It takes a lot to satify a tech fan like Andy Hagon, but here he reports on a couple of months with the rare lesser-spotted red Nokia 808 PureView. Superlatives are scattered aplenty, there are some gorgeous photo examples of what the 808 can do, plus the one rant that Andy had was thankfully averted through a little intervention of my own. Phew!

Here's a bit from Andy's 808 experience:

This is about a device that has an asset that you can truly appreciate and utilise for your own enjoyment and satisfaction. The 41MP sensor on the Nokia 808 PureView, along with all of the PureView technology inside the beast, is something to shout about. Still. Yes, even in May 2013. Because Nokia have yet to release this awesome camera power on another device. So even in May 2013, the best camera phone to trump all of the Ones, the S4s and the 5s is still, yes I know this sounds weird, is still, the Symbian-running Nokia....

 

OK, so what am I banging on about? Well to put it simply and in all-caps: I AM NOT A PHOTOGRAPHER. I have never even had one lesson in the art of photography. In fact, the only teaching I have ever had was from my dad when he said to me, “Son, you’re holding the camera the wrong way around. Keep it like that and you’ll end up taking a picture of yourself.” Pictures of ourselves??! Ha! What a crazy notion, to think that we would ever actually take a picture, with a camera, of ourselves! Hahaha! Oh man, this world is just crazy. 

But no, I am not trained in photography at all. And yet, when I go out into the busy streets of New York City, or the calm of its Central Park, or on a road trip to somewhere less hectic but just as American, I find myself lost without my red Nokia 808 PureView. Because when I remember to bring it with me, I can take some really great photos.

The strange thing about the 808 PureView is that it makes you think you are a good photographer. I know it sounds bizarre, but when I’m out and about with it in my pocket, I can’t help but frame scenes with my eyes and think, that’ll look good on Twitter or Flickr, and one, two, I’ve taken a snap with the 808, edited the picture on the screen a little, cropped it, saved it, uploaded it and moved on. I admit that I am a fan of doing all the above with my N9 as well, but it’s with the 808 PureView that I really bother to think about a photographic composition and then snap it.

 

Some lovely shots are embedded in the article, note that they, and others, are all available on Andy's Flickr stream.

Andy seemed particular amazed by the zoom capabilities of the 808, going from a 38MP original to look at some extreme detail here:

This one is my favourite. Could you make out the name of the restaurant on the dock from another phone’s zoom? I doubt it! I’m pretty sure no one could get “MARINERS” from another phone’s zoom!

Symbian Belle FP2 has really grown on me, that is, it has regrown on me, as I have been a fan of Symbian for a long time, but this is the first time in a while since I have purchased an expensive Symbian phone and used it as my main device for an extended period of time. The OS is just fine, y’know, and I’m happy to tweak it with superb apps like ‘Belle Extra Buttons/StartMenu’ and ‘Tactile Calls’ to make it more Meego-y and less S^3-y. It is plenty fast and zippy and the fact that the screen is 360 x 640 only bothers me when I’m looking at a particularly good shot I’ve taken, only because I’m thinking to myself, wow, I bet this would look great on my Mac’s screen, or the HD TV. But usually, knowing that it is a great shot is enough, and I really am not bothered about the relatively low PPI and 4-inch screen. I’m very happy with it because, basically, I can use it one-handed and not look like a total numpty when in a call, because it doesn’t look like I’m holding a Kindle to my ear.

Great stuff, and a nice balanced verdict, you can read on in the full article here.

Andy did have one issue, which he detailed like this:

I thought I was connected to wifi (because I just connected to the wifi)  and then while I was in the middle of Tweetian and wanted to send a tweet (which makes sense) the spinning circle never stopped spinning. It would seem that the wifi has disconnected itself and I would have to reconnect it. Very annoying.

BUT HERE’S A HAPPY UPDATE! After a little fiddling with one of the settings for wifi, I switched ‘Power Saving’ to ‘On’. Previously I had it set of ‘Off’ thinking that power saving meant it would disconnect if I wasn’t using it (which I didn’t want it to do). However, I was totally wrong. Thanks to the Symbian Master himself,Steve Litchfield, I was encouraged to ignore my own misconstrued logic and switch that to ‘On’. I also enabled ‘Advanced Power Saving’ and my wifi has been rock solid all day. ALL DAY! Fantastic! 

Glad to help! His issues with Wi-fi were unusual, in that most people don't fiddle with the defaults, though I'll freely admit that the wording in the WLAN Settings is misleading. 'Power saving' actually refers to whether the Wifi radio in the phone should ramp down its transmission power when data's not actually flowing, and is nothing to do with perhaps saving more power by disconnecting altogether. I'd speculate that by setting 'Power saving' as 'Disabled', the Wi-fi radio runs at full power all the time and the OS then has to apply drastic action, such as disconnecting it, whenever there's any kind of lull in the data stream.

Make sense? Can you shed any more light on Andy's (thankfully now solved) issue?

Purists, look away now, because this is going off at a slight unofficial tangent. Almost two weeks ago we had a batch of five new homescreen widgets deployed through SW Update to Belle Feature Pack 2-powered phones - very useful additions and I did note at the time that there seemed to be no technical reason why the same widgets couldn't be installed on the older Symbian^3/Anna/Belle/Belle Refresh generation devices (N8, E7, etc.) Indeed, the SIS files had been intercepted by one enterprising soul already and installed on an E7 with success. I've waited a fortnight and these still haven't been 'pushed' to the older phones officially - which is why I thought you might like a walkthrough of grabbing and installing them unofficially. If you haven't already done so, of course!

NB. The SIS files here - browserwidget.sisx and homescreenwidgets.sisx are sourced from dailymobile.se, also worth a visit for their forums.

Here's a walkthrough, then:

Bluetoothing the two SIS files over to my Nokia E7 - of course, you could always download them directly from this page via Web etc.; (right) once grabbed, tap on each to install in turn. Note that, after tapping, the 'homescreen' package takes a good minute before anything happens - don't panic! Leave it and installation will start in due course...

...Told you! The widgets install to your C: system disk, of course; (right) the Webview widget will need a restart of your phone, since it works at a slightly lower level, but you should see the other four widgets shown above immediately as available on your homescreens. The screenshot above right is taken after a restart.

You'll remember the Webview widget from its release for FP2 phones, of course. The idea is to present a live view of any part of any web site - so the first time you add an instance of this to a homescreen, you'll be taken to a web browser instance and asked to browse to the site you want. Don't worry, you'll get the hang of it. And yes, you can have more than one Webview widget, even on the same homescreen.

This should work on the N8, E7, C7, C6-01 and X7. I then wondered - what would happen on the Nokia E6, with its landscape VGA screen? I knew that widgets usually had to be resized for the E6, but was keen to experiment for the sake of AAS readers:

Experimenting on the E6. Err.....

Perhaps unsurprisingly,  things didn't go quite as smoothly on the E6. Webview didn't appear at all - but then this depends on pixel-mapping to a web site and the pixel resolution is different on the E6, so.... The other four widgets installed OK but you can see that the Contacts Communication widget appears at the wrong size - though still works, albeit in miniature. Likewise, the Mirror widget works, but its label is too small and in the wrong place. Happily, the Flashlight and Stopwatch widgets are fine.

Of course, with Sod's law no doubt applying here, now that I've put this small feature up, the chances are that Nokia and Accenture will push the new widgets officially to these devices fairly soon. I'd be very surprised if the versions/builds were different though, at least for the main nHD devices. The E6 is a special case and I'd be surprised if the manpower could be spared to do versions specially for this.

Comments welcome - any glitches with these widgets on your Belle Refresh device?

Yup, it's Snake. With a Viking/Barbarian theme. And particle weapons. There's certainly a lot going on here, with level-based targets to achieve in 'Action' mode and a gentler, less violent 'Classic' mode if you're feeling more chilled. The bad news? It's Java-based, so no multitouch and slightly crude menus. Still, worth a shot for Snake afficianados...

Here's Barbarian Snake in action:

Nice artwork, despite the Java origins - anyone know just WHY Java games always have such basic menus? Surely it can't be the need to be compatible with d-pad driven handsets anymore?

'Action' mode is the main attraction here, with three lands to explore, each split into many levels with their own achievements (kill so many enemies, collect so many eggs, etc.)

Snake control is by touching each of the four edges of the screen, as appropriate - tapping the centre of the screen fires your extremely-period-inaccurate particle weapon. Or maybe it's a Barbarian fireball of some kind? Destroying each group of three enemies seems to release more eggs, which you then collect, and so on....

In 'Classic' mode, it's just you against your own tail, as usual - the snake action wraps around each of the screen edges thankfully - how long can you last?

You can download a free version (with sparse ads, thankfully) here in the Nokia Store, or spend a quid on the full version here.

From the creator of Barbarian Snake, Invaders Strike offers a take on the vertically scrolling space blast 'em up and, in truth, it's action packed and quite fun, with only the Java performance restrictions to complain about. That, and a slight finger control issue...

Here's Invaders Strike in action:

Again, nice artwork from the developer, custom made for Symbian; (right) the menu options are somewhat basic, as is usual for Java-based games.

Ah yes, the back story - basically you defending humanity from aliens, yada yada... ; (right) in action, with aliens of various sizes to blast, incoming bolts to dodge, power ups to collect (including this neat force field, shown activated).

The spacey backdrop stays static, while the blocky (space station?) foregrounds scroll gently downward and the aliens come at you from all angles - the blue smart bomb shown here can be hit with multiple shots in order to explode everything currently on screen - handy; (right) after upgrading my ship's guns - unleash the green fire of hell, etc.

Each level pack gets a new text intro - it's not entirely clear how many levels are in the game, but hey, it's either free or £1, so you can't really quibble about value for money; (right) let your ship energy get too low and it's game over....

There are two issues which stand out here. One, the Java nature means that the movement of alien ships and energy bolts isn't quite smooth enough - there's always that slight element of jerkiness in the animation which reminds you that this isn't a native Symbian C++ game. Secondly, control of the ship is by dragging it around the screen, which means that your finger is always obscuring the ship - other games solve this issue by putting in an offset, so that the control spot is just below the ship, for example. Work needed here, I think, since the current method ends up being rather clumsy.

You can download Invaders Strike for free (with occasional ads) here in the Nokia Store, or buy the full version for £1 outright.

The E6 may look a bit diminutive in today's world of monster screens, but it's still a popular concept in some circles. Not least chez Litchfield, which is why, when my E6 started playing up (after one app install too many!), I decided on a change and went looking for custom firmwares. Here's my report on the appallingly lengthily named 'Nokia E6-00 v3 - 111.140.58 -Belle Refresh Enhanced by Luna Updated' - what does it offer, over and above the final official Nokia firmware, how did the flashing go and how well does it work in practice?

From the firmware's page, here's a summarised list of the main attractions:

Send protected files like signed sis files via bluetooth.
Custom log age setting
Kinetic Scrolling
Reboot from menu
LED Notification (Charge light blinks as well as D-pad for notifications, useful if the E6 doesn't have the new d-pad design)
Profile Name editing
Metadata editing (Edit Album, artist etc in music player)
Browser Download Resume after close
Read Theme effects from E:/effects for custom effects
UI Speed boost (reduce delay and increase max cpu usage from 70% to 90%)
Battery Saver mod
Keylock vibration off
No boot animation (Disables handshake animation resulting in fast startup)
Using Meteor effects by Jin Hao by default
N9 fonts (Nokia Pure)
Only English and French present, to save space
Remove QuickOffice, F Secure, Vlingo, Microsoft Apps, MS Lync, MS Shared, MS Communicator

Email cache to E:
Browser Cache to E:
Around 320MB free space on C:

Quite a list, and I'll focus on many of these below. Note that, normally, theme effects are off by default on E6 firmware, because the animations don't run smoothly due to the higher resolution screen. However, theme effects are fast enough on the E6 with this firmware, at least they are after the first (caching) load for each.

Step 1 was to grab the firmware files as a '7zip' archive from mediafire, following the link on 'Nokia E6-00 v3 - 111.140.58 -Belle Refresh Enhanced by Luna Updated'. As usual, if you do the same, watch out for misleading 'download' links and dodgy ads on these download servers. 

I also needed Phoenix 2011 - I'll leave you to source this on your own if you copy me, since it's not supposed to be in user hands. All About Symbian takes no responsibility for any damage you may do to your phone, or indeed to your Windows PC. Delving into the world of custom firmwares is officially frowned upon by Nokia, but seems to be overlooked provided that all parties recognise that all warranties are instantly voided.

With the firmware moved into a RM-609 (the product code of the E6) folder inside /Nokia/Phoenix/Products, start up Phonenix in the usual way, I connected up my E6 (turned on) and picked the relevant USB connection from the drop down list. I also needed to 'Scan product' on the menu.

I used 'Firmware update' from the 'Flashing' menu and then tapped on '...' to open up the product code firmware files. In this case, we should see 'Euro_silver' - and no, this firmware isn't available for languages other than English and French. The SW version shown is Belle Refresh, the same as the last official E6 firmware build.

Note that this isn't intended as a tutorial for using Phoenix - there are plenty (slightly less mainstream) parts of the Internet offering such guides. In fact, YouTube has a few video walkthroughs, should you find this the easiest way to learn.

In my case, I had to also click on 'Options' and remove the 'emmc' package (in the old days, preloaded memory card content), finally clicking on 'Refurbish':

The flashing process takes a good ten minutes or so, with the E6's screen showing 'Test mode' through the most dangerous part:

Once flashing is complete, it's important to let the post-install routines work their magic:

The E6 then restarted and then we're in business. I headed for 'SW update' first, to see what Nokia was offering me, over and above this 'Belle Refresh Enhanced' firmware. I still want most of this, but note that I used the options menu to 'select items' and then deselected 'Microsoft Apps 2.01', since this was part of the very streamlining option that this firmware embraced in the first place:

Having applied these updates (and restarted, again), I noticed one thing if I left the phone for more than a minute or two - the 'Big Clock' screen saver is enabled by default. Don't worry, it only stays on for a minute or so (to save power), but is rather cool to see on a LED-backlit screen nevertheless:

In fact, after testing, I found that having a screen saver at all was interfering with the normal screen time out on my test E6, so I disabled it. Your mileage may vary.

But onto the interesting bit, the changes that this firmware brings. Let's start with the 'Meteor' theme effects. Note that swiping between homescreens shows these off quite well, but do note that I needed to bring each homescreen up at least once so that Symbian has it cached properly, before the animations work smoothly:

Very cool, though (as with all theme effects on all phones) I turned them off after an hour or two and the novelty had worn off - they simply waste too much time!

Another animation caught mid-flip (tricky on a web page like this!), in this case a menu flipping up...

As usual, theme effects are turned off using a 'hidden' menu option in settings/themes/general - another of Symbian's 'lovable' quirks? (right) With this firmware, I can set the length of time my call/data log aggregates over to any time period required (the limit is normally 30 days).

There's now a handy 'reboot' option added to the power button menu and (right) I can now edit ID3 information directly from Music player, should I spot a mistake or want to add extra information.

The kinetics of the interface have been tweaked, such that scrolling now goes on forever, i.e. there's no 'friction'. Plus the interface is just that bit snappier, with more CPU priority given to the UI, which is very interesting; (right) using the official 'Software version' means that most Nokia software will still recognise it and assume it's still the official build.

You'll also have noticed in the screenshots that the font looks different - this firmware uses 'N9 fonts', also known as 'Nokia Pure', which looks great on the E6 screen, with its very high pixel density, to such an extent that I didn't feel the need to bump up the 'Font size' here from 'Normal'. Mind you, several core applications do their own thing in terms of respecting this setting, so.... ; (right) although Font Magnifier was left in the firmware, I had issues connecting up to Psiloc's servers and then, when it did get through, it turned out that Font Magnifier doesn't work properly with this firmware, so best avoided. It can be 'deleted' from the application manager.

As shown in SW Update above, a new Nokia Store gets added up front - and then, when started, it prompts for yet another update - sigh. It all installs cleanly though, including signing in properly and picking up my account here...

Ditto Nokia Maps here, working best (in terms of screen real estate) in Drive mode on the E6; (right) as usual on any Symbian build, I install both Opera Mini and Opera Mobile - you never know when they'll come in handy on nHD-screened devices, but on the E6, they're downright essential because they can run full-screen, without losing screen area to toolbars.

All my other usual downloads proceeded normally, with Nokia Internet Radio being one highlight and Poddi another, though I was put out that Poddi's playback controls don't, repeat don't support the E6's d-pad. In the end, I reverted to Podcatcher, which works fine with the E6 hardware.

The 'Belle Refresh Enhanced' page concludes with these thoughts:

Recommendations:

Install an office suite like Quickoffice 6 or Pixel Smart Office on drive E
Install a fast PDF reader like PDF Eagle or use Pixel Smart Office as PDF reader
If you love the Anna theme on the e6 like me, search for the mignight silver theme and use that.
Remove excess homescreens for better battery life and less memory usage E.g Email widget is not really needed as E6-00 has an email button on keyboard.
Use attached Blackbery Bold Wallpapers I found.
Use Battery Info for E Series widget for a rather accurate battery monitor.
Avoid installing stuff on C: when they are compatible on E:
Do not install Microsoft Apps Update.

All fair comment, though I'd add my usual 'Pimping the E6' shortcuts and assignments too. Having Gravity and Podcatcher on one touch key 'long presses' is a huge time saver, in my reckoning.

Comments welcome - have you tried this, or another, E6 custom firmware? Do we have a winner? Any showstoppers?

Now, I've been eulogising about 'proper' flashes in smartphone cameras since the Nokia N82, back in 2007. And by 'proper', I mean a Xenon flash, just as you'd find in a standalone camera. The Sony Ericsson Satio and Nokia N8 and then 808, all running Symbian, kept the rant alive, but elsewhere Xenon flash has been almost non-existent. Yet now we have rumours of new Nokia Lumias, running Windows Phone 8 and (allegedly) having Xenon bulbs, along with (also rumoured) Sony's upcoming 'Honami' handset and Samsung's Galaxy S4 'Zoom'. In short, 2013 is (probably) about to become the year that Xenon flash finally makes the journey from Symbian into Windows Phone 8 and mainstream Android.

How Xenon flash works

There's nothing proprietary about using Xenon flashes, of course, they've been around in standalone cameras for decades. Whereas LED flashes are just that - very bright LEDs and are very simple, Xenon flashes require rather more in the way of electronics. 

Essentially a (large) capacitor's charge and voltage is ramped up such that it can discharge into a narrow tube filled with Xenon gas. The electrons in the gas jump to a higher energy state and then, a micro second after the discharge, jump back to their original energy state, emitting light as they do. Xenon is chosen because the state transition emits light in in several spectral lines, giving the appearance of a 'white' flash - other inert gases would produce light that's too red or not visible to the human eye at all.

Add in a reflector and you've got yourself a Xenon flash, capable of lighting up a room. My usual rule of thumb used to be that a Xenon flash is ten times brighter than LED and a hundred times shorter in duration, though recent advantages in LED flash technology have meant that the factors are probably nearer five and fifty nowadays.

The Xenon bulb on the Nokia 808, probably the most powerful flash ever put into a smartphone...

Advantages and disadvantages

The use of Xenon certainly isn't clear cut, as you can see from my table below:

A lot really depends on what you want to photograph in low light. If it's just your food or something (close and) properly posed then LED flash may well suffice. Whereas if you're shooting moving people (especially kids) then Xenon is a must...

Examples of LED vs Xenon flash

In practice, it's fairly easy to tell a Xenon-lit shot from an LED-lit photo. Take the same photo in an indoor social situation (e.g. down the pub) and the Xenon-lit shot will be ultra-crisp, faces and bodies are frozen in time, but the background to your main subject is usually quite dark, since the camera (phone) is exposing for the subject in focus. Here's an example from the 2010 Xenon-equipped Nokia N8:

In contrast, the LED-lit scene will be just that - more of a scene, with the background showing up evenly, but with your main subject usually slightly blurred through their natural motion (breathing, smiling, whatever), with this example shot on the 2012 Nokia Lumia 920:

Quite a dramatic difference between the two shots, though which you'd consider the better photo depends entirely on what you wanted from the shot in the first place.

It should be noted that most phones, including those with Xenon flashes, also have a 'night portrait' scene mode, in which the flash is fired but the shutter's left open for longer than strictly needed, in order to gain some of the context, the background, and thus (in theory) get the best of both worlds. This can work well for posed shots, but you run the risk of still getting some blurring around the Xenon-frozen parts of the image. As a result, 'night portrait' is very much a scene option rather than the default.

Here's another typical Xenon-lit example, showing the people crystal clear and frozen in time (complete with beer, mid-slosh) but with the background almost irrelevant:

Although not a huge party animal(!), I do like to document my extended family growing up, and trying to snap sub 5 year olds in the act of doing something unbearably cute in a dimly lit living room is absolutely a job for Xenon. 

For the young, tech-savvy 20 somethings too, they're eating out most nights, partying several times a week, shooting casual shots in often badly lit clubs and apartments, and most of the photos will be of other people. Living, breathing, moving people. Which means that trying to freeze movement with an LED flash is, again, doomed to disappointment. 

