The long promised changes to the Ovi Store have been trickling out, with the web interface receiving a bit of a tidy up. The Ovi Store client for S60 mobiles has had an update too so we thought we would take a look at the changes. Are we going to be happy shoppers? Find out as we review the Ovi Store S60 5th Edition Client...

Nokia's VP of Product & Media, George Linardos is on record as saying that the original face of the Ovi Store was an 'interim' solution put in place while Nokia worked on something more elaborate and fully featured. We're not sure that the recent improvements to store.ovi.com are to be considered the final word in the Ovi Store story, but they are certainly a welcome refresh of the interface and (from what we can tell) some of the back end.

The S60 5th Edition client has followed suit, and incorporated much of the new look, alongside what feels like small performance boost. The Ovi Store is now all about the categories. What used to be a huge, cluttered bucket of apps and games is now neatly divided into subsections, just like the website.

The most immediate change you will see is the addition of three tabs - Top Free, Best Sellers and New. All are fairly self explanatory, with Top Free being a particularly welcome addition for cheapskates like us. These tabs are persistent as you drill down into categories, which you can do via the options menu - e.g. if you are in the 'City Guides & Maps' category section you will still be able to check out new releases or freebies just by swapping between tabs.

Strangely, these tabs are in addition to the original tabbing system in the Ovi Store app - the scrolling list of 'meta categories' such as Applications, Games, Personalisation, etc. This list now feels like a bit of a spare wheel and could probably have been dispensed with in favour of just using more straight categories & thus freeing up some valuable screen real estate.

Actually switching between tabs and searching for apps now feels a good deal more responsive than before, and installing apps is easily configured via a redesigned settings menu. Everything just feels like it works that little bit better than previously and the app seems more stable too.

The focus on free apps is obviously intended to get people to try out the service, and thankfully Nokia have combined this initiative with a client that you actually don't mind using. This is a great improvement and a good omen if the Ovi Store is going to keep developing and reinventing itself over the coming months.

Details

Price: Free

Size: 700KB

DOWNLOAD: Ovi Store S60 5th Edition Client

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