The BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) 8520 Curve, code-named “Gemini” once upon a time, is the first in a new family of optical trackpad-toting smartphones from RIM. Back in the days of the 8700, many old-schoolers cried foul when their beloved jog wheel was to be replaced with a trackball in the original Pearl 8100, but most welcomed the new input with open arms – after all, it was certainly worth a slight loss in precision for something way cooler, right? It didn’t take long for apps to take advantage of the multicoloured LEDs inside the Pearl, then manufacturers to pump out customized trackballs when those lights were replaced with straight white ones in newer models.

Aside from occasionally getting grit stuck underneath, the trackball had a good run on BlackBerry, supporting devices all the way through the latest Tour and Curve models. Now we’re on the brink of similar transition, this time with trackballs exiting stage left. Based on what we’ve seen of the upcoming Onyx, and supposedly the updated Wi-Fi Tour, the trackpad will be the new standard for BlackBerry, with the odd SurePress device thrown in for kicks.

Now, the BlackBerry 8520 isn’t what you’d call the higher-end of the Curve line, but the slick new design does carry it a long way. Hit the jump for the full review!

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Those kind people at ALK Technologies have sorted me out with a copy of CoPilot Live for my iPhone, following my original post (here) on it’s release.

Interestingly, I just had a mount for the iPhone fitted to my car, so I was more than keen to give this App a go and see if it competes with standalone GPS modules that you attached to the windscreen. By my reckoning, a key thing about Sat Nav Apps (and much the same with standalone devices) is whether they thrash your battery, so I was relieved that my iPhone mount also doubles as a charging unit – leaving the worry of my battery behind for the moment. Anyway, more about the CoPilot App.

For this first impressions post, I decided I wanted a use-case that would mirror the situation of just getting the App, and then needing it suddenly. Fortunately that didn’t take very long, as we were off to visit friends who had moved house (and thus in a new location) at the weekend.

Having downloaded and installed the App (didn’t take too long), I popped the iPhone 3GS in to the car mount, flipped on the GPS (I usually have it turned off to conserve battery), and fired up the App.

Everything was blindingly simple. A little pop-up wizard gives you options of what you want to do, and I wanted to navigate via postcode. In the background the App was checking satellites, after I had given it permission to use my GPS location. I’d assume you might be able to triangulate your position using WiFi/3G if no GPS was available, but I didn’t test that.

Now, the App costs £25 in the UK, and that compares very favourably with the two other big contenders, Navigon and TomTom – they both come in around the £55-60 mark. I was wondering whether the lower cost would mean reduced performance or features – and with my first impressions review it was the performance I was doubly concerned about. I need not have worried – once I got past the keyboard for inputting the postcode (it’s not a QWERTY layout, which isn’t logical to me), then we were locked on and ready to go in a matter of seconds.

During the course of the 30 minute journey, the App was absolutely spot-on with it’s instructions, and the map was VERY clear indeed – way better than my standalone legacy Sat Nav. The vocal directions were good, and rather to the point: “take next turn” was common instead of “take the next turn” – which is merely me being picky about natural language support.

Overall though, the App was very responsive, accurate, and even the projected time of arrival was dynamically adjusted and ended up being very accurate indeed. So overall, an excellent result from a real use-case that many people might experience.

I’d heartily recommend this App based on basic usage, and I’d suspect the more advanced features will be good too – I’ll hopefully have some more real-world use cases to try them soon. In the meanwhile I wonder how the higher-priced solutions are going to compete and differentiate themselves, as CoPilot Live for the iPhone is very, very good indeed!

You can find CoPilot Live for the iPhone on the App Store, under the Navigation category.

I’ve waited with this article for quite some time now, trying to find good arguments to suggest our readers to go on and grab the N97, but honestly I couldn’t. Again, this is not to say the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N97 is a bad device – it’s just too expensive for what it offers.

Sure there’s 32GB of built-in storage, but I’m sure people would appreciate more the 4GB version for 200 bucks/euros/pounds less. Unfortunately, that kind of N97 doesn’t exist.

Plus and again unfortunately, that’s not the only bad thing about the N97, as I pointed in my previous article. That keyboard, slow CPU/insufficient RAM, plus the user interface are the main points for NOT buying the device. Keyboard especially, since we all know Nokia knows how to make decent keyboards from their other models such as the E75, E90, E71, and so on. On the same note, from the leaked photos of the so called N97 mini, we see it will come with similar keys which is a bad thing. Waiting for the first Maemo phone is all that high-end Nokia handset users can do at this stage, or at least that’s my take.

Anyway, the summary is – don’t buy the N97! It has all the bells and whistles of the high-end device (GPS, WiFi, compass, 5 megapixel camera, etc), but all that could be made to work in a much better way. Replacing a CPU is one thing that could make a huge difference and make the device respond much faster — but that would kill the margins. This way, Nokia kills its fans, which is a sad thing. Hopefully, the upcoming N900 Rover will be a completely different story — can’t wait to give it a try.

So, the N97 didn’t make as big of a splash as we were expecting – that hardly means it’s the only card up Nokia (NYSE: NOK)’s ample sleeve. During their Mobile World Congress ‘09 announcement, the N86 showed a lot of promise as Nokia’s first handset with an 8 megapixel camera. The two-way sliding form factor had been polished with the N85, and the high-end cameraphone market was heating up with Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE)’s C905, the Samsung Memoir and LG Renoir – surely the N86 would be able to duke it out with these rivals. After using it for a little over a week now, I’m finding that despite my overall cluelessness with S60 and even chewing through classic T9 texting, the N86’s high quality camera kept me very excited to hold onto this phone.

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I’ve written a couple of posts in the last few days (here and here) on the Groovemaker software, mainly because I was completely blown-away by it – being able to generate a seamless mix of music, in such an easy way, literally means you could do a live warm-up set at any friends’ party, just with your iPhone!! It is THAT good, seriously.

Now the best bit about the original App was that it’s free – but there are some other variants of the App which have a premium fee, and purchasing them allows you to move in to other genres of music, and get additional tracks to mastermix.

So to recap let’s look at what there is:

Range, pricing and availability:

There are 4 GrooveMaker applications already available and 4 more to come soon for every dance music style, including a fully functional FREE version that you can download to start making music right away!

GrooveMaker FREE

- House and Hip-Hop styles, 125 loops included (78-125 BPM), FREE

GrooveMaker Club

- Techno, Trance and House styles, 189 loops included (130-135-145 BPM), $4.99/€3.99

GrooveMaker Hip-Hop

- Hip-Hop style, 315 loops included (80-85-90-100 BPM), $9.99/€7.99

GrooveMaker House

- House style, 315 loops included (120-123-125-127 BPM) $9.99/€7.99

I’ve done something very unusual with these Apps – I’ve paid for them all! Normally I get my Apps on a review basis, and as a result there’s no fee – but these Apps were so good that I wanted them immediately, before any voucher codes had been generated – and I don’t regret it for a second. The brilliance of the FREE App was matched by the Hip-Hop App – another genre I love, and there are a bonkers amount of sounds for you to experiment with!

The best bit about the App is that it’s very intuitive – I could ramble on about the amazing randomizer pads that let you mix in a pre-selected (random) set of sounds in to your track/mix, or the astonishingly big soundbank – but I won’t – instead I’ll say BUY the FREE App, then once you love that, go and grab the others too.

I love this App – just in case it wasn’t clear

All these GrooveMaker applications are already available for download and purchase from the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes App Store. However I’d check out http://www.GrooveMaker.com if you want a really good set of videos demos on how the App works – trust me, its quite awesome!

You want a first impression? How about this one: AWESOME, JUST AWESOME.

Yep, I could probably find a lot of other superlatives to describe the wonderment that is Groovemaker by IK Multimedia, but awesome works just nicely for me – this is easily the best App I’ve found for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform yet – but why?

