08 January 2009

Nokia Introduces
The BH-904 Bluetooth Headset

To complement some of their newest mobile devices, Nokia showed off its latest Bluetooth headset at the CES press event last night.

The Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-904 is a sleek Bluetooth headset that brings together the clarity of advanced background noise cancellation with handy connection and charging capabilities.

The Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-904 is capable of separating a user's voice from ambient noise, ensuring good speech quality in noisy environments such as in the car, on public transportation or in busy public places such as restaurants. It has the ability to maintain two active connections between the hea... .. .

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.:[ The BH-904 Bluetooth Headset - full story ]:.

08 January 2009

SDXC Memory Cards Provide Consumers
with Massive Storage And Incredible Speed

The next-generation SDXC (eXtended Capacity) memory card specification, announced today at the 2009 International CES, dramatically improves consumers’ digital lifestyles by providing the portable storage and speed needed to store weeks of high-definition video, years of photo collections and months of music to mobile phones, cameras and camcorders, and other consumer electronic devices.

The new SDXC specification provides up to 2 terabytes storage capacity and accelerates SD interface read/write speeds to 104 megabytes per second this year, with a road map to 300 megabytes per second.

The SDXC specification, developed by the SD Association, leapfrogs memory card interface speeds while retaining the world-leading SD interface. Specifications for the open standard will be released in the first quarter of 2009. SDHC, Embed... .. .

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.:[ SDXC Standard Provide Consumers with Massive Storage - full story ]:.

08 January 2008

Affordable Nokia's QWERTY Smartphone
To Be Made Available With US 3G Optimization

Building on the extensive portfolio of devices in North America, Nokia today announced it will bring a US optimized version of the Nokia E63 to the North American market. The Nokia E63 will be available in the coming weeks for the estimated retail price of USD 279.00 allowing consumers the ability to own this great messaging device for an affordable price.

The North American variant of the Nokia E63 will be optimized for the US market; designed for people who need to manage their business and personal lives equally well. Building on the success of the Nokia E71, the company's flagship messaging de... .. .

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.:[ Nokia E63 heads to the United States - full story ]:.

08 January 2008

Nokia teams with Philips to enhance the experience of connected devices in the home environment

Imagine a world where you play your mobile music on your home stereo, where you control your music devices with your mobile, where digital content flies between your home devices and your phone.

This is the world that Nokia and Philips are building. Taking the next steps towards making this vision a reality, Nokia and Philips announce a new collaboration to bring consumers the ultimate user-friendly home experience supported by the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) protocol.

Nokia Home Media Solution and Philips Streamium products are optimized to give consumers a sim... .. .

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.:[ Philips & Nokia to boost interoperability with DLNA - full story ]:.

08 January 2009

Getting Directions To Businesses
Is Now Easier On Google Maps For Mobile!

Folks over at Official Google Mobile Blog has announced a new server-side solution that makes it easier to get directions to businesses. You can now get directions to restaurants, stores, and other points of interest by entering their names in the start or end point.

Until today, if you tried to get directions and entered a business name, "starbucks" for example, as the end or start point, Google Maps for mobile did not understand that you meant Starbucks the business. Rather, Google Maps for mobile would search for an address with "starbucks" in it.

Google Maps for mobile now recognizes when your end or start point is a business and not an address. Try setting "starbucks" or "mcdonald's" as an end point when getting direct... .. .

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.:[ Get directions to businesses easier- full story ]:.

08 January 2009

Schmap Is Out Of Limited Beta
Service Is Now Open To Everyone

A couple of weeks back I written about 'Schmap guides' for Nokia S60 devices, an interesting local search service with several unique mapping features in the limited beta testing phase but now it has come out of the private beta testing and is now open to the general public!

Right now, the service is still in the 'BETA phase, since they’ll try to improve it continuously, but it is now in public beta, as opposed to the limited testing phase. Getting feedback from new users is invaluable and really important for them and knowing what the users miss or expect will help a lot in further development.

Schmap is the map guide and a leading publisher of digital travel guides and their 'Schmap guides' for Nokia S60 devices is the new solution that encompasses Schmap’s popular Gui... .. .

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.:[ Schmap Guides For S60 Enters Public Beta Phase - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

Minor Firmware Update
For Oldie Nokia N95-1 Has Just Gone Live

I just wanted to give everyone a quick heads up that Nokia has rolled out minor firmware update for oldie but goldie Nokia N95!

Our Spy Kid reports that firmware upgrade version 31.0.017 is now available through Nokia Software Updater for most of the generic product codes and is expected to be available for the branded product devices shortly.

As you would imagine, the firmware update is always recommended because it usually improves the performance and reliability of your phone but in this case you should think twice before update, especially if you are still running older but hack... .. .

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.:[ Minor Firmware Update For N95-1 Released - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

Nokia 5800 Will Be Released
In The UK On Friday 23 January

More than 8 months since the device was initially leaked here on Symbian Freak and nearly 3 months since the phone was officially introduced by Nokia on the big event in London, Nokia Fans from UK finally know when, how, and where they will be able to get one of the hottest Nokia phone at the moment.

After few moths and moths of nervous waiting Nokia has officially confirmed that you'll be able to get your hands on the Nokia 5800 XM in the UK on Friday 23rd January.

Initially, it'll will be exclusively available from 10am at the Nokia Regent Street store and Nokia's Heathrow Terminal 5 shop. From Friday 30th, it'll be widely available through Vodafone, O2, Orange, T-Mobile UK, Virgin Mobile, Carp... .. .

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.:[ Nokia reveals Tube's UK launch date - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

Fortinet's FortiCleanUp tool for Curse of Silence Enables recovery after SMS denial of service attack

Fortinet- the pioneer and leading provider of unified threat management (UTM) solutions - today announced that its FortiGuard Global Security Research Team has released a new version of the FortiCleanUp tool to help users recover from the recently discovered "Curse of Silence" mobile attack (also known as CurseSMS).

Fortinet's FortiCleanUp is a range of free tools running on Symbian OS S60-powered phones and designed to remove and recover from specific mobile malware and their related variants.

The "Curse of Silence/CurseSMS" attack is a remote SMS/MMS denial of service that was recently discovered by Tobias Engel and revealed at the 25th Chaos Communication Co... ..

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.:[ Free Protection Against "Curse of Silence" - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

3DVU Announces Way2Go
First Web-to-Mobile 3D Aerial Photo Navigation

3DVU, the leading global provider of 3D Aerial Photography Navigation announces Way2Go, a breakthrough in mobile navigation.

Way2Go is a personalized online web-based navigation planner combined with free mobile viewer of 3D aerial photography with real landscape elevation.

This onboard navigation allows people to plan their journey at home or office on their PC or notebook and synchronizes it with their mobile device, giving access to 3D picture routes and favorite destinations while on the move. Way2Go will be avail... .. .

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.:[ The First Web-to-Mobile 3D Aerial Photo Navigation - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

Nokia.Mobi Has Extended Its Offering
With The Launch Of The 'Here And Now'

The popular mobile internet site Nokia.mobi has extended its offering with the launch of Here and Now, a new section that provides the latest world news, music, celebrity buzz, as well as information on Nokia services and products.

Bookmarked in every new Nokia device, Nokia.mobi is accessed by millions of consumers across the globe. "By providing quality content to consumers from partners such as Reuters and Rollingstone.com, Here and Now allows consumers to get more out of Nokia.mobi and mobile services in general," said Juha Rytkönen, Director Nokia.mobi.

I’ve just tested it on my 5800 and unfortunately service is optimized for lower screen resolution and doesn’t looks that good on 5800, especially not in landscape mo... .. .

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.:[ Nokia.mobi enriches the mobile internet with Here & Now - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

SanDisk Mobile Ultra 16GB Cards
Ultra High-performance Cards For Mobile Devices

We already reported about availability of the 16GB SanDisk’s MicroSDHC cards back in September and confirm it as compatible as well but today SanDisk Corporation today announced that it will be shipping its new line of Mobile Ultra microSDHC with capacity of 16 gigabyte, the world's largest removable storage capacity for mobile phones – in January.

Unfortunately there is no word about the class or speed so it is not quite clear what’s the benefit of this new 'Mobile Ultra' memory cards in comparison to already available 16GB MicroSDHC cards from SanDisk Corporation!?

Limited 10-year warranty, MobileMate Micro reader bundled with the memory cards and "best of bre... .. .

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.:[ Ultra High-performance Cards For Mobile Devices - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

How Big Is 300 Million?
Overly Ambitious Plans For OVI Service

It seems that Nokia has very ambitious plans to beat the competition and expecting a large breakthrough to 300 million of unique users by 2012 for its internet service launched in the last week of August 2007.

Nokia’s main intention over the past two years or so has been the fundamental desire to reinvent itself and switch from being a handset vendor only to being an "Internet company" and with the introduction of Ovi, Nokia has finally expanded its focus on mobile devices to a wide range of Internet services under the Ovi brand.

Last year during Nokia's annual shareholder meeting Kallasvuo said that their goal is to act less like a traditional manufacturer, and more like an internet company. He also added "Companies such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft are not our trad... .. .

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.:[ Nokia's Ambitious Plans For Its OVI Service - full story ]:.

07 January 2009

"Point 'n' Seek"
The Return Of The Geo-wand?

Here is an interesting story that appeared in my news reader earlier today about motion based "Point 'n' Seek" application.

In a light of the advancing sensor support on the latest Nokia Nseries devices, Paul Coulton from Forum Nokia writes innovative LBS project realized with his student Zhang Lei, based around the old idea of geo-wand.

Whilst many LBS present scenarios for users searching for Points of Interest (POI) that are proximate to the current location whereas geo-wands the commonly observed practice of horizon scanning in which users seek out interesting landm... .. .

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.:[ The Return Of The Geo-wand - full story ]:.

06 January 2009

Nokia's NAVTEQ Completes
Its Acquisition of T-Systems Traffic

Nokia's NAVTEQ, a leading global provider of digital map data for location-based solutions and vehicle navigation, has completed its previously announced acquisition of T-Systems Traffic, GmbH (T-Traffic), a leading provider of traffic services in Germany.

The acquisition marks a significant step in NAVTEQ's program to expand its traffic offering in Europe. T-Traffic is a provider of traffic services in Germany, with approximately 55 employees.

The acquisition will enable the launch of NAVTEQ Traffic(TM), a real-time traffic service already available in the U.S. and Canada, in Germany which is central to European navigation because of its large user base and home to many leadi... .. .

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.:[ NAVTEQ to launch traffic services in Germany - full story ]:.

06 January 2009

Haze Red and Haze Blue
Two New 5th Edition Themes By PiZero

Blue Haze (also available in red variant) is the latest theme for the 5th Ed devices and first PiZero theme especially designed and 100% optimized for the high resolution screens and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Theme is available in two color variants and both variants are provided in version with PiZero’s or Flahorn’s icon pack as well as in light version which is by the way highly suggestible to use because both mentioned custom icons packs aren’t fully compatible with Nokia 5800 and fails to change the default icon pack completely.

Theme is tested on my own Nokia 5800 and I can confirm it looks great and works well. I love how it is so simple and yet so compact, it’s simple styling makes my phone look sle... .. .

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.:[ Two New 5th Edition Themes From PiZero - full story ]:.

06 January 2009

Social Experiment
What Is Symbian Freak Community Value?

Welcome into the Year of 2009 where new changes take into effect with new approaches.I have so many questions to ask: Nokia seems to act web/blog/forum friendly, in other words "word-of-mouth". It’s fair to agree they have their ears well placed. How well do they listen? How do they react? Is there a formal system? Are bloggers just paid or of their own will?

Basically is there an integrated system to their end users over the web space? Mainly how well do they react? Are our opinions well reflected? Is feedback taking into consideration by a number base?

To be honest I’m tired of Nokia/Symbian searching for answers and to be frank I don’t even care to know, but I welcome the conversation. I'd like to see action; this is where the ide... .. .

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.:[ What Is Symbian Freak Community Value - full story ]:.

06 January 2009

Protect Your Privacy!
Advanced Phone Lock for 5th Ed
[commercial]

Commercial applications are one thing that I'm usually not writing about, but unfortunately software for 5th edition rise softly, sparsely, like rare flowers in the forest and any application that is really useful and fully compatible with 5th edition of S60 platform is a big news.

I am one of those lucky bastards who own Nokia 5800 and I know it’s hard to test thousands of available 3rd ed applications just to check if it works or no so I’ll do it for you and continue with highlighting software that I found interesting and compatible.

In mean time better do not try to install applications, games and especially themes that aren’t tested and confirmed as compatible. Themes are especially problematic and some of them will brick your phone and such an issue is only fixa... .. .

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.:[ Advanced Phone Lock for Nokia 5800 - full story ]:.

06 January 2009

Wireless Power The Next Big Thing?
Breakthrough in wireless power pulls plug on cables

Small, battery-powered gadgets make powerful computing portable. Unfortunately, there's still a continual need to recharge the batteries of phones, laptops, cameras, and MP3 players by hooking them up to a tangle of wires.

The latest technology trends proposed a way to cut the cords by wirelessly supplying power to devices.

The idea of beaming power through the air has been around for nearly two centuries, and it is used to some extent today to power some types of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags. The phenomenon behind this sort of wireless-energy transfer is called inductive coupling, and it occurs when an electric current passes through wires in, for instance, an RFID rea... .. .

