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The Nokia 105 was one of the most talked about phones from Mobile World Congress this year. But what made it such a hit? Here are just 10 reasons why you should get a Nokia 105.

1. Let’s talk money! When it comes down to it, you need to part with hard-earned cash to purchase any phone. Fortunately, the Nokia 105 will retail at about €15, making it Nokia’s most affordable mobile phone in the current portfolio.

What does €15 get your these days? A takeaway dinner? A couple of travel tickets around a major European city? It can now also buy you an entry-level phone made by Nokia.

2. The Nokia 105 has a massive standby time of 35 days. That wasn’t a typo, this phone lasts over a month on standby.

Just think, in any given day you can make a few phone calls, send a few texts and repeat the process for weeks without needing to plug the phone in to charge once.

3. Having a torch (flashlight) to hand or always in your pocket, while useful, isn’t something we’re all prepared to carry around with us on a daily basis. Thankfully, the Nokia 105 has a torch built-in at the top of the phone, ready to shine some light in the darkness.

This is useful for so many occasions. For example, after nights out when you don’t want to wake up the family by turning on the lights in the house, when searching for something in the attic or even if you live somewhere where there’s no lighting infrastructure. Sometimes a torch is just simply a necessity.

4. The Nokia 105 may not be a smartphone, but it’s got the ability to do some really smart things.

Take Nokia Life, for example. in India, China, Indonesia and Nigeria, it comes as a pre-loaded SMS-service provided by Nokia that helps people with education, healthcare and can also teach people to learn a new language.

5. With this phone, Nokia said goodbye to the black and white screen entry phones. From now on, it’s colour screen all the way. You’re getting a colour screen phone for a very small price.

6. We all take our phones for granted. We throw them down on the table, we drop them on the floor, and sometimes we even get them wet. The Nokia 105 has a dust and splash-proof keypad, which means if you do end up getting a little heavy-handed with the phone, it’ll be able to take it.

7. Weighing only 70 grams, this phone is discreet. It’s light enough to not weigh your pocket down or can sit at the bottom of your bag without you ever realising it’s there.

8. To some, the inclusion of an FM radio is a must-have, particularly in regions where the only way to hear news or entertainment is through a radio.

9. While this isn’t a smartphone, like a Nokia Lumia 720, it has inherited its handsome good looks from the Nokia Lumia family.

The Nokia 105 has been created using similar design principles that we find in the Nokia Lumia smartphones; rounded edges and the use of the colour cyan, for example. You can tell it’s distinctly Nokia from the outset.

10. While this is the perfect phone for anybody who wants a top-quality product, but is on a tight budget, the Nokia 105 makes the ideal first-phone. If you’ve got children who are now at the age where they require (demand?) a mobile phone, the Nokia 105 should be your go-to phone.

It’s affordable, it’s practical, it’s colourful and you know it’s going to survive whatever your child throws at it because it’s made by Nokia. And if your child does lose it or break it, it only cost you €15.

The Nokia 105 will be available starting from the first quarter of 2013 and will retail for €15.

Affordable phones like the Nokia Asha 205 have come a long way over the past few years, with Nokia Nearby as a good example of one of the excellent features now on offer. Although the Nokia Asha 205 doesn’t have an integrated GPS chip, Nokia has still managed to take advantage of its mapping expertise, making it possible to check out all the exciting and useful landmarks in your area with Nokia Nearby. What’s it actually like to live with though? I’ve spent the past month trying it out.

Nokia Nearby is part of Nokia’s Web Apps collection, so you’ll be able to use it on any Asha device providing you have an Internet connection. Open Nearby, and it looks like most other apps on the Asha – simple, intuitive and easy to use. Starting the app gives you a license agreement, and then asks if the phone can use your current location. It gleans your approximate location using network triangulation.

The main menu consists of four options: Search, Eat and drink, Shopping and Going out. There’s a large ‘back’ button at the top right of the app, so it’s always easy to make your way back to the previous screen if you press the wrong button or can’t find what you’re looking for.

Nokia Nearby isn’t just about these four options though – click on ‘More’ and you’ll be given comprehensive choice: Favourites, ATMs, Hotels, Tourism, Leisure and sports, Transport – all the points of interest (POI) you tend to find on a fully-fledged sat-nav device.

