Google Quietly Rolls Out WDYL.com: A Range Of Google Product Results On One Page

This morning, we got tipped to check out wdyl.com. The tipster noted that it was apparently a new Google site attempting to “create a unified UI to search in multiple channels”. Sure enough, visiting the URL brought up a Google page — but it was a 404 page. Turns out it needs the “www” in order to work. Yes, wdyl.com is not quite ready for prime-time. But it is out there, live!
The new service, which Google apparently did launch this morning, is called What do you love? (hence, wdyl.com). While it seems to be more of a cute gimmick at this time, the idea is to return users a single page of relevant results across many of Google’s products for whatever query is typed into the wdyl search box. The “search” button is even a heart. Cute.
The best queries are for vague, broad terms like “love“, for example. On the results page you’ll find pictures of love, patents about love, love on Google Trends, videos about love, how to say love in different languages, books about love, etc. It can be interesting. But the results showcasing Gmail, Calendar, Chrome, and a few others again show that this is meant to be more of a promotional tool for Google products rather than anything hugely useful. A button at the bottom of each widget takes you directly to the Google product showcased.
The most striking thing about the new site is that it seems pretty well designed — not always a given with Google.
Update: According to a source, wdyl.com quietly rolled out several days ago and the formal launch was set for yesterday, but engineering issues have been holding it back. At least they’ve finally fixed the “www” issue.

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Intel says Cloverview platform will launch in time for Windows 8

Intel didn't provide much indication of a release timeframe when it first teased its tablet-minded Cloverview platform back in April, but it's now finally starting to dish a few more details (though still not many specifics, unfortunately). Speaking with This is my next, Intel's Director of Product and Technology Media Relations, Bill Kircos, said that the chipmaker is looking to deliver a "nice one-two chip-software punch," and roll out the Cloverview platform and accompanying Clover Trail processor around the same time as Windows 8 -- possibly before, but seemingly no later. Of course, exactly when Windows 8 itself will launch still remains a bit of a mystery, although ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley notes that the latest rumor of a release to manufacturing in April of next year is not so crazy, and that "April sounds better than July

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Nokia N9 - Video and Image Tests

The first encounter with Nokia's N9 may have been eleven different kinds of awesome, but we knew it was a mere scratch of the high-grade polycarbonate surface. One of the core pieces of functionality we didn't get the chance to address back then was the camera, and after Nokia decided to toot that horn recently -- saying, among other things, that it's the "fastest image-capturing phone" yet -- we decided we had to go back for a second go-around.

In terms of performance, Nokia's camera application definitely lives up to the company's own hype, with nearly instant captures and an equally brisk return to a state of readiness for more image-taking. When shooting video, we noted that audio recording starts slightly later than the video, leaving the first half second or so without sound. This isn't an uncommon issue (we've seen it on other phones and tablets) and can be seen in our video sample after the break. Now might be a good time to also mention that the N9s we tested with today were all prototype units, so don't prejudge Nokia's final hardware on the basis of what you see here. Unless your premature judgment is positive, we doubt Nokia would mind that.

Nokia N9 camera sample images

So anyhow, we took a walk around the company's offices, escorted by a group of unarmed but surely lethal Finnish ninjas, taking shots of the surrounding cityscape as we went. The results show the N9 picking up a ton of detail and controlling noise admirably, while a few impromptu ThinkPad hands-on photos convinced us it can do a pretty stellar job with closeups as well. With a name like N9, however, it was obvious which phone we needed to compare Nokia's lone wolf MeeGo handset to, so out came our trusty N8 with its world-beating 12 megapixel sensor. Alas, in spite of having an F2.2 aperture on the N9, Nokia hasn't managed to replicate the heroics of its earlier device: the N8 shows its advantage in consistently picking out better color balance and in also being sharper throughout the frame. It makes the N9's images appear as if they were shot through a haze, though we hasten to add that this should be considered a strength of the older phone rather than a major failure of the new one. Additionally, the N9 suffers from the typically narrow dynamic range of smartphone camera sensors, which is the cause of the consistently blown-out sky in our gallery images. Still, considering the quick software operation and consistently detailed imagery on offer from the N9, we'd say Nokia is on to a winner here.

