MobileDan’s Weblog

So, I think I’ve gotten my own self to believe that I am possessed…

The 5800 has been shutting off on me!

Well, this time, I Googled the symptoms Nokia 5800 shutting off” I found this

Turns out, the battery terminals on the 5800 are raised off of the back of the mother board… leaving a bit of play between the terminals and the battery… so, if the phone is jogged, or squeezed, the battery terminals loose their connection, even for but a moment, it’s enough, and it’s enough frustration for the user…

This might not be the case for ALL 5800 phones, or even all the users, but for those of us who it does deal with, here’s a solution!

What I did was I took the corner off my pack of cigarettes (I know, I’m trying to quit!) and I placed it under the battery, where the terminals are… Seems to have done the trick!

Hope this helps… I can’t claim this, all credit should go to damolee who is a sage at Nokia Support Discussions. I can only link my video and elaborate to the original post…

I think this could be a huge recall problem, so I hope someone can get something together, because this device really is a beautiful thing…

One Idea I have is for Nokia to send out stickers, to a certain thickness for dealers, repair centers and any consumer who asks for one. Have a specific location picked out on where it should go, and that should do.

for the units not yet sold, maybe a thicker battery? Maybe install the sticker where it’s needed?

I would really like to know why the battery is upside down though…

MobileDan

First video taken with the Nokia 5800 XM on my way in to the city this morning…

I need to work on my “um’s”

Here I discuss How I’ve come to really like everything about the unit, and how I keep finding out new things about it all the time!

OK, so last night didn’t count… I got the phone opened up and played with it, but I didn’t really leave the house with it…

Today I did…

I am on the road a lot… at least 600 miles a week, and I still need to be connected… OK, you got me again… I don’t NEED to be connected, I WANT to be connected… I’m out there trying out these devices, making sure that they can handle whatever anyone can throw at them, and being the multi-tasker that I am, who better to do it then me?

On with it!  As I mentioned before I was against touch screens… but I think it was made up for by the addition of the Alphanumeric Keypad…

One problem I found today was when I was using Palringo to talk to friends I got annoyed at the steps that I had to take just to post anything!

I have organized some screenshots (Oh, before I forget, there is a really sweet app for that http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/How_to_take_screenshots_on_the_Nokia_5800_XpressMusic.php)

On with the screenshots… with my commentary…

The first thing to realize when entering any information on this phone, is that there are 4 different ways of entering text!

Handwriting

Mini QWERTY keyboard

Alphanumeric Keypad

And of course Full Screen QWERTY, which I could not show because the screenshot I am using apparently does not do so well in rotation mode…

K, now that that’s out of the way…

Here is my main buddy list, I’ll go ahead and select Ping.fm, Lets now update my status…

Now that I clicked that buddy, I want to type to it, I tap the part that says “Type Message Here” and it brings me to the screen below me… (I know the top part is hard to see, I am sorry…)

Next I am brought to this screen, this makes no sense to me, because I cannot DO anything with it, since I don’t actually have a keyboard… So, again I am forced to tap it again… I think it does this by default, thinking that I might use the Handwriting, but when It’s not in that mode, I really wish it could cut this step out…

After tapping the screen I am brought to my last used setting, the Alphanumeric Keypad

NOW I can finally type out my message…

finish typing, tap the green check mark and…

Back to this screen, this redundant screen… this damn stupid screen…

I next have to tap the options button

And hit Ok…

Which brings me back to the actual Palringo application screen with my text entered…

I next tap the screen where it says “Send”

And Voila!

My status is updated!

Versus on the N78 I would have been able to type in the fields and just hit send…

I don’t mind a few extra steps, but I really wish I could take out the Handwriting screen… or at least not have it be default…

I also have this problem when sending texts…

I’ve gotten it down though, and am pretty quick about it.

The learning curve was very short, and I definatly prefer this over QWERTY, and I fear that I am alone on this one…

UPDATE:

As per Ricky Symbian-Guru suggested below, I went and downloaded the native Palringo app

So much better using the right tool for the right job, here you see how much better and more efficiently this works!

Off the bat, this application makes better use of the screen.  I can’t believe that when I went to download the app, it gave me the other one…

Here, we can use the plecturm or our finger to scroll around, and hold on the contact we wish to talk to…

sending a message, from this screen…

…will take you to your default text entrly

leaving more room for typing, reading and less room for extra, unnecessary buttons

There you have it, Palringo v.99 for Symbian S60v5

Keeping up with what the users want and need, even as they themselves find something new that they MUST use!

