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The Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-604 is the best ear gadget I tried so far. It features Hi-Fi sound, with good bass performance which do not compromise the music’s treble levels. The music player and call controls are also placed on strategic locations on the headset which enables its users to remotely control the functions of the mobile phone.

According to Nokia, the Nokia BH-604 can:

• connect to your device wirelessly with this comfortable DJ style Bluetooth headset
• hear your music as it was meant to be heard – in clear Hi-Fi sound
• play your tunes with smart music controls: play, pause, stop, forward, next track, rewind, and previous track
• take and make calls with practical call controls: answer, end, and reject calls, voice dial, redial, and mute
• go from grooves to incoming calls in an instant with automatic switching from music to call mode
• use the headset with your phone, PDA, PC, music player, or other compatible Bluetooth devices
• charge up fast! Get up to 18 hours of talk time from less than 1,5 hours of charging
• listen to music longer with up to 19 hours of music time and up to 2 weeks standby

The Nokia BH-604 also supports a wide range of mobile phones, but does not limit itself to Nokia products alone.

Here are the technical specifications of the Nokia BH-604.

Battery

• 500 mAh, Lithium-Ion Polymer

Dimensions

• 190 x 180 x 75 mm

Interfaces

• Bluetooth v2.0 with EDR specification
• A2DP (advanced audio distribution profile)
• AVRCP (audio video remote control profile)
• Handsfree (HFP) and/or headset (HSP) profiles

Standby Time

• Up to 2 weeks

Sales Package Contents

• Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-604
• Nokia Compact Travel Charger AC-5
• carrying pouch
• user guide

Talk Time

• Up to 18 h

Music Time

• Up to 19 h

Weight

• 250g

Charging time

• less than 1.5 hours

By the way, I would like to thank Kuya Blogie for lending me this Nokia Bluetooth Headset BH-604. The gadget was sent to him by WOM, along with the Nokia N81 I borrowed last Monday.

Related articles

• Review: Nokia N800 Internet Tablet
• N81 Specifications
• Nokia N800 Internet Tablet Specifications

Upon seeing the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet, the first question that came to me was “where do I place my SIM card?”. But sorry Nokia cellphone fans, this gadget is not a cellphone nor it has any mobile phone capabilities.

At first it was very odd and confusing that a $350 gadget from a leading cellphone manufacturer is not equipped with any phone capabilities. It was even more surprising since Nokia’s N-series boasts a line of feature-packed mobile phones. Since the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is not a mobile phone, but it does not intend to replace them but to complement them instead.

According to TabletBlog.com,

The Nokia N800 Internet Tablet is not a PDA, ultra-mobile PC, smartphone, or eBook reader. It is an Internet Tablet…the device was built from the ground up to focus on Internet functionality.

The Nokia N800’s main purpose is to provide its end-users Internet functionalities such as web browsing, email, instant messenging, internet radio, and internet calling.

Physical Design

The Nokia N800 is a classy and elegant-looking device. I love the combination of black plastic and metal. The material used in this gadget is also rigid. You can be assured that the device won’t creak or break with ease.

The limited number of buttons gives the Nokia N800 a clean and uncluttered look. The ergonomics of the over-all design is also good. The position of the buttons were also appropriate.

When browsing, the Nokia N800 can utilize both the stylus and the navigational button to navigate across the page. When using the navigational button, what it does is to change and high light the active item (or link) which is a bit stressful when viewing pages loaded with links or pages with a very long vertical length. Though the problem can be solved when using the stylus, but it can sometimes leave annoying scratches (can be wiped off) when dragging the stylus across the LCD screen. It would have been better if the device is equipped with a jog dial (similar to Sony Ericsson’s).

Operating System and Interface

The Nokia N800 runs on a Debian GNU/Linux distribution called Maemo. This makes the Nokia N800 more robust in terms of software functionality. A lot of software binaries for Maemo are distributed online for FREE.

The interface is also easy to navigate. The home screen features an interface where you can mount different applets on your tablet’s desktop. Navigational buttons are also available for web browsing, internet communication and for installed software applications.

Built-in Software Applications

The Nokia N800 is pre-installed with an e-mail application, instant messenger which can accommodate text, audio and video, skype application, and an opera web browser. Most of these applications are easy to use. The Nokia N800’s Email application can support both POP and IMAP email communications. I tried using GMail and Google Apps Email on the N800 at it works fine.

