Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

NetQin Mobile Anti-Virus for Symbian was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPress Music, a Symbian^1 device.

Installation

Installation can be done via the Nokia Application Installer. Alternatively, you can copy the file to the device and just open the .sis file on the phone to begin the installation.

First View

There aren’t too many Anti Virus software for Symbian. Lets find out about NetQin Anti-Virus.

Main Review

NetQin Anti-Virus software suite for Symbian performs 4 function in its role as a  are Virus Scanner, Network firewall, Boot Acceleration and First Aid.

Virus Scanner

NetQin is a standar anti-virus application but focusses on viruses that specifically affect mobile devices. It scans all the drives on the mobile device and returns the status. You can also configure the drives that can be scanned. There is an online Virus database that has all the details of the viruses. The latest virus seems to be RC Commwarrior that will search nearby Bluetooth devices and spread around leading to resources being consumed heavily on the mobile thus affecting normal use of the mobile. The website has the details of the Symbian viruses. In the online database, in addition to the latest security threats, NetQin also gives a category of major security risks, including Privacy Steal, Account Trojan, Fraudware, Data Damage, Malicious Service Order, System Damage, Fee Consume, Backdoor, Badware and Prankware. The terms may be not well worded, given its a chinese translation but they seem to be quite serious.

When first installed, NetQin downloads the latest database online since the virus database on the installed version has expired. On the main screen, the version of the Virus database and the last scan date is displayed. You can update the virus database by just pressing the “Update” button on the main screen.

Network Firewall

As you start using applications that access the web, via GPRS/3G and 802.11 WiFi, NetQin keeps track of the applications and gets a one time approval from you, the user for allowing network access. Approved services are added to the Trusted Apps. Rejected apps are added to the Untrusted Apps list. The Network Firewall also keeps a record of all network traffic sent and received by the mobile. It doesn’t differentiate between WiFi and GPRS/3G but I’d like to see this difference. Since the traffic is measured based on the application’s usage, and not the ratio technology, NetQin probably doesn’t differentiate between the WiFi and GPRS/3G when collecting network traffic.

The Network Firewall detected all WiFi access and GPRS/3G access and warning was given immediately when the application starts.

The applications that are in my Trusted Apps list are Ovi Maps, SPB Mobile Shell (why did it access the web??), Browser, Nokia Email and Nokia’s “Client Platform”, which is a securewidgetlauncher.exe. A quick google search revealed that is a part of the Ovi store application and is installed as a background process.

NetQin picks a default access point for downloading virus database updates. You can setup the Periodic scan reminder and other options like auto-update and auto delete virus.

Monitor

The Monitor is turned on and runs in the background even if you quit NetQin. But the Monitor is not visible in Handy Taskman as a running task. You can set Monitor to start automatically at device boot.

To check if the Network Firewall also monitored bluetooth transfers, I transferred image files back and forth between the mobile and my desktop. NetQin didn’t detect the bluetooth file transfer! In the Monitor settings, the Monitor Security Level can be set to check for “Executable files only” or “Monitor all files”. The default setting is “Executable files only”. I change the setting to “Monitor all files” but even then, NetQin didn’t detect or block bluetooth file transfer.

The Monitor also alerted me that applications are being installed and uninstalled.

Boot Acceleration

NetQin identifies the list of applications that have been configured to start at device boot, either by the user or by the application itself, automatically. You get the choice to disable such applications to increase device start up time.

First Aid

Phone First Aid, when started closes all applications in the device except NetQin security program. It can then restore the phone to normal state. I have faced a few situations when the phone needed first aid, but these were times when the phone was bricked, with a while screen. I don’t know if First Aid will help in such a scenario.

System Manager

Qin Coins

NetQin has introduced the concept of Qin Coins which can be used to pay for a variety of NetQin VIP services. You can gain Qin Coins by participating in NetQin activities like providing feedback, reporting viruses and recommending it to friends and earn rewards. Or you can activate / recharge via the mobile pone. The service is currently not available.

When you uninstall NetQin, it warns you that auto start programs that were disabled will be enabled again. Very useful information.

Handling

NetQin has a neat logical interface with key functions accessible on the main page and other configuration options presented to the user as tabbed pages. The security warnings are unobtrusive. Overall, I had no trouble getting around the application to set it up and access information I needed from the System Manager about my Nokia 5800 periodically.

Weaknesses

I was surprised that NetQin didn’t alert me upon Bluetooth transfers – whether it was ordinary files or Symbian S60 executables. NetQin also didn’t warn me about software being installed on the device. There should be a policy about Bluetooth transfer that the user should be able to setup. But the point is Symbian’s Bluetooth security is outstanding and it doesn’t really need further protection.