Well, I suppose that if you are going to invest time in a leisure application, you want to get back something from it – immersion, excitement, humour – and probably a ton of other feelings too – and I think that’s the crux of why Groovemaker is so good – it immerses you completely in what you are doing, and allows you to produce something of your own doing, that sounds incredibly professional (there’s your enjoyment right there!). I suppose it’s a bit like the Guitar Hero of the DJ/Producer world, for a mobile device.

Now as an ex-DJ myself, I’m a bit OCD about the layering and quality of sound, but once this App has unpacked all the data, it’s super-quick to launch and start creating your own grooves – there is a literally crazy amount of samples, loops, and FX to play with, and snapping them in to some kind of synchronised mix is simplicity itself.

Oh and that’s probably the other thing – the software is intuitive, so that you can get your head round how it works quite easily – I just watched a couple of demo videos and I was hot to trot on the wheels of steel virtual buttons of DJ production!

Seriously, this App is superb – and given there’s a free version to get you started, what have you got to lose? I’ll tell you – nothing! Try it out and be amazed by the live mix you can create and tweak. Possibly a good idea to pop the headphones in first….

Check out IK Multimedias Groovemaker on the App Store – search ‘Groovemaker’.

IntoMobile’s UK Bureau Chief, Ben, just got his hands on the GSM variant of the Novatel MiFi 2352 Total Mobile Internet device, and we’ve got the video to prove it! We’ve been playing with the Sprint (NYSE: S) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) MiFi variants for a few months now, but those have been CDMA units locked to their respective carriers. The launch of the GSM MiFi 2352 heralds in a new age of unlocked portable 3G hotspots that can roam GSM networks with abandon. Of course, the GSM MiFi is still a Europe-only deal, but we’re biting our nails in anticipation of the US launch.

Watch as Ben gets to play with his MiFi 2352!

Hands on Novatel’s MiFi 2352 for GSM networks from IntoMobile on Vimeo.

The Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) Satio (previously known as the Idou) has already had a reasonable go-over on video, but in case you wanted to see more of the 12 megapixel heavyweight, a beefy 25-minute review has been cooked up, going over the body, main menu, web browsing, and, of course, the camera. It’s probably worth checking out the gallery of still pictures taken with the Satio as well – merely packing in the megapixels isn’t a guarantee for a good camera, but it sure does help, considering some of the test shots taken.  For avid photographers looking for a solid backup camera, or more casual picture-takers looking to ditch their point-and-shoot, expect the Satio to land in stores this October for under €600.

Parts two and three after the jump…

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Last week was a crazy week – here at IntoMobile Towers UK, I had not one, not two, but three of the current crop of touch-based smartphones on my desk! I took some time to film some HD videos of all of them (the HTC Hero, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone 3GS, and Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF) TG01), but for right now I’m going to focus on writing some words about one of them – HTC’s newest kid on the block, and an Android-powered one at that – Ladies and Gents, I give you the Hero!

I’m sure most of you are now very familiar with Hero, mainly because of it’s aforementioned Android O/S – but there’s a lot more to it than that – both from a UI perspective, but also as regards the device itself. All the detail comes after the jump, but if you don’t have the time, or can’t be bothered, let me summarise for you here:

Verdict: GREAT handset – really good! Slightly quirky design belies a gorgeous looking UI, great responsive Apps, and ultimately a superb first Android device from HTC. If you don’t want an iPhone, buy this. Now.

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BlackBerry lovers using CDMA networks have been jumping for joy since the BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Tour first peeped its head into the blogosphere as a concept sketch bearing the codename Niagara. Its development alongside the Bold lead to high hopes for a simultaneous release, but as is usually the case for CDMA BlackBerrys, many had to wait upwards of eight months after the belated AT&T (NYSE: T) Bold launch before the BlackBerry 9630 Tour came to market in the U.S. The Tour clearly borrows a lot from the Bold and Curve 8900, but introduces a few changes here and there to mix it up, like a one-sided external speaker and new battery door style, but overall it will be a familiar experience for those who have used a traditional BlackBerry.

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