Nokia World 2010

So today was a big day for Nokia, as they took to the stage in London this morning to let the world know that they are still to be taken seriously in this changing mobile world and showcase some new products for us.

Although I wasn’t one of the lucky few bloggers who were able to go to the event in London, I was provided with a Virtual Attendee pack from the great guys at WOMWorld/Nokia:

Thanks to the live streaming of the event I was able to follow most of the event straight from my mobile:

I wont cover what has already been said by others blogs about the announcements, so instead i’ll send you to WOMWorld/Nokia who have a great round-up of all the Nokia World 2010 chatter.

What did you think of the Nokia presentation and their product announcements?

Nokia BH-905, BH-214 and MD-9 Review

During my recent #NokiaNav challenges, which featured a Maserati (in case I’d not mentioned that before!) I was able to try out some cool Nokia accessories. The main piece of kit was the CK-200 Car Kit, but I also had some other Nokia audio accessories to try out. This started off on the first day with the Nokia BH-214 Bluetooth headset, which I had to use to find the keys to the car! My second challenge involved driving to a mystery location, collect a key to unlock a black box in the boot of the car, where I found a pair of Nokia BH-905 Noise Cancelling Headphones. The last item was found in the hamper in the boot of the Maserati – a Nokia MD-9 Mini Speaker.

So I’ve had a good play with all 3 of the Nokia Accessories, and I have now compiled my thoughts on each of the devices below:

Nokia BH-905 Noise Cancelling Headphones

These are a serious pair of headphones. Weighty, yet light the Nokia BH-905 headphones come in a nice zip-ip case that contains the headphones, cable for charging, and cable and adapters should you like to be wired  to your audio system.

If you like your music, and you like to get fully immersed into your listening experience, then these are the headphones for you. The Nokia BH-905 headphones are wireless using Bluetooth. Not only do they deliver great sound quality, but they are also noise cancelling. What does this mean? Well, there are some small mics on the headphones that pick up any background noise around you, and then using clever technology will the cancel this noise out so as not to interfere with your listening experience.

On one of the headphones you will find some music controls that allow you to skip tracks, play/pause and adjust the volume. These work great with Nokia devices, but don’t function completely with other Bluetooth devices such as an iPhone (iOS 4.1 will fix this).  You can play/pause and adjust the volume, but not skip tracks.

I compared the sound quality of the headphones against some BOSE noise cancelling headphones, and while the BH-905 sound great, they obviously don’t match the quality. You certainly don’t get the depth of stereo, or bass that the BOSE noise-cancelling headphones deliver, but then the BH-905′s are somewhat cheaper.

The headphones themselves rest on your ears, whereas the BOSE are slightly larger and cup your ears totally enclosing them with the headphone. Because of this I didn’t think that Nokia’s were as comfortable or that the overall sound quality and noise-cancelling experience was quite as good.

Saying that – comparing them to some expensive BOSE headphones was probably a little unfair, as they would generally be out of most peoples price bracket – for what you get the Nokia BH-905 headphones deliver a great sound experience at a reasonable price.

Personally I’m not really a big fan of large headphones, I’d never wear them while out-and-about, and although I sometimes like to ‘zone-out’ at home with music via headphones, I’d opt for the smaller in-your-ear style.

The Nokia BH-905 Bluetooth Headphones retails for around £140.

Nokia MD-9 Mini Speaker

The Nokia MD-9 Mini Speaker was the biggest surprise for me out of all of the accessories. The small black square speaker with a simple red stripe around it doesn’t look much, it’s also very light and compact. Like most media speakers of this kind of size I wasn’t expecting much in the quality of the sound. On plugging it into the Nokia N97 Mini, I was surprised by how loud and bassy the sound that came out of it. Even in an outdoor environment, with background noises, the music was very clear with a nice rich sound to it. And all powered by 2 AAA batteries!

The wire to connect to your music device winds nicely around the base of the MD-9 with the jack snapping firmly into the bottom of the unit.

There isn’t much more to say about the Nokia MD-9‘s – you just plug it in and enjoy your music.

I can see myself using the Nokia MD-9 Portable Mini Speaker while on holiday, as it’s so light that it can easily be packed in a bag.

The Nokia MD-9 Mini Speaker retails for around £16.

