About the Nokia N8

Congratulations, Nokia. The brouhaha surrounding the Nokia N8 is almost as epic as the recent kerfuffle about the iPhone HD (my nomenclature). Fantastic PR Job!

What do you mean that “leak” was not intentional? Oh well, any advertising is good advertising…

So, about the N8. Color me cautiously thrilled. The short of it is that the hardware is spot on (finally), but the verdict is still out on the software (predictably). Or maybe I’m just a sucker for a nice cameraphone :)

Pictures taken with the Motorola Devour

The Motorola Devour shares most of the features of the Motorola CLIQ except the camera, which is downgraded from a competent 5 megapixel unit with autofocus to a terrible 3 MP unit devoid of AF.

It’s possible to make a reasonable 3 megapixel camera without autofocus – see the Sony Ericsson TM717 (Equinox). So what’s wrong here?

SF AppShow

This week I’m attending the SF AppShow…

- What: The SF AppShow discovers and breaks some of the hottest apps
- When: 7 PM, Tuesday April 27, 2010 (doors at 5:30 PM)
- Where: 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco
- Who: Mobile developers, bloggers, and friends

My readers get a 50% discount. See you there!

Unboxing the HTC Incredible

The wait is over – the HTC Incredible is here!

If you are pining for the fjords a Google Nexus One on Verizon, grab this instead – you are getting a better device.

The Incredible gets a nicer camera (8 MP auto-focus with a large lens/sensor & dual LED flash vs. 5 MP auto-focus with single LED flash), adds 8 GB of built-in storage, replaces the scroll ball with an optical trackpad, and runs the Sense UI…

The Nokia 5230 (Nuron) is here

Hot on heels of the Nokia X6, the friendly folks at T-Mobile USA sent me a Nokia 5230 (Nuron) review unit!

Take the Nokia 5800, remove stuff (WiFi, one speaker, the front-facing camera & the stylus), add AWS (1700 MHz) 3G, and swap the 3 MP Zeiss camera (with autofocus and flash) for a basic 2 MP camera (without autofocus or flash) – that’s the Nuron in a nutshell…

Unboxing the Nokia X6

A year and a half ago, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was launched alongside S60v5. Since then? Crickets…

The N97 was a bust. The N97 mini, albeit competent, was too little too late. Symbian touch was only marginally improved, with the addition of widgets and kinetic scrolling – congrats on catching up!

The N900 was a flash in the pan – Maemo 5 was delicious, but the meal was undercooked.

Enter the Nokia X6, the latest S60v5 phone, and Nokia’s first capacitive touchscreen – finally another device to join the ranks of the awesome Samsung i8910.

Repeat after me: capacitive, capacitive, capacitive, capacitive :)

Podcast: Talking with tnkgrl #24 (iPad special)

It’s time for another podcast (37 min):
- Audio version
- Video version

Once again, Matthew Bennett (Nokia Daily News, US Mobile Industry) joined me while Tony Peric (fone frenzy) edited the video… Thanks guys!

This week we covered the Apple iPad launch, and 2 relatives of the Nokia 5800, the Nokia 5230 (Nuron), and the Nokia X6.

Other topics include my thoughts and experiences as an iPhone developer, the iPhone OS 4 announcement, and tech nomad Steven Roberts. Enjoy :)

Click here to subscribe to this podcast.

Unboxing the Apple iPad

Hot on the heels of my unboxing video, here are my unboxing pictures of the Apple iPad!

The verdict after only a few minutes? It’s larger and heavier than I imagined, but it feels solid. It looks so simple, yet it’s beautifully made, just as I expected…

The iPad has landed

It’s here! Apple’s latest wunderkind…

I’ve already shared my take on the iPad, but stay tuned for some unboxing pictures. In the meantime, enjoy the unboxing video after the break :)