nokia

It appears to me that phone manufacturers are releasing new mobile phone models at a quickening pace. It used to be that you could have a phone for over a year without it looking dated. However, in the iPhone Era, if you bought a phone 6 months ago, you are already two years behind the times (even if the phone you bought was an iPhone). The Age of the Disposible Mobile Phone is seemingly incongruous in the increasingly environmentalist milieu of western society. However, I am certain that when someone finds a way to make money by selling a "Green" phone all of the other phone makers will jump on board. For now, though, we will have to content ourselves with the cycle of "man, I need a new phone" to "just bought a new phone joy" to "look at that guy's newer phone envy" to "damn, why am I stuck with this Zack Morris phone" and back to "man, I need a new phone".

One just-released phone that I am looking forward to trying out is the Nokia E71. Personally I am a big fan of phones that feature WiFi, GPS, full qwerty keypads, and sleek Scandinavian styling--what is not to love? Another great reason to love this phone is that it is now supported by EQO.

You may or may not have noticed, but we have added a whole host of new phones to our supported list of the Nokia, Sony Ericcson and Samsung varietals.

Peter

Nokia Series 60 devices are rare in Canada, especially the third edition. Rogers and Fido both sell only one, the same one, which is the pitiable, wifi-less E62. If you fancy yourself phone connoisseurs, like we at EQO do, this lack of availability is disappointing. We end up borrowing from Nokia or paying a premium at local outlets in niche shopping centers for our S60 needs. It was to my delight and surprise when EQO developer extraordinaire Bryan Wang today pointed me to Dell.ca, who are now selling unlocked S60 devices! Better yet, Dell is selling these Nokia phones for cheaper than anywhere else I've seen. This is great news for Canadian S60 enthusiasts! Most Canadians don't even know what a phone can do; I'm hoping this turn of events leads to wider spread adoption of Nokia phones in Canada, where S60 has next to no market share. Nokia might even consider advertising in our northern marketplace, heretofore largely untainted by iPhone.

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist

Although it certainly isn't the iPhone, at the very least the Nokia N81 "sort of looks like it" (according to a myopic friend). As it turns out, the phone is actually pretty sweet; You can listen to music on it, you can play cool games on it, and, best of all, now you can use EQO on it!

We have also added a few other phones to our supported phone list: Nokia 5310, 5610, 6555, 7500 Prism, 7900 Prism, E51, and Sony Ericsson K770.

Thanks to our friends at Nokia for loaning us a bunch of these phones. It is much easier to add phones to our supported list if we actually get to test them out ourselves. I wish more phone manufacturers were this helpful!

Peter
EQO Customer Support

About a week ago (August 1, 2007), I started having problems with receiving incoming calls on my unlocked Motorola ROKR E6 mobile phone. My mobile service provider is Fido and I have an unlimited local calling service plan (City Fido) for Cdn$45 a month.

At first I thought I had mistakenly changed the call forward / call divert settings. Nope. Then I did a master reset on my ROKR E6 thinking there was a problem with the phone. Nope.

Next, I put my Fido SIM into a Nokia phone. I was able to receive incoming calls. So there is nothing wrong with the call divert settings or my Fido SIM.

I then put my Fido SIM into a Motorola E680, and also tried it on a Motorola A768 and A1200/Ming. Nope. Incoming call did not work on any of these Motorola Linux phones.

I then put a Rogers Wireless SIM into the ROKR E6. Incoming calls worked just fine. So the problem had to do with my Fido SIM in combination with a Motorola Linux phone.

To ensure that there was not a problem with my Fido SIM, I went out and purchased a replacement SIM from Fido. No luck. The new replacement Fido SIM still did not work with the ROKR E6 for incoming calls. At this point, I had no choice but to put the new SIM into a Nokia phone so that I can at least receive incoming calls.

Then something mysterious happened. This new replacement Fido SIM was empty with no contacts stored on it. The Nokia phone that I was using also had an empty address book. Yet when someone called me, the caller name showed up on the call display. That was interesting because my Fido service plan includes Caller ID service feature but I did not subscribe to caller name display service feature.

I finally called Fido customer service. Sure enough Fido started a free promotional offer for the caller name display feature on the exact date that I started having problems with receiving incoming calls on my Motorola E6. It appears that incoming calls fail for all Motorola Linux phones such as A768, A780, E680, A1200/Ming, ROKR E6 on the Fido network if calling name display feature is turned on. I had to ask Fido to do me a favor and disable the free promotional calling name display feature so that I can receive incoming calls on the ROKR E6.

Colin
EQO Founder & CTO

I just received some great news. A screenshot with my name on it is being posted somewhere on the web other than here. That makes me a pretty famous guy. Oh yeah, and our recently launched application has been nominated for featured application of the week for both Nokia and S60.com. Check out the screenshots with my name (and the articles about EQO Mobile) on the Nokia and the S60.com websites.

Peter

EQO Customer Support

I have been using the Nokia 5500 Sport for about 2 months now. I have to admit, this phone looks rather dull and ordinary but it is a pretty cool mobile device. The Nokia 5500 is a Series 60 Third Edition Symbian phone (check out the phone specs here).

I’ve been seeing a lot of new technology out there lately that’s all about using VoIP to save you money and guarantee you anonymity when making calls. I figured I’d try a few and share my findings with you, the world.

First up Jajah Mobile, who offer “free global calling directly from your mobile phone”, but should continue “that you have to pay for, but probably less than if you weren’t using Jajah”. I first tried the Jajah version made for the Motorola RAZR V3 on my Motorola V635, which was on the Rogers Wireless network in Canada. The two phones share all but looks so I figured it would work, but the Jajah Mobile application, in J2ME format, didn’t work on my V635 for whatever reason.

We need some help testing EQO on these phones. What’s in it for you? For one, you get to be the first to use EQO on your phone. And in addition to the inherent glory and honor, we are offering EQO T-Shirts and SkypeOut credit to helpful testers.

Thanks to our fairly new Forum Nokia Pro membership we were able to borrow a Nokia 6230i and get EQO running on it. We've signed up to borrow a few E and N series Nokia phones as well, so hopefully we'll be able to get EQO going on these devices pretty quick here. But getting EQO on to the 6230i will have to be good enough news for today, and great news it is seeing as this is one of our most requested phones. Keep in mind folks that the 6230i is totally different than the 6230, which is another popular one. If you are looking to get EQO onto your 6230, you'll have to wait a bit longer:)

EQO has added the following phones to its supported List:

Palm:

Treo 700p

Motorola:

E1000, E1070, L2, L6, Razr V3x, V6, V8, V270, V280, V1150

Nokia:

6125, 6126, 6131, 6136, 6233, 6234, 6282

Check out the full list here!

Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist