Nokia lately announced the N97, which is the most recent in a lengthy line of organization phones from the Finns. The most notable factor about the handset is the great touch screen (which Nokia lastly appear to have “got appropriate”) and the raft of features that put the handset up there with most mobile web PCs like the Eee and its raft of imitators.
Nokia Maps has had an upgrade. This was maybe inevitable, for two factors. Firstly, folks adore the GPS functionality. Personally, I use Nokia maps frequently, specially when stumbling around a massive city like London, or when sitting on a train and curious. The second reason for stronger GPS functionality on phones is possibly a lot more important.
Location based mobile advertising is being touted as the “next big thing” in advertising/advertising – just ask NMA magazine (not to be confused with the rather much less rock ‘n roll NME). It has, of course, been touted as such for about five years but the technologies is lastly reaching a point where men and women are regularly consulting their handsets for directions. “Wow” say the marketers, “if folks are searching for directions, what better time could there be to shove advertising down their throats? GO TO CAFE NERO. GO TO CAFE NERO”. This is, of course, a dramatisation, but the techology is becoming much more and a lot more well-liked and mobile marketers are pushing customers hard to go down this route.
Back to the handset. Excellent camera (same as the N95), very good keyboard (nicely spaced), beneficial tilty screen (to assist with glare), excellent MP3 and video compatibility and 32gb of internal memory make this an attractive proposition. The digital compass is a nice touch too.
All in all, yet another strong providing from Nokia.
Nokia have announced their first ever Linux-based mobile phone.
See the video below for far more details.
This looks like it’s going to be a step forward for mobile handsets. Although Apple’s irritating adverts claim such wonderful advances as mobile internet, GPS, text messaging (nicely, perhaps not text messaging) etc, Nokia’s new device looks like it is going to blow rivals away.
What’s genuinely impressive about this phone is the spec: a 600mhz processor, 256mb of onboard RAM and 768mb of virtual memory.
You will be able to update the phone directly via OTA upgrading, meaning less reliance on the still irritating Nokia PC Suite. Battery life is likely to be comparable to the Blackberry Storm.
This looks like it will be an amazing handset for business users and individuals who don’t want to lug around an eee or equivalent.
I have been waiting for the Nokia N8 for a extremely lengthy time. Nokia created sure to take all the time they required in order to ship a stable phone. And they did! The Nokia N8 is stable, and is quick, for the most component. Symbian^3 also solved a lot of issues S^1 had, like double tapping and scrolling. Nonetheless, I am not sure no matter whether Symbian^3 could be considered a high-end smartphone OS. The direct competitors for S^3 right now are Android, iOS, and Windows Phone 7. All modern day OSs that can get the job performed in a lovely way. Symbian^three′s issue is that it can get the job performed, but not in an intuitive, or user-friendly way. Symbian^three is lacking design, that aspect that has made Apple the greatest tech company in the world. Symbian^three still has many annoyances, several issues that ought to be changed. The Symbian^three that at present runs on the N8 is far inferior to Android, for example. To demonstrate that, I have made a video comparing the N8, to my Galaxy S. I am in the process of establishing a standpoint on the N8, and S^three, so all comments, questions, and concerns are really welcomed.
The mobile industry has evolved at the rate of years per second in the last couple of months. The competition is fierce and the range of offerings is wide. This accelerated growth pace has been exclusively in the high-end segment of the market. A market that is now mainstream as mobile internet has become cheaper; smartphones aren’t a niche product anymore. To compete in this market Nokia came up with the Nokia N8, the most advanced Nokia smartphone ever. Although the N8 does not represent the very top-end of the Nokia line, it is the epitome of all of Nokia’s offerings for the rest of 2010 and first months of 2011.
Hardware
The Nokia N8 has an iconic design. Nokia is one of the few manufacturers that can create something that looks completely different from the rest. The N8 is one of the most complete smartphones available. It has it all: HDMI-out, USB-OTG, aluminium monoblock design, 12 MP Camera with Xenon and Carl-Zeiss, AMOLED screen, Gorilla-Glass, front-camera, and availability in five different colors. The N8 is beautiful, the design unique, the phone feels solid – it is iconic.
However, Nokia did commit a transcendental mistake when choosing the size of the N8′s screen. It is just too narrow. The N8 has a 3.5” screen, but unlike other spacious 3.5” screens out there, the N8 has a widescreen format that enlarges the length and shrinks the width. This causes awkward font sizes, practically unusable keyboard layouts, and poor web browsing experience; even the telephone’s numeric keyboard feels tiny. Take as an example the Blackberry Torch: it sports a 3.2” touchscreen that is 4mm wider than the N8′s. While other high-end smartphones feature ample 3.7” and 4.0” touchscreens, the N8 is stuck with a relatively small display.
Battery Life
The Nokia N8 was designed as a monoblock phone, which means that the phone has no movable parts or even a removable battery. This design has its advantages: the N8 feels like a rock in the hand, but the battery can’t be removed. The N8 is fed by a 1200mAh battery. The battery life of this device is well above average compared to the rest of smartphones out there. However, the battery is not as long-lasting as it should be – the N8 requires, in most cases, a charge every day.
Camera
The Nokia N8 is the best widely available cameraphone out there. The majority of the shots are impeccable no matter what the light conditions are. The Xenon flash comes into play and makes a difference when light is scarce. I now actually see other phone’s LED flash as a joke; they are good for absolutely nothing. This will not be a camera review; it is enough to say the N8 is indeed the best cameraphone, period. The only missing feature is touch to focus. It is useful on other phones to touch an object on the screen so the camera focuses on it.
Since I am not a great photographer, taking a look at the N8′s Flickr group might provide a better idea of the power of the N8′s camera
The video camera is extraordinary too. The quality of the sound is specially clear since the N8 has two microphones to record sound. The N8 takes video at 25 ft/sec, a bit behind the widely used 30ft/sec on most smartphones. The quality of the HD video is amazing, and even more surprising, the videos taken with the N8 look great when connected to an HD TV via the HDMI cable.
FM Transmitter, GPS, Memory, Processor, Bands
The N8 comes with a special feature Nokia has been including in some Nseries phones: a built-in FM Transmitter. The idea is to wirelessly stream to a FM radio. Nokia has been a bit un-innovative and has only thought of one application: streaming songs to a FM radio. However, there are other things you can do. For example, you can navigate with Ovi Maps and listen to the directions through your car’s speakers, rather than the phone’s. The FM Transmitter works well. In some cars you will have to do aerobics to find the spot where the N8 can transmit clearly, but once you are connected, the sound is crisp.
The GPS is another extraordinary feature on the N8. The first time I opened Ovi Maps, the GPS got almost an immediate lock. It is probably the fastest-locking phone I have seen. The reception is strong, and power consumption is low in comparison with other phones.
The memory and processor of the N8 have been a debated topic. Some say that is not enough, others say that it is more than enough. The truth is that the N8′s memory and processor are adequate. The N8 supports virtual memory, so the N8 won’t run out of it easily. The processor is fast – multitasking and running several apps at the same time is not a problem. The N8 also has a GPU, a feature present in early Nseries phones, that makes graphic elements perform better.
To wrap-up one of the most beautiful pieces of hardware ever designed, Nokia implemented a penta-band 3G chip in the Nokia N8. This means that you can pop a SIM card in and use the N8 with nearly any GSM carrier around the world. The reception, as usual, is far ahead from the competition. The N8 has great reception where most phones see the bars drop.
Software
So far the N8 seems like an excellent device. Aside from the relatively small screen, the N8 is up there with the rest. But hardware is just 50% of a phone, the rest is software – and things start to turn to a darker shade when the N8′s Symbian^3 is put under the glass. If the Nokia N8 stands out with hardware, it definitely struggles with the software. Mainly, because the UI (user interface), speed, UX (user experience), apps, and wow-cool-factor don’t perform well. To be as clear as possible, I am going to break-up even more the Software chapter in this N8 review.
Speed
The N8 is Nokia’s fastest phone (N900 aside). But the N8 is the industry’s high-end slowest smartphone too. Nokia just hasn’t been able to provide a fast UI that responds immediately to the touch. As an example, I compared a simple web browser open-time in both a Galaxy S running Android 2.1, and the N8. Both from a fresh start, both at the same time. The N8 opens the web browser from the homescreen (averaged from several trials) in 1.41 seconds. In the Galaxy S, it is almost immediate, I couldn’t come up with a time because it just opens when you touch it. Same thing happens throughout the UI. The N8 literally takes a second to respond.
This nuisance has been present in Nokia phones for ages. It was until I came back from Android and didn’t know why I just felt awkward using the N8, that I realized that one second makes the whole difference.
