser- Appeals to folks who don’t want touch/want e72 form factor.
• CJ says he’s surprised by how much he likes it.
• Rock solid Eseries device

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Unboxing : Nokia N9 Blue unboxing and hands on with MeeGo-Harmattan

This is only the second unboxing of the N9. This one is the blue N9 – which looks great coming out of that snazzy blue box. During unboxing this beauty, the N8 and E7 come to mind.

• Checking out the microSIM is pretty interesting.
• Screen looks gorgeous when playing back video.
• Check out the blue Nokia Store (though still labelled Ovi there)

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Unboxing : Nokia N9 with Stereo Play 360

Sort of echoing the posts from this morning, this time each a little more in depth. The first video is a demo of the Nokia Play 360, but here you can see the stereo in action, something I have not yet seen before. The bass is coming through quite well on my own speakers, so taking recording quality aside, these Play 360s might actually be quite awesome.

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Unboxing : Nokia N9

I got my N9 on Friday and below I have included the unboxing of my device, as well as the first review. I’ve recorded all reviews for now, just waiting until they are uploaded. (Bad side of HD recording is long upload times)

I apologise for sounding like a tool, I was just too overwhelmed with excitement. I also apologise for the crappy video quality. My N8 wasn’t doing its best work. (It wouldn’t auto-focus, and several times the filming just stopped. You may notice it when some clips cut to another).

I took around 10 minutes of unboxing of the super sexy black Nokia N9. It’s in Slovak. Hands on MeeGo-Harmattan demo begins about half way through the video.

BTW their description links to their site which has a N9 preview. The URL is here : http://www.nokia.com/my-en/products/phone/n9/

• Apparently MeeGo reminds of Windows Phone (maybe the horizontal swiping)
• Camera among the best.

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Unboxing : Windows Phone Mango Review, Starring the Lumia 800

Now a bit about the extent of my relationship with OSes other than Symbian/S^3, I have an HP touchpad (Firesale FTW) so I’ve used WebOS as well as Android (CM7 Mods FTW too) on it, I’ve never owned an iOS device but I’ve seen my friends iphones, ipads and ipods more than enough to know quite a bit about the OS; but I have NEVER used Windows Phone (be it Mango, 7 or even 6.5) so the experience with the Lumia 800 was weirdly exciting for me because it mixed an amazing hardware design with an OS that could only be described as “Different”.
The amazing people at Nokia Connects were nice enough to send me a Lumia 800 to trial out for a while, so first off a shout out them for making this possible, they have some truly wonderful people working for them.

The phone comes with what you would expect: Standard 3.5mm earphones, A Micro-USB cable which doubles out as a charger when attached to the plug converter thing; however Nokia have gone above and beyond, providing a Silicon-Rubber housing for the 800, which hardly adds any width to the device at all, and has a super snug fit (personally I wouldn’t use it; simply because I love the feel of polycarbonate). As you might have noticed in the Quick unboxing I wasn’t all too impressed with the headphones accompanying the device, they had no dedicated music control (just a single talk/answer button) and I couldn’t get them to stay in my ears at all! Not even to test out the sound quality, I literally could not keep them in for more than 5 seconds.

 Therefore the main point of this review is to hopefully give readers a good look at what Windows Phone is all about, more than a review the Lumia 800 itself. The way I see it most of us Nokia fans were too busy fawning over the N8-00 when Windows Phone was first released (November 2010), of course back then S^3 was still fresh so nobody could have possibly imagined that within a year Nokia phones would be running Windows, for that reason I realized/guessed (possibly incorrectly) that a lot of Nokia fans have no idea what WP is like (to be specific: ME), I don’t want to get into a discussion of whether it was the right choice or not, the fact is that it IS done so let’s see what the new Nokia looks like.

My first impression of the device design wise is that it’s GORGEOUS, (I had requested a Cyan one but oh well). Even though the 800 is made of polycarbonate (which in all honesty is basically plastic) Nokia still have managed to make it feel amazing. I fail to understand how this feels sturdier than me Aluminum bodied N8 but it does, it feels more compact (which just proves that you can make a device that isn’t glass or metal that doesn’t feel like twig- *cough cough SII Cough* ).

 The 800 comes with a 3.7″ (800×480) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, which like the N9 is ever so slightly curved making those glorious swiping motions much more fun. I’ve read reviews about where people were bashing the 800 and the N9 for using something called PenTile display (basically if you look really close you *should* be able to see a bunch of lines running through the screen) personally I see nothing at all; in fact the screen is the second best thing about the 800 (after the amazing design), due to the curvature of the screen anything on the display looks like it’s floating somewhere between the phone and you’re fingertips (in the interest of being un-bias it is possible that I don’t see the PenTile because I’m upgrading from my N8 which has a less than acceptable Pixel density).

Of course the Lumia 800 (and the 710) use Micro-sims rather than normal sims (seeing as this is a trial device I couldn’t bring myself to cut my sim for a review sorry). The sim and charger port mechanism is really interesting and/or weird; the charger port/USB  is a sort of flip thing where you press down on one side to make it pop-up (very fragile, so be careful), once the USB port door is open you can slide the micro-sim slot to the left a bit to have it pop-out as well; the cool part is that the area around the sim and USB slots are magnetic, to ensure proper closure of the ports I guess.

