T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) USA is preparing to launch an entry-level Symbian S60 5th Edition device on March 17th. Apparently, the carrier plans to offer the Nokia 5230 XpressMusic aka Nuron.

As we’ve already talked about the 5230 XM in the past, I’ll only briefly recap the specs: there’s a 3.2-inch nHD touchscreen on board, 2-megapixel camera, HSPA connectivity, aGPS, Bluetooth, memory card slot, and so on. If T-Mobile is smart, they will focus its marketing on the “free navigation” feature that’s now included with Ovi Maps. That could be a killer offering, as far as I can tell. We’ll see…

[Via: CellPhoneSignal]

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) makes phones in several countries spread out over the world, but Salo is special. It’s the only factory that the Finnish company has in Finland, and it’s mainly used for devices that are difficult to produce and require highly skilled workers. Yesterday Nokia announced that it’s cutting 285 people from that Salo factory, or practically 13% of the roughly 2,200 employees working there. With that bad news however also comes some good news, the temporary layoffs that the factory has been having for what feels like forever are coming to a stop by June of this year. The factory is also going to realign their focus to the “high-value smartphone market, especially in Europe”.

What does this mean for you? Well unless you’re one of those people that has to have a “Made in Finland” Nokia this really doesn’t mean anything. If you are one of the previously mentioned anal retentive characters, then you’re going to have an even better chance of getting a “Made in Finland” device.

Two things before I let you go:

• We’ve already seen the game being played on the N900, but this time it’s done using a WiiMote!
• If this doesn’t win (or at least scores high) on Nokia’s N900 hacking competition, I don’t know what will.

Enough said, and now the clip. Enjoy, though note that the video quality isn’t as great, to say the least.

Anyone remember the BlackBerry Application Suite, a project at RIM designed to replace Connect by emulating the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) operating system (and services) on other devices? Well, either some clever Chinese hackers have figured out a way to fake what looks like BlackBerry assets onto other phones, or BAS has actually moved to Nokia (NYSE: NOK) devices, shown here on both the E71 and 5700.

As we know it, BAS only worked with Windows Mobile, so making it to Symbian would be quite a big step in this project, at least as far catching up to the devices Connect supported goes. BAS has been in the works for upwards of three years now, with only the odd hint that it’s still alive. There’s a fair bit of controversy as to whether or not these videos are legit, but I think it’s even cooler if this actually isn’t a RIM-approved affair. There are plenty of good reasons to expect BAS is still kicking, though.

Most corporate grunts will take whatever phone is issued to them, but there are always a token few who insist on supporting their personal favourite, and barring the mass consumer demand for iPhone, that usually leaves the tech-heads who won’t let go of an uberfunctional Windows Mobile or Symbian devices. To be fair, there are bound to be sectors with particular solutions that are only available on WinMo or S60, and necessitate largish non-BlackBerry deployments. End-users aside, BAS does have appeal to mobile administrators who want to be able to control non-BlackBerry devices too, however few there may be in their particular rollout, and covering the Symbian base would be a pretty big part of BAS meeting that demand.

[via Unwired View]

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has unveiled a “sophisticated and compact device” – 6303i classic. It’s an easy to use feature phone with stainless steel covers that follows in the footprints of the Nokia 6303 classic. Features include a 3.2-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, 2.2-inch QVGA display, tri-band GSM connectivity, Bluetooth, 3.5mm AV connector, and a microSD memory card slot. Software wise, Nokia’s S40 platform is running the show and there are a number of pre-installed apps such as web browser, media player, media sharing app, email and IM clients, Ovi Maps, and so on.

The Nokia 6303i classic will start shipping in select markets during the first quarter of 2010, when interested users will be able to grab it in either Matt Black, Steel, Chestnut, Illuvial pink, White/Silver or Khaki/Gold.

