For years, the layout of the T9 keypad has been a simple and easy to understand style. While, the Nokia X3 Touch and Type will not be changing any standards, it is certainly a fine point in any argument that variation and deviation can often result in slightly more advantageous situation. In this case, it seems as if the new layout of the keys has made typing a whole lot easier on this handset.

Small Changes, Big Differences

The one thing that users will be able to point out at first glance is the fact that the bottom row of keys has been moved into a fourth column for the handset. The positions have also been altered slightly, instead of the zero/space button being placed in the center row; it is located on the bottom right –which actually turns out to be a lot more intuitive a position than in the center.

In practice, it is easy to say that the Nokia Touch and Type handset is a device that is easy to get used to. Just type with it for a short while and it will seem as if this is how the keypads on all mobile phones should be. Of course, it also helps that the display is a touch screen that complements the controls of the keypad.

Resistive Touch

It is pretty understandable that the initial public reaction to resistive touch screen technology is one of mild dismay. After all, the convenience of capacitive technology is quite outstanding. But when one realizes that the display on both the Nokia X3 and Nokia C3 Touch and Type has been designed as a complementary input method as opposed to being a primary, one can see how the combination truly works in favor of the handset –and how redundant having a capacitive touch screen would have been.

Nokia is the king of mid range mobiles. Apple and BlackBerry may be outperforming them in the Smartphone scene, but there is no doubt that Nokia still remains to be on top of the lower market segments.

They have had immeasurable success in providing their users with quality mobiles that come with very reasonable price tags. One such device is the Nokia E5 – a mid range QWERTY Smartphone that’s equipped with a ton of useful features, but does without the alarming market price.

What’s in an E?

Nokia’s E Series of Smartphones is one of the most acclaimed lines of mobile phones to date. However, while critics absolutely loved the likes of the Nokia E71, the consumer market was not as receptive. Nonetheless, the fact still remains that E Series Smartphones are very impressive.

One of the fruits of this family is the Nokia E5. However, it has been positioned differently from most of its predecessors as it hopes to target a lower and younger target market. This is made evident not only by the E5’s reasonable price tag, but also by the fact that it comes in a number of more ‘youthful’ colour schemes such as sky blue, chalk white, and copper brown.

Packed

In terms of features, there’s nothing more you can ask for from the Nokia E5. Composing longer text messages or emails is made much easier by the QWERTY keyboard of the device. High speed mobile internet is also on board via 3G HSDPA and WLAN support. This Smartphone has a powerful 600 MHz ARM processor to back up the Symbian mobile OS.

We were also impressed by the Nokia E5’s built-in camera which has a 5-Megapixel resolution. Fixed focus, an LED flash, and video capture (VGA @ 15fps) are some of the snapper’s built-in features.

Digital camera technology has gone a long way since the very first digi-cams have been introduced to the consumer market. These days, it seems all too easy to slap on a camera on almost any handset. The average laptop and netbook comes with a built it webcam, even handheld gaming consoles such as the PSP and the DSi have cameras (in the case of the PSP, it is an external accessory; the DSi has it built in.) Naturally smart phones also have digital camera technology as well.

Nokia is already promising the industry a massive 12 mega pixel camera on the upcoming N8 and N9 smart phones (which use the Symbian^3 and MeeGo operating systems respectively). Sony Ericsson’s Vivaz and the Motorola Milestone XT 720 each bring an 8 mega pixel camera to consumers everywhere.

These days, taking a high resolution image of anything basically means simply pointing a phone at a subject and taking a quick snapshot. But for the more discerning graphic artists, the concern does not stop with the mega pixel count alone, having zoom, autofocus, LED flash and other additional features are also important.

For users who like to upload straight from the phone to a Flickr account or in Facebook, a smart phone with integrated social networking features are recommended, as well as having pre-loaded image editing software (which would really help a lot when it comes to sizing down images to make them viewer friendly as full resolution images shot with an 8 mega pixel camera takes a while to load).

In both cases, it pays to have hot swappable micro SD cards. While 32GB cards will take a while to fill up, they eventually will. And having other media such as music and videos are certain to fill up the cards as well (most phones are also capable of recording video in 720p, 30FPS, which is also pretty space consuming).

It looks like Apple was not content with the number of mobile phone manufacturers they have dragged into the mess they are in. Last week, Apple held an ‘emergency conference’ to discuss the iPhone 4 antenna issue. While they were announcing that owners of the smart phone will be given free cases (those that already bought cases will be eligible for a refund instead), they also stated that the antenna issues that they are having exist in other mobile phones are well.

Apple is right about certain things, like the fact that the mobile phone antenna is prone to losing signals when they come into contact with the human hand –and the fact that human hands are not good amplifiers of mobile signals.

