Samsung today made its 7″ Android 2.2 powered tablet official at IFA 2010 and marked the arrival of the first real iPad rival. The Galaxy Tab has a lot going for it, the flexibility of Android, a powerful Cortex A8 1.0GHz processor, dual cameras, video calls and the ability to be used as a phone.

At 7″ it threatens to be pocket-able but falls slightly short, although you could easily slip it into a coat pocket. With 3G HSPA connectivity, 802.11n Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 3.0 the Galaxy Tab becomes the best connected tablet on the market and the ability to use a SIM card for data and calls is a huge plus. The screen is a 1024×600 WSVGA TFT display and personally that’s a disappointment because I wanted to see Samsung’s superb Super AMOLED display that powers its Galaxy S lineup of phone inside.

My use case for a tablet is very simple. Video playback and Web browsing are a priority while apps and games come a close second. The reason the iPad was not for me is because of a clear lack of multitasking, but more importantly the inability to play a host of popular video codecs. The Galaxy Tab on the other hand plays DivX, XviD, MPEG4, H.263, H.264 and more out of the box and this means I can throw virtually anything at it and it will play just fine, even if it is 1080P HD content.

The Galaxy Tab also packs a very capable browser with support for Flash 10.1. Two clear wins over the iPad. So does the Galaxy Tab have it in it to succeed? It is after all just an larger version of the Galaxy S phone with a 3″ jump in screen size and a 4000 mAh battery.

It will come down to the price Samsung can retail it at in addition to the the time to market. It is slated to go on sale in Europe this month while it will hit the US and Asia sometime next month, India might see it late September itself. The iPad is not available in a lot of countries till date and if Samsung can push the Galaxy Tab to those countries first, it might just gain a distinct advantage. The i9000 Galaxy S smartphone retails for about 28000 INR (600$), and if the Galaxy Tab crosses the 30,000 INR (640$) mark I don’t see many people picking one up as the iPad then becomes a cheaper option.

But if priced reasonably, we might just have a device that is compact, powerful and much more usable in bed or on the go. 380 grams in light.

The official Galaxy Tab site – http://galaxytab.samsungmobile.com/

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As you may be aware, this year’s Nokia World is happening in London in conjunction with the Nokia Developer Summit which makes September 14 and 15 two very exciting days to look forward to. Nokia World is the time Nokia announces its flagship devices and lays down its strategy for the year to come, it is always an exciting event and its 2010 variant promises to be bigger and better.

The 9 am keynote on day one is generally when the device announcements take place and sure enough, Nokia’s CEO OPK is slated to kick things off.

What is interesting to note is that Anssi Vanjoki, EVP, Mobile Solutions, has his keynote on day two and I will not be surprised if we see some action there as well. For more specific information, jump over to this page and if you are after general Nokia World info then this is the page to look up.

Oh and if you would like to win a trip to Nokia World, the Ovi Blog might be the place to check out.

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The the MeeGo preview for the N900 first came out, in order to install it you need to make your own image and then flash it onto the N900. Things have moved along since then and a ready to flash MeeGo image is now available from Nokia’s own servers. So if you have been wanting to install MeeGo on the N900 but have been waiting for it to become just a little easier, the necessary guides are here.

But before you embark on the MeeGo journey with your N900, please keep in mind that this is still very much a developmental release and that it holds no value for an everyday users and if you think you fall under that category, its better to hold off. There also some issues with backlighting, which are being discussed here.

[via: @mwkn]

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For over three years now I have been running a website called The Symbian Blog, a website that you have helped grow from strength to strength. What started as a hobby under the vaibhavsharma.wordpress.com domain, moved to thesymbianblog.com when things got a little serious. Then I decided I needed my own hosting and off it went from the wordpress.com servers and things merely went on.

Two years later Nokia introduced the N900 and I decided I needed to cover it, I simply liked it too much to ignore it. But since this was the ‘Symbian’ blog, how could I? Our tagline has always been ‘All things Symbian and then some more’ but I felt it wasn’t enough. Therefore, MaemoCentral.com happened and boy was I surprised by the warm welcome it received. But Nokia meanwhile had other plans, plans of wrapping up Maemo and getting started with MeeGo. Since the N900 was going to be the last Maemo device, I had to adapt and move MaemoCentral.com to TheMeeGoBlog.com, I tried to do this seamlessly and thankfully it worked.

Back to the present, I had two websites to manage and update and I was simply not finding enough time, both The Symbian Blog and The MeeGo Blog were doing great and both demanded my attention. Early last month I felt I needed to merge them together as it would not only make my life much easier, but you the dear reader would get a one stop shop for all your mobile needs. I asked you on Twitter, and all of you wanted to see this happen, bar none.

Yet, I was finding it hard to giveup a brand that I have worked on for so many years, a brand that has virtually given me a new identity. It was a hard choice but I felt it was for the greater good. Finally today on the fourth of August, I gave in.

Ladies and Gentlemen welcome to The Handheld Blog, it REALLY is a pleasure seeing you here.

I did not shut down The Symbian Blog or The MeeGo Blog, they’ve simply evolved. I still firmly believe in Symbian and from what little we’ve seen of MeeGo, it sure has the potential to do wonders for Nokia. Speaking of Nokia, I do believe the company’s on a comeback trail and come Nokia World more of you would join me in that belief. I can’t wait for that to happen.

But hey, now that we have a generic name, I’m sure you would like to read about Android as well, I’ve just started to experience it myself and you can rest assured that I will be taking you along for the ride.

On the technical aspects of the move, I hope that everything will continue to work flawlessly. You should be automatically redirected from both websites to the relevant posts you were looking for, all the content is already here along with your precious comments. I will be renaming our @TheSymbianBlog twitter account to @TheHandheldBlog while @TheMeeGoBlog will become @v4ibhav, where you can get in touch with me.

If you already haven’t, you can go ahead and subscribe to ‘The Handheld Blog’ right here and also follow us on twitter @TheHandheldBlog. If you would like to follow me, @v4ibhav is the handle.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to hear your thoughts on the move or any feedback that you might have. Do you like the new domain name?

Yours Truly,
Vaibhav Sharma

PS: Everything is just as it was, we just have a new name that’s all!

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On the drive to work today I caught a Nokia advertisement on the radio and decided to do a bit of digging. Apparently Nokia India has introduced a scheme under which you can buy your favourite Nokia device and pay in 3 monthly installments and that too at 0% interest.

The scheme is valid for any Nokia device above the Rs. 7000 mark and is available in eight Indian cities that include NCR (Delhi-Gurgaon-Noida), Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Chandigarh. This facility is only available when you pay via your Citibank, HDFC Bank, Standard Chartered or ICICI Bank credit card. Considering how popular these banks, I guess most of you will be covered.

So if you have waiting to buy that favourite Nokia device or accessory, now may be the time.

[via: MobilGyaan]

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Apple’s just dragged Nokia into the antennagate controversy again this week with a video showing how it drops signal if held in a particular manner. At their press conference on Friday last week they had mentioned Nokia as part of the manufacturers whose handsets also drop bars when held in the hand, but had not shown off a video of this happening on any Nokia. Today their page was updated with the Nokia N97 Mini ‘death grip’ video.

Soon after the Apple Press Conference, Nokia had issued a statement saying that they prioritise antenna performance over design and this is perhaps a way to get back, but at this point its just funny and in very poor taste. This becomes clear when you look at the way the N97 Mini is held, in a very tight fist, virtually shielding the antenna. Now there’s a huge difference between a touch leading to signal loss as in the iPhone’s case and a tight grip shielding the antenna completely. What is worse for Apple, the N97 Mini still doesn’t loose signal completely.

In any case, this post is not about shielding the N97 Mini, but about how a lame reason is being stretched to the point when it actually becomes funny. Speaking of funny, CJ over at ZCJ has found a spoof on Apple reply to Antennagate, its a must watch.

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The Wi-Fi Alliance is nearing publication of a specification for Wi-Fi CERTIFIED™ Wi-Fi Direct, in other words “Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer”, which will enable Wi-Fi devices to connect securely without needing a traditional hotspot. This means that two devices could connect with each other over Wi-Fi much in the same way as they do over bluetooth as of now.

But once the Wi-Fi Direct implementation becomes popular, smartphones, cameras, printers, PCs, keyboards and headphones will be able to connect to each other to transfer content and share applications quickly and easily without needing a traditional router, great for onto the go access.

Come 2011, devices will be able to make a one-to-one connection, huddle together in a bunch, simultaneously.

The availability of Wi-Fi Direct adds some distinctive new capabilities into the mix including device discovery, service discovery and power saving functions. For handset creators, this means a solution enabling more diversity for connectivity applications such as printing, music players, and content sharing. For peripheral manufacturers, it means enabling robust, user-friendly device connectivity. And for application developers, it is a comprehensive application development framework incorporating service discovery protocols for gaming and other cross platform applications.

This could take multiplayer gaming to a new level, and copying a ton of data/music/movies off a friend’s device wirelessly within minutes is something I’m sure we all all looking forward to. If you want to know more, here is Symbian’s Wi-Fi Direct implementation page.

What aspect of our mobile usage do you think would most benefit from this? I haven’t come across an app that does this for Symbian already, have you?

[via: Symbian Blog]

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Bill Perry of Nokia’s just published the latest Ovi Store stats for the month of June, what is missing is figures like total number of downloads, growth vis-a-vis last month and so on, but his post does provide an insight into the handsets people are using to download content off the Ovi Store.

Off the cuff when you think of apps stores, you think of (at least I do) people with high end smartphones busy downloading the latest apps but in reality as these stats show, its about the volume which comes from low-mid end devices that may or may not be smartphones. One thing that I have noted over the last few years is that the average guy on the street may have no clue what apps are, but if you look at his phone, he will have a few custom themes on it and I can image such would be items people are downloading off the Ovi Store for devices like the Nokia 2700 Classic.

Bill goes on to provide a few highlights which are reproduced below:

• Nokia touch (Symbian 5.0) comprise a majority of the top devices
• 5230 is one of the top devices in six of the top countries
• N900 is one of the top devices in five of the top countries
• The new C3-00 is one of the top devices in Indonesia

Below is all of the specific information for the top 15 countries.

Top 15 countries (in alphabetical order)

China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam.

Top Ovi Store devices by country (as of June 14, 2010 in alpha-numeric order, bold denotes new addition since last month)

• China: 5230, 5233 (China Only), 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, E63, E72, N86 8MP, N97, N97 mini, X6

• Egypt: 2700 Classic, 5130 XpressMusic, 5310 XpressMusic 5800 XpressMusic, 6300, E71, N75, N96, N97, X3

• France: 5230, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, E71, N95, N95 8Gb, N97, N97 Mini, N900, X6

• Germany: 5230, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, E71, E72, N97, N97 mini, N900, N95, X6

• India: 2700 Classic, 5130 XpressMusic, 5310 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, 7210 Supernova, E71,  N79, N97, N97 mini

• Indonesia: 3120 Classic, 5130 XpressMusic, 5300 XpressMusic, 5630 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, c3-00, E63, E71, E72, N73

• Italy: 5230, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, N73, N95, N95 8Gb, N97, N97 mini, N900, X3

• Russian Federation: 2700 Classic, 5130 XpressMusic, 5230, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, 6303 Classic, 6303I Classic, 6500 Slide, 6700 Classic, N97

• Saudi Arabia: 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, E71, N75, N79, N82, N86 8MP, N96, N97, N97 mini

• Spain: 5230, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, E71, N85, N86 8MP, N97, N97 Mini, N900, X6

• Thailand: 2700 Classic, 5130 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, 6500 Slide, E71, N97, N97 Mini, X3, X6

• Turkey: 3120 Classic, 3600 Slide, 5800 XpressMusic, 6500 Slide, E71, E72, N73, N79, N97, X6

• United Kingdom: 5230, 5530 Xpress Music, 5800 Xpress Music, E71, E72, E73, N97, N97 Mini, N900, X6

• United States: 5230, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, E63, E71, E71x, E72, N97, N97 Mini, N900

• Vietnam: 2700 Classic, 2730 Classic, 5130 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic, 5800 XpressMusic, 6300, 6500, 7210 Supernova, E71, X3

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Nokia knows that the world is not looking at it too kindly right now and what is good to see is that they are ready to acknowledge it. Anssi Vanjoki, the head of Mobile Solutions at Nokia has just penned a post on the official Nokia Blog with a simple and affirmative message – ‘The Fightback Starts Now‘.

