I’ve also thoroughly checked out the booths of the two major competitors of Windows Mobile, RIM (Research in Motion; a.k.a. the BlackBerry folks) and Nokia.

BlackBerry

Before visiting the RIM booth, I had hoped for at least a glimpse of the forthcoming 4.5 version of the BlackBerry operating system delivering some long-awaited niceties like A2DP (stereo Bluetooth) support and HTML e-mail (the latter meaning no more need for BBSmart, the well-known additional HTML rendering program for the operating system). Unfortunately, there haven’t been any sign or any information on the new OS at all. Actually, as far as A2DP is concerned, they have only released an external device, the Remote Stereo Gateway, providing similar functionality. As it’s just an external dongle, I didn’t even bother to thoroughly test it. (Assuming it’s available at MWC at all – at least I haven’t seen it in person.)

(Also see THIS CrackBerry article if interested.)

Moving from the question of the new OS to other subjects, there isn’t much to report on new hard- or software either. Most of their new (press) releases / announcements are “only” mobile operator-related; for example, deepening their strategic relationship with Vodafone. Probably the only real announcement they’ve made, which might be of interest to BB users, is the launch of Blackberry Unite, which is a free download and is supposed to have for example remote access to desktop files and communicating with other Blackberry Unite users. I don’t know whether it allows for talking to non- Blackberry Unite users (read: MSN / Google Talk etc.); it seems it doesn’t. No problem, though – I’m pretty much happy with IM+ on my BB 8800. (Albeit, it was surely pretty expensive.)

There has also been another announcement customers of BB may be interested in much more than just plain relationship deepening reports: that of nuTsie. It’s a music transcoding / streaming service like the highly recommended (see my related articles) ORB on Windows Mobile – but, it seems, without the capabilities of transcoding streaming audio/video (I may be wrong though). (Also see THIS CrackBerry article / post if interested.)

There have been several third-party BlackBerry developers in the BB booth. Of them, I’ve paid a visit to Gameloft, the well-known Java MIDlet game developer for all MIDlet-compatible platforms, to see what (BB-compatible) games they have and how they run on BB hardware. After having realized they didn’t have the famous jump'n'run RayMan on the test BB Pearl, I’ve asked for a quick test of Nitro Street Racing (a well-known and famous title on other platforms - a pleasure to play on particularly the 3D hardware accelerated Nokia high-end N-series phones).

To tell the truth, I didn’t enjoy the game at all. The graphics / animation was pretty slow, even on the (comparatively) low-resolution screen of the Pearl (which means the higher-resolution 8800 / Curve series may be even more sluggish). It’s indeed pretty much certain that the BB platform isn’t the best suited for computing power-intensive applications like games – or, for that matter, even for running Opera Mini if you absolutely need the best performance. (For example, bringing up the long list of my Opera Mini favorites is done much faster on the Nokia N95 or any of my Windows Mobile devices running Jbed than on my BB 8800). I don’t know whether it’s just because the MIDlet manager of the device (which runs all these third-party apps) is just unoptimized or the hardware itself is plain slow, but it really doesn’t matter when the net result is concerned – the entire thing is slow.

Nokia

There is more to report on Nokia – but not so much as I had previously hoped for.

First, the new hardware. Unfortunately, there aren’t really any revolutional devices from them – just the N96 and the N78. They’re slightly better than their predecessors (except for the lack of the camera protection and the 3D hardware acceleration on the former; it also lacks the Xenon flash of the N82 but this is pretty much understandable, given that you need a comparatively large capacitor for flash) but in no way revolutionary – except for the native support for DVB-H if you’re into watching TV (and your country already has DVB-H TV broadcasts.)

I’ve also played a bit with the N96, paying particular attention to the media controller buttons’ usability in games (which was a problem in the N95 already fixed in the N95 8GB). They are much easier to press than on the N95 and are, therefore, much more gaming-friendly.

I’ve made some comparative shots (see the bottom of the article) of the N96 and my N95. As you can clearly see,

1. The speakers on the N96 are aligned just like on the N82 – that is, horizontally (supporting stereo while watching for example videos in landscape orientation). If you’re more of a Portrait guy, this may be bad news. (For example, I belong to this category: one of my favorite usage of the N95 is just playing thru the excellent, stereo-widened speakers some tunes, while browsing the Web via Opera Mini, using the dial pad for quick control and keeping the device in my left hand - the latter is pretty much impossible when operated in Landscape).

2. The thickness of the device is the same as that of the N95. This, unfortunately, also means Nokia has returned to the standard 950 mAh battery – as opposed to the slightly larger one in the (thicker!) N95 8GB or the North-American N95-3. However, with the recent, huge power saving improvements also clearly spottable in the v20 firmware version of the N95, I think this will just be sufficient (but not stellar).

Finally, I can’t stress it enough: the camera lens protector is gone. Very bad news – along with the lack of 3D hardware acceleration, I would say the Nokia folks have seriously screwed this up! The strengths of the new device, which I list below, are pretty much nullified if you’re a serious 3D gamer and/or definitely want camera lens protection.

