With the launch of Nokia’s Lumia devices in India, the Windows Phone ecosystem is just about setting started in India and there is some very good news already. The Windows Phone Marketplace has just hit 50,000 apps, but numbers don’t say much when apps you use daily aren’t available on the platform.

Thankfully, all of that is about to change. A bunch of free locally relevant apps for users in India has just hit the Marketplace and all of them are well designed and must haves.

• NDTV: The app does what you would expect, news, live tiles, live streams from NDTV 24×7, NDTV India, NDTV Profit and NDTV GoodTimes. Also present are photo galleries, cricket scorecards and market watch sections. You can also choose to live stream just the audio.

• NDTV Good Times: The app from India’s leading lifestyle channel. Lets you watch latest featured videos on varied topics like food, cuisine, travel, fashion. Also lets you catch up on previous episodes of your favorite shows like Highway on My Plate, Yogasutra, Bollywood Confidential, Chakhle India, Band Baja Barat and many more. Also present are sections on sections on travel, luxury, gadgets, fashion and wellness.

• Times Of India: I had already demoed this app when it was in development and I’m glad to say its finally available. It brings breaking news and  coverage of national, international, city, sports, entertainment, lifestyle, business, health, science and technology topics. Also present are live cricket scores and a complete scorecard; local news from more than 30 cities; latest movie reviews by critics as well as readers; photo galleries; and top videos from news, business, sports, entertainment and lifestyle categories.

• Economic Times: The sister app for TOI, the business paper of the Times group.

• IBN Live: News, streamed content, live tiles, playback of popular shows like Face The Nation, Devil’s Advocate and The Week That Wasn’t.

• Book My Show: One app I was waiting for, makes looking up movie & cinema listings, synopsis & reviews a breeze. You can also carry out bookings from the phone using secure mobile payments options. Even lets you pick your seat and redeem offers.

• timesPoynt: A free application powered by data from timescity.com, provides users with the unique ability to search their local area for events, movies, restaurants and nightlife. timesPoynt provides users with the ability to move beyond discovery of their local area to click-to-call businesses, get directions, browse listing websites, send details to a friend or add listings to their calendar or address book. timesPoynt also features a fully integrated weather homescreen and the ability to search for long-term forecasts.

• yapf: It builds on the Google or Bing POI database to find places nearby by by searching a set of predefined categories or by manual search. Features augmented reality to view your results through your phone camera. You can also pin the search tile to the home screen for quick access, or pin a single place and the live tile will update with the distance to it.

• India Today: The India Today application allows users to view up-to-date news articles, images, videos and live TV served through the India Today Network. The application is powered by India Today, a popular news magazine.  The app consists of latest & breaking news, sports news, political news, cricket updates, entertainment news, Bollywood & Hollywood news, movie reviews, celebrity interviews, images and videos.

• Business Today: India Today’s sister app, the Business Today application allows users to view up-to-date news articles, images, videos and Stock updates served through the India Today Network.  The application is powered by Business Today, India’s no. 1 business magazine.  The app consists of business news & articles, stock updates, business analysis  and videos.

• Snapdeal: India’s Groupon equivalent, the website brings upto 90% discounts on dining, health and beauty services, branded products, travel and more.

• Bollywood Hungama: Movie reviews, trailers, first look, news and the like.

• Flipkart: Fairly basic, but a good start. Flipkart is India’s Amazon when it comes to online retail, includes movies, music, games, mobiles, cameras, computers and electronics.

So there you go, those are 13 excellent Windows Phone apps that are completely free. If we keep getting locally relevant apps at this pace for Windows phone, I dare say we’ll have a credible fight for marketshare come 2012.

The only thing the developers need to guard against is making apps and forgetting them, regular updates are just as important!

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Windows Phone has been getting some decent traction when it comes to mainstream apps, with the Marketplace hitting 40,000 apps recently. However, the real challenge is getting locally relevant apps for the users and I’m glad to see Windows Phone is doing well here as well.

At the Nokia Strategy Summit we were given a sneak peak at some of the India centric apps that are coming for Windows Phone and the chief among those that caught my eye were official apps for online retailer Flipkart, the ticket booking portal Book My Show and the very popular newspaper Times of India.

Fortunately I was able to get some hands on time with the Book My Show app (which I was really looking forward to) and Times of India (another favourite) and both of them nicely imbibe the Metro UI. I must stress that the versions that you see here are early alphas/betas and it may be some time before we see them in the Marketplace.

Book My Show

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Times of India

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What are the other locally relevant apps you are looking forward to?

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Nokia Music Unlimited has been around in India for a while now and the model it followed was that with every purchase of a compatible Nokia handset, you got access to the millions of tracks on the Nokia Store for one year. You were free to download as many tracks as you liked and keep them after the expiry of the one year period, but there was a catch they were DRM protected.

That meant you couldn’t play that music on your other devices, and if you didn’t have a Windows PC, you couldn’t play them on your computer as well. So Mac users were out cold and that was never good. Next problem was that you could only use so many PC’s to download music from, so if you didn’t have WIFI or an unlimited data plan you would again hit a wall.

But all that has changed since last week. Along with the Nokia Asha 200 and Nokia Asha 300 and Nokia X2-02, Nokia announced that its Nokia Music service would be going DRM free. So with each subscription, you can now download as much music as you like, send it to friends, copy it to your other devices and that’s great. For once you have access to unlimited legal music downloads that come with all the metadata and album art intact. For over the air downloads, the tracks will be compressed so that downloads over EDGE will also finish in a minute or two.

Further, unlike the old way of activating the service via a coupon, Nokia Music will come pre activated with each phone. On low cost devices like the Asha series the service will be free for the first three months with the option of renewing the service by paying from the device itself. You will be able to opt for 3 month, 6 month and 12 month packs by paying a fee that hasn’t been revealed yet. Previously you got access for one year and that was it. If you wanted more, you had to get a new Nokia handset.

The beauty of the Nokia Music Unlimited service in India is that in addition to international music, it offers an extensive selection of local music, including some really old tracks that you’ll have a hard time finding anywhere else. Nokia Music Store includes wide-ranging catalogues from major global labels like Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music and Nokia’s local partnership with Indian Music Industry (a consortium of more than 150 music companies), Hungama that represents major labels including Yash Raj, Tseries, and SIMCA (South Indian Music Companies Association), amongst others. Basically, it’ll have pretty much everything you are looking for. Plus, through things like the Nokia Music Theater, you’ll also find a selection of content from great local artists who haven’t become quite so popular, yet have excellent music.

