TamsS60 – the Symbian Blog

The Symbian news and opinion source

August 9th, 2007

Nokia N76 quality problems – welcoming Nokia into the peeling paint pool

Apparently, some things never change – for example, the fact that paint will sometimes peel of gadgets. My now ancient Siemens SX1 had a memory card slot lid where the rubber came off, and Palm’s Zire 72 is now legendary for its lack of blue paint.

Anyways, our colleagues at Symbian-Freak.com now report that Nokia’s N76(aka the successor to my Nokia N71) has a similar problem with the chromed areas loosing the paint and revealing the plastic below. While Nokia’s press team apparently has acknowledged the issues, Symbian-Freak reports that their local service point feels different about the issue(and wants to charge for the fix).

Get images,… here:
http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/007/08/nokia_n76_fails_miserably.htm

How is your Nokia N76 doing so far?

August 7th, 2007

Handy Taskman review – a better task manager for Series 60(S60)

Symbian phones have been able to multitask right from the beginning of the platform…even the now-outdated Siemens SX1 was capable of running multiple programs concurrently with ease. Pushing the menu button for a second brings up a list of running apps…and Handy Taskman wants to improve this.

After installing Handy Taskman, the small task list gets replaced by it. As a default, it shows a list of currently open programs and an overview of memory usage. The list’s font is smaller…more programs fit on the screen:
0a Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60)

Handy Taskman offers more than just switching and changing applications. The close all option(accessible from the menu) closes all currently open apps with one tap.
1a Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60)

The program also offers a list of last-used apps in a tab next to the currently running applications. This tab is very very useful and can save a few clicks:
2a Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60)

As an additional gimmick, the product supports a ‘lookup list’ of all applications. This allows you to find applications by typing parts of their name:
3a Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60) 3b Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60)

Handy Taskman can give detailed memory status information, too:
4a Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60) 4b Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60)

Last but not least, the program allows exceptions to be defined. Programs declared as exceptions don’t get closed by Close all:
5a Handy Taskman review   a better task manager for  Series 60(S60)

This review looked at version 1.06 of Handy Taskman on a Nokia N71. The program needs about 300k of RAM and cannot be installed onto a memory card.

Overall, Handy Taskman isn’t a tool for everyone…the native Task list works well enough for the average user. However, if you run multiple programs at the same time often; the time saved by Handy Taskman could well justify the 10$ investment!

August 1st, 2007

Handy Weather – weather forecasts for Series 60

One of the most useful features of a smartphone is its always-on capability that can be used to quickly determine all kinds of relevant data. Finding out a weather forecast has always been a very important thing for me – a dedicated program like Handy Weather can speed this up significantly…

HandyWeather’s main screen consists of a chart showing the weather forecast for the next 5 days for each of the selected cities(scroll left and right).
0a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

Pressing Center once allows you to switch to ‘night graph mode’. In night graph mode, the program shows a graph of forecasts for the 5 upcoming nights:
1a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

Today gives a bit of extra info on the weather of the current day:
2a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

Tap Current Status to see the ‘current status’ as of the last update:
3a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

Adding a city is easy. Handy Weather displays a list of countries; select one of them to see a list of available cities:
4a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60 4b Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

Forecasts can be sent to other users via email and SMS – this is a really outstanding feature I use very often to inform comrades about the weather:
5a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60 5b Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

Handy Weather can be customized widely via the ‘Preferences’ menu. It can e.g. be set up to work in celsius or fahrenheit scale:
6a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

The program can automatically update itself in predefined intervals, too:
7a Handy Weather   weather forecasts for Series 60

This review looked at version 4.01 of the program on a Nokia N71. The program has worked reliably in the review period – no crashes,…

Overall; Handy Weather does exactly what it should – give a ‘basic’ weather forecast. The program does not give the fancy information given by programs for other platforms; but it gives you all important data you need… The price of 14.95$ is justified!