Nokia N900 Overclocked to over 1GHz!
The web monster from Nokia, which has an ARM Cortex A8 CPU with a stock clock speed of 600MHz, has successfully been overclocked to boot at over 1GHz. I too have tested the device at 900MHz and 800MHz speeds and I have had no stability issues at all. Especially at 900MHz, everything feels snappier, and even an already great and responsive phone line N900 benefits from the speed increase dramatically.
Now I would never encourage anyone to go out and overclock their devices, especially when very little, if not nothing, is known about how efficiently the device is cooled (passively of course) and how overclocking the ARM Cortex A8 CPU would affect its and the surrounding components’ lifespan. However, if you are willing to take the risks, you can find how by following the below links…
Here’s the loooong thread, where it all started: http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=39753
And here’s how: http://talk.maemo.org/showpost.php?p=595582&postcount=774
Nokia’s New 3D Multi Touch Patent
Thanks to Apple and the iPhone (or iPod Touch) we’re familiar with the multi touch concept on mobile phones and devices. Nokia, the foremost company in the mobile phone industry, is yet to come up with a multi touch screen phone though… We found out last week that this might all soon change. Nokia patented a new technology allowing multi touch UIs with pressure sensing (ie sensing how hard you press on the screen), allowing 3D gestures on a phone’s screen to be interpreted as commands.
This has quite a few implications. Firstly, and most obviously, Nokia seems to be preparing to develop multi touch enabled devices in the near future. Secondly, I would interpret pressure sensitive screens as Nokia sticking with resistive touch screen displays, as opposed to capacitive ones preferred by Apple and some other brands.
I, personally prefer resistive screens, as they offer a wider array of input options. Additionally Nokia seems to be upping the ante by adding pressure sensing and re-interpreting the multi touch technology. Lets all wait and see what this will bring upon us!
Nokia N97 mini Firmware Appears on Navifirm, Still Waiting for N97 v2
The first firmware release for Nokia N97 mini, v10.0.20 / v10.2.20, is now online through Navifirm. This obviously sheds light on N97 mini’s (regional) availability, and while the much anticipated v2 firmware for the larger N97 still remains unavailable, this shows that it will be released very soon. Also we should note that v20.0.19 firmware for N97 can be tried out through RDA via Forum Nokia (another good sign).
Windows Mobile 6.5 Review
GSMArena team have made an extensive review of Microsoft’s latest mobile OS. Hop on to this link to read it!
Nokia Booklet 3G Hands On
Nokia USA announced the other day that the United States will be one of the first markets to receive the Booklet 3G, being operated exclusively on AT&T and will be sold exclusively by Best Buy at first, for $299 when purchased with a 2 year plan at $60/month.
The Nokia Booklet 3G will be featuring Windows 7, which will allow the device to switch between WiFi and 3G automatically. The light, strong and elegant device, with an aluminum chassis, is a treat to the eyes and its keyboard is easy to use for such a small form factor. The main highlight of Booklet 3G’s features, in my opinion, is the 12-hour battery life that Nokia claims it to offer. Considering how fast a mobile phone’s battery drains under continuous web usage (with screen being on at all times), no wonder Booklet 3G will be a great and helpful companion in that department.
You can see a hands-on video via Engadget, and one via Mobile Burn after the break…
2 New EeePCs Coming Your Way
These two have been in the rumor-mill for a while now, but recently EEEPC.it managed to leak documents from Asus with detailed specs on the new EeePCs. The EeePC 1201N, as rumored features nVidia’s Ion chipset (with GeForce 9400M), a dual core Intel Atom N330 CPU at 1.6GHz, 3GB DDR2 RAM, and an HDMI port while the EeePC 1201HA is a lighter model (featurewise) with an Atom Z520 CPU at 1.33GHz, Intel GMA500 graphics, and 2GB DDR2 RAM.
Both models manage to pack a 250GB HDD (and 500GBs of online storage), a 12.1-inch 1366 x 768 pixel screen, 802.11b/g/n WiFI, Bluetooth, Ethernet, VGA, 3 USB 2.0 ports, SD card slot, microphone and headphones ports, a 0.3MP Webcam, a Touchpad with multitouch support and a 6-cell battery for 8-hours continuous operation. With Windows 7 running on top of the hardware Asus seems to managed to design a nice duo of sub-notebook computers.
via Liliputing
Dell Adamo XPS Coming On October 22nd for $2000
We’ve all seen some drool-inducing shots of Dell’s new beauty, and finally the mud is beginning to clear. According to Business Week, the 0.39-inch thick (or thin if you look the other way around!) notebook will hit the streets on October 22nd, the same date as Windows 7, with a price tag of $2,000. The Adamo XPS is also said to feature a “heat-sensing strip on the lip, that when swiped with a finger, glows white and automatically opens the aluminum lid.”
