On January 15th of this year, Yomi wrote a piece that I personally think deserves an award. He actually told manufacturers, developers and others who do not support Nigeria to go to blazes. It was a really bold and daring move, and I must say that I salute Yomi for standing against such nonsense.

Whether you think that the opening up of Blackberry AppWorld to Nigeria was directly linked to that article or not is irrelevant. The fact remains that it was opened up after the article was written and Nigerians are the better for it.

Google’s Android Market is another system that has remained partially closed to Nigeria. You see, while users of Android devices in Nigeria can download free apps from the market, they are unable to buy paid apps because Nigeria is not on the list of supported countries.

Recently, however, I visited the web version of the Android Market and noticed that not only was I able to view paid apps, the prices of those apps were listed in Naira, with the Naira image properly displayed.

Of course, I was still not able to pay for apps (I was presented with a PayPal payment page when I clicked through to purchase but have no PayPal account). Perhaps any of our Android fans here with a PayPal account can give it a shot?

Note that you need to have an Android phone currently associated with your Market account or you will be asked to sign in with a different account.

Can we take this as a sign of progress?

Okay, it is now official: I am a lover of Metro UI, the Windows phone 7 interface.

Remember my gadget wishlist for 2011? It included having windows phone 7 as its OS. Recently, while making my rounds online visiting the sites that I go to on a daily basis, I stumbled on an application that allows me to have a feel of the windows phone 7 interface on an Android device.

I gave it a go and it is beautiful. I also thought it would be nice to share it with you here, and you can decide for yourself what you think.

Here are pictures and screen shots for your viewing pleasure.

By the way, the name of the app is Launcher 7 and it is available on the Android market.

If you aren’t planning on getting a Tablet computer for yourself, for one reason or the other, you may need to take a second and longer look at this increasingly popular genre of mobile computing devices. Yes, they are not there yet in terms of coming close to the maturity, versatility and functionality that traditional Personal Computers offer, but you will agree with me that they have come a long way and can only get better from here on.

The Tablet Advantage
Here are my personal points of what I have come to consider as the Tablet advantage. They are drawn from having used the Samsung Galaxy Tab for a while now.

1. The Always-on advantage: The vast majority of users of the traditional computer just shut it down when not in use. The Tablet on the other hand is always left on whether we are using it or not. So if I need to quickly take a note of an idea, my Tablet is always ready for the task. Also, because I do not have to boot the Tablet every time I need to use it, I am able to access the internet faster on it than on the ordinary computer.

2. Portability: While the Tablet is heavier and bigger than the smartphone, it is usually lighter and in my case smaller than the average PC. Therefore making it a more portable device than the traditional computer. I might also add that the charger of Tablets are more portable than those of laptops making them far easier to carry around. They also feel more comfortable to use in a public transport system for example, than even the netbooks.

3. Productivity: Here is where the Tablet has an advantage over the smartphone. The screen size of the tablet makes tasks like web browsing, watching videos, and reading ebooks much more enjoyable than on the smartphone. A classical example of this fact was carried out here at the Mobility Nigeria office. We sent the same PDF file to both the Nokia N8 and the Samsung Galaxy tab. When the file was opened on both devices, the Tablet handled it better and gave a better experience than on the Nokia N8. In fact, I must say that it was a pain to view the file on the N8. I have had more fun reading and responding to emails on the Tab than on any smartphone I have ever used.

4. Battery Life: The battery life of the Tablet, at least the one I have used lasts longer than that of the average laptop. Battery life these days have become indispensable in mobile computing.

5. Multimedia Creation on The Go: The ability to capture moments, whether in stills or in video is one that the tradtional computer does not have and is not going to get, and one that will continue to get better on the Tablet. In these days of the social media, being able to create media on the go is highly critical.

The Tablet computer is definitely going to gain popularity this year as many manufacturers are getting on the bandwagon, but the question that needs to be asked is whether or not you are going to get one?

This morning, Yomi received a call from Nokia. They had a Nokia E7 for him to pick up, making him one of the very first individuals to own that device in the country.

I drove down to Nokia’s Victoria Island office to pick up the device, and it is now here at Mobility Nigeria “towers”. Here are pictures from the unboxing done by yours truly (as Yomi is on holiday). Enjoy.

