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Voice Guided Navigation Now Free For N97 mini With Ovi Maps

CMM — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 15:35:57 +0000

Nokia have announced that their proprietary navigation and mapping product, Ovi Maps, will be made available free for the N97 mini. This includes voice navigation for both driving and walking.

Before this announcement, certain handsets were pre loaded with Ovi Maps, and came with a limited trial for the turn by turn voice navigation services.

Additional handsets that are now able to download Ovi Maps free are:

Nokia X6
E72
E55
E52
Nokia 6730 classic
Nokia 6710 Navigator
Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic
Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition
Nokia 5230

Ovi Maps includes a selection of both male and female voices to choose from, available in a number of different languages which can be downloaded as required. Maps are available to download for free for over 70 countries.

Data download charges will apply for some of these download options.

N-Gage now available for the N97

CMM — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:36:54 +0000

N-Gage on the N97

Finally, Nokia N-Gage is available for the N97.

For those who do not know, N-Gage is the games application from Nokia. Although not showing on the N-Gage webside, it should be available by heading over to ‘Software updates’ application. Let is search for available updates and you should see N-Gage.

It takes a couple of minutes to update, but the application should then be in the games folder on your N97.

Nokia N97 Mini

CMM — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 12:56:43 +0000

The hot rumour at the moment is that Vodafone will not be stocking the N97 in Ireland, instead offering a N97 mini later in the year.

This from a moderator at the Vodafone forums, with no clarification as to what mini means, except that the price will be less and therefore appeal to a wider range of people.

You can read the post here but note that the original comment has been altered as Vodafone ‘are not in a position to discuss the N97 at this point’.

Woops, looks like someone got a bit ahead of themselves!

Nokia N97 in US flagship stores

CMM — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 16:24:58 +0000

It has been reported that the Nokia N97 has arrived in the Nokia US flagship stores in Chicago and New York.

It will go on sale Tuesday for $699.99, or if in Nort America, you can order it from Amazon for a wopping $97 discount!

Pre Order Nokia N97 on Vodafone from 12th June

CMM — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:50:22 +0000

Hot on the heels of Noki’a formal press release, giving details that the N97 will start shippping THIS MONTH, you will be able to Preorder Nokia N97 from 12 June for delivery 26th June.

So if you want to be one tf the first to own the new Nokia super phone, head over there!

N97 release – Official

CMM — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 11:19:17 +0000

Nokia N97 mobile computer to begin selling worldwide in June

Espoo, Finland – The highly anticipated Nokia N97, Nokia’s flagship mobile computer, will begin selling in June in more than 75 countries. Along with a tilting 3.5″ touch display, QWERTY keyboard and a fully customizable home screen, the Nokia N97 will offer instant access to the full range of Ovi services.

“The Nokia N97 is an important step towards our vision of delivering a highly personalized Internet experience,” said Jonas Geust, Vice President and head of Nokia Nseries. “Fuelled by a multitude of music, maps, games, media and applications via Ovi, the Nokia N97 transforms the Internet into an experience that’s completely tailored to the tastes and interests of its owner.”

The Nokia N97 is Nokia’s first device to feature a personalizable home screen, which can be customized with a range of widgets which bring live information directly to the device. These widgets include key social networking destinations like Facebook and Hi5, news services like the Associated Press, Bloomberg and Reuters, as well as shopping and weather information. The Nokia N97 is the first device to ship with the Ovi Store, which offers easy access to applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services, and much more. Ovi Store has paid and free content from a range of global and local content providers and developers, including Paramount Pictures, Facebook and Qik, as well as a selection of Twitter applications.

Enjoy your upgrades

The beauty of this Nokia device is that taking it out of the box is just the beginning. As with any computer, people can constantly improve and refresh their Nokia N97 with new features, functions and fixes so they can do even more with the device. An exciting roadmap of new features and functions is planned to roll out in the second half of 2009.

Entertainment ensured

The Nokia N97 also has direct access to the huge catalogue of music in the Nokia Music Store. With multiple high-speed connectivity options and 32GB of storage (up to 48GB using a microSD card) it is possible to directly download and store tens of thousands of songs on the handset. And you can listen to your favourite music on the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-905, which Nokia also launched today. This headset brings crystal clear sound, eliminates background noise, and is the ideal accessory for listening to music and making calls on the Nokia N97, as well as being compatible with a diverse range of other mobile and music devices.

High-quality images and video clips at 30 frames per second (fps) can be captured using the 5 megapixel camera with integrated Carl Zeiss optics. Images can also be geo-tagged to specific locations and shared instantly with friends or uploaded online via Ovi Share, Twitter or Flickr.

Top reasons to get the N97.

CMM — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:13:26 +0000

There are a lot of good mobile phones available now, so the competition for your mobile $$ (or £s or whatever) is strong. So why are do many people web comentators still have the N97 high up their list of must have mobiles.

The concensus is that although the N97 will not be adding anything really new to the Nokia or N Series range, what it does is pull together a lot of the great Nokia features currently available on other Nokia phones and drops those that are not that hot (DVB-H TV being an obvous example).

So what are the good features:

Touch screen (hopefully refined from the 5800 experience)
Full QWERTY keyboard, starting to combine the E series functionality into N Series phones
GPS
Music Player
BIG memory capacity
FM transmitter (why was this not on the N96?)
5 Mega Pixel Camera -tried and tested, good in reasonable light although could be improved with a better flash for night time
N-Gage (no other operator can offer this, so if you want N-Gage games, it has to be Nokia)

That list in itself is enough to convince many purchasers.

Symbian Guru adds a few more, including Skype integration (possibly dependent on network agreement) and the ability to recieve firmware upgrades on a regular basis. This last one is acknowledging that the N97 will be buggy out of the box, a position that many will find hard to accept, particularly as Nokia will no doubt charge a high end price for a high end phone.

Should you have to expect to fix your new phone withinf days or weeks of first purchase. You wouldn’t accept this with a PC, or TV, so why with a mobilephone ?

In reality Nokia will be under an unrelenting clamour to get the N97 to shops, and some bugs may creep in. One can only hope they spot the majority before release, and fix any that remain soon after.

N97 Prototype video and pictures

CMM — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 14:21:09 +0000

The Nokia Blog have a nice review of a prototype N97 with this video showing what they describe as a slider function that is smooth and responsive.

It is great to see some quality in the pre production model as this has always been a concern of mine in slider phones, and the keyboard element is going to be so central to the N97 that the slider will need to be smooth and solid.

It is interesting that touchscreen element does not get great approval from Nokia Blog, with the verdict being in favour of the iPhone and the dual touch ‘pinch and drag’ features that Nokia will not be adopting.

N97 Skype unhappiness

CMM — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 08:37:29 +0000

Nokia have recently announced that they would be including the popular Voip package, Skype on newer range N series phones, including the N97.

This would seem to have upset a number of crriers, particularly in the UK. Engadget report that O2 and Orange are threatening not to stock the N97 unless Nokia strip out the Skype platform.

Given that you can download Skype for Mobile phones for free, this would seem to be a storm in a teacup, although we can see that from the operators point of view, many users would not make an effotr to find the software if it is not already installed.

Nokia N97 release date 31 March 2009

CMM — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:41:43 +0000

According to Play.com the N97 will be available on 31 March 2009.

Could this be the good folks at Play.com fishing for pre orders? Of course it could, as they got the release date of the N96 totally wrong, but it could also be an indication that Nokia have given major retailers an indication of when the N97 may be released.

In any event for those waiting eagerly for the Nokia N97, the end of March may not seem like as long a wait as they had feared.