E71 Blog » Smartphone

Firmware update for E71

Vasanth Dharamraj — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 14:46:16 +0000

A new version of the Nokia E71 firmware is out: v200.21.118. Sadly it is only for the European models. I hate it when Nokia does it. How hard can it be to release a syncronized updates for all versions? I would not be surprised if they did it for carrier subsidised models as the carriers might not be too keen on it. But for unlocked versions they should not do this. OK that’s my rant… Here is what the EU users will get:

New functionalities in MCU SW version 200.21.118:

- Internet Radio application
- My Nokia application
- 3G power reduction for applications using keep-alive style messaging
- User experience improvements:
- Easy Dialing support for Simplified Chinese language
- Device Lock improvement: Open device lock with LSK + Fn-keys
- One key input method switch for China language
- ‘Mute’ option in Right Soft Key when wired headset / hands free is connected
- ‘Loudspeaker’ option in Right Soft Key immediately when phone call is started
- Enlarge characters in Chr-table
- NTLM v1 and v2 support for Intranet Browsing
- New black and red themes [e71fanatics.com]

E71 App: JoikuSpot Light

Vasanth Dharamraj — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:03:16 +0000

JoikuSpot Light is a very cool applications for Nokia phones with 3G and WiFi. It creates an instant WiFi hotspot letting you share your 3G connections with any WiFi enabled device.

JoikuSpot Light Edition is FREE and SECURE Mobile HotSpot solution that turns Nokia phones to a WLAN HotSpot.

JoikuSpot
software is installed directly to the phone. When switched on, laptops
and iPods can establish instant, secure and fast WLAN connection via
smartphone’s JoikuSpot HotSpot using phone’s own 3G internet
connection.

Multiple devices can connect to JoikuSpot in parallel and seamlessly share the same 3G internet connection.

Check it out here.

E71 App: Amaze GPS

Vasanth Dharamraj — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:24:20 +0000

Amaze GPS is an amazing free GPS software for the E71. It has a huge list of features:

Supports both external Bluetooth GPS or internal GPS.
Wide coverage of detailed maps in Europe, North America, Australia, parts of Africa and Asia.
High resolution satellite images with street map superimposed.
Weather information.
Voice assisted navigation.
Textual and visual routing instructions.
Detailed local search directories.

All this for free. Well is does use the data plan for getting the maps. This works great in mobile phones with GPS builtin like the E71. Have fun.

E71 App: Podcasting

Vasanth Dharamraj — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:51:17 +0000

I listen to a few podcasts. Previously I used to download these podcasts via iTunes and then sync to my iPod every morning. It is not a tough task but a boring thing to do everyday. After I got the E71 I started using the Nokia Podcasting app. This is cool because I dont need to do the download and sync chore. I can get my podcasting fix on the go. I get the podcasts quicker than the previous method. Works great over WiFi or 3G. I wish they had an option to delete listened podcasts. Anyway give it a shot.

E71 App: Slick

Vasanth Dharamraj — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 16:44:30 +0000

Till now I have been using Fring for Instant Messaging from my phones. It is nice in the fact that it supports all popular IM protocols. But I am not a big fan of its GUI. I was looking for something new. Slick seemed to get a lot of mentioned. I checked it out. The GUI is slick! It supports GTalk, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, AIM and Jabber. No Skype or Twitter like Fring but good enough. I will be using this for sometime.

But just one problem. I do not chat a lot…

E71 App: Twibble

Vasanth Dharamraj — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:41:39 +0000

On any internet connected device these days you need an twitter client. I was looking one for my E71. Everyone seems to point to Twibble. This works great on the phone. I had this on my E61 too. But after using Twitterrfic on the iPod Touch, I have to ask why does all the apps look prettier on the iPod Touch? Does the Apple SDK provide an easy way to build pretty apps? Why can not S60 developers make apps pretty? Ah! Questions…

E71 App: YouTube J2ME Edition

Vasanth Dharamraj — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 19:17:38 +0000

The iPhone and iPod Touch have a nice YouTube app. I wanted to see if there is a similar app for the Nokia E71. There are a few, of course, EmTube, Mobitubia and the official YouTube client. I could not get to EmTube site. Mobitubia seems too flashy. So I installed the official version. Looks and works great. The video plays fine on E71. Cool.

2D bar code, Nokia E71 and Firefox

Vasanth Dharamraj — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:39:20 +0000

My Nokia E71 has a 2D barcode reader in it. it uses the built in camera to scan and interpret the barcodes. I was wondering what it would be useful for. Nokia has a barcode generation site which lets you encode URL, text or business card information and generate a barcode. One can use the site to generate barcodes and display on the site. The above barcode was generated using this site and contains the URL for this blog. Probably not very useful. But where I think this would be useful is for mobile download sites.

Lets say I am at a mobile themes download site and quickly want to download a theme. If the site provides such a barcode for downloading the app, I can point the camera to it, get the URL on my phone and download the theme. This could also be used in print magazines, newspapers and bilboards for URLs or contact informations.

At the moment not a lot of sites provide this barcode. But as always there is some enterprising Firefox developer around to develop an extension. Checkout Mobile Barcoder. This extension generates 2D barcodes (called QR Codes) of the URL of
the current page being viewed. You can then use a mobile phone to read
the URL from the screen to save you typing the long URL using the phone
keypad. Cool.

The phones I have owned…

Vasanth Dharamraj — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 19:34:19 +0000

I just got my new phone the Nokia E71. My friends generally have the idea that I buy a lot of phones. I was thinking of all the phones I have owned so far. Here is a list:

Nokia 6100 – Gift from my Brother
Nokia 8120 – Gift from my Dad
Panasonic GD87
Orange C500
Sony Ericsson W810i
Nokia E61
Cingular 8525
Nokia E71 – Gift from my Wife

I got my first phone in August, 1999. That is 8 phones in 9 years. Hmmm… I don’t think that is a lot of phones. Anyway half the phones I had have been a Nokia. I have had a couple of Windows Mobile phones. A super dumb clamshell phone (GD87). A music phone. Three phones with QWERTY keyboards…