MOBILE NOMAD

Nokia E63 user review

2009-01-18T08:28:00.006+01:00

Nokia has a great lineup in the E series portfolio there is no doubt about that. Still they lacked a lower priced full qwerty e-mail oriented phone. Not any more.
With release of the E63 Nokia clearly wants to get general population of users starting to come on board. This phone is the little brother of the E71 model and apart from build materials and a lack of few functions (like 3.5G and GPS chip...) pretty much offers the same usability for around half the price tag! For more specifications click this LINK.

I got this phone from the nice folks at WOM WORLD NOKIA and i have used it extensively for the 2 week trial period as my primary device. I have pretty much owned all of the E series devices in one form or the other. At this time i had also an E51 and an E71 at home with some other devices...

At around 200 euro without the contract this phone is hands down best bargain S60 e-mail orientated device on the market IMHO. And i highly recommend it for what it is!
As a potential buyers i see new upcoming business orientated people that wanna have top functionality but not spend top cash, also in the other corner i see people that never used this kinda devices switching to it due to the affordability. It will also double as a superb backup device to a E71/E90 users... not only it will carry the same data but also uses the same battery, and that comes handy sometimes.

Below i leave u with some pictures of the device and some comparison shots with the devices i had at hand. As always im open to questions if you have any.

Saso M.

Nokia N97 annonced today @ Nokia World Event

2008-12-02T19:29:00.003+01:00

Nokia announced the N97 today as there new flagship device. On paper it looks to be an impressive piece of kit. Specifications: 5mpix camera 32GB internal memory,GPS, WiFi, 3.5inch display, slide out qwerty keyboard... the list goes on! he only downside i can see atm. is the launch date set to mid. 2009. Nokia needs to rethink their announcement vs. shipment dates. N97 would be a hot gift this holiday season if they managed to get it out now...
Still all that said its a cracking device!

Nokia N97 DEMO Video

Rolex Sea-Dweller 16600

2008-10-13T22:36:00.001+02:00

I have booked this beautie now a collectors item today. Looking forward to recieve it. Here is the frontal from the dealers.

Make my stake ...

2008-07-17T14:21:00.001+02:00

29062008175
Originally uploaded by saso.maric

Recently i have found a nice and easy "how to" cook a good stake ... here u can see them just getting ready to be put into the pan ...
Result was above expectation, even better they tasted great!

Vintage Rolex DJ ref. 16014

2008-07-17T14:17:00.001+02:00

14072008205
Originally uploaded by saso.maric

Classic look does not fade ... here is a cca 1979 (according to the serial) vintage Rolex men size datejust i have acquired recently ...

QIK . Live video stream from your S60 phone

2008-01-31T14:50:00.000+01:00

This looks like a fun application . I heard about it just a few minutes ago and rushed to the site to sign up . ATM do the participation is limited to invitation only , you can sign up and then wait to see if you get in.
Check the site for more info and user videos : http://www.qik.com/

New edition to the E series the Nokia E51

2008-01-23T15:27:00.000+01:00

Nokia recently updated there smallest E series device the E5o. Successor called E51 brings some nifty features in an extremely small form factor . With 114.8 x 46 x 12 mm, 61 cc this baby packs some serious connectivity options . On board 3.5G , Edge , WIFI , stereo BT and even infrared there is nothing else to be left desired . The build quality is as expected from the E series device above average if not great. The screen is on a small size but this is due to the form factor . I found the keyboard above average , key size is good and tactile feedback is present .
I'm impressed :)

Nokia N95 8g is here ...

2008-01-15T17:41:00.000+01:00

... in my hands now this is it im done with the new phones , atleast for some time :)
Received it today and was interested how the build quality was compared to the original N95. Truth be told its better but nothing to write home about ... other changes are bigger screen size 2.8 inch to 2.6 and the obvious 8GB internal flash memory and no memory card slot compared to the original offering. Also i prefer the new BLACK only look compared to the sand and plum colors with silver front on original . Also maybe good to notice battery is about 20% more capable ...