The instant messenger used by the N800 supports GTalk and Jabber. Since I’m using the Google Apps’ Jabber feature, I tried connecting to my service using the Jabber option. It can be used to chat with your contacts using text and voice. It also retrieves your contacts list and automatically integrates it with your contacts application and email application.

The web browser uses Opera as its engine. For the firefox fans, you can also try replacing the Opera engine with a Mozilla distribution for Maemo. You may see it here.

The Skype application can support both audio and video chat. I have not figured out yet how to operate the video feature but the voice chat is quite good.

Speakers

The Nokia N800’s stereo speakers are also good. The sound doesn’t have distortions at high levels. The maximum volume level is also loud enough to be heard on a public place. (Of course this evaluation is relative to one’s hearing capacity and environment). The device is also equipped with a 3.5mm Audio Jack socket where you can plug your earphones, unlike with other mobile phone models which use a different connector for the earphone.

Display

The tablet’s screen is 4.1″ which is big enough for browsing. It operates at an 800 x 480 screen resolution. The thing, it can only 65k colors which is very small compared to other devices available in the market. My mobile phone alone can display 256k colors.

Camera

The gadget is also equipped with a VGA camera hidden at the upper left corner. The camera is not that good. Distortions and noise are visible on the image taken by the VGA Camera. I hope Nokia can work on this one.

Connectivity

The N800 can connect using WiFi and Bluetooth. The device can support both 802.11 b/g types of WiFi networks. Aside from the WiFi, it can also connect to the internet using your bluetooth connected phone as a modem for internet communications.

I also tried using Microsoft’s Internet Sharing feature to share my wired internet connection from my laptop and it works fine.

Conclusion

The Nokia N800 offers better Internet experience compared to other mobile phones available in the market. The N800 is also robust that it can be used beyond its internet functionalities. In terms of mobility, the N800 is comparable to an office computer on top of your palm. It can perform basic PC operations while you are on the go. This gadget is best suited to those heavy internet users like me.

I’ve been wanting to buy a bluetooth stereo headset - the one you can use for music and for calls - but its too expensive.. for a small device that is. The one at Nokia would sell for more than P2,500.00. Others would be as low as P1,500.00. So i’ve been wanting to find a cheap [...]

Its either that hand is so big or that gadget is so small.. Its the latter. That’s the smallest bluetooth adapter Check out the features…

I was very excited installing Leopard into my MacBook. And I did it under an hour and after figuring out if everything still works, everything really still works. In my last post, Just installed Mac OS X Leopard!, I checked every applications that I used in my daily routine and everything except the Bluetooth goes well.

I thought the Bluetooth issue is with the MacBook, but after Googling, i found out that this is with Nokia N73 issue with the MacBook. It's incompatibility maybe.

In my Bluetooth icon found at the top above, I can add a mobile device. The MacBook Bluetooth can find the N73 device, it can connect and in a while the MacBook Bluetooth configuration will ask you to enter the Pairing Key to authorized the MacBook device to access the N73. So I did enter all the codes and after entering, the MacBook Bluetooth will search for the services that is in the Nokia device and it will search for eternity. The MacBook doesn't hang during this process but just an infinite searching of device. During this process, while searching for the services, the Bluetooth icon of the MacBook is already in the normal state. Meaning it is not connected anymore with the found device. This goes as well with the N73 where the Bluetooth icon don't have anymore the open and close parenthesis.

But then you can found the N73 device already hanging in the menu of the MacBook bluetooth. When I send a file or browse the N73 device from the MacBook, it connects for a while and disconnects. This happen to all the application that connects to the N73 via Bluetooth.

Trying to fix things, I updated my Nokia Multimedia manager from 1.1 to 1.2, but still things doesn't work.

In this forum, http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5647902&#5647902, this shows that N73, not only with me, doesn't really works under Mac OS X Leopard until Nokia will do something for this. :)

I think I just have to wait for the fix or maybe I will stumble to a fix.

I still love my devices.

I love to work. It's one of my passions, to be productive. And also, I love texting. Not that I like textmates, but i have to accept the reality right now that you can reach everybody through SMS or calling them through their numbers.

But texting to me sometimes is very annoying especially if you are working and really focusing much on your work or in your pressure mode. Let say, you are rushing things up then you have your friend or client annoying you so much through texting. He send messages to you asking instructions and you of course, you have to reply. In my case, i don't reply most of the time especially it its not that important really. Texting a lot of characters or giving instructions through SMS really takes time especially if you have an annoying keypad too.