Conclusion

NetQin mobile security services holds over 68% of Chinese mobile security market. NetQin delivers proven mobile security solutions based on Cloud-client Computing Platform – including anti-virus, SMS-filter, anti-spyware, and privacy protection – to more than 45 million users in more than 200 countries worldwide. NetQin has partnered with China Mobile, Nokia China, Symbian, Samsung, Baidu, Sony Ericsson and a few other companies in its endeavor to deliver mobile security services. NetQin is also a platinum partner of the Symbian Foundation.

All through the review, one question that came to my mind Do Symbian phones get affected by viruses? Are they truly vulnerable to attacks to warrant installing an Anti Virus software? While the jury is still out on this issue, there is no harm in having a robust anti-virus software to protect your smartphone.

NetQin can be downloaded for free here. For automatic virus updates, priority services from NetQin and other benefits, you can subscribe to NetQin updates using Qin Coins or payment through your mobile bill.  It is a must have. I’ll give it 5 of 5.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

SPB Quads was installed on two devices, a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS 9.4.

Installation

Installation is simply via the Nokia Application Installer available in the Nokia PC Suite.

First View

Realizing the potential of the Quadronica, which is one of the brain training modules in SPB Brain Evolution, SPB has created an entire new game SPB Quads, based on the same theme. Lets check it out.

Game Play

SPB Quads is a classic arcade game, with multiple levels, that rapidly increase in complexity.

The entire screen is filled with 600 tiny cubes of various colors. The objective of the game is simple – collapse rectangles with four corner cubes of the same color and gain points. You get more points if you collapse larger rectangles. When you are racing against time to collapse as many rectangles as possible before the countdown completes, the adrenalin increases to great levels and it makes for addictive gaming.

Bonus points can be gained with six different types of bonuses – Item Freeze, Atom Bomb, X2, Dynamite, Time Freeze and Eye bonus.

The game offers two modes – Ever Mode which is the endless strategic and Time Mode which is time limited.

Rectangles can be collapsed by touching the opposite corner cubes or 3 out of the 4 corners.

Graphics and Animation

Quads comes with great animation. The cubes on the game screen have a three dimensional effect and the rectangles collapse with a blast towards the bottom of the screen. The bonuses are all animated to attracted. If you don’t pick a rectangle for a few seconds, Quads help you by pointing to a rectangle.

Music Score and Sound Effects

Pulsating music plays in the background as game sound effects for collapsed rectangles and bonus points add to the overall sound effect. There is no complaining in this department.

Interface

Here’s another example of how the menu driven UI model of S60 can be avoided to create an excellent user experience and navigation. I thoroughly enjoyed playing SPB Quads.

The game is both finger friendly and stylus friendly. I had no problems using both forms of input.

The interface to enter your name gives a weird keyboard that makes you search for various alphabets and numbers. It could have been the qwerty keyboard for ease of use and familiarity.

Publishing scores online

The curiosity of finding out how good you are, not just among your friends but anyone who has played SPQ Quads, on any platform, all over the world cannot be avoided. SPB maintains a database with all the highest scores where you can check and publish your scores. There are quite a few maniacs out there with scores that are phenomenal.

Weaknesses

SPB Quads doesn’t allow multiple logins to be created. When you finish playing, you can pick a user name and upload the highest score. It would have been great if you can set a user name before you begin and have multiple use names.

Conclusion

With uncomplicated but engaging game play SPB Quads is good stuff and I’ll give it 4 of 5. SPB Quads can be downloaded here for $9.95.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

SPB Weather 1.00 was installed on a Nokia 5800, a Symbian 9.4, S60 5th edition device.

Installation

SPB Weather comes as a .sis files and can be installed using the Nokia Application Installer.

First View

SPB Weather takes away the drudgery of having to use the never ending hierarchical-menu-driven S60 interface and replaces it with a UI refresh that brings a renewed hope for S60 touch.

Read on.

Main Review

The whole 3.2″ screen of the Nokia 5800 is dedicated to displaying the weather of a single city. This means a great amount of weather information can be gathered in a single view! The screen real estate is divided into three parts. The top part of the screen, [or the left side, in landscape mode], shows a graphic, the day’s weather in a large font and a smaller weather list for Morning, Day and Evening on the side.

The middle part of the screen, which is the largest, displays the weather for the next 4 days with a graphic and the high and low for that day.

The third part of the screen, has the controls for the configuration settings button, weather update button, 3D Globe button and the exit button.

The main screen also shows when the weather was updated last. You can refresh the weather by just touching the weather update button.

Touching the city on the screen, brings up additional weather info – Humidity, Pressure, Wind speed, etc. Touching the return arrow on the right takes you back to the main screen for the city.

Touching the day’s weather forecast brings up additional details for that day. For each day, the weather for Night, Morning, Day and Evening is displayed, with humidity, wind speed and a graphic.

In the landscape, mode, only the weather for Night and Morning can be displayed, so you can use kinetic scrolling to scroll down to view the weather for Day and Evening.

The return arrow is implemented uniformly in all screens to take you back to the main screen. All new screens are brought up with cool animations that’s pleasing to the eye but doesn’t mar the experience by being slow or too long to distract the user.

