Nokia Portable USB Charger DC-16 - Photo Unboxing

"Carry a power socket in your pocket". Modern smartphone batteries can be pretty poor if you use them to their full potential so it's often wise to carry a bit of extra power with you. With a holiday coming up I thought it would be wise to invest in a portable charger to help keep some of my gadgets going throughout the day. After looking around I settled on the Nokia Universal Portable USB Charger DC-16 as not only did it look good and offered a decent amount of power (2200mah) but was also priced reasonably too (£20 in UK). The DC-16 can charge any device that uses a USB cable for charging, even fussier devices that need high output chargers. Now for the pictures:

Compact classic blue box, I like the tagline "Carry a power socket in your pocket".

The colour of the charger is shown on the side, I chose cyan, again.

Rear of the box and the slide out tray.

This is it, charger, short USB cable and instruction booklets in many languages. 

At only 120mm long the DC-16 is easy to carry in the pocket or a bag.

Charger and cable together, you can use your phones cable if you need a longer one.

Putting a bit of juice into the Nokia Lumia 800.

One end has a standard USB port for connecting any USB device.

The other end has a micro USB port for charging the DC-16. The four dots are lights that show the charge level when the battery icon is pressed.

Here are the lights, they also show during charging, flashing one by one. When all stop flashing it is fully charged .

Nokia Purity In-Ear Stereo Headset - Photo Unboxing

This week I took delivery of the gorgeous looking Nokia Purity In-Ear Stereo Headset and so far i've been seriously enjoying it! Whilst i'm no audiophile and i'll never pretend to be one all I can say is they sound absolutely great to me! I can hear detail in the music that I swear i've never heard before which makes it all the more enjoyable!  The headset is produced for Nokia by Monster, full product details can be found here. Now take a look at the pictures and feel free to ask any questions in the comments section.

The outer sales package, looks good and gives a real sense that it's a quality product inside. 

The inner pack slides out from the bottom, it's held shut by a magnetic flap on the bottom.

The lovely cyan (also available in Black, White or Magenta) coloured headset is the first thing you see after opening along with the soft case.

Underneath you'll find the instruction booklet, adaptor cable and five pairs of different sized ear buds.

Close up view of the headset, the media remote works with Windows Phones like Nokia's Lumia range.

This adaptor is required if you use the headset with non Windows Phones, without this the sound may sound odd from other devices and the microphone may not work.

The bag of spare buds, five sizes ranging from very large to very small. You get two sets of the medium sized bud.

The inside of the case, enough room for the headset, the adaptor and the spare buds.

Nokia Lumia 800 - Four Months On

It’s now been around four months since I first got my Lumia 800 and it’s been a great experience so far. Usually by now I’m desperately searching for something newer, better, faster to buy but I’m still yet to feel that. In this short period we’ve seen several software updates, tons of app updates and plenty of new apps to sink our teeth into and those are just what Nokia has given us. The pace of development really is a breath of fresh air compared to Nokia of the past, long may it continue!

In this short time the windows phone marketplace has seen so many quality additions and updates that for some things we’ve become spoilt for choice. The biggest example of this I’ve seen is with twitter apps and the overall quality of them. Back in my Symbian days the choice was pretty limited, it was either buy Gravity for a whopping £8 or make do with one of the free ones, none of which were really that good or as fully featured. On windows phone we’ve got Carbon (£1.49), Rowi (£2.29) Mehdoh (Free), Official Twitter (Free), MoTweets Pro (£1.49) all of which are being actively improved, some of which also have free ad supported versions available. These are just a few examples, there’s even more to choose from and some great ones are yet to be released on the market such as Twabbit. It’s safe to say that I have not been disappointed by the twitter experience on this platform and intend to go into more detail about twitter on windows phone in a future article.

Recently I was given a Nokia 603 to trial for two weeks and that phone really made me appreciate Nokia’s decision to switch to windows phone for its primary operating system. Like many I was against the switch at first but after spending time with the Symbian again I can safely say I was wrong and Nokia was right. The selection of apps, the awful text input, the slow speed the dated look of much of the OS and apps really made me dislike the device to the point that made me wonder why I ever loved Symbian.

As a whole package I’ve found the Lumia 800 to be truly great, it just works which is really important to me. Rarely does it crash, reboot for no apparent reason or lag which makes it very pleasant to use. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a phone that was this stable and this gives me great expectations for future Nokia windows phone devices. After Nokia’s recent announcement of the Symbian based 808 PureView with its amazing 41mp camera I’m eagerly awaiting a PureView windows phone to be announced, it really could be the phone of my dreams.

So that’s another fun and smooth stint with the Lumia 800 for me, will I still have a Lumia in another two months time? I think the answer to that is a massive yes and even though I’m tempted by the bigger Lumia 900 I am still very happy with its little brother.

This article is also available on www.nokiainnovation.com

Guide: How to get the latest Lumia 800 update now.

Waiting for updates to be released can be annoying and like many when I heard about the new update I instantly wanted it. Fortunately there is a way and hopefully by following this guide you'll be able to get it as quickly as I did. This guide is for the Lumia 800 1600.2487.8107.12070 update but it can be adapted for other updates if you have the necessary update files.

Disclaimer: Following this procedure is entirely at your own risk, neither I, Nokia Inspired or it's owners accept any liability or responsibility for any failures, undesirable results, data loss, loss of warranty or damage to the device. The information contained within this guide and the tools to carry out the procedure have been collected from forum posts made on the XDA Forums.

This guide is based on carrying out the procedure using Windows 7, it may be possible to do it on other operating systems, please see the source link at the end of the article for more information. What you will need (click the links to download the software):

The latest version of Zune.
The WP7 update tool.
The WP7 update cab sender tool.
The software update file.
Software capable of opening .rar files.