I have been a huge fan of Nokia Music Unlimited, and the move to DRM free music makes the purchase of a Nokia device an almost no-brainer. For a lot of people Nokia Maps has been a huge motivation for purchasing Nokia devices, but free DRM-free music could easily take over that role. So for consumers who are looking at the best value amongst the competition a combination of free navigation and music will be hard to resist.

The service is limited to the just announced Nokia Asha 200 and Nokia Asha 300 – and Nokia X2-02 for now, but the move to smartphones is a natural progression. Nokia has already said that Nokia Music will be coming to the Lumia devices in Q1 next year and you can be pretty sure it’ll come with DRM-free music.

One feature request I have is that Nokia offer higher quality downloads over the air in addition to the compressed versions that are currently available. If I have a 3G plan, or am on WIFI, I shouldn’t be forced to download the compressed track. Additionally, high bitrate versions should be available for download on Macs as well.

People want to pay for music, but the pay per album or track model would not be successful in India and its great to see a service that offers them a way around it. If Nokia can keep the renewal price of its Nokia Music service reasonable, I’m sure a lot of people will only be too happy to ditch songs.pk!

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The MeeGo Harmattan running Nokia N9 may be the last of its kind, but there seems to be no death of quality apps that are coming out for the device. It already has apps for Facebook, Twitter and a few games like Angry Birds and Need For Speed built in, but there are a few key apps which are missing.

In this post I have complied a list of must have apps for the N9, all of which are free. Most of these apps are available from the Nokia Store and clicking on the name should take you to the download page. Lets get started.

• DropN9: As the name suggests, its a Dropbox client for the Nokia N9. The app lets you download and upload filed in multiples and is a must have if you are a dropbox user.

• Internet Radio: An neat little Internet Radio app for the N9, that features a UI is similar to the default music player with album art being replaced by cover art for the featured radio stations. Discovery is helped along by ‘Hot Picks’, Locations, Language and Genre sections. Detailed post here.

• Phone Torch: No frills app that lets you use the inbuilt LED flash as a torch. Launch the app and it immediately turns on the LED and exiting the app closes it.

• Photo Enhancer: A free app from Nokia that lets you put filters on images and then share them. There are a bunch of options available like sepia, grayscale, high contrast and so on.

• Simple Mirror: There is no way to use the front camera on the N9, unless you are making a video call. But if you would like to use the device as a mirror, does the job well.

• gPodder:  A great podcast client with full integration to the gpodder.net web service and a unique user interface, supporting YouTube and Soundcloud feeds in addition to normal audio and video podcast feeds. gPodder will help you manage and synchronize your podcast subscription and listening status (including resuming, streaming and downloading). Discover new, free content via gpodder.net’s podcast directory.

• File Manager: The N9 comes without an inbuilt file manager and the this free apps fills in perfectly. Its light weight and does everything you would expect from an app of this nature.

• Battery Usage: This app mimics the battery usage graph that you may have seen on Android devices. In addition to telling you which app eats how much battery, it can also tell you how much of that battery was consumed in the background and how much was drained while the app was actually in use. This will help you decide if you can leave the app running or whether you should exit everytime you are done with it.

• City Scene: The app lets you explore a bunch of cities in the US and Europe in 3D, much like Google Street view, but with a few extra features.

Shortcuts: The N9 has a set of 4 quick access shortcuts which you can bring up by swiping up for a short distance and holding it there. The problem is that you cannot change these without an app. Enter Shortcuts which lets you change the four of these by simply dragging an app of your choice to the current location of the shortcut.

Ionic: An ebook reader for the N9 that supports the EPUB format. It supports navigation by swipe or the volume keys, display themes, brightness control, orientation locking at many more. Create bookmarks with notes, jump to bookmarks or chapters. The Library feature allows ordering books by author or title, inspecting book details, and importing books downloaded from the web.

Sports Tracker: A long favourite of Nokia users, Sports Tracker lets you track and analyze your workouts, share workout data and photos with your friends. You can also track everything online on the developer’s website.

• ScreenshotMee: It lets you take screenshots using the proximity sensor, just activate the app in the background, navigate to the screen you want to capture and cover the proximity sensor on the top right of the device. Then you can choose to save the screengrab or take a new one.

• Photo Frame: Another app published by Nokia that lets you frame pictures and then share them. There are a bunch of frames available.

• Rainbow Brush: Brilliant photo manipulation app,  it lets you quickly and easily give photos a dramatic look by converting them to black and white, while keeping your chosen details in color. This effect draws the viewer’s attention to the colored areas, creating striking images. You simply use your finger as a brush to remove or bring back the original color from regions of your image. You can zoom in or out to ensure your get the right finish. Highly recommended.

• FlickrUp: A great tool to upload a bunch of pictures to Flickr, you can create photosets, define the resolution, set privacy settings in addition to adding tags and descriptions. Has a pretty UI as well.

• Mes Input: An app that lets you add different keyboard to the N9. Like with Swype, you can swipe from the edge to switch between them. For example, I have a keyboard which gives me quick access to smileys, similarly there are a bunch of other options available. You can even create your own keyboard at www.mesinput.com and use this app to install it on the phone.

• Resource Monitor: As the name suggests, this app lets you keep track of the resources that are being used on your device. You can switch between different views that show RAM, Storage and Processes.

• Date Event: The N9′s events screen shows news, Facebook and twitter streams, but it does not show your upcoming calendar entries and that’s where this app comes in. It displays upcoming entries on the events screen and lets you choose which calendar to pull them from. You can also select the number of days it should show entries from. It is still being developed and isn’t in the Nokia Store, get it here directly .

• 3D World Gaze: Cool app for exploring the world around you, built with the premise that the Earth is a giant sphere and we are always on top of it. What follows is that far-away continents and cities are in reality somewhere below you and not linear, like we usually think of them. Detailed write up and video demo here.

So these were my top 20 free apps for the N9/N950. I’m sure I’ve missed out on quite a few other awesome apps, please let me know in the comments section or on Twitter and I’ll do a follow up post!

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The Nokia N9 has been a somewhat difficult subject for Nokia, one that they are, and should be, immensely proud of. But one that has raised more questions than answers. When the February announcement with Microsoft came, everyone wondered what was happening to Nokia’s upcoming MeeGo phone. Nokia was quick to point out that they would indeed release a MeeGo based device. Then word started coming out that the original MeeGo device, which we now know as the developer only N950, had been canned, and replaced by a beautiful new touch only flagship.