He comes across as determined and if you have ever liked Nokia, you will want to believe in the company after reading what he has to say. However since Nokia has not been having a great run recently, most people will want to see some real action before their trust in Nokia is restored. Here are a few excerpts from his post on Nokia Conversations:

• It’s my aim to ensure Nokia stays as the market and intellectual leader in creating the digital world. I’m under no illusions; it’s no small task.

• I am committed, perhaps even obsessed, with getting Nokia back to being number one in high-end devices.

• I have been testing the N8 and I believe it is going to surprise a lot of people with its power and speed. And MeeGo has me buzzing.

• The Nokia N8 will be our only Nseries devices on Symbian^3. Of course, we ‘never comment on future products’, but a Symbian^4 Nseries device is a strong possibility. A very strong possibility ; )

• As Symbian gears up to compete with the likes of iPhone and Android, MeeGo is taking clear aim at the computing space.

• There is no denying, that as a challenger now, we have a fight on our hands. The first battle is to bring you products and services you will want to own and use, to inspire you to create and do new things in this ever changing digital world.

His statement puts to rest a lot of rumors and speculation as well. There will be no Android device from Nokia. Symbian will still power Nseries after the N8, Symbian ^3 won’t, but that was expected, wasn’t S^3 after all only transitional? I am also happy to see that Nokia admit that they are the challengers now, there is no arrogance and the usual rant about having the biggest market share is not there.

I personally believe that Nokia’s strategy of having both Symbian and MeeGo is sound because of the sheer amount of different devices they ship. An average mid-end device cannot run MeeGo and with the Symbian overhaul things will improve. QT will help them bridge the gap between developing applications across platforms.

Their problem is time and perception. The overhaul and transition is taking too long and their brand continues to take a beating. What people are wondering about is that why is Symbian taking so long to reinvent itself when Android has progressed so quickly in the same time.

I have a feeling this Nokia World will be huge. We’ll see a MeeGo tablet, a MeeGo phone and a really tempting Symbian device. But if the world is not wowed at that time, I am afraid it might just be too late for the fightback. No more promises for the future, action!

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The N97 Classic has just received an update in the form of a the v22.0.110 firmware. The update is a 4.9 MB download over the air and the new firmware will soon also be available via the Nokia Software Updater. In addition to bug fixes and general speed  improvements, v22 comes with Ovi Maps 3.3 pre-loaded so you don’t need to install it separately if you want free navigation. This saves you a good 9-10 MB of precious phone memory, but if you choose to update to the 3.4 version of Ovi Maps, you’ll again loose the free space you just gained.

The update also brings RAM optimizations and according to Steve over at AAS after a fresh install (firmware update + format) you will have 55MB free on disk C: and almost 60MB of free RAM at first boot. I’d recommend giving your N97 a fresh start, so to format it you can enter *#7370# in the dialer and follow the prompts, this will wipe the entire phone memory so its prudent to take a backup.

If you are in for the finer details that a changelog brings, you might want to check this post by Norman over at Symbian World.

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Day 1 for the MeeGo UI is here and with that comes a ‘developer preview’ of how the OS is shaping up. There are a bunch of screenshots available on the official MeeGo website but if you are feeling adventurous, there is a N900 version you can play with. The current release comes with a dialer, sms, photo viewer, browser, and personal connection management applications. These apps are a works in progress, and the MeeGo UI is no where near ready for mainstream adoption yet.

The idea behind MeeGo 1.0 for handsets is to give everyone an idea of how the MeeGo 1.1 release (due in October) is shaping up. The release is not bug free and here is a list of some workarounds to those issues. The MeeGo team has also published a video showing off the UI, take a look for yourself and let us know what you think? A nice mashup of the best from the popular platforms with some bonus features?