I used to argue Nokia should acquire Evernote (among other companies). Now in the effort to get all those Evernote fans, myself included, to like/buy their first Maemo 5-powered device, they’ve released the Evernote Sharing Plug-in that’s almost completely integrated in the N900 mobile experience. There’s no need to launch a separate Evernote app to add something to your notebook – simply take a photo and select Evernote from the list of services.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) took advantage of the Evernote API making the service a part of the N900’s native sharing functionality. And if you want it, it’s in the Ovi Store. Install it, and forget about it…

Next stop is to make the full-fledged Evernote client for browsing notes (with offline support) to make the experience faster.

In the meantime, check out the demo video of Evernote Sharing Plug-in running on the Nokia N900. That’s after the jump, of course.

Read the full article »

Mobile media network Greystripe announced support for Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Ovi Store. This means two things:

• First, they’ll migrate around existing 1,200 Gamejump.com Java titles (mostly games) into the Ovi Store.
• Second, a new self service web-based portal for developers is created to ad-enable their Java/Symbian apps.

Finally, Greystripe concluded that in total they now support top three smartphone marketplaces: the iPhone AppStore, the Android Marketplace, and Nokia’s Ovi App Store…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Cseries and Xseries rang of devices was discovered by Aleksi Moisio, writing for Finnish news site Digitoday, way back in July of last year. We all know about the Xseries, such as the X6, the first Nokia smartphone with a capactivie touch screen, and the Nokia X3, a lesser known, but highly important music phone for emerging economies. They were announced back in early September 2009. The Cseries is still a mystery however, but it may be going live this month at Mobile World Congress if the images below of the leaked C5 are any indication. What you’re looking at is a fairly low end, by 2010 standards, device with a 2.2 inch screen, 3.2 megapixel camera, running S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, with GPS, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack. The price point will be the interesting part of this device. Considering the Nokia 5230 is roughly 150 EUR and has a 3.2 inch touch screen and GPS, what do you think this will cost? 120 EUR, or lower? Maybe Nokia’s first sub 100 EUR smartphone? We’ll find out in less than two weeks.

Am I the only one who thinks that home key and back space key are ridiculously tiny?

[Via: Daily Mobile]

Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s Ovi Maps with free navigation has been downloaded over 1.4 million times in only 7 days.

As of 31 January 2010 the top five countries downloading the new version of Ovi Maps were: China, Italy, UK, Germany and Spain. The top five most popular Nokia devices installing the download were: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia N97, Nokia 5230 and Nokia E72.

I would have downloaded it to check it out, but sadly my mobile phone is not compatible (Nokia E71), and I don’t plan on buying a new handset just to use Ovi since Google (NSDQ: GOOG) maps works just fine for me. Google’s Android operating system has free turn by turn navigation as well, but it only works on Android 1.6 and up, and only in North America. How many months do you think it’ll take Google to catch up and offer not only free turn by turn navigation for everyone around the world, and more importantly add the single feature that Ovi Maps has that Google Maps doesn’t, the ability to store maps on a memory card to save on data usage?

Press release after the jump.

Read the full article »

Mike Manos may not be a household name, but in the data center world this guy is Bono. He setup Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT)’s XBOX Live servers, new Azure servers, Hotmail servers, Messenger Servers, basically everything except Bing. He left Microsoft 9 months ago to work for Digital Realty Trust, but in the end he got a job offer from Finland’s largest company, and the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer, that he couldn’t refuse. Effective immediately Mike Manos is the Vice President of Service Operations at Nokia (NYSE: NOK). That should give you an idea as to where the company plans to take Ovi, they’re hiring a guy who has built server farms powering some of the largest internet applications today.

The problem is that Ovi services are not competitive with what’s on the market today and the parts of the world where it is successful are due to the fact that the people living in those remote villages have never been on the web and Ovi is quite literally their first experience of the internet. Someone has to pay for that server farm, and it isn’t going to be that farmer in India who saved up 6 months of his salary to buy a $20 Nokia.

[Via: NY Times, Loose Bolts]
[Image Via: Geek in Disguise]