However, Apple’s allegation that this is a ‘challenge’ is not as true as one might think. Sure, the problem is there, but other mobile phone manufacturers have been doing great in finding solutions for it. Some mobile phone networks locate the antenna in areas of the handset that are not easily touched by the hand such as below the device or by keeping the antenna internally.

A recently uploaded video of the Nokia N97 smart phone, by Apple, shows the device with full signal strength. When a hand wraps around the device –as it is normally held, the signal drops down all the way to two bars. While significant, this has never been a serious issue. And the reason is because the N97 Mini can still make and complete voice calls even if a hand is touching the device –something that the iPhone 4 cannot do.

Also, Apple failed to mention the fact that the N97 Mini has been around for almost a year now and that the smart phone has never had a serious history of dropped calls complaints from existing users. This means that even if the device does have a few dropped calls every now and then, it does not happen often enough to be a concern.

With all the fuss with high end smart phones and newer technology, it is still nice to see some concept devices being shown to the public. Nokia’s very own Kinetic smart phone is one such handset and it comes with an incredibly novel concept.

The device is a simple looking touch screen smart phone. The front face looks like your average large screen handset with a slim form figure. The only stark difference is that the lower portion of the device comes with a slightly large bulk. This bulk is actually a closed compartment that houses an electromagnetic device that alters the weight distribution on the lower half of the mobile phone. From a prone, lying position, the kinetic handset can be made to stand upright.

The device will do this to inform users of an incoming call or text message. It is nifty and quirky, though in the end, still a concept design. As impressive as the technology may be, it is only applicable for times when users are either at home or working on an office desk. Users on the go would not be able to appreciate the extra feature. Still, it would be interesting if the technology is somehow applied to Nokia’s handsets.

Nokia has also made a public stand regarding the issue of antenna problems which was made quite controversial by Apple. In order to quell the rumors that Apple is spreading about mobile phone antennas (or antennae), Nokia has stated that all of their device’s antennas are fully tested and are well designed to work even when held normally.

Also, next week is the expected launch for the upcoming Nokia N8 Symbian^3 N-series handset. Vodafone UK has announced that they will start offering the device when it comes out next week while T-Mobile has already opened up pre-registrations on their official website.

Details regarding the upcoming Nokia N9’s operating system are conflicting as the official news stated that the N9 will be using the new MeeGo mobile platform contradict the leaked video demonstrations of the handset that clearly show the Symbian^3 user interface.

According to some experts, the demonstration video was meant to show off the hardware for the upcoming device and not the OS it was running. It is believed that the N9 would still be a MeeGo handset.

If this is true, then the Nokia N8 would really be the only Symbian^3 smart phone in the N-series lineup. Nokia’s new head of mobile solutions however, is not ruling out the possibility of another Symbian handset on the N-series –which is most likely to happen when the Symbian^4 comes out.

Should the Nokia N9 come with the Symbian^3 OS the device is expected to get re-designated to another Nokia phone series. The demo videos already label the handset as the C0-00 (as seen printed on the device’s casing), which hints at the possibility that the device might be adapted to the C-series.

Still, many believe that the n9 is destined for the MeeGo operating system. It has already been announced that the new mobile platform will be ready by October –which means that it would not be long before the OS is installed in the N9. According to Intel, the MeeGo OS has been designed to work with both Intel Atom and ARM processors. So even if the N9 was using an ARM based CPU, it would still be able to run the OS without any problems.

The MeeGo operating system is the new OS that officially replaces Nokia’s previous Maemo and the Intel Moblin (which is based on Linux). The technology for the two operating systems has been combined to bring the uniquely named MeeGo mobile platform.

It is finally out, the developer version of MeeGo has finally become available and it looks like Nokia and Intel managed to create a very solid contender for the smart phone industry with their latest operating system.

The MeeGo is a combined effort of the teams that handled the creation of Moblin (an Intel made, Linux based operating system) and the Maemo (Nokia’s proprietary operating system which was used in the N900 smart phone). The combined product is the MeeGo, a sleek looking user interface that brings together simple controls, a basic user interface and what might be the easiest platform to developer for. According to Intel, the new OS will not be exclusively tied up to their processors. This means that the MeeGo will still work on devices that make use of ARM made processors.

The developer copy has been released quite early in order to entice developers and enthusiasts to try out the new mobile platform, and from the looks of it, Nokia’s plan is going to succeed. They had quite the large community support for the Maemo despite the low public profile that system had during its development. It is likely that the same devs will also try out the newer MeeGo OS. So far, it has not been confirmed if the N900 will be upgradeable to the MeeGo OS –Nokia has yet to announce if MeeGo is new version of Maemo or a completely new system.

