Fringe-ing and Garmin-ing my Phone

With my Nokia 5800 being in its current state, I decided that whatever I did with it, its not going to make any difference anyway. It hangs and/or reboots when I make a call, receive a call, view pictures, etc. And so, I decided to install two software, namely Fring and the Garmin XT. These type of software are invaluable and up to now, its not easy to just simply download them for the Nokia 5800 as they need to redo the whole software to cater for the touch screen interface.

Fring (Free)
This is THE software which will make my Nokia 5800 so valuable. I have been waiting for the 5800 version and it was available just a few weeks ago, in March. With it, you can communicate via VOIP and chat with your friends who have Skype, ICQ, Y!M, etc. accounts. By using free Wifi (or GPRS?), just as long as you have Internet connection, you can communicate without paying a sen (Unless you use those GPRS or 3G, whatever it is, since I lost touch with these technology now). Oh, if you have Y!M or other instant messages which you have set to "Invisible" mode on your PC, there is no setting in Fring to being you out to "On-Line" mode. You just have to set them manually on the PC.

Embarassingly, here I am, chatting with friends
of mine, asking them if they can see me on-line or not

Garmin XT (about RM500?)
Right. This is THE GPS software which everyone loved. But I liked the Nokia Maps better. (heh). Like the Fring, there were no Garmin available for the Nokia 5800. The problem with this Symbian S60 touch screen is that the physical buttons does not exist and so, have to be emulated in the software. Some did try but its just a hassle. Then, came version 5.00.40, which was the latest version for the Nokia 5800. And once you have the copy of the latest Malfreemaps, you're ready to go. Oh, and thanks to a certain Ms. Fon, now I have voice guidance. "Ding. At 300 metres, turn left and then turn right...". And yes, how you get this software, is up to you. I cannot say more on this.

The screen interface is very logical. And once
you get used to it, you can navigate quite easily.
Only things is, whenever you press anything,
the Nokia 5800 does not "vibrate" unless you
come out of the Garmin XT software.

Oh, and it also follows the Widescreen mode when you
tilt your Nokia 5800. This is very effective when you
are driving using 3D map view. Cool or not?

As you can see, when you turn the phone on its side,
you can seen more information. This is the "North up"
view setting.

At the moment, I am more comfortable in using the
3D view version. Another thing to note is that even
though the firmware has upgraded to V20, which
means the 5800 now nibbles at the battery like an
anorexic model who has never seen food before. But
towards the end, it behaves like a big oink and you can
see the bars disappearing one by one.