Nokia has announced the CA-100 and the CA-70 portable usb chargers for Nokia phones. This looks to be a useful accessory, particularly for frequent travellers or people who use their phones a lot (me). It looks to be quite compact and I would definitely prefer carrying this rather than the wall charger in my backpack.

CA-70 (Nokia USA)
CA-100 (Nokia Europe)

The CA-70 allows for pop-port connectivity as well, thereby allowing you to use the PC Suite via USB and simultaneously charge the phone. Great for most nokia phones, but not particularly useful for phones like the N91 which have a mini-usb port.

Clicking on the link for the CA-100 takes you to the Nokia support page which means its not out yet (:(). The CA-70 is out of stock at the Nokia USA website. It retails for $59.99 (expensive, I know). I’ll definitely buy the CA-100 as soon as its available.

SOURCE: [Darla Mack]

Its old news (announced in July), but somehow, I didn’t know anout it. So I thought I’d share it with everyone anyways.

Symbian announced the availability of Symbian OS™ v9.3, the latest evolution of the world’s leading smartphone operating system.

Symbian OS v9.3 builds on the success of the v9 family as a robust, secure, open and standards-based OS for smartphones. It includes incremental enhancements in line with market requirements related to phone performance and reducing time-to-market for handset vendors and network operators’ cost-effective deployment of revenue-generating services, content and applications.

Symbian OS v9.3 includes:

Improved phone performance

* Shorter start-up times for phones and key applications
* Improved memory management resulting in more responsive applications and phone features ensuring smartphones work as quickly with better quality features as mid-range phones

Reduced development and ownership cost, and time to market

* New development tools
o Symbian OS awareness for the Eclipse/CDT IDE framework and Nokia’s Carbide.c++ Development Tools for Symbian OS v9.3 phones
o Configuration tools to easily create and customise Symbian OS variants
o The Symbian Verification Suite to support compatibility and phone integration for creating Symbian OS variants, reducing time taken to customize phones for operators targeting different market segments
o A fully searchable on-line edition of the Symbian OS Library including a significant amount of new content
* Backwards compatibility from v9.1, easy migration for phone vendors, technology and third party software providers
* Reference design for Symbian OS v9.3 with Freescale and Nokia S60
* Hindi and Vietnamese language support for improved market coverage

Support for new hardware

* Native support for WiFi
* USB 2.0 on-the-go, allowing faster device connectivity

Support for key operator services and requirements

* Firmware over the air (FOTA) provisioning, FOTA allows network operators to provide OTA software upgrades or fixes lowering cost of ownership
* HSDPA support
* Introduction of IPSec for UMA service (Voice over IP)
* Improved 3GPP R5 support
* Native support for Push To Talk
* Java JSR 248 support

And last but not the least,

Symbian OS v9.3 is fully backwards compatible with previous versions in the v9 family. Symbian OS licensees currently have phones based on Symbian OS v9.3 in development, with product launches anticipated in 2007.

My comments:

• Yay! for the backward compatibility with 9.1
• I’m quite surprised to see Hindi being added as a core language. That’ll definitely help boost sales of symbian phones in India.
• USB 2.0 gets a mention, but no Bluetooth 2.0?
• VoiP stack is still not a standard feature. Why isn’t the VoiP stack used by Nokia for the E series made common to all symbian devices?
• FOTA for all devices? (Wouldn’t that be awesome!)
• I see they’ve announced v9.3. Where’s v9.2?

Digital Lifestyles has reviewed 3’s X-Series. It covers the skype, slingbox and orb services that 3 offers as a part of its x-series package. I am actually waiting for a similar service to be implemented in the US. What interests me most is the skype client. A good robust VOIP client is long overdue for symbian phones, even more so now, since almost all new symbian phones have integrated wi-fi. 3’s skype (iskoot actually) is a step in the right direction. Although the service only allows users to call skype contacts at the moment (no skypeout till early 2007), it still is a promising application. Add 3’s flat-rate pricing and it makes for an enticing deal.

I’ve recently had the “pleasure” of updating my phone via the infamous NSU. I was really scared of bricking my phone and I made sure I followed the instructions EXACTLY as specified by the NSU. Even though I was precise, there were problems. I mean, the f/w update went well, but the hard disk got corrupted. That meant transferring nearly 2 gigs of songs, re-creating the playlists, installing all the apps and so on.

The main cause of concern in the entire update process is said the be the cable and the connector. Loose connector/bad cable == bricked phone in most of the cases. Another reason why people have ended up with bricked phones is due to small things like for example, they tend to forget to change the profile to the General Mode. So if you think about it, the problem lies with people and the hardware. The software looks like its inherently bug-free, right?

WRONG!

If you look at post here on HowardForums, Nokia says that they haven’t released any updates for the N93 because of “issues with the NSU” which results in bricked N93s.

So in a process which can be described as: Phone -> Cable -> NSU software, not one of these components can be called reliable. So a user can end up with a bricked phone and not know the exact reason as to why it was bricked. A user CAN ensure that the settings in the phone are correct, he CAN ensure that the cable is good and the connectors are not loose, but there is NO way a user can safeguard against bugs in a software he knows nothing about.

This entire process is just too risky for a normal user. I depend on my phone for my day-to-day activities. I cannot imagine the effects of a bricked phone, considering I don’t have a backup phone these days.

I think Nokia should just allow users to download the firmware files and then move them via BT/IR/usb to the phone. Design a symbian updater that works on the phone itself which can change the profiles and settings as it is run, eliminating majority of the issues that lead to bricked phones.

Or if they won’t us to have the the firmware, at the very least,  enable FOTA updates.

I took a look at the AWS spectrum auction that just took place in last couple of months in the USA. The frequencies auctioned off were in the range of 1.7GHz for uplink and 2.1Ghz for downlink. Now, what’s interesting is that Cingular has managed to roll out its very own 3G deployment (in the form of HSDPA for packet data only) in the 850MHz/1900MHz band using its already existing spectrum. Now that cingular has acquired spectrum in the 2.1GHz range why can it not deploy 3G using the 1900/2100 MHz combination like Europe. I mean they would ONLY have to re-plan their entire 2G network to 850MHz and spend like a billion or so dollars :D. But in all fairness, it is a possibility that cingular should consider.