Nokia BH-214 Bluetooth Headset

This little device was given to me at the start of the #NokiaNav experience when I had to go and locate the keys for the Maserati that had just been delivered (Did I mention that I had a Maserati for a week?).

Photo by BennyCrime

The device is easily clipped onto a shirt/jacket and the headphones pop into your ear canal. No more long wires to get tangled up with and the sound quality on these were great.

I found that these were great for use at the gym, and used them every day on my walk to and from work.

The BH-214 can be paired with most Bluetooth devices that support A2DP profile, which includes the iPhone. Unfortunately music navigation using the keys isn’t supported, although the volume can be adjusted.

The device is quick to charge, which gives music playback of around 7 hours.

Overall the BH-214 Bluetooth Headphones are a fantastic addition for music on the move.  I loved them so much that I actually bought myself a pair – which are used daily. Wireless music is definitely the way to go – I dont think that I could go back to proper wired headphones again now.

Nokia BH-214 retail for around £39.99 – but I managed to pick up a pair from KingofGadgets.co.uk for £22.99 with free delivery.

The #NokiaNav video

Below is the official video of the #NokiaNav event that took place last month.  See the cars being prepped, then delivered to the bloggers (myself included), see the challenges, and ending with the final meet in London with some more participants and the people behind the tech.  Awesome stuff.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgxVsxbhYhs

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank the awesome guys at WOMWorld/Nokia again for the amazing experience.

Hands on with the Nokia CK-200 Car Kit

You will probably by now have read about my recent experiences with a Maserati that was kindly dropped off to me as part of the #NokiaNav Challenges. If you havent take a look at the Delivery Day and Challenge 2 posts.

The main reason that myself and 4 other bloggers received a sports car each for the week, was to try out a Nokia Car Kit called the Nokia CK-200. This kit was fitted to each of the cars, and was the basis for the #NokiaNav Challenges that took place.

The Nokia CK-200 Kit

The Nokia CK-200 is a small car kit that intergrates with your existing car stereo. The unit allows you to wirelessly connect you Nokia mobile phone to your cars audio system via Bluetooth.

The CK-200 unit itself has 2 components, the first is a small LED display that can attach to your dash:

The other part is a remote control dial for controlling the kit which can be attached anywhere in your car using the velcro pad.

Setting-up the CK-200

The device itself is easy to set-up, just pair your Nokia mobile to it as you would any Bluetooth device.

You will then be prompted on your phone to connect to the device:

Once connected you also have the option to download your phones contact list to the CK-200 unit.

The CK-200 in use

The Nokia CK-200 gives you freedom to use certain features of your mobile while you are diving. My main experience was to use the connected Nokia N97 Mini with OVI Maps to navigate to the specified locations during the #NokiaNav Challenges.

With the contacts list downloaded to the CK-200 it also gives you quick access to your phonebook for calling friends and family, with a quick scroll to your desired contact and pressing the dial & hangup buttons respectively.

Using voice commands on your Nokia handset (dependant on model), with one touch operation from the CK-200 you are able to tell your phone a command (that it recognises) and it will perform an action, such as read new Text Messages/Email or even play music from your mobile, which of course can then be streamed via Bluetooth to your car stereo.

Unfortunately I was unable to use the cars own built-in entertainment system, due to a lock-code issue, which meant that I was unable to see how the CK-200 handled overriding the cars radio/CD for audio alerts and calls to and from the mobile.

Other Features

The display colour of the CK-200 can be changed to suit your personal choice, from white, blue, orange and green.

The CK-200 is also easily removable from it’s mount and small enough to fit into a pocket or your glovebox as not to attract the attention of unwanted eyes when your car is parked.

The same is said for the CK-200 control unit, which can be removed fom it’s Velcro mount and hidden from view.

Conclusion

The CK-200 performed as expected working with the Nokia N97 Mini, I did try pairing with my iPhone but sadly nothing happened.

The unit is very sleek looking, and doesn’t look at-all out of place sat on your dash. The display is crisp and bright, especially during night time driving, I did however struggle to see the display when wearing sunglasses in bright sunshine though.

The unit is very simple to use, and once you figure out what all the buttons do, it’s fairly easy to navigate your way around the system, without having to take your eye of the road.