Camera is decent but will not replace ure dedicated pocked digital camera here is a picture i took of my vintage 1665 great white sea dweller on top of my red e90 ... (default settings )

Nokia E90 Nr. 2

2008-01-14T09:55:00.000+01:00

I have got my e90 when it was released by my operator i opted for the mocca brown edition and used it for 2 months. After that i decided to sell it as i did not get so much use out of it due to the other devices i have been using at that time.
Just after 2 days and the inability to use 3.5g internet speeds over my laptop at home as i sold my e90 i bought a new one :) this time in RED color hehe what the heck i wend a bit wild n that one.
It is still the best all rounder from whats available at the market as i write this sure it has some shortcomings but the complete package and what it offers cant be compared to any smartphone for my use that is :)

Samsung i600 aka. BlackJack

2008-01-13T12:09:00.000+01:00

So why this now someone would say :)
Well we have moved to a new mobile sync. client inside the company called Lotus Traveler
Now the first version only works on Windows mobile devices (PPC and Smartphone) so if i wanted to test out the functionality i had to get a device with this operating system. I am not a fan of PPC line and opted for a slimmer , lighter Smartphone edition coming from Samsung . This is a sweet device and let m tell u why its super thin and super light , the build quality is great no squeaking from it at all and i picked up a used one !
It came with WM 5 installed but with a bit of tweaking i managed to upgrade to WM6 from Samsungs official page . I had some problems but after using a workaround to change the operator settings inside the service menu the update went through like a charm.
aside for some known WM6 bugs and step backs its still a fair product . it has all the conectivity options that you can imagine and my hat of to designers to be able to squeeze this in a small package like the i600 is.
I do not like the specific cable that they used instead of mini usb that also is used with the wired headset so without adapter u can forget about decent stereo reproduction and use of your own ear buds ...
I might also mention that due to running an TI 220 Mhz processor the device tends to be slow sometimes , specially when u run more application in the background . Also the battery life coud be better i get round 1.5 to 2 days max on one charge (moderate use) all do an extended battery is an option and i600 ships with 2 batteries in the box .

The Blackberry 8300 Curve

2008-01-13T11:54:00.000+01:00

So the holiday season is over ... good in a way time as i packed a few kilos that ill be now sweeting of in the gym :)

Betwen the holiday season i got my hands on a bb 8300 curve one of the lattest offerings from RIM . I never was a blackberry user so i had to give it a go .
Its a small light device compared to my nokia e90 feels like a toy . I was surprised to find out that the qwerty keyboard works good enough even do the keys are small and alows fast text input due to good tactile feedback provided by the keys . The battery life was another positive as it would work for 3 days with one charge (moderate use) and thats a good result for a smartphone device in my book .

I did not like a bit complicated menu structure and the fact that there is not so many aplications available like for let say Symbian and WM devices . The multimedia is present but cant really compare to the latest Nokia devices but if you get it for the push mail functionality u will be satisfied.

Atm. the blackberry service is still expensive at the providers and there fore i decided not to activate it and move on ... ahh well still a nice offering from RIM and showing they really wanna move some devices into the consumer market with their latest offering .

ExtremeMac TUFFWRAP for iPhone

2007-12-04T10:37:00.000+01:00

So i have my iPhone for a good month or so and i started to notice small scratches appearing on the polished metal rim around the edges of the device. As they tend to be more and more visible i surfed over at iLOUNGE.com where you can find the most extensive reviews of today iPhone cases available on the market. After some reading i prompted to order the TUFFWRAP from ExtremeMac from one of the reputable sellers on ebay.
After a week case arrived to my desk at office from UK to Slovakia. First impressions are good as it don't make the phone bulky and adds reasonable protection and makes it less slippery in the hands. It comes with one screen protector that is tricky to put on as it tends to catch air and create the annoying bubbles ... so be careful with that :) Ill repost short comments after a week or two of use to let you know what are my findings .

Saso M.

Links update

2007-11-28T12:06:00.000+01:00

On the left side of this blog of mine i have recently updated a few links to the pages i frequently visit . So i urge you to check it out.

Pay in mind that some of the links will take you to blogs that are maybe not in English language ... point and case ... Peter K. Blog :)

Sweet , small , portable

2007-11-28T10:06:00.001+01:00

is the idea behind the IBM X60s or the Lenovo as its called now :) I upgraded from the X41 Tablet recently to this as the previous series of the IBM ultra portables had the nonstandard 1.8 inch hard drive that had no buffer and were spinning at only 4000 rpm making the machine slow . The usual boot time was around 4 minutes on my X41T ! Making the machine slow and some times painful to use .

