Nokia Lumia 800: the first few days

The Lumia 800, the Windows Phone 7 powered smartphone is finally on sale in Finland. What could I do but to try to get my hands on one and report back my findings and experiences. Overall, I'm quite pleased, although I see that a lot must still improve for these devices to hit home in a big way.

 
I managed to get my hands on a black Lumia 800 with a fun lime soft casing. This was the combination I had in mind already when getting the N9, but never really followed it through. Lime turned out to be a great colour that complimented MetroUI's funky and fresh look, although I was left hoping for a little extra punch. Theming WP7 doesn't really exist (out-of-the-box anyway), as you can really only change the colour of the tiles and turn the black background into white. If you want to have more control over customisation, I suggest you get the N9.


Glad to see emphasis is on the aesthetics (again)

I won't spend any time describing the exterior of the device, as its the tried and trusty N9 casing with an extra camera shutter button and a differently placed hole for the flash. Everything about the physical form of the device raises feelings of respect, complimenting the smoothness of WP7. Perhaps even a little more than the same casing did for MeeGo-Harmattan on the N9. WP7 and the casing are a great fit, and the Lumia 800 joins the N9 in the league of devices that bombard the senses with the most pleasant sensations. Bravo, Nokia. Once again.

Even though the customisation options of the operating system on the Lumia 800 are practically 0, the customisation on the N9 is also debatable. Sure you can do all sorts of things in theory, but in practice most people have aimed to keep the core look and feel of MeeGo-Harmattan untouched. And its easy to understand why: MeeGo-Harmattan is a beautiful experience as it is. Windows Phone 7 succeeds in the same feat. Screen items swush, slide and stack on your screen with no stutters or hickups, and soft sounds of the keyboard pat your eardrums with the most pleasant sounds. As a comparisant I regard my HTC DesireZ's system sounds as too interruptive, loud and all around cheap sounding. I think this is true for all Android devices regardless of manufacturer. Leave it to Nokia to spice the ringtone selection up with some familiar sounds and melodies, although Nokia fared much better in this category in its devices from around 3-4 years ago.

Half-baked cakes all around

When comparing to MeeGo-Harmattan, WP7 feels much more finalised which might not come as a surprise to anyone. Everything is in place, nothing feels like a placeholder and a lot of functionality MeeGo-Harmattan seems to go for is already place here. On board the Lumia 800 Nokia ships the latest version of WP7, Windows Phone Mango which hasn't really changed since Tango as I last saw it on the HTC Trophy. Undoubtedly 99% of the new features took place "under hood", which is to be expected anyway in a system so keen on its UI design guidelines.

Windows Phone 7 is by no means, however complete. Funnily enough some gripes I had about MeeGo-Harmattan also apply here. For example, I complained about not being able to adjust font size in the browser on the N9. That really can't be done here either. The second gripe was the refitting of the text to fit your zoom level. This doesn't exist either in WP7 or MeeGo-Harmattan. Also, I was quite fustrated with constantly twisting and turning the device, as only a few applications and functions supported landscape mode. Relating to this, I found it odd that the landscape keyboard doesn't stretch out to invade as much screen real-estate as it could, but instead crammed itself into the middle of the screen. Why is it like this, Microsoft? Is it a resolution thing?

 WP7 makes a big deal about location awareness as well, but sadly the Lumia 800 doesn't know what's around to drink and eat, but will give you locations (that might be restaurants and bars) that you can check in to. This seems like a halfway implemented idea. For some reason my initial response to this was the feeling of being sold a product that doesn't even have all the features it was sold on. Funny I didn't get this feeling with MeeGo.Other similar nigglets include (but aren't limited to) app availability in my region, lack of control over autocorrect functions and missing voice recognition in my language.

The killer thing about Windows Phone 7 for me still seems to be the integration of Facebook and Twitter services into the system. I also happen to agree, that "having an app for that" has very rapidly become part of the problem instead of the solution on smartphone platforms. Having a separate app for everything on an operating system that doesn't support multitasking is just madness. Its like being given all the keys to a huge house, but instructed to close and lock each door after leaving the room, even if just popping out to the kitchen to get a cup of tea before you continue reading your bedtime book. With these smartphone platforms it just never becomes possible to leave a door open. Windows Phone 7 attempts to address this problem by allowing you to view your friends' Facebook images and status updates in your address book, in addition to the traditional options of calling or texting them. This is my number one favourite feature of WP7. Bravo Microsoft.


The many faces of WP7

So just how well does Windows Phone 7 fare against the competition? This is an incredibly difficult question to answer, as WP7 is aimed at people moving up from "dumbphones" to smartphones. This means that functionality in WP7 will be limited, although time will tell how much functionality the ever growing selection of apps for WP7 will bring. WP7 is also strongly stylised and focuses to achieve so tightly defined goals that I imagine it might appear alien or plain unfriendly for some people.