If you are looking for an easy way to connect your Nokia handset to your car stereo then this could be the solution for you. That being said the ‘CK-200 to phone connection’ is the easy part – the wiring of the CK-200 to the back of your stereo may require some more expert help.

I have mixed feelings about the CK-200, while my overall experience of the unit was good, I just cant help wonder why you wouldn’t just buy a car stereo system that is already Bluetooth-enabled?

The Nokia Car Kit CK-200 will be available in the summer and is expected to retail for approximately €140.

More images of the CK-200

At the end of #NokiaNav Challenge 2, I was able to unlock the mystery black box in the boot of the Maserati.  Inside was a pair of Nokia BH-905 Bluetooth noise cancelling headphones with the below card:

Since then I have been trying hard to think of noisy locations where I could test the headphones.  Unfortunately in rural Somerset it’s pretty quiet. So with the instructions ‘creativity is the key’ I took a different slant and went down the line of; because the headphones are great at blocking-out the outside world around you, you can then get more immersed in the sound experience you are listening to and can virtually get transported to all sorts of places:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL1Mp6rlnoQ

I’ll have a proper review of the BH-905 coming soon!

Keep your eyes fixed on mypocketOS.com or follow me (@nechbi) on Twitter to find out more about my final #NokiaNav Challenge.

When the #NokiaNav Maserati was delivered to me on Saturday morning, I found inside the boot the following two items:

The first was a locked black box, that was part of #NokiaNav Challenge 2, that I carried out on Tuesday.  The other was a wicker picnic hamper.

Attached to the picnic hamper was a #NokiaNav tag, with some instructions:

Opening the hamper revealed some china plates and mugs, cutlery as well as a picnic rug.

Also within the hamper, as the tag mentioned was a Nokia MD-9 Mini Speaker:

Now to make the most of the picnic and car, but what to do? Everybody was busy (at work) this week, and I’d be a bit silly going out for a picnic by myself.. I guess I could have taken the dog, but he’s not very chatty!

Well, today was my friend Lou’s Birthday, and I picked her up from work lunchtime to go out to celebrate. We had originally planned to go to the local pub for a meal, but as the sun was shining (a rare thing here in the UK) I decided to surprise her with a Birthday picnic.

The problem being that due to Lou’s time restraints for lunch we couldn’t really go very far. So a demo of the car and the Nokia CK-200 integration using Ovi Maps lead us to our mystery destination. Although it was far from being the most interesting of places to go, it was spontaneous and a lovely spot to sit, relax, eat and chat in the sunshine.

Blue skies, a fast car, and picnic.  Life is good.

And of course what better way to enjoy the sunshine, with some tunes, played from the Nokia N97 Mini using the Nokia MD-9 Mini Speaker.

I’ll have reviews of the individual accessories that I have been using in this weeks challenges coming soon!

Keep your eyes fixed on mypocketOS.com or follow me (@nechbi) on Twitter to find out more about my final #NokiaNav Challenge on Friday.

The Black Box Challenge

This morning I woke to find that I had an email with my second #NokiaNav Challenge.

The instructions were simple:

Your destination for this challenge has been uploaded to the #NokiaNav Ovi Maps account.
You’ll need to go there and ask for an envelope at the desk. They’ll know what you mean.
To get yourself ready for the challenge you’ll need Syncronise your Ovi Maps Favourites
Select ‘Black Box Challenge’.

Good luck.

Let the Challenge commence

In the Maserati, I fired up the Ovi Maps application on the Nokia N97 Mini and synced the data with the account. I then found a favourite called ‘Black Box Challenge‘ which I then selected.

I then clicked ‘Drive to‘ and then Ovi Maps was ready to give me turn-by-turn directions to my destination.  Where could I be going?

Putting the Nokia N97 Mini into its cradle and connected via Bluetooth to the Nokia CK-200 -- a device to integrate your mobile with the cars audio system (more on that in a later post) -- I was able to get turn-by-turn guidance from the cars stereo to my mystery destination.

You have reached your destination

Luckily I didn’t have far to go, as the guided voice took me to the Holiday Inn.

Inside The Holiday Inn, I asked at reception if they had an envelope waiting for me.

Inside the envelope was a key, with “Well done. I wonder what the key could be for ”

Might it have something to do with this?

Check out the video below that I recorded as I opened the envelope I received at the Holiday Inn, and find out what was inside that black box:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1IEc5XYmejk

I’ll have reviews of the individual accessories that I have been using in this weeks challenges coming soon!