Nokia N9 versus Nokia N8 camera samples

P.S. -- Looking for the full-size 8 megapixel stills from the N9? We've zipped them up for you right here.

Review by, Engadget.

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Sony Vaio Z Ultraportable Laptop

Now that we've seen Sony's new VAIO Z in its luscious press shots, it's time to face reality and lay our itchy hands on this 13-inch ultraportable laptop, along with its eccentric expansion dock that packs both a Blu-ray drive and an AMD Radeon HD 6650M graphics chip (with 1GB of video RAM). Just as we were told by our little birdie, said dock is connected to the notebook via Light Peak -- a first for Sony -- but there's a catch: Sony's only implementing the architecture and not the connector, so for the time being, this sweet high speed connection is only compatible with the docking unit and nothing else.

Anyhow, here's a quick recap: what we have here is a 1.18kg feather-light machine packing a 256GB SSD and 1.3 megapixel webcam, plus a matte LCD display with resolution at 1600 x 900 or an optional 1920 x 1080. Oh yes, for an extra cost, you get some sweet full HD action at just 13 inches. This upgraded display performed well in the relatively dark confines of the press event, but how it fares under direct sunlight remains to be seen. Read on for more hands-on impression.

Sony VAIO Z hands-on

Sony VAIO Z components

At first glance, the VAIO Z looks very much like the VAIO X, and some of its technologies are actually ported over from the latter: a single sided motherboard, and a fold out RJ-45 port design, in order to reduce the machine's thickness to a mere 16.65mm. Like the VAIO X, the flap is plastic, but it doesn't feel flimsy. The rest of the VAIO Z feels solid all around, with carbon fiber used to reinforce the screen and chassis, along with a layer of aluminum for the palm rest. The hinge is hidden behind the back of the machine, and upon opening the lid upright, the machine is lifted up slightly by a couple of feet beneath the display -- much like the hinge on the ASUS Transformer's keyboard dock.

As with most ultraportables, the VAIO Z only packs a grand total of two USB ports, and only one of them is USB 3.0-compatible. But here's a surprise: the latter port is also where Light Peak is implemented: the fiber optic cables feed data to and from the media dock, which we will touch on later. Naturally, plugging in the dock will leave you with only one usable USB port, and the close proximity of the USB ports could also be a problem for wider USB plugs. As for the remaining sockets we have HDMI and VGA output on each side of the machine, an SD card slot plus a dedicated MemoryStick reader (yes, it's still around), as well as a lone headphone port on the right hand side.

Don't worry, we haven't forgotten the Power Media Dock. Obviously, this add-on is designed to stay at home while the VAIO Z is out and about with you road warriors. Aside from providing a Blu-ray drive and discrete graphics, the dock also adds an additional USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports, along with the ability to connect two more monitors. The VAIO Z's chief designer confirmed to us that this allows the VAIO Z to output video up to four monitors simultaneously! Understandably, the dock must be powered externally, but it does pass on power to the notebook for recharging.

The keyboard is pretty standard Sony stuff, and those who are into chiclet keyboards should feel right at home. To shave some thickness off the machine, the keys aren't raised as high as their predecessors, but the travel is still deep and satisfactory. Under dim lighting, the keys are equipped with a pale green backlight -- a welcoming diversion from the over-used blue and white backlighting often seen on laptops.

Another feature worth noting is this new VAIO Z's twin-fan design. By sharing the load of cooling between the two spinners, Sony managed to reduce both thickness and noise. The entire chassis remained cool to the touch even after running for about 30 minutes, and fan noise was minimal. As for battery life, Sony claims 6.5 hours of usage with the standard, non-user replaceable battery, though you can extend that to 13 with the optional slice battery pack.

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BlackBerry Bold 9900 - Research in Motion

RIM's BlackBerry 9900 is the device that the BlackBerry diehards have been hoping, wishing, and waiting for since the original Bold launched way back in 2008. However, this time around the company has added in a capacitive touchscreen, swapped the trackball of yesteryear for an optical trackpad, and slimmed the whole thing down into a 10.5mm thick package. We were lucky enough to get a prototype device from our friends over at Negri Electronics, and have manhandled the thing till we were blue in the face. Head on past the break for an exclusive preview of the device RIM is praying will stalwart its competitors until the first round of QNX-equipped devices lands in 2012.

