Nokia finally has a flagship phone here in the US. The new Nokia Lumia 900 is a uniquely styled device based off of the design of the Nokia N9 but with a larger screen, 4G LTE for AT&T here in the States, and one huge factor, it’s running Windows Phone 7. Since Nokia’s partnership with Microsoft people have been waiting for Nokia to launch a premier device (with the marketing and styling such device warrants) and that time has come. So let us put it through the paces and see if this is a device worth checking out.

Pros:

• Design, furnished from one piece of polycarbonate (aka plastic) for a unique and sleek look.
• Windows Phone is smooth and “touchable”, makes you want to use it.
• 4G LTE is fast (here in NYC at least)
• Camera quality is impressive in most lighting
• Facebook integration is well done and a big seller for Windows Phone
• Most major apps I use on a daily basis are in the Marketplace
• Inexpensive
• Xbox Live games feel more like “proper” games, have achievements that show up on your Xbox account.
• Ability to remove bloatware just as easily as any downloaded app.

Cons:

• Lack of apps in the app store, but more are arriving every day.
• Lack of a good Google Maps application.
• Apps aren’t the fastest at notifying you of certain events (i.e. Any of the Gtalk apps I’ve used log you out as soon as the phone sleeps, so they don’t notify me of new messages until I reopen the app).

This accessory was provided by Wireless Emporium, go check them out!

 Ever see an Android device with a slide out QWERTY keyboard and wonder what that would be like? Don’t want to give up your iPhone to find out? No problem. Today we have a possible solution for you; a Bluetooth iPhone case with a slide out QWERTY keyboard. Simply sync it with your bluetooth on your iPhone 4 or 4S, snap it on, and slide out the keyboard to start typing away.

Question is, is it all it’s cracked up to be? Let’s find out.

Pros

• Physical keyboard gives tactile feedback so will be faster to type for some.
• Protects your phone (slightly) while wearing it.

Cons

• Space bar is not centered like on a conventional keyboard (which drives me nuts).
• The regular onscreen keyboard seems to not work whenever the slide out keyboard is connected via Bluetooth so you have to slide out the keyboard to type anything.

This accessory was provided by Wireless Emporium, go check them out!

This accessory was provided by Wireless Emporium, go check them out!

In my own personal mission to try and lengthen the life of my smartphone’s battery, I’ve used portable chargers, solar chargers, and even spare batteries. Personally the only one of the those options that significantly extends my battery’s life (by double of course) is using a spare battery. Now, there are a few inconveniences that come along with that of course. Among them is, batteries aren’t cheap, it’s annoying to carry around another battery in your pocket, and that in order to have both chargered you need to fully charge your original battery and then take it out and put in the spare and wait for that to charge as well. This last issue is probably the biggest pain for me, but thanks to the guys over at Wireless Emporium, we were sent a way to at least fix that problem; a universal spare battery charger. Let’s see if it works.

Pros:

• Allows you to charge both your batteries (the original and the spare) at the same time without the need to carry the phone’s original charger.
• Allows you to charge your phone as normal once a night when you go to sleep (and the spare battery).
• Relatively inexpensive.

Cons:

• Obviously doesn’t work on any phones where the battery isn’t removable (aka iPhones, etc.)
• Must buy a spare battery for it to help (and they aren’t cheap).

This accessory was provided by Wireless Emporium, go check them out!

Recommended Apps for Use with the S Pen

• TouchNote
• Zen Brush Free
• ComicBook!
• TouchRetouch Free
• Catch Notes
• Soonr Scribble
• iAnnotate PDF Lite
• Polaris Office
• Skitch
• OmniSketch
• Sketchbook Mobile
• PicSay

Recommended Games for Use with the S Pen

• Draw Something
• Angry Birds
• Fruit Ninja
• Flick Golf
• Where’s My Water

I. S Memo Lite

If you need to take a quick note and don’t need all the features of the S Memo app at the moment, you can easily bring up the S Memo Lite version.

1. Remove the S Pen from the device’s holster.

2. Hold the Button down and tap the screen with the pen twice.

3. The S Memo Lite app will appear and the pen will automatically be set to the simple, black stroke setting.

4. Write your note and hit Save.

5. You can then access the note later by going to the S Memo regular app.

Tips for the S Memo Lite App

• You can change from the pen, pencil, paint brush, or highlighter by tapping the pen icon at the top.
• To undo your drawing, tap the left-facing arrow at the top.
• To erase with a stroke instead of undoing, use the eraser icon at the top.

II. Annotation and Screen Shots

One great little trick the Galaxy Note can do, is to take screenshots on the device instantly and then be able to draw or annotate them.