Yes, it's obvious from the above examples that Xenon-lit photos are rarely perfect - backgrounds are dark and you almost always get some degree of 'red eye' that has to be taken out later, on the phone or on the desktop - but they're, overall, better than LED-lit alternatives.

Which brings us to the physical requirements. The Nokia 808 PureView has two (count 'em) bulky cylindrical capacitors powering its Xenon bulb (shown at the top) - but then it has space to spare because of the physical size of the 1/1.2", 41 megapixel camera unit. However, even putting aside future flat capacitors, there have been other Xenon-equipped smartphones without too much of a 'bulge', not least the niche Android handset, the ill-fated Motorola Milestone.

The Lumia 920 is almost 11mm thick, but still fits in the hand well, and one would assume that a successor will be of similar form factor. 11mm is fine for fitting in a modest Xenon-compatible capacitor underneath the physical display, albeit not to the 808's specification. The latter also sported an LED for focus-assist, video lighting duties and 'torch' mode, and it's safe to assume that future Xenon-equipped smartphones will also have this flexibility.

Add in some intelligence in the camera software and maybe we really can have the best of all worlds, with the algorithms deciding when to fire the Xenon flash and how much extraneous context illumination to allow in, to fill out the scene?

Either way, I'm convinced that 2013 could be the year of Xenon. Whether the smartphones come from Nokia, Sony, Samsung or someone else. And in the meantime, if you fancy playing with Xenon again yourself, why not dig out your old 2007 Nokia N82 and have a blast down the pub?!

You may remember I featured a couple of interesting tutorial videos a week ago, on the subject of the Nokia 808 PureView and time lapse and lossless zoom? Included in that clip was footage from a high resolution time lapse - embedded below is the full 4K resolution, ultra high definition version of the original two minutes of time lapse footage. Quite stunning - show it to someone today and casually mention that it was shot on a 'phone' - they won't believe you!...

The photographer behind CameraCheckChannel is Martin Roth, by the way, in case you wanted to put a name to all this.

As usual, maximise the playback window and up the resolution, though note that 4K video is very bandwidth intensive, don't try streaming it unless you know that your connection is up to it! Plus the chances are that your video screen isn't anywhere near 4K resolution in the first place - if in doubt, stick to 1080p, which is perhaps more manageable!

Still impressive that this exists in 4K though, and that it was created on a phone (with help on the desktop to stitch the photos together, of course):

At the same time as announcing the new Asha 501 handset, Nokia quietly unveiled the latest addition to its accessory line up, the Nokia DC-18Universal Portable USB Charger. The accessory, which can be used to recharge any device with a microUSB charging port, comes in a variety of colours (cyan, white, red, and yellow), and has a capacity of 1720 mAh.

The DC-18 is really intended to be matched with the Nokia Asha 501, just as the Nokia DC-16, with it higher capacity battery (2200mAh), is intended to be paired with Nokia's Lumia devices, but everyone will have their own preferred styling and combination. The square form factor and relatively svelte size (57 x 57 x 14.9mm) of the DC-16 makes it an ideal candidate to live in a bag or coat pocket, ready for those inevitable recharging emergencies.

Charging is activated by pulling out the microUSB cable, and stops when you return the cable to its storage position. Pulling out the cable also causes the battery symbol in the centre of the device to light up, showing how much power is left in the charger's battery. The DC-18's internal battery can be recharged using any standard microUSB wall charger.

Given its capacity, the DC-18 is best suited to providing a quick top up, rather than a full recharge, although for devices with smaller batteries, such as the Nokia Lumia 620, it should just about stretch to providing a single full recharge from empty.

The DC-18 will go on sale in July, in select Middle East, African, Asian and European markets, for an estimated price of around €15 (before taxes).

Key specifications

• Weight: 65g
• Size: 57 x 57 x 14.9mm
• Battery capacity: 1720 mAh

You may remember that I posted about the huge update to Belle Extra Buttons, to v2.1, a couple of months ago? Well, now we apparently have v2.2 and it's also a biggie, with 'Swipe Feature, Status Pane Buttons, Tactile feedback and more'. Full changelog below, see what you think of this interface-changing utility.

Here's the quoted changelog for v2.2, according to Symbian Tweet:

1- Added Swipe Feature [ Right / Left ] on the bottom toolbar to open [ Expandable Windows- Installed Applications - Preloaded Features (Lock Screen - Show Open Applications - BatteryWindow - etc) ].

1a) Swipe Feature is available everywhere in mobile by default.

1b) Exception Apps List: To disable Swipe Feature in ‘Marked / Selected’ applications.

1c) Exception Apps List shows all installed applications, tap on application name to ‘Mark / Un-Mark’ it.

2- Status Pane Buttons [ Select one of two ways to access Status Pane Buttons ]

2a) Select available everywhere [ With Exception Apps List ].

2b) Select ‘At selected applications’ [ With Availability Apps List ].

2c) Both lists [ Exception Apps List / Availability Apps List ] shows all installed applications, tap on application name to ‘Mark / Un-Mark’ it.

3- Added Tactile feedback when touching Status Pane Buttons / Toolbar Buttons / Music Control Buttons / Expandable Window Shortcuts.

* Tactile feedback (Vibration + Sounds) follows active profile settings.

4- Enhanced Battery level readings when changing mobile battery with a lower capacity battery.

* You have to recharge mobile battery until it is full every time you change mobile battery with a battery has a different capacity.

5- Enhanced Preloaded Stylize Presets & preloaded icons.

6- Internal enhancements for a better quicker performance.

Impressive stuff from the developer, Mr Alshahaway, can Belle Extra Buttons go any further? Is there anything else left to add? 

You can buy it here in the Nokia Store.

A good point about battery monitoring, by the way. With replaceable batteries feasible for most of us, and quite often of different nominal capacity (and even voltage), it's vital to charge fully in order to calibrate what the OS thinks is "100%".

Comments welcome!

The thing about Formula 1 is that it engenders passion. For the cars, the drivers, the sport. So much so that we have here a developer called 'schumi1331' (hmm....), but not to fear because his labour of love is this freeware application that rounds up most of the essential stuff you need to know if you're an F1 fan. And yes, if you saw this title last year and dismissed it, don't worry, because this is a swanky new version of the idea, implemented in Qt. Screens and link below, just in time for you to get up to speed for the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.

Here then is a run through of F1uptodate, which, judging from its language support, is as international as the sport itself:

Picking a language to use and (right) a fairly heart warming introductory letter from the developer (don't worry, this is only shown once)

The main menu within F1uptodate, complete with countdown to the next event (and its sub-event, in this case third practice - this can be customised); (right) general settings, applying to the comments page (below) and 'live'/scheduled features

There are comprehensive (current) driver and team databases, all linked up with photos and (handily) direct links to each driver or team's Twitter account. Provided you're signed into the big 'T' on the web, you can also follow them from here, of course.

Here's a corresponding entry in the team database, all up to date, of course (F1uptodate hooks into numerous online APIs); (right) the F1 calendar, showing the current Grand Prix weekend in yellow.

Digging into the Calendar shows a circuit overview and GMT timings for all the sessions; (right) the 'Live' section includes comments from Twitter on the track action - curiously, the 'Standings' pane remained blank, possibly due to failure in one of the feeds used.

