Sunday, July 3, 2011

First Look: Borg, A Promising Facebook Client For Symbian


There is a dearth of decent Facebook clients for Symbian devices, there is Kasvopous, but little else. EnterBorg, a promising new Facebook client written in Qt, that aims to fill this void. The client features notifications, photo and video uploads, the ability to browse the news feed, view and post on walls, view friends, groups, events, messages, public pages and posts. But the biggest draw is the place and checkin integration with Ovi Maps.
Borg Facebook Client Symbian Borg Facebook Client Symbian
The first screen presents a neat list of the various functionality that the app offers. Tap to enter any and you can tap on the ‘Borg’ button on the top to come back to the main menu of the app.
Borg Facebook Client Symbian Borg Facebook Client Symbian
The albums are shown in lists, with individual photos also being presented in a long list with the ability to like and comment. This does mean a longer initial loading time, but makes for a much smoother experience.
Borg Facebook Client Symbian Borg Facebook Client Symbian
The news feed is what you expect, a mix of posts and status updates from your friends and the pages you like. You can again comment and like the posts.
Borg Facebook Client Symbian Borg Facebook Client Symbian
This is the where the Ovi Maps integration takes place, you can check in using the Ovi Maps database and even tag your friends while you do that.
Borg Facebook Client Symbian Borg Facebook Client Symbian
The app also has a keyboard of its own, which is a relief if you aren’t on PR 2.0 yet.
Borg Facebook Client Symbian
There is no full screen mode for photos in an album, but it does fill the screen to a large extent if you turn the phone to landscape mode.
Borg is available for download from the Ovi Store, but it is not the latest version and lacks notifications and an exit button. If you want the latest build, get it from their Facebook page, direct links are here Symbian^3 or  for Symbian^1. Just make sure you already have Qt 4.7.3 installed.
The application is still in development and it is possible that you will encounter bugs and the odd crash, but as the situation stands today, I do recommend trying it out.

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