Soon enough, Nokia Connections came and Nokia unveiled the N9. The reaction to that device was incredible, ranging from people calling for Elop’s head because of his decision to kill MeeGo, to calmer, saner voices wondering if Nokia should keep the MeeGo project going, if for nothing but just to keep Microsoft in check. Then we found out that the N9 would only be available in a handful of countries, the world was literally shocked. It made no sense, why release a product at all if you weren’t going to ship it to major markets such as UK, India, US among others. While the world waited and hoped that Nokia would reconsider, another thing happened.

A device code named Sea Ray, which we now know as the Lumia 800 leaked. Infact, Stephen Elop’s entire presentation to the employees, which was supposed to be shared on the company intranet, got out. Some called it a controlled leak, while most just took the device in and didn’t care as long as the could look at an unreleased Nokia phone, specially a secret Nokia Windows Phone. The result was that a lot of the chants of ‘bring the N9 to my country’ stopped. Nokia’s policy was finally beginning to make sense, they weren’t going to release a device that looked just like the N9 in the same market as the N9, specially when that device would define their foray into the Windows Phone market.

The N9 shipped to positive reviews, mine included, but the consensus among the reviews clearly was that as much as they loved the device, they couldn’t honestly recommend the N9 to someone knowing that the Sea Ray was around the corner. But the N9’s core strengths really came through, a breath-taking design, a unique yet intuitive UI that made sense, and judging by the Maps and browser, Nokia could do software.

Finally, last week the Lumia 800 was revealed at Nokia’s megaevent with literally thousands watching. The stock market liked what they saw and the Nokia stock started climbing. A did a quick hands on and unboxing and then two days later a much more through (p)review. I really seemed to like the device.

This is when we all wondered, if we had not seen the N9 before would we have loved the Lumia 800 even more? The short answer to that question for me is yes. When you first look at that design, most people go head over heels over it and if Stephen Elop got on stage at Nokia World and showed off that design for the first time, we’d have had an even bigger WOW.

Now for the long answer, knowing that the Sea Ray was coming, should Nokia have released the N9? I’d again say yes. Why? First and foremost, the people in the countries where the Lumia 800 is going on sale haven’t seen the N9. So for a vast majority the design is fresh, new and amazing. The minuscule minority, which has seen the design before will still love it, its still less than two months old in the real world and Windows Phone doesn’t make it any less pretty. Infact, I’d say that the jazzy WP UI is a great match to the N9’s physical design.

Next, in various interview Elop’s stated that it was a great platform for Nokia to learn from, see what people like and go on from there. He’s made it clear that none of the N9’s strength’s are going away. We’ve already seen the design used with the Lumia 800, Qt is coming to the next billion and the Swipe UI will apparently make its way to Meltemi, Nokia’s now not so secret platform for low-mid range devices.

Finally, the period between February to October was long and painful. Nokia was bleeding marketshare and on top of that mindshare, which we all know can be as bad as loosing marketshare. The N9 showed the world that innovation was still alive and well at Nokia and that the Finnish giant was far from dead. The message was imagine if this is what we can do alone, think about what we’ll do with Windows Phone in a few months.

At the end of the day, the glory period for the N9 is over. Its all about the Lumia 800 now, no matter how you feel about open source versus the closed Windows Phone platform, its water under the bridge. With the marketing blitz planned for Windows Phone devices, only the die hards will cherish the N9 and don’t get me wrong, it’s a device meant to be cherished. The N9 will keep selling in countries where the Lumia 800 isn’t shipping as yet and I’m sure Nokia will provide great support for it, but its time for the Lumia 800 to hold the Nokia torch.

The N9 will remain a crown jewel in Nokia’s arsenal, a hacker’s phone, a Qt device to help prime the developers for the next billion. So I don’t fault Nokia for announcing it and then the Lumia 800, look at what Apple did with the iPhone 4 and 4S, those things even run the same OS! The N950 would never have been able to generate the kind of buzz for Nokia that the N9 did, it bided time for the transition and it was never a lost cause. Nokia’s goals with the N9 were just, lets say, different.

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Just as you enter Terminal 5 of London’s Heathrow airport, you are literally bombarded with Lumia 800 ads. There are six of them, playing on giant screens across the hall, so no matter where you eneter, the Lumia 800 Ad is impossible to miss. It looks great, feels fresh and draws you to it, giving Nokia’s new launch some necessary eyeballs.

As you can see, screen after screen playing the one minute ad, again and again. Infact, its the only advertisement that one can spot before you clear security. Here what it looks like:

Great. But, I do have one problem with Nokia’s approach. There used to be a Nokia Store at Terminal 5, showcasing all the Nokia products in an exclusive setting. That store closed one week before Nokia’s big Lumia reveal. One week before their phones became cool again.

So instead of walking in, seeing the ad and then checking out the Nokia devices in the ad I’ve seen, now I can see the ads and then – nothing. I cross security and I forget about it, or as Nokia would hope, remember to then specially goto a Nokia Store operator/multibrand store to check it out.

(Nokia’s Terminal 5 Store As It Was)

I have been a big advocate of retail stores and I possibly could not understand why Nokia was shutting down its own online AND retail stores. Even if they don’t make money for you Nokia, its important to keep them. Most people will come checkout the device and if they like it, buy it at a store which was selling them for a lesser price, and Nokia should be fine with that. So even if the Heathrow store just sold 10 Lumia 800′s in a month, it would be fine because of who knows how many people have would have gone back home and ordered that device online or via their operator based on the lovely experience at Nokia’s Store. What’s better than showing off your top device in a place which you control, and thus guarantee that the customer walks away with the best experience ever?

The prices at Nokia’s official retail stores was always more than the bargain people were getting online and that’s why the model seemed to be failing for Nokia. Yet, when priced right retail stores indulge impulse buys and devices like the Lumia 800, have the potential to cause exactly that.

So we need to see Nokia’s Stores come back, online and in the real world. I sure hope some of that marketing money is going this way, because it’d suck for Nokia if they made Windows Phones feel cool with all their spending and then people walked into a multibrand store and picked up a Samsung Focus or a HTC Titan.

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At Nokia World, Nokia introduced a brand new social location service called ‘Nokia Pulse‘ that aims at helping you answer the “where are you?”, “how do I get there?”, “where should we meet?” questions that keep popping up in real life.