Finally, there are the all important current results and standings, for teams and drivers, all here in glorious AMOLED-friendly white-on-black. Superb stuff.

At this price(!), highly recommended for anyone with a hint of petrol in their veins. You can download F1uptodate here for free in the Nokia Store.

You may remember that, a few months ago, the BBC's iPlayer team had a bit of an early spring clean, removing official support for all Symbian smartphones? Happily, in that story, I was able to share the small trick that still let users 'download' programmes (as opposed to 'streaming' them). I did note at the time that the situation was likely only temporary, until the BBC got round to removing the DRM support for Symbian handsets. Now it seems that this is indeed on the way out and that the BBC's time-shifted output may soon become a stranger to Symbian.

As of now, certainly for my test devices (E7 and 808), if you try and download a programme from BBC iPlayer, the download of the .WMV file succeeds, but then the DRM license can't be retrieved from the BBC's servers, implying that something's been finally unhooked at the Beeb's end. Ah well.

You'd have thought the BBC wouldn't even show the 'Download' option anymore if viewed in Symbian Web? Maybe the web team haven't got round to 'fixing' that yet? Actually downloading the video programme files works fine...

... and you can access the .WMV files in your usual download folder...

... but then however many times you tap on the filename, there seems to no longer be a connection possible to the BBC's licensing servers.

Interestingly, as you'll see from the comments below, some Symbian users are still able to connect to, and receive licenses from, the BBC's servers. It's not clear whether success or failure is dependent on the connection ISP (e.g. my Wi-fi takes the phones via Virgin Media) or on the device product codes. My guess, then, is that support is gradually being withdrawn - kind of the opposite of a 'roll out'? In time, I expect no DRM licenses to be served.

It's a sign of the times, obviously, that Symbian fell out of favour with the iPlayer team, who are evidently pushing solutions for the mass market iOS and Android platforms. Quite sad though, after almost five years of happy BBC viewing on Symbian, starting with the Nokia N96, I believe?

Now I know what you're going to ask: "What's the point? If you're at home then you can use a real TV or a desktop/laptop, and if you're mobile then you probably don't want hours of mobile TV swallowing up your cellular bandwidth!" All very true, but say you're mobile, some breaking news is happening and you're frustrated that all you can see are headlines and textual reports. Wouldn't it be nice to see what's going on by tapping into a live TV stream? With, admittedly, a UK focus, I investigate a few options. I'm sure readers from around the world can chip in with links to solutions for Symbian that work in other areas?

Getting 'live TV' on your smartphone isn't really about watching your soap operas on the bus, it's about short bursts of 'live' in the place where you are. Two particular examples for me recently were:

• watching the last ten minutes of qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix while out and about in the car (don't worry, I pulled over!)
• dipping into live world news a few times a day around the house, perhaps while doing chores - the smartphone becomes the mini TV that goes into every room, etc.

With that in mind, what exactly are the options on Symbian? Do bear in mind that I'm talking from a UK perspective, mind you - I can't try out native TV stations/streams from other lands for obvious reasons, just as people outside the UK shouldn't be able to get hold of UK TV streams.

SPB TV

This longstanding application ties into (in practice) a few dozen open TV streams from around the world, and uses a network of servers across the world to maximise throughput to its client software on all platforms. The interface is fairly slick, the buffering delays of the order of only about ten seconds when starting to play a channel, and you can even browse the channel guide during playback.

In recent years the channel selection has got more and more culturally diverse, with fewer English language channels, presumably due to licensing issues. You can still stream France 24 (in English, despite the name) and Euronews though, plus niche streams like 'NASA TV'.

Browsing through available channels in SPB TV...

Typical playback quality, quoted at 350kbps.

You can tap to change channels while playback continues, adjust volume, mute or return to the channel browser full-screen.

TV Catchup

This 're-broadcast' service for terrestrial UK TV has been in trouble with the law in the past, but that seems to be a thing of the past now, thankfully. You have to register with the site and it does check which ISP or mobile network you seem to be 'coming in from', all of which helped TV Catchup achieve its current respectable status.

The main attraction here is that it's very mobile friendly, with a choice of high (wi-fi) and low (cellular) quality streams of over 50 'free to air' UK channels, served up by its mobile web site, m.tvcatchup.com. The only (very minor) snag is that the code used seems to conflict with Symbian Web - you'll have to switch over to Opera mobile in order to be able to stream video seamlessly. It does all work rather brilliantly though.

Log in (only takes a minute and is a one-time thing), pick a stream quality....

...and then browse the channels and pick one.

Typical playback quality over wi-fi. Probably only QVGA, upscaled, like SPB TV, but it's watchable if you're desperate to see... err... this rather dreadful game show!

CNN International

I'm cheating with this one slightly, in that it's not 'live TV', but it's almost as good as, for news anyway, in that you can dive into this every day or two and get potted TV highlights from the world news, picking and choosing from the various categories. The icon you want is the little video playback one on the main toolbar, leading to all the CNN video content.

The home page, with textual stories. Tap the videos icon...

...and get a similar carousel, this time with movie clips in the category of your choice (see the pick list, top-right).

As with SPB TV, each video is accompanied by a five second static ad, in this case an offline one promoting a Sky TV cable show.

Typical playback quality. Again, think QVGA up-scaled.

Royalty on my smartphone....!

__________________________

Compared to a few years ago, coming up with only two (and a half) options for UK residents left me feeling rather short-changed. Are things better in your part of the world? Do please chip in with the comments, add links to relevant apps, etc. Thanks.

In fact, ignore the title, because I've included no less than five top camera-toting smartphones in this group test. In addition to the big three, the Nokia 808 PureView (still reckoned to be champion by most people), the Nokia Lumia 920 (the flagship Windows Phone until tomorrow!) and the Samsung Galaxy S4 (brand new and top-rated), I also wanted to include the 2010 Nokia N8, since its sensor's megapixel count and performance should be a close match for the SGS4, plus last year's Galaxy S III, so we can see how much of a difference Samsung have made in terms of their camera tech. Let the fight rage!

Minor notes

• As usual, I've cropped in to each photo so that we can see differences more clearly. For a detailed explanation of my testing methodology, see here.
• The various smartphone cameras have very different angles of view, i.e. some cover a much smaller arc in front of the lens. This, in part, explains why the subjects - all cropped to the same degree - appear different sizes in the comparisons. The other factor is, of course, the resolution the photos were taken in.
• The Nokia 808 was set at 8 megapixels (in its PureView Creative mode), to better match the resolutions of the other camera phones here (9MP, 6MP, 7MP and 9MP respectively)
• All phones were left on default/auto throughout, apart from manually controlling flash on/off for the low light test. 
• The Lumia 920 photo in the 'pub' test was taken with the generally excellent third party app CameraPro for logistical reasons (in that the Windows Phone app is feature-light and doesn't have a 'self-timer' option!) 
• Other smartphones considered for inclusion included the Sony Xperia Z, rejected because of its appalling noise reduction blur (see here) and the HTC One, rejected because it would produce images with not enough detail (see here).

