Disqus - Latest Comments for stevelitchfrield

Re: Your view on Symbian ‘and the PR War’

stevelitchfrield — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:44:41 -0000

She was in the wrong place. She should have stepped outside the speaker hall (empty and rather pointless, yes) and got chatting to the thousands of developers in the main stand area - there was more buzz there this year than any other Symbian show I can remember.

Re: The Phoneage Message To Nokia: HELP HELP HELP

stevelitchfrield — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 04:41:29 -0000

Sorry, but sod's law got you with the timing of this. v20 firmware is now out and it totally CHANGES the N97's interface, IMHO. Also, that huge 800 million loss WASN'T due to poor phone sales figures, it was to do with the Nokia Siemens division....!!
AND
While I'm here, the poor GPS is a hardware fault on some early production units - Nokia swap out the antenna at a service centre.

Re: Who’s the arse using his phone for directions? Me!

stevelitchfrield — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 14:37:11 -0000

Ha! Should have used Nokia Maps - at least that way the whole of the UK is preloaded 8-)

You see, Nokia Maps DOES have its advantages!!!

Re: Nokia N86 brings Time Lapse photography for everyone

stevelitchfrield — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:51:57 -0000

No, no, no, this is a S60 3rd Edition FP2 thing and many other devices have had this for ages. e.g. my Eseries E75 has it....

Re: How Microsoft Office 10 will be locked out of my toolbag

stevelitchfrield — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:03:28 -0000

ummm..... you know, there IS a world outside of the USA's borders, you know. And it's a world that quite likes, among other things, Nokia and Symbian. Almost EVERY geek I know uses a Nokia. 8-)

Re: Nokia N97 Mobile Computing Giveaway Winner

stevelitchfrield — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:01:14 -0000

Yes, it seems a bit much that you chose Chris TOO! 8-) No disrespect, Chris, but I think Mark should give this one to the next most deserving response!!!

Re: Hands-on with the Nokia N97 Mini and X6

stevelitchfrield — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:01:43 -0000

In Rafe's defense, being filmed live like that, unscripted, is enough hassle and stress on its own. Trying to then string together a coherent demo and not tap on the wrong things is darned difficult. Yes, S60 5th Edition is occasionally a little unclear, but it's not THAT difficult, for goodness sake.

Re: What happens when you use a pickaxe to operate your N86

stevelitchfrield — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:46:47 -0000

No, no, the REASON he chose the N86 was that its camera is stellar. EVERY other smartphone in the world takes inferior photos. Trust me. Even the more-fragile i8910 HD.

Re: The Nokia N82 : A Traveler’s Best Friend

stevelitchfrield — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:03:48 -0000

Yes, it's a perfect travel tool, agreed!

Re: Nokia’s N97 & The 5800: The trouble with 16:9

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 11 May 2009 11:05:28 -0000

No, it doesn't, although admittedly I was wrong too 8-)

Focal length is the intra-camera distance from the centre of the lens to the centre of the sensor etc.. Not sure what the distance I was talking about is called: maybe 'focal point'?

Anyway, the thing James was talking about is, apparently, termed 'field of view'.

So now we all know!

Re: Nokia’s N97 & The 5800: The trouble with 16:9

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 11 May 2009 06:27:42 -0000

Yes, I know you talked about the graphic in the text. But the very fact that you use two 'photos', side by side, gives an instant impression that you're using the graphic to illustrate the main point you were making. Which is a bit misleading....

Anyway, time to let the matter drop and let the masses chip in, I think! 8-)

Re: Nokia’s N97 & The 5800: The trouble with 16:9

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 11 May 2009 05:36:03 -0000

Well, you wouldn't write an article about car number plates but keep referring to the gearstick, would you? Quite an important distinction for us to make about camera terms before your legions of followers all go off repeating the same misunderstanding 8-)

The way widescreen video images are shot is a bit crude, I'll agree. I disagree about the way you're building this all into a major issue though - I've just done tests here with other handsets (E75, N95) and the angle of the 5800's camera optics is only *fractionally* less - I'd never noticed a problem and I've shot hundreds of photos and dozens of videos on this thing.

To return to your forest example, the audio on the N95 or any other phone camera would have struggled in the same way. I just don't think all this is an issue.

Your opening graphic is VERY misleading, by the way, you're comparing a video shot from a pro camera at twice the distance away!!

Re: Nokia’s N97 & The 5800: The trouble with 16:9

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 11 May 2009 04:13:46 -0000

Err..... what has all this got to do with 'focal length', guys? The focal length is the distance at which objects are perfectly in focus - usually infinity for most Nokia phones.

What you're talking about is how wide the angle of the lens is. Some cameras are 'wider' than others. In my experience, most Nokia Nseries phones produce video images that are too 'wide' - the 5800's unit seems better in this respect.

