Behold! the Nokia X

As a proud owner of a Nokia Lumia which runs a Windows Phone OS, I was curious to see how Nokia’s first Android device will turn out. The Nokia X smartphone, seems like a Stephen Elop legacy or should I say gamble. The device was launched some months back at the Mobile World Congress in Spain and unveiled a few weeks back here in Accra, and finally I have been able to get my hands on a unit to review.

Before I go into details, I would like to share images from the unboxing process below:

The device comes with all the necessary things to get you started. A set of instruction manuals, a USB wall charger and a set of bright red headphones. The only thing missing is a microUSB cable for data syncing ( I wonder why RED though…being an “EWE” man it is funny considering what people would say. *Ayigbe ni* with RED headphones).

Now let’s see what is under the hood.

Nokia X Quick Specs

Display Size: 4 inch IPS LCD capacitive touch screen with 480 x 800 resolution

Processor: 1 GHz Cortex A5 Dual Core Processor

RAM: 512 MB

Software Version: Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) OS

SIM: Dual MicroSim

Camera: 3 MP FF camera.

Secondary Camera (rear): No

Internal Storage: 4 GB with 2 GB approx. available

External Storage: Expandable up to 64GB

Battery: 1500 mAh battery Lithium Ion

Connectivity: 3G, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 with A2DP, aGPS, 3.5mm audio jack, FM Radio

Sensors: Accelerometer, gyro, proximity

Physical Look

Easily fits in your pocket and palm at a weight of 128 grams with physical dimensions of 115.5 x 63 x 10.4 mm which makes it similar to Asha phones in terms of looks and build. Thus, quiet smaller than a Nexus, a Samsung Galaxy S5 or an Apple IPhone 5s.  It has a matte finish on the back cover and glass on the front... it is fairly light in weight and both of these things makes it fairly portable.

Operating System

Nokia X is built on Android Open Source Project and represents another fork of Google’s mobile operating system. The act of forking is defined as download free and open source software without prior approval of those currently developing, managing, or distributing the software. The first to attempt was when Amazon chose Gingerbread (2.3) as the base for building a mobile operating system for their Kindle Fire range of tablets, and Nokia selected Jelly Bean (4.1.2) for the Nokia X.

Not a bad choice though 18 months. I believe the average Android enthusiasts will find it acceptable. Nokia be someway ooo, they do not even mention Android in the phone settings as Nokia is calls the OS, Nokia X Software Platform.

Memory

In built memory of the device is 4 GB out of which around 2 GB is available to the user, but good thing about this device is that it has Micro SD card slot that can be expanded to 32 GB and you can move apps from phone to SD card and can also install apps on SD card.

User Interface

So Nokia is very smart or rather tried to maintain uniqueness as it used a non-familiar UI and not the regular Android look and feel. The “fast lane” and tile like looks ensures smooth navigation. You clearly see an inspiration from the Nokia Lumia and Asha series devices, as it has icons which looks and behave like tiles. When you swipe the lock screen it takes you to the home screen which shows you tiles for all the apps in a similar manner as shown on any Windows Phone device. Which means that the number of apps will increase with time and you have to scroll more and more to open a particular app, or you can just make folders or use the search option. Overall, the UI is good but a bit laggy sometimes but wait, what do you expect when you are limited to 512 MB of RAM.

Neat UI

Display

With an IPS LCD display at 480 x 800 pixels resolution, the display is good but the viewing angles are not that wide but still its looks decent.

Camera

The camera is 3 MP Fixed Focus  rear camera which is pretty average in photo quality but the overall quality is decent in daylight but in low light photos come out very average, please don’t expect too much from the camera on this phone. It is interesting to note that, there is no front facing camera. Thus, if an owner of a Nokia X device, forget selfies unless you use the rear camera with some positioning skills. Too bad for my selfie bombers Kwabena, Edward et al. You cannot do the Obama.

One of my cakes...