Even if 10 cities are configured, navigation is very easy. Just by pushing the screen left or right brings up a new screen with the weather for the next city, just like navigating a photo album.

The 3D Globe button animates a globe that can display information about the Cities, Clouds, Sky, Temperature and Rains for the cities configured. Touching the play button animates the globe.

A zoom in/ zoom out option is available that appears when you touch the screen, almost like the Ovi Maps zoom function. The animation is quite realistic, like the weather channel.

The configuration settings, still opens up the S60 menu structure, to add new cities and set other options, like automatic schedule update, units to use for display – Celsius or Fahrenheit, etc.

Adding a new city is a simple operation. SPB Weather supports over 10,000 cities all over the world. Each city in the list is prefixed with the country’s name in short. This is better than have to select a city in two passes – first the country and then the city.  There is also an option to select the city by GPS.

Handling

With photo album-like navigation, kinetic scrolling, large touch buttons and limited dependency on S60’s hierarchical menu-structure for only the initial setup, greatly improves navigation.

Usually frequent operations like weather update, exit, etc are hidden in the a menu structure, thus making it cumbersome to update the weather quickly. SPB have changed the approach and this makes the user experience delightful.

Here’s a video demonstration of SPB Weather from the developers of the program.

Weaknesses

I didn’t find any weaknesses in SPB Weather.

Conclusion

There are so many weather forecast reporting applications out there for S60 on Symbian OS but SPB Weather is the first one that actually makes the weather report rather interesting. SPB have shown that you can actually bring cool animation, one-touch access to most functions and present a great user experience on the S60 UI.

For the functional simplicity in using the touch interface, great display, innovative features and accurate weather reporting, SPB Weather is a must have and I’ll give it 4 of 5. SPB Weather can be purchased or downloaded for a trial here.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

Top2Move Lite, V1.63 was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, a Symbian S60 5th edition device with Symbian OS 9.4.

Installation

Top2Move comes with a Nokia installer .sis file. Each map comes separately in a set of 2 files, a .map file and a .ogf2 file.

First Look

Top2Move is a Symbian S60 5th edition based user friendly mobile route-navigation system for hikers, bikers, marine environments and other outdoor activities.

Main Review

Top2Move is a navigational cartographic application developed specifically for outdoor activities like biking, hiking, sailing and skiing. You can plan your own routes and share them using SMS or online.

Top2Move comes with high definition proprietary maps for each location that has to be installed separately. The maps come with 1:10,000  scale and you can switch to different locations in a map quite easily.

You can use Top2Move as a simple cartographic application or use the Top2Move functions with the help of the GPS module to create Waypoints and Tracks.

Installing Maps

Maps for each region comes as two files – .map and .ogf2. These files must be placed in the <memory card>/data/SmartComGPS/maps folder.

Loading a Map

In the main menu, click on Map Options to select one of the installed maps and you are ready to go. I picked up the Kitzbuhel Ski maps and Phuket’s maps for this review.

Navigation

Once you have loaded a map, you can Navigate To a point on the map by selecting Tap Screen or by selecting To Waypoint or By Track that already exist in the database. More about Waypoints and Tracks later. As you can see, the Tracks are proprietary files created by Top2Move at the request of the user.

Map operations on top the screen, like Zoom in, Zoom out, Zoom 100%, Where Am I and Mini Map are available. I particularly like the Mini Map feature that lets you browse around a large region at a 30,000 feet level before picking the region you want to zoom into.

Tracks and Waypoints

On existing maps, in the Navigate To panel, custom tracks can be created by selecting Create Track and picking a route that you want to take.

On a track, interesting or vital points of interest for the traveler can be marked as Waypoints and used for navigation. The Waypoint’s GPS coordinates are recorded by Top2Move.

You can create custom tracks in the place you are currently visiting. When a new track is created, the distance of the track is also calculated.

When you select Navigate To and pick the custom track, the distance from your current location to the track is shown and the direction you have to take to reach the track is also given.

Remember to name your Waypoints and Tracks with meaningful names relevant to the specific map because when you are viewing a different map and try to load a track that’s not built on that map, you will be surprised!

When you have Top2Move open, the digital map will move along with you. During movement, your track is being recorded by plotting a trail on your screen so you will never get lost again.

Drive

The Drive function is somewhat like building a Track-on-the-go. Select Drive on the menu and start driving. The GPS follows you and you can create Waypoints on your trip and finally save the track for later use.

Send Position

You can send your current position to a friend by SMS.

There are lots of general settings that lets you control the user experience. Top2Move lets you use the internal GPS built into the S60 device or you can use external GPS devices via bluetooth.

Add-on Packs

Every city or ski resort’s map is available as a separate add-on pack that must be downloaded and installed.

Handling

Finding your way around Top2Move could be a little overwhelming at first because of the large number of operations and options. Over time you will get used to its features and put them to good use. To get the best experience, go to the actual location and start the application, with the right maps.

