Nokia N85 Preview

More than a year has passed and the N95 has reigned as Nokia's top high volume feature-packed phone. The overpriced and slower N96 didn't do well in the market but the N86 was unveiled to serve as the N95's successor with a lower price point for the masses.



Opening it up:


Packed with almost everything you'll need such as the phone (N85-1), battery (BL-5K: Extended 850 mAh), charger (AC-10), Nokia 8GB microSD card (MU-43), Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U), USB cable (CA-101) and stereo headset with controls (HS-45, AD-54):


First impressions are very good with a large vibrant high quality screen. Build quality is much improved over the N95 with a spring loaded side mechanism but still not as solid as the older Nokia E65. There was little to no creaking while the phone is closed.



The N85 isn't groundbreaking as the phone it replaces. It features almost the same specs as its predecessor such as HSDPA, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, built-in WiFi and GPS, and the dual sliding mechanism. But its stand out feature is the use of an OLED screen that uses less power than a traditional LCD and makes black very black as the individual pixels are not lighted. A few other little upgrades is the addition of a FM transmitter for broadcasting music from the N85 and use of 2 LEDs for the camera flash.



Stay tuned for the upcoming review as I take the Nokia N85 around the block.

Sony Ericsson W580i Review

It has been a while since I've had a new phone to review but this one is a special one. Unlike my most recently reviews, this isn't a Nokia - it's a Sony Ericsson. When my mom was ready to replace her aging Motorola V3 RAZR which was having a difficult time holding a charge, I looked at the best cheap phone she could get. Since she was on Rogers and her contract had been up for a while, the best place was to get a phone on contract. My mom isn't big on e-mail or browsing the web so a smartphone would overcomplicate things for her. There were a few Motorola flips and Nokia flips that didn't even look as nice as the RAZR - as you can tell, she's big on asthetics. But she spotted a pink thin slider that sparked her interest - namely the W580i.

The firmware on my W580i is R8BE001 (the initial Rogers production firmware). The box contains the phone, Sony Ericsson Battery BST-38 900 mAh, travel charger CST-60, USB data cable, Sony Ericsson Stereo Headset HPM-70, 512MB Memory Stick Micro card, and Sony Ericsson CD with utilities and programs


The W580i is a very sleek thin slider running Sony Ericsson's proprietary OS.

Quick facts:
Name: Sony Ericsson W580i
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900
Weight: 94 g
Dimensions: 99 x 47 x 14 mm
Battery life (stand by): 370 hours
Battery life (talk): 540 minutes

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Malaysia.

The W580i opened:

There are no keys on the right of the phone. The left side has a very recessed volume rocker which is hard to push since it's so thin. The top has a very recessed black power button on the keypad half that is difficult to push when the phone is opened.

Aesthetics
The W580i is a beautiful phone in pink. Unlike most manufacturer's who just change the faceplate and call it a new colour (like Nokia and RIM), SE has gone all the way with pink LEDs behind the D-pad and number pad, shiny pink plastic between the keys in the number pad, and a pink headset. A really great job by SE.

The W580i is a lot better looking than Nokia's 5610. SE did a lot better job in the use of colors.

The sides of the phone have very little grip so I push the slide from the bottom to open the slider.

Side featuring the LED:

Although it's a little tacky for a business phone, the LED looks OK for a personal phone

Opening the slider will automatically unlock the keyboard while closing the slider will display the lock option for the center, after a couple seconds of being closed the phone will auto key lock (change this at menu > settings >phone > automatic keyguard). Auto keyguard does not apply when the slider is open.

Sony Ericsson W580i to the Nokia E71

A good sized screen that keeps up with the big boys

Sony Ericsson W580i to the Motorola V3 RAZR

The W580i is impressively thin and definitely pocketable.

The sim card holder is not good with just a slot. Taking out the SIM is tricky as you need to push it in and slide:


The W580i has a creaks all over when you push on it from any two sides. The battery cover slid off a couple times so we had to tape it to the phone.

Display
The screen is a good size and resolution is at 240 x 320 pixels (2 inches) and can display up to 262,144 (18-bit) colors. But a major problem is the very slow refresh rate causing a lot of ghosting.


The W580i keypad is well lit with lighting even coming from the sides:


The W580i is recessed but fully exposed with no layer of glass or plastic to protect the LCD.

