Gaurav Live

Symbian OS rocks when it comes to user friendliness & usability. The Symbian application repository is huge & is expanding day by day thanks to the developers all around the world. I am always on the hunt to try out new applications for my Symbian Smartphone, looking if they can boost my productivity or expand the capabilities of my Symbian Smartphone. My recent hunt was to find such an application for Symbian s60 v3 which will let me view the Images stored on my smartphone with style. I was pretty much bored with the default Gallery application & needed something snazzy like the N-Series or the HTC touch FLO interface. My hunt ended after I got to Img Exchange – An application from the Nokia developer’s Beta labs. I tried it on my Nokia 5700 XM which runs on s60 v3 FP1 OS & here is a small review of the same.

Download Image Exchange

Starting Img Exchange:

The application when installed can be found in the “My Own” folder under Applications folder. On launching the application, I was greeted with a dual pane screen (More about this later). After I clicked on the latest in the left pane,a dark black screen with a rotating ring in the middle greeted me. Offcourse, it had to load the images on the first startup & that too many (I have around 500 images in my mobile). After a while the first recent image was loaded on my phone’s screen. The image opened in landscape mode, which is quite good since image viewing is more enjoyable in this mode. The image had two small arrows(Left & right) for navigation which fade away after a few seconds. The image appeared sharp, as I was expecting it to be.

Digging under the Menu:

You will be surprised here. Img Exchange has two menus unlike other apps which have just one. Actually the concept has been implemented well here & I was happy with the dual menu system. The first menu appears when you start the application. The first menu is further divided into two panes. I will refer to these panes as left & right for ease. The left pane is local menu while the right pane controls the online menu (More on this late) of Img Exchange. By clicking on the “Latest” under the left pane you will be taken to the recent image taken of your phone. There is a smooth transition while navigating through the menus, which is easily the most impressive ever seen in S60 v3 applications. Once at the image, if you press the left softkey a traditional S60 style menu will open giving you with an option to show or hide the application menu. Now don’t get bogged down by so many menus, the application is quite user-friendly. Other options found under the menu are to Go Online, Settings, Account Information, Invite Friend, About & Exit which are self explanatory.

Using Img Exchange:

Img Exchange can be used the same way as you use the default gallery application for viewing Images. Though the shortcuts here are different & not similar to the default Image viewer of S60, getting a hang of them is just a matter of time. Pressing ’1′ rotates the image counter clockwise while pressing ’3′ rotates it clockwise. ‘*’ zooms in the image while ‘#’ zooms out. The zooming is very smooth & feels great to watch. I found you can even use ’7′ & ’9′ to zoom in & zoom out respectively. Pressing ’0′ allows you to change the image title & also share it online.

Digging under Img Exchange:

The application performs well for an app under beta release. Image viewing is fast & eats just about 2 MB of memory. The only complaint I have here is the app doesn’t displays the original image but a thumbnail of it. Look under your Images folder under PalbTN & you will get to folders where Image Exchange cleverly camoflages those thumbnails. Since it processes the thumbnails, the image quality is a bit low though you won’t notice it if you had not read it here . Since the application relies on thumbnails once you delete the image file from your phone still the image is there when you open Image Exchange. To delete the image you will need to delete it from within Image Exchange to erase the original image alongwith its thumbnail. I recommend you to delete your ‘PalbTN’ folder once every week to keep the application running smoothly.

Pros:

1) Very Fast Image Viewer

2) Uses less memory (RAM)

3) Excellent Image Viewing Experience – Effects are done really well

4) Snazzy User Interface (UI)

5) Free

Cons:

1) Takes time to load images on the first start

2) Some Images do not get displayed leaving a blank space in between

3) Low Image viewing quality (Not prominently noticeable though)

4) Misses additional features like Bluetooth, Slideshow etc.

Final Words:

I did loved Image Exchange when I installed it on my phone but after using it for a while I found it requires to be tweaked to dish out the default S60 V3 image viewer. In beta, Image Exchange looks awesome & I am sure the Nokia developers will improve the application in the upcoming releases. Till then I recommend you to install Image Exchange on your phone & experience the difference.

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