1. Get to whatever screen you want to take a screenshot of.

2. Remove the S Pen from the device’s holster.

3. Hold the Button down on the S Pen and then hold the S Pen on the screen for a few seconds.

4. The screen will flash white letting you know when you have taken a screenshot.

5. After that the image editor will automatically open allowing you to annotate the image as needed.

6. Once done, hit Save.

Tips for taking Screenshots

• You can crop the image by selecting the crop tool at the top left, circle whatever you want then hit Done to crop out just what you circled.
• Screenshots are also automatically saved to the clipboard on the device. This means after taking a screenshot, you can Cancel or Save out of the image editor that popped up, and then simply paste the last screenshot you took into any memos, emails, or documents on the device.
• You can use the cross of arrows button to move around the image and even pinch to zoom. Once you get to where you want in the image click the pen button again to revert to editing mode.
• Hitting Share, automatically saves the image and allows you to then share it with any number of third party services like Facebook, Email, etc.

This is bound to be a nice change from Gingerbread and could be a great stepup until HTC outs ICS for these devices officially.  But being labeled a ‘work in progress’, the ROM does have a few nags – no camera, wifi hotspot or usb tethering currently – and proxuser is working hard to fix these issues on both the devices, so the next version (v3.3) could see all or at least some of these problems disappearing.

You can get more details on the port for the Desire S here and for the Desire HD here.

Source

“Is it a phone? Is it a tablet? It’s the best of both!” Or is it? With Samsung’s huge marketing push for their new Android powered Galaxy Note, I’m sure you’ve heard the opening line before. In our review, we take a look at the claim of it being a sort of “tablet-phone” and also what some of the pros and cons of the device are.

Let us know what you think of the Samsung Galaxy Note in the comments below.

Pros

• Large screen good for watching movies, surfing the web.
• S Pen stylus gives you more precision with certain apps and unique features
• Dual core processors makes for a relatively snappy experience
• Good battery life

Cons

• Large screen is, well, large. MIght be too large for some.
• Custom UI slows the device down slightly and doesn’t help much (besides the features like screenshot and the S pen apps).

I. Before You Begin

1. This shouldn’t effect your current MeeGo setup, but as a precaution please do a backup.

2. This can be a dangerous procedure so please be careful, especially when typing in commands etc.

3. These instructions are for a Windows computer.

II. Flash the Dual-Boot Kernel

1. On your device go to Settings > Security > Device Lock > Autolock and turn it OFF.

2. Download the Flasher program from here to flash the N9 with (WinFlasher-3.12.1.exe)

3. Install it to your computer and install it to the folder C:\Program Files\Nokia\Flasher\ when prompted.

4. Turn off the Nokia N9 and make sure it is NOT plugged in to the computer.

5. Download NaviFirm from here, unzip it, and install it on your computer.

6. Open NaviFirm and then select the Nokia N9 from the far left list, then select 30.2012.7.1 from the second list, then look for your version of the Nokia N9 in the last list (you can better decide by looking under the SIM tray for the 7 character identifier, type in that identifier in the last list to easily find your version) and select it.

7. After it is selected click Unmark all at the top, then look through that list and only check the one that starts with DFL61 AND has the word LEGACY in it.

8. Then click on “Browse” next to “Save to” on the right and choose the folder C:\Program Files\Nokia\Flasher\ and also uncheck the “Use productcode as final path”

9. Then click Download.

10. Next, download the Kernel file from here and save it inside the folder C:\Program Files\Nokia\Flasher\

11. Open the command prompt on your computer by opening the start menu and typing cmd in the search box and hitting enter.

12. In the command prompt type the following with hitting enter at the end of each line:

cd C:\Program Files\Nokia\Flasher
flasher -a DFL61_HARMATTAN_30.2012.07-1_PR_LEGACY_005-OEM1-958_ARM.bin -k zImage –flash-only=kernel -f -R

*in the above command please note that 005 not 001 after LEGACY, and please not the two hyphens before flash (–).

13. After hitting enter at the last line, plug the USB cable into the phone first then plug the other end into the computer and wait a few seconds for it to start flashing the phone.

III. Install Sillyboot

1. Unplug your phone from the computer and turn it on if it isn’t on already.

2. On your device, go to Settings > Security > Developer Mode and turn it ON. This will restart the device and download some apps, say yes to all the prompts.

3. Plug the phone back in to the computer via USB and select USB Storage mode so we can transfer files to it.

4. Download the Sillyboot file from here and save it to your computer.

5. Copy the Sillyboot file to the Nokia N9 in the MyDocs folder.

6. Unplug the device.

7. Open Terminal on the Nokia N9 and type the following into it with hitting enter at the end of each line (when asked for a password put in rootme):

devel-su
tar xjvf /home/user/MyDocs/sillyboot.tar.bz2 -C /

IV. Install Android Ice Cream Sandwich

1. Download the ICS ROM from here and save it to your computer.

2. Plug in the Nokia N9 via USB and select USB Storage mode so we can transfer files to it.

3. Copy the file to your Nokia N9 in the MyDocs folder.

4. Unplug the device.

5. Open Terminal on the Nokia N9 and type the following into it with hitting enter at the end of each line (when asked for a password put in rootme):

devel-su
tar xjvf /home/user/MyDocs/nninedroid_ics_alpha1.tar.bz2 -C /home/

6. After that, turn off the Nokia N9 and then turn it back on.

7. When prompted, hit the Volume Up button to boot into the “alternative OS”

8. Wait a while for it to boot for the first time.

9. Soon as your device boots in to Android, go to Settings > Display > Sleep and change the option to 30 minutes (there is a known issue that sometimes when it goes to sleep it will turn off the phone).

