ukmp is a very feature rich media player for the Nokia Internet Tablets, and in this new version, which has just been released to the main software repositories, offers some very nice new features.  v1.83 now offers, natively within the program, portrait support, as shown above.  This version offer much improved album art handling (it’s likely to remove all existing album art on installation to allow this benefit to show), better handling of things like the play / pause buttons, and an oft requested feature; a close button on the main screen.

The only real downside is a display limit of 35 songs per album, which seems to be a fair compromise between functionality and speed.  Applications like ukmp are starting to show the real power of the Nokia Tablets off to their full; as an overall experience it may not match that of an iPhone / iPod Touch, but apps like ukmp should make people less shy about showing off their tablets.

ukmp is already available from the maemo extras software repository and the new version should make an appearance any time now.

fring had a small problem last week, the latest iPhone / iPod Touch firmware, v2.2 broke their app ever so slightly, but not to fear, they’ve now released an updated version which should fix the connection issues with the previous version.  If you use fring, head over to fring for more information; to get the update simply go to the App Store.

Opera Mini 4.2 has been formally released, and not just for Symbian and Windows Mobile, as Opera have also released a version for Android.  Opera are claiming that this version is a lot faster in actual operation, and this is partly due to the provision of new server farms in the US and Asia Pacific, which will not just help those areas, but take some of the load off the original European servers too.  Opera Mini 4.2 is available for a fantasticly large range of devices from here.

Nokia has recently announced the above information, which provides details of how much power each generation of Nokia phone charger consumes when left plugged in and turned on but is not charging a phone.  Admittedly the power consumption is not that great, but it still would add up over time.  If you generally use elder chargers then you may want to reach for that power switch a bit more often…

Head over to Nokia for more information.

It’s been a while since we’ve featured PURE Digital, and in that time, they’ve released a whole range of new devices.  The PURE AVANTI Flow (above) is, according to PURE, the ultimate next generation digital audio system.  In the rest of the article we’ve got the specs and details of the other units…

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Well, our review Vodafone netbook arrived on Friday, and we’ve been using it on and off since then; in fact, this article was written completely on the netbook!  Having turned it on, we were impressed the battery came sufficiently charged to get going, although the completion of the XP install took quite some time (as always).  Having got that working, we were impressed by the screen; the 8.9″ screen is nice and clear, and runs at 1024 x 600, which is just big enough; less than 1024 width causes problems on lots of websites, although the 600 height is often not enough, with many websites needed additional scrolling to read.

One thing that the Dell Mini 9 doesn’t have, which was brought out by all that additional vertical scrolling is the lack of a scroll area on the touchpad, something we are used to from larger laptops.  Having said that, the addition of an external scroll mouse has removed most of the problems with the touchpad, by virtue of not using it

Although the whole keyboard is less than full size, a number of the symbol keys are even smaller again, which makes them more difficult to touch type on (eg the comma key is the same size as the main keys but the period key next to it is smaller), but generally the keyboard is acceptable, especially given the size of the unit.

In terms of software installed, there’s a nice range pre-installed, including Microsoft Works and viewers for the various Office document types, Dell video chat and webcam software, McAfee (30 day license only though), and a WiFi / Bluetooth connection application.  We were a little disappointed at the lack of IE7 and the 129Mb of Microsoft patches that were needed straight away, which has of course eaten further into the 8GB SSD Flash it came with.

Overall, our initial impressions are that it’s a nice, small little laptop, and very easy to use and cart around.  Our only other problem; despite what the Vodafone website says, the device claims we are only in a GPRS area, ie no 3G, so we’ve yet to test the Mobile Broadband in anger; more updates later in the week on that.

Update: The Dell Mini 9 does have vertical scroll support in the touchpad, but only after a fresh boot; if you use standby mode, this support seems to get lost on resume, especially if an external mouse is attached, whereas it’s fine on a cold boot even with an external mouse plugged in.

Oh, and once we had connected to Vodafone in a 3G area, all was sorted out, including then listing the original location as a 3G supported area.

Skyfire, an alternative web browser for Symbian and Windows Mobile mobile phones, is now available in an open beta.  If you head to the download page (or click below) from your PC you’ll be able to provide your phone number (for a text message to be sent to you), or if you access the page directly from your device you should get a download link.  Skyfire will take advantage of either Wi-Fi or 3G (or slower) data links to work.  Although it should work on most S60 3rd Edition phones, we’ve heard some people are having problems with certain devices.  The latest version is currently 0.85 BETA.

Do we need another browser in the marketplace?  Well, possibly; if they provide regular updates and provide new features, this may well become the browser of choice of many.  We’ll keep you up to date with how this browser performs over time.

IBM (well, Lotus) have announced that Lotus Notes Traveler (sic) will be available in December for Symbian phones.  Now, there are apparently 140 million Lotus Notes users worldwide, and 80 million Symbian phones out there, and IBM is hoping that there is a nice overlap between the two, and that those users want to access their Notes whilst mobile.  Here at UK Gadgeteer, we believe that there will be a lot of overlap, although whether all those combined Notes / Symbian users will have both decent data contracts *and* friendly IT staff who allow them access will be the real challenge…

Either way, Lotus Notes Traveler will allow these users real time access to email, calendar, address book, journal and to-do list data.  Looking at the supported phone list, it would seem to be supported on all S60 3rd Edition phones, even back to phones like the Nokia N73, and more recent phones like the Nokia N96 and even the Nokia E63, only announced last week.

This isn’t the first big announcement linked to Lotus Notes and mobile usage, but does certainly seem to offer Lotus Notes companies a new method of accessing their data.

More information is available direct from S60.com.

Assuming all is well, you should find that the new iPhone firmware, v2.2 is now available.  Beware although iTunes will happily download the update, unless you already have the absolutely latest version of iTunes, it won’t let you install the update, so be prepared to update iTunes unless you religiously keep that up to date too.

The main new features are Google Street View, the ability to download podcasts directly, an updated Safari browser, improvements to auto-correction, and an ability to rate an application when you delete it.  However, the oft requested copy’n'paste is still not there, nor is any obvious sign of MMS support (although at least one operator is claiming it’s coming soon, although whether it will be via an application or within the firmware is not known); even worse, the application may be specific to the single operator, and not available to all.

Google have updated their Google Sync for BlackBerry product to now include two way Contact Sync.  To get the new version, simply head to m.google.com/sync from your BlackBerry.  More information is here, although we recommend you read the comments there; it appears there are a few bugs for some people, and even some recent BlackBerry devices that are yet to be supported.