The X60s however comes with a standard 2.5 inch hardrive that takes away this concernes i managed to set up the machine to boot up just above 1 minute into fully working state .
I also got a dock station with a multi recorder that will burn DVDs if i need to store some data . The X series machines do not come with an optical drive in order to make the design as light as possible . This one weights in just around 1.25 kg ( dock not included) and is a pleasure to take around with you .
Here are the specs. of my machine :

Product: ThinkPad X60s 1704-5LG

Operating system: Windows XP

Original description: L2400(1.66 GHz), 1024 MB RAM, 80GB 5400rpm HD, 12.1in 1024x768 LCD, Intel 950, Intel 802.11abg wireless, Bluetooth/Modem, X6 UltraBase + CDRW/DVDRW, 1Gb Ethernet, Secure chip, IEEE 1394, Fingerprint reader, 4c Li-Ion batt, WinXP Pro

In the future i plan to get an 8 cell battery for it and maybe a 250GB HD upgrade , but since i have an external 2.5 inch WD with 12oGB of storage the total of 200GB im oka for now .

If anyone has any questions about the machine feel free to ask :)

iPhone that i thought i never own

2007-11-27T16:13:00.001+01:00

Is on my desk and in my use for a month or so . On my recent trip home to Slovenia i asked my good friend Thomas Bergant from Mobile.si to lend me his for a day just to have my fun with it and so he did ! Man i returned with mine the next day when i was returning his ... sucker haha .
I'm just powerless when it comes to cool gadgets and iPhone sure is one of those .

If you are like me and cant use nothing else then iPod as your music player this will enable you to leave one of the devices home . How is it as a media player you may ask ... answer is brilliant ... the best out there . Videos , music , podcasts , audio books photos, you name it it plays it . But not just that it plays it but it offers a supreme user experience.
The strong parts are also super web browser called Safari and its a mobile implementation of the desktop browser that you would find on a Mac. The only downside is no flash support but there is talk around the internet that this might change with future updates . I also liked the email client , youtube application via. wifi connection etc.

I disliked no 3G no way to copy paste text ?!, camera is poor compared to my Nokia E90 , bluetooth is present but can only be used through a headset in mono sound no BT Stereo support and no way to send files etc. Also i resent Apple for making the headset port recessed so many of other headphones will not fit without an adapter :( case and point my Shure E2C . No MMS , not that i send that many ... and list can go on :)

So why did i buy one you might ask ... well if it would be the only phone i have i probably would not get this one but since my primary smartphone is Nokia E90 that has all that iPhone misses im not left short by any means ...

And yea did i mentioned its the coolest looking device out there :))

And you thought I was gone forever ...

2007-11-27T15:40:00.000+01:00

But im not, actually i never left but just been hanging back . This confirms my love / hate relationship with this blog or for that matter every other activity that needs frequent updating :)

A lot of things happened in the last half year or so since i did not write here ... things changed in my personal life, i got some new and exciting gadgets during that time :) that i will mention in latter posts.

Also quite recently i lost a coworker that was also a great personal friend in a tragic car accident . Jurko i hope you are in a better place now ...

Thats it , come back for the weekend and see what else has changed ... course if you are interested that is :)

TA TA S.M.

Small does not mean less ...

2007-03-01T20:16:00.000+01:00

It came today, the 9300i that is ... made a restore from the 9500 i have onto it and bang all works ...

Nokia 9300i is essentially the same product as the 9500 running on symbian 80 platform with exception of the camera module and a bit smaller screen and keyboard due to smaller size of the device. This is no big deal do as the resolution of the display stayed the same 640 x 200 pixels, showing you the same amount of data as on the bigger brother 9500.

It runs everything that i use on 9500 but manages that in a smaller package ... nice edition to the 9500 indeed.

Thx to Thomas Bergant from http://www.mobile.si/ for a good deal on the device and fast delivery !

Windows Mobile 5 ... ill pass ...

2007-02-27T10:19:00.000+01:00

I have been using the SPV for a week now or so and its time to trade it in. Don't get me wrong the device is great for what has to offer but i just cant get used to two hands usage. It get me reaching for the pen to many times and on the go that's just annoying. battery life is better then expected but no way near series 80 Symbian. Some of you will say that Symbian is slow and outdated (series 80) but it does what i need it to do and better then wm5 at the moment ...
I'm trading it in for a Nokia 9300i + cash on top just makes sense for my usage ATM.

