Opera Mini 5 beta 2
If you browse the internet on your phone, you absolutely have to try Opera Mini. The slick looking interface is very intuitive and easy to use. The home screen also has nine speed-dial shortcuts to your favourite sites. A multi-provider search engine textbox lies to the left of the address bar. It will automatically use a faster Wi-Fi connection over mobile internet whenever it finds the opportunity.
Browsing full-fledged websites on a small screen isn't as painful as it used to be.
It wraps the text in a way that avoids horizontal scrolling. It opens every website with a preview pane, thus allowing the user to pan and zoom on the desired section. Actions like zooming in and out and scrolling through sites are smooth and fast. Sites also load at a fair pace over slower EDGE connections, thanks to Opera's page compression technology. Since we're all so used to multi-tabbed browsing, Opera Mini brings the same functionality to our phone - thus letting us multi-task with more than one website at a time.
Nimbuzz
Other than phone calls and SMSes, instant messaging has become one of the favourite modes of communication. Of the many multi-protocol IM apps we've seen, I liked Nimbuzz. This app lets you sign into various messaging services like Google Talk, Yahoo, MSN, Skype, Facebook and many others. All your friends appear in one common list. The interface is pretty slick looking and the fonts are fairly big and clearly readable. You can chat with multiple buddies, thanks to its tabbed interface.
If you have friends and family abroad and want to call them for cheap; Nimbuzz serves you here as well. All you need is an International credit card. Just head over to Nimbuzz.com and buy credit (USD 10 or 25 etc.). After the transaction, your account balance will reflect in the mobile app. Now just dial the international number and call. The app places a phone call over the internet, thus call rates are pretty cheap; a call to the US is USD 0.02 (roughly one rupee). In my experience, over Idea's 2.5G EDGE network I was able to call people without a hitch. The audio quality will be better and consistent if your phone is latched on to a Wi-fi network.
Lastly, all you sparrows can also use its custom Twitter menu to post new messages, check the timeline with options to re-post a tweet etc.
Google Maps
If you have GPS on your phone (heck, even if you don't), Google Maps is quite a useful app - especially for people with a bad sense of direction. The Map view has fairly updated street names as well as building/landmark names. Thanks to Assisted GPS, it acquires a fix on your location quite fast. The best purpose of this app is to get directions from Point A to Point B. However, the only problem is that it will show you one preset route instead of giving you multiple options like other navigation software.
But it has been accurate most of the time and has served me well on many journeys. Another cool feature is Google Latitude. With it, you can allow your friends to view your location. But in my experience, it does not update locations on the fly. It is rather inaccurate at times, which is slightly disappointing.
Despite a few downfalls, Google Maps comes in quite handy. The next beta version of the app will include turn-by-turn navigation; much like dedicated navigation devices. That is when it will truly become a gem of an app.
Gmail
Close to 90 percent of the people I know use Gmail. The reason why people prefer this mail service to any other is because it completely changed the game with respect to web-mail. While other providers were trying to make their interface more colorful and eye-candy, Gmail kept it simple but functional. Other than GBs of free storage, it also offers some innovative features like threaded conversations. Now you can get all that on your mobile phone.
The Gmail app looks and feels similar to their web-based version. Mails get downloaded pretty fast. Each number on your keyboard is a shortcut for commonly performed tasks. The app also has an offline mode. In the rare probability that you end up in a no-network area, you can still compose messages, which will be sent once you're back online.
A couple of things I missed in the app: 1) there's no way to add attachments. 2) The navigation buttons are swapped (like those stupid older Motorola phones). For example: Menu is on the right and Cancel on the left. 3) Lastly, scrolling through long mails is slightly laggy.
Stopwatch
Symbian Series 60 has become quite a mature platform. But not including a stopwatch in current day phones is completely ludicrous. This was even available in my cheap Nokia 1208!
Nonetheless, it is imperative for all to go out there and download this free alternative. It can let you run five stopwatches at once with 40 split/lap times. Tip: On a Nokia E series QWERTY device, the A key is to start the timer.
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