(Watch in HD)

“So, how does it work exactly? Imagine, you have just arrived at the airport. What do you typically do? Call/SMS someone close, say from your family to coordinate a pickup. Several SMS/calls are exchanged before the pickup happens successfully. With Nokia Pulse, all you need to do is type “Here!”or simply check-in and an instant notification of your update is sent to everyone in your family group tagged with your current location. You receive a response, “On my way” with a location tagged that shows you exactly where you ride is on the map. In addition, Nokia Pulse allows you to discover and post nearby places with recommendations, ratings, directions and even direct access to a phone number for a quick phone call. So while you wait, you can enjoy your favorite coffee at a nearby Café and inform your ride where you are with just one tap.”

So basically everyone in your group get to know where you are so that you can coordinate meetings, pick ups etc better, your contacts can even comment on checkins. It is also much more fun, and a seamless way of doing things. The applications is in beta and is available for Symbian, Windows phone and you can even access it from any other phone by going to m.pulse.nokia.com and at pulse.nokia.com from any browser on the desktop.

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One of the core differentiating features on Nokia’s Windows Phones will be the Nokia Drive app. Different from Nokia Maps, which will be available for everyone at the Windows Marketplace, Drive is Nokia’s Navigation app that lets you pre-load maps and use the phone as an offline navigation device.

The app has been created with an in car experience in mind, so the buttons are huge so that you can easily press them across the dashboard if you have the phone mounted. The interface is simple so that you take your eye off the road for the least amount of time and here is what it looks like.

You can download maps for entire countries from within the application. Also present is the ability to download navigation instructions in a bunch of different languages, all from within the phone.

PS: The video was recorded in a noisy room, so apologies for that. It should however be able to give you a fair idea of what to expect from the application.

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Here on Day 2 of Nokia World, we had a fun little performance from the UK’s Got Talent group Diversity and I was able to film some of it on the Lumia 800. So if you’re wondering about what sort of video capture will Nokia’s first Windows Phone device be capable of, look no further.

Make sure you watch the video in HD.

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Nokia had promised that it would cut down on the time between the announcement and shipping, and they have delivered. I have with me the retail box of the Lumia 800, the device that will be making its way to Europe next month itself and other regins soon thereafter.

During the keynote Nokia showed a live stream of the Lumia 800 boxes actually being packed at the Nokia factories in Finland and here’s what everything inside looks like.

Looking for more Lumia 800 coverage? Find out hands on video and pictures here.

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I have just spent some hands on time with Nokia’s first Windows Phone device, the Lumia 800 and here are my initial impressions.

• The design is beautiful, its the same design as the N9, and that’s a very good thing. Most people will not experience the N9 first hand due to limited availability. The Lumia 800 will be the first such device they see, and it looks spectacular. In my N9 post I called the design the best I’ve seen to date and with the Lumia nothing’s changed.

• The Lumia 800 gets a dedicated camera button and that’s always a welcome feature.

• The screen size goes from 3.9″ to 3.7″ to accomodate the capacitive touch windows buttons, and that does seem like a disadvantage of using the same design. However, even otherwise the lower .2″ of the screen  would always be occupied by the back buttons on the N9, so when you actually use the Lumia 800 after the N9, the screen doesn’t feel smaller. The only place you’ll probably notice is this while playing videos and looking at pictures.

• The Windows Phone experience feels natural on the device, this is despite the fact that I am used to the Swipe UI on the N9.

The HD version of the video is available here.

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Over the last two days Nokia invited a host of people to experience their new NFC and Symbian Belle devices in a wonderfully relaxed setting that is Goa. The two day event was all about Nokia’s push towards NFC and its attempt to recapture the hearts of Nokia loyalists who have been swayed by Android and other platforms. A major player in Nokia’s arsenal is the new Symbian Belle experience that revamps the ‘old’ Symbian UI, and replaces it with something fresh, smooth and fast.

All three Symbian Belle devices, the 701, 700 and the 600 are powered by 1 Ghz processors and this results in an infinitely smoother experience compared to even the devices that run Symbian Anna. Additionally, each has its unique selling point – the 701 has the brightest screen, the 700 is the slimmest and the 600 can play FM radio without headphones having to act as antennas and its also the loudest. The one common element between all of them is NFC.

NFC – Or ‘Just Tap’ As Nokia Calls It

Explaining NFC to an average person on the street is a humungous task and Nokia seems to be playing it smart here. Instead of shouting NFC NFC NFC, they will focus on a catch phrase called ‘Just Tap’ which will be at the helm of all NFC branding. The end user doesn’t need to know that NFC is the handshake and how bluetooth then takes over to handle the actual transfer of data, the message he gets is that if you tap two Nokia phones against each other, the picture is automatically sent across, no turning on bluetooth nothing. All of this is handled by the phone on its own and to make sure that NFC doesn’t drain all the power in the background, it automatically shuts off if the screen is locked or if the save battery mode is activated. Additionally, the phones also come with a NFC toggle widget that you can place anywhere on your home screen.

With the first generation of NFC devices, Nokia not focusing on the mobile wallet aspect at all. They probably recognize that the infrastructure is not in place yet, and are therefore looking at showing the users other use cases for NFC. Pairing their bluetooth accessories, using NFC tags as links to app, for mobile vouchers and so on.

To educate the consumers, Nokia will also be putting an NFC tag in all retail boxes of the new Belle devices. The tag will take users to the Nokia app store and help them find even more apps. There is also talk of getting up NFC tags in the thousands on Nokia Priority Stores in India, so that users can just walk in, tap their phones and get unto speed on the latest app, music and other information that is being pushed.

We’ve heard of Angry Birds Magic before, its the same Angry Birds, but with a twist. To unlock new levels you need to tap your phone against an NFC enabled devices, tag etc. This game will also be preloaded on all these new devices. With time we’ll see more and more similar games which would let users initiate multiplayer sessions using NFC, and generally take the NFC experience to a level the consumer would look at as almost magical.

Nokia seems to be an the forefront of this movement and with their vision of taking NFC to price points their competitors aren’t hitting, they are in the running to build a potential lead.

I personally can’t wait for the day when I can walk into my coffee shop, tap my phone and walk out with my favorite cup of coffee without even having to order, with an app taking care of my preferences, and not just payments. The use cases for NFC are huge, soon your phone would act as the key to your car, your house and even your hotel room.

Which aspect of NFC are you most looking forward to?