Front cover of the E7 sales box

The back of the E7 sales box - lovely!

The E7 sales pack contains:

• the Nokia E7 Communicator
• charger
• headset
• manual
• USB data cable
• USB-on-the-go adapter
• male miniHDMI to female standard HDMI adapter

The E7 is a Symbian device very much after the mold of the N8. They look similar, with some distinct differences. Once I picked it up, I immediately noticed the difference in size and weight (the E7 is slightly bigger). However, for a device with a slide-out keyboard, it is not so thick or bulky.

The silver colour gives off a feeling of class. The hardware QWERTY looks sexy. The impression I get is that typing will be a breeze on it, seeing that the keys are well spaced and have a good feel.

The sliding mechanism is smooth: you push to initiate the opening and the spring mechanism completes the action.

In closing, here are the major advantages of the Nokia E7 over the N8:

1. Larger (4.0-inch) and better ClearBlack AMOLED display
2. Superb hardware QWERTY keyboard
3. Torchlight functionality
4. Microsoft Office Communicator Suite

Yomi will be bringing us more detailed information in his usual multi-part reviews. Knowing him, I am betting that he will be drowned in ecstacy when this package gets to him. Ladies and gentlemen – the Nokia E7 Communicator.

When I got my Samsung Galaxy Tab, one of the very first disappointments that I had was that the version I bought didn’t have Android Market pre-installled.

Truth be told, the moment I found out that it didn’t have Android Market, I wanted to immediately return it to the dealer. What made it worse was that the very next day after purchase, I met Samsung’s Assistant Manager. Seeing the device with me got him excited and he immediately asked if I had visited Android Market already. You needed to see the look of disappointment on his face when I told him that my device didn’t have the market pre-installed. He told me I had bought a version of the Tab that was not meant for the Nigerian market.

Looking For A Solution
Using an Android device that didn’t have the Android Market just made me feel like I was missing out on a world of possibilities. So “I determined never to give up”, but to go all out in search of a solution – albeit a legal one. I did find a solution and thought it would be nice to offer this information, as it is possible that there may be some who are in that position right now.

Here’s What I did

1. In the phone application, I entered the following, *#272*my IMEI number#

2. I was presented a list of sales code options, then I selected the XSG sales code.

3. After selecting XSG, I clicked Install

4. The Tab did a reboot and reset which took about 2 minutes.

5. When the Tab came back on, viola! There it was – the Android market app installed.

I hope that someone finds this tip useful. If you have any other Android device without the Market pre-installed, you might want to give the above tip a try too to see if it works and get back to us. Disclaimer: your actions are at yourt own risk.

Having used a tablet device – the Samsung Galaxy Tab to be precise – for a while now, I must say that the form factor is a winner in my books. I am especially in love with the 7-inch screen that makes ebook reading, web browsing and video playback a joy.

Also, having phone functionality out-of-the-box is one feature a Tablet device must have to make me look in its direction.

Okay, you are probably getting bored and asking yourself, “When is this guy going to get to the part where he tells us what his gadget dream for 2011 is?”

Here is my 2011 wish list:

1. A 7-inch tablet
2. Windows Phone 7 OS with copy and paste, bluetooth file transfer, mass storage via USB, tethering…. you get the idea.
3. Standard USB port for both charging and PC connectivity.
4. Phone functionality out-of-the-box.
5. 100GB of built-in hard disk space, plus memory card slot.
6. Between 6, 000 to 10, 000 mAh battery capacity that will last 24hrs of heavy use.
7. I also wish that Nokia will be the manufacturer behind this device.

This is definitely not all I wish for my 2011 gadget. But having all of the above will definitely get my attention. What does your 2011 wish list look like?

The Samsung Galaxy Tab evokes mixed feelings in me. For the most part, I love the device. But then, the things I dislike are so major that it is already obvious that my relationship with the Tab will be a short one. The thought of this really saddens me, but then, this is 2011 and certain design choices are just unpardonable.

For a device made in 2010, it is just unimaginable that USB charging would be omitted. Why would Samsung not implement USB charging? Even China phones do USB charging. Yes, I said it!