I will reserve judgment till I play with it on my N900, it is also worthy to note that Nokia’s next Nseries will probably not look very similar to the UI we’re seeing above. Although they do have a tendency to keep most most of its as they are usually the ones who’ve worked the most on it. (Symbian for example, the other manufactures have their UI layers)

So what do you think of the MeeGo 1.1 developer release?

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If you tried using the Ovi Store today, you would have noticed that it was down for some scheduled maintenance. Its back up now and with that come some under the hood improvements,  a new Ovi Store client v1.07(12) and a couple of visible differences. The Ovi Store client is still based on WRT and very similar to what you have been using thus far.

The first change that you will notice is the ‘Load more items..’ dialog once you reach the end of a page, this gets rid of the page by page display of apps and is helpful if you quickly want to go back to an app that you may have overlooked. Next is the fact that search is now much better, it probably searches the entitle and description instead of just the start of the app’s name, as was the case earlier.

• Its a smallish download and a install that takes about a minute.

• The look and feel is similar to what we are used to, so if you were hoping for a Qt based client you will have to wait some more.

• Notice that none of the apps start with the word ‘Symbian’. This improved search should help in discovering more apps.

• While on the subject on the Ovi Store, you can also download our very own ‘The Symbian Blog’ app for free from the Ovi Store. For non touch devices and this is the link for touch devices.

There is better use of channels and labeling to help discover more content, and the team at AAS thinks that the client seems faster as well. Notice any other improvements? Let us know in the comments section below.

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We brought you news of a MeeGo tablet a little while back, but a detailed demo of its early MeeGo UI has just popped up in HD. The video clearly shows the paneled homescreen which holds your photos, videos, web feeds and other content in vertical columns that can be scrolled sideways. It automatically updates itself and also packs a deep level of social integration removing the need of dedicated apps.

It also has a simpler app launching screen which works just as well. MeeGo supports full blown multitasking, HD video playback, and five finger multitouch. The current demo comes with Intel’s App Up client fro downloading more apps, while the Nokia variant will probably come with the Ovi Store.

Apart from that the UI looks intuitive, fast and has all the eye candy that you could wish for. I have wanted Nokia to make a large screen internet tablet for a while now and it looks as if Nokia World will hold the key. The MeeGo tablet will give me an amazing web browser with flash and multiple video codecs, so I can virtually throw anything at it and it will play it. This is something the iPad cannot do and that’s why its not for me.

What do you think?

[via: My Nokia Blog]

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The Symbian Foundation hit a major milestone with Symbian^3 being declared functionally complete today. For Symbian^3 this marks a transition from feature submission and stability into the hardening phase. As you know, Symbian^3 powers the much anticipated N8 and improves on earlier versions by bringing in support for advanced layering and effects, HDMI support, better data performance for streaming high definition audio and video.

Symbian^3 also enables things like USB On-The-Go and support for bluetooth keyboards and mice. It also brings in the single tap mode and support for multitouch. Some of the other interesting bits about S^3 are :

• Music store integration in the Radio app – making radio interactive. Ever heard a great song on the radio and wanted to know what it was or buy it then and there? The new “Buy now” button in the Radio app solves this problem by using RT+ RDS metadata to link through to the user’s chosen music store, providing them with relevant info on the current song and artist and letting them make an immediate purchase if they wish to.

• The Podcatcher, new in Symbian^3, allows you to manage podcast subscriptions and automatically download new shows to a predefined schedule, integrating with the music and video players for playback.

• One-click connectivity greatly simplifies the process of connecting to the Internet, doing the right thing without interrupting the user. It delivers a consistent and simple experience across all network-aware applications, streamlining the UI to remove all unnecessary prompts and dialogs. New global settings allow the user to configure platform-wide behaviour, for example ensuring the device automatically switches from cellular to WLAN when a free WLAN network is available.

There is lots of  stuff  that is new to Symbian^3, if  you are interested, try looking this page up.

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At the ongoing Nokia Connections event in Singapore, Nokia’s just announced an addition to the Xseries in the form of the X5. The compact slideout QWERTY device is priced at 165 Euro and aimed at the younger generation.

It runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 as the core with enhancements in the standby screen and contacts application. As you can see the X5 looks really tiny in the closed mode and marks quite a departure from Nokia’s traditional design language, it does get the basic styling from the X6 though.

The X5 is a ‘Comes With Music’ device and also packs a dedicated music key and a set of great loud speakers. It also features ‘Surprise Me’ which allows you to spin the device to play a random track. While not using the music player, a shake will tell you the number of unread SMS’s in your phone.

The X5 is not to be confused with the X5 that Nokia launched for China Mobile a few months ago. It will first be launched in Indonesia in the 3rd quarter of  this year and will then be rolled out to other countries. At about 165 Euro (9500 INR) the X5 clearly has an eye on the youth, and Nokia is looking to entice users with its messaging solutions which have matured quite a bit in the last few months. It could definitely do well despite its odd design, which for a lot of people borders on ugly.

Meanwhile a refresh to the X6 was also announced, the X6 8GB. This makes three versions of the X6, the X6 32GB, X6 16GB and now the X6 8GB. This also makes for lower price points, which is always a good thing.

[via: @asrialbaker]

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The N8 keeps on pulling off awesome stuff that I have wanted for ages, but Nokia seems intent on not showing the world just how cool the N8 actually is! Case in point, support for USB on the Go was a small entry on the spec sheet and now in the latest video demoing the N8, support for bluetooth hardware is mentioned but only bluetooth keyboards are shown. That is something even old devices could do.

But just at the end you see a mouse pointer in the video and it actually works! Symbian^3 brings bluetooth mouse support and the N8 actually supports it! But instead of shouting from the rooftops they don’t even mention it aloud. Give something like this to Apple and they would make the world go crazy.

Anyway, back in June 2007 I had asked for exactly this:

Senario: I own an N95 and a bluetooth keyboard. While going on a vacation, I just throw the Laptop’s bluetooth mouse in and leave. In my hotel room I setup my BT keyboard and the BT mouse, plug the TV out cable in leave the phone there and go sit on the couch a few meters away. Now, just image what my web browsing experience would be like! Not only web browsing, but if this could be implemented with Office Editors or even viewers, the combo would really rock! The possibilities are endless, even a few games could make do with this functionality. Playing something even as basic as Solitaire would become a breeze!

Come 2010 and we have HDMI and high resolution screens. The developers can have a ball with this.

The other parts of the video show off the music player, coverflow and HDMI in general. The N8 is one impressive device. But I still can’t get over how they waste such game changing features. In a time when Symbian is taking a hit, its all about marketing, ask Apple.

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The N900 is finally in India, is seven months late, but is still a compelling device. I am sure a lot of you in are in the market for an N900 and this post should bring a cheer to you.

We have  teamed up with Nokia India to host the ‘Maemo Masters Invitational‘ in which I will be able to invite 25 of you to purchase a ‘Maemo Masters Edition’ of the N900. The best part is that it will cost the same as the N900 you can buy at your local store, but will come with a bunch of really nice goodies.

• The Nokia N900 of course.
• A pair of BH-214 Bluetooth Headphones.
• A specially crafted ‘Maemo Master’ T-shirt.
• The official Nokia title of a ‘Maemo Master’.

I will be randomly selecting 5 names each week, for the next 5 weeks and the names of the winners will be revealed on the Maemo Masters blog every week (first set of winners announced on June 15th). A few days ago I had received a package of my own from Nokia India and this is what it was.

To enter this week’s challenge to become a ‘Maemo Master’ and get invited to purchase the Maemo Masters Edition of the N900, all you need to do is answers the following questions in the comments section below.

• Question 1. – Right out of the box, what operating system does the N900 run? (Hint: M_e_o 5)
• Question 2. – What was The MeeGo Blog formerly called? (Hint: Look under the title)

Good luck!

Hit MaemoMasters.com for all the rules and finer details.

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If you have been following me on Twitter (@TheMeeGoBlog) you will know that on Friday Nokia India held a launch event for the N900 release in India, giving details about pricing, availability, support and the like.

