This is Part 3 of our 4 part on-going “Introducing S60 V5” Series.
S60 V5 is Symbian’s new Touch UI. While many things remain the same as the previous S60 v3, the new updated OS and UI does bring about a couple new things here and there.
Today we’re going to talk about Connectivity, Settings and the Calendar in S60 v5. That covers everything from GPS, Bluetooth and other Connectivity options, Installing and Uninstalling Applications and the such. This was done on a Nokia 5800, so some things might be different or not present on other S60 V5 devices like the upcoming N97 or Samsung Omnia HD.
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The Calendar :
Okay, I know this is something particularly strange to talk about, but I was really glad to see that S60 V5 uses the same improved Calendar Application, as the Eseries devices like the E71. Atleast on the 5800.
Of course this has been modified a bit to work with touch. Depending on whether you’re in portrait or landscape mode, you can view your Calendar Entries for each day that you highlight. You also have shortcut keys to change view mode to Day/week/month, to setup a new Meeting or Appointment, and a shortcut to setup a new To-Do list.
It has all the basic options you’d expect and all that was available back on S60 V3.
Of course, there are more settings you can tinker with. You can change the Calendar Alarm Tone, the Day that the week starts on, default view, etc.
Nothing else than previous S60 iterations, I’m glad to say.
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GPS :
GPS support in your S60 V5 device depends on your Manufacturer and your device capabilities, really. Nokia Handsets have the luxury of being able to use exclusive GPS Applications like Nokia SportsTracker or the Nokia Maps Application for Turn-by-Turn Navigation on foot, or by vehicle. Samsung has yet to implement such an Application, but any other 3rd Party application that uses the GPS feature (such as Google Maps on S60) should work just fine.
The Location Application should be Standard inS60 V5 (we think), and hence might appear on other manufacturer devices too. The location app, consists of Landmarks, GPS Data, and Positioning.
The Landmarks Application lists out all the landmarks/favorites you’ve saved using Nokia Maps or Google Maps on S60.
The GPS Data Application consists of Navigation, Position and Trip Distance. As soon as you start up this app, it looks for a GPS signal and tries to get a Lock-on. The Navigation App lists out your signal strength among other things.
Unfortch we couldnt get a good lock on at the time of review, so these screenshots are the best we could do.
Also in the Navigation app, you can set the latitude and longitude of your destination if you wish to.
The postion application, as the name suggests, shows you more details on your exact position, once its gotten a GPS lock-on.
The Trip Distance application does what the name says. It keeps track of your total trip distance. Can be really useful at times.
The last application, is Positioning. This is where all the Positioning Settings are available.
There’s Positioning Methods, if you have an External GPS module, Positioning server and access point selection, and Notation preferences.
That’s it for the GPS Data folder.
Nokia Maps is also available on Nokia S60 V5 handsets by default. This is Nokia’s navigation app, and it does an okay job. Unfortch, they dont really cover India well (at all) so you dont see any roads or names in the below screenshot. Hey, atleast it shows land and water though.
When you start up Nokia Maps, it asks you whether it can go online to download the Map for the place you’re in, or to use A-GPS to get a lock faster, etc. You can set it to work offline though.
There are a number of settings and options. In Map Mode, you can choose the type of Map you’re viewing. Tools, have a few options to tinker with, and Extras holds all the licenses to the guides or navigations you’ve subscribed to.
In settings, you have more options to check out. Internet, Navigation options, Route and Map options.
The screenshots speak for themselves, so we wont go into more detail on these.
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Device Settings :
It goes without saying, that in S60 V5, device settings change from phone to phone, but this should give you a brief idea of what to expect.
There are five main settings. Personal, Phone, Application Manager, Calling and Connectivity Settings.
Starting with Personal, this settings allows you to choose or edit your profiles, themes and Home Screen Selections. We’ve covered Home screens in detail before, so we wont go into detail again here.
Profiles are mostly the same as in S60 v3, but you now have settings to control the level of Vibration in the Haptic Feedback, and Touch screen tones.
Moving on to Phone Settings, you have the Date and Time settings which has a whole bunch of basic settings to mess around with. About the same as S60 v3.
You also have Language and Display settings, which is again, also more or less similar to S60 V3.
You also have Voice Commands on the 5800, which allows you to use voice commands to start an application, switch profiles, call voice mailbox, etc.
One new addition in S60 V5 though, is Sensor Settings. This is present in newer S60 v3 phones, under different names. These settings allow you to switch on or off device auto-screen-rotation, proximity sensors, and Flip-To-Silence features of the 5800.
There’s also Touch Settings, which we’ve covered earlier.
There’s various settings for Accessories that lets you configure how the device acts with any attached accessories.
Moving on, there is Application Settings, which lets you set the default applications to open certain types of files, etc. You can also mess with a couple more app-specific settings.
There’s also the Phone Management setting, and Notification Light.
Phone Management is where you can change settings for Keypad AutoLock timings, security codes, etc.
Moving on, there’s the Application Manager. This is where you can install and uninstall applications on your device. You can also view more details on installed apps, such as how much memory they occupy, developer details, version number, etc.
There’s the Calling Settings, which lets you play around with call-related options.
Finally, we head to the Connectivity Settings.
Connectivity, of course, depends on the type of device you have, and its capabilities.
In particular, S60 V5 has a new option called “Destinations” which is present in newer S60 V3 devices. Destinations is basically an improved Access Point List. You can choose your Access Points and assign priorities to them, so that they are used in that order.
When it comes to Bluetooth, S60 V5 has all the S60 V3 settings and choices, but also has an option to block Bluetooth devices from connecting to your device, which is something new.
If your device supports it, there’s also a USB connection setting.
There’s also other settings like Network, etc.
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That’s it for part 3. Join us for the final post in our 4 part Introducing S60 V5 Series !
Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile and mobile-related accessories.
Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, on Google Plus 
or on Facebook or Twitter: Follow @clintonjeff
are there any apps coming up on v5?
i recently conveted from nseries to 5800. after the initial hitch, i ended up trying various software that worked on the N95/N82/N85/N96 will work on the 5800xm. I've not tried "handy safe" but I use "best safe" that works well on the 5800xm. I'm also using the same stopwatch program that I had on the N82/N96 with my 5800xm along with a few java apps. is there a way to get handy safe on 5800?
are there any apps coming up on v5?
i recently conveted from nseries to 5800. after the initial hitch, i ended up trying various software that worked on the N95/N82/N85/N96 will work on the 5800xm. I've not tried "handy safe" but I use "best safe" that works well on the 5800xm. I'm also using the same stopwatch program that I had on the N82/N96 with my 5800xm along with a few java apps. is there a way to get handy safe on 5800?
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