In Part I of this series we covered a few applications that you could use to enhance communication via your Symbian S60 device. In this installment we shall tell you about some applications that can boost your phone’s media capabilities, from video players to other fun and useful applications. Please bear in mind that not all the applications are freeware; you may need to pay for some of them.
If you love the DivX player on your PC (and I’m sure you do), the mobile version is something you would want for sure. The player accesses the handset's drives and looks for all videos. Although the quality of playback would depend on the phone’s processor, it’s not that big a deal: it does play videos anyway. This is what DivX recommends to get the very best: convert your videos to DivX at 24 or 30 fps, 320x240 resolution, 300 kbps video and 128 kbps stereo audio.
The player itself is extremely simply and easy to use. It locates files automatically and all you have to do is click on Play. It has a simple scroll bar on top for rewinding and forwarding. This is definitely a must-have video player for your Symbian handset.
Mobipocket EBook Reader
For avid readers who prefer a more advanced and portable way of reading, e-books are the way to go, especially if your phone's got a large enough screen for comfortable reading. Mobipocket E-Book reader is easy to install and easy to use. You can also install the desktop application on your PC to download and transfer files to your handset. You can also convert books in PDF and other formats into e-books for your phone reader. Highly recommended.
When you consider how popular streaming Internet radio has become of late, it's all but inevitable that Nokia would introduce a free version for its handsets. This handsome application, which was first announced in December 2007 and developed by Nokia’s Beta labs, has many advantages over similar applications. For one thing it supports a huge number of stations, grouped by genre, country, and favorites.
The UI is very well-designed, and navigation is surprisingly quick and precise without any lag. Since the application has been developed by Nokia, it integrates seamlessly with existing Symbian phones. It can stream using either a standard GPRS connection/3G or Wi-Fi. The quality depends on the connection and could vary from 48 kbps to 128 kbps and above. In a special 'Nokian' touch, each radio station can be customized depending on the quality of connection available.