Weaknesses

A couple of times, Top2Move didn’t start. I had to reboot the  device to get it started again. But I didn’t find any weaknesses in Top2Move.

Conclusion

Top2Move Lite V1.63, the .sis application can be downloaded here for Euro 29.50.  Hundreds of add-on packs for various regions are available for purchase. Add-on ski packs are available for FREE here. A demo add-on pack for Phuket is available that can be downloaded here for a trial. All other add-on packs are priced at Euro 4.50 but are now available at a 50% discount at Euro 2.25. Top2Move Lite must be purchased before using the maps and it is not available for trial.

With a unique type of service and versatile features like creation of Tracks and Waypoints, Top2Move aims to provide a special experience for bikers, hikers, ski lovers and similar outdoor sportspersons. Its highlight is the availability of hundreds of add-on packs for various regions which make it worthwhile. Unfortunately, I could not try it out in a real location Top2Move is good stuff and I’ll give it 4 of 5.

In this second part, we are going to explore applications which convert videos for playback on Nokia S60 5th edition mobiles, specifically the Nokia 5800.

In Part 1, we reviewed SmartMovie,  a commercially available from video player for playback on the Symbian device.

We will look at three applications for video conversion. All these applications were installed in a laptop running Windows XP SP2 with 1 Gigabyte of RAM and a 1.66 GHz processor.

1. Videora Nokia 5800 Converter
2. Handbrake
3. Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter

Videora Nokia 5800 Converter 5.00

Videora Nokia 5800 Converter can be downloaded here. It supports H.264 VGA 1024kbps Stereo/128kbps and MPEG4 VGA 1024kbps Stereo/128kbps formats.

Conversion of an avi file of approximately 800 Megabytes in the H.246 format takes approximately 45 minutes but when encoded with the MPEG4 format takes nearly 2.5 hours. Videora has different versions for N97, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and various other mobile phones and iPods.

There are two modes you can choose for conversion, Simple Mode and Power Mode. In the Simple Mode, you just have to specify the file to be converted, the location on the hard drive where the converted file has to be stored and you are on your way.

Successful playback using the RealPlayer on the Nokia 5800 was a hit or miss. RealPlayer played back some files successfully back but it failed to play a few files. To find that playback failed after waiting for more than an hour converting the video is quite frustrating!!

Handbrake

Handbrake is an open source multi-threaded video transcoder that accept practically any type of video as a source. It supports many video formats that can be picked using various built-in presets that are categorized under Apple, Basic, High Profile and Gaming Consoles. I picked the Basic category and the Normal preset under this category for my conversion.

An avi file with running time of nearly 2 hours takes over 2 hours. The video codec was H.264. In the output settings, you can select the format of the output file as M4V, MP4, AVI, MKV and OGM. I’d prefer MP4. An avi file converted to M4V format failed to play on the S60 device. I didn’t try any presets under the Apple category.
Successful playback was once again a hit or miss. Playback of videos converted using some presets, like the Classic failed. Pick the Basic category under the Normal preset and it works!

Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter v0.32

The Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter is home grown application from Nokia available in Nokia Beta Labs that converts videos to the .mp4 format and works perfectly well with all Nokia phones.

It doesn’t confuse you by giving a myriad options of video and audio formats to choose from. The Video quality can be chosen from one of the 4 options that a layman can understand, Low, Good, Better and Best. Of course, each option corresponds to a particular bit rate of audio and video and a encoding at specific frame-per-second (fps). The bit rate for the Low video quality is 200 kbps video, 64 kbps audio at 24 fps. The bit rate for the Best video quality is 860 kbps video and 128 kbps audio at 30 fps.

It takes over an hour to convert videos but the time it takes to convert a video and the size of the video also varies based on the video quality. Choosing the Low video quality means the smallest video converted in the shortest time. Playback on the Nokia 5800 was always successful when converted using the Nokia Internet Video Converter.

Conclusion

Overall, my experience of converting videos to play on the Nokia 5800 was not very pleasant. What irked me most was how long I had to wait for videos to be converted to the required format. And I’d come to know only at the end of the whole process that playback wasn’t successful.

The applications throw you a whole bunch of options that are overwhelming. I would like to try out each one to determine which is the best, but video conversion with each option would take at least an hour. You simply can’t think of loading your S60 device with a couple of movies at the last minute, when you embark on a trip.

I’d recommend Nokia Internet Tablet Video Converter for its simple interface and 100% success rate.

More thoughts on video playback on the device

Videos playback using RealPlayer was a pleasant experience on my Nokia 5800. Frame loss was low and did not interfere with my visual experience. If you try to fast-forward, it takes a few seconds for full resolution to set in in the new playback position.

RealPlayer does not remember playback positions which is painful because navigating to the right point of the movie is cumbersome.

Video playback is a huge battery draining task for the mobile phone. Prepare to recharge your S60 device within a day if you are going to watch a whole movie.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

Psiloc’s World Traveler was installed on a Nokia 5800 XPress Music, a S60 5th edition device running on Symbian OS 9.4.

Installation

World Traveler is a native Symbian application and was installed using the Nokia Application Installer that comes with the PC Suite.

First View

World Traveler is a mobile travel-aid application that has been around for a long time. Recently a new premium plug-in has been introduced, called FLIGHTS. Read on for full review.

Main Review

World Traveler is the Swiss army knife for the frequent traveler. It has 6 different plug-ins, namely Weather, Clocks, Currencies, World Map, FLIGHTS and Travel Plan. Each plug-in is an application by itself. Travel Plan is under development and FLIGHTS is a premium plug-in.

The various components of World Traveler have been elegantly designed to effectively utilize the large 3.2” screen of the Nokia 5800. The lower part of the screen contains the icons for all plug-ins. A single-tap on each icon slides the screen to the selected plug-in and the icon animates and lights up so that you know which plug-in is currently in use.

The left soft key at the bottom, Options is used to setup the plug-ins. It is context-sensitive, which means the options vary and are relevant to the plug-in selected. You can also Hide to the background.

Weather

The Weather is the default plug-in that comes up when you open World Traveler. The weather update interval can be configured to be Manual or every 6, 12 or 24 hours.

The temperature can be set to Celsius or Fahrenheit. The weather can also be displayed on the main screen.

The top of the screen has today’s weather, wind speed and wind pressure and an image of clouds, rain or the sun. Hundreds of cities all over the world are covered in the database and a weather update takes under 5 seconds!

World Clock

The World clock displays 4 clocks in the Analog or Digital format. Along with the time it also lets you know if the time in a city across the world is still (Yesterday) or (Today).

Exchange Rates

The currency converter displays 4 currencies. You can set the update interval to be Manual or Daily, Weekly or Monthly periods. When an update happens, the source of the currency rates is not known. I would like to choose the bank from which the currency rate is determined. Handy Converter lets you choose Bank of Canada, European Central Bank or Russian Central Bank as the source of the rates and I think its is necessary.

Travel Plan

The Travel Plan plug-in is under development and I am looking forward to it.

World Map

The World Map plug-in is more of an educational application that displays the city you select on the globe. It also shows your home city.

FLIGHTS

The new feature in World Traveler is FLIGHTS. FLIGHTS lets you search by flight number or by location (city, airport or country) and allows you to save search results, check the status of your flights anytime and be automatically alerted to changes in real-time.

Handling

World Traveler is very easy to use. I had no problems getting used to the interface.

But when I have to select a city or country from a long list using the scroll bar on the 5800 is extremly un-user-friendly. Kinetic scrolling is the way forward for such use cases. But its not an issue with Psiloc anyway. I have to mention it because the overall experience of using the application is impacted negatively, even though only a little bit.

Updates for each plug-in can be downloaded independently. Individual plug-ins can be disabled or uninstalled.

Weaknesses

You are asked to select the Access Point for connecting to the internet every time an update happens. World Traveler couldn’t automatically detect a WiFi client. I had to connect to a WiFi access point before World Traveler could detect it and ask if it could connect to the internet using the WiFi AP. Default access point selection and automatic switch to WiFi are features that will definitely delight customers.

Conclusion

World Traveler is available in 18 different languages other than English.  The Plug-in architecture allows easy modular updates to individual plug-ins by World Traveler and allows the addition of new applications easily. Except the FLIGHTS plug-in, all others are free to use. You can try out FLIGHTS for a few days before it is disabled. With an elegant and colorful interface, zippy operation and multiple applications in one package, World Traveler is a Must-Have application. I will give it 5 of 5. World Traveler can be downloaded here.

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

I used gym Technik on a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an s60 5th edition mobile device running Symbian version OS 9.4.

Installation

There is no installation file, either in the native .sisx format or a .jar file for using Gym Technik on your mobile. Just go to Gym Technik mobile on your web browser to access your account.

First View

GymTechnik is a free innovative online tool allowing you to use your smartphone as your workout journal when you are at your gym. Read on.

Main Review

Gym Technik maintains a log of all your workout routines on the web which can be updated, viewed and edited from a mobile device using just a browser.

Not surprisingly, you need to create an account to store all your workout information on the web.

The login page prominently displays today’s date and the two main actions you can do on the website, namely Start a Workout, Enter Body Stats or Upload Photos. The settings lets you configure more options that help you customize you login to your convenience.

When you select Start Workout, you are presented with a large list of workouts, which is a subset of pre-built workouts from the Gym Technik Library.

For each workout, there is an image and detailed instructions on how to perform the exercise. In the specific exercise, the number of sets and the weights you will use in that set and be set. You can also enter notes to yourself about each workout in the Workout Notes.

