Nokia E71 GPS Impresses and Excites

Nokia has entered their contender in the QWERTY smartphone market with the slim and and slick Nokia E71. Here is a Nokia E65 user's first impressions of the GPS features that come with the Nokia E71.

GPS - The inclusion of GPS in most smartphones seems to be the rule rather than the exception nowadays and the GPS on the E71 is quite practical although not the most advanced available (in terms of time taken to lock to satellites).

Using Nokia Maps with GPS - Nokia Maps is quite exciting because it enables you to pre-load the map of a whole country into your phone so that you dont need to download the map every time you run it. Nokia Maps also includes some points of interest such as cafes, restaurants, pubs, parks, hospitals etc so that you can search offline for these locations without using any mobile internet.

Also, as you drive along a street, the Nokia Map will show you the house numbers as you pass each house. You will no longer have to slow down and risk being rear ended by the car behnd you as you search for the right house. At intersections, you wont need to look for street signs, just look down on your phone and it will show you the street name that you are at.

Is Mobile data required for Nokia GPS operation? Many customers are told (particularly by three representatives in Australia) that the GPS does not work without using mobile data. It just takes a little longer to syncronise with the satellites. This is the difference between assisted GPS and GPS only.

Using Nokia GPS Applications - There are three applications that come with the Nokia E71. GPS Data has three programs within it.

• Navigation allows you to see whether you are travelling North, South, East or West and what speed you are travelling at.
• Position is another program just one right tab across from Navigation. This application allows you to know the Longitude and Latitude of where you are in the world, the accuracy level it is giving you, the altitude above sea level and the speed.
• Trip Distance is the final tab on the right. When you start a trip, it will measure the distance travelled, time taken, your max speed and average speed. These programs can be useful on a holiday when you are traveling around but if you want a program which will allow you to have more fun on foot, try Nokia Sports Tracker (as discussed in an earlier post).

A new blog has started, which will look at hints and tips for the Nokia E71 at http://mye71.blogspot.com Leave a comment there to express your support.

Fitness and Sports Workouts with your GPS Nokia Sports Tracker

This is definitely the most interesting program I have tried on the Nokia E71. This program can be downloaded from the Nokia website. It keeps an automatic work-out or training diary calendar of all your workouts every day. You can choose what type of activity you did (eg running, walking, cycling) and there are options for you to define a few other sporting activities (eg adding in martial arts, soccer, swimming etc).

When you start a workout, the program will map out using GPS the route that you took. You can choose to have your phone alert you for every milestone (or laps) you acheived such as every 1km or 2 miles etc by beeping. The program will record how fast you ran or walked over time and show you a graph of your workout speed. It also records how long your workout went for (you can also pause your workout for whatever reason), how far you traveled, max speed, average speed, max "pace", average "pace and how long you took for each lap. Speed v Distance and Speed v Time is also recorded and graphed out for you.

Trying this program on the E71 was quite amazing! It really helps one to motivate and get into doing more exercise. You can compare your past workouts each day and also export the results to XML or even to Google Earth! You can also replay the route that you took and zoom in on the map that was created by your movements. If you have a GPS enabled Nokia phone, it is definitely worth using Nokia Sports Tracker - free to download on any nokia website.

Add your Sports tracker login name in the comments below.

Gmail as a Phone book for number search

Sometimes a person calls up and you don't know who it is. Their ID does not come up but it doesnt necessarily mean that you don't know this person. One of the fastest ways to look up a number is to email your GMAIL account with any list of mobile phone numbers that you may have. You may belong to a club, church, society or organisation where you can just email yourself the list of phone numbers. When you are in a situation which you want to find out who the mystery caller is, go to your gmail and do a search for the phone number.

So how is this a phone hack? Well, now that we all carry mobile phones which can use gmail applications, all you need to do if you have a data connection is look up the phone or details in your gmail application. Within minutes you can find out who called you or what street number that partywas on. Gmail has opened up so many possiblities for phone users.. there are plenty more. just search GMAIL in the search bar to your right or leave a comment to tell us what you use GMAIL for (other than email).

Transferring SMS messages between phones

It is increasingly popular for people to carry two phones around with them. This leads to the problem of not knowing which phone has an SMS that you are looking for. I am not sure how many people have tried this but let's say you have two phones and you would like to amalgamate your SMS messages into one phone, is it possible? Here are the things I have considered, feel free to add in.

* Backup through PC Suite means that if you restor the backup onto the second phone, won't the existing SMS on that phone get wiped as well? This should only be used when you are transferring to a new phone with no existing contacts and SMS or restoring your contacts etc after a firmware upgrade.

* Transferring via Sync This is a tactic i tried but the two Nokia phones would not sync the SMS messages properly. For some reason, it worked when one phone was empty but after that the two phones refused to sync with each other the SMS messages.. I can see why this would not be very desirable as your friend could easily download ur sms messages to his phone and read it at his leisure.. but is there a way for those legitimate times when you just want to see all your sms in one phone?

Has anyone had a successful transfer of SMS from one phone to another?