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There have been screenshots from Symbian Belle (Anna’s unannounced successor) floating around the internet for a couple of days now, but there’s nothing like an eight minute video to really shows off the brand new UI that incorporates an Android like swipe down notification/connectivity toggle area.

The widgets are now a lot like the N900, and aren’t restricted by size. The camera UI is new, so is the browser. Belle also brings a back button based UI system to the mix in addition of a few other changes.

Forget Anna, this is the update that you are truly waiting for. Nokia hasn’t even officially acknowledged Belle yet, but you can be certain that older Symbian^3 devices like the N8, C7, E7 and so on will be receiving the update. We can expect Symbian Belle devices being announced at Nokia World in October, and that’s probably when Nokia will officially demo Belle as well.

[via: @qoyumnasri]

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Ever since the N9 was announced, the question on everyone’s mind is that for how long would Nokia continue to support something which in all probability is its last MeeGo (Harmattan) device. Here’s something that should cheer you up, Klas Ström, Head of Portfolio Management in Marketing for Nokia tweets that the N9 will be supported for ‘years’ and that they would release several updates. Although, take the ‘years’ with a pinch of salt.

Next, if you are looking at a pure MeeGo experience, then you will also be glad to know that there are plans to bring the MeeGo Community Edition to the N9 as well, its already alive and kicking on the N900, and with the community support, the N9 can also hope to live longer than ever.

Finally, there is even more good news. Nokia India’s My Next Nokia page includes a mention of the N9 in its source code, pointing to a possible India release. Now before you get your hopes up, the information can only be seen in the source code and there is no mention of the N9 on any other visible portion of the website.

If you recall, there were only 23 countries which were slated to the get N9 when it was announced, but may be all the positive reaction is making Nokia reconsider other key markets as well. We’ll know more closer to its launch, meanwhile sit tight and hope.

[Update] It appears as if Nokia is indeed reconsidering its position on where to market the N9, it just popped up Nokia Brazil’s website as well, this time making it beyond the source code. Brazil was also missing from the original list of 23 countries. (via Verythrax in the comments below).

May be Nokia is only taking the N9 to markets which will get Nokia’s Windows Phone offerings next year? May be that 23 country is not definitive after all!

[via: ZCJ 1&2]

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The Galaxy S was a runaway success for Samsung, infact they couldn’t make enough of them. It went off the shelves for a little while and only returned with a Super LCD display, Samsung clearly wanted to concentrate somewhere else and the only thing that would make a company divert its attention from its most successful smartphone ever, would be its successor.

That’s exactly what the Samsung Galaxy S2 is, Sammy’s new superphone that aims to rule them all, if the original Galaxy S sold 10 million units, they want to sell even more of these. So does the Galaxy S2 live up all the expectations? We find out in our review.

Lets start with a quick unboxing and overview to give you an idea of the box contents of the S2, it comes with a pretty nice leather case that doesn’t add to the bulk too much, check it out in the video below. The device also comes with a microUSB cable and stereo in-ear headphones which will suffice for casual playback.

HARDWARE

The Galaxy S2 is Samsung’s premium smartphone, their most expensive and most powerful, so you would expect they would want to cram in everything under the sun. A 4.3” Super AMOLED Plus display, a dual core Exynos 1.2 Ghz processor, 1 GB RAM, 16 GB of inbuilt storage with a microSD card slot, an 8 Megapixel Camera with an LED flash along with the usual set of connectivity options like WIFI, GPS, Bluetooth and so on. When announced, the Galaxy S2 was supposed to have NFC chips as well, but that’s been left out from the current batch of Galaxy S2 i9100 models that have hit shelves the world over.

Building on such great hardware means that Samsung could add a bunch of features most other Android manufacturers haven’t incorporated. Things like 1080p HD video recording at 30 frames per second, WIFI Direct, support for USB on the go, Bluetooth peripherals like mice, and DLNA support that’s continued from the original model. To keep all the above humming along nicely, Samsung’s put in a 1650 mAh battery.

DESIGN

The Galaxy S line of phones from Samsung is focused on making fast, elegant and slim smartphones and the S2 has started from where the original left off. The device is slightly larger on account of the bigger 4.3” screen as compared to the 4” on the original, but is surprisingly even slimmer at just 8.5mm, compared to the 9.9mm on the S1, making it the thinnest and most powerful smartphone on the market today.

The design language is still very similar, a front occupied mostly by the screen with a physical home button at the bottom, flanked by the menu and back keys. No place for the search key means that the menu key doubles up to perform those functions as well, a long press on the menu touch sensitive key and it begins to work like the search button, working across all applications. Personally I like this setup as that makes for a cleaner design, and you won’t accidentally press any keys as the touch sensitive keys are separated by the physical home button.

The sides have minimalist buttons with the left packing the volume rocker and the right holding power/lock key, there is no camera key. The positioning of the power button is perfect, it is much easier to hit, immaterial of whether you are left handed or right, compared to a position on the top of the device where you’d generally find the power button. Reaching across a 4.3” display won’t have been a joy if it had been placed on top. Speaking of the top, all that it carries is a 3.5mm jack for plugging in your favourite headphones, while the bottom of the device holds a solitary microUSB port, which can also be used with the HDMI connector to connect to an HDTV.

The back of the device holds an ever so slightly protruding 8 Megapixel camera with an LED flash. The bottom of the device bulges out towards the back and holds a mono loudspeaker. As you can imagine, keeping the device faceup blocks the loudspeaker and can cause you to miss calls, this problem is however mostly evident on soft surfaces.

SOFTWARE

The S2 runs the Gingerbread 2.3.3 release out of the box, with Samsung’s proprietary TouchWiz 4 overlay. The latest version of Gingerbread is 2.3.4, and the Galaxy S2 is expected to receive the update in the coming weeks, even otherwise 2.3.4 isn’t something you would miss dearly.

TouchWiz 4: What deserves special mention is the TouchWiz 4 interface that adds a lot of value to stock Android. A lot of people prefer a stock UI, but TouchWiz 4 really makes you reconsider that stand. It brings quick WIFI, GPS, Rotation and Bluetooth toggles to the pull down notification bar. Also present there are forward, back and pause buttons while the music is playing, you can even control music from the lockscreen without having to unlock the device.

Next, it gives you upto 7 homescreens and plenty of widgets to play around with including agenda widgets with month and today views along with a bunch of clocks etc. Some widgets are resizable, so you can decide how much of the screen should say the weather widget occupy, or if you want to make the today view larger. You can quickly jump between homescreens by pinching out or dragging your finger across the dots on the bottom to glide between homescreens.