Keyboard

Upper half featuring the soft keys and D-pad:


Lower half featuring the number pad:


The raised outer rim around the D-pad makes pushing any direction difficult without using your nails. The soft keys are wobbly and don't feel very accurate in differentiating between the top and bottom buttons. The W810i soft keys feel a lot better than the W580i even though they are laid out the same. The bottom of the soft keys (back and C keys) are very close to the Walkman and task buttons making them feel odd pressing them.

The number pad is flush with the lower part of the phone without the usual notches on the number 3 so it's hard to dial without looking. The buttons are large enough for midsized fingers. The bottom set of keys are really close to the rim of the phone so they can be tricky to press.

There is a known issue with earlier W580i in green that had cracking keypads due to the paint used. Luckily this phone hasn't had that problem yet after a couple months of use.

In hand

The W580i is a good size and comfortable to hold

Software
As i mentioned before, the W580i runs SE's proprietary OS. There are very little Rogers customizations like the left and right softkey can't be changed so it's stuck as Calls and Roger's music player.

The phone feels slow within the menus but the music/video player was more smooth and faster than the 5310.

Not much is different between the old W810i and the W580i so you can refer to my W810i review for details on the software.

Reception
The W580i supports all 4 GSM frequencies for world roaming.

Sound Quality
I experienced some problems with voice cutting in and out but none of my calls were dropped. Audio is loud enough but didn't increase enough in loud environments.

The Rogers firmware prevents you from using any MP3 as a ringtone. You must first DRM the MP3 using SE software or purchase MP3 ringtunes from Rogers.

Speakerphone
The W580i has loud speakers with no bass. The audio quality is not as good as the stronger W810i speakers. It also only plays mono through the speakers.

Headset use
The W580i sales package includes a stereo headset (color matching in pink too!) for the W580i's SE proprietary port. The 5610 also supports Bluetooth stereo headsets through A2DP but I wasn't able to test this.


Multimedia Features

Camera
The W580i has a 2MP (1600 x 1200 pixels) camera

The camera is protected by a plastic cover that's hidden when the camera is closed.

UI:

Since the W580i isn't a Cybershot, it uses the traditional SE camera UI with limited support for shortcuts and very little options.

The only other 2MP camera phone I have available is the venerable W810i. The main advantage of the W810i is its autofocus but it does take a longer time to take a photo since you can't disable autofocus and must wait for the focus.

Close up (W580i / W810i with macro)

Without autofocus, the W580i cannot get a sharp image of the grapefruit. The background cup looks sharp however. Colors are pale on the W580i but much too warm on the W810i.

Macro (W580i / W810i with macro)

Without macro mode, the W580i cannot focus and produces really bad photos. The W580i tries to mask this problem with blurring the noise. The W810i has noticable noise but sharp.

Dim (W580i with nightmode/ W810i with nightmode)

The W580i produced much more noise than the W810i but attempts to hide it with aggressive use of blurring.

Daylight (W580i / W810i)

Surprisingly the W580i produced a warmer and sharper photo than the W810i if you look at the cars. However the W580i still uses a little more blurring so the bricks are not as clear as the W810i. I prefer the photo with the W580i in this instance.

The photos produced by the W580i uses too much blurring to hide noise in all cases. There were no unreasonable shutter delay as those found on mid-ranged Nokia photos such as the 5610. Photo saving also takes a reasonable amount of space unlike the 6 seconds of the 5610.

The W580i camera produces impressive results in the daylight but the lack of autofocus and macro limits its use in close up photos. The W580i doesn't have a flash LED so you can't take photos in darkness.


External Memory
A 512MB memory card is included in the W580i. The memory card is accessible without opening the battery cover.

Battery
Battery is good but not impressive. The W580i lasts 3.5 days from full charge. Without a SIM card or placing the phone in flight mode, the phone lasted 5 days without a charge.

Ratings:
Performance...........6
Build quality...........8
Keypad...................6
Connectivity...............3
Features for $.........8 (Rogers $29.99 for 2 years)
Software................8
Camera..................8
Battery life.............4

Overall.....................7


PROS:
*Attractive exterior design
*Flexible SE OS
*Great build quality
*Decent camera images

CONS:
*Slow menu navigation
*No autofocus or macro mode in camera
*No 3G support.
*Complicated menu system
*No 3.5mm headset jack
*cheap battery cover

Overall the W580i is a great mid-ranged phone with a very compelling design and decent build quality. The W580i produces shockingly great images from its non-autofocus 2MP camera. The sluggish UI can be frustating to some people. I had some call quality issues but phone always reports full bars with the Rogers network in Toronto.