The kinetic scrolling is also impractical. Scrolling long lists like Contacts and E-Mail is just not intuitive. The physics are wrong, the response is not as pleasing as in other platforms. Take as an example the homescreen scrolling method. The user slides across the screen, and is not until a couple of milliseconds later that the screen responds and the homescreen changes. This, by the way, is by design, proof that Nokia can improve by simply asking users what they want.
Web Browser
The web browser in the N8 is unusable. It is probably the darkest stain in the whole product. I would be ashamed being Nokia, and allowing such a mediocre, outdated, and unpractical browser in a flagship product. First of all, the web browser is lacking Flash 10.1, and HTML 5. That by itself renders the N8′s browser behind the rest, but the thing is so bad, that is not even the problem with it. The browser can’t load sites properly – some don’t load at all, they just crash and make the phone unresponsive. The UX is just terrible: users can’t open tabs, going back takes a few clicks, and fonts don’t adjust after zooming.
Text Input
The text-input on the N8 is well behind the industry standards. The N8 is the only widely available, high-end smartphone in 2010 to lack a full portrait QWERTY keyboard. This is a great design mistake, and a great contradiction in Nokia’s own philosophy. Nokia argues that smartphones should be designed to be used with one hand. This is valid, it is practical and convenient. But the N8, by not having a portrait keyboard, forces some users who are not used to T9 to turn the phone to landscape mode in order to use the full keyboard. There are some users, like me, that would rather wait for a computer to be available, than composing an E-Mail using the alphanumeric portrait keyboard on the N8. Here comes a strong argument on why the N8′s screen should have been larger, or have used the regular non-widescreen format. The N8′s screen is just too narrow for a full portrait keyboard to be effectively implemented. And what is a smartphone without an effective text input method capable of satisfying multiple types of customers?
The landscape keyboard isn’t something Nokia should be proud about either. Since the beginning, I could notice that the area for each key wasn’t too generous. The keys are organized in a grid, unlike the normal organization keys have in every keyboard out there (if you look closely to a keyboard, keys are not perfectly aligned). But on top of that, the N8 has an awkward and strange organization of characters. The “enter” and “backspace” keys are totally misplaced at the bottom right corner.
Ovi Services
Nokia finally implemented Ovi with the Nokia N8. The very first thing the N8 asks the user is to sign-in or sign-up for an Ovi account. This is brilliant because syncing makes switching between Nokia phones a breeze. It is also an effective method to offer many services through one name, allowing Nokia to build a brand as a service provider. The Ovi Services in the N8 are Sync, Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, Social, and Music where available. The integration of Ovi with the N8 is excellent. The device stores the password and username, so once you signed-in for the first time, you can forget about signing-in in the rest of the services.
Nokia has come up with an “Ovi by Nokia” logo that shows up every time an Ovi Service is fired up. It is basically a blank screen lacking animations that shows the user the Ovi logo for an average of 12 seconds every time an Ovi Service is started. The logo is shown when starting the Ovi Store and Social. Fortunately, and amazingly, the logo does not show up for Ovi Maps. Now, my question is, whose idea was this? Boring the user with a 12 second screen without fancy animations is a bad idea. If Ovi Maps, a far more complex app, can start without a logo, Ovi Store could do too.
Ovi Maps
Ovi Maps is, perhaps, the strongest positive point in the N8′s software. Ovi Maps definitely deserves praise. The service has grown from being just a map application, to a hub of location based services. From Ovi Maps, the user can get access to Weather, travel guides from Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor, Insight Guides, Expedia, Bookatable, and many more services. An important observation, is that even with all that new functionality, Ovi Store keeps being the amazing navigation app that it was meant to be. Since GPS locking is really fast in the N8, navigating with it is a pleasure, a free pleasure. Nokia played very well its cards by making Ovi Maps navigation a free service on new Nokia devices. The user can even download any map from the Ovi Suite for free. With this feature, roaming charges remain zero, and lack of carrier coverage doesn’t pose as a problem while navigating remote areas. The navigation on the N8 is accurate – there are plenty of POIs; and, searching almost comes up with something. Unfortunately, Google Maps still has more results than Ovi Maps. The navigation voices on the N8 are the best on any phone, you can even program your own voice, or choose from a variety of celebrity voices. All in all, the N8 is probably the best GPS replacement phone out there.
