App certificates have long been a bane to S60 users and developers alike, causing pain, frustration, and an almost obligatory cash outlay to get your hard work certified to run on the very platform Nokia is so quick to call “open.” Finally, it truly is, thanks to the hard work of the Symbian hacking community that has developed an easy (or easy sounding, anyway) method of “jailbreaking” the Symbian 9.2 device in your life (S60 3rd Edition FP1 users, that’s you). (more…)

Like the Samsung U740 on Verizon, AT&T’s Nokia N75 is a workhorse that’s been kicking around for a good, long while now. It’s a serviceable S60 device — the very first released with North American UMTS, in fact — but it’s lived its useful shelf life at this point and probably should be put out to pasture, preferably with a few shreds of dignity left intact. It seems AT&T has distinctly different plans for the phone, though, following Verizon’s curious renaming buffoonery by christening the N75 the “Tab Top.” What does “Tab Top” mean, you ask? We’re not totally sure, but AT&T says the feature of the same name “gives you easy access to the most commonly used device functionality without using the menu.” We thought S60’s Active Standby sorta did this already, but hey, if AT&T wants to get all fancy on us and call it Tab Top, more power to ‘em, we guess.

We have a hard enough time keeping up with Sony Ericsson’s dizzying model naming convention as it is, but the standing rumor from SE World is that we’ll see the introduction of a whole new series at MWC next week. The alleged “G” series, putting an emphasis on compact devices with touchscreens, will be kicked off by two models: the G700i “Tyra” with a display in the mid-2 inch range and a 3.2 megapixel camera, and the G900i “Josephine” that adds WiFi and a 5 megapixel camera. If it pans out, the mighty P series is going to get a run for its money — as are Nokia’s higher-end devices. Guess we’ll just have to see if this one pans out, won’t we?

Looks legit enough, doesn’t it? The supposed successor to the E61i has broken cover via this shot of the device — in prototype “EXX” form, no less — being proudly displayed in some lucky son of a gun’s hand. The “E” moniker designates a Nokia smartphone with a business slant, of course, and thanks to a lovely QWERTY board, the E71 seems to be no exception; specs on the E51-ish device are said to be pretty much in line with what we’d expect for a circa-2008 piece, including HSDPA, WiFi, GPS, and a 3.2 megapixel primary cam with a secondary up front for video calling. As for North American 3G, well… as usual, we can only hope. We’re not sure whether this thing will break officially here at CES, but if it does, you’ll be the first to know.

Take a moment to welcome the new Nokia 6555. This 3G (WCDMA of unspecified band) clamshell goes quadband GSM with microSD expansion (30MB on-boad) and 240 x 320 QVGA display touting 16 million colors. If thin is your thing and 3G Nokia your game then this is about as good as it gets. Available next month for about €200 pre-tax and pre-subsidy. Unfortunately, Nokia doesn’t say where, but its forward-facing profile certainly matches up nicely with Nokia’s FCC approved RM-276 handset operating in the 850 and 1900MHz bands

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Going all the way back to the N95, it seems like Nokia started having a really hard time keeping a lid on hot upcoming product releases — not to say we’re complaining or anything — and the upcoming N81 slider with a penchant for music is no exception. Following some serious scoopage a few months back, we’re now seeing this shot of a believable-looking N81 dummy, which we’re guessing is in the process of getting shipped out to retailers preparing to sell the real thing. With a rumored 8GB of onboard storage, HSDPA, and a 3.5mm headphone jack, we imagine said retailers should be doing a pretty brisk business, too.

It may lack the necessary internal gizmos to grant us 3G data this side of the pond, but that really didn’t stop us from touching, holding, and loving Nokia’s E90 Communicator just the same. Check out as we bring the latest, greatest QWERTY device out of Espoo from sealed box to power-up in the gallery here — or if getting your hands on one of your own is more your thing, rumor has it Nokia should be launching it stateside within a couple months. ‘Bout time!

By all accounts, Nokia’s designers are either on a cutting edge so far into the future and so deeply advanced that we can’t understand it, or they’ve all gone off their medication. The bizarre 7500 Prism (which may or may not be the similarly styled 7900) made its debut at a Nokia fashion event in China today, along with the 8600, 8800 Sirocco, 6110 navigator, 5700 XpressMusic, 6500 classic, 6500 slider and the 3500 — though none of them were as totally zany looking as the Prism. The phone’s specs are at least fairly normal, featuring a 2 megapixel camera, microSD slot, a QVGA screen and rocking the S40 (version 5) OS. It’s unclear at this point why the company believes people will want a diamond shaped keyboard, but since the FCC has already approved this model, we’ll soon learn if they really do.

Motorola’s multimedia powerhouse “kick slider” Symbian handset has gotten reviewed over at mobile-review.com. We appreciate the extreme detail Eldar and his crew go into when reviewing handsets, and the Z8 review is no different. Although this recently announced handset is not yet available from what we can see, it looks to easily be one of Motorola’s flagships soon. Mobile-review’s breakdown on the Z8 is that it’s a handset with no competition (based on its form factor combined with feature set) along with it having one of the best displays available on any handset. Add to that the Z8’s improvements in the UIQ interface, a better iTap text input system, that QVGA screen, 2 megapixel cam and A2DP Bluetooth and it all adds up to a very well-rounded handset. One caveat: you’ll have to get used to the form factor if you’re not a slider fan.

We’ve got to file this new mobile virus named “Trojan-SMS.SymbOS.Viver” — and the first such SMS Trojan for Series 60 — under “frustrating waste of time.” Sadly, it is most often the user at fault for downloading for granting a bit of dodgy software access to their darling mobile, and while we do feel the sadness for ya if you get stung, if ya takes the risks, ya pays the consequences. Once installed on the Series 60 device, the trojan will begin sending SMS messages to “premium” SMS numbers at a cost of anywhere from $1 to more than $10 bucks a pop. The clever perp would have set up this number ahead of time and would reap the rewards by splitting the bounty with the mobile operator providing the number. We’re pretty sure you could get a chargeback for this type of silliness, but will thank our lucky stars that this is apparently limited to Russia at the moment with nothing — as of yet, anyway — being reported over here.

Are you one of those Windows Mobile handset VoIP hackboys / hackgirls (wireless Skype, anyone)? How about that voice minute-less wireless VoIP on that Orange or Vodafone Nokia N95 handset? Wait, let’s go back a bit — right back to that Nokia S60 flagship handset in Europe. It appears that Vodafone and Orange in the UK have removed an important feature from carrier-branded N95s there. In what can be considered one extreme example of handset crippling, the two carriers have apparently stripped the N95 on store shelves of is VoIP capability in an attempt to preserve voice revenue. The solution — as always with GSM carriers — is to buy the more expensive, unlocked N95 and install your Symbian VoIP client of choice. Did we say we can’t stand carrier-branded madness like this?

The rumored Nokia 8600 “Luna” just got a lot more real now that a suspiciously similar twin is teasing us from the Carphone Warehouse site. The site dubs the phone the Nokia High Fashion because it’s “so new it doesn’t even have a model number.” Sure, whatevs. At least they know that it’s “coming soon” with an “on-screen menu system,” 2 megapixel camera for photos and video, MP3 player, and 1GB of built-in memory. It’s also likely to be sporting Series 40 under that sliding, semi-transparent hood. Nice.