Clicking on a location will give you lots of different details, from the postcode to phone numbers and user ratings. From the places I’d actually visited, I found the ratings fair and accurate, so wouldn’t have any qualms about following them for new destinations – whether it’s a pub, restaurant or shopping centre.

Nokia has made a name for itself when it comes to mapping though, and you’ll still find maps included on Nokia Nearby. There’s an overview of the entire area when you first click on map, but you can also zoom in to find the exact location. 

So what’s it like to actually use Nokia Nearby? If you’re accustomed to using a Nokia Lumia and Nokia Drive, you’ll miss the turn-by-turn navigation, but that’s not what Nokia Nearby is about.

Instead, it’s a quick and easy app for finding points of interest in the vicinity, and used as such it’s actually very good. I particularly liked the fact that all the key features are covered; when I look for points of interest generally, it tends to be for more vital services and destinations rather than fun – petrol stations, banks, somewhere where I can grab a bite to eat at a late hour.

The Nokia 301

A feature phone for the image conscious.

Learn more.

Nokia Nearby is great for this, in addition to covering more light-hearted points of interest, and it comes in especially useful when you’re in unfamiliar territory. The service isn’t quite as quick as Nokia’s other mapping apps – on the Asha 205, data is downloaded as and when you need it, rather than full maps being stored on the device itself – but it’s still easily fast enough to use on a regular basis.

Nokia Nearby is also useful when you’re in your home town; you can easily add favourites and take advantage of the contact details of restaurants and pubs you visit a lot, along with sharing details of your location with your friends, making it easy to meet up with people when you’re out and about.  

Coming from Nokia Lumia and as a heavy Nokia Drive user, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from the Nokia Asha 205 and Nokia Nearby. It turns out to be an incredibly handy app to have. Whenever you’re visiting friends, on holiday, on a business trip or simply in a strange part of town, it’s always easy to find somewhere to get money, somewhere to eat or even somewhere to sleep. It’s also easy to find just about anything else in town.  

We have written before about Photosynth and we’re big fans of its unique ability to take full 360° panoramic images.

So it’s tremendous news that the app is now available for Nokia Lumia devices running on Windows Phone 8 and even has some new features to enhance the experience further.

Your world in 3D 

The basic functionality of Photosynth remains as alluring and magical as ever. You can capture a sequence of images in any direction, horizontally and vertically, to create a perfect spherical photo.

It sounds like it might be a tricky process that will be difficult to master but the true beauty of Photosynth is just how easy it is. With minimal effort, you’ll soon become highly proficient at creating incredibly immersive, 360°panoramic images of the world around you.

Photosynth for Windows Phone 8 is fully integrated with the camera, so it can now be launched via the digital lens selector within your Lumia’s viewfinder.

In addition, new camera controls have been introduced to give you options to lock the exposure and white balance settings.

The sharing options have also been refreshed to let other Windows Phone 8 users view your panoramas on their device. Obviously, just as before, you can also let other people view your unique photos by email, Facebook or Twitter.

See it on Bing

If you remain a sceptic, then head over to the Photosynth website where you can see some stunning examples of the kind of images that have been created. 

If you’ve captured your own Photosynth masterpiece then you can upload it the website too. Even better, if it’s a great perspective on a particular location you can publish it to Bing so people will see it whenever they look for this place on Bing Maps and in the Bing search results.

If you like Photosynth then you might also want to try out Nokia’s very own Panorama app, which enables you to combine up to five different images to create a single wide-angled photo of your surroundings. We wrote about Panorama earlier this week.

W październiku Red Bull MOBILE wysłało TeDego do USA, żeby opowiedział Wam o wszystkich 50-ciu stanach (świadomości). Dziś zapraszamy Was do wzięcia udziału w dogrywce do jego misji. Jeden z amerykańskich stanów, czyli Hawaje możecie odwiedzić razem z nim oraz Asią Litwin (uznaną kitesurferką). 1.03. ruszyła druga edycja podróży Tedego wraz z ekipą Red Bull [...]