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.:[ Wireless Power The Next Big Thing - full story ]:.

05 January 2009

SudokuMaster For 5th Ed
Easy To Learn But A Challenge To Master!

A deceptively simple game of logic, Sudoku is puzzling players all over world. Whether you're new to this fun and addictive game or you're already hooked, SudokuMaster for 5th Edition devices has everything you need to get started playing today! Sudoku is easy to learn but a challenge to master.

If you're new to Sudoku, it is a brain-bending game of numbers and logic. The objective is to fill a 9×9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9 only one time each.

The puzzle setter provides a partially completed grid. Spend a few minutes familiarizing yourself with the rules of Sudoku and you'll be ready for hours of fun. According to Will Shortz, the modern Sudoku was most likely designed anonym... .. .

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.:[ Flash lite based Sudoku game for Nokia 5800 - full story ]:.

05 January 2009

According To CEO Johan Sandberg
The UIQ Company Has Filed For Bankruptcy

According to the Esato's and Reuters articles, authored by Olav Hellesø-Knutsen and Michael Bathon, jointly owned by Sony Ericsson and Motorola, has filed for bankruptcy in a district court in Sweden on Wednesday. For months they've been looking for what to do to try to survive and UIQ's decision to file for bankruptcy is not entirely a surprise and should have minimal affect on the UIQ users, at least in the short term.

"There are no opportunities to create a new line of business in the current financial climate," UIQ Chief Executive Johan Sandberg told Reuters. I’ve already informed you that UIQ is less or more dead and that Sony Eriksson has started layoff around 200 employers from the UIQ department and will seek new business lin... .. .

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.:[ Software firm UIQ files for bankruptcy - full story ]:.

04 January 2009

Theme(s) Of The Week:
Winter Themes by Theme Makers Alliance

Mainly for the benefit of those who don't read our forum section frequently we are trying to select and highlight the best themes on the front page on a weekly basis, with the great help of our very active theme building community!

So, every Sunday, we'll choose one theme, host it on the SF servers, provide a direct links for easier download and link it to appropriate discussion over at forum section so you’ll be able to suggest improvements and report problems if something went wrong.

Anyway Theme(s) of the week 52 is the nice Winter present by Theme Makers Alliance, it is probably the most complete theme ever, the pack of three Winter themes, with three different set of icons, bunch of wallpapers and logos, awesome work, ultimate winter pa... .. .

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.:[ Symbian Freak Theme of the Week 01 - full story ]:.

03 January 2009

Landor’s 2009 Trends Forecast
Nokia & BlackBerry Will Challenge Apple's iPhone

Research firm Landor Associates has released its second annual trends outlook, a prediction for this year, says consumers will spend less.

The troubled economy is on everyone’s minds these days. It’s affecting companies and consumers around the globe—and, by extension, brands.

How will brands fare next year? Which will stand strong? Which will fail? And how will this impact our lives? Will we eat healthier foods, travel to India for medical treatment, choose more sustainable products? Brands will have to make their mes... .. .

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.:[ Nokia & BlackBerry to challenge Apple - full story ]:.

03 January 2009

Meteor Arkanoid BETA 3
Game Developer Needs More Testers!

Meteor is an action brick-breaking game (arkanoid, breakout, block-breaker) with 90 levels, beautiful space scenery and, rich sound effects and most importantly, Symbian S60 5th Ed version of the game is currently under heavy development and Nokia 5800 XpressMusic version is around the corner.

In this brick-busting game your goal is to destroy moving blocks and static destructible bricks. Hostile robots will fight against you. Enemy ships and non-destructible blocks will prevent you from breaking bricks.

Many power-ups will help you to cope with the task. Some blocks contain useful bonuses - rocket enhancer, plasma ball, fire ball and various types of weapons and defence. Other blocks contain not so useful power-downs - for example, a rocket dec... .. .

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.:[ Meteor Arkanoid developer looking for beta testers - full story ]:.

03 January 2009

PhoNetInfo Gets An Update
System Information Utility For 3rd & 5th Ed

PhoNetInfo is the free and lightweight system utility that was created to list all of the information regarding your phone, including detailed phone and network information such as firmware version; IMSI; IMEI; SIM card and battery status; WLAN IP, MAC, MTU and speed, Bluetooth MAC and device class; network mode, name, signal strength, (cell) ID and country code; CPU speed, MMC & SD Card; etc.

PhoNetInfo is a complete solution for power users who needs detailed information about the phone system. It has the simple user interface so it is very easy for power as well as non power user to get complete knowledge of his mobile phone and analyze it completly. Software has capability to describe the phone har... ..

