Some Uses for My Nokia Nseries Phones
I saw a couple of blog posts this morning that reminded me of ways that I, too, personally use my Nokia Nseries phones. I’ve also used a few of my E-Series phones this way as well, albeit with different content.
The Nokia N93 blog points to this Operation Gadget article where Dave uses the Nokia N93 to play music for his son using the speakers. While I don’t use it to listen to children’s music, I frequently use my phones to listen to podcasts downloaded using the Nokia Podcasting application. I listen to them around the house or in the car. My current playlist is KenRadio, TWiT, Security Now!, The Daily Giz Wiz, MacBreak Weekly, and Diggnation. Diggnation is not exactly kid-safe, so I make sure I listen to that one in headphones.
Unlike many self-respecting geeks, I don’t own an iPod. I’ve been using my Nokia phones to listen to music or podcasts at least as far back as when I received my Nokia 9500 a couple years back. It was the first non-computer device I had that would play MP3s. It was not exactly the best form factor, but it worked. The Nokia N93, while not a small device either, is much better suited for this purpose.
The other thing I have used my Nokia phones for is to play video content. Usually, I only watch my N93 while travelling–something I don’t do all that often. What I do is take television program episodes encoded in other formats and encode them into the appropriate 3GP format that will play on the phones.
If I used a PC frequently, I could use Nokia’s Multimedia Converter to do the job. The last time I tried this, however, the video that came out the other end was unwatchable. Perhaps I need to mess with the settings to see what gives me the best results. On a Mac, I use some different tools to get the job done.
Edit: I decided to break out the how-to encode stuff into a different post.