So the problem is, I want to speed up and make things easy and be more productive too. And pleasing my textmates by replying to them promptly without dragging my fingers from the keyboard to the keypads.

Nowadays phones have Bluetooth and if you are lucky enough, you might as well have a s60-Nokia Phone, mine is a Nokia N73 Music Edition and a Apple Mac laptop.

So we have the perfect gadgets. A Nokia N73 and a Macbook. The two gadgets will used their Bluetooth power.

I found this software from Mira Software called Bluephone Elite version 2. Their taglines says, "Your Mobile Phone on your Mac". This one costs $24USD. I'm already using the trial version before deciding if I have to buy it or not. Of course, this is really a good one so far that I found after googling for other good softwares that match my stuffs.

Download the software, then install it. Before it ends installing, a S60 software will be sent to your phone via bluetooth for phone installation. Open the new message, then the installer will install itself. The Bluephon Elite program will be installed in your Macbook, as well as in your N73. In N73 the program is called, BPEnabler. This program can be run automatically. The two should be running together for them to communicate wirelessly.



The BPEnabler inside the Applications Folder of the N73.



Activate the BPEnabler to connect it to the Macbook Bluephone Elite.

What i like in this application is that, you will always have your N73 data and status in your Macbook tray. It has a Signal Status and a Battery indicator. So you don't have to worry if you have a 5-bar or out of the coverage area or if your battery is draining already. This means that you can just keep your mobile phone in your pocket or just hide it somewhere else as long as the Bluetooth signal is strong between the 2 devices.

When your phone and Macbook is connected via bluetooth and Blue Phone Elite is running and so your BPenabler in your phone is active, a status indicator icon in your phone will appear that looks like a car. And in your Macbook, the signal and battery indicator is displayed.



The BPEnabler Status icon sitting beside the connected Bluetooth Icon.


When it comes to SMS, it displays automatically in your screen if you have a New SMS. Displaying it or whatever you wanted just to be notified for new SMS can be configured in the Preferences section. Also with the famous filipino-notification style, the "missed call" and calls. Your Macbook can be used for calling and receving calls too. A notification will be displayed in the screen in real time. The only miss that they didn't include in the software is that, it doesn't synchronized the Read SMS to your phone. So if you have a new SMS, in your phone it will always be displayed that you have a New Message. So your New Messages will pile-up.




The preferences window of the BluePhone Elite version 2



Composing Messages with your phone contacts and Reading New Messages.

But, everything is worth if you talk productivity within your self and your gadgets. You won't be using your phone that much and saving some keypad's usage. So texting, copying and pasting is fast using your computer keyboard. This is very nice and you will really enjoy if you have a lot of textmates! lols...

So give yourself a try of this. I will be trying this also with my HP Ipaq 6365 Phone. Because you can add as many phones as you have in the Preference section of the Bluephone Elite.

N73 Screenshots by ScreenSnaps60 by TerraMobilis - Softwares for Symbians.

So enjoy!

Recently, i got a new Nokia N73. At first, i don't have a planned to buy a new cellphone after i lost my Nokia 3250 3 months ago. A friend of mine let me used his Nokia 6110 cellphone and also i have an HP Ipaq 6365 Pocket PC that can be inserted with a SIM card. But anyway, i got this N73 and of course i want to hook it up and make things very easy when it comes to synchronizing data between my macbook and the new N73.

Having a cellphone like the N73 and not connecting it with my laptop, it's like using a Nokia 5110 back then. Of course with all the beauty of the N73, i was very excited to hook it with my Macbook. At first, i know that N73 can sync with Macbook via Apple iSync, but iSync is limited only to synchronizing contact and calendars in which i found very nice and easy to use and I like that feature.

There are a lot of good tutorials under Google. I just wrote this for the sake of an entry in my blog and of course, because i succeeded in installing and since everything works fine, then i think i have to share my little adventure.

Anyway, for those who have a N73 and wanted to sync it with your Macbook especially with your music and your photos, i will be guiding you step-by-step on how i did things. Right now I'm enjoying my N73 and my Macbook together wirelessly via Bluetooth. The day I got the N73, i just opened the package and pull out the phone and the charger and the free 2GB miniSD memory. That's the only thing that i pulled-out from the box. No more manuals and no more wires. We don't need the USB Cable that comes with the package.