The Bold 9900 bears a striking resemblance to the original "big Bold" 9000, and fans of that device's large but sturdy form factor will absolutely love the 9900. Gone is the faux-leather back cover, which has been replaced with a slick carbon fiber-esque flat battery door. Interestingly, whereas the entire back of the device could be removed and swapped on the 9000, only the part of the housing that covers the battery itself comes off on the 9900. The carbon fiber midsection is surrounded by soft touch black rubber finishes that taper the outer edge of the device slightly, resulting in a really nice overall form factor.

This Berry's front face is split between a 640 x 480-pixel capacitive touchscreen up top and a full-sized QWERTY keyboard down below. The screen size has been bumped to 2.8-inches from the 2.6-incher on the 9000. The display is bright and vibrant, and boasts superb viewing angles and clarity. As with the Torch 2, touch sensitivity also seems to be quite good, with the screen registering even slight touches on its nearly edge-to-edge surface. Overall, we're quite impressed with the screen on the 9900, as we were with the Torch 2's.

So far as we can tell, the keyboard is the same size as that of the OG Bold, though the buttons seem to be a bit more 'clicky.' It's kind of difficult to explain, but the keyboard feels more firm than mushy -- but that's not necessarily a bad thing. We also noticed that the four main navigation buttons for the BB OS (send, menu, back, end / power) are all flush with the device and backlit, rather than having splits between then. There's also the now ubiquitous trackpad located front and center, and it has a nice white backlighting that helps make it stand out against this BlackBerry's murdered-out facade. When the screen shuts off for standby mode, the trackpad glow rem for an extra few seconds before fading back into darkness.

On the inside, the 9900 boasts a 1.2GHz processor, which is bumped from the 624MHz of the 9780. In fact, we're pretty sure that the guts of the 9900 are identical to those of the Torch 2 -- just crammed into a thinner, non-sliding enclosure. We've known the specs on this bad boy for a while now, but after playing with one for day or so, we're impressed with the real world translation into performance. It's noticeably more snappy than current BlackBerry devices on the market, and the fading transitions of BlackBerry 6.1 OS 7 didn't seem to stutter in regular use. Of course, this is still BETA software -- and from what we've heard, our build is quite a bit older than what's currently on demo devices -- so performance is subject to change.

A five megapixel shooter is located on the backside of the device, but it's been relocated to the upper left corner as opposed to the centered position on the 9000. Again we're convinced that this camera is identical to the one in the Torch 2, which means it's capable of capturing 720p HD video. If you want to see some performance of this shooter, head back to our Torch 2 preview -- what you get on the 9900 isn't vastly different.

BlackBerry 7 OS screenshots

The 9900 will ship with BlackBerry 7 OS, and we won't bore you with the details of this marginal upgrade to the OS. (We went over many of them when we showed you the Torch 2). We will say that the performance improvements we noted on that device seem to have made their way to the 9900, and that many of the mundane tasks that used to bring up the dreaded hourglass of doom no longer do so.

Overall, the 9900 is definitely a sexy slab of circuitry, but we still can't skirt around the fact that RIM has been making the same device for years now. We're glad to see the improved specs and solid hardware, but it doesn't detract from the fact that the OS is virtually unchanged except for some visual flair and new APIs. We're hopeful that despite rumors to the contrary, RIM will be able to get this device out the door during its promised "summer" time frame, and we know it won't be good if it misses that self-imposed deadline. Still, the fact of the matter is that RIM desperately needs to get something radically new out the door as soon as humanly possible, or else users will continue flocking to other platforms. It hopes it has a winner on its hands with the 9900, and while we'll reserve judgment until the thing finally ships to end users, we do think it's yet another step in the right direction

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IT'S OFFICIAL - Nokia's N9 releases later this year...