Media

The sound from the loudspeaker is good but not too loud and the earpiece gives clear sound without any distortion on voice calls. You can play 720p HD videos but 1080p videos cannot be played on this phone.

Gaming

You can play medium graphic intensive games and casual games like Temple Run 2 ,flappy bird( where is dbreeze? ) and subway surfer smoothly but heavy games may not run, if they run they will lag a lot this device is not designed to play HD games or graphic dependent games.

Battery

With a Snapdragon S4 processor running at 1GHz you have some good battery life, smooth running of the Nokia X platform and almost lag-free navigation. The battery on the device is 1500 mAh which can last up to 3-4 hours on heavy usage and on moderate usage you will get around 1 day or more as usage time.

 

Services

All the Google services such as Gmail, Google Maps and Gdrive including APIs and back-end support for maps, cloud messaging (Hangout), and the Play store, among others are replaced with Microsoft’s services such as OneDrive, Outlook ,Skype , HERE Maps to name a few in the Nokia X.  

A Microsoft flavor of Android allows it to develop its strategy of cloud services. You can download all the popular apps from the built in Nokia store or you access the regular android apps from the 1market. Two apps markets on one device? Isn’t that fascinating?

Conclusion

It is the first android phone from Nokia which is a worthwhile effort, great form factor, weight and build quality but the hardware on the phone specially RAM and camera is not “SOLID”.  With access to two SIMs via the dual MicroSim slots and the freedom to install apps from different stores you can spice your experience up with variety.

Web browsing is just okay and another drawback is that you will have to use a memory card if you plan on storing videos, music and images on this device. The 3G and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n functionality works pretty well. The overall performance of the phone is satisfactory but no real killer specifications including the smoothness and PureView technology found in the Lumia devices. I am still a Windows person though a Nokia person too so i say buy it. Its affordable 

 

 

Heartbleed Bug

Wetin Bleed? *Naija Tone*

In the past few weeks the term Heartbleed has been bundled around and the subject has even been extensively discussed by members of 'the Republic' (#TechRepublic) – Edward Tagoe, Kwabena Akuamoah Boateng , Joseph Dankwah , Jason Derek Bossman , Ethel Cofie , Naa Oyoo Quartey , Macjordan Degajor , Emeka Okoye , Yao Kuwornu and myself. 

The Republic having a selfie time with the US Ambassador to Ghana Gene Cretz

Heartbleed has left people wondering about how much of their data is comprised with some people hastily changing passwords amongst other things. Though changing your password before resolution would not make a user secure.

Heartbleed is not a virus, but rather a mistake written into OpenSSL— open-source software for SSL implementation across the Web.  It is a security vulnerability in OpenSSL software that may affect nearly two-thirds of websites online and allow hackers to access data servers that may contain username, password and other sensitive information.

With the disclosure of a bug in OpenSSL’s implementation of heartbeat, it is no longer necessary for cybercriminals to hack into the server to steal the credentials or private keys. An easy execution of a small code will provide them with wealth of information just by exploiting the vulnerability in OpenSSL. While this is happening, the server admin will never know that their server has been exploited and how much of the information has been leaked by the exploit.

Security researchers found out that an encryption technology SSL/TLS that helps in providing communication security and privacy over the network for various applications viz. web-based applications, email and VPN had this security flaw. This encryption technology that used to safely transmit e-commerce transactions, email, social networking data and other Internet traffic was affected by Heartbleed and this security flaw was enough for hackers to access user’s sensitive personal information.

This vulnerability allows anyone to steal the information which under normal circumstances is protected, by the SSL/TLS encryption. Therefore, attackers can steal a server’s digital key which is used to encrypt data and get easy access to an organization’s sensitive documents.

Security researchers also add that this newly discovered security vulnerability is extremely dangerous as it remained undiscovered for more than two years. However, Wolfgang Kandek, chief technology officer for Redwood City security company Qualys said that, it still remains unclear if hackers have taken advantage of the flaw to steal sensitive data from vulnerable sites.