Major notes

• The whole point of this test is to look at the quality of colour and amount of resolved detail that a new user would experience. There is zero allowance for fiddling with settings (ISO, exposure, sharpening, contrast, and so on) - all the phone cameras here can produce better results with knowledgeable fiddling, the Nokia 808 more than most, of course, since it's a more powerful sensor and there are more settings to fiddle with.
• I also only allowed the Nokia 808 to use its PureView zoom in one test, so as not to bias the article too much in favour of this technology. In addition, I did have to use this zoom implicitly to even achieve the macro photos in tests 4 and 5.

Test 1: Full sunlight, medium distance

The Herald from the BMA, looking at the rather faded BEA logo on its paintwork from 20 metres away.

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

This crop comparison instantly shows why you have to be a little careful in scoring camera tests. At first glance, the crop from the Galaxy S4 looks dramatically better, but then you realise that this is because of the extreme (though very clever) noise reduction and sharpening algorithms that have been applied by Samsung. Images treated like this do look better for general users, mind you, so this shouldn't be discounted.

You can tell where the algorithms have been by looking at the artificial dark border around each letter and the artificially pure blocks of solid colour. The Nokia 808's image is most close to reality (faded paint etc.) but I'll acknowledge that it looks a bit 'soft' here by comparison. The SGS III's version is much the same as the GS4, but at lower resolution, while the N8 produces a generally accurate image, spoilt only by some noisy artefacts. The 920 doesn't fare too badly - again noise and digital artefacts spoil the effect.

Nokia 808 PureView: 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 6 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 6 pts; Nokia N8 7 pts

Test 2: Hazy sunlight, distance detail

The Lands End pub from the end of its gravel overflow car park, looking at signage on the building:

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8 (click any hyperlink to download the original JPG):

It's a similar story here, though looking at more extreme detail in the distance, pushing the resolution of these camera phones to the limit (see also the zoom test below). It's a choice between the natural looking N8 and 808 shots and the processed versions in the two Samsung Galaxy phones. The casual user would probably look at these crops and give the win to the Galaxy S4, and in truth it's impressive how much detail is coaxed out of the relatively tiny sensor, even you can't overlook the over-sharpening. All five phone cameras did quite well here, mind you, and scoring is going to be subjective.

Nokia 808 PureView: 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 9 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 8 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 7 pts; Nokia N8 9 pts

Test 3: Full sunlight, zoom allowed

Looking out my window at distant roof detail. Note that digital zoom in most cameras is normally frowned upon, but the artefacts aren't as ugly as they used to be, with extra resolution now being used to smooth out jaggies in the detail. Plus, general users tend to use zoom anyway, not knowing it's supposed to be a bad idea, so I think this is a valid test case.

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

The Nokia 808 PureView was born to do this sort of thing, of course, boasting lossless software zoom from its 41 megapixel sensor, so it's not surprising that its image is almost perfect, with zero artefacts. What's surprising here is that the Galaxy S4's camera gets close - its crop is obviously 'enhanced' but again a general user would pick it as looking clear and detailed - you have to look at brick and leaf detail to really appreciate that you're not looking strictly at reality.

The other phone cameras struggle slightly more, with the N8 next and the noisy Lumia 920 and the blown out SGS III crops bringing up the rear.

Nokia 808 PureView: 9 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 4 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 4 pts; Nokia N8 6 pts

Test 4: Full sunlight, tricky macro shot

A very tricky macro shot, here, with a pair of tiny flowers, lit strongly against a shady background, one reflecting sunlight back and the other not:

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

All the phone cameras struggled with getting the exposure right here. In each case, I could have fiddled with exposure manually and gotten better results, but we're explicitly comparing like with like here, and using full auto settings. The Nokia 808 PureView is particularly weak on extreme macro shots, since its optics don't allow focussing closer than 15cm or so. The shot above is with some PureView zoom added in and it still doesn't get anywhere near as 'close' as the other phones.

The two Samsung Galaxy devices best the best showing in terms of capturing the blue flower, with the Lumia 920 managing only a weak violet and the N8 hardly managing any colour at all. As I say, a very tricky shot to get and my fingers were itching to reach for those exposure icons!

Nokia 808 PureView: 5 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 8 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 6 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 5 pts; Nokia N8 4 pts

Test 5: Another macro, easier lighting, looking at detail

Much easier lighting this time, and with a subject which should reward a camera with an eye for detail:

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

All five devices did a much better job here, with the Nokia 808 again being hampered by not being able to get as close as the other smartphones. Striking though the Lumia 920 and N8 images are, the crops from the two Galaxy phones are simply stunning, perhaps because the sharpening algorithms really, really like dandelions!...

Nokia 808 PureView: 5 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 9 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 8 pts; Nokia N8 7 pts

Test 6: Low light, static indoor scene (no flash)

I set up a low light environment in controlled conditions at home, with flash disabled on each device. In each I focussed on the 'i' in the word 'family':

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8 (click any hyperlink to download the original JPG):

As you perhaps might expect, low light conditions start to favour the phone cameras with biggest sensors, able to gather more light, plus the Nokia devices also have the Carl Zeiss optics, which do help keep things clear when the going gets tough. The Nokia 808 crop is perfect, with the white backdrop coloured by incandescent light from the table lamp, and all the tiny blue detail visible. Stunning. The N8 and Lumia 920 also do their best, but end up with a backdrop that is 'too' white - in the 920's case losing blue leaf detail too. Both the Samsung Galaxy smartphones fare badly here, with a reddish cast where there was none in reality, though again you have to admire the sheer detail in the GS4's version.

Nokia 808 PureView: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 5 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 5 pts; Nokia N8 8 pts

Test 7: Low light, dynamic (people moving) scene

I set up a simulated 'pub' scene, with flash allowed on each device. I tried to keep moving in the same realistic fashion for each shot - think typical pub/party. And yes, I know the top's still on the bottle - you wouldn't want me drunk in charge of a camera test, would you?!

I took the exact same shot with all five smartphones and then present here the central crop, to show the level (and quality) of detail captured. Clockwise from top left: Nokia 808 PureView, Samsung Galaxy S4, Samsung Galaxy S III, Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia N8:

Xenon flash, of course, rules wherever there are moving people, and the Nokia 808 crop is, again, perfect - look at the writing on the bottle, look at the bottle top detail. The N8 doesn't fare quite as well, but the bottle is still fairly crisp. The LED-lit alternatives are blurrier, though again I was surprised by how close the Galaxy S4 camera got in terms of being 'acceptable' to most people in the context of an overall scene. Also note that the 'red' shifted backdrop isn't anywhere near as intrusive on the Galaxy phones with flash employed.  The less said about the Lumia 920 crop the better - the one thing Nokia's 'PureView phase 2' tech isn't good at is shooting moving people indoors....

