Hard reset: A three way key feature widely known as a function on many Symbian devices. The main purpose of the said command is to restore the phone to its factory state condition. Symbian editions that can do this are the following:

Series 60 (2001)

Series 60 Second Edition FP1, FP2, FP3 (2003)

S60 3rd Edition FP1, FP2 (2005)

S60 5th Edition / Symbian^1 (2008)

Symbian^3 (2010)

However, doing this with a Symbian^3 phone will have some adverse effect especially on the N8.

Nokia N8 3-way key:

STEP 1) Turn off the Nokia N8

STEP 2) Press and hold these simultaneously VOLUME DOWN, CAMERA KEY, and MENU BUTTON

STEP 3) Finally, press the power button, while holding the key and waiting for the phone to boot up.

Device reset would definitely work but will wipe some applications such as OVI Maps, OVI Store, and Nokia Social. Reinstalling the firmware via Nokia Suite or Nokia Software Updater will not restore the components mentioned, one way of fixing this one is by sending it to the Nokia Centre for a reflash.

If you are adventurous enough, you may download and install them individually. Solution here.

Cheers!

This video shows how Nokia is committed in pursuing innovation to the next billion. And that also entails the care for our environment.

As also shown on this video, these are the eight perspectives on design for Nokia:

1 – Sustainability is in everything we do

2 – Corporate responsibility is everyone’s responsibility

3 – Connecting the next billion

4 – Let’s pull the plug on energy waste

5 – People first

6 – It’s easy to be green

7 – Acting good is good for business

8 – Be inspiring. Get inspired.

[Video: Nokia Danmark]

Nokia’s Chief Designer, Marko Ahtisaari talks about the design of the N9 and discusses how they came up with the concept.

[Video: Nokia Danmark]

In this video, Marko Ahtisaari talks about the ‘patterns of human interaction’ and how it affects people in their daily lives. He also discussed few things and factors that led them to the creation of the N9′s design. Marko Ahtisaari is the Chief Designer of Nokia and the person behind the design of the N9.

[Video credits to Nokia Danmark]

Nokia Philippines recently announced two new dual-sim phones, C2-00 and X1-01 which offers a unique array of features that suits your needs and personality. After its announcement last year, the Nokia C2-00 is now making its way to the market. While the X1-01 is a way ahead of its non dual-sim counterpart – the X1-00. These two mass-targeted phones are supposed to be a part of Nokia’s Next Billion target for the future.

As taken from the Nokia Press Release:

“The Nokia X1-01 and Nokia C2-00 pack more memory, better battery life and far richer SIM change and entertainment features than other Dual SIM products currently in the market,” said Benoit Nalin, general manager of Nokia Philippines.  “In addition to their various unique features, both of these phones remember the settings for up to five separate SIM cards, each of which can be personalized with a dedicated name as well as preferred call, SMS or data settings.  ONLY Nokia can offer this level of convenience in Dual SIM phones!”

Nokia C2-00

The Nokia C2-00 is the first Dual SIM phone to have Easy Swap, which offers you the convenience of changing SIM cards without the need to turn off the phone or remove the battery.  Just open the SIM door at the side of the phone and swap your SIMs.  It’s as easy as that!  No more waiting for the phone to reboot.  With the Nokia C2-00 you can also browse the internet, read emails and enjoy instant messaging with either SIM card.  Not only is the internet browsing experience far superior than that available on competing Dual SIM products, but so too is the memory support.  At a whopping 32 GB, the Nokia C2-00 lets you keep thousands of photos, videos and music files with you all the time.  The Nokia C2-00 is available in colors Dynamic Grey, Jet Black, Magenta, and Snow White.

Nokia X1-01

With the Nokia X1-01 you can give each SIM card its own logo, music signature or ringtone – personalization features that you can only get from Nokia!  The phone also offers what is simply the best Dual SIM music experience on the market.  You can store and shuffle THOUSANDS of songs with up to 16 GB of memory support, create your own favorite playlists, and play your music back over a loudspeaker that is the loudest and clearest ever produced by Nokia.  The phone also features dedicated music side keys and a battery that will last for up to 36 hours of continued music playback!  The Nokia X1-01 is available in colors Dark Grey, Red, Ocean Blue, and Orange.