You can also add a new workout to your list by selecting one of the many exercise types that are made available through the web browser. The workout list pops up in a user-friendly menu where you can select the workout for the desired part of the body. After you select a workout, you can also enter the number of sets and can choose to have this workout only for the specific day or permanently in your library.

After the workout is over you can choose to select Save / Back to Workout or End / Workout Summary buttons. Once the workout is completed, a tick appears on the right of the workout to let you know your progress.

When you select End Workout / Summary,  you get a summary of work out.  Notes can be added to the workout that are saved to the workout data on the web.

How do you handle a situation where you cannot do all the sets of a workout at one stretch, or do the workouts in the order you want? A nice feature of GymTechnik is the Start Tracking feature which takes you to the View All Exercises page that has advanced capabilities. This page auto-saves data as the exercises are completed. This page lists all the exercises in a single page and keeps saving the workouts as you enter the data. This is particularly useful when you switch between exercises in a busy gym or need to complete circuit-type workouts.

Handling

All operations on GymTechnik can be accomplished using a mobile device – adding new workouts, logging workouts, update body stats, etc. The desktop website of GymTechnik gives a richer flash based experience to the user.

It is important to remember that the mobile web site is not a dumb HTML page.  It runs scripts to keep track of your entire workout session after you login in. Navigation from one workout to another, entering body stats, etc are all captured as Javascript forms and are linked to your session information. Therefore, you MUST only use the links given in the website for navigation. Every page has a SAVE or CANCEL button and on the top of every page you can see the ‘crumbs’ link with which you can use to navigate across pages. Do not use the BACK button of the mobile browser.

For e.g., when you want to quite a workout, you are asked for confirmation on discarding the script.

Weaknesses

GymTechnik does what it sets out to do very well. Its a sophisticated workout logger, giving the user a plethora of information on workouts, instructions and guides and helps to track the progress on a calendar.

Naturally, there will be a comparison to the Nokia Sports Tracker. But that’s a native Symbian application whereas GymTechnik is a web based application and there are certain limitations that can only be fulfilled by a native application, e.g. GPS.  So these comparisons are not fully justified.

Conclusion

GymTechnik lets you access your workouts at home or at the gym using a full featured website online or using the web browser. The website provides fitness advice, nutrition ideas and health tips in addition to managing your workouts. GymTechnik has also partnered with Oxygenfit to offer workouts for women. The mobile version of Gym Technik, has been well optimized for the mobile’s browser and it is a pleasure to use. Its worth a look and I’ll give it 3 of 5.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Review Conditions

Digia @Web 2.02 (beta) was installed in a Nokia 5800 XPressMusic, an s60 5th edition mobile device running Symbian version OS 9.4.

Installation

Installation is using the Nokia Application Installer. Digia @Web can be downloaded here.

First View

There are quite a few web browsers out there. In addition to the native S60 browser (which is new and improved), there are many popular ones like Opera Mini, Skyfire, Bolt, UC Browser and so on.

Digia @Web from Digia is the new kid on the block. Lets find out how the experience of browsing the Internet on Digia @Web is.

Main Review

Digia @Web is a full-featured web browser for the S60 touch device. It starts up with a Welcome page that has detailed instructions on how to use each function of the browser. The browser window layout is conventional, yet elegant. The top of the window has the Address pane. On the right is the control for zooming in and out of the text.  On the bottom is the Control pane. All the controls hide unobtrusively and expose a full screen when you start navigation on the web page.

Address Pane & Tabbed Browsing

The Address pane is always at the top of the page and is hidden automatically when it is not used. It is shown again when the Menu icon is pressed. I liked the auto-URL complete feature in the Address pane.

On the left of the Address pane is a small box that allows tabbed browsing. When tapped, it opens up a new window with a mini-box of all the other open pages. No other browser has implemented tabbed browsing so well. Its easy to use and you do not have to search for other open browser windows.

Quick Menu & Settings

A long press on any empty space on a page reveals the Quick Menu. The Quick Menu, in addition to providing the usual “About”, “Help” and “Exit Browser” options, lets you browse the web by “Enabling private browsing” and takes you to a “Settings” page where privacy and other General settings like home page, pop-up management, etc can be configured.

Control Pane

The Control pane gives you access to the functions to manipulate web pages. The Control pane is hidden and it comes up when the Menu icon, present at the bottom of the page is pressed. The Control brings up the Address pane, browser window navigation options, Next and Previous, Page Zoom scroll bar, New Page and Bookmarks.

Bookmarks

Bookmarked websites have a bright yellow star against them, similar to Mozilla. New bookmarks can be added by just bringing up the Control pane. The usual functions that come in a Bookmark Manager are available in Digia @Web.

Flash

Digia @Web handles Flash content very well. Playing youtube videos was a breeze.

Pop-up Blocker

Digia @Web has a built-in pop-up blocker too.

Handling

Digia @Web is simple to use and very intuitively designed. The automatic full screen mode is a delight to use. I didn’t have any problems and the user experience was great.