1. Make sure Zune is installed and working correctly with your phone. You must have it set so that it's the primary sync relationship, if the sync relationship is set to guest mode the update will not work.

2. Double click on the WP7 update tool, inside you'll find two versions, x64 is for 64bit versions of windows, X86 is for 32bit versions of windows. To check which version you have click your windows start button, right click the  "computer" button, select "properties" and you'll find the information in there.  Now you know your version open the correct folder and you'll find a file called "Setup-UpdateWP-Xxx.exe", run this file and it will install itself. You'll see it start to install then disappear, that is normal.

3. Extract the contents of the WP7_Update_Cab_Sender.zip file to an empty folder on your PC, you'll see two folders and a batch file "Wp7 Update Cab Sender".

4. Copy the software update .cab file you downloaded to the same folder as the batch file, this is important. Do not extract the contents of the .cab file.

5. Connect your phone to the PC, allow it to sync with Zune as normal, then close Zune leaving the phone connected.

6. Run the "Wp7 Update Cab Sender" batch file and you'll see a DOS style text window asking you to select a letter. To start the procedure press the letter "S". Do not close the text window, as it shows you the progress of the procedure or any warnings. Do not disconnect your phone until it is up and running again.

7. Sit back and watch as the progress is updated in that window, first the phone will reboot then it will display an updating screen. After a while a white bar will start to move across the screen showing the progress, when it's finished the phone will reboot. From sending the cab file to the phone to the procedure completing it takes around 10 minutes. When the phone reboots it will tell you that the update completed successfully, now enjoy your freshly updated phone!

You should find that your phone updated without any loss of data at all and that it is still the correct regional version. I do not believe that this procedure voids the warranty, but I cannot guarantee that. No carrier branded is added or removed by using this update.

  

Source and thanks to: XDA Forums

Nokia World, Lumia and the N9.

Hello all, thanks for reading! This is the first post on my new blog, it's work in progress at the moment but hope to improve it soon. This is my review of my recent trip to Nokia World and some of the products I encountered.

I’ll start by saying a massive thank you to Juhis & Wayne (from Nokia Support Discussions), lots of Nokia employees, Nokia Connects and lots of other great people for making this trip possible and enjoyable, all I can say is AWESOME! I won’t bore you all with a blow by blow account of the trip, just a summary of my personal highlights.

Nokia World

The scale of the event was way beyond what I’d expected and was impressed to see how slickly organised the entire event was, kudos to the crew there. The event kicked off with the traditional keynote speech and a very special mention for four people in the crowd, including me! Was blown away by that, think we all were! The speakers were all entertaining as the 90 minutes went on but the real highlights were from Stephen Elop and Kevin “AWESOME” Shields. If anyone hasn’t already seen the keynote it is worth watching. I’ll stop saying awesome now.

Shortly after the keynote we were invited into the conference area for a series of meetings ranging from forum feedback to Q&A sessions about products and accessories. The main meeting was in a packed room with 25 or so popular bloggers where we were introduced to the Lumia 800 up close. In fact so close that we were each handed a box containing a Lumia 800 and a micro sim. After a few questions the bloggers started their unboxing videos, I started play time and thoroughly enjoyed it! We were allowed to keep the Lumia’s for the duration of Nokia World which was a massive bonus. Other sessions featured Nokia’s accessories which all had stunning looks and build, really felt my wallet twitching at the sight of them! Even had a visit from the main man himself, Stephen Elop, during one of the sessions, the entire room was shocked, but very happy.

As the day went on it was great to have demos and chats in the experience lounge and saw a lot of interesting products and concepts. Later in the day a massive party was held, the entertainment was awesome (sorry) featuring circus style entertainers and a good chart covers band. I certainly made the most of the free beer on offer and was easily persuaded to join the after party in Soho, think I crawled back to my room sometime after 3am. Both days were packed with great experiences with great people, way too many for me to type about today.

Nokia Lumia 800

There’s already a lot been said about this device so I’ll try to keep it brief. The build quality is beautiful, very little else feels as good to hold and use as this phone. I would describe the size as perfect sitting nicely in the gaps of the smaller screened iPhones and larger screened high end Androids. Some people have commented on the fact that it’s not metal like the N8 but to me this polycarbonate feels seriously premium. The OS is slick, simple and fluid, can really see Nokia’s Lumia’s stealing some iOS customers away as it feels so much fresher compared to it, it will appeal to many Android users too, in fact it’s just appealing. The Lumia is more than just the OS though, it’s the whole device experience. As my time went on with the Lumia I encountered a few niggles and issues but I’m sure that given the time to sit down with one in a quiet place I’d have it running more my way. I actually managed to kill my Lumia at the end of the first day (it wouldn’t charge), but it wasn’t running release software so issues like this are to be expected, was handed another one in the Morning.

Nokia N9

Finally I had the pleasure of playing with an N9 and wow is that device good! I was angry when I found out this device wasn’t officially coming to the UK and I do hope Nokia change their minds on this along with giving it a future successor. The OS is a genius touch and can’t compare it to other platforms, it’s just so different. It’s easy to use and very powerful, a great phone for the masses and the geeks out there. On the outside the N9 and the Lumia are essentially the same phone with a few minor differences, the enlarged button-less screen area being the main one. When given the choice between the Lumia and the N9 I choose the N9 as it suits me that little bit better.

If anyone wants to ask any questions or wants further details from me about anything feel free to ask! Again a massive thank you to all who arranged this and another thank you to Juhis for being a great host these last few days. To end this post I’ll share with you an email I received this morning which really made my day!