Nokia N86 Announced

After Samsung had released a 8MP S60 camera phone called the INNOV8 and Sony Ericsson announced their Idou 12MP Symbian phone, Nokia announces their 8MP phone the N86:

For those holding a N82 or N79 and hoping for an upgrade, the N86 only features dual LED and no Xenon flash.

In case you're still interested, here are more quick details:


N86 DatasheetName: Nokia N86
CPU: Freescale MXC300, 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S RISC + StarCore SC140 DSP
RAM: 128 MB (user accessible: 71 MB)
Network: EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100 or WCDMA 850,1900,2100
Weight: 149 g
Dimensions: 103.4 x 51.4 x 16.5 mm
Battery life (stand by): up to 11.5 hours (WCDMA), 13h (GSM) (these values seem too low so the datasheet might have a typo)
Battery life (talk): up to 234 minutes (WCDMA), 378 minutes (GSM)

As in all Nseries, the N86 will include 802.11b/g WiFi connectivity, support video capture at 640x480 up to 30fps, feature a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, and support Nokia's ngage gaming service. Luckily the N86 features the amazing 2.6 inch OLED display that got high praises on the N85 and it also integrates a FM transmitter that was a strong selling point of the N79. The N86 includes 8GB of internal memory and supports microSDHC up to 16GB.

Spec-wise it's a strong phone but something I would've liked to have seen last year. For all those Nokia users that have been asking for better materials on the Nseries, you'll be happy to know that Nokia's added a chrome trim on the sides of the top half. The design looks a bit like the N97 but the number pad reminds me of the older Motorola T720 from almost a decade ago.

WidSets: More than just RSS

http://www.widsets.com

Cell phones have become the premier device for people to keep connected. And one aspect of keeping connected is to get timely updates of the news and web sites we regularly follow. If RSS reader and/or Twitter were the first things that popped in your mind then you're along the right lines. I personally stick to RSS readers too since almost every web site offers a RSS feed.

While I was going through Nokia's Download! service, I noticed an application that I've heard a lot about but never tried before, WidSets. Widsets is available on almost all Nokia phones as either a Java application for Nokia's mainstream S40 handsets and phones from other manufacturers or as a native S60 application for Nokia's S60 smartphones. It provides a consistent UI and framework for developers to develop online applications called widgets.

For this blog I am reviewing WidSets version 3.1.4 on a Nokia E71. Find out if WidSets is worth trying after the jump.


When you start WidSets it requests access to connect online. Of course you can keep it offline but you'll only be able to see what's cached on your phone the last time you were online and won't get updated content. To quickly tell if you're online or offline, the background of WidSets is black if it's offline and blue if it's online. In a way, offline and online resembles Google Gears and how, just recently, you can browse your Gmail while offline based on what you've previously viewed.


Once WidSets is connected, the workspace background turns blue. I guess it's to say it's daytime. The AccuWeather widget will display the current weather right on the widget button.Without any widgets on your screen when you first start, you'll want to browse through Widset's list of widgets. A quick glance at what's available may lead you to believe it's just another RSS reader since you have Nokia Discussions, Wall Street Journal, Howard Forums, and Wikipedia. And that isn't too far from the truth. Unfortunately most widgets don't give you much functionality and the quality between them vary greatly. So to be fair I'm going to review one of the popular widgets that is a little more than just a news reader and one that you may find useful too.

Browsing through the widgets (left) you can see the popularity of the widget and only the widget title is displayed. You can also search for a particular widget (middle). The detailed view (right) doesn't give you any added information. Click images for larger versions.


The popular Facebook social networking application makes its way onto WidSets and impresses with its features.It's a popular social networking web site that has a native application for almost all smartphones like the Blackberry and iPhone. You may have seen your friends adding the application. It's Facebook and for Nokia handsets it comes in the form of a widget. Unlike most widgets (I'm looking at you, the Howard Forums widget), you can interact with the Facebook widget by logging in. Inside you'll get all your latest notifications, browse through your friends and read their details, browse through photo galleries, update your status, and even upload photos to your own gallery. This is almost everything you can do in the real Facebook web site minus the custom applications. If you were put off by most widgets, I definitely recommend the Facebook widget if you're a Facebook addict.


Browse through your friends and view their details. Browse through photo galleries. Zoom in on any photo. Update your status or even upload a photo. Click images for larger versions.