The apps are presented in a page based format, much like iOS and I am personally a huge fan of this approach. No need to keep scrolling up and down, and you can organize your apps by moving them across pages or within folders. You can glide between pages in the same way as homescreens. TouchWiz also has bunch of other tricks up its sleeve with a brightness control that can be activated to holding the pull down notification bar for a second and then dragging right to increase and left to decrease.

TouchWiz 4 also introduces motion based gestures, for example you can move widgets between pages by holding them and then moving the phone left or right to jump pages, or holding down two points on the screen to zoom in and out of the browser, pictures and so on. These things are more for fun than actually helping you save time, but nevertheless make for a great way to show off your new device to friends.

All in all, I’m a huge fan of the TouchWiz 4 interface and as surprising as it may sound to some of the Android purists, it adds a lot of value to the device. If you don’t like it, you always have the option to choosing a new launcher from the Android Market and forget about TouchWiz completely. Here is a video that takes you though some of the lesser know tips & tricks that are available of the Galaxy S2.

The one things that I don’t like about Samsung’s software is that they want to control how I use my battery once it is running low. Beyond a certain point, the camera kicks you out because the phone is running low on battery, or the music player shuts down and so on. Samsung does it to protect the basic function of the phone i.e. make and receive calls, but if I want to take a picture, the phone can simply warm me and then let me take the shot instead of blocking me completely. Fortunately, there are workarounds to this problem. A camera app from the Market solves the purpose, so does a third party music player.

Flashing: But if that’s not enough, you will be pleased to know that the SGS2 comes with an unlocked bootloader and is one of the most mod friendly Android devices on the market. There are already custom ROMS and hacks available, so if you ever feel something is amiss or you that would like to try something new, the modding community will keep you satisfied.

Some custom ROMs and hacks also let you get rid of the battery limitations I described earlier.

On the software front, as I mentioned earlier, the S2 brings new functionality such as USB on-the-go, so that you can plus in flash drives, portable hard disks etc to copy data across without needing a PC. There is also support for WIFI Direct, a technology that lets you copy data wirelessly, much like Bluetooth but at much faster speeds using an adhoc WIFI connection. Find a detailed write up here, and following is a video showing it in action:

PERFORMANCE

Considering it runs on a dual core processor and a gig of RAM, you would expect this thing to fly, and fly it does. Despite the days of rigorous tests, app installs and non-stop use, the SGS 2 has performed with flying colours. Everything is fast, there are no lags whatsoever, and even after days of use you do not need to reboot. The booting time for SGS 2 is a breath of fresh air and it takes about 10 seconds to get upto speed from a cold boot. The annoying Android file keeping on boot is also a matter of seconds.

The device has about 833 MB of RAM available and on a fresh boot you will generally find that around 650MB is free, more than enough for anything you might want to throw at the phone.

If you had worries about TouchWiz slowing things down, you can get rid of them. The browser is fast, most apps load almost instantly, the camera takes 2 seconds to get ready to shoot, the scrolling is smooth and you don’t see jerks.

The browser despite being blazing fast to load pages, does manage to show a few check boxes while scrolling, this is a software bug and I would think that Samsung would be working to get it fixed with subsequent firmwares. Otherwise it handles flash just fine and that doesn’t really affect the overall smoothness of the phone. The Gallery app sometimes take a second to load, but once inside, flicking though pictures is instant.

But if you really cut to the chase, I’m yet to come across a single app that actually needs a dual core processor to show its true potential, the dual core chip is more for about being future proof than being a requirement for today. Still you feel good knowing its there.

CAMERA

The auto focus camera on the S2 is an improvement from the 5MP shooter on the original, and possibly one of the better ones across all Android devices. The S2 does not have a physical camera button, so all the controls are on the screen itself. You can touch a particular area to focus or use the camera key and let the phone take that into its own hands.

With stills, there are a lot of options available, right from taking panoramas, to an action mode for fast shutter speeds and even a cartoon mode. Also present is a macro (close-up) mode, a Face Detention mode and the usual auto mode. For most documents scans and closeups, the auto focus mode is enough and you are saved from the bother of having to switch to macro each time. When you exit, the camera remembers your settings.

The UI of the camera app is clean and simple, you can select which controls to show on the left hand side while the right holds the toggle for switching to video, taking a picture and jumping into the Gallery.

The S2 also has a 2 Megapixel front facing camera that is a very welcome improvement from the VGA shooters that we see on most smartphones. It is passable for portrait shots and will help improve video call quality if our networks and apps are upto it.

ISSUES?

When the Galaxy S2 launched there were quite a few rumors surrounding the screen, heating and WIFI performance, so its best to put those to rest as well.

First the screen, the alleged problem being that there is a slight yellow effect on the left hand side of the display. I have played with two Galaxy S2 devices and on both occasions I had a very hard time locating the yellow batch, sometimes I see it, sometimes I don’t. It is allegedly visible in low brightness with a solid grey colour in the background. But for me it is not a problem, the screen looks great, even better than the original Super AMOLED display on the S1 and I am yet to see any the issue in any real world scenario.

Next is talk that the Galaxy S2 gets excessively hot. In peak of the Indian summer, my device has held up well, it does get a little warm at times, specially when you are charging it and using it at the same time, but this is no deal breaker and expected to an extent. Bottomline, don’t worry about it.

Next, some people are having problems with WIFI reception. In my tests using the default India firmware, the SGS2 performed well enough. My N8 and the the iPad 2 had better reception at the edge of my router’s range, but the SGS2’s performance is still passable. You’ll only have problems if you try and leech off your neighbour’s WIFI.

Last, the original Galaxy S had problems with GPS performance and it looks as if Samsung has gone to great lengths to make sure that the GPS performance on the S2 is stellar. Infact after the using the device as my primary smartphone for the last 4 weeks, I am yet to see a show stopping bug, or even something that is a minor annoyance.

Battery Life: Finally lets talk battery life. After a few recharge cycles, the Galaxy S2 possibly has the best battery life of any similar device in its class. With 4 email accounts, WhatsApp, Gtalk and Tweetdeck running continuously in addition to a few calls, a bunch of texts, moderate browsing and 20 minutes of light games I still get a day’s usage from the device.

