Over at Phonedaily (a local site on mobile phones in Hong Kong) the editors managed to pull a few strings to get a LG Viewty (also known as the KU990 in some markets) to do some extensive testing, particularly on the camera. With both phones supporting a maximum of 5 megapixels, there's definitely room for a review, particularly in determining which smartphone can take up the position of being the King of the Camera Phones.

In addition, both phones are branded by specific lens makers - in this case, the LG Viewty has it's lens developed by famous lens makers Schneider-KREUZNACH while the Nokia N82 smarts Carl Zeiss Optics for it's camera lens (Though of course, both can't compete with the quality of lenses found in digital cameras, no matter which brand they're from).

Just in case you're wondering, the photos come from Phonedaily's review of the 2 phones; I've added my own opinions of the pictures both phones took to this review in addition to the Phonedaily review.

Nokia N82	LG Viewty KU990

The white balance for the Nokia N82 seems to set daylight pictures slightly darker (as in the first picture), taking in to account the brightness of the sky. In comparison, the KU990 leans heavily in focusing on the subject it's focused on, creating a situation where the sky is overexposed. The N82 definitely gets higher marks there for managing to preserve more data in the photo (also managing to capture a more realistic image of the subject), but on the other hand it's also slightly tedious for the user who would probably need to touch up the photos on the PC after the photo is taken.

And this is further supported by picture 3, where the N82 clearly takes a much more balanced photo as oppposed to the Viewty. The Viewty appears to overemphasise the yellow (light) colour, which overall definitely affects the balancing of photos, particularly in indoor scenarios (picture 5) and perhaps also when taking photos of others (the skin may appear to be tinted yellow, etc).

From the above sample photos, it seems that the Nokia N82 is a clear winner against the LG Viewty KU990 in terms of taking realistic photos - and so far stands unchallenged in obtaining the status of being the "King of Camera Phones" for the time being; although that should probably change in the short term when Sony Ericsson launches their brand new imaging flagship slider phone.

For more sample photos and the original PhoneDaily review, click here.

The Nokia N78's newest firmware has just been released - however, what's unique about this firmware update is that it's the first update offered by Nokia that can be done over-the-air; rather than requiring you to go to your PC and open up Nokia PC Suite to update, it can now be done if you can access the Internet (via WLAN/3G/EDGE/GPRS).

This would probably mean that future N-series S60 updates can also be done directly on your N-series phone rather than requiring a Windows PC connection. Looks like Nokia finally understood that many of it's N-series users also use Macs, making firmware updates extremely inconvenient for them...

Recently a video of Google's OS Android running on the Nokia N95 has surfaced; would this mean that it's also possible to get Android running on other Symbian smartphones?

With the iPhone's release, more and more people are now aware of how a 'good' interface could be on the mobile phone. The Symbian S60 platform is extremely versatile and powerful; but if you asked any average user, they wouldn't be able to customise or change things as much as they wanted to as the options are nested deep within the different menus.

Google's Android is reminiscent of the iPhone's simple but effective interface where everything can just be accessed via a few clicks rather than being nested within menu after menu - perhaps this will see a change in Nokia's S60 platform, such as creating a overlying application like HTC's TouchFLO technology which allows everything to be accessed in a few clicks (on the WM platform)?

If Android could be allowed to run alongside the Symbian S60 platform (i.e. "dual-booting" the mobile phone) I would definitely be in favour of it; after all, the S60 platform has a huge number of applications, is extremely powerful (and relatively more complex to use), while the Android platform can make up the shortcomings of the S60 platform (such as browsing experience compared to the iPhone, and ease of use of the platform).

What's your take on the matter?

Occasionally in classes I find that there's a need to take electronic notes - and what better tool is there than with my trusty N82? Paired up with a Bluetooth keyboard, it's quite a mighty mobile device to take notes in - you can type just as quick as you do on the desktop, and data can be preserved and accessed on the go.

Although Nokia offers its own SU-8W Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard for Nokia S60 and S40 devices, it's very costly and limited in availability. It's not available even at the Nokia flagship store here in Hong Kong.