I have a simple test with notebook PCs. When I’m checking out a notebook computer, I always try to open its lid with one hand, to see whether the hinge mechanism is high quality or not. If it can be opened with one hand, I believe that notebook to be having a good build quality. So if the new Dell’s lid can open automatically, I don’t think any notebook’s build quality can get higher than that!! We’re still in the dark about the Adamo’s internals, though. We’ll wait and see how much more we can drool…
via PastaTech
Hitachi Shows Off With 3D Display That Requires No Glasses
As we get closer to Star Trek’s Holodeck concept, Hitachi exhibited its new 3D display technology that doesn’t need glasses in CEATEC the other day. The 10-inch display, dubbed “Full Parallax 3D TV” can be watched from any direction with a resolution of 640×480. The company manages to project the 3D images using 16 projectors and a lens array sheet to cover them, which ensures parallax in any direction.
via TechOn!
ATI Radeon HD 5770 and 5750 with Lower Price, Still High Performers
When ATI announced the 5870 and 5850, with superbly high performance and HD audio bitstream support, we knew it was only a matter of time before they announced and released cheaper cards relying on the same technology with these ground breakingly high performers. Enter Radeon HD 5770 and 5750! Priced at $159 and $109 respectively, the two card are easy on the budget, while still maintaining their positions as high performers with a computing power of over 1 TFLOPS. The early reviews found 5770’s performance to be almost as high as ATI’s past generation star, the 4890.
Another upside of these two mainstream graphics adapters is, of course, HD audio bitstream support for transmitting untouched, HD quality Dolby Digital Plus and DTS HD MA audio to supporting home theater receivers. This translates to HTPC users losing the dedicated audio card in their system while upgrading their graphics adapter. I personally have been using a Sound Blaster X-Fi card with my system and have been waiting for Auzentech’s HD audio solution (and it’s availability where I live). ATI’s latest offerings look almost perfect to me. I’ll probably want to see like products from nVidia as well, as their drivers tend to agree with me more. If you’re system is generally problem-free with ATI’s drivers, I’d strongly suggest these two cards for HTPC systems…
Here are some reviews of the two cards:
Hot Hardware review
PC Perspective review
HardOCP review
TweakTown review
Techgage review
AnandTech review
Hexus review
via Engadget
N900 News and Video Round-up
Each day the release date nears, we get to see more and more news about Nokia’s N900. Hit the read link to see a quick round-up of N900 news and videos that have been making the rounds for the past few days…
Command & Conquer: Red Alert for iPhone (Video)
Real-time strategy fans rejoice! One of the most popular RTS games of all times, Command & Conquer: Red Alert is coming to your iPhone/iPod Touch this October. Check out the video after the break!
Preview: gReader for Symbian S60 v3 and v5
Sascha from MobilPresse.com has written a nice preview for gReader, the upcoming Google Reader client by MojosStuios, which I have been looking forward to for some time now! Originally written in German, Sascha was kind enough to send us an English version of the preview. Hit the read link for more…
Giorgio Armani + Samsung = B7620 Windows Mobile 6.5 Phone
Unlike the previous phones that were the fruits of similar collaborations by Samsung and Giorgio Armani, here comes a smartphone that’s as capable as its competition as well as being fashionable. The B7620, with a price tag of €700, runs Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5, features a full touchscreen 3.5-inch AMOLED display, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, 5MP camera, GPS, 8GBs of internal storage and a microSD slot for further memory expansions. Previous fashion phones by Samsung were appealing to the eye but were poorer in terms of usability. This one seems to win both ways. Check out the videos after the break…
Samsung B7620 Giorgio Armani fast specs (via GSMArena):
- Network Support: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz, UMTS 900/1900/2100 MHz, EDGE class 10, HSDPA 7.2 Mbps; HSUPA 5.76 Mbps
- Form factor: Slide-and-tilt full QWERTY touch phone
- Dimensions: 118.5 x 58.3 x 16.4 mm, weight 164 grams
- Display: 3.5″ 16M color (65K effective) resistive AMOLED touchscreen of WVGA resolution
- OS: Windows Mobile 6.5, TouchWiz 2.0 UI, Work&Leisure mode switch key
- Memory: 8GB built-in storage, 192 MB RAM, hot-swappable microSD (up to 16GB)
- CPU: 800 MHz processor with dedicated graphics accelerator
- Camera: 5 megapixel auto-focus, with dual LED flash and VGA video at 30 fps
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP, standard microUSB port, GPS receiver with A-GPS, TV out
- Misc: Accelerometer for screen auto rotate and turn-to-mute, FM radio with RDS, DivX/XviD video support
- Battery: 1500mAh Li-Ion battery
HTC HD2 Hands-on
The IntoMobile team has spent some quality time with the HTC HD2 and they’re already calling this beauty “the baddest Windows Phone”. The video certainly proves them right. Watch on after the break…
ESPNsoccernet: Nice Football widget for Nokia N97 and S60 v5
This one’s for anyone who’s into football (or soccer depending on which side of the pond you are). Plusmo have created a great little widget for the N97 and all other S60 5th Edition devices, ESPNsoccernet, with which you choose and follow the league of your liking with live game visualization, commentaries, detailed fixtures. The widget is free on Ovi Store, so click that little blue paper-bag icon on your phone and download the widget already! N97 users can also place the widget on their homescreen, so what more can you ask for?