So, as promised, the main advantages of the N96 over the N95(-1), N95-3 (the North-American 3G version), N95 8GB (a.k.a. N95-2) and N82:

1. 16 GB of built-in storage AND an additional microSD slot – that is, the best of both worlds. Remember the problems with the not-expandable N95 8GB?
2. the usage of the latest FP2 (Feature Pack 2; as opposed to the ‘old’ FP1 used in all previous devices)
3. the five times faster USB transfer speed (at last – remember how slow it is to access the built-in 8GB storage of the N95 8GB?) and, of course,
4. the native support for DVB-H
5. better, more gaming-friendly multimedia control buttons (a definite advantage over the N95-1)
6. less stylish and, therefore, much more usable and much less awkward dial pad buttons (a definite advantage over the N82)

And, the disadvantages:

1. no 3D hardware acceleration (unlike in all previous models)
2. no xenon flash (unlike in the N82)
3. no camera protection (unlike in the N95-1 and the N82)
4. somewhat smaller battery than in all the previous models (except for the N95-1)

For more info on the N96 (and the N78), also see THIS AAS article for the links to other articles; of them, I mostly recommend THIS.

3D control by the movement of the hand; N95-1 with YouTube support; successor to the N810?

They didn’t have any specific info on the 3D control Nokia has patented some weeks (months?) ago. All they did was demoing the already-used motion sensor in all the latest high-end (N95-X / N82) devices, which is pretty much “old hat now” and known to everybody:

No information on whether the new, Flash Lite 3-enabled firmware version for the first Nokia N95(-1), v21, will be released at all. The AAS folks have reported on this back in November (or December) and stated the new, revised firmware would come out “very shortly” (read: in one-two weeks). More than two months have passed and still nothing... except for, of course, the built-in support for Lite 3 in the newer models (Nokia N95 8GB, N82 etc.) – but that doesn’t help existing N95-1 users.

There isn’t any information on the successor to the Nokia Internet Tablet N810 either.

Next-Gen N-Gage games

As far as the Next-Gen N-Gage games are concerned, the Nokia folks have presented a huge list of forthcoming (?) games. The following shot shows the, for the Next-Gen N-Gage folks already well-known Asphalt 3 – Street Rules game running on the N96. As the game (as with most, if not all, Next-Gen N-gage titles) doesn’t make use of the 3D hardware acceleration, it runs OK on even the non-3D-accelerated N96.

Of course, if you own a hardware-accelerated device like one of the N95 models or the N82, you’ll find this game pretty much uninteresting and not pleasing on the eyes. Too bad Nokia clearly seems to abandon 3D acceleration – not only in their new hardware designs, but also in the Next-Gen N-Gage titles. I’ve had a lengthy discussion on this with All About N-Gage/Symbian’s Krisse some weeks ago; it has turned out Nokia and the game developers would have to spend a lot of additional time / effort on making use of the 3D hardware acceleration of some Next-Gen N-Gage-compatible devices. This would not only result in having to add additional code, but also better-quality textures, graphics and so on. That is, to some extent, it’s pretty much understandable Nokia don’t really support the otherwise excellent 3D capabilities of their devices; however, I still consider this a letdown.

S60 touch screen support

There was also an S60 touch interface demo at the Nokia / S60 booth. It was done on a (touch screen-enabled) tablet PC showing the S60 user interface, not on an actual Nokia hardware. As many of the comment’s state in the below-linked AAS thread, it indeed completely lacks iPhone / Spb Mobile Shell 2-like animations and transitions and isn’t the fastest. The latter may be caused by the sheer emulation of the UI, though. An example:

Some pics I’ve taken of the N96 (in some cases, compared to my N95)

Also see THIS thread; make sure you also follow the Gizmodo link in there for additional user comments.)

Nokia Maps 2 public beta

They have also announced the beta of Nokia Maps 2 (a pretty nice mapper app for Nokia devices; it turned out to be even better, map quality-wise (at least as far as Barcelona is concerned), than the 2006 version of iGo on Windows Mobile). It’s available for download HERE. I’ll definitely test it when I get home and have some more time. (Related AAS thread HERE.)

What next?

I’ll definitely check out the

1. Samsung CPU / architecture booth(s) to find out more about the just-announced Samsung (see for example THIS thread and my previous rants) and
2. Qualcomm again (see the first comment HERE) chipsets.

And, of course, I still have a LOT to report on – I’ve, so far, have only created an article of really the most important news and haven’t had the time to report on the discussions I’ve had with, say, Sun on being more active on porting their JVM’s to Windows Mobile, particularly when it comes to applet support and forcing MIDlet manager OEM developers to implement JSR’s faster than so far so that Windows Mobile MIDlet managers can match that of Nokia for example in the Bluetooth, camera or 3D hardware acceleration area. Or, the new Linux handheld device based on Intel’s Core Solo desktop / mobile CPU and, therefore, making it far easier to port existing Linux apps to the device. (And it also has hardware support for hardware-based HD 720p video decoding!) I've already sorted and edited the related photos, though.