Wybaczcie proszę, ale wysłaliście tak dużo propozycji, że potrzebowałem więcej czasu, żeby przesłuchać z uwagą wszystkie nadesłane playlisty. Jak się okazuje WiMP daje naprawdę sporo możliwości bo pojawiły się chyba wszystkie gatunki muzyczne W słuchaniu pomagały mi trzy inne osoby i każdy z nas ma swój subiektywny gust muzyczny i bardzo ciężko było nam [...]

W październiku Red Bull MOBILE wysłało TeDego do USA, żeby opowiedział Wam o wszystkich 50-ciu stanach (świadomości). Dziś zapraszamy Was do wzięcia udziału w dogrywce do jego misji. Jeden z amerykańskich stanów, czyli Hawaje możecie odwiedzić razem z nim oraz Asią Litwin (uznaną kitesurferką). 1.03. ruszyła druga edycja podróży Tedego wraz z ekipą Red Bull [...]

Wybaczcie proszę, ale wysłaliście tak dużo propozycji, że potrzebowałem więcej czasu, żeby przesłuchać z uwagą wszystkie nadesłane playlisty. Jak się okazuje WiMP daje naprawdę sporo możliwości bo pojawiły się chyba wszystkie gatunki muzyczne W słuchaniu pomagały mi trzy inne osoby i każdy z nas ma swój subiektywny gust muzyczny i bardzo ciężko było nam [...]

One of the best features of the Nokia Xpress Browser is its support for web apps.

These apps run through the same cloud-based acceleration engine that enables the Nokia Xpress Browser to compress data by up to 90 per cent. Ultimately, this means it is both quicker and cheaper for you to access the web, and these apps.

There are thousands of these web apps for you to choose from in the Nokia Store and we have chosen one of them to feature in our Asha App Spotlight this week.

In fact, we are featuring the most popular web app currently in the Nokia Store: Vuclip Video Search.

This is a search engine that allows you to find videos and then download them to your Asha device so you can then watch them whenever you want – even without a data connection.

Vuclip Video Search may be familiar to many of you already as it is occasionally one of the web app shortcuts on the home page of the Nokia Xpress Browser, but you can also download it as a standalone app from the Nokia Store.

Using Vuclip

As it’s primarily a search engine, the home screen of Vuclip offers no real surprises.

There is a search bar along the top, six featured videos and the following options along the bottom of the screen: 

• Top searches
• What’s Hot
• Most Vu’d
• My recently viewed 

‘Top searches’ has a nice functionality – just tap it once to reveal the current most popular searches.

Tap it again and it seamlessly disappears again. For the record, Katie Holmes, Bob Marley and football genius Lionel Messi were the most popular searches at the time of writing.

‘What’s Hot’ appears to be more featured videos and, as you’d expect, ‘Most Vu’d’ shows the most watched videos. ‘My recently viewed’ is really useful for going back to videos you have already watched.

The Search is on

Searching for videos is quick and returns plenty of relevant results. The videos seem to be sourced from a wide range of popular video streaming websites, such as Metacafe, Daily Motion and My Space.

In my searches I couldn’t seem to find any results from YouTube but previous screenshots suggest that they are, or least have been, available.

After you’ve found a video that you’re interested in, you are then presented with a choice of downloading the video in high or regular quality.

This is a smart feature, as you may want to choose the high version if you have Wi-Fi and the regular one when you’re on a more costly, and generally slower, cellular connection.

Another thing to be aware of is that if it’s a video you really like, you can also add it to your favourites. 

Once the video file is downloaded, you just have to tap the file and it will play in full screen on your Asha – job done! 

Settings

On each screen of Vuclip Video Search there is a rather subtle menu icon. It’s semi-transparent and hovers in the bottom right corner. It’s very easy to miss but there’s some useful information to be found within.

Inside you’ll find your data usage so you can keep track of how much data you’ve been consuming and your downloaded videos. If you’ve cleared the page in the ‘My recently viewed’ list then you can always come to your downloads to launch the video again.

Also, if you’re worried about using up too much of your device storage, you can also delete videos that you’ve downloaded.

In terms of basic functionality that is pretty much all the bases covered. Like all the best apps, Vuclip Video Search is fast, easy to use and effective. If you want to watch videos on your Asha, then this is the place to start.

When it comes to stocking up your photographic app arsenal, Nokia’s Panorama app – exclusive to Nokia Lumia Windows Phone 8 smartphone owners – is a must have if you want to capture the wider picture.

Once installed, Panorama can be found either in the application list or under the Lenses section once you’ve loaded up the camera.

In terms of simplicity, this app couldn’t get any easier. You don’t need to waste time manually stitching any photos together; instead, Panorama does everything for you.

All you need to do is pick your subject and hold up your Nokia Lumia. Decide where you want the panorama to start from and then follow the onscreen visual guide.

Panorama takes a series of five shots in total, panning from left to right, so remember that when deciding where to start on your wide-screen photo.

After you’ve taken your first shot, a small dot will appear on the right-hand side of the screen encouraging you to chase it with your viewfinder. Align that dot with the circle in the middle of your screen and the app will automatically take the next photo. Continue this until you’ve captured your panoramic photo.

You don’t have to use all five frames; you can press the tick icon at any time to stop the process where it is.

With your wide-photo captured, it’ll automatically save to your Photos hub. However, if you want to interact with the photo some more, stay in the Panorama app interface.

Here’s a photo taken using Panorama. Click through for the larger image.

As nice as your panoramic photo may be, it might look better with some effects added to it. You can launch Creative Studio from within the photo and add any one of the filters available.

Sharing great photos is often the best part of taking a photo; you may want to share that moment with someone special, or all your Twitter followers. Select the share option in settings to send the photo via; Tap+Send, Messaging, email, rooms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, OneNote and more.

Try Panorama now, for free.

Feel free to share any panoramas you may have taken with this app with us, using the comments section below.

Having hit the 200m download mark in the Nokia Store recently, you would think that the staff at Indiagames would’ve had good reason to celebrate with a big party.

However, nothing extravagant took place. Instead, this games developer, which is now part of the Disney family, immediately set its sights on even greater success and how they can take gaming to a higher level.

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week, Conversations sat down with Alwyn D’Almeida of Indiagames to chat about his company’s relationship with Nokia, the momentum provided by the Nokia Asha devices and what makes them different from other games companies.

How would you describe your relationship with Nokia?

We’ve had a long-term relationship with Nokia, I think, for 10 plus years now. We have been supporting them in all the initiatives.

In return the India team, and the global Nokia teams, feature our content, which drives more downloads.

It’s not possible for us to just put content there and be successful – it’s because Nokia is there with us, partnering with us and supporting us. Overall, it’s an enriching experience for both parties.

What qualities do you think that Indiagames offers to Nokia?

For us it’s about quality and the turnaround time. We are so committed that even if we have other titles in the pipeline, we might adjust those deadlines and move our workforce so that we can deliver and meet our commitments to Nokia.

For example, Nokia needed a cricket title for the India region so we delivered it and we put it out for the Asha Series when they were being released.

Other times we go to them and say we have these new games coming up, maybe they will be good for your new handsets?

What impact has the Nokia Asha series had for you? 

The Nokia Asha family are unique devices. India has 900m mobile subscribers where everyone will want a touchscreen phone and Asha falls into the price bracket where they can afford it. 

If more phones are sold then more content is consumed and that helps us of course. 

What have been some of the big titles driving your downloads recently?

The entire Disney back catalogue has helped us to go the distance for 200m downloads. Games like Aladdin The New Adventure, Racing Rustle, and Terror Terminator. Plus there’s a lot of local content and the Bollywood titles that we make. That has all helped to push the overall downloads. 

Has being part of Disney made any difference?

It definitely has. There are new rules and processes but overall it has been a good experience for all us.

A lot of doors and channels have opened up for us because you only have to say that you come from Disney. 

We have our own ways of how we work and of course, there have been some changes but otherwise we’re still functioning the way we were.

Did you see anything exciting at Mobile World Congress?

I have gone and interacted with other people, looked at different app platforms and technologies to see what we can use for gaming.

There were these guys from Sweden and they’ve got this technology where you can play a game using gesture controls, where it’s a similar thing to Kinect on Xbox but for mobile. You don’t even need to hold the device in your hand. I’m really excited about that because we have games like cricket and tennis and I think it would take gaming to the next level.

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