Omio News Blog

The Future Of Nokia Phones Leaked Online?

You may think that Nokia are foolish not to have entered the touchscreen or the megapixel arms races, but rest assured they have some dynamite handsets lined up for next year!

Someone has managed to sneak a look at Nokia’s crystal ball in the form of the ‘Roadmap’, which shows the entire range of phones that have been knocked up in their R&D labs since 2007, projecting well into 2009. Being a nice person, they have also given it to Engadget so we can all have a Mystic Meg at what Nokia are up to!

Looking at it in detail, there is so much diamond dust to speculate over in here! The presence of the ‘Tube’ and the ‘Lumiere,’ which became the 5800 XpressMusic and N96 respectively, lend this list some legitimacy.

What about into the future? Well, we have picked out some of the best-specced devices (with suitably ‘covert’ codenames), sure to get Nokia fans’ blood pressure up when they are eventually announced!

Click on below!

Read more…

LG Prada II Fashionably Late, Now On For A November Release Date!

Electric Pig has managed to coax a little gem of information out of LG regarding the Prada II, a keyboard-packing remix of their highly successful fashion phone.

Originally earmarked to grace catwalks this October, they report that a spokesperson became deliberately vague regarding a release: “It might be this month, it might be Christmas”. They soon cleared it up, however, confirming the Prada II will indeed be out at the tail end of November.

This delay may have been a wise move considering the avalanche of handsets falling upon us at the moment, a brief respite might get the Prada II a few more column inches in the glossies than it would have.

Going up against supermodel snappers du jour like the Samsung Pixon, Sony Ericsson C905 and Nokia N96 at the height of their success would not be wise…

Samsung i7110 Hands On : Gets Fondled, Likes It

Only a couple of days ago was the Samsung i7110 announced, and we managed to get up close and personal with the device at the Symbian Smartphone Show in Earl’s Court yesterday.

The handset has all the hallmarks of a decent multimedia phone, with enough in its slender candybar frame to give the Nokia N96 a run for its money!

With video playback even outperforming the i8510, this little device could upset a certain Finnish manufacturer this Xmas. Don’t believe us? Check this video!

It just seems SO much clearer, and a bit smoother too!

More pics of Samsung’s latest addition to the Symbian family follow…

Samsung i7110 Announced, Is It A Nokia N96 Slayer?

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.”

Shakespeare put it best, when you’re number one, there is always some whippersnapper at your heels, eager to snatch the glory away from you.

The Nokia N96 has barely gotten comfy in the multimedia smartphone throne when Samsung comes out with a lithe new handset ready to claim dominance!

The i7110 is a sleek little handset (literally, it looks the spitting image of the U800 Sleek!), boasting a 5 megapixel camera with dual LED flash, a massive 2.6″ QVGA screen, and wi-fi connectivity. It also runs those videos you downloaded legitimately purchased from the internet without any trouble, as it runs DivX and XviD format material with ease.

It even has GPS and 3G support, making the i7110 an embarrassment of riches on the specs front! The real question is, will the user experience be a nice enough one to drag the Nokia N96 from clutches of Symbian lovers everywhere?

Probably not, but you have to hand it to Samsung, they are not putting a foot wrong at the moment. With a line up of handsets to suit all pockets this Xmas, it will be interesting to see whether Nokia’s Comes With Music and a promise of the 5800 touchphone in 2009 can stave off the Samsung onslaught of the high end i8510, the higher end M8800 Pixon, and the touchy feely Omnia.

That’s not to mention the barrage of phones on the way from LG, BlackBerry, even T-Mobile’s own puppy.

The crown is certainly slipping…

The Nokia N96 Reviews Are In!

Arguably one of the most exciting handsets from Nokia in a long time (until they went and unveiled the 5800!), the N96 with it’s focus on multimedia playback and digital TV awesomeness has got a lot of websites excited, but some are underwhelmed…

GSM Arena is impressed by the phone in general, but have a few minus points including the battery life, a lack of USB charging and the hefty price tag. Having said that, they loved the camera and extra memory the N96 provides…

An excellent point which they raised was the DVB-H digital TV functionality. As awesome as it is, if you aren’t in the big universites of Oxford and Cambridge then no TV for you! Check out this list for which places in the globe currently support it. Lucky Nigerians.

Stuff.tv have a glowing 5 star review of the phone, stating that it picks up the mantle from the Nokia N95 in impressive fashion, and bar an 8 megapixel camera it provides to be everything a smartphone should.

If only it could cut down on the pies a bit and had a more svelte, Samsung i8510-esque look, the N96 would have torn the industry asunder! As it is, features like the vibrant 2.6 inch screen and BBC iPlayer will be more than enough to convert mobile phone fans to pray at the altar of the N-Series.

