Twitter, micro blogging at its best, possible solutions for S60 devices a mini review

the worldwide micro-blogging phenomenon, is alive and vibrant in the Nokia world especially if you have a cool Nseries phone or a cool Eseries. What are our relevant choices to be Twitter mobile.

1. the S60 Browser – its cool but not fast enough for speed requirements
2. Twibble – now we’re talking
3. Twim – pretty nice twitter application
3. Snaptu- looks amazing, you have to see it for yourself (previously reviewed in another post – here)

The last three choices are Java apps that run in our beloved phone. Let’s start our discussion with Twibble.

Twibble is a very nicely done Twitter client that runs very smoothly on S60 platforms, it supports shortcuts and did I mention that it looks super cool, ok it looks super cool. They also have a nice desktop version for Mac and Windows that looks awesome as well, the only visual difference is that the desktop supports contact pictures and the mobile version doesn’t, I suspect that this was done on purpose to reduce data charges especially in Europe as the developers are German and from what I’ve read in WWW, data charges in Europe are really expensive as oppose to us here in the U.S. and more people have unlimited data plans(myself -tmobile). You can check out Twibble home page here . Currently its my favorite nokia client. Here are the keyboard shortcuts for your convenience.

Keyboard shortcuts

Use the arrow or page up/down keys to navigate in the tweet list. twibble also has some shortcuts for numeric and qwerty keyboards (List describes twibble Version 0.8.6):

• [0]: options dialog
• [1] or [t]: send a tweet
• [2] or [r]: @-reply to selected screen name
• [3] or [d]: direct message
• [4]: toggle between all tweets and dm/@-Messages
• [5]: jump to first tweet
• [7]: Mark selected tweet as a favorite
• [8] or [h]: Run twibble in the background (Note: twibble may still try to fetch new tweets using your data connection! To shut down twibble always use exit)
• [9]: Show log (to see more messages raise the log level in the Options dialog)
• [*] or [u]: Fetch new tweets (use this to manually update your tweets. Only new tweets will be fetched and inserted to the current list)
• [#]: Reload tweet list (the current tweet list will be cleared and the tweet list from the twitter server will be reloaded)

Twim is another Java application that runs on S60 as you can appreciate from the picture, it looks pretty tight, I just downloaded today and I’m still giving it a try but so far so good. I’m kind off biased towards Twibble because I currently use both Twibble Mobile and Twibble Desktop and I like having things the same accross all platforms but Twim is strong on its own. You can pick it up here and try it for yourself you may like it enough to find a permanent spot for it in your beloved Nokia phone

So in conclusion the options are out there, its just a matter of choice software democracy at its best. Again for me its Twibble and Twibble Desktop although I discovered another desktop client which is very cool indeed, its called Twhirl

N85 my personal experience after 1 day – Mini Review

I received my N85 last night and what a beauty it is, it looks like James Bond 007 would use a phone like this, as they’ve said in other reviews, the N85 has a minimalists approach, the screen is stunning, its a night and day difference between my N82 and my E71, although the latter looks pretty cool as well but not quite as vibrant as the N85.

Build Quality

Its been talked, talked and talked about in many reviews and early reviewers had huge complaints regarding the build quality of this unit. I ordered mine through Dell and I was happily surprised that I have not noticed any obvious build issues. The keyboard slider is very smooth, this past weekend I played around with the E66 which has a solid slider and my N85 is right up there in quality, it feels tight and springy at the same time, no issues for me so nothing more to report on this matter. Oh, I almost forgot the multimedia slider works great as well, my only complaint is that I found it to be a tad, meaning 1.5mm to short, I’d like to protrude just a tad more, other than that all is well.

Phone Quality

I don’t know if its just me but I noticed that on my N82 I always had kind off an echo as I talked on the phone through its loudspeaker, when I spoke to the regular I had no complaints, so I’m happy to report that the N85′s phone functions are truly top notch and what you would expect on an expensive phone. The loudspeaker doesn’t have any echo effects.

Overall Usability

It rocks, that’s all that needs to be said, if you like slider or like me you come from the qwerty world, T9 is actually pretty nice and easy, I though that after having the following phones I would never get used to T9:

1. Blackberry 7290 – sold
2. Blackberry 8700 – my old reliable blackberry still have it as a backup
3. Blackberry 8800 – sold
4. Blackberry 8300 Curve – sold
5. Blackberry 8310 – sold
6. Tmobile Dash – sold
7. Samsung Blackjack II – sold
8. Nokia E71 – returned
9. Nokia N82 – returned
10. and finally N85

Damm I’m winded, that’s been my phone history since Oct. 06 and I can honestly say that the N85 feels very usable and very handy, meaning it just feels right in your hand. Texting and inputing next actions for Gtd is great as well. Way to go Nokia !! T9 is just fine.

Battery

Its only been a day but so far and I have all 7 Bars and its 11:15am. When I had my N82 by this time I’d have 3-4 bars so for me its a no brainer, N85 battery 1200 vs N82 1050 hmm, obvious choice I think. On a side note, I loved the camera of the N82 but the battery was horrid. So far the N85′s battery seems to be keeping up with my demands.

Reception

Although this is not an official scientific test, at work my surrounding obviously don’t change and with the N82 I’d have 2 bars and with the N85 I have 3-4 bars and I can’t actually update my Twibble with no problem, so I’m happy with this change.

To be continued

N85 a review from Kuzma’s Blog

. . . The N85 is minimalistic. Its built mostly out of plastic, with metal components hidden within. What this equates to is buttons that are designed to flex and a slide mechanism that is surprisingly smooth and satisfying to use. LED illumination underneath the buttons can selectively illuminate to give many keys dual functions, or keep others dim that are not in use.

It’s physical dimensions could easily fit within an Altoids tin and have room to spare, something a device such as the N96 could never achieve. And where the N96 appears brick-like in it’s harsh edges, the N85 has soft, rounded edges which bring to mind the feeling of a smooth pebble in the hand.

However, holding the N85 does not feel holding a weathered pebble. The device feels flat, thin, and wider than it actually is, making it easy to hold and using buttons a piece of cake. Those with big fingers should be aware that the numerical keypad is on the smaller side. It manages somehow to achieve a margin between the top row of keys and the bottom edge of the slide, resulting in a small yet uncramped keypad. Perhaps best suited to typing with fingertips rather than fingernails, the keypad is made out of a single piece of metal, probably aluminum.

The idea of creating an entire keypad out of a single piece is repeated on the multimedia keys, unveiled when the slide is in the full down position. These too are made of a single piece of metal, but they unfortunately feel a bit on the cramped side of the spectrum. Their selective illumination allows them to display playback controls, zoom controls, or two gaming buttons upon their faces. The illumination for each mode is clean, bright, and legible, easily identifiable from a distance. However, the lighting for each mode is not very well isolated from the others, resulting in a ghost-like appearance of the mode not currently in use when using the phone in a dark environment. This is not so much a problem on the N96, by comparison, so I would imagine that the appearance aspect of these keys was sacrificed in the process of making the N85 as diminutive in size as it is . . .

Read the entire review here

Congrats Kuzma on a great review