Keepin’ it real fake: N-KIA E68 shows what an innovative Nokia handset might look like (video)

Yo Nokia, you can keep your E5 and its HD Voice fanciness, we want ourselves an N-KIA E68. Why, we hear the enraged Nokia acolyte ask, why would we defile Nokia’s good name in such a manner? Mostly because this phone has one of the most fun and ingenious slider mechanisms we’ve seen yet. So what if we’ve got no idea what wannabe OS it’s running and so what if it’ll most likely fall apart on us a month into owning it?

Nokia N8 officially for sale last week of September, UK shops October 1st

At last, an official date for Nokia’s N8 flagship Symbian^3 handset. This one’s been a long time coming , featuring the first of two major Symbian updates meant to bring Nokia’s smartphone division in line with the competition. Look for it in the ” last week of September ” at Nokia’s on-line shops for £429 SIM free, or free with £35 per month contract.

Swype beta hits S60 5th Edition

Swype is still far more difficult to get than we’d like — basically, you either need to be in an invite-only beta or own a device where it ships in ROM — but it’s being opened up to a pretty sizable new set of potential customers this month now that it’s been ported to S60 5th Edition in an open beta. It’s currently tested for use on the 5800 , 5230 , X6 , N97 , N97 Mini , and C6 — and considering that most of those devices use resistive screens, we’re really curious to hear how well it works (for what it’s worth, Samsung’s Omnia II includes Swype in the box and uses a resistive display, so this isn’t a first). Installation looks pretty straightforward and you don’t need to jump through any hoops or be invited to get the binary, so let us know how it goes for you, alright? Follow the break for the official video demo

Nokia C6 firmware hacked with care onto 5800 and 5530

Considering the sheer volume of 5800 XpressMusics that Nokia has sold over the past year and a half, it’s little wonder that they’ve got a few dedicated hackers out there working on keeping the company’s first S60 Fifth Edition device up to date, isn’t it? Sure enough, the C6′s updated skin with legit home screen widgets has been shoehorned onto both the 5800 and its 5530 sibling — and although the update process seems like a bit of a nightmare fraught with bricking dangers, a successful update means you might be able to go another year without shelling out for a new set. Cheers to that, we say. Follow the break for the firmware in action on a 5800 ( Navigation Edition , we think).

Nokia said to be launching E7 smartphone next week

Well, it looks like the mystery of Nokia’s Symbian^3 slider may soon be solved — Reuters is reporting that the company will introduce its new “flagship” E7 smartphone at its Nokia World event in London next week, and it says that the device will pack both a “large” touchscreen and a full QWERTY keyboard. That’s further backed up by the existence of an XML file on Nokia’s own site, which seemingly confirms that the E7 does indeed run Symbian^3, and that it boasts a 640 x 360 display along with that QWERTY keyboard. Not much more than that at the moment, but those previous leaks suggest that we’re basically looking at a slider version of the Nokia N8 . [Thanks, Wes] Nokia said to be launching E7 smartphone next week originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 13:08:00 EST.

Nokia N8 launches September 30, says senior manager

Tapani Kaskinen is Nokia’s Senior Comms Manager, so it’s fitting that he’d be the first person from the company to communicate a solid release date for its long-awaited N8 handset. The gent in question told Finnish newspaper Kauppalehti that advance orders of the N8 will “begin shipping 30 September.” Bear in mind we’re chewing through a machine translation here, but that part’s pretty unmistakable. It also meshes perfectly with earlier speculation surrounding Nokia purchasing Google AdWords — that indicated a one-week exclusive starting on September 23rd for Nokia’s UK online store, which, if you do the math, again points to a wide release at the end of the month. We asked Nokia about it ourselves and they’re remaining mum on the matter, but chances are looking pretty good that October will start with the N8 finally in eager users’ hands. Nokia N8 launches September 30, says senior manager originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 08:01:00 EST.

PS3 jailbreak adapted to Nokia N900, Palm Pre in wake of Australian ban (video)

Two weeks ago you’d have to pay an Australian importer for a specialized USB key . Four days ago open-source software let you roll your own . Today, there’s no need for any of that — you can hack your PS3 with a tethered smartphone. Working closely with the PSGroove team, hacker Kakaroto adapted the same jailbreak to the Nokia N900, and the open-source community lost no time porting it to the Palm Pre as well

Android accounts for one-quarter of mobile web traffic, says Quantcast

It’s terribly difficult to get reliable statistics, as numbers tend to vary drastically depending upon whom you ask, but if you’re inclined to believe that Android is mopping up Apple and RIM’s declining mobile mindshare in the US, you’ll find nothing but corroboration from Quantcast. The analytics firm reckons a full one-quarter of mobile web traffic stateside comes from devices running Google’s OS, though it’s important to know that the iOS tallies apparently don’t include the web-friendly iPad . You also might want to note that this is mobile web traffic here — these days, we spend an increasing amount of our internet time in apps — and since we’re on a roll with the disclaimers, let’s just add that these numbers have nothing to do with a company’s financial success. Nokia can attest to that

LG Optimus One and Optimus Chic eyes-on

That “leaked” low-end LG Android device from a few days back? Turns out it was nothing more than the Optimus Chic, one of two Google-powered phones that the company announced back in early July. They’re still not ready to let us touch the damned things here at IFA — apparently on account of the fact that they’re not commercially available yet — but we got close enough to conclude that you definitely won’t be fooling anyone into thinking that you’ve dropped many hundreds of euros on your phone. You could argue that Huawei set the tone for IFA’s small-but-notable mobile presence this year with its introduction of the Ideos — in other words, cheap Android gear — and both of these LGs look primed to go head-to-head with the Ideos in that arena. Nokia had long been hoping to totally own the smartphone industry in emerging markets by driving S60 into the bargain basement — but with this latest round of Android releases coming dangerously close to the same price points, we could have an interesting battle on our hands.

New official MeeGo screenshots show promise, influence

MeeGo’s official user interface guidelines could easily end up determining whether the platform sinks or swims — no one wants a phone whose UI looks like junk, after all. The minions at Nokia and Intel’s little pet project have posted new OS shots as examples of how to properly implement the interface in third-party apps, and we’ve got to admit — things are looking a lot cleaner, prettier, and generally more modern than the first round of pictures we saw back in June , thanks in part to a demonstration of the platform’s comprehensive theming capability that can totally revamp how UI elements look. We’re definitely seeing shades of webOS in the task switcher (pictured above), but then again, Nokia’s no stranger to borrowing ideas it likes. That’s all well and good as long as it makes for a great platform… and obviously, we’d need some hardware to do that.

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