The good: Great battery life; convenient music features; inexpensive; microSD slot; 3.5mm audio port.
The bad: No 3G; flat keypad is not great; FM reception for some stations is spotty; basic camera features.
The bottom line: If what you need is a basic mobile phone with decent music features, the X3 delivers the goods at an attractive price.
Nokia today announced free passes to its turn-by-turn walk-and-drive navigation on Ovi Maps, ending what was previously a subscription-based service.
Users can immediately download the new Ovi Maps on 10 Series60 devices (see list here). Moving forward, the application will be preinstalled on GPS-enabled smartphones starting March, along with preloaded maps, Lonely Planet, restaurant (HungryGoWhere) and event guides, as well as weather updates. Live traffic information will be available in over 10 countries including Singapore. Users can also share their location via the Lifecasting application which goes out of beta today.
According to Nokia, the free navigation service is now available only on S60 devices, but will eventually be extended to S40 handsets and devices running on Maemo, although the phone-maker didn't commit to a specific time frame.
When asked about its plans for its Navigator series, which comes bundled with the free real-time navigation service, Nokia skirted the question by saying that this was more about the "big picture" and to "change the market".
Users who have bought turn-by-turn navigation licenses before the announcement today, however, will not be getting any refunds.
"We are not able to offer any refunds, but all existing licenses remain valid. The [users] can choose to keep their existing version (Ovi Maps 3.0) or upgrade to the free one," Nokia told CNET Asia in an email.
The world's largest phone-maker has sold about 83 million GPS-enabled devices since the launch of the N95 in 2007. This accounted for 51 percent of the total number of such handsets in 2009, according to research firm Canalys. It expects that the number of users using GPS navigation on their mobiles would potentially leap from 27 million (in 2009) to 50 million after today's announcement.
In 2008, Nokia acquired digital map provider Navteq for US$8.1 billion as the former turned its focus to navigation and location-based services on mobile phones. Last September, the Finnish company released mapping and navigation APIs with the Ovi SDK, allowing developers to write applications for the platform.
With today's announcement, Nokia goes head-on with Google which introduced its free navigation service for Android 2.0 devices last October. This was first available on the Motorola Droid from Verizon in the US. Google had no updates when we asked if the service would expand to other countries.
Unlike Google Maps for mobile, which pulls map data in real time, users can download Ovi Maps onto the PC and sideload it on the handset, saving on local data charges and roaming. Nokia also said its maps can be set to offline mode when navigating. This means a network connection isn't needed to utilize the maps. Map data downloaded over-the-air and the initial data packet (in KBs) for a faster location fix are still chargeable, though.
Nokia said last month that one of its operational priorities is to provide third-party developers with tools to create applications and content for the Ovi ecosystem, among other goals such as re-engineering the Symbian user interface and introducing its first Maemo 6 device in the latter half of 2010.
We strained our ears to hear news from Motorola for most of 2009. The company finally answered with the Cliq and Droid in the US some time last September. These devices run Android 1.5 and Android 2.1, respectively. There wasn't a lot of love for us across the pond in Asia, until today when Motorola brought the Dext (the GSM version of the Cliq) to Singapore. One of the biggest questions on everyone's mind was naturallyThe answer turned out to be pretty simple. The Dext runs MotoBlur, the company's proprietary interface that is packed on top of the Android operating system. The Milestone, on the other hand, didn't.Of course, we didn't miss the chance to speak to Spiros Nikolakopoulos, vice president and general manager for Asia Pacific and International Distribution for Motorola's Mobile Devices business, to find out more about the company's plans. Below are some excerpts in our short aside.
On the number of Motorola devices we expect to see in 2010.
There will be between 20 and 30 smartphones globally and, at this moment, all of them will run Android. Naturally, not all will be available everywhere as it depends on the company's partnership with the various telco operators in each country. For non-smartphone models, they will run either Brew or the Motorola's own operating system.
On MotoBlur being a closed platform and plans to open it up.
Nikolakopoulos said it's on the cards but didn't commit to a time frame. He added that MotoBlur is not just on the device but runs off data servers where the information is gathered and pushed to the handset. One of the benefits of being a closed ecosystem is that it allows the company to manage the service and quality of the software.
The Android 2.0 MotoRoi will be sold by SK Telecom in Korea. Motorola said the smartphone will be available in Q1 in selected markets.
On the location of these data centers.
There are two in the US and another two in Europe. The company is in the process of building one in Asia, which will probably be ready in the latter half of the year.
On Android engineering teams.
A third of the engineering team is based in the US, while another third in China and the final third in Korea. The team works solely on everything Android, including the integration of the software with the device. Nikolakopoulos didn't say how big the team is, though.
On launching MotoRoi in Asia Pacific.
The MotoRoi will be launched in China, but it'll be known as a different name because "MotoRoi" is specifically for the Korean market. The device will be delayed for a few weeks due to the recent Google fiasco in China, but the company remains committed to the platform. Nikolakopoulos later explained that Motorola has three lines of Android devices: Those that run MotoBlur; those that have some customization but which remain largely stock Android; and those without any sort of modification to the software.
On the company's market share.
Nikolakopoulos said the company under co-CEO Sanjay Jha no longer looks at market share and doesn't have a real target, either. Same goes for Singapore, although he didn't say whether it follows for Asia as a whole. When pressed further, he said the company needs to have between 5 and 10 percent of the global market share in order to stay relevant.