Nokia 808 PureView: 10 pts; Samsung Galaxy S4 7 pts; Samsung Galaxy S III 5 pts; Nokia Lumia 920 3 pts; Nokia N8 8 pts

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In summary

Adding up the points give us a rough idea of overall ranking here:

• Nokia 808 PureView: 55/70
• Samsung Galaxy S4: 55/70
• Nokia N8: 49/70
• Samsung Galaxy S III: 43/70
• Nokia Lumia 920: 38/70

It's at this point that I swear, I honestly swear that the result wasn't fixed in any way. I always leave the points totting up to the very end and that ways it's a nice surprise for me too.... You all know how much of a fan of Nokia camera hardware I am, and so it should be strongly noted that:

• this is the first time anything other than the 808 has trounced the 2010 N8
• this is the first time anything's even got close to the 808 PureView, let alone equalled its overall score

It's very impressive what Samsung has eked out of the tiny 1/3.2" sensor in the Galaxy S4 and shows what modern BSI tech and superlative image processing algorithms can do. In fact, it's also a slightly damning condemnation of the Nokia Lumia 920's image processing - with an ostensibly identical sensor and superior optics, it manages to produce dramatically less detailed images at every turn. I think we all expected more from that device and I haven't given up hope that its firmware can still improve matters.

Of course, saying the Galaxy S4 has as good a camera as the Nokia 808 PureView is a little misleading. Ultimately, the latter is more flexible and powerful, especially in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing with the Creative settings, but the point is that casual, every day users will probably find that the Galaxy S4 exceeds their expectations in terms of imaging at every turn*.

* The one possible fly in the ointment is that there's a fraction of a second 'shutter lag' in the launch Galaxy S4 firmware, but reports from testers of the next firmware version are that this lag has gone, so I'm giving Samsung the benefit of the doubt here.

Credit to Samsung then, who have just raised the bar in terms of 1/3.2" camera performance for the rest of the industry.

_{(Thanks to Clove for the Galaxy S4 loan)}

You may remember that Nokia issued a rather primitive SkyDrive uploader for Symbian to Belle Refresh devices last year, followed up by a more polished version two months ago? The idea was to ease the uploading of contacts and photos to Microsoft's live.com, with a view to users one day making a move to Windows Phone. Although many, including me, had sourced the .SIS file and had this installed on Belle Feature Pack 1 & 2 phones, I'm not sure there was a big formal rollout. This changed today with the SkyDrive tool now available through SW Update for all Belle FP1/2 devices, including the Nokia 808 PureView.

The previous installed SkyDrive uploader (from last year) was a mere 115k and was listed as v1.07. This new version is 381k and is listed as v10.2(17), so a much more sizeable piece of code. This now handles the uploading of all photos and contacts (so be careful about bandwidth if you have a lot of photos and/or you choose to upload at original resolution).

Here's the update appearing on my Nokia 808:

Checking and updating...

A rather monochrome splash screen! And signing into my live.com account...

A somewhat scary lst of permissions need to be granted, but they're necessary because of the contacts sync, of course; A friendly warning - I headed straight for Settings...

...and always plump for 'Actual size', since I may actually need to access the photos from the cloud at a later date and don't want to find that they're all down at VGA or similar! Tap 'Upload' to start the whole process, if you're brave enough!

As with the Belle Refresh version of this tool, note that it can take a long time to upload both contacts and photos. You may want to set it going overnight and on Wifi?

You can get the update on your 808, 701 or 700 by going into SW Update on the device and letting the update list refresh. No restart is needed.

Comments welcome if you installed and ran this - did all your contacts make it across to your new live.com account?

Available now is a new release on the 'non-beta' track of Nokia Suite, v3.8.30, following the release of a 3.8 beta a month or two ago, with the main changes over the previous stable release, 3.7.22, being better SkyDrive migration and a mountain of 'reliability' fixes. Screenshot proof below - v3.8.30 installed fine in place over my previous stable version on my Windows 7 laptop.

Here's the summarised changelog (from the stable v3.7.x):

• Improved reliability with a number of important error corrections, especially in maps view, messaging view and in backup and restore.
• Fix for calendar sync issue with S40 phones, when phone and PC is located in timezone, where Daylight Saving Time (DST) is applied in winter (for example Australia).
• Several improvements for content migration to Microsoft SkyDrive. We have fixed several issues related to Microsoft SkyDrive migration, this improves overall reliability of migrating data from Symbian, Meego and S40 phones to Microsoft SkyDrive.. 

Good to see Nokia Suite continuing to be maintained, and straddling the world of local connectivity and cloud storage, too.

Comments welcome - I'd love to know how many readers still use Nokia Suite and how many are now 'all cloud'? I have to confess that the only time I really touch Nokia Suite now is when trying to find a particular maps or app update that proves elusive 'over the air'!

My 5-camera 7-scene test, earlier this week, provoked a lot of comment along the lines of "ah, but you left the Nokia 808 on default settings for almost all of that, if you'd have used Creative mode properly, the 808 would have fared a lot better!" Maybe. In the two examples below, I just show the two main contenders tackling a distant detail and an extreme macro. Seems I was right about the Galaxy S4, you know. And I was right about the Nokia 808 PureView (if the critics had read through all my text)...

The two main contentions from the critics were around distant detail and macro shots, so I did one of each. And in each case I put the Nokia 808 up to 'Superfine' (in terms of detail and JPG compression) and also ramped up the colours to 'Vivid'. And I then ran the 808 at full 2x PureView zoom (it's 3x in 5MP mode, remember). 

Distant detail

In overcast, dull light (UK weather, but hey, it gives the phone cameras more of a challenge), I shot a small sign across the road. Here's the full scene:

And here are the crops from the Nokia 808 (left) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (right):

As before, in my zoom test in the previous article, the Nokia 808 PureView was born to do this sort of thing and the detail on offer is natural and impressive. More than before (2 pts behind), the Galaxy S4 is quite a way further back, merely doing its best to interpolate detail. In fact, were I scoring this comparison out of 10, I'd give the 808 9 pts and the S4 5 pts (i.e. 2 pts less), which just goes to show that results of these comparisons will naturally vary slightly according to the subject and conditions. With the light being less than perfect, the Nokia 808's larger sensor and optics come into play in a big way. In bright sunlight, the Galaxy S4 does a bit better, but will always still be a few rungs behind.

Extreme macro

Again in overcast, dull light, I shot a similar dandelion as in the first test. Here's the full scene:

And here are the crops from the Nokia 808 (left) and Samsung Galaxy S4 (right):

Again I stand by my original comments about the Samsung Galaxy S4 being stunning for macro photographs, as here. Even at full sensor resolution (2x zoom/8MP, equivalent to using the 34MP mode), the Nokia 808 simply can't focus close enough to match the Galaxy. Both shots above were taken as close as I could reliably get a focus lock.

My overall conclusions remain the same though, in regards these two very different smartphones. The Nokia 808 PureView will always produce more natural, 'purer', more detailed photos, and will produce them with more flexibility for those who know what they are doing - as long as the subject isn't closer than about 40cm. 

Under 30cm, the edge goes to the Samsung Galaxy S4, which can accurately focus down to about 7cm and with the full sensor resolution available across quite a narrow field of view.

With such different conclusions based on what the subject matter is, it's perhaps no wonder that my 7-scene test caused a stir with its results - every single one of us would devise a different set of test scenes/subjects! Seven landscapes and general subjects would produce a landslide win for the 808, while seven macro shots of flowers, food and small pets would produce a big win for the Galaxy S4.