Ovi Store
Ovi Store is a mixed bag of opinions. For the most part, the Ovi Store is an intuitive and fast application that offers a great user experience. The scrolling on the Store is comparable to that of other platform’s; it is smooth and works how it is supposed to work – it is by far the best kinetic scrolling experience on the N8. The design of the app is current, using it is a pleasant experience. The negative aspects, however, do outweigh the positive points. Starting with a 12 second mandatory Ovi Logo is already a minus. But is the lack of quality applications what makes the Ovi Store unexciting. It is obvious since opening the Ovi Store, that most of the apps in the front page don’t really look interesting. The Store is crowded with RSS feeds (there are even some Facebook feeds in there), wallpapers, ringtones, videos, and podcasts that don’t belong to an app catalog. Searching for titles one would expect to be available for a smartphone like the N8, also fails: Kindle, eBay, Pandora, Google Earth, WordPress, a simple parcel tracker, Epocrates, Epicurious, and thousands of cool apps and games other platforms have, aren’t available at the Ovi Store. This lack of applications creates a mindset in the user that any search on the Ovi Store will be unproductive; unfortunately, most times this will be the case. The lack of app updates is also a major problem that Nokia has to address. On other platforms, the user is notified when app updates are available. This is really useful because app bugs are fixed, and often features are added.
It is worth mentioning that Nokia is making an effort to bring more apps to the Ovi Store. In fact, there are some excellent paid HD Games available right now. Calling all Innovators North America also looks promising; it might finally bring the titles mentioned above, and many more to Symbian and MeeGo powered smartphones. We will have to wait and see how the Ovi Store will populate after the contest is over.
Social
The Nokia N8 comes with a Social Networking app called “Social.” It is an Ovi Service, that provides Twitter and Facebook support on the N8. The service also has the ability to link contacts in the phone book, with a contact on Twitter or Facebook. The linking doesn’t work in the way an user would expect it to work. You can only link one contact at a time, and there is no way to sync all contacts from any of the social networks into the N8′s phone book.
The app by itself is slow. While using Social, the lag is very noticeable; selected elements highlight a second after being pressed. Scrolling, which should be flawless in an app like Twitter, is horrendous. There is also a limit on how many Tweets you can go back to, it won’t show more than around 100 tweets. There is also the capability of uploading pictures and videos straight from the camera application, however, there is no description field. You will have to tag, and describe the pic you uploaded from a computer.
The Social app on the N8 is a big letdown. The app is slow, very slow. It lacks real power, and is just not intuitive or fun to use.
Multitasking
The Nokia N8 can handle a lot of tasks at the same time; and, unlike other platforms, the N8 has *real multitasking. The N8 doesn’t have any problems running 35+ tasks at the same time. The multitasking feature is accessed by long pressing the menu button, which opens a carousel with visual multitasking. The only problem with how multitasking works, is that when there are more than 20 apps open, scrolling through the tiles to find the desired app can be tedious. The N8 only shows 2 tiles in one screen; it would be better if Symbian had a more Maemo-like approach and position tiles in a grid.
Nokia Messaging
Nokia Messaging is an awesome service Nokia has been supporting for now a while. It lets you configure you mailbox, and receive emails as soon as they are sent to you. And it is pretty impressive, emails even show first on Nokia Messaging than on my Gmail webmail client. The only thing Nokia Messaging hasn’t been able to get right, is the UI of the application. To start, and you will see a pattern here, is the sluggish scrolling on Nokia Messaging. It is not smooth enough, the mails actually flick while scrolling. The unread emails aren’t that well distinguished from the rest, and threaded conversations are missing. I also got errors while trying to download attachments. Fonts are inconsistent when opening emails. Basic emails are rendered with a readable font, but newsletter and other complex emails will have a tiny font that is really hard to read.
Conclusion
The Nokia N8 is a whole new flavor of Nokia phone. It is a phone that Symbian fans will surely enjoy. But for the rest of the people, there will be more appealing options among competitor’s portfolios (unless having the best camera-phone is a must). It is evident Nokia did a great job evolving Symbian, and designing top quality hardware to launch the Nokia N8. But, those efforts were not enough to put the N8 among the hot devices of the market. The Nokia N8 is far behind in terms of user experience from Android and iOS.
Special: Since Nokia has changed its strategy to continuously update Symbian, there is the potential that many substantial changes are made to the N8 in the upcoming months. There will be a new review if this is the case.
We knew that the Nokia X7 was coming since of the roadmap that leaked some months ago but I personally by no means thought it would be this exciting. The Nokia X7 very first leaked, in picture format anyway, today – showing a glorious 4″ screen, four speakers, and what in my opinion is, a sweet looking style.