First impressions…

I like buttons… I like T9 buttons to be more precise… I don’t hate QWERTY, I just don’t like it very much…

for the same reason that I don’t like most other 2 handed devices… or things that really distract me, or my eyes from the road…

I think I’ve become a master at driving and T9 typing… My Perry Farrell vision is amazing…

Anyway…

The package arrived… turns out it’s a 5800 XM NAM!

I get home, sync the phone from the N78, seems to have taken a bit longer then usual, and I think it was because it was also syncing all my music from the 4 gig card over to the 8 gig card…

I walked around the supermarket in a daze, checking out all the neat things that could be done to change the experience of the phone… the home screen theme of contacts bar, having 4 main easy to touch and call contacts, seems cool, if I had more then my GF that I called on a regular basis… maybe more like 12, fill up the whole screen… but 4 is better then none…

I really like the feel of the screen, if that makes any sense, since it’s the screen that feels me… It reminds me very much of the screen on my N800 Internet Tablet, responsive enough for handwriting, I think I could get to like this phone!

Texting has proven to take a bit, when sitting down, I can easily turn the device to use the full screen QWERTY, but this is not so handy when driving, which I do a lot of… the mini QWERTY keyboard makes me feel like I should be using the included guitar pic or stylus, or keep going back and forth deleting my errors… there is also handwriting, but I haven’t set it up yet… but wait…. there is also the option for an Alphanumeric keypad… that is about as close to T9 as I am going to get… well, it is, but it does not have actual buttons, but… it is T9!  I am very very happy.

downfalls… no sportstracker… BOO… no contacts on Ovi, and no Conversation and no Nokia Email… so far… I need to find other things that I CAN do with this device… expect more updates as I start playing with this device more and more… for $338.39 from Dell Small Business, it’s so far sounding like a sweet deal!

It has been said by a few people recently that I should write more about myself… My mobile usage and how my phone is used in my life, as well as how my life is spent on my phone…

Currently I am using the Nokia N78, on loan ( a long loan I know and I will be returning it ASAP!) from Jonathan Greene… this device has proved to be so handy, that when my brother was having problems with his N75 in Las Vegas, I got him one, the NAM version of course… I picked up the NAM N78 for $260… That’s a great price! There’s always Nokia devices on Dell.com of all places!

I am also switching back and forth between that and an E90 communicator, which I received on loan from Cybette… Something happened in shipping, and I think that a button is being pressed or something, the phone works amazing, as long as I don’t close it… So I am forced to only use the internal phone… That is one amazing thing about this phone, it is pretty much like using 2 phones… one on the outside and one on the inside… It’s like a mullet, business inside, party on the front!

Ok… bad attempt… but really, it’s an amazing phone so far, and I’ve only been using one part of it… the inside screen makes typing emails so easy, viewing the whole thing, while using the screen on Google maps makes my driving life a pleasure! And the QWERTY!  Wow!  It’s big, 2 hands big, but it’s worth it!

On to the apps I’ve been using… I’ve been a big fan of Fring, and love that I now have my FaceBook built in, as well as my last.fm account, which has saved me more recently on a job in which there was no music in the apartment!  I just fired up Fring and turned on my last.fm account and I was off!

Lately I have been using Palringo more often… I used to primarily use this IM client just to upload a picture to my ping.fm account via the bot, but more recently I have been able to use the chat feature to talk to my buddies on AIM, Google as well as FaceBook chat…

Both are very strong IM clients, and together they both serve my needs 100%

I have kind of slacked off on using BuddyCloud, Chanse showed it off on one of our S60 meetups, and I was very interested, but I kind of fell off… that was around the time that Google Latitude came out, and I found it to fulfill all  of my needs…

As for Nokia Beta Labs goodies, I have been using Contacts on Ovi as well as Nokia Conversation, I suggest you go try them out, I like that when I click a buddy in Conversation, it has the running conversation from me to them to me and back and forth in order…

SportsTracker has to be one of my most used apps still!

