Nokia Maps oops Ovi Maps

I hate getting lost.  Having grown up with a great lake to the north of me I had a sense where things were. Since moving away, I am lost.  I can get seriously lost walking or driving around.  For some reason though when I am hiking etc, I can find my way, don't ask my why.

I use nokia maps. I use them to drive, with turn by turn directions.  I also use them to find my way around London.  I am looking forward to either the N97 or N86 because they have a compass in them.  When using them to navigate around London, I won't have to wander around looking at my tracks on the map to see which direction to go. 

I can boldly go places now without fear of getting lost, because of nokia maps.  As to Ovi?  I am a fan of nokia, but maybe there could be a better name.

Nokia X6 now shipping in selected countries from Nokia Experts by Matthew Miller

Nokia X6 now shipping in selected countries: "

The Nokia X6 was announced at Nokia World in early September and I made a post stating that it could be the dark horse of the event and be a standout product. Nokia posted a press release stating that the Nokia X6 is now available in selected markets with a retail price of EUR 450. The X6 is the first capacitive touch screen Nokia smartphone with a focus on their Comes With Music service.

You may recall that the X6 comes with a 3.2 inch capacitive 640×360 pixel resolution display, 5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, 32GB on-board memory, and all the other standard high end specs. I am very interested in seeing how it performs with this display, but honestly the display on the Nokia N97 mini feels just about like a capacitive display and I have NEVER used a stylus on that device so I don’t think it is as big of a deal as many people make it out to be.

The X6 also looks like it could be a decent gaming device with three included games; Spore by EA, Asphalt4 and DJ Mix Tour by Gameloft. I think the X6 looks a lot like my Zune HD and am curious to see how the two stack up together.

I don’t see any US 3G bands in the specifications. With the N900 having T-Mobile 3G bands I am very curious to see if we will see more Nokia devices supporting this frequency and as a long time T-Mobile customer I sure hope we do see this eventually.

"

iPhone availabe at a fine supermarket near you

In the UK you will be able to buy an iPhone along with your carrots, broccoli, beer and wine, at Tesco.
I could go to the Apple store on regents street, an O2 store, but why? Next time I go shopping, I could buy my iPhone at Tesco, or not.

3 UK Mobile Geeks?

got to meet some of the people at 3 UK who make decisions on mobiles, deal with network, mobile broadband, marketing etc.  The overall impression I went away with  was that 3 UK is focused on positive user experience of their customers.

I met someone who looks at phones for 3 UK.  I was happy to discover that they are essentially mobile geeks. They are informed, interested and even excited about bringing cool mobiles to 3.  They want to make sure that any mobile they put on the network will have the right fit and feel for 3's customers.  Things like Skype and Messenger are basic app's on 3's phones.  They don't want to put out an orphan phone, one that might be new, but does not have the essential tools 3 wants you to have on your mobile. Again, focused on user experience.

I was glad to see I was not met with a typical "corporate" individual , but people that were interested in the same thing I was, mobile phones.

3 UK Mobile MIFI

I've been using  the 3UK's  Mobile Broadband, what they call MIFI ( http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband/MiFi) which 3 says is "mobile  internet whenever you want."  It's made by Huawei, the same people who make the 3's 3G USB Mobile broadband modems.

I love the idea of wireless 3G broadband.  It sits on a my desk  not far from my MacBookPro and I can access it easily via my airport.  So now anywhere anytime I can have mobile broadband, and I can share my connection with friends , actual social networking.

The MIFI is stylish looking and easy to use. If you can use a mobile phone and can connect a computer to a wifi system, then you'll have no problems setting it up. My friends thought it was a new mobile.  It has a clear easy to read display showing battery, wifi, 3G connection, and it charges via a mini usb port.

I've used 3's USB Mobile Broadband before . In central London I was getting speeds of 3.6mb/sec. Outside central London the 3G  data connection is a bit slower.

I thought I would put MIFI to the test.  I am outside of the fastest 3G area. Speedtest.net says I am connected at (1.56Mb/sec http://www.speedtest.net/result/606419020.png). Web browsing , Google searching etc work great, no lag.  I went to Vimeo to watch some HD video, http://www.vimeo.com/channels/red4k to watch some Red HD video. I clicked on the video and it streamed as normal, no delay.  Same thing happened with youtube, videos streamed just fine.

I went on Facebook and found that basic activities work with no delay at all. So I thought I would try running Cafe World to see if I could enjoy playing a flash game via the mobile wifi.  The game took a bit longer to load, but once I was in the game, the gameplay ran at a  normal speed.

So I decided to go to Apple movie trailers site and download some HD quicktime files and see how long I had to wait.  I decided  to have a look at the Avatar 480HD clip which was 40MB.  Four minutes later I had my HD trailer to watch, and wow I can't wait for that film to come out.

Battery life  is excellent. On standby and using the device off and on for an hour at a time  the battery lasted over a week. 

3UK's  MIFI  is fabulous.  It's elegant, stylish and it works great.  I highly recommend  it. Best thing is the price has just come down. Buy one today.

Do we need another mobile blog?

I have another blog that is a personal blog.  But I'm also  extremely interested in mobile technology. So whether we need another mobile blog or not I am going to start writing about mobile technology.