The most impressive feature of the Nokia X7 is its four speakers. I am sure this four speakers will blow away devices like the HTC Surround with dedicated slide-out speaker. The next most exciting feature is the four″ AMOLED screen. The X7 still doesn’t have rumored announcement date, but my bet is that it will be announced at the mobile world congress and will ship in no a lot more than three weeks right after announced, because Nokia now changed to a policy of eliminating the waiting time between announcement and release date of products. One more fascinating detail is that there are 4 homescreens on this X7, as properly as updated icons. The X7 might run an updated version of Symbian OS. Stay tuned for much more details!
The initial time I heard it I wasn’t too sure about it, but now it’s coming from two diverse sources, so this has to be true. A tweet from the Editor-In-Chief of MobileBulgaria states that the Nokia X7 “seems” to be an exclusive of AT&T in the United States. In my opinion, this is a powerful rumor coming from two sources that have predicted a number of Nokia-related events ahead of time.
If accurate, these would be superb news for Nokia here in the US – where they have completely zero presence. It will be a tough fight though, the market is already plagued with Droids, iPhone, and now Windows Phone 7 devices each and every with a ridiculously powerful marketing campaign that we have by no means seen coming from Nokia. The X7 could do well here, it could also mean that big-business apps would arrive to the Ovi Store together with this US release. A lot more news to come!
Being a Nokia blogger is not as exciting as it was some years ago. Nokia has been playing the “catch-up” game for too long now. They utilized to be the leader.
I was just playing with my Nokia N93 and I realized why I began a Nokia blog in the very first place: they had been the ones that came up with the cool gadgets, the innovations – and everyone else played the catch-up game.
But Nokia stopped innovating. Its last effort, the N8, makes me laugh when I compare it to my other phones. In every single other aspect, but the camera, the N8 lags behind my Galaxy S, and far more lately, my Samsung Focus.
I have to be honest, I sold the N8 I was given by Nokia. I was not making use of the N8, it was just pretty hardware with an annoying, horrible, and unattractive UI and UX.
I have not given up on Nokia though. There is MeeGo coming as properly as the updates that employed to be Symbian four. But until Nokia gets my attention back, this blog will remain without updates…..
I know I stopped updating this blog a couple of months ago but, I did say I would be resuming my days as a dedicated Nokia blogger whenever Nokia got my attention back–and they have done just that.
The Nokia N9 has been in the limbo because the last year. Nokia said at Nokia World, we “would hear about MeeGo later this [2010] year,” but absolutely nothing has been announced therefore far. Then, some rumors surfaced that the N9 had been canceled at that point I had had it, and, decided to give myself a break from Nokia.
Anyway, nowadays it was reported by YouMobile that the Nokia N9 will be announced either the 14th or 15th of February and released by late April or early Could. The Nokia N9 is not a smartphone by definition it is a hybrid between a phone and a tablet, just like the N900. The N9 is rumored to have a gorgeous aluminium housing, an impressive 1.6GHz of processor, 200MHz of graphics processor, 1GB of RAM, and a screen between four.1 and 4.5 inches (hopefully CBD AMOLED). Below, the known specs:
CPU – Intel 1,6 GHz RAM – 1 GB
- High Level Memory: 117MB - Low Level Memory: 889MB
CLK – Reference/Method Clock: 19,2MHz
- DSP Clock: 440MHz
- Memory Clock: 26MHz
- Grapcics clock (LNC core): 200MHz Video
- Graphics Memory: 512MB
- HDMI
- Display: 480 x 854 Pixel GPS – Broadcom BCM4751
- Single chip GSM
- A-GPS Audio – Intel HD Audio – ALSA RF – Infineon XMM 6260 3G modem
- HSPA+ Connectivitiy
Texas Instruments WiLink 6. (WL1271)
- WLAN
- Bluetooth v2.1 + EDR
- FM Radio (Transmitter/Receiver) Bluetooth
- Profile: L2CAP, SCO, RFCOMM, BNEP, HIDP
- Core Version: 2.15 WLAN
- Standards: a (54MBit/s) / b (12MBit/s) / g (54MBit/s), n (300MBit/s)
This rumors appear legitimate, but nothing can be identified for specific at this point. We will have to wait and see what happens next week. The success of the N9 will also depend on how Nokia is going to market the N9. If it’s going to be a dev-phone, or a consumer phone, remains unknown.
Nokia lately announced the N97, which is the most recent in a lengthy line of organization phones from the Finns. The most notable factor about the handset is the great touch screen (which Nokia lastly appear to have “got appropriate”) and the raft of features that put the handset up there with most mobile web PCs like the Eee and its raft of imitators.