Nokia Email is my new favorite, and has replaced the Gmail app, It’s seamless, I can tie up to 10 email accounts, and the app runs in the background, and is always searching for new email… you can set the time, but the default runs and I have not seen much, if any drop in battery life…

Oh Widsets… I want to love you, I just don’t really need anything that you have to offer at this time… You are still on the phone, and I still go to the site to move my stuff around…  Please go check it out though… currently I am running my widsets pet (feed me please!) my FaceBook, AccuWeather.com, Wall Street Journal, Tower Bloxx game, Wikipedia (of course!) and fruit sets another game…

Let’s see… I’ve also switched my standby theme from the horizontal icon bar to the vertical icon bar… It took some getting used to, but I think I can get around faster with it this way… Top apps in my shortcuts: FaceBook link, Gmail, Google maps, Fring, Nokia E-Mail and SportsTracker Search is Google, Calendar is used frequently, and the music player is here, instead of me needing to hit the media button… Radio is now on here as well, even though I would love to be able to take it off, and add more shortcuts… FM transmitter is on here too, again, I don’t use it without using the music player, so more shortcuts would be nice here too… and last but not least the WAN Wizard, which helps being on the front… even though it’s on the main screen on horizontal icon setting…

The App updater in the Applications folder is handy, and I check it frequently, but most of the apps I use have their own built in updater…

I do frequently check the download store, and if you haven’t been, you really should… There’s a lot of cool stuff there…

Of course I might use something different than most other people, that’s why there are so many apps for people to use on S60…  Open to anything, the Developers love to work with the platform, and the users have a nearly endless supply of possibilities!

On to it…

My day… Today for instance… I over slept my regular alarm… (I’m so bad at waking to an alarm, that I have a “his and hers” alarm… 2 in 1 and I still manage to sleep through it… but not the phone alarm!

So, I’m up… I reach on the nightstand and pick up the phone and check my email… with my FaceBook status and friends overseas, I want to catch up on any emails that I got while sleeping… (I know… This is bad… My GF hates when she sleeps over, instead of rolling over to cuddle, I reach for my phone… Bad BF )

So I’ve gone through whatever looks important… and I’m waiting for the shower to heat up… I fire up the music player in the phone and place it on the sill just outside of the shower…

I’m out the shower and I get dressed (doesn’t require the phone… but I am still listening to music…)

Music player off, I’m sitting at my pc, checking my work email, geeking out for the few moments I do have to sit at my PC and I am off…

Into the car, I am loading Fring, send a message to ping.fm to update my status (Jaiku, Facebook, Twitter, Gtalk, AIM, Identi.ca, Brightkite, Friendfeed as well as my personal status page.)  I check the traffic I am to look forward to on Google Maps, stop for coffee and am off, listening to music through my ipod, or via the phone’s 3.5mm phone jack dependant on whether or not I will be using my phone to talk on the way down… I also log into SportsTracker and start tracking my trip, to get my speed average… I don’t really use it for anything but my own grin in the morning…

At work, I am checking my email, and friends online, talking with a few when I leave the site to go to get lunch or supplies, and am just walking through the city…

After work, I get in my car, and check Google maps to see just how much traffic to expect on the way home, and how I can avoid it… Today, instead of taking the West Side Highway, I saw traffic backed up and took Riverside Drive… past Grants’ Tomb, but forgot to take a photo… Damn!

I am also (and don’t tell anyone…) driving and texting the whole day, writing replies to facebook messages and sending IM’s… My poor excuse is that it’s T9 and I don’t have to look while I type… It’s not good enough, I know… but I fidget, and before my phone addiction, I was cleaning my car while I drove, read the paper… Tons of other less safe things to be doing…

So, tonight, heading home, I was typing an IM to WhatlyeDude, about my wanting to put SpinVox decals on my car… got some laughs… Then went to wash my car… checked the weather via AccuWeather, on my Widsets and then headed home for dinner…

Then I finally sat back down at my computer…

12 hours after leaving the house…

I was completely mobile all day,

I am completely mobile every day

I am MobileDan…

I am sitting here, typing at midnight, about to go to bed, and wake up in 6 hours and do it all over again…

As I posted earlier about borrowing Jonathan Greene’s N78 and how much I liked it!

Reading through my blogs I also stumbled upon a posting in which I ranted, but also made a statement about “…the winner (for me) will then have to compete against the N96 and N78 (can I get them both at the same time?)”