So if you leave the house at 8am with a full battery, you should still have some juice left over when you get back at 8 in the evening, it might even get you through the after work parties unless you really hammer it. Considering the S2 has a 4.3” display, it manages to last for an impressive amount of time.

GALAXY S v GALAXY S2

At this point a lot of original Galaxy S owners are wondering if it is worth it to update to the successor, here is what I think:

CONCLUSION

The good: While the S2 excels in most aspects, the following stand out:

• Screen, the colours really pop out and the blacks are seriously impressive.

• Size, super thin and very light.

• Blazing fast, with a useful TouchWiz overlay.

• Great call quality, one of the loudest in, in-call volume.

The bad: There’s hardly anything bad, but the following things would have been better:

• The camera while being one of the best ones on an Android device, still doesn’t match up to the likes of Nokia’s N8. The single LED flash could have been brighter as well.

• Some people would have preferred a more metallic finish, but Samsung’s compromised on that front to keep the weight and antenna performance better.

• A loud enough mono speaker, let down by the placement on the bottom where it gets muted easily. The same plastic bottom is also prone to scratches if you aren’t careful.

• The TouchWiz overlay will mean that updates come to the SGS2 a little later than the Nexus series of smartphones, but Samsung’s been stepping up its game recently with their speed of updates and judging by how popular the S2 will be, you can rest assured about getting the updates sooner, than later.

One the whole the Samsung Galaxy S2 is a superphone, to call it a mere smartphone would be an understatement. It has its niggles, but they are far outnumbered by the overwhelming positives in its favour. It is without a doubt the best Android smartphone on the market and depending on how you feel about Android, perhaps even the best smartphone today, certainly the most powerful.

So if you were in the market for a high-end smartphone, would I recommend the Galaxy S2? Definitely.

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The N9 release is a monumental step for Nokia, it is the culmination of the years Nokia has spent creating a premium high end smartphone that not only excels in hardware, but also shows that when it comes to software, Nokia’s still got it. Feb. 11 changed everything inside of Nokia, yet Nokia’s MeeGo Harmattan project was not killed completely. Perhaps Stephen Elop felt that it would be a good way to demonstrate to the world what Nokia is capable of, or perhaps it was the internal resistance that forced him to release this one last MeeGo Harmattan device, the end result of the sweat and blood of hundreds of Nokians who had devoted themselves to create what in their mind was the pinnacle of modern smartphones.

What happened inside of Nokia, we’ll never know, but the N9 is now real, being demoed in Singapore as I write this and it looks delicious. A beautiful monoblock design, a 3.9″ AMOLED display with curved gorilla glass, an 8 MP Carl Zeiss auto focus 16:9 camera with f2.2 for great low light photography, Dolby Headphone and Dolby Digital Plus support, NFC, a 1 Ghz processor with 1 GB of RAM, and most importantly runs Nokia’s MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan.

Nokia for long has said that its MeeGo/Harmattan vision was about a new UI, a UI that would make one handed use a breeze and at the same time make getting to our favourites apps faster, and with the all new Swipe UI Nokia is doing just that. The N9 doesn’t have even a single physical button on the homescreen, it is even unlocked by tapping the screen twice. Once unlocked, you have three basic views, the app view, the events view which pulls in things from Facebook etc and the multitasking view where all your recently used apps reside. In order to get to these, all you need to do is flick from one side of the phone to another depending on which view you would like to go to. The UI is best experienced yourself, and I recommend going through this detailed demo that Nokia has primary created for developers, but it also gives you a great look at the device. Then there is Nokia’s brand new swipe.nokia.com that has everything that you’ll need to know about the N9, pictures, demos, features and videos.

You will also be pleased to know that the N9′s super wide 28mm 8MP Carl Zeiss camera is also the fastest smartphone camera there is in the market, and it lets you shoot in true wide screen, not the cropped wide screen modes that all smartphones have these days. Thankfully no EDoF and HD video at 720p with 30 frames a second with continuous auto focus. And if you every drop it, feel safe in knowing that the unibody design is all polycarbonate material solid colour right till the inside, so dropping the device will not chip the paint off it. This material, according to Nokia also means that the N9 will have superior antenna performance over most other competitors’ smartphones.

But lets come back to software, as that’s where Nokia’s been taking a hit recently. You look at one video, and everyone will agree that the UI looks great, but what about core apps and functionality? First, Maps and navigation is a go, then there is the Web Browser that is built using the latest Webkit 2 technology and support for HTML5 which translated to access to rich web applications and fast video playback. Then not only does the N9 support Qt, but a lot of its core apps are written in Qt. But what really wows you is the integration of the third party services like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, Skype all of which support a single sign on and work out of the box. For example you can sign in once with Facebook and you will have access to Facebook events and notifications in the N9′s events screen, have integration with your address book in contacts, have Facebook chat and so on.

Infact, Nokia has a special page to show the preloaded apps, which include Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, AP Mobile, AccuWeather, Angry Birds, Skype, Vimeo and so on. There is also support for WIFI Hotspot functionality out of the box, which is great. They have really done a good job in getting the basics covered, all of the above is pretty much everything you use on a daily basis. The real challenge is to get developers to build for the N9, knowing its the last MeeGo product to come out of Nokia. Because there is Qt, some apps that work on the N900 and Symbian^3 should also be easily ported onto the N9, but you will have to reign in the optimism when it comes to quality third party apps that Nokia isn’t involved with. That being said, there is still hope, Nokia is making available N950 devices to developers to get their apps ready for the N9.

At the end of the day there will be people who will buy one right now if Nokia made it available, there would also be people who would have bought it with their eyes closed had Feb 11 not happened, there will also be those who are torn, torn because they would love to have what is one of the finest phones to come out of Nokia, but are worried about future updates and support specially when Nokia itself has clearly said the N9 will be the last of its kind. Finally there will be those to diss the N9 completely, because from their perspective MeeGo/Harmattan is dead. Where you stand depends on what do you want from the device, Nokia has the basics covered with great support for the popular services, knowing Nokia, it’ll also have a great camera and judging by the N900, a great browser. If that satisfies your priorities, then the N9 will be great. The community has made the N900 much better with time, and because the N9 will be as open you can expect all sorts of hacks and apps from the devs. But if you want a phone which will have all the latest apps the day they come out for iOS, then this phone isn’t for you.

For Nokia, the N9 is their statement to the world that look, we can still innovate and create class leading products. We can not only do great hardware, but kick ass when it comes to software too. It is also about pride for a lot of people and for the rest, a look at what could have been.