I want to sync the phone via wirelessly because i don't want to pull wires everytime i want to sync. That's what I was doing before using my Nokia 3250 and a windows desktop/laptop.

What i have for the setup are:
Macbook Black Edition with OS X 10.4 Tiger build 10 (10.4.10)
iTunes
iPhoto
Aperture
iSync (pre-installed)
Bluetooth (pre-installed)
Nokia Multimedia Transfer

First step that we will do is, we gonna add the N73 to our Bluetooth devices. Turn your N73 Bluetooth On and also enable your Mac Bluetooth. Be sure that N73 Bluetooth is discoverable. This can be done unde the Menu->Tools->Bluetooth and set the device "Shown to all". At the upper-right, click your Bluetooth icon and select Setup a Bluetooth Device.






Since we are setting up the Nokia N73 and Macbook pairing, choose Mobile Phone


Check "iSync setup for Contacts and Events". You can choose to select to Access the internet using the Mobile phone. This is possible if the Device has a modem. with regards to N73, it is possible to connect to the internet wirelessly with Smart3G connection which is cheap at 10.00 per 30 minutes flat rate. If you choose, just press continue and don't be bothered by the username and password. When connecting to Smart, they don't need our login credentials. They just want our loads.




By following the screen shots and guides above properly, you will have now your N73 connected with your Macbook via Bluetooth.

In your N73, be sure to set the Macbook bluetooth device "Set as Authorized" so bluetooth and Macbook won't bother you with pairing codes everytime you sync in. This can be done under the Bluetooth Settings in your Phone and move right to another tab. Select the Macbook Bluetooth device and press option, then Set as Authorized.

The next step is only applicable if the setup of your device and the Macbook Bluetooth did not add the device automatically to your Apple iSync.

Next thing is we gonna setup Apple iSync so your contacts and calendars from your Macbook will sync to your N73 device. Open Apple iSync (/Applications/iSync), and in the menu bar, Add Device. Then, the Bluetooth will scan and will display all the devices that it found in range. If you have connected a lot of devices via bluetooth in the past, it will display everything including the newly added device, the N73. If it found the N73, it will comment that iSync can connect to it. So Add the found N73 (or double-click) and follow instructions for it. If you have contacts in Apple Address book and busy schedules in Apple Calendar, it will be sync according to the preference you set for iSync.





Double click on the N73 Device (the Device name) to add it. It will be automatic.



And you're done with iSync. Sync in for the first time. This will sync your contacts from your Macbook to your N73. Whatever you add in your Address Book, it will be added to the phone during the sync process, also to whatever items you modified.


The Nokia Multimedia Manager Preference/Configuration.


Now that you have the contacts and schedules in your mobile that was sync via iSync, the next step is to sync images and sounds from your iTunes and iPhoto. N73 is a power shot mobile from Nokia. That's why i like this new cellphone that i have. I like taking pictures from cellphone because it's handy and multipurpose.

I tried a lot of free softwares for N73 and Mac. Like iTunesWalkman, they are good but they don't serve the best. So i search for more, and especially searching the Nokia websites of anything for the goodness of Mac. Because Mac is now shipped in demand, Nokia I think has awaken up to support their product under Mac. So download your copy now, I used the Nokia Multimedia Transfer.

First, install it after your unzipped it. The step-by-step instructions of the installation are enough and I will not elaborate it here more. After installation, the configuration is very easy. I use Aperture now, but still i like iPhoto. And of course, i'm using iTunes.

Whenever you connect and transfers, Nokia Multimedia Transfer will automatically add the N73 as a device under iPhoto and iTunes. In iTunes, it will create a folder named after the name of your N73 Bluetooth Device. It's in here and under this tree or folder that you would add playlists and music to be sync in to your device. Under the device settings in the Nokia Multimedia Transfer, you can set on how many of your device memory that will be filled-up with music during syncing. So set it, i set it to 60% only. I need more space for my pictures.



A folder with the Device name will be added automatically everytime you sync the N73 with Nokia Multimedia Transfer. All playlists and music under this folder will be sync with your bluetooth device.


Same with iTunes, a folder with the device name will be added automatically inside iPhoto. All photos under this folder will be sync and copied to the device.




So enjoy your N73 and your Macbook without the hassles of wires. For applications installations to your N73, just upload the installer to your N73 and install if from there. :)

Have a good day!