Organizations such as  Yahoo have come out to declare resolution. However, is it just a publicity stunt to allay fears or they have truly resolved the issue.

Researchers at Codenomicon say that OpenSSL is used by two of the most widely used Web server software, Apache and nginx. This means a lot of internet sites would possibly have this vulnerability.

Wolfgang  Kandek of Redwood City added, many affected websites will now have to have their encryption keys recertified as safe. That’s because even after fixing the flaw in their software, unsafe keys can easily allow hackers to steal sensitive personal information.

Moreover, every website / server / service admin, who uses OpenSSL should be concerned about this vulnerability as it breaks everything for which SSL encryption was deployed in the first place.

So what are the things, a user should consider?

§  Change your passwords only after the affected online service provider has updated their servers in order to compensate for the Heartbleed vulnerability.

§  Services which are affected are ought to be sending emails to users and informing them, that they were affected by Heartbleed and have since updated their servers.

§  Only when you receive this update, change your password, otherwise it will not have the expected outcome.

§  But, if the website has already been compromised, and it is still to fix its software then you should wait to change your password.

• If you are doubtful about a website’s status and whether it is compromised or not, you can go online and check by doing a Heartbleed Vulnerability test

On these sites:

 https://lastpass.com/heartbleed/

https://sslanalyzer.comodoca.com/heartbleed.html

https://pentest-tools.com/vulnerability-scanning/openssl-heartbleed-scanner

            https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/index.html

§  As phishing attacks are continuously increasing, some hackers may provide you with links to change your password. To ensure complete safety, manually go to the website yourself, log in and then change your password.

Once you can confirm resolution change your password but ensure that you have a “strong” password, few tips for changing your password:

Never give out your password to anyone (Not even your spouse):

 Never give it to friends, even if they’re really good friends. A friend can – accidentally, we hope – pass your password along to others or even become an ex-friend and abuse it.

Don’t just use one password:

It’s possible that someone working at a site where you use that password could pass it on or use it to break into your accounts at other sites.

Make the password at least 8 characters long: 

The longer the better. Longer passwords are harder for thieves to crack.Include numbers, capital letters and symbols. Consider using a $ instead of an S or a 1 instead of an L, or including an & or % – but note that $1ngle is NOT a good password. Password thieves are onto this. But Mf$1avng (short for “My friend Sam is a very nice guy) is an excellent password.

Create passwords that are easy to remember but hard for others to guess (unique):

When possible, use a phrase such as “I started working in chorkor 1999” and use the initial of each word like this: “IswinC99#!”

Don’t use dictionary words: 

If it’s in the dictionary, there is a chance someone will guess it.  If I am a hacker, I will just write a script to guess dictionary words and common words. Those who like using great, love, sweetheart,heartbeat ,etc. Abeg! That is giving a class 1 assignment to an undergrad student.

Don’t post it in plain sight: 

This might seem obvious but studies have found that a lot of people post their password on their monitor with a sticky note. Bad idea.  If you must write it down, hide the note somewhere where no one can find it. But for God sake, try to keep your password in your head.

Ebei! Is that that difficult? Even after some Bukom Banku beating, you should remember.

Consider using a password manager:

 Programs or Web services like RoboForm (Windows only) or Lastpass (Windows and Mac) let you create a different very strong password for each of your sites. Ultimately, it solves the problem by helping you generate random passwords for each account or site. But you only have to remember the one password to access the program or secure site that stores your passwords for you.

Enable dual-factor authentication: 

Where there is two factor authentication , use it (Gmail is one email service that does so) In addition to a password, the service requests for another identifying information, such as a code that can be sent to you via SMS but if MTN , GLO , TIGO , AIRTEL or VODAFONE decides to screw you , then you are on your own

Credits: Qualys , escan , Efo Koku