Number two, Samsung implemented a proprietary port that serves multiple purposes. It is used for charging, PC connectivity via USB and HDMI out. Again, I know I sound like a broken record right now, but for a device made in 2010, this is annoying. What it means is that, if for instance I forget my charger at home, I’ll not be able to charge the Tab until I get back home, except by some stroke of luck I run into someone who also uses that kind of port and they have their charger with them.

What I don’t understand is why Samsung couldn’t use more than one port on this device. It is big enough to accomodate them. Besides the microphone pinhole, the left side of this Tablet is bare. Is it not strange that in this day and age, you are not able to charge and connect your high end device to a PC at the same time?

Okay, enough of what I dislike and unto the things that I really love about this Tablet.

First up, the 7-inch touchscreen with 1024 by 600 pixel resolution is very bright, sharp and crisp. Plus it is capacitive which makes it very responsive to touch. The more I use this device, the more I’m loving the screen size. Yomi has asked me to come back to phones with smaller screens, but I’m seriously not looking forward to it.

Video playback on this screen is the best experience I’ve had on any mobile device I’ve used. Also, the onscreen QWERTY keyboard in both portrait and landscape modes are large and well spaced to give a first class typing experience, all thanks to the screen size.

If there’s anything I hated about touchscreen phones, it is the fact that typing on their virtual keyboard was always a big issue for me. You see, I have very big thumbs. On the Galaxy Tab, my big thumbs are well taken care of.

Speed kills is the warning the Federal Road Safety of Nigeria gives every Nigerian road user, but the Tab preaches the opposite message. It does not know slow and doesn’t do slow. The 1GHZ snapdragon processor, plus 512MB of RAM is the reason for the sanppiness of this device. Switching between applications is a breeze. The only times I experienced slowness was no fault of the phone, but rather that of the crawling internet service that MTN advertises on TV as super fast.

Before getting the Samsung Galaxy Tab, I had read a number of reviews about it online and the majority of the reviewers complained about poor battery life. My experience is exactly the opposite, and battery life on the Tab perfomed way beyond my expectation.

To keep this review from being too long and boring, it has been divided into two parts. So watch out for the second leg, which like the first will be a mixture of what I like and dislike about a device that I would otherwise have loved to keep forever.

In order to properly review a product or solution, there is the need to actually use the product or solution – and for a significant period of time – in order to be able to form a valid opinion about the product and solution.

This is exactly what we do here at Mobility Nigeria. Right from day one, Yomi has abided by the principle that he will never publish a review of a product that he hasn’t used himself and he’ll never allow a Mobility Nigeria team member to do the same. As a result, our readers have come to trust our opinions on the products that we review.

We have received requests from manufacturers and retailers asking us to write reviews of their products. In one instance, the retailer asked us to go through their website and write a review of any of the phones listed there. We would do no such thing and we stood our ground despite their insistence. Our refusal also meant that the retailer pulled their ad off the Mobility Nigeria website.

We consider the advert loss a small trade-off for excellence and trust.

There are websites all over the place with “reviews” based on nothing but the manufacturer’s specifications of devices. Those are not reviews and do not reflect true pictures of the devices in real life situations.

Remember that when you read a phone review on Mobility Nigeria, you are reading a review based on real-life usage. It is one of those things that have earned us our reputation in the industry. Another is the fact that we endeavour to be objective in our evaluations of devices, regardless of whether or not a device in question is the type of device that the reviewer would purchase for himself.

The power of a Mobility Nigeria Review

We have observed a trend here. Right after we publish a phone review, that specific phone enjoys an increase in sales in our online phone store.

As such, we have come to appreciate the power of a single review. When reviews are properly done, interested buyers are well informed and those who find the review devices to be what they need are able to comfortably part with their hard-earned funds, knowing that they are not taking a walk in the dark.

MTN’s official word on the TalkOn tariff plan as pulled up from their site is:

“If you make long calls to lots of people, MTN TalkOn is the best plan for you.