Both phones are excellently priced as the X1-01 has a price tag of P1,990 ($46) whereas the Nokia C2-00 is tagged at P2,990 ($68)

Gartner recently posted an estimation on market dominance of the leading OS for mobile devices. Here is the full transcript below:

Worldwide mobile device sales to end users totaled 1.6 billion units in 2010, a 31.8 percent increase from 2009 (see Table 1), according to Gartner, Inc. Smartphone sales to end users were up 72.1 percent from 2009 and accounted for 19 percent of total mobile communications device sales in 2010.

“Strong smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 pushed Apple and Research In Motion (RIM) up in our 2010 worldwide ranking of mobile device manufacturers to the No. 5 and No. 4 positions, respectively, displacing Sony Ericsson and Motorola,” said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner. “Nokia and LG saw their market share erode in 2010 as they came under increasing pressure to refine their smartphone strategies.”

Overall, the mobile device market showed less seasonality than in previous years in mature markets such as Western Europe and North America. Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users reached 32.7 percent growth in the fourth quarter of 2010 as mobile phone sales to end users totaled 452 million units.

Shortages continued to affect popular components, such as camera modules, touchscreen controllers, and active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) screens, in the fourth quarter of 2010. “This situation will not ease until at least the second half of 2011. Shortages will be a long-term consideration for mobile device vendors, because other fast-growing categories of connected consumer devices, such as media tablets, are competing for the same components,” said Ms. Milanesi.

White-box sales exceeded 115 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010 and 360 million units in 2010 overall. Although white box sales helped boost mobile device sales to 1.6 billion units in 2010, it would be misleading to interpret this as market “growth” in the strictest sense. “What we see is an increase in addressable market for mobile device manufacturers as consumers shift their behavior to buying new phones from legitimate channels over second-hand and black market devices,” said Ms. Milanesi.

In 2010, Nokia’s annual mobile phone sales to end users reached 461.3 million units, a 7.5 percent drop in market share from 2009. The year-on-year decline is not solely attributable to Nokia’s continuing deficiency in high-end devices but is, in part, the result of the growth of legitimate white-box sales. Nokia’s share of the smartphone market dropped 6.7 percentage points from 2009. Nokia’s future rests on the announcements it will make on February 11 and how well the company can execute on those plans in the limited time available.

RIM’s overall mobile phone sales to end users in 2010 reached a total of 47.5 million units, an increase of 38.2 percent year-on-year (see Table 2). Performance in the fourth quarter of 2010 was particularly strong in Southeast Asia (Indonesia) and Europe (the U.K. and the Netherlands). These sales rested on aggressively priced prepaid offerings, as well as steady uptake of the BlackBerry Messenger service. Despite growing volume sales, RIM was unable to keep up with market growth and saw its market share decline from 19.5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 13.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010. At the end of 2010, RIM announced it will release its media tablet, the PlayBook. It remains to be seen if this move will help RIM strengthen its ecosystem.

Apple sold 46.6 million units in 2010, 87.2 percent growth from 2009. This growth is largely due to expansion into new countries and the ending of exclusivity deals, which has made the iPhone available through 185 communication service providers (CSPs) around the world. The end of exclusivity deals also encouraged CSP competition on tariffs and data plans, making the total cost of iPhone ownership more in line with other high-end smartphones. For 2011, Apple’s main growth opportunity will come from adding Verizon Wireless to its list of CSPs in the U.S. Gartner analysts said Apple will maintain a stable average selling price, which favorably impacts margins at the expense of market share opportunity. However, Apple is not targeting the mass market, which is a fundamental difference in approach from Android.

The smartphone market remains concentrated in advanced markets, where buyers have more disposable income and where networks are fast enough to support smartphones’ full feature sets. “Western Europe and North America accounted for 52.3 percent of global smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2010, with smartphones accounting for close to half of all handsets sold in these regions,” said Roberta Cozza, principal research analyst at Gartner. Intense competition affected shares at the top of the smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2010, continuing trends that we have seen throughout 2010.