Most WidSets widgets like Wall Street Journal Online, Howard Forums, and Nokia Discussion are just a newsfeed and do not feature any interactive features like posting comments.Unfortunately, all widgets are contained within the WidSets application so as good as the Facebook widget is, it never feels great as you can't access the widget directly as a shortcut from your home screen. The weather widget is nice that it immediately updates with the current weather when you open Widset, but wouldn't it be even better if the weather widget appeared as a dedicated application and its icon automatically updated based on the weather? You're left continuously clicking back into the WidSets application and that's the weakness. First it takes a few clicks to go into the WidSets application unless you have it on your home screen. Secondly, the UI for WidSets is laid out horizontally while all the widgset icons are horizonatally wide and fairly large. With at most 3 widgets stacked in each column, you can't see all your widgets at once and scrolling doesn't wrap so you'll be scrolling a lot to get to your last and right most widget.

Some really great widgets like Facebook, it's offline capabilities, and wealth of widgets make Widsets a very useful application to add to your phone. Since widgets are designed for mobile devices, all the content are easy to navigate on small screens. Lot of medocre widgets that don't do any more than a RSS reader, a clunky UI that needs a lot of scrolling and provides little detail to the widgets available, and a framework that limits widgets to being within the WidSets application hurt the overall user experience while using Widsets. I recommend giving WidSets a try to see if there are any widgets that interest you and whether your appreciate the WidSets UI layout.

Eric's Software Rating: Worth a try

Nokia Internet Radio

These days we don't think twice about streaming content from the Internet. With the S60 operating system, you have a diverse selection of media streaming choices such as your local TV through SlingPlayer, YouTube through MobiTubia, or Last.fm through Mobbler to meet most people's needed. But just a few years ago, none of this was common place on cell phones. Find out if Internet Radio on your S60 is worth trying after the jump.

One of Nokia's early projects to jump start mobile streaming on S60 back in 2006 was Internet Radio. It's a simple media player that supports the very popular SHOUTcast streaming audio playback in MP3 or AAC+ streams. These days most S60 phones come with Internet Radio. I must admit, I never opened it because I doubted Nokia's support for the product and the music selection available.

But since I'm writing this review I have to give a try just to see what it's all about.

Start screen

Very straightforward. You choose if you want to continue listening to what you were listening the last time of you can browse another. You can save your stations under favorites for quick access. Or if you want something fresh you can browse through the station directory.

Station Directory

Here you can browse through the directory of stations in several ways. It's not implemented as a filter system because I wanted to browse for Dance in English but I ended up going through so much French Dance stations that I gave up.

By Genre

There's a good selection of some of the popular choices. I found that Indian music was the most popular and offered the best selection of stations.

Music Player Interface

It's simple and does its thing. Pushing down on the D-pad will bring up the radio station details. No equalizer, unfortunately. I don't have a S60 phone with media keys like the N95/N96 so I'm not sure if they work in Internet Radio. If you do have a N95/N96, please let me know by leaving a comment.

Radio Station Details

Here you get all the information that the radio station is categorized. Unfortunately categorization needs some work as my radio station that's playing a Michael Bolton song seems to fall under Korean Pop.

Although there are a number of applications that are either better or have a better selection of content, it's hard not to recognize Nokia's effort in creating something that showcases practical usage of S60 functionality such as codecs. Some of these ideas are of course utilized in other projects such as MobiTubia. But I think the cost of data and availabilty of WiFi on S60 phones have helped drive streaming media to mobiles more so than Internet Radio.

Internet Radio comes with most S60 phones so it's worth a little time to browse through and see if you find anything you life. Unfortunately there are a lot of music tastes that are under served such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese. It's also unfortunate that Nokia controls the radio station directory so you can't add your own to Internet Radio and you can't suggest one to Nokia. It's very limited but neat.

Software Rating: Worth a try

Nokia N82: A Year in Review

Looking and functioning like new after one year of use and taking over 3200 photos

It was a year ago I bought my Nokia N82 to replace my dated Sony Ericsson W810i. The N82 had big shoes to fill because my W810i had served me well for almost a year and I took over 3600 photos with it. I loved the W810i 3.2MP camera but I felt really constrained with a non-Smartphone. I had tried the Nokia N95 but the slider felt cheap and I was very worried about scratching the exposed LCD. But I loved the 5MP camera, having WiFi to avoid data costs, and the S60 OS' flexibility. When the N82 was announced I knew I had to get the phone. It was everything the N95 was but in a more manageable size and candy bar format.

