After a few exciting weeks of completing various tasks centered around the N96, like all good things – The N96 Challenge has come to an end. The competition was to win five N96 trials for you, the reader and we shall very soon find out if we have been successful. I can assure you that we tried our level best.

The first task was simple, I had to take geo-tagged phone of the Ninja and upload it via NokiaVine. My buddy Sartaj Gill risked all at the edge of a rooftop …

I have been wanting to do this for a long time now but couldn’t due to one or the other reason. However, after much adieu, here is presenting the mobile version of The Symbian Blog. There is no URL change or anything, simply fire up the usual website URL on your mobile and you should be greeted with the mobile version of the site.

Also, in case you found the site to be down for a little while sometime back, it was because we were upgrading to Wordpress 2.7.

Sadly, I still haven’t been able to get my hands on a 5800, but that has not stopped me from scouting the internet for the best Nokia 5800 (N97/S60 v5) themes. Here is a collection of eight themes for you to have fun with.

The otherwise wonderful ability of S60 to add applications can sometimes become a curse when you end up installing too many applications and they get buried inside folders resulting in you getting lost looking for a particular one.

There have been numerous solutions to this problem with developers coming out with applications like T9Nav (searches applications/data right from the first keypress) to others such as Handy Taskman and so on.

One application that I have just come across and which holds promise is ApDLauncher by ACTION_GAMER PersianPDA Admin. It displays the phone various applications and settings in a series of cascading menus, so you don’t need to navigate deep down into your folders in order to launch them. It is this concept that I like.

As of a few hours ago the much awaited Nokia 5800 Xpress Music handset has gone on sale in India at price fluctuating between Rs. 20-22,000 (450$) depending on the dealer and region. To reflect this development, the Nokia India website has also switched from displaying ‘Soon your touch will play music’ to the above – NOW!

The handset comes bundled with a pair of Sennheiser LX90 earphones and the retail package contains the headset, data cable, TV-out cable, carrying case, Video Stand, a 8 GB microSD, a plectrum chord

The E71 was one of the very best handsets to come out of Nokia factories in 2008 and the best ever in my book. So it is only right that we utilise its functionality to the absolute hilt and try and make the E71 even more efficient.

Here is a long list of must know tips and tricks for the E71. You might already know a few but if you are new to S60 and the E71 in particular, I’m sure this will make for a happy start to the E71 new year!

A new year has already dawned upon us and I am a little late in wishing all of you a very Happy New Year, still please accept my best wishes. I am back from a small vacation with the resolution to put in an extra efforts this year on The Symbian Blog, because of your support the blog has grown substantially this year and I hope 2009 will be HUGE.

In the same vein, I request you to kindly take a little time out to send me some feedback on what you like/ dislike/want.