Technknowledge

They don't get any bigger than that. A launch of this caliber can aptly be called inauguration day. The release of Nokia N97 is the Nseries counter-move that geeks have been waiting for since November. Easily one of the most complete smartphones ever created, the N97 has been haunting Symbian buffs' dreams for quite a while.

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Nokia N97

We're about to see if this feature-loaded son of a gun is the stuff dreams are made of and if it has the gut to stand up to the best on the market. The 5800 XpressMusic was cheap enough to easily be forgiven a couple of shortcomings but the N97 is not the begging type. Nokia-faithfuls are used to only getting the best treatment, so they won't settle for less with the Nseries skipper.
Key features

* Slide-n-tilt 3.5" 16M-color resistive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
* 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and lens cover (VGA@30fps video recording)
* Symbian OS 9.4 with S60 5th edition UI
* Slide-out three-row full QWERTY keyboard
* ARM 11 434MHz CPU and 128 MB of RAM
* Quad-band GSM support and 3G with HSDPA support
* Wi-Fi and GPS with A-GPS (plus 3 months of free voice-guided navigation via Ovi Maps)
* Digital compass
* Class-leading 32GB onboard storage
* microSD card slot with microSDHC support
* Built-in accelerometer
* 3.5 mm audio jack
* TV out
* Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
* microUSB port and stereo Bluetooth v2.0
* Web browser has full Flash and Java support
* Nice audio reproduction quality

Main disadvantages

* The S60 5th edition UI still has poor ergonomics and is not as thumbable as expected
* Camera features are so two-thousand-and-late
* No DivX or XviD support out-of-the-box
* No smart dialing
* Somewhat limited 3rd party software availability
* No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)

Obvious from the list above, the Nokia N97 hardly puts anything new on the table. It is however a bold try to fit all of today's top features under one hood and offer a nice ride at that. This certainly is an ambitious task by itself but the ever-expectant Nseries fans, who always want something new on their next handset, make it even harder. The Nokia N97 will need to be near flawless to get a warm welcome.

We have some great news for the owners of Samsung S8000 Jet: there is a new firmware update for the Jet bringing lots of goodies for your phone. As it turned out it's been a while since it first showed up but most probably many of you (we as well) have missed it.

So much has been changed thanks to the S8000XEII2 firmware! The Samsung S8000 Jet now has a a different 3D Cube background as well as some new widgets (Twitter, MySpace and Facebook). The TouchWiz UI is similar to the one we've seen in Samsung M8910 Pixon12: you can rearrange the main menu icons.

According to some Jet owners who have already tried out the new firmware (thanks, Andrew!), the phone now feels much zippier. The WebKit-based Dolphin web browser has also been improved and so has been the media browser.

Some of the changes brought by the lastest Samsung S8000 Jet firmware update

Volume rocker is no longer used for zooming in/out but for scrolling through web pages.

The media player has been revamped as well: the new firmware brings along landscape view support to the Samsung S8000 Jet so that the music player interface now reminds of iPhone's Cover Flow.

As you can see, there is much to tell about the latest firmware of the Jet and maybe much more that hasn't been noticed yet. Share your impressions in the comments section.

And one more thing, since the update function of the latest PC Studio application is still in beta (read: doesn't work) to download the S8000XEII2 firmware just follow that link (a quick free registration is required).

Source via email tipster

You probably already know all there is to know about Sony Ericsson's upcoming HD-video-flaunting Kurara. Well, instead of posing for small-time opportunists, this time Kurara is starring in a real blockbuster shot and directed by no other but Mobile-Review's Eldar Murtazin.

Unannounced phones do get a lot attention but it's quite rare to see one star in a preview by a serious online media so long before its official announcement. Most of those pre-announcement meets are usually governed by some sort of non-disclosure rules (written or not). We guess Mr. Eldar Murtazin has been bitterly disappointed by Sony Ericsson - enough to break his own promises of not publishing any information harmful to the company (as mentioned here).

Anyways, it's back to the star of the show - Sony Ericsson Kurara. We've uploaded several preliminary specs in our rumor mill section so you can learn more about it even at this early stage. Kurara is a Symbian S60 5th edition smartphone, akin to the Sony Ericsson Satio. It does have the 8MP camera of its sibling, but the HD label on the back hints of even more. If you guessed 720p video recording, you're right.

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Sony Ericsson Kurara • Notice the 256MB RAM in the last screenshot

That would put the Kurara in direct competition to the Samsung i8910 OmniaHD. The 720p video recording club is about as elite as the 12MP club. Anyway, it's a nice sign of change for Sony Ericsson, whose phones are notorious for their low-resolution video recording.

Not to mention that the Kurara has a 3.5mm audio jack and a microUSB port. Now Sony Ericsson seem truly hard at joining the band of other manufacturers, which use standardized accessory ports.

But back to our news topic, you can find the Sony Ericsson Kurara preview here at mobile-review.com. It doesn't offer much information about the phone but there are plenty of photos, screenshots and camera samples, and of course a video sample (which is good 213MB large). And here's a spoiler for you: next time we see a leaked HD recording smartphone, we really would prefer some real world live action as a video sample instead a video capturing a YouTube video shot from a computer screen.

Only a week ago Carphone Warehouse pulled out the Satio from their stores due to software issues. Now the not-so-touchable Aino followed its Symbian sibling with complaints about touch performance.

Carphone Warehouse along with the Phones4U have withdrawn their remaining supplies of Sony Ericsson Aino. They are hoping Sony Ericsson will fix the bugs soon, otherwise the company’s holiday earnings are seriously threatened. That's the second Sony Ericsson phone causing issues lately and we can't quite remember the last time. It makes you wonder what's going on.

It seems that the affected Aino handsets are not that many and taking care of those won't be hard.