Although the N82 wasn't a North American (NAM) phone since it only had 2100 3G band, I couldn't wait for a NAM version - turns out I made the right decision since Nokia never released one. I was going to visit Japan that month so having 2100 3G would be useful there since they didn't support GSM. Plus, data costs in Canada were ridiculously expensive at the time (7MB for $40, 200MB for $100) so I wouldn't use NAM 3G even if I had it.

Build Quality

The D-pad still feels squishy and I still don't like the chicklet number keysIn my initial review, I mentioned the build quality of the N82 was solid. As with everything that age, like the floorboards of a house, it developed creaks. When I pinch the phone by the sides I can hear the slight creek. Pinching the phone by the top and bottom doesn't creek. The D-pad still makes a squishy sound like plastic ribbons touching each other. The initial looseness of the D-pad gave me the impression that it could just fall off from the rest of the keypad but that hasn't happened yet. I've dropped my phone a few times including one big drop and sliding along a few feet of pavement - that scratched up the back and sides but nothing really bad and the cream colored rear make hide scratches pretty well. The spring loaded camera shutter still has its spring. For the most part, the N82 works like it did a year ago. Amazing job Nokia!

Dust

Most dust gets under the battery coverThe left soft key has become softer to push than the right soft key. Dust has got into the front viewing camera. If I tap my phone hard enough I can move the dust around. Slight dust gets into the memory card slot. Dust gets into the battery compartment too. The exposed micro USB slot didn't accumulate as much dust as I'd imagine. That goes for the top ear piece. My old Sony Ericsson T616 had a big ear piece dust problem that once in a while I'd blast really loud music out of it so the sound pushes out the dust. I also haven't gotten too much dust into the 5MP camera yet so the shutter is actually doing a great job. The most important thing: thankfully dust hasn't gotten into the main display yet. I had a problem with dust getting under the screen on my Nokia 6682.

Software/Hardware Remarks
I've only updated the firmware twice on my N82. My N82 is still on V 20.0.062 as of this writing since I haven't run into any major problems with this firmware. My N82 has gone through the occasional crash and reboots that accompanies any technology. I want to remember the last time it crashed but I can't remember when so that's a good thing or I have a bad memory. The N82 did suffer a major hardware/software problem on one of my vacations where I took a lot of photos during the day and the Xenon flash stopped recharging. I'm not sure everyone notices this but every time you go back to the viewfinder the camera will charge the Xenon flash. Meaning that every time you start the camera or exit the menu in the camera application, it will charge the Xenon flash so that's why taking photos quickly kills your battery. Now when my Xenon flash stopped recharging the camera wouldn't show the viewfinder anymore, stopped allowing me to take photos, and just showed a black screen. I thought my N82's camera was a goner. My N82 was a EURO version so I wasn't looking forward to mailing it to Europe for servicing. Thankfully it started working again after avoiding the camera for a day. Since then the Xenon hasn't been a problem with just occasionally taken a little long to recharge between uses.


The multimedia key placement makes it easy to confuse as the capture keyUsability, I hated that multimedia key beside the camera button and I continue to hate it. But I don't hate it enough to keep running MagicKey in the background to remap that key. Surprisingly, not a lot of people accidentally hit the multimedia when I ask them to help take a photo of myself. But people who take our photos aren't accustomed to having auto focus on a camera phone so our photos usually come out unfocussed.

I really like the support for micro USB. It's a lot less fragile than the old pop port connector since the old CA-53 data cable had a hook on it.

I'd have to admit, I never used uPnP on my N82 before. I just don't have any other devices that support it.

The S60 web browser was really phenomenal when it came out. But it hasn't kept pace against competitors. It has fairly slow page rendering times and disappointing scores on the web compliance acid3 test.

Life Changing

The 5MP takes amazing photos in the daylight and Xenon helps it take amazing photos in the darkThe 5MP auto focus camera has produced some impressive shots for me. It's much more convenient than taking a dedicated camera with me. I've taken over 3200 photos with my N82. At first I had troubles getting the photos settings just right for evening dinner shots without Xenon. Most of them turned out too dark or blurry. I needed my N82 to take indoor photos with little light since I review restaurants in my food blog. I wasn't fond of the large auto focus box since I was used to the small box and easier to focus W810i. But I got accustomed to it, which really meant I would give auto focus a number of tries before I gave up.