In the smartphone operating system (OS) market, ”Android grew 888.8 percent in 2010 and moved to the No. 2 position. Android sales in the fourth quarter of 2010 continued to be driven by broad availability of many high-end products from HTC (Desire range, Incredible and EVO), Samsung (Galaxy S) and Motorola (Droid X, Droid 2).

Symbian’s market share dropped further in the fourth quarter of 2010 to 32.6 percent or 32.6 million units. This allowed Android to overtake Nokia’s Symbian unit sales during the fourth quarter of 2010. However, the Symbian OS is also used by Fujitsu and Sharp as well as in legacy products from Sony Ericsson and Samsung. “This aggregated volume kept Symbian slightly ahead of Android,” said Ms. Cozza.

The wider availability of the iPhone 4 helped Apple to maintain its share of the smartphone market to 16.0 percent in the fourth quarter 2010 and led the iPhone OS platform to reach the No. 4 position in 2010. “As a platform, iOS is in excellent shape,” said Ms. Milanesi. With every iPad and iPod Touch sold, Apple increases the profile of iOS with potential iPhone buyers and strengthens its developer ecosystem.

“With the Mobile World Congress 2011 taking place next week, we can expect smartphones and tablets to be at center stage of the show, and a number of new application announcements such as 3D technology, improved user interfaces around touch, faster networks on LTE technology, and new forms of payments, such as near field communication available on smartphones,” Ms. Milanesi said.

Additional information is in the Gartner report “Competitive Landscape: Mobile Devices, Worldwide, 4Q10 and 2010.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=1542114.

Here is a screenshot of a sketch concept of the possible successor of the Nokia N8. As seen on the picture above, it mentions some of the possible things that may come with it.

• A compact 4-inch 16:9 capacitive touch screen with hardened glass (Gorilla)
• Aluminum casing
• 12MP Carl Zeiss Lens camera with xenon flash and 4X optical zoom.
• Dolby Stereo Loudspeakers

This might be Nokia’s answer to fill in the 4′ touchscreen segment and an additional 4x optical zoom is a bonus.

Nokia and Microsoft intend to jointly create market-leading mobile products and services designed to offer consumers, operators and developers unrivalled choice and opportunity. As each company would focus on its core competencies, the partnership would create the opportunity for rapid time to market execution. Additionally, Nokia and Microsoft plan to work together to integrate key assets and create completely new service offerings, while extending established products and services to new markets.

Under the proposed partnership:

• Nokia would adopt Windows Phone as its principal smartphone strategy, innovating on top of the platform in areas such as imaging, where Nokia is a market leader.
• Nokia would help drive the future of Windows Phone. Nokia would contribute its expertise on hardware design, language support, and help bring Windows Phone to a larger range of price points, market segments and geographies.
• Nokia and Microsoft would closely collaborate on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap to align on the future evolution of mobile products.
• Bing would power Nokia’s search services across Nokia devices and services, giving customers access to Bing’s next generation search capabilities. Microsoft adCenter would provide search advertising services on Nokia’s line of devices and services.
• Nokia Maps would be a core part of Microsoft’s mapping services. For example, Maps would be integrated with Microsoft’s Bing search engine and adCenter advertising platform to form a unique local search and advertising experience
• Nokia’s extensive operator billing agreements would make it easier for consumers to purchase Nokia Windows Phone services in countries where credit-card use is low.
• Microsoft development tools would be used to create applications to run on Nokia Windows Phones, allowing developers to easily leverage the ecosystem’s global reach.
• Nokia’s content and application store would be integrated with Microsoft Marketplace for a more compelling consumer experience.

“Today, developers, operators and consumers want  compelling mobile products, which include not only the device, but the software, services,  applications and customer support that make a great  experience,” Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO, said at a joint news conference in London.  “Nokia and Microsoft will combine our strengths to deliver an ecosystem with unrivalled global reach and scale. It’s now a three-horse race.”

“I am excited about this partnership with Nokia,” said Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft CEO.  “Ecosystems thrive when fueled by speed, innovation and scale.The partnership announced today provides incredible scale, vast expertise in hardware and software innovation and a proven ability to execute.”

[Via Nokia Press Release - PH]