Nokia Mobile Reviews and Games

Learn Finnish, Flash Lite application
Nice example of mobile Flash Lite education application by David Dewhurst, Learn Finnish. “Flash Finnish is a free mobile phone game designed to help you learn Finnish. It features basic vocabulary, colours and numbers.” It is tested on Nokia N95 only at this point, and it’s a Flash Lite 2.0 application. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t learn Finnish language, go grab it

Nokia 8GB Part I Review: N81
You tap once to bring up profiles like silent, normal, vibrate, etc… then keep tapping to go down the list. Nothing special about the volume keys! More details on that on my software and interface review of the Nokia N81. Camera button. It is the same screen size as the Nokia N93i. You do not need to slide it in place all the way. It connects to a middle piece where you can control music or pick up phone calls. From an arm’s length, the front of the phone looks like it is black with mocha on the sides. It is definitely loud enough to start a small party anywhere! Part I Conclusion Overall I like the design of the Nokia N81 8GB. We are going to see this in many upcoming phones and I love it! What surprised me is that the Naviwheel, which is supposed to work like the iPod wheel navigation, is off by default. The Nokia N81 8GB feels heavier in the hands than the Nokia N95. But watch your thumbs! This option is not available in my Nokia N95. Pencil Key. You have to go to the settings to turn it on. There is no auto focus on the 2-megapixel camera of the Nokia N81. There’s no pencil key in the Nokia N81, which you can find in other Nseries phones. The gaming keys lights up when playing an N-gage game and also when used to zoom in or out of photos in the gallery. Naviwheel. According to the box, the Nokia N81 8GB is warm silver/brown. However, it is hard to settle down for this size, knowing that the Nokia N95 8GB has a 2.8 inch screen. Volume up… volume down. Input and Output Earphones. It does not bother me that the pencil key is gone because the same options can be brought up by pressing the * button while texting as well. If I want to turn it off, I just hold the button down. Volume Keys. The Nokia N81 includes a micro-USB port for data transfers with our computers. However, I’m glad they provide the option of turning it on or off, instead of leaving it on by default. What’s cool is that you can do this while doing something else like browsing the web, checking email, or even playing a game. Hold it again to activate the desired profile. Nice and subtle. The battery cover of the Nokia N81 8GB has shiny brown speckles. Slide. In this post, I’ll go in-depth with the form factor of the phone and how it is related to the functions. For example, the music keys are dimmed and the gaming keys are off when using the phone in general. Next to the power button is the key lock that slides to the right and goes back to its original position. This comes in real handy if you do not want the music to play randomly while your phone is inside your bag. The Nokia N81 has a 2.4 inch display. If two of those buttons are the dedicated gaming keys, that means the other 16 buttons are packed together with the Naviwheel. I am not sure whether future firmware updates will enable it throughout the whole phone. You can press the play button at any time to play the last song you were listening to. You can play music while doing other things like reading my blog! Music keys. I get to experience it first-hand. This phone will be great for those who spend a lot of time listening to music, and also want to play games on their phone because of the dedicated gaming keys. It doesn’t look like a big difference, but you can certainly feel it when you hold both of them. Display. I’ll review about using the Nokia N81 8GB interface and software in a later post. I mentioned in my preview of the Nokia N81 8GB, it has really loud speakers. It requires more than average effort to press the Naviwheel, and expect accidental keypresses because of the many buttons packed together in a small space. Music keys are dimmed when the Music player is not used. And to end this part of the review, watch my friends and I make a fool of ourselves lip singing about the Nokia N81… if you haven’t seen it yet. Note: All the photos in this post were taken with the Nokia N95. —Related Articles at the Nokia blog:Video: Nokia N81 8GB Final Production Unboxing and Initial UsageVideo: Nokia N81 Commercial The Next EpisodeNokia N95 Review by the Nokialist Part 1Review: Nokia N81 8GB Part IINokia N95 8GB CommercialVideo: The Nokia N81 Song Lip Sync The Naviwheel navigation is only useable in the multimedia menu, music player, and photo gallery. Keyguard slide. After playing with it, I actually just prefer turning the Naviwheel option off. I also found the Naviwheel very sturdy, requiring a lot of effort to press down. You can find out more about Nokia’s new bluetooth headsets at Non Stop Living. Listening to music with the included earphones. Micro-USB. The Nokia N81 8GB came with earphones that go around the back of your neck. However, you can choose to turn the keyguard option on automatically when closing the slide in the settings. A closer look of the back of the phone shows tiny speckles that shine as light reflects from the panel. I can lose my USB cable, and know that I can go into any electronics store to buy one right away if I don’t have a spare one lying around. Speakers. I also like that the display is protected by another layer instead of just flat with the whole fascia. The 2.4 inch screen on the Nokia N81 8GB leaves you wanting more. Color. When the music player is on, the music keys light up. For the the physical aspects of the N81 8GB, I think the phone is well designed and nicely built, but it has a few annoyances. You might also want to read my preview of the Nokia N81 8GB and watch my unboxing video of the N81 along with this review. Overview Weight. The attention to details like the dimming and the lighting of the music and gaming keys at the right moment is pretty cool. Let’s see the keys in that area: green call, red end-call, left soft-key, right soft-key, main menu, multimedia menu, clear, play/pause, stop, forward, back, left, right, up, down, and center. Even though there’s a lot of buttons in that part of the phone, Nokia does a great job illuminating only the necessary buttons depending on what you are using. I am reviewing the Nokia N81 8GB in two parts. I was in a really quiet hallway yesterday with the Nokia N81 in my backpack and it scared the hell out of me when something just played out of nowhere. The power button works similar to any other Nseries phone. You can also use your own earphones if you like, but, people are starting to use bluetooth headphones to listen to music on their phones. While it may not be a major problem to some, I found it annoying to press down hard when scrolling through web pages. In my preview of the Nokia N81 8GB, I mentioned that the N81 weighs 140 grams, while the N95 weighs 120 grams. It moves by itself with a nice snapping sound when you push it up or down halfway through. Buttons When the N81 8GB is closed while hiding the numeric keypad, I counted 18 buttons just on the front part of the phone! That means you can’t hold the camera button halfway to focus on your subject. The sliding mechanism is firm. I prefer regular earphones that go down my neck, but joggers like the ones that go around the neck because it doesn’t fall out easily. This means snapping pictures is really quick, but don’t expect the same quality from the Nokia N95 with autofocus. There is no auto focus on the Nokia N81 8GB camera. Power. I also like that the title of the song pops up on the upper right corner display if I am not currently not on the music player display. It is useful in copying and pasting text, but since this button is not available in the N81, Nokia provided “Editing options” in the menu where copy and paste are available.