Stephen Elop said that Nokia would unveil its first MeeGo device this year, and he just made good on his word with the N9 (also known as Lankku). Just as we spotted earlier, the N9 is a solid slab of 3.9-inch AMOLED screen (854 x 480) sans a keyboard or physical switches of any kind (well, aside from that oh-so-necessary volume rocker and camera button). The phone comes with 16GB or 64GB of onboard memory and 1GB of RAM wrapped in a polycarbonate shell that's colored all the way through, so dings and scratches won't show -- unless the wounds run deep, of course. An OMAP3630 1 Ghz processor does the computing while a PowerVR SGX530 GPU is around for graphical grunt work. Connectivity comes courtesy of quad-band GSM and penta-band WCDMA radios, plus Bluetooth 2.1, NFC, and GPS. There is also a dedicated camera button for the 8 megapixel wide-angle shooter, which is capable of aperture F2.2 for low light picture taking and true 16:9 720p video recording. Oh, and it's an AF shooter, not EDoF.

The entire thing measures 116.45- x 61.2- x 7.6-12.1mm and weighs 135 grams, with a battery capable of lasting up to 50 hours (music), 4.5 hours (720p video), or between seven and 11 hours (GSM yappin'). You'll also get gratis turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation with voice guidance in Maps, a dedicated Drive app, proximity sensor and a choice of hue: black, cyan, and magenta. Other hardware specs include 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, an ambient light sensor, compass, orientation sensor, a micro SIM slot, tethering support and a 3.5mm "AV connector." It'll be humming along on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, with apps being compliant with Qt 4.7 and HTML5 support bundled in.

As for software? Aside from Angry Birds Magic, Galaxy on Fire 2, Real Golf 2011 and OpenGL ES 2.0, those who take the plunge will be greeted with a Webkit2-based browser, pinch-to-zoom support, unified notifications for Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds in the Events view as well as social networking profiles and status updates merged into phone contacts. MeeGo touts a user interface simplified to three home views -- events, applications and open apps -- with a swipe gesture able to take you back to the home view. For those looking to expand upon what's loaded from the factory, Ovi Store access is included, but we've no idea what kind of pricing will be affixed. We'll be getting a fair bit of hands-on time with this guy in just a few hours, so keep it locked here for our first impressions!

Nokia's N9

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CbevronWP7 Lab Soon to Jailbreak Windows Mobile Phones with Microsoft's Approval

Microsoft just earned itself a boatload of geek-cred and made Apple and Sony look pretty bad in the process. We knew the Windows Phone team was playing nice with the jailbreakers from ChevronWP7, but we didn't realize just how cozy the two were going to get. Today the devs announced that ChevronWP7 Labs would open up soon, with the approval of Redmond, allowing users to load homebrew apps on their handsets. Unlike tools from the iPhone Dev Team, this service won't be free. Instead, customers will have to cough up a small fee via PayPal -- but we're sure many of you are more than willing to pay a reasonable price to avoid the sort of cat and mouse game Apple has been playing with hackers since 2007.

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ASUS G74 - The Ultimate Gaming Laptop

We're pretty sure someone out there is snapping up gaming laptops with spray-painted red dragons and speaker grilles that look like belt buckles, but we suspect plenty of you just crave something that isn't going to embarrass you at your next LAN party. Grown-ups, meet the ASUS G74, that buttoned-up fellow you see there. So far, we've found two configurations, both of which include a quad-core Core i7-2630QM CPU, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M graphics with 3GB of video memory, 12GB DDR3 RAM (out of 16GB), dual 750GB 7200RPM drives, a 1080p display, Blu-ray player, backlit keyboard, and a USB 3.0. socket (along with three of the 2.0 variety). That's what the G74SX-A1 (R12,215) looks like, and there's also a R13,853 version with a 3D display, dubbed the G74SX-3DE. That generally matches what the new R13,293 Qosmio X770 has to offer, though the G74 is the clear winner in the memory department and, well, you can't put a price on taste, right? Hit the source links to pre-order, and find some fancy press shots below that promise not to incinerate your eyeballs with tackiness.