After some testing with a friend at the computer mall, it turns out that you can pair a Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard with the Nokia N82, N95, or any of the S60 devices - as long as the Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard supports the HID profile. Just follow the instructions below to get started:

1. Get the Nokia Wireless Keyboard software for S60 v3.1 devices. Install it on your phone.
2. Turn Bluetooth on from the Bluetooth menu on your phone.
3. Open up the Wireless Keyboard application from Menu >> Tools >> Connectivity >> Wireless Keyboard. Click on "Find Keyboard" and then follow the instructions provided by the Keyboard instruction manual to get your Keyboard to pair with your phone.

And there you go - the Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard will be paired with your phone. If you've got any questions on setting this up or any questions on which brand of keyboard to get, feel free to email me.

If you've been curious and delved around on the N82 and other Nokia N-series phones, you've might have realised that you can stream music from the phone to another device on your 'Home Network' - one that supports UPnP protocol, mind you; and you can also stream music from your PC to your phone via the same 'Home Network'. (Just take a look under Tools >> Connect >> Home Media).

So what is this UPnP? It stands for Universal Plug and Play, and basically it's a networking standard to allow different devices to connect to each other and implement data sharing, streaming, etc.

So first of all - streaming from your PC to your phone
Ewan Spence from AllAboutSymbian has just written up a guide on linking your PC's media library to your N-series device, so it's worth taking a look. I will be looking at the Mac side of things for Mac users to stream from their iTunes library to their N-series phone in the meantime, so stay with me!

Streaming from your phone to a UPnP compatible device
Unfortunately I currently don't have a compatible UPnP device, nor do I have the funds to purchase one. However, do expect a guide on this over the summer, when I'll get something with the money earned from my summer job.

Although the integrated search client does a good job of searching, it's mostly local (perhaps this is a region thing?) - that is, it searches your phone only. Google's released a S60 version search application to make it easier for us S60 users to go online and search; instead of opening up your browser, heading over to www.google.com and typing in your search phrase and then waiting for the results to load, you can now simply type your search phrase to the application and wait for everything else to be done for you - no need to open your browser or browse through those few pages to get to Google.


As opposed to the version for the Nokia N95, the version offered for the Nokia N82 doesn't allow for the user to access the application using a shortcut key. This is because the N82 doesn't have the "Pencil/Edit" button, which the N95 does have - and this means that you have to access it via the Application Launcher.

There's a workaround to this problem; you can set one of the Active Standby applications to be the Google Search app, but it does take one of the precious spaces on your standby screen.

The application allows you to set whether you want to view "Mobile" results or the full HTML "Desktop" result, which is definitely a welcome addition compared to manually searching by browsing to Google and having the page defaulted to "mobile optimised" view.

Can't think of how this application is a pain to the user; on the contrary, I think that if you're keen on doing some web surfing on your N82, then this is a must get. It speeds up the entire surfing process, and makes it really easy for you to do searches on Google. And with Google being the first to release a S60 native search application, you can probably expect the other major search engine (Yahoo!) following suit.

You can get the S60 Google Search client via Google Mobile.

Now that my region's Nokia N82 v20.0.062 update has been released, I've been very excited to try out the Web Runtime (WRT) Widgets. A lot of news has been generated on this new technology, with some claiming that it might even kickstart a new revolution for mobile phone services and applications. It's all been writing and talk so far, so here's a first take on Nokia WRT Widgets and the sort of potential it holds for the future.

First off, where can one get S60 WRT Widgets? Googling doesn't really reveal much - it's all news and information on WRT widgets, rather than the widgets themselves.

I downloaded Nokia's MOSH Client - a tool that allows users and developers to share all sorts of applications. A quick search of "widget" under the "Applications" category yielded at least 50 hits, and I took the time to test out a few that most users would use.



The currency conversion widget (WorldExchange) shows signs that WRT widgets is still in its early stages. Maybe it's just me, but it just feels very unpolished right now. It's got plenty of potential though, and I find it quite useful. There's a couple of bugs, including the lack of support for the accelerometer, but that should change quite soon with updates from the developer.



Another terrific widget is the weather widget (Mobiweather). It's only in it's beta stage, and again looks a bit unpolished and in it's early stages, but the basic idea is there. There's also a very nice feature of autodetecting the user's location, and considering it's simplicity and user friendliness, it's one of the more well designed widgets out there. Hopefully when it turns final we can see it integrate even better with the browser/phone, in having a full screen, numbered shortcuts, and whatever else the developer can think of.

And so we have here a first look at Nokia's S60 Web Runtime (WRT) Widgets. It displays plenty of potential to be expanded, and since it's more or less a combination of HTML, Ajax, Javascript - I can see a huge developer base for this type of application. Think of it as a more casual application - it doesn't have to be Symbian Signed, it can be easily created and tested - and we'll probably see more of these Widgets in the short term future.

And with Nokia's MOSH acting as a platform to distribute applications and widgets, I see a bright future for the S60 platform.

This clip on YouTube illustrates a very interesting idea - not to mention a very clever use of the camera too!

I think there's quite a potential for this sort of control. For example, specific hand gestures could be programmed to trigger actions on the phone, such as quick dialing, receiving or hanging up calls, or even for the music player. I'm not sure how far this would go or whether the application is for release yet, but I'm definitely interested in seeing how far the idea would go.

What do you think?

Seems like the Mobile YouTube applications really took off after it debuted on the iPhone and the iPod Touch. First there was emTube - which was then taken down due to legal threats from YouTube, who subsequently released a Java client for selected phones (not including the N82, but there's a solution for that). Now joining in the race is Mobitubia, another free app which allows for the user "to play EVERY clip from the popular site YouTube". It's also the winner of the "Open C Challenge" software design competition, netting in the grand prize of 10,000 dollars for student developer Sittiphol Phanvilai. Kudos to you, my friend.

Over at the Symbian Web Blog there's a fully packed Mobitubia review, detailing all the features and every aspect of the app. Believe me, it's worth the download - and you can get it from Sittiphol's official site.

Oh, and by the way, the current release is the last release that will be free to the public (according to AllAboutSymbian), so there's no knowing when the file will be taken offline. Better get it now before it's too late!

Here's a very useful free application for all N82 owners for taking those screenshots of your phone's screen - it's called 'Screenshot' and there really isn't much to say about it except that it's extremely intuitive and easy to use.

The download link is available here; just an extra note: the software uses the "Pencil" key as the hotkey to take screenshots. Since the N82 does not have the "Pencil" key, remember to map the screen capture hotkey to some other button, such as the "C" (Delete) key.


This can be done via Screenshot >> Options >> Settings >> Shortcut and changing the shortcut of the image capture to the delete button.

Does Nokia Maps fail to cut it for you? Looking for an alternative other than Google Maps? Then look no further. Mobile GMaps is a free, J2ME app that displays maps from Yahoo! Maps, Windows Live Local (MSN Virtual Earth), Ask.com, Open Street Map and other sources. It's extremely useful in that it allows for users to get close up satellite and mapping data online OR offline (think of Google Maps with preloaded mapping data).

Performance of Mobile GMaps is just a tad slower than Google Maps but faster than Nokia Maps; with the notable exception of the annoying prompting every time you execute the application (because its a Java application, the phone will prompt whether you want to allow the app to use Positioning Data and allow for online access). Locking to a certain GPS position is rather quick - no surprises there, probably because of AGPS and the relatively open area I was testing the application in.

There's also a menu for a host of services showing all sorts of information; granted its not as good as the Nokia services offered in Nokia Maps, but it's pretty informative - there's one showing all the FON hotspots, traffic info, Subway Maps, and 'Connect2Car', which I assume is for car rental services. Not bad for a free map you must agree...

You can also register for an account on the website and get your phone to upload GPS data as you run the app in the background of your phone. It's quite the gimmick feature but I quite like the concept - if your friends also do it too, you can establish a network and see where everyone is at the given moment.

So all in all, it's a worthy alternative to Google Maps and Nokia Maps. But considering that its rather lightweight without Navigation or the rich services (cinemas, restaurants, etc) you have from Nokia Maps, I think there's still plenty of potential for this Java application. Still worth downloading though, so get it now!

I know there's plenty of places and people that make excellent themes, but it is general consensus that the top 2 S60 theme creators are Babi and P@sco, both veteran Nokia theme creators.

Babinokia has been around for quite a while and most of his/her developed themes are associated with quality. There's even themes around for S60 v2 Nokia phones, so it's definitely worth a look for those with an old phone lying around - you'll never know when it'll come in handy. As for the S60 v3 themes, it looks excellent on the N82, so I definitely recommend the themes to everyone.