10. To boot back to regular MeeGo, simply turn off the phone and turn it back on.

Thanks to the developers who created all these goodies and who created the original procedures. This was adapted from the following procedures, simplified, and a video was made to help people get through it easily. If this procedure was helpful or you enjoyed it, please head to the source links and donate to the hard working developers who made it all possible! – Source 1, Source 2, and Source 3.

Still have all your contacts in Yahoo? Haven’t joined the Google bandwagon yet? Eh, no big deal. Unless, of course, you might be trying to sync your contacts on your new Android device since it has no option to sync with Yahoo. So what do you do? Here’s how to get all your Yahoo contacts to sync on your Android device.

I. Setup Gmail Account

1. Head to mail.google.com and register for a Gmail account if you don’t already have one. If you do (keep in mind that you had to have set one up on your Android device to use the app market), simply located your Gmail email (whatever@gmail.com) and your password you used to log in.

II. Grab Contacts from Yahoo

1. Head over to Yahoo.com and login with your Yahoo mail account.

2. When viewing the mail, click on Contacts at the top right.

3. Choose the select all checkbox above the list of contacts to sync all of them or select individual contacts you want to sync instead.

4. Once all of the contacts you wanted to sync are selected, click on the Actions button to the right then click Export All…

5. Select Yahoo CSV for the format you want to export as and wait for it to finish exporting the csv file. Once it does, save it to your computer.

III. Import Yahoo Contacts to GMail

1. Head to mail.google.com and login with the Gmail account you plan to use/currently use on your Android device.

2. Click on Mail at the top left and select Contacts instead.

3. Click on More and then select Import…

4. Click Choose File… then select the Yahoo CSV file we downloaded earlier.

5. Select Import and wait for it to finish.

All done! Now, whenever you sync your GMail contacts on your Android device, your Yahoo contacts will be in there as well. Now, go ahead and finally delete your Yahoo mail account, who uses Yahoo mail anyway? There, doesn’t consolidating your email accounts feel good?

Verizon has some really great 4G LTE smartphones.  Here we are taking a look at the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Droid Razr, and the Motorola Droid 4 in order to help you decide which one is right for you.  Each phone has great features but each one excels in different areas.  We’re listing these in the order they were released.  Here is a quick list of each phone’s top selling points.

Motorola Droid Razr:

• Very fast phone!
• Incredibly thin and lightweight
• Unique design and use of unconventional materials giving a “high end” feel.  Kevlar, Gorilla Glass and water resistant coating over the internal circuitry…yeah, that’s nice to have!
• Beautiful Display – not quite HD resolution, but SAMOLED display with qHD resolution looks great!

Samsung Galaxy Nexus:

• Very Fast Phone!
• It’s a Nexus device!  That means very timely software updates from Google and it runs a vanilla version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (the only phone in this group to currently run the latest OS).
• While the design is nothing new or unique, it has a solid (albeit plastic) design and a curved glass screen).
• Gorgeous SAMOLED HD display with 720p resolution with a screen size of 4.65″.

Motorola Droid 4:

• Very Fast Phone!
• Phenomenal hardware keyboard on this phone!  Really, it is impressive and is the biggest feature this phone has.  If you want a QWERTY slide out keyboard, this device will not disappoint!
• This phone is thicker and bulkier than every high end device without a hardware keyboard.  But at 0.5″ thick, it is not too thick and has a great design that makes the phone feel thinner than it is.
• 4.0″ TFT display with qHD resolution.  Nothing to write home about but it is an adequate display.  Did I mention there is a phenomenal keyboard under the screen?

So what do you do…which phone do you buy?  Well, different people look for different things in a phone.  If you want a hardware keyboard, then the Droid 4 is an obvious choice.  The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has an unlockable bootloader meaning that those people who like to hack and install custom ROMs will love the Nexus as the sky is the limit in terms of development from the Android community.  The Droid Razr is so thin you’ll want to tell it to eat something!  And if you like the Droid Razr but wish it was a little bit thicker but had a 3300 mAh battery, the Droid Razr Maxx is the phone for you.

Happy shopping!  These phones are all fantastic and it is hard to go wrong with any one of them.