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Nokia E7 - Review

 

Over the years, we've seen a steady stream of business and messaging-centric landscape QWERTY smartphones come and go, with HTC arguably leading the pack via its collection of Windows Mobile, Android, and WP7 devices featuring sliding keyboards and tilt-out displays. But few of HTC's offerings are as iconic or memorable as Nokia's line of Communicator clamshell phones -- starting with the Nokia 9000 in 1996, continuing with Symbian S80 models, and culminating with the Nokia E90 atop S60v3. The Nokia E7 is the latest Communicator in this distinguished series and the manufacturer's current flagship device, dethroning the Nokia N8 which continues on as the company's media mogul. A lot has changed in the six months since the N8 was introduced, including Nokia's recent partnership with Microsoft and the stunning announcement that it will be adopting Windows Phone for future high-end smartphones. So, is the E7 -- which is finally shipping in the US -- the greatest Communicator to date? Can it carry the torch for Symbian in the immediate future? And more importantly, how does it fare in today's shark-infested Android and iOS waters? Jump past the break for our full review.

Nokia E7 review

Hardware

Let's make one thing abundantly clear: black or silver, the Nokia E7 is one gorgeous piece of hardware. It might not have the proportions of the Dieter Rams-inspired iPhone 4, but it's a handsome and refined phone that can definitely compete in terms of materials and build quality. The E7 design language mimics its N8 sibling, and consists of a flattened aluminum cylinder that features a 4-inch glass-capacitive touchscreen on one side, a glass window protecting the 8 megapixel camera and dual-LED flash on the other side, and tapered plastic covers hiding antennas and connectors at each end. From the front the E7 looks like a larger N8, but in order to accommodate the physical keyboard, the body is sliced longitudinally into two sections. The thinner "half" houses the tilt-out display and the menu key (centered below the touchscreen), the other "half" contains the keyboard, the camera, and most of the electronics. Without a camera pod sticking out the back, the E7 ends up being thinner than the N8 overall, and one of the slimmest landscape QWERTY devices we've come across.

The E7 feels hefty in a reassuring, confidence-inspiring way -- as a point of reference, it's almost the same weight and size as the HTC Thunderbolt, but about 6 mm (1/4-inch) narrower. Fit and finish are impeccable, and so is the attention to detail: there's a machined and polished bevel surrounding the camera window in the back of the E7 and lining the edge of every control on the aluminum body. The top cap contains a 3.5 mm headphone jack, the power / profile key, a mini-HDMI port (behind a plastic door), and a micro-USB connector with a charge indicator. At the opposite end, the bottom cap hosts a microphone and a single speaker. We found a few niggles here. While the headphone jack supports stereo accessories (3-pin) without any problems, it's electrically incompatible with most non-Nokia headsets (4-pin). The speaker is very loud and clear but is positioned such that it becomes muffled slightly as soon as the phone is placed face-up on any flat surface. On the right edge of the E7 you'll find a SIM tray (that's easily removed with a fingernail), a volume slider (which feels downright awkward), and the camera shutter button. The screen-locking slider benefits from the same excellent spring action as on the N8 but lives by itself on the left edge, where it's easier to access when using the keyboard.

The tilt-out display and physical keyboard are the stars of the show. Nokia chose a hinge mechanism similar to the one it implemented on the N97 and N97 mini. Unfortunately, on the E7 this mechanism is universally difficult to open -- almost everyone fails the first time, and risks slipping and dropping the phone in the process. We eventually figured out a sure way to operate the hinge, but it's not intuitive, and requires the (preferably symmetric) application of the right amount of force in the right spot and at the right angle. Assuming you overcome this initial hurdle, the mechanism is spring-loaded in both directions and opens / closes with a satisfying "clunk". Once open, the touchscreen rests at a 30-degree angle from the keyboard, which is equally suited for typing as it is for watching videos. The hinge, back of the display, and base of the keyboard are all cast from a suitably light, strong alloy. We didn't detect any play in the mechanism even after using the E7 for a month, but we did notice that our older review unit was easier to open than the newer one. It's worth noting that the silver model features black accents, including the touchscreen, back of the display, hinge mechanism, keyboard, camera window and flat edges of the end covers.

We're really impressed with the keyboard on the E7. It's one of the best we've used in recent memory -- on par with the keyboard on the HTC Arrive, but with an aligned 4-row layout instead of a staggered 5-row design. Tactile feedback is fantastic despite the short key travel and, unlike the N97 and N97 mini, the space bar is centered properly.