via SymbianWorld
Nokia Announces Official Qt Port to Maemo 5
This was expected, but nevertheless news this promising can’t be taken for granted! Nokia made it official the other day that Qt, the popular cross-platform application and UI framework was ported to Maemo 5. This implies that Maemo 5 and other mobile devices that support the platform (ie. Symbian) will be even richer in terms native applications. The N900 must be smiling! Video showing Qt running on an N900 and the press release from Espoo after the break…
Shazam Now Also Available Through Windows Marketplace for Mobile
One of my favorite apps for Symbian S60 v5, also a favorite for many others on other mobile OS’s, is now available through the newly launched Windows Mobile Marketplace for Mobile for Windows Mobile users. Here’s the press release right from Shazam:
Shazam launches music discovery applications on Windows® Marketplace for Mobile
Hugely popular mobile music application now available on yet another platform
London, UK – October 06, 2009 – Shazam, the world’s leading mobile music discovery provider, today announced the availability of its music discovery application for Windows® phones via the just-launched Windows® Marketplace for Mobile. Shazam will be offering a free version as well as a separate full-featured version which users can access for a one-time fee. This will be the first time Shazam is simultaneously offering two versions of its applications at once, giving Windows phone users the choice as to how they want to experience and use Shazam.
Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Microsoft Corp.’s new mobile store that allows users to browse and download mobile applications to more than 50 million existing Windows® Mobile devices, operates on an innovative new operating system that gives users access to quality applications through a seamless shopping experience. Shazam allows users to discover and share music simply by holding a phone up to a song as it is playing. The Shazam application has been downloaded by more than 8 million users on the iPhone App Store and is among the most popularly downloaded applications on BlackBerry App World, Nokia’s Ovi Store and Google’s Market.
“Windows Mobile is the latest platform for which we have developed our music discovery application that has been used and enjoyed by so many people around the world already,” said Andrew Fisher, CEO of Shazam. “We are delighted to have been included as part of the debut of Windows Marketplace and we are very pleased to be working together with Microsoft to deliver the Shazam service to a whole new population of users.”
Users of the free Shazam application will have the ability to discover up to five songs per month and have the option to share their discovered music. Premium users will get unlimited tagging capabilities plus additional features that include:
- Access to Shazam’s Tag Charts which indicate what music and which artists are hot and are being tagged by Shazam users in country
- Recommendations for similar tracks based on the tagged songs and artists
- Biographies of tagged artists and bands
- Music and album reviews, and discographies
New users will be offered the opportunity to trial the full-featured Shazam application for seven days, after which they will be prompted to purchase it or revert to the limited, free edition.
“Shazam has proven to be a popular application across numerous devices and platforms,” said Jason Lim, director of ISV and developer experience at Microsoft. “With this in mind, we’re excited to have Shazam as part of the global launch of Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The Shazam application will provide people with a unique and compelling music discovery experience and we’re very pleased to offer it.”
At launch, the Shazam applications on Windows Marketplace for Mobile will be available in English in more than thirty markets around the world. Shazam expects to roll out multi-language versions in the coming weeks.
Xpress Note for Hand-written Notes on S60 v5 Phones
When the 5800 Xpressmusic was announced I was pretty excited that I was going to be able to use a stylus to take notes with my very-hard-to-read handwriting. But the application for taking notes with a stylus was nowhere to be found. Enter Xpress Note! Xpress Note does just that, and nothing more. The application is compatible with 5800 Xpressmusic, N97 and the 5530 Xpressmusic. If you, like me, would like to quickly scrap a note on your phone, you can download the app here…
via Dailymobile
Video: Fring 2.0.0.4 for iPhone and iPod Touch
The latest version of Fring for iPhone was caught on video. Version 2.0.0.4 of the great instant messaging / voip client has an improved interface, as well as links support in chat, an easy mood text updating, disabling push notifications for Twitter and user profiles and picture upload. Video after the break!
International Kindle Coming, Hopefully Your Way
Amazon has confirmed an international version of Kindle, the all popular book reader gadget from Amazon, will be released and shipped for $279 on October 19th. However it seems the new Kindle won’t be all that international after all (most of the E.U. is in safe hands though). Better check out the map of areas that Kindle supports. Lets hope it comes your way too…