Having the N78 and N96 next to each other I couldn’t help but think that the N78 is like a baby brother to the N96…

A lot of the features that I had gotten used to in the N78 were still there in the N96, and a lot of the things that I liked about the N95-4 were incorporated into the N96.  All in all, the N96 should’ve been a front runner, but unfortunately it was not so…

The crashing drove me crazy!  literally 3 crashes per day!

Coming back to the N78 was a simple switch, and I am back to no problems with a solid device.  Not that I don’t foresee the N96 coming into it’s own, but the N78 is a fully matured device.

I can still play music on it, and I can use the FM transmitter if I so desire, it’s simple, I load the music player, start playing a song, hit the options button, go to FM transmitter, and select a station!

The drop back to 3.2MP camera wasn’t felt as hard as one would expect, at least I’m not going back to 2.0!

I still have Wi-Fi, I still have GPS and I still have S60 in general for all of it’s greatness!

I really like the feel of the flip out phones (N95 and N96, as well as the N85) but for now they are out of my price range

Last week I purchased my own N78 for US3G phone for $268!  comparing the two devices they obviously look the same, but the N78 US3G seems smoother, the navi-wheel seems to be much smoother, and it does this cool thing (excuse my ignorance for not knowing the terms, I’m just a user after all ) when I hit the camera button, the screen shrinks and spins! it’s more animated then it’s European brother… I really enjoy this phone so far, and expect nothing but love from and to it!

I am not working as much as I would like, and whatever I spend my money on has to be worth it, and right now I opted for an older model, I set my limit at $300

Going back to a point I’ve been stressing a lot recently in my blogs, even though it’s an older model, it’s not forgotten about, it’s still sold, it’s still updated, and it’s still performing extraordinarily well compared to other phone manufacturers models where they forget about older models once they release a newer model…

I’m happy with this purchase!  and I’m looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it!

What older model phones are you using, and how do they compare to what others’ are releasing now?  I’d like to know!

As a part of my trial of the N96, I was trialing  NokiaviNe, I was also asked to do a mobi-documentary… a sort of “Day in the life of”

I have seen some other documentaries and chose to do mine a bit different.  I’m not up for video editing just yet… so bear with me

Using the N96 for music and as a camera, NokiaviNe for tracking and choosing one not so crazy day to track, I set out to document a part of my day.  Due to the nature of my current work, I cannot film inside clients houses’ so I more or less did updates to and from the job.

One of the things I like about “viNe” is that you can see the icon for music, photos and/or video and then click on that icon to see it via your browser.

As of now, I cannot search for my “viNes” or myself by username, so I have to zoom in on my area and find the specific “viNe’s” that I want to show for this post…NokiaviNe is still working on ways to be able to link to “viNes” so I am going to include screenshots of the NokiaviNe website.

Back to the task at hand, “A day in the life… Gosh I get sidetracked easily!

Zooming in on the Westchester County New York area I can see that I’ve posted a bunch! And that there are others around me also posting a lot as well!.

My day in my life viNe

Zooming in further I can pick out some of the videos that I posted, and can even view them on the page!

This video shows how I take the above picture…

Here are the rest of the videos I posted…eNjoy!

Driving though Westchester in morning traffic…

Finally with my boss, letting him do the driving…

Entering the city, Harlem River Drive, driving under I95 and the extention for the George Washington Bridge…

CrAzY  cAbBiEs!

Going to get eqiptment from the truck, and a blended video,

The last video kind of bleneded together, weird, I didn’t edit them, it just kind of worked out that way…

Hope you enjoyed this, I will next try to learn video editing whenever I get a chance!

Take care, and thanks for visiting!

Hello again, here it is, the moment we’ve all been dreading, or at least I have been!

I am sending this beautiful piece of hardware back to it’s home with WOM World/Nokia. I’ve put this phone through it’s paces, and while I don’t think that it’s ready for me just yet, I would love to see it pretty soon when it gets it’s next firmware update.

I kept it a bit longer then I should have, and that is because I had no phone to return to.  The joystick on my N73 broke off, and I’ve been waiting for my N78 NAM to arrive.  That’s for another blog though… The phone hastn’t yet arrived, but I really should send this one off…

Starting from the bottom of the package and working our way up…

As silly as it may sound, I actually had the worst luck on this trial… My phone broke, and my car phone charger tip refused to fit…  Figures… This came in so handy as I’m always on the road!