Keep your eyes fixed on mypocketOS.com or follow me (@nechbi) on Twitter to find out about more about the #NokiaNav Challenges.

You may have read my previous posts (here and here) about mysterious videos being sent to me with cryptic clues and messages in them. Well today is the day that (most of it) made sense as I was to take delivery of something rather special.

All I knew was that I had to be available to take delivery of something that would feature in the weeks Nokia challenges tagged #NokiaNav that have been arranged for Tuesday and Friday.

At 10am there was a knock at my door, and stood outside was Joel from WOMWorld/Nokia, with a shiny black car, and a cameraman recording the event.  I was told that the car parked outside my house was mine for the week to use in the Nokia challenges that were in store for me.  This wasn’t any black shiny car – this was a Maserati.

Trying to take all of this in, I was then given a package with a card and told that ‘to use the car I needed to go find the keys to it’.

On the reverse of the card were some instructions, which I had to follow:

Using the Nokia N97 Mini contained in the package and the Bluetooth headset, I had to fire up OVI Maps and follow the navigation to where the keys were. Luckily the keys weren’t too far away, and after a quick jog to the destination, guided by OVI Maps, I found a mysterious person in shades holding the keys.

On getting the keys, I was also handed the following card, giving me a bit more information about what was expected of me and what was to come.

In the boot of the Maserati I found a mysterious black box.  It is locked. What’s inside it?  I guess I will have to go get the key from somewhere? Perhaps this will be Tuesday’s challenge?

Also inside the car was the following card:

If ever there was a day that was totally surreal, then today was it.  Not only was I randomly given a Maserati for the week, but I also had to run ‘Anneka Rice style’ through the village with a cameraman in tow.  I bet the neighbours were wondering what the hell was going on! Saying that WOMWorld/Nokia, really know how to do this kinda thing in style and make you feel special. I do have to earn this amazing experience though with some challenges that are lined up for me on Tuesday and Friday this week. I have no idea what is in-store for me, apart from I get to drive an AWESOME car.

Oh, did I mention – I have a Maserati? No, well here are some more pictures..

I received a mysterious package today from the guys at WOMWorld/Nokia:

Inside a small black box was an 80′s style cassette, brought right-up-to-date with a USB Flash Drive planted firmly in the middle of it.. With the words From WOMWorld/Nokia and To: Neil written on one side of the cassette and #NokiaGo on the other.

On connecting the USB Flash Drive to my computer, I found a sigle file called #NokiaGo.mov and this is what it said:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n71VxOze-PQ

The audio on the tape says:

If you are receiving this message then you maybe thinking you know what lies ahead, but this is no Sunday drive.

To complete the course ahead, you’ll require extreme technical abilities and an exceptional sense of direction. You’ll need to use your head and you’ll need to be quick on your feet.

If you think you have what it takes to succeed be prepared for our visit on Saturday May 8th.  You’ll have some of the worlds finest equipment at your disposal.

Good Luck Neil.

I wonder what is in store for me on Saturday May 8th? All I know is that I need to use my car!

Find out what the Nokia guys are up to when hopefully all will become clear on Saturday 8th May. Keep your eyes fixed on mypocketOS.com or follow me (@nechbi) on Twitter.

Nokia N86 8MP ‘Explore Exhibition’ at Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport

A brand new photography exhibition opens in Heathrow Airports Terminal 5 that showcases two very different cities captured with a Nokia N86 8 megapixel cameraphone.

Photographer Henry Reichhold’s latest installation features more than 90 images contrasting the streets of Mumbai – the city made famous by Danny Boyle’s Oscar-winning film ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ – with the dizzying heights of Dubai, one of the world’s fastest developing cities.

The Nokia N86 8MP Explore exhibition visually maps the polar opposites of two of the world’s most extreme urban dwellings: Dubai is a showcase of extraordinary wealth, development and architecture, whilst Mumbai is an extraordinarily vibrant city driven by the resilience and incredible good nature of its people who live for the most part in poverty. – Henry Reichhold

The Nokia N86 Explore exhibition opens on Tuesday 2nd March and runs until May can be found in Terminal 5′s Expo area.

Copyright Henry Reichhold

Copyright Henry Reichhold