Weaknesses

I am disappointed that Digia @Web does not support RSS Feeds. That’s a potential deal breaker for me.

The Menu icon is really small and may sometimes be lost in all the text and pictures on the web page. And we could accidentally click a link instead of the Menu icon. It is clearly not designed for finger use but only for a stylus.

The browser crashed a couple of times when I tried to navigate to a secure web page. There were a few instances where I had to simply restart it. This could have been because of low memory on my 5800 too. But hey, Digia @Web is still at beta and there will be a few bugs to iron out and I am sure these will be fixed in later versions.

Conclusion

Digia @Web is built on top of Qt 4.5. It supports a full finger touch UI and renders a full web experience using the webkit browser engine. I enjoyed the direct page control using my fingers, multiple browser windows, URL auto-complete and automatic full screen browsing. The ability to view Flash content (e.g. Youtube videos) and the relatively fast rendering of web pages has made it stand out. Digia @Web is available only for the S60 5th edition devices. It is free, can be downloaded here and is good stuff. I’ll give it 4 of 5.

Introduction

While there are hundreds of web sites and blogs for mobile devices and applications targeted at the consumer, there aren’t any “serious” websites that serve as a community for the mobile application developer for all platforms and hobbyists.

When I talked to Rafi Ton, the founder of Mobiledevworld.com, he felt the mobile industry lacked an open community for mobile developers, professionals and enthusiasts to exchange ideas, discuss technologies and explore this exciting field of mobile technology.
Rafi Ton also heads Vufone, which provides a service of back up in the cloud. We have also reviewed Vufone at BestofSymbian.

Rafi Ton further says, “During the years I’ve been involved in mobile development the issue of organized resources, code examples, deal flow leads etc was a major problem especially for small and starting companies – I would like to create a service (again, free) to help all these small developers and companies who are trying to get in to mobile technology, development and marketing.”

For the mobile enthusiast who wants more than just un-boxing videos, device specifications and reviews, I find mobiledevworld.com to be the definitive place where one can find in-depth Opinions and Articles,  Code Examples, News, Presentations, Press Releases, Resources, Sales and BD, Tutorials and many more.

There is also a phone database that contains information that’s highly focused at developers. Mobiledevworld.com is not limited to a single mobile platform. That would defeat the purpose of an open community which facilitates the meeting of various professionals. It is growing into a vibrant mobile social community. Read on for a detailed interview with Rafi Ton.

Interview

BestofSymbian: Tell us about Mobiledevworld?
Rafi Ton: MobileDevWorld is our attempt (as professionals within the mobile industry) to create a social network where professionals within the mobile industry can find answer, discuss with other professionals any issues relating to the mobile industry. There are many sites and blogs about mobile technology, but most of them are not targeted to mobile professionals. MobileDevWorld is actually not a “site” or a “blog”, but rather a community or a social network of mobile professionals who can share, discuss and create opportunities to promote the mobile industry. Our users can create blogs and post their thoughts and ideas, they can participate in forums and groups, look for projects or jobs, get the latest specs of more than 2300 mobile phones or read the latest industry news – all from a professional point of view.

BestofSymbian: What’s the motivation behind creating MobileDevworld.com?
Rafi Ton: I’ve been involved in the mobile industry for more than a decade – worked for and founded companies in this industry. In every company (small or large) there was always one issue that bothered us all the time – information. Information about mobile phone specs, leads about deals, information about finding the best agent for a country we wanted to expand to. MobileDevWorld tries to create this community where information about the industry will be available freely and openly to all members.  We are not trying to make a commercial service, but to create a service where we can exchange information freely and openly.

BestofSymbian: What are the kinds of visitors who frequent Mobiledevworld? How is the traffic like?
Rafi Ton: We currently can see two major groups of users that visit our community regularly: developers of software for mobile phones and sales/marketing people who look for the latest news and updates relevant to their worlds and seek to exchange information about deals, leads etc. With respect to the traffic – it exceeded my wildest expectations. We just launched the service, only friend-brings-friend and the traffic grows exponentially on a daily basis. And most importantly, these are users who visit mobiledevworld almost daily.

BestofSymbian: What are the highlights of Mobiledevworld?
Rafi Ton: I can summarize it in one line. “A free social network made by mobile professionals for mobile professionals”.

BestofSymbian: How many members do you have now? Can you give a break up of members for specific mobile OS technologies?
Rafi Ton: As I noted, we are very young and didn’t even start to actively promote the service. As of today we have about 120 active daily users but these numbers are growing very rapidly. We plan to start marketing the service next month and our target is to get 1000 active mobile professionals in the first month.

BestofSymbian: What’s in it for the smartphone consumer?
Rafi Ton: Every smartphone user who would like to dive into the world of mobile technology will find a lot of interesting content in our service. Moreover, one of the items I’m promoting is writing simple tutorials to convert web developers to mobile developers. Today we have the right technologies such as Nokia WRT for Symbian, PhoneGap for the iPhone and the Palm WebOS which allow web developers to write mobile applications using html, css and javascript. This can really turn mobile apps to become the next Web.