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.:[ PhoNetInfo Gets An Update - full story ]:.

03 January 2009

Weekend Watching
Nokia 5800 Takes On Blackberry Storm

The Finnish mobile phone giant has been slow in developing its own touch user interface and releasing its first full touchscreen S60 based Smartphone to compete Apple's, BlackBerry’s, Samsung’s and HTC’s touch products.

Now when the phone is finally available to wider audience, bloggers, journalists and Nokia lovers across the globe are rejoicing over the announcement of the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and everyone insists on trying to compare it to Jesus phone which is quite pointless if you ask me.

Actually I’m getting sick of all these ‘iPhone killer’ stories as there is nothing to kill there and it will be much better to start comparing Nokia 5800 to other touch based devices currently availa... .. .

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.:[ Nokia 5800 Takes On Blackberry Storm - full story ]:.

02 January 2009

Take Back and Recycle
Nokia's Voluntary Recycling Programme

Nokia India has announced ‘Take Back’ program which is aimed at educating mobile phone users on the importance of recycling.

Nokia’s ongoing commitment to the environment and huge effort to encourage the proper recycling of unwanted electronics to further reduce their environmental impact definitely deserves high applaud and attention.

As a part of this initiative, Nokia encourage mobile phone users to dispose their used handsets and accessories such as charges and handsets, regardless of the brand, at any of the recycling bins set up across Nokia Priority Dealers and No... .. .

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.:[ Nokia India announces 'Take Back' - full story ]:.

02 January 2009

Y-Browser For S60 5th Ed
First & Only Fully Compatible File Manager!

In my personal opinion X-Plore is simply the best file browser for the S60 3rd edition phones but unfortunately it is not optimized and doesn’t works very well on 5th edition devices. All of the problems are mainly caused by its unique user friendly interface that completely ignores the Nokia 'Nokia User Interface Guidelines' and therefore is not fully functional on 5th edition devices.

The main problem is that X-Plore is not finger friendly and it is nearly impossible to use it without stylus and the 2nd problem is that it fails to launch the any of the available input methods so it is impossible to create folders, rename files and it is even impossible to input code and activate product.

Lonely Cat Games team is very fast with releasing update and I truly hope they’ll release a version optimized for high-resolution screens and touch controlled interface soon, I just... ..

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.:[ File Management Utility For 5th Ed Devices - full story ]:.

02 January 2009

Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo
We Rely On Dominant Position To Weather Crisis

In the last few weeks, the global economic slowdown, combined with unprecedented currency volatility, has resulted in a sharp pull back in global consumer spending and because of that, back in Novemeber, the world's largest mobile phone maker issued a profit warning for the fourth quarter after seeing a sharp cutback in spending by consumers on handsets.

The Finnish company had already shocked investors in September by lowering its third quarter 2008 mobile device market share outlook, partly because of aggressive price-cutting by competitors. It was the first year-on-year decline in three-and-a-half years.

As a result of the rapid change in global consumer spending, which has
impacted the mobile device market, Nokia is predicting that the handset industry's sales will dec... .. .

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.:[ Nokia CEO To Favor Profit Over Sales Targets - full story ]:.

01 January 2009

Keep Holiday Spirit Alive
With Nice Nahid's Holiday Theme!

Well, New Year is here and wouldn't it be nice to keep the holiday spirit alive and well by decorating your phone with just released Nahid’s New Year theme. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm feeling kind of tired of the holidays and all of the nights out, I didn't sleep well enough the night before, my leg hurts, I’m dehydrated, tired, sleepy, more like "zombied" and I think I’ll need a holiday from the holiday soon :]

Anyway, if you also suffering from the post-holiday remorse and you are looking for something to keep the holiday spirit alive for a couple of more days, take a look at this cu... .. .

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.:[ Keep Holiday Spirit Alive and Well - full story ]:.

01 January 2009

Nokia BH-503:
Bluetooth Stereo Headset Review!

As of today the world of stereo bluetooth headsets were a strange sci-fi inspired super geeky earpieces that by the power of the mighty Bluetooth could stream wireless music right into your ears!!! Damn sounds hollywoodish. But all the headsets out there were either quite bulky (Nokia BH-601) or quite expensive or both. For me being stylish and getting things done in style is a big yes yes. Enter the Nokia BH-503.

Design: The deisgn is sleek 'n' quite a marvel to look at yet a pretty cool looking piece of hardware to wear around and not look like some wannabe. The one i own is a Black and red version of two which can also be found in black and silver vari... .. .

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.:[ Bluetooth Stereo Headset Review - full story ]:.