Design-wise I think it would have been better to have the USB port at either end of the device, not next to the Headphone jack, just because it would be easier to press down on (really difficult to explain but anyone who’s tried the 800 or the N9 should be able to understand).

The first time you boot the Lumia 800 you have an option to set-up your Windows Live account as well as your Nokia account immediately before getting  to anything else (visible in the un-boxing video); however since the WiFi connection wouldn’t have been setup yet I skipped over that part and set it up later. As soon as the Lumia detects a Wifi network in range it asks if you’d like to set-up a Wifi connection with it, alternatively you can set it up through “Setting>Wi-Fi”, However try as I might I wasn’t able to locate the “Nokia Account” later (by the prompt I understood it was referring to a Nokia account similar to my Symbian Nokia account and not a Nokia/Ovi Email account).

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Unboxing : Wireless Music Receiver, Nokia MD-310

I’m writing this in advance and posting after the offer date so I haven’t been able to check if that’s still available. It is markedly cheaper than the other networks.

I’ve played with one of these before at Nokia World 2011, but not another since (wonder where I actually am on the trial list for that :S). Well, unless you count the 710 at the shops.

Anyway, the handset arrived 2 days after ordering. There’s no usual Nokia Box, instead it appears to be in a red Vodafone box. It seems to have already been tampered with as there are scratches on the top half of the screen (fortunately the screen protector is there) and the phone started up without the usual WP start up sequence to help you get started.

The back button felt awfully squeaky on day 1 but some how that became quieter (though not as silent as menu and search button) Quite odd. I don’t remember the buttons being so squeaky. The phone feels great! Super snappy and as previously blogged about, the rotation speed is so much faster on the Lumia 710. The Lumia 800 rotation speed wasn’t slow, but after experiencing the 710 it now feels like treacle. It just feels very fluid. The LCD CBD is quite alright. The screen fares better than most non CBD LCD, though the colours don’t pop as much as the AMOLED CBD on the Lumia. Furthermore, the 800 has wider viewing angles and better outdoor visibility. Note, there is a screen protector on the 710 which slightly affects how the screen looks. I’ve told my sister to keep the screen protector on.

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myDigitalPort.com : Unboxing Nokia Lumia 800

Nokia Lumia in Brunei is priced at $B530 (not yet released in the market), with an announcement of release around mid April. I’m writing this in advance and posting after the offer date so I haven’t been able to check if that’s still available at the same price at the local store. It is probably cheaper than the price I can get in Brunei. I’ve played with one of these before at Nokia World 2011, but not another since (wonder where I actually am on the trial list for that :S). Well, unless you count the 800 at the shops. So, I was in great intrigue of receiving my new Nokia Lumia from myDigitalPort.com which took 2 days to arrive. 

Recently Nokia launched it's latest smartphone model in white color (early February), so I picked up a black Nokia Lumia 800 from myDigitalPort.com for unboxing review.  With a starting price of RM1300, for a full touch screen smartphone, it's decent price tag for a stunning & stylish Nokia's latest product. Looking at the phone design feels like having a breath of fresh air, especially on the back of my Nexus S experience. Somehow myDigitalPort.com did mention about the technical spec and I compared through other phone models. The hardware, however, left a lot to be desired. When the Lumia 800 arrived I decided to go full bore with my little experiment. My SIM card came out of my iPhone and went into the Lumia, with the aim of it not returning to its home for a full two weeks. Off I set on my mini adventure, Nokia Lumia 800 wunderphone in hand. 

I don’t remember the buttons of my old phones being so squeaky than the Lumia 800. The phone feels super snappy and as previously blogged about, the rotation speed is so much faster on the previous Nokia models. As much as I remember Lumia 710 rotation speed wasn’t slow, but after experiencing the 800 it now feels like treacle. It just feels very fluid. The HD7, beautiful screen had whetted my appetite for Windows Phone 7.5, both user-interface and operating system. 

The same pressure I might use to get a focus on the 800/N8 would be enough to fully take a picture. I quite like how light it is on the 710, as I just need to pretty much just place my finger on the button. Fortunately this doesn’t lead to accidental camera snaps when in your pocket because you still need to press all the way (to unlock and activate the camera which does take a little bit more of a push. The screen feels nice and responsive, like the 800. Note, the 710 does have another layer (Screen protector film) that I’m keeping there. Overall, Nokia Lumia 800 is it feels really comfortable to hold. Despite the plastic removable back cover, it feels sturdy and solid. Perfect! There is a tiny flex around where the camera is though, but you have to push this quite hard. The button placement is different to the Lumia 710 with the lock/power at the top. I’d say it’s a little bit more of a reach than being placed at the side. On the right hand side you have your volume and camera buttons. These are part of the back cover and are flush, requiring minimal pressing. The camera button in fact requires minimal pressure when using the autofocus. myDigitalPort.com/my

Although accidental pressing of capacitive keys did happen on occasion with the 800, I much prefer them to actual physical buttons. Having said that, they do have a nice smushy feel to them that kept making me want to press it :S. GPS seems to lock just as quickly on the 710, though the Nokia Drive app opens a fraction of a fraction of a second faster than the 800. Possibly different app versions. All other apps open simultaneously. That’s all I have time to do for now. I’ll demo that screen rotation thing again on the Lumia 710 when I get back some time this coming week. For more information, visit myDigitalPort.com/my

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