BestofSymbian: Are there any other websites similar to Mobiledevworld.com?
Rafi Ton: To the best of my knowledge there is no single site/service that is doing what we are. There are many sites about mobile news, many sites for developers but they are all fragmented. mobiledevworld is building a community and a network of mobile professionals to help each other.

Review Conditions

MeCanto was installed on a Nokia E71, an S60 3rd edition FP1 device.

Installation

The MeCanto solution consists of two applications, one for the S60 device (now only available for 3rd edition) and a PC Client desktop application. I installed the PC Client on a Windows XP SP2. You also need to create an account with MeCanto on the web.

First View

There are different music solutions for the mobile. Mobbler streams msuic from Last.fm. Audials uses multi-various plug-ins to crawl the web and download music to your device. There is a new solution from MeCanto, which is a service for storing your music collection online and enabling access to it from anywhere. Read on.

Main Review

MeCanto streams all of your personal music collection from the cloud to your S60 device. To start with, you need to create a MeCanto web account  and then install the MeCanto client application on the desktop. Once you have logged in to your MeCanto web account from the MeCanto desktop application, it asks for the location of your music collection on your desktop. This collection is now uploaded to your MeCanto web account.

Then you can begin using the mobile application to listen to music. The sequence of operations to setup MeCanto is as follows:

Create Web Account –> Install Application on Desktop and S60 Mobile –> Identify Music Collection on Desktop –> Start listening to music on S60 Mobile.

But it doesn’t mean you have to wait for all of your 15 Gb of music to upload to your MeCanto account online to start listening to music. The good part is that you can start listening to your music collection on your S60 mobile device almost instantly. After you have identified the music collection on your desktop, the MeCanto web account is immediately populated with the details of your music collection. MeCanto smartly streams music from your Desktop to your mobile via the web until the upload is complete. The intermediate stream sequence is Desktop –> MeCanto Web Account –> S60 Mobile Device.

Those files that are uploaded are streamed from the web and those files that are on the desktop are streamed from the desktop. As a user, you don’t have to care about the difference.

As and when you add new music to your collection, its uploaded automatically to your MeCanto web account. If you want to listen to a song that’s not yet uploaded and your desktop application is turned off, you get an error message.

You can also specify your iTunes collection and files will be picked up from the iTunes Music folder. On the web account, you can create playlists that are made available on the mobile too. MeCanto has the options to Shuffle and Repeat tracks. You can also configure the upload speed limit. 10 Kbps is the default speed limit.

You cannot play music from your web account at the same time you are playing tracks on the mobile device. I got the message “Your account is being used by another computer (or phone), you have been logged  out”.

With MeCanto, I didn’t have to worry about memory space on my mobile, which is great. I can listen to all of my music collection if I have an unlimited 3G plan or a WiFi connection.

Handling

MeCanto is very easy to use. You just have to configure/setup your web account,  desktop and the mobile device the first time and you are set to go on a long road trip. MeCanto just takes up around 2 Megabytes while you are playing music. I had no problems multitasking with other applications like Nokia Messaging and Gravity.

MeCanto obviously doesn’t support uploading DRM files because they cannot be streamed to the mobile. If I purchased music via iTunes or Nokia Comes With Music, I shouldn’t bother with MeCanto.

MeCanto is vaguely similar “Files on Ovi”. Files on Ovi lets you access your desktop from your mobile via an SSL connection. MeCanto monitors the music folders on your desktop, uploads them to a server and provides access to these files to you. Both ways you are handing over control of your desktop to a third party vendor and that could be a security risk.

Weaknesses

Whether I created playlists or not, the MeCanto music player on my mobile device just could not do continuous play, i.e., play the next track after finishing the current one. After playing a track, it always stopped. I had to manually select the next song to play. That was a real pain.

I would like to know which songs have been uploaded and which are not yet on the web. So some play and some don’t when my desktop application is closed. There should be a flag against each song indicating whether its being streamed from my desktop or from MeCanto’s web servers.

The security risk of allowing Mecanto accessing my desktop may put off many people. My desktop is too precious and it is vulnerable to attacks when its accessible by a third party application. But then, that’s the service model.

Finally, I am a big user of track metadata like playcount, rating, track last played, etc and create smart playlists based on these metadata. While MeCanto lets me upload these playlists online, when I listen to music streamed from the MeCanto servers, these metadata are not updated. That’s a big weakness, for me but may not be important for many music listeners.

Conclusion

There are many music-on-the-cloud sevices around. You can take your pick – Audials, MeCanto, Mobbler – all of them are different in their own way but serve the purpose of listening to music on your mobile on the go. I liked MeCanto’s concept and it has been implemented quite well. But I’ll stick to my iTunes library and iPod for now. Its definitely worth a look and I’ll give it 3 of 5. Download MeCanto here.