On MTN TalkOn, your first minute of call during the day will be charged at 50 kobo per second. After your first minute of calls, your MTN-to-MTN will then be charged at 25 kobo per second. No access fee, no hidden charges!!! Now that is what TRU VALUE is!!!“

It may be true value for some others, but it does not offer me anything worth shouting about. Note that this tariff plan only works when you make calls from your MTN line to other MTN lines.

Here is my situation: none of the calls I make on a regular basis are to an MTN line. And I mean not a single one. All my family and friends are on other networks- Dad, Mum, wife, brother and sisters, friends – not a single one of them are on MTN.

So what does MTN want me to do? Buy each member of my family and friends an MTN line so I can use TalkOn? I don’t think so.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the divide, the other members of my family and friends who are on Airtel are having a blast. Actually, they are talking on and on. And the best part is, they are billed 20 kobo per second for calls to other networks. Contrast that with the 50 kobo per second that I pay on MTN TalkOn when reaching my contacts on other networks.

I ask, Is it not time for me to move? I think now is the best time to drop my MTN line and move to 2good. The news article announcing MTN TalkOn registered a lot of angst from disgruntled subscribers. The solution isn’t so hard to find – perhaps it is time for those other dissatisfied subscribers like myself to drop their MTN SIMs and move to other networks that suit their needs?

This article was co-authored with Yomi Adegboye. His thoughts are inserted right after Dayo’s. – Admin

In the early days of my adopting the smartphone genre, I used to define a smartphone by how complex it was. For me, if a phone didn’t let you dig into several layers of menu to get to a feature, I simply didn’t consider it a smartphone at all. My thinking then was, “This phone is too simple to qualify to be called a smartphone“.

After using more than 15 smartphones and still counting, my thinking and definition of what a smartphone is has changed considerably. Now, it is not enough for a smartphone to have all the features in the world, it must be able to perform its functions in a very smart way.

User Interface:
Doing things smart begins with the user interface. The user interface must be fluid and it must have a flow to it. What I mean is that there must be consistency in the user interface. A lack of consistency is highly disorienting and takes away from the usability of the phone altogether. Also, the user interface must be well implemented in that it allows different applications to communicate seamlessly.

My Blackberry Experience:
The Blackberry phone may not tick all the boxes when it comes to features, but it is one of the smartest phones I have used. In fact smartness is the name of the game the Blackberry plays, especially those powered by OS 6.0.

Copy, cut and paste is implemented throughout the Blackberry OS and also well integrated into third party apps. Using Yahoo Messenger, for example, I was able to copy a phone number from the messenger app and paste into the phone menu and to make a phone call without having to write out the number first, punch it in, and then place the call. How’s that for usability?

I was sent an email with someone’s Twitter handle. All I had to do was place my cursor on the Twitter handle, click the menu button and there was an option to view the person’s profile. Selecting that option simply launched the Twitter application. I didn’t have to first leave the email window, launch my Twitter app and then type in the Twitter handle to locate the fellow.

Honestly, it has been a joy using a phone that makes it easy for me to get things done. That’s my new definition of what a smartphone is.

Yomi Says

I agree that the definition of a smartphone should be defined more by how truly smart that device handles its tasks. It is just not enough that a device has legion of features. The entrance of the iPhone in the mobile market helped redefine the concept of smartphones.

In the last one week, I have had the opportunity of using a Windowsphone 7 device – and I was blown away by how smart this new OS works. While it currently lacks a lot of features that are regarded as standard fare in the smartphone world, the consistency in design, the fluidity of operations, and the tight integration of the different applications in the OS make for a truly compelling experience.

For example, the WP7 device had no PDF reader built in, but when I downloaded a PDF attachment, it simply notified me that a PDF reader is available for download from the Marketplace, with the option to click a download button. It was such a smart, seamless experience.

Being smart should certainly include ease of use and simplicity. Who wants to go through ten steps to execute a task when just three steps would do? Integration is key in today’s smartphone world.

Back to Dayo

How smart is your smartphone? Do you find it easy to get around and get things done? Let us know.

Coming to the Blackberry platform at the time I did wasn’t something I had planned on doing. In fact, a few weeks before getting the Blackberry device, Yomi and I had decided that the Blackberry wasn’t my type of device. We couldn’t have been more wrong.