The comment about the sound being quiet because you're too far away - this is because phone cams tend to use the voice mike, which usually ends up pointing off to the side somewhere. Hence why I shoot my Phones Show inside, or at least in a car, so that the sound is contained and doesn't get lost.

Re: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic - new software update available, bringing many improvements

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 08:13:12 -0000

Errmmmm..... never mind what Nokia press office say, this update (v20) has been out for a month for most 5800s! Not really news, although v20 for some product codes was only a week ago.

Re: Nokia: We might build our own social network. Rubbish!

stevelitchfrield — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:32:52 -0000

100% agreed. What's needed, I reckon, is for Google Maps/Latitude, already available for every platform, to add Facebook status integration. That would get us 80% of the way towards the perfect useable mobile social network....
PS. Yes, I know the iPhone version's not out yet, but it's coming in the next firmware.

Re: Om Malik chucks his iPhone and devolves to a Blackberry Curve

stevelitchfrield — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 02:28:05 -0000

Exactly. See also http://www.allaboutiphone.net/2009/01/raise-a-g... 8-)

Re: MIR Show goes to Rome and finds locals using N73s

stevelitchfrield — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 04:04:11 -0000

Yes, but next time you're on the A34 heading towards some God forsaken back street in Swindon, amidst heavy traffic, Nokia Maps will talk you through getting there in real time, whatever wrong turnings you have to take. Google Maps will... distract you from the road and kill you 8-)

As I say, I'm a fan of both, though. Your use case was definitely a sweet spot for GM. And yes, NM's POI search engine could be a lot better, but v3,0 is just around the corner, so who knows?

Re: MIR Show goes to Rome and finds locals using N73s

stevelitchfrield — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 03:38:37 -0000

Yep, postcodes make things 10x faster for searching. They do have postcodes in Italy, of course, but a tourist wouldn't know them. Again making Nokia Maps a bad tool for the job. You'd use NM where someone had given you a written address to navigate to (usually by car). You'd use GM if you were a pedestrian tourist for the day(!) stuck in a strange city where you didn't know any postcodes or even how to spell half the things you were looking for.....

8-)

Re: MIR Show goes to Rome and finds locals using N73s

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:37:32 -0000

Yes, sounds about right. But bear in mind that Nokia Maps is a street-based real-time navigation package with POIs bolted on. Google Maps is a POI-based mapping package with no real-time navigation component at all.

Different apps for different purposes, though there is some overlap. Like you, I always travel with both on hand 8-)

Re: MIR Show goes to Rome and finds locals using N73s

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:21:18 -0000

Interesting. What do you mean by 'fell flat'? For what it's worth, Nokia Maps is faster than Google Maps at finding my location here in the UK. But yes, Google Maps is better at finding 'popular' things, I suspect its databases are wider and fuzzier 8-)

Re: MIR Show goes to Rome and finds locals using N73s

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:14:25 -0000

So what was Ben's problem? I'm guessing it was nothing to do with Nokia Maps and a lot to do with not having a SIM with roaming data? Without data, he'd have had to preload the maps and also have to wait ages because Assisted GPS wouldn't work.

As long as there's data, Nokia Maps is superb....

Re: iTunes m4p to mp3 converter/ripper?

stevelitchfrield — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 04:11:57 -0000

Sigh. Don't do it, Ewan. For everybody out there, the golden rule of music conversion is: DON'T DO IT. Trying to go from one highly compressed format to another is recipe for loss of quality and unwanted digital artefacts.

Personally, I buy the flipping CDs. And can then rip them in a bazillion formats over the next 50 years without once losing an ounce of unnecessary quality.

Rant over.

Re: In New York or Chicago today? XBox Live Is Down - Get Free Star Wars Access Codes At Nokia Stores

stevelitchfrield — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:24:19 -0000

Isn't this all rather sad? That, with day of downtime from presumably-essential-to-life X-box gaming, noone's considered that these sad gamers might want to get out and get a life, enjoying [shock, horror] fresh air and sunshine?

TBH, it's even sadder that Nokia are seizing on this opportunity as a marketing idea. Who in their right mind is going to switch platforms just because of a day of scheduled downtime?

Re: 3 million - really, that’s a lot right

stevelitchfrield — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 08:10:17 -0000

No disrespect to Apple and their wonderful iPhone (no, really, it's the second best phone in the world), but it's worth putting this into perspective - Nokia sell 3 million S60 phones every single *fortnight* throughout the year... peaks or no peaks...

Re: I Want WiFi.

stevelitchfrield — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 02:39:30 -0000

Am I missing something here? The E66 **has** Wi-Fi and it works brilliantly. Or have Orange crippled their version?