The GPS function that I just played around with on the N95 has become the killer feature for me. I am dependent on it for driving directions on all my trips. When I'm in an unfamiliar place and in a taxi/limo, I use it to make sure they're going the right way and not scamming me by going in circles. When I'm in the car, I've found parking lots and alternative routes that have saved me countless hours and money. Sometimes it's as simple as saving your car location in a huge parking lot before walking away so you can find your car later when it's dark. I would never consider buying another primary phone without GPS.

Speaking of saving money, it's obvious that built-in WiFi (802.11g) has saved me money by getting data to my phone without going over EDGE or 3G cell networks. It's also a lot faster than EDGE. I took advantage of WiFi when I was in Japan to check my e-mail without needing to carry my laptop. On a daily basis I use it to stream YouTube using MobiTube.

The N82 is still in my Life

Nokia E71 for e-mails and web browsing. Nokia N82 for everything elseMy N82 is still my primary phone for the most part. But I recently received a Nokia E71 as a birthday present and it has taken much of the spotlight for multimedia since its landscape orientation doesn't require me to rotate the phone and the full keyboard is a lot more convenient to type in URLs. I got the E71 primarily for synchronizing my e-mail with my company's exchange server. The security policies on the Exchange server prevent Mail for Exchange to work on any Nokia phone outside their E-series. I still rely on the N82 as my GPS because it locks onto satellites a lot faster and camera since its 5MP and Xenon can't be matched. I bought my N82 a year ago for $599 USD and never regretted paying a premium for it. It is a powerful phone with all the currently sought after features. That is impressive for a phone that was released over a year ago. If my N82 broke I would definitely pick up another N82 to replace it. The only question is which color? :)

A little snipplet of the places I've taken my N82:

HappyWakeUp

http://www.happywakeup.com/en/index.htm

HappyWakeUp is a smart alarm clock that aims to improve your mornings by waking you up when your body is the most ready to get up. A friend of mine heard of this software from a Canadian news podcast (CBC) and was wondering if this software actually worked. So she asked me to give it a try and I thought it'd be another review to add to my blog. More importantly, I'm not a morning person, so if this actually worked I'll feel better in the morning.

According to Smart Valley, the software makers of HappyWakeUp, HappyWakeUp is based on medical research of human sleep structure, sleep cycles, and sleep disorders. HappyWakeUp monitors your sleep using the microphone of the phone and makes statistical analysis of your sleep quality to determine when your body is ready to wake up.

For this to all work, you have to place your phone really close to your head while you're sleeping so those of you worried about cell phones causing brain cancer should stay away from this software. They suggest placing the phone in either of the following locations:

• Beneath the pillow or sheet near the pillow with microphone down
• Bed table within 50cm of pillow with microphone up

If you're OK with sleeping so close to the phone then let's check out the software. For my post I am testing Happy WakeUp version 1.15.

HappyWakeUp connects to the Internet to check licenses (scary!)

Available licenses:

If you download HappyWakeUp from the S60 then you can get a 7 day free trial otherwise you have to pay.

This is what you get when you forget the set the S60 alarm first:

It's not the most user friendly interface but at least there aren't many options to confuse users

Starting HappyWakeUp:

After setting up your regular alarm you're greeted by a screen that shows you the current time in large font, the original S60 alarm time at the bottom, and between that is the window (usually 20 minutes before your S60 alarm) for waking you up.

I mentioned earlier that HappyWakeUp will try to wake you up at the best time but of course that time could be anywhere during your sleep since your body will go into the different stages of sleep more than just once. So HappyWakeUp will only wake you up between the window and your S60 alarm. If HappyWakeUp can't figure out the best time it'll just sound the alarm at the S60 alarm's time.

I tested HappyWakeUp for 3 nights straight and set up another phone to serve as my alarm back up in case HappyWakeUp didn't sound the alarm. For the first 2 nights, HappyWakeUp sound the alarm about 15 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was not ready to wake up and just turned off the alarm and waited for my back up alarm to sound. For the third night it woke me up just after my dream got near the end (the dream was actually getting boring) which was about 17 minutes before my S60 alarm. I was so groggy and couldn't get out but I did hit snooze on HappyWakeUp instead of off. Then it sounded at my regular time and I was grumpy as usual. Maybe even more.

I snoozed through every HappyWakeUp alarm. Overall I was still grumpy as usual and sleepy so it didn't feel like it worked for me. Considering I could easily replace HappyWakeUp with multiple alarms, I find HappyWakeUp very expensive.

Software Rating: Not Recommended