So first things first, the N900 has an MRP of Rs. 30,639 and will go on sale June 9 onwards but you can expect the real world price to be closer to the 27,000 rupee mark. Nokia has also promised that they will have  people in stores ready to help users setup and understand their N900 for the first time, they will guide you through email setup, homescreen and the like. If you have questions after the purchase as well, you can hit any Nokia Service Center for help. Although I’m sure most of The MeeGo Blog readers will know more about the N900 than anyone Nokia’s trained!

The event kick started with a introduction to the N900, followed by an impressive demo. I say impressive because things like lens cover reminder, FM transmitter widget and so on were also gone into, apps made by the community were highlighted and this gave the people not familiar with the N900 an idea of its open nature.

Right after the demo, we had a quick Q&A on MeeGo, N900′s India Skype restriction and so on. One thing you must know is that while MeeGo 1.0 is available for the N900, if you install it onto your device and you happen to break your N900, Nokia will not fix it under the warranty. Fair enough, but fixing your N900 is not too hard anyway, all it needs is a reflash.

Like I mentioned  on Twitter a few days ago, the Indian version of the N900 will not have Skype inbuilt due to government regulations prohibiting it, but fortunately there is a work around and all you need to do is flash to the Global firmware to have everything up and running. It is also possible that you do not see Nokia Messaging in the email services list if  you setup email on WiFi for the first time. From what I am told, this is because when email is setup for the first time, the N900 checks operator compatibility which cannot be done via WiFi. Although once you have setup the email client, it works over WiFi seamlessly.

Finally, the Maemo Masters Invitational was unveiled and something tells me that you will love it! Expect more details soon.

Right after the event, we were treated to some drifting action that promised ‘Extreme Speed & Power’, which apparently went with the N900′s tagline at the event.

Nokia had invited a group of bloggers from around the country to the launch and right after the event we sat down to talk about the N900 on camera. Expect that soon. Finally I am glad to say that Nokia has finally brought the N900 to India, its a great device and despite being 7 months late, it presents a compelling proposition.

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On Tuesday Nokia said ‘… Nokia N900 devices are being used for platform development and testing purposes by those involved in the MeeGo project, Nokia doesn’t have plans for a full scale commercial MeeGo upgrade on the Nokia N900′. For a lot of people this translated to the assumption that MeeGo was not coming to the N900. Period.

Yesterday, the MeeGo 1.0 release happened and in addition to netbooks (pictured above) there was a version for the N900 as well. This led to the obvious, so is MeeGo coming to the N900 after all? The answer is both yes and no. Yes it is coming to the N900 and Nokia will help in whatever way it can, and but no, it will not be officially support and you will not be able to go to the Nokia Customer Care if you are having issues with it.

So what was yesterday’s MeeGo 1.0 about? Quite simply it is the complete OS core that lets you boot up to command line, but there is no UX so far. This means the majority of the users can look away for now. The MeeGo Handset UX will come with MeeGo 1.1 in Q4 2010 and its development will start next month with unstable releases.

If you are looking for more clarity, this is what Harri Hakulinen (Nokia), the team lead of the Nokia N900 Hardware Adaptation Team for the MeeGo port had to say:

Hello Maemos & MeeGos,

It seems that the true nature of MeeGo has not really been understood by many, or if it is, people still like to create wrong kind of fuss, and use the name MeeGo in wrong way.

In very simple words; please do not mix MeeGo and Nokia productized software !

1. MeeGo is open source project.

2. Nokia as founding member of MeeGo project is using N900 as the ARM reference platform of MeeGo at the moment. This means that we have an active project that focuses to MeeGo hardware adaptation for N900.

( 1. and 2. together actually mean, that there will be MeeGo for N900, if someone is interested .. )

The goal of that project is to open as much N900 specific drivers as possible in MeeGo scope. Our work is currently well supported by many internal and external people, so in fact we have much larger project team than what is described in our wiki page. Based on that I am very confident to say that MeeGo on N900 will be more open than Maemo has been so far, and it will truly be an open source mobile os in N900.

