Nokia Intrigue for Verizon hands-on

Nokia isn't typically known for its virtually non-existent CDMA fare, but the situation's gotten better in the last year or so -- ostensibly to capitalize on Nokia's already commanding position in the Chinese market, but also possibly to help the boys and girls from Espoo win some points with Verizon ahead of the LTE migration. It's no secret that Nokia intends to invest big in LTE, and seeing how Verizon is one of the larger carriers in the world, it only stands to reason that manufacturers would be doing everything in their power right now to get in on the ground floor.

To that end, Nokia has worked with Verizon to introduce the 2605 and 6205 in recent months, but let's be very honest -- they're forgettable devices with little to differentiate them from their countless competitors in the dog-eat-dog midrange. They're not phones that you aspire to own.

Enter the Intrigue. This is the phone has Nokia screaming "we do give a crap about CDMA" from the tops of the hills; a phone so good, so pretty, and so uncharacteristically Nokia for this market segment, that we're a little bewildered by the whole thing. Read on for our quick take.

So let's just get this out on the table upfront: the software on the Intrigue is Verizon through and through. If you were hoping for a stock Series 40 device, look elsewhere (and don't bother looking anywhere on Verizon's shelves). The status bar will be immediately recognized by anyone who owns a Verizon feature phone of the last several years -- right down to the divided EV / 1X signal strength meter. In a way, that's a shame, because the latest generations of Series 40 are really slick, capable platforms -- but this is Verizon we're talking about here, so we're not the least bit surprised to see any trace of it wiped from the Intrigue's silicon brain.

On the plus side, the Intrigue introduces something that Nokia and Verizon are calling "Habitat Mode," a pretty cool interactive contact-centric home screen. As the name sorta implies, Habitat Mode has an environmental theme (as does the rest of the phone -- more on that in a moment) with animated wallpapers that change over time and layered icons that represent contacts. As people call you -- and vice versa -- these icons are automatically created and float at random on the screen, representing a chronological history of your communication. By pressing the d-pad in the down direction, you can call up the icons and access complete call histories for each of them, delete them, and modify them. Useful? Not particularly, but a welcome break from the typical home screen monotony.

Back to the Intrigue's environmental tie-in: the companies are aggressively marketing this phone as eco-friendly. The box is seriously one of the smallest we've ever seen a phone come in -- even smaller that the Motorola Renew -- the default screen and keypad dimming is ultra-quick at just 7 seconds (many folks will want to adjust this), and the charger's specially designed to draw just tiny nibbles of electricity. Nokia has been on the forefront of pushing toward more Earth-conscious manufacturing and retail strategies the past couple of years, and we think some of the initiatives we're seeing with the Intrigue here probably represent the future of the way phones will be sold and operated.

In terms of usability, the Intrigue is at the top of its game -- especially considering how fashionable it is. Normally, usability and style are at loggerheads, but this one manages to balance the two pretty perfectly. The main display is bright and crisp, the keypad is amazingly usable and tactile considering that they're not "real" buttons, and the outer display is one of the largest, brightest, most useful secondary displays we've ever seen on a flip. The concealed OLED is frickin' huge -- it practically covers the entire surface of the phone -- and immediately below it you'll find illuminated, touch-sensitive music controls. Well done.

Convert video to nokia intrigue with the mobile phone video converter

We're going to go ahead and make a bold statement here: this could very well be the best clamshell feature phone both Verizon and Nokia have ever released. Never mind the CDMA, never mind the regrettable lack of Series 40 -- the Intrigue rocks. It's extraordinarily comfortable and solid in the hand (we'd go so far to say that we want to touch it), it looks as great as it feels -- we'd definitely call it a premium design -- and if you can get past the normal Verizon firmware woes, the software's reasonably snappy and usable; if we had one complaint, it'd be that we'd like a couple more notches of volume on both the earpiece and the speakerphone, and a true 3.5mm headphone jack would've been a nice touch, too. That being said, look, Nokia: for the sake of the rest of the world, remix this bad boy with GSM, sell it unlocked with Series 40 and HSDPA, and you've got a serious device on your hands. Trust us.

Nokia E63 Preliminary Review

BY: Awright, Brighthand.com Contributor
PUBLISHED: 3/8/2009

The Nokia E63 is a Symbian S60 QWERTY smartphone. Most will look at it and easily mistake it for the Samsung BlackJack II, Palm Treo 755, or the BlackBerry Bold. All four devices are similar in their design, application, and approach. However, the E63 represents something of response from Nokia to bolster its appearance in the low and mid-range market segments, where most of the purchasing power with consumers lie. And so far in my impressions, I can say it nailed the target.

How to convert video to nokia E63 on PC.

Build and Design
Though it looks similar to the Nokia E71, another QWERTY smartphone, the E63 is considerably thicker, and slightly underspecced. This is to ensure its marketing position below that of the E71, and at the same time to allow the E63 some distinction of its own.

In addition to the aforementioned keyboard, the E63 features a 320-by-240-pixel (QVGA) screen in the landscape view. Offering some striking colors and contrasts, it works well in office or direct sunlight.

There are not many buttons surrounding the E63. The top has a covered 3.5 mm headset jack -- better than that of the E71 -- and that's it. The power button on the E71 has been moved to the End Call button. The sides are also bare of volume or voice recorder buttons, having only having two covered slots for the Micro-USB and microSDHC memory card slots.

The rear is likewise bare, featuring only a the 2.0 megapixel camera (with flash and auto-focus) to break up the one-piece battery cover.

Thankfully, the 1500 mAh battery of the E63 is the same as its E71 stablemate. This battery proved to be quite the champion in that model and I'm looking forward to similar results for the E63 once its broken in.

Performance
In general, Nokia E63 maintains the S60 look-and-feel -- which is a positive to some, a detriment to others.

Thankfully, the enhanced Active Standby screen first featured on the E71 makes it way here too. This screen adds not only better notification icons for voicemail, email, and SMS, but also the contact search feature that is pretty handy.

The E63 is chock full of applications that make it easy to just get up and use. I've not encountered anything that's a limitation yet. In fact, in just jumping into the web browser with Wi-Fi showed a much faster experience than what I am used to with my N95. So in that respect, it looks like the core operating system has been very tweaked for performance too.

At the 2009 Nokia World event, Nokia spoke a lot about its E71 QWERTY smartphone. Much of the praise coming from the fact that not only Nokia's targeted enterprise users were liking it, but the increased multimedia abilities endeared it to consumers as well. The E63 is in respects a further, and less expensive, solution in the same guise. And while they look very similar, the E63 benefits from some lessons learned as well as a much more accessible price point.

Stay tuned for the full Nokia E63 review coming in a few weeks.

BlackBerry Javelin and BlackBerry Niagara explained

(Posted by The Boy Genius )There was a little bit of confusion with the 3G-less BlackBerry 9000 we posted. We heard two different codenames: Javelin and Niagara. Well, we were just told some more information on both devices. It seems the BlackBerry codenamed Niagara is actually an EV-DO device slated to hit Verizon in May of 2009. That seems a long way away but here are the specs on that model:

"Large screen family"
QWERTY keyboard
480×360 LCD
EV-DO Rev. A
aGPS
3.2 megapixel camera
4.7 OS platform
BES 5.0 support (HTML email, etc)
Qualcomm MSM7600 processor

That’s the Niagara review simply. What about the BlackBerry Javelin? Well, here you go:

QWERTY keyboard
480×360 LCD
Quad-band GSM/EDGE
GPS
Wi-Fi
3.2 megapixel camera
4.6 OS platform
BES 5.0 support as well
ArgonV processor

Both devices look extremely similar in physical appearance, thus the confusion. So, look at that. You just got two devices for the price of one. Who's out there in Verizon land and excited for this one? May of next year, though…doesn’t seem right does it? Then again, you never know with Big Red.

Tutorial: How to convert DVD to BlackBerry niagara, blackberry storm phone?

Share: Enjoy DVD and Video on your BlackBerry Curve 8900, 8300 etc.

This guide is mainly about how to rip DVD and convert video to BlackBerry Curve 8300, 8900 and other BlackBerry serials such as BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold, Pearl etc.

For most of DVD has CSS copyright protection, we need a program to rip DVD or video to BlackBerry Curve support video formats such as MP4, WMV, AVI, 3GP, AAC, MP3, WMA etc. The tool we use is Wondershare BlackBerry Curve Converter Suite, this program not only supports BlackBerry Curve 8300, 8900, but also BlackBerry Bold 9000, Blackberry Storm, BlackBerry Pearl and other BlackBerry serials.

Now, let’s start the guide about ripping DVD and convert video to BlackBerry Curve or other BlackBerry Serials.

Step 1, Download and install the BlackBerry Curve Converter Suite

Step 2: Import the DVD Files or video to the program

If you want to load DVD files, please run “DVD to BlackBerry Converter”;if you want to import video files, run “Video Converter for BlackBerry” instead.

Step 3: Select output Profile
This software can convert DVD and video to all common formats for BlackBerry Curve 8300 serials, BlackBerry 8900 such as MP4, WMV, AVI, M4A, AAC, MP3 etc. You can select one output format you want to convert as below.

Step 4: Start to convert After you select the output format, all you need to do is clicking the “Start” button. Then you can get a cup of coffee and come back later to check if the conversion is finished.

(Tips: This DVD to BlackBerry Storm Converter offers the option to automatically shut down the computer when the conversion completed.)

It will take about 30 minutes for converting a regular two hours DVD movie. When the conversion finished, click “find target” to located the converted video on your computer, connect your BlackBerry Storm to computer, and then copy the video to your BlackBerry memory card, the rest thing just enjoy the DVD or video on your BlackBerry.