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.

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….

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?

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!

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

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.

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!

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….

 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: 

So no new Eseries devices shown at MWC this year. Bummer. The S60 Touch demo itself  looked a bit lame (at least from the videos people have posted around the web) mainly because the lady is essentially scrolling through contacts with a finger and trying to explain what else it can do without demonstrating it, but I do look forward to S60 Touch phones soon. The only outstanding moment for me was the N96 launch.  However, once you get past the flashy new look and the 16GB built-in flash memory as well as microSDHC slot, for me personally it boils down to this: 1. It has a 950 mAh battery. Ouch? 2. Its 4mm longer and 2mm wider than the N95-2, but only 1mm thinner.3. DVB-H. Before you say OMG!… are you going to watch TV on your mobile? No, really. I’m serious. You are? No, you’re not. And if you *are* nodding your head eagerly right now, WHEN? Let’s say DVB-H signals are widespread (even though thats a long time away) around the world, when you’re out and about, you need to listen and watch your chosen media. Your music. Your TV shows (pre-selected, and loaded up on your mobile). Your movies. Not random stuff on publicly broadcast live TV. Listening to random radio when out and about is another thing completely. TV? Not for me, at least…4. The camera just might disappoint. This is completely up in the air for now, till we see some actual images shot by the N96. My reasoning is that the camera, while it has the same Zeiss Tessar 5mp module as the N95-x and N82, also has a focal length of 5.2mm compared to 5.6mm in the latter two. If the CMOS sensor is the same size (which it most likely is), the shorter focal length will degrade output (read: more noise).   Thanks to James Burland of nokiacreative for this image. His excellent blog features a lot of Nseries content if you’re interested…On the positive side, it has a very cool kickstand built-in to the camera lens housing. VERY USEFUL ADDITION! I wish the N95-2 had this feature. Incredibly appropriate, despite its simplicity.  The flash, while LED and not xenon, is now dual and works for video lighting. Love to get your opinions…even though 99% of you people are E90 afficionados, and nothing else will do. Right? ;)