New staff writer Attila Katona has been sitting on this review of Handy Taskman for S60 for a couple of weeks - but I managed to wheedle it out of him! Meanwhile I've been trying the latest (and rival) Best TaskMan and have been equally impressed. Nothing wrong with having two terrific utilities that are both available in trial form...
The fourth edition of the Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics is out now, with Nokia regaining top place as a result of phasing out PVC and meeting or exceeding a wide set of Greenpeace benchmarks, designed to reduce the amount and toxicity of electronic waste piling up in Asia and Africa.
The beta of Opera Mini 4 is now available from the Opera website. The new version renders a full page overview from which you can then zoom in to read the page (very reminiscent of S60's browser overview / minimap mode). Other new features include the introduction of a mouse and power scrolling making it easier to move around pages and a quick access context menu. Read on for more and screenshots.
Projekt, the only genuine 'outliner' for Symbian OS, recently hit S60 3rd Edition. Now that it's available for both current Symbian-based platforms, Asri al-Baker reviews the UIQ 3 version of Projekt and shows how it can be used for everything from project management to shopping lists... And in the second part of a UIQ 3 double bill, Asri explains his top 10 wishlist for UIQ 3 - any developers fancy a challenge?
As predicted last week on AAS, the long-awaited Nokia E90 has finally launched on the 12th/13th of June. The first Nokia E90s have been spotted in stock in various Finnish retailers including the electrical chain Gigantti and the online store Verkkokauppa. Nokia phones often appear in Finland first for obvious reasons, but the E90 should be available sim-free across Europe very soon if not right now. Network Operator locked versions may take some more time to appear however as the operators tend to alter the firmware before releasing a phone. The availability in non-European regions is still unclear.
Not content with making Opera Mini 3, the hands-down best way to browse real world sites on a slow GPRS connection, the folks at Opera want beta testers for their newest project, a complete rewrite of Opera Mini to make it faster and richer, code-named Dimension. You can sign up here.
Nokia has today published the support pages for the upcoming E90. Going by past experience, this means the sim-free E90 will probably become available in European shops within the next week or two (many Finnish retailers have guessed at a launch date of 12th June). The release dates for network-locked and non-European markets are less predictable.
In response to criticism in PC Pro magazine(!) and lots of (well, ok, two) emails, I've added Windows Mobile smartphones back into my Grid of smartphone solutions. Now you can compare the best from the Symbian OS world and its main competitor. As ever, plug in your preferences and watch the magic 8-ball Javascript decide!
...In which I review the Proporta Wireless FM Stereo Transmitter, to let you play your smartphone's music tracks over your car radio. It's built down to a price and isn't unique in the gadget world, but it's small, stylish, works quite well and is unbeatable value.
Symbian has announced their 2007 Smartphone Show, at the usual ExceL centre, on Oct 16/17th, along with a new web site for the event. All About Symbian will be there in force, of course, with an extra gathering, details to be announced.
Projekt, already available for every other Symbian-based interface, has finally hit S60 3rd Edition, with a full spread of compatibility. One of the most mature third party applications in the Symbian OS world, Projekt is an outliner at heart, but with links, notes, import and export options, it can be used to manage projects too.
Proving that AAS is not averse to linking to content relating to rivals(!), Communicator fans will be interested in hearing Michal Jerz interviewed in this week's Voice of S60 audio podcast. Lots of chat about the Communicator's very earliest days and My-Communicator.com, as it was called at the time.
Want another free alternative to Nokia's free Smart2go? Although available unofficially for much of the world for a while now, it seems that Google has made support for Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United Kingdom official for its Google Maps for Mobile Java app. If you've got a meaty data tariff or Wi-Fi, it features mapping, routing, satellite images and a business directory. And traffic info, though this wouldn't work for me. See also their YouTube slideshow.
...In which I review the Proporta Wireless FM Stereo Transmitter, to let you play your smartphone's music tracks over your car radio. It's built down to a price and isn't unique in the gadget world, but it's small, stylish, works quite well and is unbeatable value.
In the next part of our truly huge review of the Nokia E90 Communicator, I look at how it handles Office and other commonly emailed documents, plus I explore what you can (and can't) yet do online in the S60 3rd Edition FP1 Web browser. Warning: broadband needed - this review section is very heavy on images, even after thumbnailing them down.