My first impressions of the Blackberry 9630 Tour led me to ask myself where I got the notion that the only strength of a Blackberry device was messaging from. I was beginning to notice some other things that it did well, and in some cases better than some other devices that I’ve used.

Multimedia

Yes; the Blackberry handles multimedia well. While it may not be the best in this field, it is certainly not the worst either. And its multimedia capabilities will definitely be enough for most of its users (bear in my that the Blackberry is targeted primarily at business users).

I was able to get music onto the phone via both Bluetooth file transfer and USB cable connected to my PC. I was blown away the first time that I listened to music on the 9630. Before getting worked-up over me being blown away by a feature as basic as music playing on a phone, please understand that I wasn’t expecting much from this device. So when I heard the quality and loudness of sound it produced from its speaker, I was more than surprised.

Next up on the multimedia front is video playback. The 480 x 360 pixel, 2.4 inch screen may not be large enough to give you the kind of video playback experience you will get on higher resolution, large screen phones, but it does its job. An area of surprise here is that the Blackberry plays Divx/Xvid video formats out-of-the-box. This was something I couldn’t do on the Nokia 5800. Every time I wanted to watch one of my many Divx/Xvid encoded files on the Nokia 5800, I had to transcode to a format compatible to it. In this regard, the Blackberry trumps the 5800.

Photo shooting, though basic on the Blackberry 9630, is not bad at all. The 3.2 megapixel auto-focus camera, with LED flash, performs well for a camera in its class. For instance, the camera will be more than sufficient for a family’s day out on the beach. I won’t say any further on the camera’s capabilities; I’ll just let the pictures taken on the phone do the talking. Please click on each picture to see the full size images.

All in all, the Blackberry has shown that when it comes to multimedia, it is a capable device. And I say, more than enough for me.

Introducing the hottest thing in mobile technology in Nigeria in 2011 – mobileRave magazine and Events, launching end of January 2011 with a launch party.

mobileRave magazine is initially a 12-page full-colour publication (bumped to 24 pages by the end of the year), in high quality gloss paper, and presenting consumer-targeted information on mobile devices and services in Nigeria.

The magazine has a quarterly cycle and will be circulated throughout the country via phone retail outlets, snail mail/courier and our mobileRave events planned to hold in major towns and cities across the country from this month. Going by the distribution channels that we have put in place, we have a conservative projection of 10,000 copies per edition. Of course, we expect the magazine to do much better than that in the currently empty mobile magazine market in Nigeria.

For those who prefer it, especially international subscribers, there is the option of subscribing to an electronic copy in PDF format. This will be sent out via email. Payment is via bank deposit and PayPal.

The mobileRave events are high-octane events where we showcase mobile devices and services, provide configuration and troubleshooting services to consumers in an atmosphere of music and entertainment. We have musicians billed to perform at such events. Our goal is public enlightenment in a relaxed environment. On our road map are locations in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Ibadan and others.

Showcasing Mobile; Demonstrating Opportunities

Mobility Nigeria will also be using this new initiative to demonstrate the capabilities of modern smart mobile devices. As such, all pictures and videos recorded at these events will be done 100% with mobile phones. Those media files will, of course, be published here on the site and in subsequent editions of the magazine as part of our reports.

So hot, we are almost burning up with excitement

We are excited about this and can’t wait for the first edition of mobileRave magazine and the launch party. We hope you are as excited as we are.

Let me mention here quickly that subscription to the mobileRave magazine is already open and you can subscribe right now from our site. Let me also mention that there are a couple of goodies that come with subscribing to mobileRave magazine.

One, your subscription now is automatically your entry to a raffle draw to win a mobile phone at our upcoming mobileRave launch event. So, being an early-bird is a good thing here.

Two, subscription also means automatic membership of the mobileRave club, a replacement of our Phone instalment Club, which allows you to be able to buy phones from our phone store on installment. We have scrapped all those tough requirements of the old club.

Are these exciting times or what? Subscribe for your year’s copies of mobileRave magazine now. Subscription to a year’s supply (4 editions) costs N3,000 only. The electronic version costs N2,000 or $15 per annum only.

We’ve bottled it up long enough. Enough! I say……. In fact I don’t know what to say. What do you say?