The Data cable was used, but the CA-75U was the winner this time around, while installing TV’s and testing the imputs the picture coming out of this unit was amazing, not to mention driving to work and plugging it into the screen on the work truck for viewing traffic updates via Google Maps, very handy, and such a great display!

No plastics were hurt in the use of this demo, I did however manage to lose the screen protector, but I am affixing one of the ones that I switched to, I recomend the iConcepts SCREEN PROTECTORS FOR GPS It wasn’t very expensive at all, and looks and feels great! No scratches even on the plastic cover! It just kind of floats on top!

I didn’t use the headphones nor the controller, as there was the slide out controls for the media as well as the ones surrounding the D-Pad… and I used my own headphones.

All packed away, ready to go home…

This was a very interesting time, I really think that this phone will come into it’s own very soon, as it’s at v11 for the US and the N95 is at v30… I don’t forsee it taking nearly as long as that for the “kinks” to be ironed out…

I understand that I speak a bit rough sometimes, but it’s tough love to me, I love this company, I spend so much of MY free time speaking about mobile technologies and Nokia’s role in it, and I just get frustrated when Murphy’s law kicks in, just as i’m needing to use an app like google maps for traffic with my boss, or showing off any other feature and the phone resets…

I think the phone is attractive, simple, yet packed with features, and above all, comfortable in hand, and easy to use.  With updates and proper advertising it could and should hold a lot of weight in the lineup!

I am not a market analyst, I am not a tech guru, I am not even much of a consumer, but what I am is an end user… I think that this means a lot.  It does to me… I matter a lot to me, and what I choose to spend my money on is a well thought out process of want vs. need (sometimes )

Tonight I had a discussion with my friend Serko from MobileDivide (please excuse the cursing, it was a private conversation that he has allowed me to share parts of)

SERKO: hope we get to play with the N97 on Tuesday!

Me:  That would be nice!

SERKO: I’m beginning to lose faith in Nokia too much rehashed BS

Me:  I hear you. But I don’t need a new phone, I need dependable

SERKO: definitely!

Me:  And, if the 95 is tried and true after all these years, so be it

Me:  That’s why I bought the 78

SERKO: Yeah I want an N85 in all Black with a Xenon flash

Me:  It’s exciting to see new, but I’m broke, and I can’t sell my parents, brothers or friends on something that’s not ready… Something that needs Fw updates and whatnot

SERKO: sure man totally understand

Me:  I can’t buy new yet, not patient enough. I’ve gone thru hell with this 96… So many freezes

SERKO: I want ATT to release a NAM 5800 for $99

Me:  Na, They raped the 75, I want them to NOT fu*% anything I want up

SERKO: well I flashed my mom’s N75 awhile back with an unbranded firmware build and it’s unlocked officially

Me:  Until they realize they can’t stick their d!*% in everything before they pass it out, I’ll pass

SERKO: lol OUCH!

ME: I sent 4 of them back until I got an old fw… That didn’t have their tabbed home screen. F*%k them, I’ll pay the money (for unlocked)… I think the tube will be under 300 Then practically give them away unlocked.. Without contract… If they (Nokia) can take that hit, it’ll attract a lot of people. But it had better be road ready! Don’t race to just sell it… Get the download store ready for it… Apps that work properly with it. Get everything symbian signed and verify it works with the tube

SERKO: sure man I agree, though I kinda feel weird going backwards in terms of Camera MP

Me:  I’m happy here at 3.2… Xenon is a big jump forward too!

SERKO: If they can get the 5800 to $249 on Amazon I think they’ll have a field day!

Me:  Not on Amazon! At the Nokia store

Take away any chance for people to sell for a profit

Draw people to the store… get people to see everything that Nokia has to offer… It’ll be in time for the 4th generation iPhone… (insert laugh) They can catch all the late adopters.

This started a fire that I let dwindle… A few months ago I spoke about my rant on Nokia’s attempt (or lack of one) in the US market. Amongst other things that I spoke of in that blog, I commented on my ideas on how to win over this finicky market…

The US market was lost by Nokia on so many fronts, but mostly the thing that I think did it in was the iPhone… I see too many people using it, and while I think it’s a great invention, It’s got nothing new, but things that I have seen and not marketed within S60.