There are wiki pages for the project at http://wiki.meego.com/ARM/N900

From the wiki you can find information how MeeGo runs, and will run on N900. There are also links to mailing lists, IRC channels, code repositories & all. On the other words, N900 hardware adaptation project is an open project already, as well as the whole MeeGo project will soon be.

MeeGo project is preparing to launch 1.0 release in May, and after that continue development towards 1.1 release. May release will NOT contain mobile UX yet, but it is expected to be added to development versions soon after 1.0 release.

In N900 HW adaptation there is 2 problematic components that we are NOT planning to open as such; the other is BME, battery management entity from Nokia, and the other is OpenGLES implementation from SGX. You can use the device without openGLES, if you don’t care about HW accelerated 3D features. Without the BME the device is practically useless.

(Fully functional MeeGo images containing those closed components will also be provided, thanks for asking..)

The reasoning of that situation has been discussed at least in meego-devel mailing list and in N900 hardware adaptation IRC meetings. For BME we will try to find a way to enable open source activity around it, if there are interested people to work on that. Most likely, Nokia as company will not be able participate to that kind of open activity if it will start.

This thread is meant for discussion around MeeGo hardware adaptation for N900, as much as you want to discuss about that in maemo.org. However, I would recommend to switch towards meego.com resources, and participate to technical work there.

We are also pretty busy with the said work at the moment, so please bear us if you don’t get complete answers to your questions in short time.

Br,
//Harri

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The much awaited PR 1.2 (V10.2010.19-1) Firmware for the N900 is finally available for those of you in the UK, the rest of us will be blessed with this much awaited update tomorrow (OTA) i.e. Wednesday, just like we told you. The update brings a ton of bug fixes (literally), faster performance, inbuilt Qt libraries so you can gear up for some tempting applications, changes to the way the application display is handled and support for paid apps from the Ovi Store. Oh and there is support for Skype video calls as well.

The update is available OTA in the UK, but if you want to flash your device to get a fresh start, grab the firmware images from here. The paid apps and the new version of the Ovi Store will be switched on later this week (Thursday) when most people have updated to the new firmware. It will not function on PR 1.1 so you will have to update to benefit, expect to see Jurassic 3D Rollercoaster, Zen-bound, Angry Birds (level pack), Sygic, Kroll, Weatherbug, and GoGadget.

• Longpress to enter numbers/symbols on the keyboard.
• A revamped virtual keyboard.
• The ability to rearrange icons,  no ‘more’ button in the menu.
• Changes to the camera UI, and a night mode for both photos and video.
• Qt 4.6.2 is now pre-installed.
• Video in Skype and Google Talk.
• The web browser now features a button to activate the portrait mode and a few more option while in the portrait mode.
• The browser benchmark also seems to have shot up from 8687 to 10141 with this leaked release.
• USSD codes now work.
• Type to search for apps in the Application Manager.
• Another addition is an email widget as well for the desktop.
• Updates to the Ovi Maps application, but no voice navigation yet.

The available firmware images include:

• RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1.002_PR_COMBINED_002_ARM.bin 187852797 PR 1.2 version 10.2010.19-1 Latest Maemo 5 USA release for Nokia N900

• RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1.003_PR_COMBINED_003_ARM.bin 187852797 PR 1.2 version 10.2010.19-1 Latest Maemo 5 Middle East and North Africa release for Nokia N900

• RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1.004_PR_COMBINED_004_ARM.bin 187590653 PR 1.2 version 10.2010.19-1 Latest Maemo 5 India release for Nokia N900

• RX-51_2009SE_10.2010.19-1_PR_COMBINED_MR0_ARM.bin 187721717 PR 1.2 version 10.2010.19-1 Latest Maemo 5 Global release for Nokia N900

So if you do not want to wait until tomorrow, simply grab the vanilla version for PR 1.2 for your region and get flashing. Use this guide. If you notice there is a specific ‘India’ release, so you can expect the device to hit India anytime now. If you are on a Mac, this is the guide to use.

[Update - If you are in India I recommend staying away for the India variant of the firmware as that lacks Skype support. Go with the Global version].

To keep up with the latest, you can follow us @TheMeeGoBlog.

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