P@sco is another well known theme creator and publishes a Nokia / S60 blog in addition to his themes. His themes range from the abstract to the cartoonish; but whatever the theme is, it's got this aura of professionalism that makes others feel that its well designed and created.

Kudos to both theme creators for promoting and designing better themes for the S60 platform. Their themes are also available via Symbian Themes, so why not take a look there too?

So you've just downloaded and installed a nice theme, with good looking icons in the main menu. You apply the theme and all is fine - except, to your dismay, that the main menu icons are not the same as the screenshots that accompanied the theme.

It so happens that if you turn on "icon animation" in your S60 device, it automatically changes the icons of the main menu and subsequent menus back to the default ones - as those are the only ones that are equipped to animate on your phone.

So, if you want to get the nice looking icons from your theme rather than the default Nokia ones, simply head to the main menu, select Options >> Icon Animation >> and turn it to "Off". And enjoy.

Note: S60 theme above is "Entangle", created by Inanov from S60Theme.

If you're looking for a well designed and polished Internet radio player for your Nokia N82, then Spodtronic is the one for you. From the moment you execute the app, the visual effects are stunning, giving you a feeling that it's one of those fairly well created N-Gage games - except that it's branded by Virgin Radio adverts (which are quite apparent wherever you surf to in the app).

Putting that aside for a moment, it offers a range of radio stations that one can listen to, albeit not customisable - I think I'd be willing to give up adding feeds to this app for its sheer brilliance in those nice transitions and visual effects. Definitely something to die for. But it has a wide range of European and American radios to listen from, so I'm not complaining (mostly because I listen to Virgin Radio only).

You can also "discover new music" via the Musicovery feature, where you set the "moodmeter"; this is essentially similar to the Sony Ericsson Senseme music concept except you specify the mood and speed of the song to find songs matching your criteria. Pretty exciting feature I must admit, and it does have plenty of potential among young people like me.

Then there's also the Podcast feature: one notable disappointment here I must note is that Diggnation is not available on this app, although it's more of a personal thing. Many popular podcasts are still widely available, including Government and Religious ones, so Spodtronic should definitely appeal to a lot of potential users. There's new podcasts being added quite often so I won't be overly concerned about not having a podcast on it right now.

You have the option to download podcasts and play them afterwards using the app, which is definitely recommended, as it's a way to avoid the massive data usage which forms most of the negatives about this application. The application also stores where you last stopped listening to the podcast, which is another thumbs up as it eases usability on the user.

And it's all for nothing. A must get app? Definitely. Full marks for creativity and implementation of an Internet Radio application that most people thought was already fully developed. On the downside, you'll better stick to WiFi hotspots or get that unlimited data plan before listening away on this amazing app.

Interested in creating widgets for the S60 platform? It's all possible now with the Nokia Forums dedicating a part of it specifically for Widget development. Topics range from adding Flash support, to setting up RSS, to even the most basic guides of all: how to create a widget.

It's "the" place for S60 widget developers to hang out, so if you're one of them, head over and take a look! The forum based on the Wiki platform, so registered members are able to contribute and create articles. Furthermore, other languages such as Chinese, Japanese, Brazilian and Russian is also supported, so ther users not just limited to say, European and American regions.

I think it's pretty much a fact to say that the Nokia N82's image quality blows most of its competitors out of the water. It's closest rival, the Sony Ericsson K850i, lacked that little edge, which assured the N82 of its victory as the King of the 5-Megapixel camera phones.

Mobile-Review has a new review comparing the newly released Sony Ericsson G900 smartphone and the N82; but it just confirms what we've been all expecting - the superiority of the N82 camera (or perhaps that the G900 is not an impressive camera phone). I know, I know, the N82 doesn't have the perfect camera, but in most cases it took the clearer and more impressive shot compared to its counterparts - just take a look at it yourself.

Shown above is one of the demo widgets shown at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last year. So far I haven't seen any impressive widgets out in the S60 community, but that situation should be changing really soon.

Let me back track a bit. What are widgets? Well, they're just mobile applications which can be developed using XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ajax. You've probably seen it around since the Mac platform introduced it in Mac OS X Tiger, and the Yahoo! Widget Engine for PCs.