The 4-inch ClearBlack AMOLED touchscreen is bright and beautiful, even in direct sunlight. Colors are vivid, and contrast and viewing angles are excellent, as you'd expect from this type of display. Interestingly, the US version exhibits a slightly warmer color temperature. Resolution is a different story, and pixel-density enthusiasts will be disappointed. With a mere 640 x 360 pixels (what Nokia calls nHD), the E7 makes even a 4.3-inch WVGA display look high definition. Of course, we realize this is a limitation imposed by software, but in this day and age of qHD devices, it misses the mark. We also observed some strange color banding on our European review unit (see here), which might be a manufacturing defect since the problem is absent from the other one. A sheet of Gorilla Glass protects the touchscreen and houses the proximity and light sensors, the earpiece, and a front-facing camera (VGA). Strangely our US model acquired a few small scratches on the display within hours of being unboxed, despite being treated gently, while the other one survived an entire rough and tumble week at CTIA unscathed.

The E7 features almost the exact same internals as the N8: a somewhat lackluster 680MHz ARM 11 CPU, a Broadcom BCM2727 GPU, 256MB of RAM, about 350MB of phone storage, and 16GB of internal mass storage. You'll also find a complete set of radios with support for UMTS / HSPA (pentaband, including AWS), GSM / EDGE (quadband), WiFi b / g / n, Bluetooth 3.0, and AGPS -- there's even an FM receiver. Unlike the N8, there's no MicroSD card slot for additional mass storage, no Nokia 2mm charging port for legacy power sources, and no FM transmitter to annoy your friends with on roadtrips. The E7 also shares USB On-The-Go with its sibling, which allows it to host a number of common USB devices such as flash drives, self-powered hard drives, keyboards, and even optional accessories such as Nokia's own Digital Radio Headset. Both the European and US variants ship with a USB On-The-Go adapter, HDMI adapter, stereo headset, micro-USB cable, and micro-USB charger.

The E7 and N8 come with the same 1200mAh BL-4D battery which is not user-replaceable, and without any visible Torx screws we're not even sure how to access the battery in a pinch. In our tests, call and reception quality lived up to Nokia's usual high standards and battery life was excellent for a fully specced smartphone. The E7 handily beat our Android handsets with almost three days of light duty -- usually about 30 minutes worth of calls, a dozen text messages, three email accounts and one Twitter account being monitored and tended to (that's hundreds of messages), plus the occasional photography (with upload) and music playback each day. Note that during our battery tests we enabled WiFi, turned off Bluetooth, and powered our devices down at night. Needless to say, this is exactly the kind of endurance you'd expect from a business-centric phone like the E7.

Camera

The E7 is equipped with an 8 megapixel EDoF (Extended Depth of Field) camera and dual-LED flash. In typical Nokia fashion the optics and sensor are top notch. This, together with superior image processing results in beautiful shots. As you can see in our sample pictures, color balance and exposure are excellent, and noise is kept under control without obliterating detail. While it's no match for the phenomenal N8, the E7 camera stands out amongst today's smartphones. There's however one massive, glaring problem -- the elephant in the room, if you will -- and that's the EDoF lens. Depth of field becomes meaningless with this camera. Sure, everything from 60cm (two feet) to infinity is perfectly in focus, but just like with a fixed-focus lens it's impossible to take closeup shots. Nokia waxes poetic about how EDoF means no moving parts, allows for a thinner device, improves shooting speed, and makes it easier for the average person to use the camera. We're reminded how the 8 megapixel sensor captures enough information that images can be enlarged and cropped without a huge impact on quality. This is all true, but we feel EDoF is too much of a compromise especially when it's combined with a decent sensor and optics. It just takes away an entire layer of creativity from the picture taking experience when compared to an autofocus lens.