Nokia is now fighting a multi-theatre war, one in trying to win consumers over with Nokia phones, and the other with trying to sell manufacturers and consumers on Symbian S60…

I get confused sometimes… I would really love to get my hands on the Samsung INNOV8 so that I could compare what Nokia and Samsung do with the same OS.

But, for now, I am a Nokia Fan-boy I guess…  I just see how the US consumer is inundated by a new phone ad daily, and it’s flash and shine… whereas I have convinced my family on how with the economy it’s less about form and more about function!  (Not that I don’t like the form of Nokia phones! they’re just not marketed as “sexy”)  My 67 year old father is using OVI to sync his calendar, contacts and photos that he was taking with my old N73, he seems to be getting by fine, and once he gets into his own routine I think he’ll figure out how much more is possible with it!

I think that the problems that I’ve had with demoing new phones is that the hardware is there, it’s flawless!  The problem is that the firmware needs to catch up, and most consumers aren’t willing to have to go through the trouble of having to do this weekly or monthly if and when there is an update…

I’m in the market for a new phone, and I want something that I don’t have to complain about, something that when I’m showing it off to people it isn’t freezing up or worse yet, restarting mid load of an app!  I think that Nokia is in a good position to release the 5800 tube, if they can get everything to work seamlessly, under normal use or under strain by a power-user! Something that shows what the download store is meant to do, show that it works great out of the box, and show that It’s possible to replace so many things that you’ve taken for granted in Nokia.  And with OTA updates, your phone will soon be able to learn to do so many more things!

Nokia: Take a price cut, and offer it without a contract for a competing price as the iPhone is with a contract!  it’s a base model, it’s NOT an Nseries, let it pave the way for the N97!

I don’t think that anyone knows how to conquer the US market, you hold your ground until something else flashy catches these consumers eyes… Grab their attention and hold it, and release something new and different, don’t release an updated version months down the road… Nokia to me hasn’t been like that, I love that my 2.5 year old N73 is still much better then most everything non Nokia, and that’s not just because of the 3.2MP camera!

The average consumer doesn’t care about their network so much as that it works!  I think that because the frequencies are so different in the different markets, it’s gonna take until we get to something like  5G (insert laugh here…) for all of the frequencies to match up, which I think is another problem, not only do manufacturers have to make one product for one market, they also now have to adapt that product to work within the US frequencies which are trying to catch up with the  GSM community…

One key reference website that I use is GSM Arena it lets me choose by manufacturer and sort results by frequencies.  AT&T for instance is 850 and 1900 GSM and 850 and 1900 UMTS… as explained here 2G is GSM and 3G is UMTS also called WCDMA and HSDPA I don’t know much about any of this but I know that I am seeing 3.5G on my screen and am happy to be able to use data and voice simultaneously! AT&T works great for me, I had problems with T-Mobile in my area and don’t foresee myself going back, but, I only use AT&T for service with voice, data and text, any other features they offer I am currently able to get through other services.  I still think that the providers should find a way and offer Spinvox, as I’ve been using it and loving it!

What I’m getting at in my last is that I understand that we are a hard market to please, and with that, it’s a gamble to make a product version for us that may or not sell as it does across the pond… once that is settled I think it’ll be easier for the companies, but for now, we need something on the high and low end to WOW us, to make us jump up and stand in line, and once we’re in line, and have the product, we don’t want a slap in the face when the same thing is re-packaged with more features and re-sold… just upgrade the firmware!

I will revisit this blog in the near future I am sure…

So, I’ve been playing with the new N96-3 NAM for a little over 2 weeks now, and I have been noticing a lot of things that I really like.

First off, the shell is beautiful, an improvement on the N95-2/4 which I don’t think was so necessary, but is still very nice… rounded and less clunky.

The TV out is beautiful, not only have I used it on a huge 60″ TV but, also as a passenger in my boss’ car. My job in the mornings is to navigate traffic, so on our way into the city, I use the video input on his 6″ touch screen car stereo, this lets us both see live traffic (or as live as Google maps updates…) so that we can take the appropriate actions for other routes to clients’ houses.

Another improvement is storage, 16gig is a definite improvement from 8gig any day of the week, but with the option to utilize the expandable SD Micro card slot, that brings the total to a whooping 24gig! Way to go guys!

The screen seems clear as day, I really liked viewing videos and such, even with “power saving mode” activated which tended to dim things.

