Last Friday was a sad, sad day here at Prodigal Towers. Oh sure, we got to race around London in a 911, completing the last of the #NokiaNav challenges. Yes, we got to meet up with a great group of fellow gadget-obsessed nuts (we even met the legendary Steve Litchfield for goodness sake!) And OK,… [Read more…]
13 May 2010
As you may have seen in our video yesterday, as part of Nokia’s #NokiaNav promotion, we’ve been given their latest Bluetooth noise cancellation headset to try out. We’re hugely impressed. From the moment you open the box, this headset reeks of quality. It has a satisfying heft and bulk to it but it’s still smaller… [Read more…]
11 May 2010
#NokiaNav week is proving a lot of fun. Today, we woke to an email from Nokia with instructions on the next challenge. Using Ovi Maps’ syncing capability, we had to download the details of the next meeting point and make our way there using the Nokia N97 mini. On arriving, we were given a…. Wait… [Read more…]
6 May 2010
Just because we were cleaning out the memory card in our Nikon D80 and came across these photos we’d shot of our trial Nokia N900, we thought we’d share them with you. If you missed our review of the N900, go check it out here. It’s fair to say this impressive smartphone left us more… [Read more…]
27 April 2010
Yeah, OK, this looks rather nice. Announced today, the Nokia N8 is all set to provide some healthy competition to the iPhone HD when they’re both released some time in Q3 this year. History looks to be repeating itself though: The Nokia is likely to have the edge from a media capture perspective (the sample… [Read more…]
19 April 2010
#1 The N900 is cool The iPhone is state of the art industrial design. Really superb. But nowadays, it’s also completely ubiquitous. When every other person you encounter is clutching the wonder phone from Cupertino, there is something very cool indeed about the more butch, the more rugged-looking N900. True, it’s bulky and the slide… [Read more…]
19 April 2010
#1 The screen is yesterday’s technology The N900 has the best resistive screen we have ever tested. Really. But here’s the thing: despite what Nokia might have you believe, resistive screens are not different to capacitive ones, they’re inferior to them. They’re inferior in every way that matters in daily use. Where a capacitive screen… [Read more…]
19 April 2010
It’s been weeks since we returned our trial N900 to Nokia and we’re only now writing the review? We’re lazy, it’s true, but not this lazy. No, the reality is, we’ve been dragging our heels over this one because the N900, like no device before it, has left us utterly conflicted. The number of things… [Read more…]
22 February 2010
We’ve been rather critical of Nokia recently. First we dismissed the N97 mini as an also-ran in the premium, touch-screen race; then we wrote a rather curt letter to OPK, Nokia’s CEO; and finally we concluded that the E72 just didn’t live up to the high standards set by its predecessor: the E71. In each… [Read more…]
15 February 2010
Nokia’s E71 was that perfect storm of rock-solid build-quality; powerful, stable software; and a great-looking form factor that included one of the best keyboard and D-pad combos ever on a smartphone. At the time of its release, we had no hesitation in declaring it better than the iPhone. It really was that good: one of… [Read more…]
28 January 2010
Dear Olli-Pekka You’re keen on telling people how Nokia is the world leader in smartphones by market share. That’s true. At the moment. But since you don’t get to be the head honcho of one of the world’s biggest companies without having your wits about you, we’re pretty sure that you know that’s simply not… [Read more…]
26 January 2010
Before we write another word, we owe you an apology. Well, an explanation at least. You see, we’re as tired as you are of every new phone being compared to the iPhone. It’s dull, predictable and, most of the time, inappropriate. One of the things we love about the world of gadgets is diversity. Hell,… [Read more…]
8 October 2009
We told you a while ago about how impressed we were with Nokia’s upcoming N900. Well, last week, the Finnish phone giant released a new video showing in further detail how the N900′s Maemo operating system works. In particular, the video reveals a lot of the new finger gestures they’ve introduced in their bid to… [Read more…]
26 September 2009
It’s no secret that we’ve been rather let down with Nokia of late. Our E75 suffered quality problems and the N97 was a disappointment from both hardware and software perspectives. In fact, in a sad indictment of the state of Nokia’s product portfolio, we recently had to declare that the mid-range N86 camera phone was the… [Read more…]
20 July 2009
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the N86, Nokia’s newly released flagship camera-phone with a hugely impressive 8 megapixel, Carl Zeiss lens. It’s also, in our humble opinion, the best phone Nokia currently makes. Now, with behemoths of the phone world like the N97, E71 and E75 currently roaming around the Nokia product portfolio, that’s a… [Read more…]
12 June 2009
Nokia clearly thinks that the N97 represents some sort of comeback against the likes of the iPhone and Pre – see the ad below in case you were in any doubt – but now that the N97 is shipping and the first lacklustre reviews are coming in, we have to ask: has Nokia done enough?… [Read more…]
1 June 2009
Here’s our monthly roundup of what we’ve been writing about and what you’ve been reading. The top ten most popular posts of April were:
1 May 2009
Here’s our monthly roundup of what we’ve been writing about and what you’ve been reading. The top ten most popular posts of April were:
29 April 2009
That’s right, we’ve succumb to the lure of shiny new gadgets once more. We simply couldn’t wait for the Palm Pre or Nokia N97 to become available so, a little under a week ago, we availed ourselves of Nokia’s latest E-series device: the E75. Regular readers know that until now we’ve hailed the E71 as the… [Read more…]
1 April 2009
Here’s our monthly roundup of what we’ve been writing about and what you’ve been reading. The top ten most popular posts of March were:
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20 May 2010
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