Nokia E7 sample shots

When it comes to video recording, the E7 captures smooth 720p HD content at 25fps with great results. EDoF actually helps here since most phones don't support continuous autofocus during video recording, and instead rely on a sub-optimal preset focus, user-controlled initial focus, or touch-to-focus during capture (like on the iPhone 4). While EDoF precludes closeups, a digital zoom is available with little (if any) effect on video quality. As a bonus, audio is recorded in stereo and sounds very clear. Our sample video was recorded on the E7 and then edited with the bundled video editor. Sadly, this caused the audio to get out of sync, which is a known bug. The camera interface on the E7 is pretty much identical to the one on the N8 and is reasonably easy to use. Most controls are easily accessible, and additional settings are nestled within menus. There's no built-in panorama mode, but a separate app with that functionality is available to download for free from the Ovi Store (see sample here). We only have a couple minor usability complaints: the shutter key is hard to find by feel, and the camera window is flush with the body of the E7 making the glass prone to scratches when the device is resting face up on a flat surface. Overall, the E7 camera delivers strong performance, but we really hope Nokia ditches EDoF and reverts to using autofocus on future flagship products.

Software
We're going to be frank here: Symbian breaks what is otherwise great hardware. Most of what we mentioned about the software in our N8 review applies to the E7 -- it's the same tired routine, a frustrating user experience that quickly becomes a burden day-to-day. Now, before you get up in arms, you have to remember that we've been Symbian users for a very long time, so we're well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of this once-glorious OS. The sad reality is that when measured against the other major platforms Symbian is no longer competitive, especially at the high-end of the market, and that's even more true today than it was six months ago after the launch of the N8. With that disclaimer out of the way, let's look at some specifics. Our European review unit was running what was formerly known as) Symbian^3 PR1.1 while our US model was one release behind at PR1.0, and both devices were using browser version 7.2. Other than the firmware, the most obvious difference between the two appears to be the bundled apps. Beyond the standard set of Nokia apps, which includes the Ovi Store, our US phone came preloaded with Quickoffice, F-Secure, National Geographic, Paramount Movie Teasers, OviMapsChallenge, Climate Mission, Psiloc World Traveler, Vlingo, and topApps. The European variant also included CNN Video and E!, but lost topApps.

Under the hood Symbian is pretty efficient which helps with battery life and multitasking, and provides adequate performance even on run-of-the-mill processors. Unfortunately the E7 often still feels sluggish, despite being faster than most past Symbian devices. The Webkit-based browser -- which used the be one of Symbian's gems -- has stagnated into oblivion over the years, and is now a complete mess. You're simply just better off installing Opera and calling it a day. Email configuration is extremely unintuitive: by default, accounts are proxied on Nokia's servers unless you decline the terms of service during setup. Only then does the email client give you direct access to your account. But it's not all doom and gloom. To this day, Symbian still provides the most comprehensive Bluetooth functionality of any mobile platform. A few apps stand out as examples of what Symbian is capable of. Ovi Maps is an excellent alternative to the ubiquitous Google Maps that supports offline navigation and provides better mapping in most parts of the world. Gravity is a fantastic Twitter client that pushes the envelope of what can be done with Symbian in terms of UI design. It takes full advantage of push notifications and even includes its own on-screen QWERTY keyboard with a portrait mode, something that's still missing from the base OS. The photo and video editors are also quite noteworthy for being powerful and easy to use. But ultimately, these are just a few shining stars in a dead constellation.

Wrap-up

After spending several weeks with the Nokia E7, there's absolutely no doubt that the it's one of the sexiest pieces of hardware we've played with in recent months. Perhaps it's not the greatest Communicator Espoo has ever bestowed upon us, but it comes close and offers the most balanced set of features of any Symbian device to date. This makes it Nokia's de facto flagship smartphone and Symbian's ambassador for the foreseeable future. Devoted Symbian fans will likely be unfazed by the official $679 asking price for the E7 (unlocked and unsubsidized) and will seriously consider picking one up (or its N8 sibling), but for the rest of us the E7 misses the mark. While providing excellent battery life, proper multitasking, and some unique functionality that will please power users, Symbian remains an unmitigated disaster, with a sluggish, frustrating, and cosmetically antiquated user experience. We just can't recommend the E7, especially in light of what the Google and Apple ecosystems have to offer. Dear Nokia, please give us an E7 with a higher pixel-density display, an autofocus camera, a current-generation processor, and a tasty serving of Windows Phone. Oh, and do it soon -- the sharks are starting to smell blood.

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