I’m back baby!

Wow. So a lot has happened in the last couple of months. I won’t bore you with those details, but here are the parts relevant to this blog: my E90 developed awful microphone hiss a whole year after starting to use it. If you will recall, this problem was one of the annoyances plaguing the initial batch of E90’s in July 2007 – took mine an entire year to catch up. Oh well. I got it replaced while visiting Dubai this past summer (also complained about the screen markings from the keyboard, which mine had), and the kind folks at Emirates Computers (Nokia agents) replaced it with a new BLACK one. This thing is AWESOME. The keys are flattened so they dont touch the screen when the Communicator is closed; i find them to have better tactile feedback as well. The screen has a better antiglare coating on it, less purple tint. All keys, inside and out, have better tactile feedback. The colour is shiny metallic black. It came with a wiping cloth because the thing is fingerprint magnet 😛 Then I received an E71 from a friend who deals in mobile phones a couple weeks ago. I wanted to try it out, and was having a great time with it, until it got stolen while I was staying at a hotel for a conference. So now its back to the black E90.

B00yah

I love my E90. Seriously. But sometimes, very rarely, something *sweet* comes along to challenge that love. And after months of speculation, rumour and hearsay, that something was officially announced this morning in London.

The Nokia E71. Out in July (hopefully) and looking fabulous. Complete specs here. Detailed hands-on reviews here and here with fantastic photos. More on this to follow.

New firmware v210.34.75

So… before v200.34.73 could roll out to all regions, Nokia puts out a new v210.34.75 for almost every region. If yours isn’t on Nokia Software Update or the version checker, do not worry – I think it’ll be just a matter of a couple days. This one appears to be a finalized version of v200.x.x, although I haven’t been able to update mine. I keep getting a ‘Phone Recovery’ error, where USB communication is lost between phone and computer. Forums/user comments on All About Symbian and My-Symbian are reporting problems with sites with Flash content crashing Web quite often. I’m still wondering whether I should update or not….

E90 Owners’ Meeting in Japan

This took place last September, but I’ve only just discovered it. Some kind of get-together for E90 owners in Japan, and I have no idea what they’re talking about since I don’t speak Japanese. Looks like a lot of fun at any rate. Any translators?

Video converter for Mac users

Mac users have a great new video conversion tool in the  Internet Tablet Video Converter by Nokia Beta Labs, available for Windows as well of course.

I’ve been using Core Player for viewing AVI/MPG/DIVX/XVID videos without any conversion whatsoever on my N95-2, and it runs perfectly. The E90 is a different story sadly – I tend to get a lot of frequent pausing in the video, even though the audio plays fine so it ends up all skippy… not fun to watch.

The Internet Tablet Video Converter downsamples a little, but its very watchable on the E90 screen. Its pretty quick to convert (especially on a Mac), and its free, so give it a whirl!

The return of Theme Tuesday

I’ve been slacking with this site for a while now, but I hope to change that soon. Here are some nice themes which render well on the E90 and look very sweet:

Nokia Intelllisync (quite old but discovered recently)

Nseries Dark by Bongoman

Firmware 200.34.73 out for some regions

Flavour 73 is available for certain regions, but still rolling out very slowly. I have the Arabian Mocha E90 (0544406) and the new firmware is still not available, so I am using the APAC region code 0546002 currently with the new firmware.

CP-285 case by Nokia at Expansys now

The CP-285 case is now available on special order from Expansys in the UK and the US. The UK site has a 4 day waiting period, and the US one 7 days, as of April 7. 

EDIT: It seems to be available on all of Expansys’ regional sites with varying number of days for stock order. Reader Oliver, I hope this helps you in the Philippines!

New E90 firmware debuts… then gets pulled!

Firmware v200.x has been released! v200.34.72 was released on April 4 on Nokia Software Update then quickly removed, which might be explained by a couple of glaring bugs that appeared when using Web and Maps, as pointed out by the magnificent Steve Litchfield. 

If you look on the Blackberry client download page for Nokia, it has the new v8.9.1 for firmware v200.34.73, and not 200.34.72 as was released by Nokia on NSU. Flavour 73 should be coming down the pipelines any day now – keep watching this space.

Why the enormous leap in firmware version number though, I wonder….

N95-1 spotted in Knight Rider!

 Just got done watching the premiere of the new Knight Rider “movie” on NBC, and lo and behold! An N95 in the hands of the lead bad guy! I’ve put “movie” in quotes since it may well turn out not to be a movie at all, but in fact the series premiere of a new series starting in fall of 2008. I find it sacrilegious that they used a Mustang for KITT. Seriously? Here’s the video I took of the TV screen, of the N95 in action: