Okay that’s enough on the not so mini, mini N97, I will get back to the point of my article what has actually changed since my first post “Living with the Nokia 97- 1 week on. So the Ovi store :\ there a few better apps and games available but they still have a pretty ridiculous price, like the game “Pro Evolution Soccer 2009″ will cost you £4, Yeah you might be thinking cheapskate,

but when it looks like this it should be like £1. Also above EA sports Fifa 09 which will cost you… yes £4.00. If you want a decent football game for the iPhone you can get this from the app store, for ….wait £3.99

I’m not comparing the graphics of the two phones here, just why would you pay 4.00 for the top two games, when the Apple App store will charge you the same for the a much better looking game. So as you can tell I am still not a fan of Nokia’s Ovi Store. But keeping in mind the Ovi store is still young and it has taken the Apple App store over a year to get to where it is today. So I’ll give Ovi a year to turn itself into an App store killer.

But Ovi isn’t the N97s fault, so since my last post whats gone good and whats gone bad with my N97, First the bad things but I must say there’s not really alot to rant about, I’ve heard alot of reports on the internet of crashing, freezing but I’ve only experienced crashing and freezing once or twice, no more than my previous phone the LG Viewty. There has also been alot of reports that the phone is slow, saying the processor inside the phone cant handle everything going on, I’ll admit from time to time the phones reaction times are pretty slow like opening my messages it will take longer than it should do, but thats only sometimes. 90 percent of the time the phone is pretty perfect in terms of well everything, no crashing, no freezing and its not slow at all. There is one thing that I find rather frustrating though, the battery life. If you use some of the phones features such as playing music, surfing the web etc you will be lucky to get a day out of it! I recently took the phone to a four day music festival after playing abit of music on it and taking a few snaps the battery had completely died by the end of the first day, so I was left without a phone for 3 days. Other than that nothing has really annoyed me with the phone, I still believe its a brilliant phone and still one of the best phone currently on the market.

Now everything I still love- Yes the excitement of a new phone has worn off. But I still love sliding the phone to reveal the QWERTY keyboard which I still love using and I still use it to text instead of using the touch screen. One thing has changed though, as I reported in my last post “I have even found my self using my phone for my music player instead of my ipod touch.” this has changed and I have gone back to the ipod mainly because there is no decent way of syncing my new music onto the phone, so I have found myself with an in-updated music collection, this is why ive gone back to my iPod and it’s just simpler to play your music on, But there is some music players you can download onto your phone which do give an easier, better looking way of playing your music. From my last post I didn’t really have the chance to tell you about the camera as I hadn’t really used it that much, but after spending a good solid month using the phone, I must say its ones of the best cameras ive seen on a phone with a great flash although it is not a Xenon flash so instead it has duel LED but this still give a very bright decent flash. One problem is the home screen widgets, but this really reverts back to Ovi, but this was one of the N97s main selling points was the customizable home screen, but I haven’t really changed my widgets around since I got the phone, which are Facebook, Music Player, Shortcuts and the NewsBuzz widget, this is mainly because the lack of widgets I have found available which is a little disappointing as I love the whole idea of your own home screen.

So this really sums up my thoughts on the N97 after a month of having it, So to finish things off, my final thoughts are that I still love the n97 although the whole excitement of a new phone has gone. There have only been a few minor let downs mainly from Ovi. So be sure to keep visiting www.technoblast.co.uk for much much more.

Thanks for reading.

Last year hama gave us an insight into the upcoming iPods and they haven’t disappointed this year! Engadget have a gallery full of images showing these new cases. I can’t see much difference on the nano apart from a hole for a camera possibly? The touch case also has a square hole on the back just in the right place for a camera. Of course these could be all fake and we could never see a camera appear on the touch at all. But we’ll have to wait until next Weds, Don’t forget to join us live

[Source: Engadget]

The Dates

Everyone on the internet has it set that the tablet will make a appearance in the iPod refresh keynote which is rumored to be sometime in the week beginning the 9th. This could be true, well that it makes an appearance, Gizmodo says it’s release is three months away which I would agree with.

The Price

I think this is one of the more sketchy-er details, Apple always seem to have way off prices compared to estimates that turn up in rumors. Many reports are saying the pricing will be between the highest end iPod Touch (Currently £283) and the cheapest Macbook (£749). If I’m honest I do think it will be in those brackets but defiantly at the more expensive side of the scale.

The Who

Steve Jobs as we all know has had a huge say in this product and according to Gizmodo he has held the tablet back twice for not meeting his needs and wants. Apparently it was held due to battery and memory problems. In a way it really shows how much Jobs wants the product to be the best that Apple can produce.

The Look

There’s been a million and one different mock ups that we’ve seen and I’m going to be honest and say that some of them do look similar to what I have pictured in my mind as the tablet. As of yet I don’t think anyone has been able to get the interface correct yet, But I guess we’ll leave that to Apple!

The End

Firstly i got the n97 black on a 18 month contract with vodafone for 40 pound a month the deal includes 600 anytime any network minutes, unlimited texts and unlimited mobile internet, and the phone is free, after searching the web i found this the best deal around.

Right so after having the phone for just over a week now, i must say i love it.

Ill start with the basics. The phone boasts a huge 32gb inside along side a powerful 5 megapixel camera, 3.5G, Wi-Fi, A full 3.5 inch touch screen, also with a very cool Qwerty keyboard. After hearing very negative views on the Qwerty keyboard i must say found my self using it instead of the touch screen as it offers a quicker and more enjoyable way of typing.

So im going to list the negatives of the n97 (yes its not perfect)

First- The OVI Store- This is Nokia’s way of competing with apples app store as the n97 is an “iphone killer”, Right so far the OVI store is a fail in my opinion (it is new though). There are only a few decent apps such as Gravity which is a great twitter app. But is way over priced at £8.00 as are alot of the apps in the store. So if the OVI store wants to really step up to the challenge of the Apple App store its in need of some real apps.

Next- Mac ?- Its all right if you own a PC because there is the OVI suite, but for us Mac users there is literary nothing and if you want to sync your music collection you will either have to send the lot through bluetooth or good old drag and drop because the Mac Nokia music manager isn’t compatible to the N97, So ive found my self having to send everything through bluetooth as drag and drop doesn’t work so well and with an in-updated music collection :\

Finally- The Price- As i am literary in love with my N97, i am been very bias here and i cant find many faults with it. But the price is a bad point. I decided the 40 pound a month 18 month contract was the best and possibly the cheapest you will find, although im sure there will already be cheaper contracts around by now. So this is a big price to pay each month and here is the maths after typing into my phones calculator 40 x 18 i found out the total price of my Nokia N97 is a staggering £720, which is actually as much as i payed for my Macbook. So if your desperate for this phone as you can tell i was you can go and pay £40 a month for it or if you have a little more patience than me you maybe should wait a few months for the prices to come down.

So here is what i love about the Nokia n97 (this is going to be a big list, but ill try and keep it too three or so points)

First-The design- I love the look of phone and especially the slide down keyboard which is very cool and satisfying, i think I use the Qwerty keyboard more than the touch screen just because i love flipping down the keyboard. So overall this is just a great looking phone.

Next-The home screen- The phones slogan is “online as it happens” and the home screen justifies this very well as there is a range of different widgets you can add to your home screen such as Facebook, Amazon, AccuWeather, BBC iplayer, and more. The home screen shows off your widgets with live updates so for example the Facebook widget will give you live feeds from status updates to friend requests or see who has been poking you.

The 32gb on board – This HUGE, its got more memory than my ipod and nearly the same as my Macbook. With the 32gb i have my full i tunes collection on (although this was a problem as you may have read),The n97 could hold around 60 full movies if thats what you want. I have even found my self using my phone for my music player instead of my ipod touch.

Finally- The internet- I love the live feeds on the phone and the internet browser. I love been able to have the internet where ever i go, yes i know the i phone is the same. But with the 3.5G ,browsing the internet if you cant access a Wi-fi is very speedy and enjoyable.

As you can probably tell i can hardly fault my N97 its because i think its a great phone, still with lots of potential with the OVI store and such. All i say is why get an I phone with a 3 megapixel camera and from the apple store its best features seem to be Video recording and Voice control, All of which the n97 offer plus a 5 megapixel camera and more, So again i say why get an I phone 3GS when you can get a Nokia n97 ?

I wish it really did this.

For the £40 per month 18 month contract with 600 minuets, unlimited texts and unlimited mobile internet visit (UK Only)

www.dialaphone.co.uk/basket.aspx?addoc=18YP40M04&qty=1&ins=1.

Or for other deals i recommend

http://www.dialaphone.co.uk/phone/Nokia_N97/

Thanks for reading

1. The “new” News Feed
2. Like
3. Events (including the ability to RSVP)
4. Notes
5. Pages
6. Create new photo albums
7. Upload photos to any album
8. Zoom into photos
9. Easier photo tagging
10. Profile Pictures albums
11. A new home screen for easy access to all your stuff, search, and notifications
12. Add your favorite profiles and pages to the home screen
13. Better Notifications (they link to the comments so you can reply)
14. Quickly call or text people right from the Friends page
15. Messages you are typing will be restored if you quit or are interrupted by a phone call

Certainly some welcome improvements however Hewitt says that push notifications aren’t quite ready yet and will come in the summer in 3.1. No details on when it’s released however he says he’s 97% done.

A lot of people are worried. We’re not and you shouldn’t be either!

TPB is being sold for a great bit underneath it’s value if the money would be the interesting part. It’s not. The interesting thing is that the right people with the right attitude and possibilities keep running the site.
As all of you know, there’s not been much news on the site for the past two-three years. It’s the same site essentially. On the internets, stuff dies if it doesn’t evolve. We don’t want that to happen.

We’ve been working on this project for many years. It’s time to invite more people into the project, in a way that is secure and safe for everybody. We need that, or the site will die. And letting TPB die is the last thing that is allowed to happen!

If the new owners will screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want to. And – you can now not only share files but shares with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat of us.

The old crew is still around in different ways. We will also not stop being active in the politics of the internets – quite the opposite. Now we’re fueling up for going into the next gear. TPB will have economical muscles to let people evolve it. It will team up with great technicians to evolve the protocols. And we, the people interested in more than just technology, will have the time to focus on that. It’s win-win-win.

The profits from the sale will go into a foundation that is going to help with projects about freedom of speech, freedom of information and the openess of the nets. I hope everybody will help out in that and realize that this is the best option for all. Don’t worry – be happy!

Some people are going crazy, Saying that it’s truely the end of a era. But only time will tell of what they company will do to the site. Your thoughts would be appreciated!