As soon as we can have a sneaky peek at one, we’ll let you know our take on it…

Nokia N96 Out Today! New Firmware Update Messing With It?

Good news for those who didn’t win the Euromillions this weekend, as the N96 is now a little cheaper having been released on Pay Monthly at the major retailers!

I’m slightly biased, but Omio have some really great Nokia N96 deals which went live today.

£35 a month for 600 minutes and unlimited texts on Orange with the phone costing only £29.99 from Dial-A-Phone is our most popular one, and it’s not hard to see why!

Quite the bargain for the super multimedia successor to the N95, complete with digital TV, BBC iPlayer and a whopping 16GB of storage for all your music and movies! If you’re in two minds about taking the plunge, get an in-depth rundown on the Nokia N96 features page!

Slightly less happy news from some early adopters is that the newest firmware update released by Nokia is making their gorgeous new handsets play up a little. The v11.018 update seems to wonkify call quality and speaker output a little bit, but this is the opinion of big time Nokiaholics in the official forums so we’ll wait and see whether these problems are widespread…

Source: Pocket Picks

Hello Nokia N96!

Some enterprising fellow has bitten the bullet and bought the a Nokia N96 straight from the flagship Regent Street store in London, and has been nice enough to start a blog to relay his adventures!

Hello N96 has a very detailed account of the unboxing, a first play around, the iPlayer and live TV service, even video recording with a nice touristy shot of Nelson’s Column. However, he does mention it crashing, so maybe we should expect the N96 to change our lives forever after all…

A great place to go if you want to know more about the phone, including how much slimmer it is than the N95, and what gaming using the N-Gage service is like. He will keep it updated with further impressions as time goes on, so it might be a good ‘un to bookmark!

Nokia Capsule N96 : Give Us 96 Seconds, And We’ll Give You The World

Nokia’s push for the N96 as an all-in-one multimedia handset has stepped up a gear with their new downloadable ‘webisode’ service for the handset, offering bite-size chunks of entertainment with ‘Capsule N96′.

From fashion to funny stuff, Nokia has secured five of the brightest British talents to front programmes, which will then be available to view and download from the official Nokia site. Here’s a sneak peek:

Red or Dead creator Wayne Hemingway gives the low-down on cultural topics with Pulse, the fashion scene is analysed by up and coming actress Margo Stilley in Portfolio whilst motoring, gadgets and homes will also be covered.

The video morsels will last only 96 seconds, but they promise to be jam packed with features and depth despite their brevity. They will become available from the 1st of October, and new episodes will be available weekly until the end of November.

It is unclear whether an N96 will be essential to view them, and it is a bit of a shame that it will only run for two months, but it is an impressive and UK-centric idea which is greatly appreciated!

Source: ShinyShiny

William Hill And Sky Bet To Offer Gambling On The Go

Gambling is getting a 21st century facelift as William Hill has announced a mobile site for sports betting, set to launch by the end of the year.

They will offer all the complexity and depth of betting the bookies, but without the musty odour and ‘regulars’ which have put people off in recent times.

Mobile technology experts Mfuse will do all the heavy lifting, allowing users to access their virtual balance with ease and gamble without the hassle of logging into a PC. Imagine betting on your favourite team to win, right from the stands!

They hope it will develop that punter’s urge to have a flutter, and a future Java app will track up to the second changes in odds, giving users the best deals from their mobile. This added functionality has been earmarked for a 2009 release.

Sky Bet takes this further, taking advantage of new phones like the Nokia N96 being equipped with digital TV output. They hope to allow users to watch events on Sky Sports from their mobile and place bets at the same time.

If I can ever bet on the Champion’s League from my phone, it’ll back to selling my body to medical research for rent in no time…

Source: Mobile Entertainment

Music Video Shot With Nokia Handsets, Not Awful

It is definitely Nokia who are the most inventive with their marketing ideas at the moment. The al fresco Nokia N96 unboxing shot with an N96 was a breath of fresh air, and the next logical step was to shoot an entire video on an N-Series handset.

So they did.

Eskimohunter’s hot new video ‘Surfing at 32ºF’ (me neither…) was shot only using a Nokia N93, a Nokia N93i and an N95, and it doesn’t look too bad for it!

A little on the avant-garde side, the video was filmed by maverick director Mike Hodgkinson using guerilla tactics like fishing line rails for tracking shots and chocolate bar wrappers for lens filters.

See the making of the video below… This may be a subtle marketing ploy, but am all for marketing ploys with a little ingenuity involved!

Source: Podcasting News