As for upcoming handsets, it seems that the very first Nokia phones to make use of the MeeGo will be popping up by October (alongside the launch of the Windows Phone 7). The Nokia N8 is still a Symbian handset but the Finnish manufacturer announced that after the N8, all other N-series devices will be using the MeeGo operating system.

Originally, the title is supposed to say that the iPhone was lagging behind the sat nav race, but that would imply that the current generation handset is lagging and this might change with the upcoming iPhone HD/4G. This however would be the wrong impression.

The reason why Apple’s handset is aging far behind Nokia and Google in terms of sat nav technology is due to the fact that Apple does not have its own Maps service. This is the one thing that the Cupertino based company lacks in order to jump into the market. Nor will they be able to. Their recent tie up with TomTom has tied Apple’s proverbial wrists in terms of being able to compete in the GPS market. If the developer decides to make their own maps service, they could potentially face legal action from their industry partner TomTom.

Google has confirmed that they will be launch free voice guided sat nav services for all of their Android devices that use 1.6 Donut and above. Nokia has also stated that their Ovi store equipped handsets will also get to enjoy free services as well. This has left Apple’s iPhone in the dust as all of the sat nav services on the touch screen handset rely on the use of paid app services like TomTom and the recently released Skobbler.

Speaking of which, users should be a little careful of using Skobbler as it uses the OpenStreetMap. While this compilation of geographical data is impressive, it can possibly be inaccurate as the data is not coded by professional cartographers. You could possibly drive you vehicle into a wall if you are not careful (or if the data is outdated).

Back to Google’s sat nav, it has been announced that the free service will also be tied up to Google’s search function, allowing users to instantly query addresses and locations of important places and more importantly, the closest pub.

Actors should never, ever try and start a singing career.

Singers should never, ever try and start an acting career.

IT workers should never attempt to become escorts.

Footballers should never do… well, anything at all in public ever.

The list of inadvisable career changes out there is endless. So when we heard that a mobile phone manufacturer was going to be releasing a laptop, we scoffed heartily.

However, once we’d wiped the mushed up cereal and milk goo from our screens (warning: never scoff too hard when eating breakfast) we read further and found that the manufacturer in question was Nokia and that their choice of thing-to-make was a netbook. Hmmm, we then said, once we’d swallowed. Hmmm indeed.

And ever since that day we’ve been shifting nervously in our dried cereal covered seats waiting for the day when more details about this fabled netbook arrived, and hark, that day is here, because now the Nokia Booklet 3G is all, like, official and spec’ed up. Have a look at the official page, or at this Nokia Booklet 3G review, if you don’t believe us.

So what of these details, what can we read into the specs? Well, lots. Mostly good, once not so good. All the good bits you’ll find in the reviewy type links above, but these all become exceptionally impressive when you add them to just how darn good this thing looks. It looks like a high class laptop, while most netbooks look like cheap platicky things at best, poor kid’s toys at worst. Then there’s the Nokia 3G Booklet’s battery. Or it’s BATTERY, we should say. 12 hours of use from a single charge? Yes please, sailor, yes please indeed.

As always in this life of ours, there is one gripe: that of price. There’s nothing official out there just as yet, but our keen blogging ears are picking up something along the lines of £500. Which, when you can pick up the likes of the NC10 for half that, might be a sticking point. Speaking of sticking points… we fancy some cereal. So, off to the video below for you lot.

A computer in your pocket… A PC in the palm of your hand… A desktop on the go…

You’ve heard them all in relation to mobile phones before and you’ve become weary. So weary you can barely even get up these days, in fact. So tired with the lies and the self-aggrandising and posturing of all these mobile phone manufacturers, in fact, that you’re not even sure how you can carry on any more.

Well, our despondent friend, the answer is: you should carry merrily on along life’s highway with one of these in your pocket, because the N900 is just what all these other chumps have been promising and failing to deliver all along. Okay, so it’s not actually a PC, not really as powerful as a desktop, not in essence a computer. But, in terms of mobile phone computing, there is simply nothing that even comes close. Linux-powered, 1GB of processing RAM, a hefty graphics card, high speed internet access, up to 48GB storage… we’ve four laptops sat around here from only a couple of years ago that are cowering behind filing cabinets in fear of this thing.

But the best thing about all of the above is that you can happily ignore it. Because another thing manufacturers will do is stick lots of impressive stats in your face, shout and scream about this and that, but when it comes down to it, the thing doesn’t actually work very well. Worried about that with the Nokia N900? Then just have a look at the video below.

Nuff said, right?

Well, after this Nokia N900 review, and then after this official stats page. Then that is mos’ def’ nuff said. A’ight?