e-ignite: Tech

The Nokia Photo Browser App

One of the big drawbacks of the Nokia E71 is its poor ability to handle lots of photos. When I first got the phone, I transferred around a thousand photos from old phones etc – it became quickly clear that it was very difficult (and pretty slow) to browse and find photos that were taken some time ago. Luckily, Nokia Beta Labs has come up with a Photo Browser application.

The Photo Browser allows you to preview, and quickly flick through thumbnails of your photos, and allows you to open them up full-screen to show them to friends. All you have to do is install the Photo Browser application on your phone, launch it (you’ll need to give it a few minutes to index all of your photos the first time you run it) and you’re free to browse your images easily and quickly.

Full information and the download can be found at Nokia Beta Labs. You may also notice an excellent little link on Nokia’s Photo Browser page – “barcode link to this page”.  If you select this, you’ll be given the image of a barcode on your screen – on your E71, go to MENU > TOOLS > BARCODE READER and select SCAN CODE. Show the barcode to your camera and it’ll give you the direct link to the download page on your phone – this is great and saves you spending time typing in a long link.

For some, this may seem like old news since the Photo Browser was actually released back in March. However, what you may not know is that Nokia are constantly updating their products in the Beta Labs, so the Photo Browser software was last updated on 15 June 2009 (at time of writing), so make sure you’re running the latest and best version of this great utility.

tehkSeven has been working hard lately to bring some fantastic free themes for Nokia S60 devices (including the E71) – these are by far the most impressive themes I’ve seen for the E71 and E71x and I’ve showcased my favourite free themes below:

The Touch (Zen) theme from tehkSeven

The Touch theme is a dark theme with some intricate icons – available with your choice of Ovi, Seven or Standard icon types. It has obviously been painstakingly put together, and the results are an excellent theme. It’s easy to install – simply download the .sis to your computer and install it via PC Suite, or open the .sis file with your phone and it will add it for you.

tehkSeven's free Prestige (Solace) theme

tehkSeven’s Prestige Solace theme is arguably my favourite free theme for the Nokia E71. As with all tehkSeven’s work, it has been crafted carefully and the result is another smooth, great looking theme than adds a bit of class to your device. Why not download it and give it a try?

The Nokia E71 Smartphone

So I recently bought myself a Nokia E71 – the first phone that I’ve actually “wanted” for quite some time. My initial impressions are generally excellent and I’ve enjoyed making good use of it, so I thought I’d put together a review of my experience with the handset. I’ve had it for just over a month, so the experience I’ve had with it will hopefully help you make a decision about the phone if you’re interested.

The Looks
Firstly, the looks. It’s the best looking business phone by far – IMO it looks much tidier than the qwerty Blackberry offerings that are available, most likely to do with how thin the phone is. If you lay it flat on a surface, the screen sits slightly higher than the width of a plastic CD case off the surface. The phone feels thinner than this though, since the camera housing protrudes from the back slightly. The metal battery cover is very nice to touch, although it does get badly fingerprinted with use and this appears to be unavoidable.
From a purely operational point of view, the phone is going to have to last at least 18 months – you therefore don’t want it to look scratched or generally worn. I invested in an Invisible Shield for the screen of mine and I was quite happy to pay a few dollars for peace of mind. Generally, the phone doesn’t seem to be too scratch prone, but the chromed plate on the front where the microphone is does seem to mark. As I’ve said, I’ve had my E71 for just over a month and there are light scratch marks. The metal back, camera lens and sides don’t seem to have marked at all however, so I don’t feel that Full Body protection from the likes of the Invisible Shield is necessary, but if you think that light scratches on the microphone plate might bother you, then I’d recommend buying an Invisible Shield and only covering the screen and plate.

The phone comes with a plastic case to keep it scratch free, however I was extremely disappointed in the one I got. It seems to be made from some kind of pressed plastic with a thin fabric material covering on the inside. Along the opening edge of my case, there is a sharp “tag” hanging off the plastic and I simply didn’t use it because I thought it would scratch the phone. My impression of the case is not good – it’s cheap, plastic and feels pretty crappy. If you think you’re getting a nice case to go with it, think again. If you must have a case with your E71, you’ll need to buy one separately.

As a phone
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