The OS that just won't die? Two years and three months after Symbian was publicly put on life support, the platform updates keep coming, with the rollout today for all Belle Refresh and Feature Pack 2 smartphones of a 6MB Email and Calendar update, incorporating better attachment and event handling, plus a new compatibility update for Nokia Music for Belle Feature Pack 2 devices. Whatever modern Symbian device you own, head for SW Update on the device, or plug into Nokia Suite.

Here are the updates appearing on the editorial Nokia 700 (also seen on the 808, by the way):

6MB of this is the Email and Calendar update, 2MB is the Nokia Music client update...

Note the Belle Feature Pack 2-specific version number (see below); (right) Nokia Music was v16.40.2 up until today, so this looks like a minor update to maintain compatibility with changes at the server end.

Note that a reboot is needed. Also, when restarting email after the reboot, the application clears its previous cache of email headers, so be patient the first time, while all your headers and most recent messages are retrieved. 

And comments welcome if this fixes attachment or calendar issues that you have been having.

Getting started with the update for the Nokia Music client

_______________

And below is the Email and Calendar update appearing on the Belle Refresh-powered editorial Nokia E7. Note the different version numbering and file size, this is because the update has had to be slightly tweaked for each Symbian platform. This version should also appear for the likes of the C7, N8, and so on:

Belle Refresh devices still getting updates as they approach their third birthday - impressive!

Great work by Nokia and Accenture again, I wonder what's next from their programming teams for Symbian?

We haven't plugged my cross-platform Phones Show for ages here on the All About... sites, but I couldn't resist the video below. Not only is it my 200th Phones Show (FX: pops champagne cork!), there are plenty of relevant appearances of Symbian and Windows Phone-powered devices, listed below, with relevant links. And hey, there's also a big review of the Samsung Galaxy S4, which is, in some ways, the benchmark for all of 2013's new releases - it's certainly going to be the biggest selling smartphone - so hopefully worth watching too. If you want to skip straight to the Nokia bits, move to around the 11 minute mark.

In the 'User Stories' segment, then, there are appearances by the:

• (Windows Phone 7) Nokia Lumia 800
• (Windows Phone 8) Nokia Lumia 920
• (Windows Phone 8) Nokia Lumia 720
• (Symbian) Nokia 808 PureView
• (Symbian/S60) Nokia 5800
• (Symbian/S60) Nokia E71
• (Meego Harmattan) Nokia N9

Here's Phones Show 200, anyway - enjoy! (As usual, maximise the window and 'up' the quality, up to 1080p)

Jaw-droppingly impressive. And jaw-droppingly impractical at the same time. But that's what you get for doing some incredibly maths-intensive work on a smartphone, even the 1.3GHz Nokia 808 PureView. The somewhat unimaginatively named PhotProc (I imagine the developer would jump at a decent alternative, if suggested) is brand new and brings de-noising, sharpening and many other operations to your 5 and 8 megapixel images, all handled on the phone. But, as the headline suggests, patience is needed, since PhotProc needs to do a lot of work to accomplish all this. So much so, that it implements its own 'job queue', reminding me of setting off batch processes on my mainframe overnight in the 1980s. See below for more.

Here's the official description of PhotProc, from its sourceforge home page:

This is a photo editing application for Symbian, written in Qt. It's especially designed for the Pureview 808 smartphone. It lets you edit photographs up to very high resolutions. The editing tools are primarily aimed at amateur photographers, so: filtering for different light levels, colours etc. You can't do things like paint on top of photographs or combine 2 photographs together.

As you'll see from my walkthrough below, this is a very different beast to the onboard Symbian photo editing functions, though there is some overlap - brightness, saturation, contrast, resizing, and so on. But most of PhotProc's functions are new to Symbian.

Although most of the photo adjustments on offer are previewed fairly quickly (a few seconds), so that you can see their effect, actually rendering all your changes into a finished JPG can take up to ten minutes, which is why the processing is hived off to a background thread, with the progress off the current thread indicated by a small blue bar at the top left of the main interface.

The idea is that you carry on editing other images as needed, perhaps queueing other changes to be rendered, and then you get on with your life. Symbian's multitasking and can handle this sort of behaviour well. Later, you check Gallery on the phone and there are your new renders, to be admired.

Starting up...

Handily, PhotProc comes with a demo image pre-loaded, so that you can play around with the functions even if you haven't got any suitable images of your own...

Loading up one of my own photos...

'About' info and some details on my image....

Starting to make changes, here bumping up the contrast and saturation...

Getting advanced now, let's de-noise it a little and also apply some sharpening (hey, got to match that Samsung Galaxy S4!)...

I'm not too sure how this bit works, but you can select colours you want to 'emphasise'. Any pointers welcomed from readers...

If you know what the 'light map threshold' is then you're a better man than I - suffice to say, plenty to fiddle with here. Everything you change does get previewed on screen (i.e. at nHD resolution) and you can also zoom in using multi-touch if you want to see the effect on a particular part of your image...

Finally, tap on 'Save' and a new processing job is kicked off. Note that you can carry on using the phone, even editing other images, while the processing takes place...

Viewing the finished result in Symbian Gallery. Too sharp? Yes, perhaps. Ah well, back PhotProc I go....

File PhotProc under 'for photo geeks only', I think, but its mere existence is to be applauded. The developer freely admits that PhotProc is perhaps too slow in its current implementation, but I know he'd love feedback on this (maybe add to this thread?) and other aspects of this new application. You can download the latest installer for PhotProc here. Note that it's open source (and therefore, by definition, free).

Fresh from my (and others) attempts to capture the moon with the Nokia 808 PureView, I was interested to see that 808 photographer extraordinaire Richard Dorman has been going one step further and trying to capture the stars. See below for the proof. Essentially the trick is to take lots of photos (with the 808 on a tripod, of course) and stack them together for a final render. Yes, this can be done more easily on a standalone camera perhaps, but isn't it still cool that it's being done on a Symbian-powered phone?

From Richard's notes:

Right let’s get down to business, firstly find your location. You will need a tripod for this, otherwise the background will not match in each image and the trails will have kinks in them.

Do some test shots of the scene to make sure you are happy with the location and the frame you have chosen.

Settings

•  use infinity focus (if you have it). The Nokia 808 does.
• Set the ISO to 100 and take a shot, can you see the background and the stars, if not then reset ISO to 200 and test again. Continue this until you get an image you are happy with
• Time lapse setting, every 5 seconds take an image, with the Nokia 808 you can set it to take a maximum of 1500 images. This is plenty to achieve star trails. In fact 400+ is enough.
• Flash off of course

I also suggest you take something to drink and maybe read, you will be at location for an hour or two. Plus you might need a backup charger, I made sure I had a Nokia DC-16 attached just in case it was needed. The last thing you want is for the phone to run out of battery.

What a great idea. Read his post in full for details on how to stack the images together at the end of the day, and for a few pointers on what else might go wrong.

Comments welcome if you've ever tried something like this, or indeed if you've found a particular 808-compatible tripod that works well - Nokia's HH-23 is now apparently unavailable and never used to hold the phone that securely in the first place, so presumably most of you will be using a third party tripod attachment. care to share any success stories? I used this one for ages until I broke it(!)

What next? Trying to photograph galaxies?

(hat tip to PureView Club)