Nokia, you’ve still got it!

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The Nokia N9 was just announced at Nokia Connection in Singapore, but missing from the action was the leaked N950, which was supposed to be the developer phone. But if you are a developer looking to get your apps ready for the N9, there is hope, the N950 is still very real and will be made available to developers through selected developer programs, such as Nokia Developer LaunchPad.

More information about developing for the N9 can be found here.

[Update]: Another avenue where you can request a unit of the Nokia N950 is via the MeeGo Device Program.

Candidates must be community developers ready to start working on new or existing open source applications, to be published in apps.meego.com and the Nokia Store. Links to your current projects are relevant! Deadline for applications: end of Tuesday, June 28th.

Good luck!

Further reading: With The N9, Nokia Shows The World Its Still Got It.

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One of the brand new features that the Samsung Galaxy S2 brings is the support for WI-FI Direct. WI-FI Direct, if you remember, is the technology that lets you transfer data between other WIFI Direct devices by creating an adhoc WIFI connection between them. In other words, it allows WIFI devices to talk to each other without the need for wireless routers.

It works much like Bluetooth, just faster and has better range. Symbian is supposed to get WI-FI Direct this year as well, but Samsung beat everyone to the chase with the Galaxy S getting certification last year itself and now the SGS2 becomes one of the first smartphones (if not the first) to ship with WIFI Direct support out of the box this year.

I have played with WIFI Direct for a while and it is definitely a very welcome feature, one you probably wouldn’t be able to live without once you get used to it. Transferring an mp3 (5-6 MB) is virtually instant and very large files also take mere minutes. For example, you could transfer a 700 MB movie wireless in the middle of the desert in under 5 minutes using WIFI Direct.

Here’s a demo of WIFI Direct on two Samsung Galaxy S2 devices:

That’s not all, if two Galaxy S2 devices were connected to the same network, then I could also send files between them without having to activate a peer to peer network which meant I didn’t have to disable the WIFI connection from my router and could browse the web meanwhile.

Impressive.

I cannot wait for WIFI Direct support to other devices. What do you think of it?

Further reading – Our In-Depth Samsung Galaxy S2 Review.

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The Galaxy S II is Samsung’s latest and greatest superphone and judging by the rate at which these things are selling, very soon millions around you will have a one. The device packs a dual core 1.2 Ghz processor, a 4.3″ Super AMOLED Plus display, runs Android 2.3.3 out of the box with Sammy’s TouchWiz 4 on top.

TouchWiz is Samsung’s custom UI layer that differentiates the SGS 2 from the myriad of other Android slabs and Samsung has managed to add enough value to it to make it a very welcome addition. Some of its benefits become obvious, but some tweaks and shortcuts that can make your experience even better are tucked away. This post aims to showcase a bunch of tips and tricks that every SGS 2 user should know. Some of these might even work on older TouchWiz devices.

Hit play and tell us in the comments section if you think I’ve skipped any must know shortcut/tip!

If you can’t see the video embedded above, hit this link to go to YouTube. If you’d like to read instead of watch the video, read on.

• Quick Calls & Texts: Once you have the contact you want to call or text in front of you, instead of entering it and then carrying out the operation, you can simply swipe left to place a call or swipe right to enter a text.

• Homescreens: TouchWiz supports upto 7 homescreens and jumping between them can quickly become a problem, but you can easily pinch to get an overview and then quickly jump to the screen you want.

• Screenshots: Taking screenshots on Android devices is a pain, but on the Galaxy S2, you can simply hit home button and then the power key while holding onto home to take a screenshot. You can then see them in the Gallery.

• Brightness Adjust: The notification bar can serve as a brightness scroll on the Galaxy S 2 if you are not using the  auto brightness option. Just hit the notification bar, hold for a second and swipe left to decrese and right to increase the brightness. This is one of my favourite tweaks.

• Browsr Text Wrap: Out of the box the Galaxy S2 doesn’t automatically reflow the text in the webpage if you zoom in. But if you just goto settings and check the ‘auto-fit pages’ option, all is well again.

• User Agent Change: The browser lets you change the user-agent without needing an extra app, just type ‘about:useragent’ and you can choose between the iPhone, Nexus One, Desktop, Galaxy S or even enter a custom string.

• Pinch Based Tab Switching: While you are viewing a webpage, just pinch out and you will be shown the other tabs that are open, or you can even open a new one. Handy, finally possible on the Galaxy S2.

• Custom Fonts: The Galaxy S2 comes with inbuilt support for custom fonts. Just goto Settings -> Display -> Screen Display -> Font Style and choose from the three options or follow the link to download more from the Android Market.

• Change Bottom App Drawer: Its just easier to explain if you watch the video, around the 03:28 minute mark.

• Quick Slider: Whether you are in the homscreen or the app list, just roll your finger over the dots at the bottom of the screen and see the screens fly by. Beautiful and functional.

• Video Lock: Pressing the power button in video player locks the screen, now you can hold the device any way you like, no accidental presses.

• Testing Mode: *#0*# in the dialer enters the LCD test mode, useful if you are hunting for dead pixels or a few other things.

• Search Key: The SGS2 like the SGS doesn’t have a dedicated search key that all other Android devices have, but if you long press menu, it doubles as a search key and pulls search up, wherever you need it.

• Quick Dialing: On the dial pad spell the name of your contact and see it popup, great when you need to make a quick call.

• Bluetooth Mouse: The SGS 2 supports using a bluetooth mouse, the functionality is more of a proof of concept vis-a-vis being actually useful. TV out presents a useful senario.

Any others you would like to add? Let us know in the comments section below!

Further reading – Our In-Depth Samsung Galaxy S2 Review.

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At Nokia India’s Delhi preview of Nokia E6, we got some hands on time with the widely anticipated successor to the E71/E72 class of devices. You have already seen unboxing photos and camera samples, but if you’re looking forward to looking at the E6 in a little more in-depth fashion, then this post is for you.

Me and friend of the site Clinton Jeff, look two Nokia E6′s for a little spin and the have shared our initial impressions, positives and negatives in the 15 minute video below.

We start off by quickly unboxing the device, followed by a little overview of the basic capabilities of the phones before diving into the new Symbian Anna experience, the E6′s 326 PPI high resolution screen, its camera, the new UI, the capabilities of its loudspeaker and so on. Click though to YouTube to watch in HD, or hit play right here.

What do you think of the E6? In case there is something else you’d like me to cover, please let me know in the comments section below.

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