The new firmware for the S60 N-series platform (v20.0.062) enables Web Runtime, which will allow Widgets to run on the S60 platform. I'm pretty sure a huge amount of people have experience in CSS and JavaScript - and since there's no need to Symbian Sign for all the developed Widgets, I'm quite sure there will be an explosion in Widget development in the short term future.

Although I'm not an avid fan or user of Google Calendar, I still find it an immensely useful tool - I can set up meeting times and appointments with other Google services users and groups. Getting it on to your N82, however, is another matter.

Developer Petteri Muilu has written this excellent application, CalSyncS60, to allow for two-way synchronisation for your built-in calendar and Google Calendar. Although still in beta stages, it supports all Symbian S60 v3 devices, and requires only an internet connection (as well as a Google account so you can sync to something).

Being a beta application, it's always recommended to back up all your data first before trying this out. Some features aren't available yet (such as synchronisation of recurring events), but it's only been developed recently, so I see plenty of potential for this app.

And I should make a note that it's NOT tedious to install; it only requires the downloading of the SIS file, transferring that to your phone via Bluetooth/Memory Stick/PC Suite, and following the instructions to install.

Why not try it out now?

Symbian Signing was designed to provide an extra layer of security so that malicious applications and software could not be able to access the root level functions of the phone - rather if the application had to access those features, it had to be Symbian Signed; this meant having the application approved by Symbian.

Well divyang over at the Symbian Core has an article on circumventing the normal Symbian Signed process - which includes registering at the Symbian site. Apparently there's a Chinese site which is live allowing for Symbian signing of every single app you can think of. Well, okay, I'm not guaranteeing anything but it signs most apps fast and easy, instead of going through the slow and painful process from Symbian Signed.

And this is what the divyang says from the Symbian Core:

I’ve tested all applications that symbian signed doesn’t signs and it works perfectly.

Interesting...I think we can now expect a bunch of viruses appearing on S60 v3 phones...

Anyways, enough of my worrying. Go sign all of the apps you want; read the article here!

Remember a while ago when I reviewed emTube? Well, I'm pretty sure right after Youtube saw the software, they were so impressed that they decided to come up with their own, fully supported Youtube Mobile Beta.

Although it's only released for Nokia N73, E65, N95, 6120c and 6110n (as well as the Sony Ericsson K800 and W880), I managed to use a little hack via Firefox to obtain the Java application - which is available here. Simply install it, and you're good to go with Youtube Mobile on your N82.

Apart from a much more familiar looking interface to Youtube (and the mobile site, m.youtube.com) you can now basically search, upload, flag, and even access your own account using this nifty app. Despite being programmed in Java, which is synonymous to 'lag' and 'slow', it does offer quite a decent performance, allowing for Cover Flow like scrolling if a search for a video is done.


Similar to emTube, it accesses the normal Youtube site rather than the WAP version, which means virtually the entire catalog of Youtube videos are readily available via this mobile application.

Uploading is extremely well integrated with the smart phone - you can preview the videos before you upload, and with HSDPA/WiFi you can pretty much expect uploading to be done rather quickly. With everything seemingly well connected, from searching to uploading, I won't be surprised if many users switch from emTube to Youtube's official application.

With the N95 in mind, rotation of the app is also supported, so you can view cover-flow like effects whilst searching as well when you turn your phone horizontally. Videos are zoomed out to full screen mode when it starts playing, and there is also the ability to fast forward or to rewind, perhaps even bettering the features on emTube.

Even though it's still in Beta, it's definitely one of my favourite apps on the N82. And future beta releases (or maybe even the final release) are promising the added feature of rating and commenting from your smart phone, so I'm pretty sure this software should spread like wildfire within the S60 community.

Although it's meant for the N95, there is no reason why it doesn't work on the N82 - the phones are essentially alike, and both are flagship models. Hardware-wise, they're more or less the same; so click here to download Youtube Mobile Beta!

Note: if you use other Nokia S60 phones, you should still be able to download this application, providing you have the same screen resolution (320 x 240), run the same Java version as the N95, and have a valid GPRS/EDGE/3G connection.

Update: Make sure the access point setting is set to your WiFi access point in the Realplayer app if you want to use WiFi to watch video via YouTube; otherwise you'll get "Could not connect to server" errors.