Geeking out big time with XBOX 360 !

2007-02-23T13:58:00.000+01:00

Oka.

First and most of all , big cudos ant thank you to Zoltan Mayer for lending me his baby :) Appreciated !

I have played games back in the days quite allot ... was an online game clan member for Medal Of Honour AA and competed in UK Ladders. Since then more then 5 years ago i pretty much did not play at all. Since the boom of the xbox 360 i have heard allot about it in the media , read some reviews and always wanted to knew what the big fuss was about.

Beginning this week i started a discussion with a coworker as he has one and he was so kind to lend it to me for the weekend for let say a test drive. And MAN I'm impressed. It came with several games on of them being GEARS OF WAR ... all do i use standard ctr TV it still looks amazing , gamplay is great no wonder it was game of the year rated 96 out of 100 on gamespot.com

So gaming is top notch what else one might say ...

Played a DVD today, smooth nice picture great controls . Plugged in my ipod video ... xbox recognised it and i started browsing and listening to my music from the couch ... did i say the controller is wireless :)

Conclusion is ME WANT ONE ASAP ! I'm sold need to sell my left liver do to get one but who cares ... weekend is in front of me that's all i can say now ...

Orange SPV M3100 aka. HTC TyTn ... a taste of the forbiden fruit :)

2007-02-19T23:46:00.000+01:00

Well its been some time since i used a Windows Mobile device and i must say they came a long way! I'm a die hard symbian fan but had to step into the dark waters just to see what they have to offer. The SPV is a fine looking device with a touch screen input and a full qwerty keyboard. it spots an 400mhz processor inside running Windows mobile 5.

I played around with it today for few hours and I'm impressed by many things like speed overall construction etc . But a s its branded there are some set-backs...

The msn messenger is removed form the device ... browsed the net and find a solution which actually saves the day but you need to install older version of the client ...

The most disappointing thing on this particular thing is that the Bluetooth can be used just for handsfree or dial up no sending files , contacts etc . This is been taken out from the operator and is a big minus . I'm thinking to flash the device with different ROM but scared that i will brick ... will test it out more this week to see other benefits and negatives it offers ...

Bad Cable Internet ... ouchh :(

2007-02-17T15:58:00.000+01:00

I recently ordered cable Internet here In Slovakia, Bratislava. I asked around what would be the best choice to my colleagues at work and they told me that http://www.chello.sk cable access is the provider to go with due to good speeds ,quality of service and price.After 1 month of use i must say its horror. The connection drops every second day demanding manual reset of the cable modem and this is weekdays. Today being Saturday i had to restart it 6 times till lunch time. it tends to drop connection once per hour! this is worse kinda service i encountered in my use of Internet. I think it has to do with the network being totally stuffed with traffic there fore causing the connection loss. Bad bad bad ...

Laptop gutted in a box

2007-01-30T22:56:00.000+01:00

An IBM T30 to be exact ... guys from the services took it apart and put it in a see through plastic box where it was running like nothing happened :) Pictures say more then words ...

First screenshot from Nokia E90 Communicator ?

2007-01-30T22:38:00.000+01:00

Found it linked on http://www.my-symbian.com/forum under the series 80 forum . People are sceptical if this is from the device or just a photoshop trick. The resolution of the image is correct looks nice if i may add we will need to wait a bit more to get this confirmed do .

Green Frog :)

2007-01-28T13:34:00.000+01:00

No did not get it in the end ... but i know of someone that would like this one :)

Declare Elegance !

2007-01-28T13:18:00.000+01:00

Nokia and their slogan for the 8800 and man they were right ! This little beauty is just a gem metal construction, Sapphire glass over the screen elegant design . I wanted one of these as they were lounched end of 2005. As the price were round 1000 euro i realised that was too deep for my pockets and on the other hand its a nokia 6230i guts in a elegant cover .

Also as this is a non smart phone and basically can do just voice and sms i tend to stay away .

But this Christmas faith played part as i got it as a present from my dad :) Thx dad !

Its a phone with basic functions but spectacular looks. You will be noticed as from were i cam from these phones were not sold via carriers making their respective owners fork out 1k euro to have it. It works fine i have no problem with it except battery life which is even worse than poor ! Mind you that you will receive 2 batteries in the sales package but still it tends to piss you off.

And sure the idea that you can get much more productive smartphone for that kinda price ...