The camera takes amazing photos, but I cannot readily compare them to any of the other 5MP Carl Zeiss camera photos I’ve shot, but they still look great.

Music player / media button. while I really liked the placement of the old media key, I think that it’s proper placement on the front is really smart, but I fear that people with bigger fingers would have a bit of a problem, this was not the case for me though, even while driving…

Speakers, even with the 3.5mm out, on the top which let me use it easier while driving, the speakers by themselves sounded crisp and clear with most of my music, I did however have to tweak the audio and Eq for loudness and such.

All in all I think the hardware for the N96 is spectacular, I liked it a lot…

But remember, there are a lot of negatives and most of them revolve around the Firmware…

First off was the noticeable battery. the N96 comes with the BL-5F battery which is a 950mAh battery while the N78 that I have been borrowing from Jonathan Greene comes with the BL-6F battery which is a 1200mAh battery.  That left a big humph as I sighed and placed it in the device…  The usage out of the smaller battery was noticeable, especially when trying to power this much bigger device.  When I used the BL-6F battery, which I read about on The Symbian Blog I managed to get a bit more out of it, but, as I’m always out and about, I’m using either Sports Tracker and or NokiaviNe which is constantly using both the Internet and the GPS.  I am also using Fring for instant messaging and Jaiku as well as running Nokia Email.  I think that with everything that I am running, and others might be running more or less, a decision to keep the battery smaller is unacceptable, I wouldn’t dare leave the house without my AC-5U travel charger.  = FAIL

Creaky keys… I get a lot of creaky noises, while I wouldn’t award this a FAIL it’s kinda loud when I’m trying to type on it and someone else is trying to watch TV or something…

Freezing…  This is the bane of my frustration… I have been using this phone for 18 days, for a total of data sent and received being 130MB and total talk time of over 12 hours… I don’t know if this constitutes “power user” but I think i expect more out of my devices then most others!  I use different apps at different times, and I have a few that I like to run all the time… take Jaiku, Fring, and Nokia Email for instance… they are running all day long… There was a noticeable “lag” from hitting keys to getting a response, but I dealt with it… Once I decide to  open something like SportsTracker, I open the program, start tracking my trip and I go to look at the phone, and it’s restarted… so, my whole “workout” or “vine” when I’m using NokiaviNe is lost, ruined, and thus, not complete!  ARGH!!!  FAIL FAIL FAIL

“Activate Power Saving”? WTF?  This is a no no… does anyone pick up their phone in the morning and say, gosh, i want it to run full power and be dead in no time? FAIL!  It should be able to handle anything that users throw at it, with whatever power source it was designed to carry… and it should of course be able to at least last more then half the day…

Buttons 1, 2 and 3 please stand up… You’re fired!  Why do you think that hiding up so damn far is a good idea? I’m not a big guy, by any stretch of the imagination.  My hands aren’t huge and neither are my thumbs, but i still have problems with those damn keys… who texts with their pinkies? FAIL!

Battery cover, you FAIL… You can’t take a slip from my ottoman, 8″ up without losing your insides? Humpty Dumpty looks like a rubber ball compared to you!

Did I mention the s….l…o…w…  L…a…g…? FAIL!

I want to love this phone, I really do, but for now I’d advice people that get frustrated easily to go and purchase an N95-4 NAM

I think that most of the problems can and will be addressed in upcoming FW updates, I was using 11.018 for the N96-3 NAM

Freezing and lag time, one would hope would be addressed in newer firmware updates… As well as the power saving… make that in a FW that it’s ALWAYS in Power Saving Mode… don’t give the option as power saving, default to regular and offer something like battery waste mode as an option, but don’t default to power hog!

How I would suggest fixing some of the non FW issues would be recalling the BA-5F battery or, offer a coupon for users to upgrade to the BL-6F AND Make a back plate that can accommodate it, without falling off as easily as it does with the proper battery in it!

Creaky keys, we have to live with it, but it should be addressed… as well as 1, 2 and 3…

I think as a flagship, it would be nice for the Xenon flash,  but just typing that out made the back of my neck tighten thinking of the battery issue…

I know that this device will get better, it will take a little bit of time, but once it does it’ll be nice to see this phone in all it’s glory… but oh, wait… there is already going to be a lot of hoopla about the N-97 I just hope it doesn’t get thrown by the wayside… Nokia needs to stay strong with NON TOUCH SCREENS as well!