There are many puzzle games out there that have a very simple concept, but fail to bring enough complexity to the table, making each level incredibly easy to solve. Thankfully Feed Me Oil doesn't all into this trap. Perhaps it's a little bit too complicated, but to be honest I like being stretched mentally in a game such as this, so a big thumbs up on the design.
In part 1 of our Lumia 900 coverage, Ewan took a chatty look at the hardware and summarised his feelings about the device - we're now seeing the Lumia 900 appearing in European shops, making it all the more appropriate that we accelerate our review schedule. In this, part 2, I look at the 900's camera capability and its viability for creating and consuming multimedia.
Last time, in part 3 of our continuing review, we looked at the Lumia 800's communication and personal information management applications. Now we turn our attention to another area of productivity – the Office Hub. Here, Windows Phone 7 offers a mobile office experience via the cloud, whether you're using SkyDrive, Office365 or SharePoint. Mobile versions of Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPointand OneNote are built into every device, adding significant value for mobile workers. Finally, we'll look at how file management is or isn't(!) handled in Windows Phone 7.
As more smartphones are designed with non-replaceable batteries, the potential of getting through a day of heavy use by carrying a spare battery is going away. This has in turn created a market in external batteries. For instance, the first phone with a non-replaceable battery was the iPhone, which has an array of battery jackets. However, these are fixed to just one phone design. The alternative is external batteries that connect via cable. It's a less stylish solution, but guarantees that any of your devices can be topped up. That's where Nokia's new DC-16 external battery steps in, and we've been putting it to the test in this review.
Oh dear. Last week's release of a comedy kart driving game in the Xbox Live store caught my eye, as it's a genre that I enjoy. It's got a huge amount of branding over it so you never forget that this is a Pac-Man game (no I'm not going to capitalise it all the way through the review), but it's missing many elements that could make it an acceptable game.
How do you fancy seeing the world through the window of a food truck? For some reason that's the dream of Bonnie, the titular character in Bonnie's Brunch, now available for Windows Phone. Preparing and serving food has never been as colourful or fun, as this time management game from Funny Lab Studios proves.
One of the exclusive applications for Nokia's Windows Phone 7 devices is from the sports network ESPN. There are many apps out there providing news and media clips to sports fans, but with the ESPN brand name behind it, many people are going to grab this for their Lumia. Given the exclusive nature, Nokia might be banking on this app to help sell Lumias. If so, they may be disappointed.
So far, Rafe has given us his in-depth hardware review of the Lumia 800, and Steve has looked at the still and video capture performance of its camera. After months of everyday use, it's time to turn our attention to the software of the Lumia 800. Yes, most of the Lumia 800's built-in software is the same on all Windows Phone 7 devices, and so this is a review of the platform as a whole too. This part (three) of the review will look at communication and personal information management (PIM) software. Parts four and five will go on to look at Office, multimedia, exclusive Nokia apps, and much more.
It might have been around for the last year, gathering fans and turning them into addicts, but now that Wordament has hit the Xbox Live branding, it's going to be discovered by a much larger audience - and mobile word play gaming will never be quite the same. Has the underground indie hit made a successful transition? Yes it has.
Look past the quirky name that sounds like a comedy cop show on Bravo TV and you'll find that Jellies vs Paul is a smart puzzle game for Windows Phone, mixing "obsessive collection" with the "escape the maze" genre. This is definitely one for the puzzle fans out there, but it's accessible enough that it could become a sleeper hit for the platform.