The Lumia 800 comes packed with two great music apps, that really bring life to the entire device in a whole new way. Using the Lumia 800 can be like a visually appealing music video, pulsating with youth and trendiness. The downside to this is that older users force-switching over from Symbian with business purposes in mind might feel like they're getting the raw end of the deal here. Many business users will have their contacts and other data synced to one cloud service or another, but for those moving up from Nokia's pre-Symbian3 phones will have a tough time. At the time of writing this, you can only transfer contacts to WP7 over bluetooth if you have a S3 device. Nokia Suite doesn't work with WP7, and Zune can't manage your personal info on your phone in any way. I don't understand why Nokia was in such a hurry to announce WP7 partnership, only to ship a device so totally incompatible with any previous Nokia devices. Way to piss off loyal customers I think.

I wouldn't be surprised if the reasons described above explain why operators are so sceptical about WP7's chances: business customers don't care how much their phone bill is, but they have to feel they're getting services worth paying for. New smartphone users are a huge target market, but the amount of confusion related to transferring your data over from previous devices might be too much of a hassle, as operators certainly believe customers will return to them for assistance.


Final thoughts

For me WP7 is an opportunity for hedonism, so I choose to enjoy all the things I can about WP7 and not feel so bad about the shortcomings. I'm also lucky to not be really affected by its downsides, as I have all my data in the cloud, and I'm a bit of a social media junkie. So it caters to my needs quite nicely. Comparing to MeeGo-Harmattan, I feel there's more to do on me on this device. The ability to view desktop versions of websites has a big influence on this aspect. Windows Phone 7 is something new and different, albeit incomplete. If I had to describe WP7 in a word: its fresh. Let's see how long this impression lasts.

WP7 is a good choice if you aren't too business or productivity orientated (note: I haven't tried out Office365 yet). We just need to hope that big men Elop and Ballmer won't give out any more ridiculous statements about their own fails with the platform, blaming sales staff or marketing or what have you for bumps in the road. They are in my view the greatest threat right now to the credibility of the platform.

A great testament of this CEO tomfoolery is Elop's promise of bringing "added Nokia value" to this product, which sadly is exactly 0. There's nothing especially Nokian about the software in this product, and that is a truly sad thing to realise. Although the reinvention of Nokia Music's mix radio brings some comfort. The bottom line remains, however: If you see another manufacturer produce a WP7 device with a better screen, processor or some other factor, go for it. You won't be missing out on anything.

Sadly he king no longer stands on its own two feet -- contrary to Elop's promises.

From the N900 to the N9, a review

Nokia finally started sales of the N9 mid-October of 2011, and I was lucky to get hold of one for a couple of weeks soon thereafter. Here are my views on the device. I'm a N900 enthusiast and someone who might be called a "power user", so bear this in mind. Please leave a comment after reading if you the least bit feel like doing so.


EDIT: fixes to text made based on readers' comments, thanks so much guys! Oct 23rd
EDIT2: A new firmware upgrade has been released for the N9 to be applied OTA. Twitter, Facebook and various other apps have been upgraded & . Therefore info in this article might be outdated. -- 9.11.11.


MeeGo UI:


Let's start with the most interesting, the User Interface. The N9 is quite a different experience to Maemo (or Android for that matter) as it has no "desktop", but a "three views" -system where you see your apps, events and open applications in views adjacent to eachother. A key component in the UI is the swipe gesture, with which you swipe between these views, shoo away open apps and even close them. There are no "X" icons hanging about, just swipe, swipe, swipe.


Perhaps the most dominant of the views is the apps-list, which received some criticism from me as soon as I saw it in a leaked video. I understood that this kind of "app listing" view was deemed obsolete by Marko Ahtisaari in a conference about Nokia's design ideas (Link, thanks "Anonymous"!), but apparently he really only meant that they thought the iPhone home button was the only thing worth changing there. Windows Phone 7 is in this sense more advanced in design-language I think, as the starting page tiles represent a new kind of approach to using your device. Be what it may design-wise, all your apps will add to the app-list view, with no options for making folders or groups. This appears to be coming in the next update. Thanks to a reader for the tip!

The swipe is however very smooth, where you're able to gradually swipe away a playing video or any other app in action, see what's in the view beneath it and then choose to drag the video back to full screen or shoo it away. This is an example of the sheer technical brilliance Nokia has packed this device with. This is an industry first, but something tells me we're going to see more of it. The N9 doesn't run on the very latest hardware, but features like this make Android feel bloated and messy in comparisant to this kind of smooth, immediate performance --on "dated" hardware. Bravo, Nokia! "It's not technology, its what you do with it" applies here.




Software decisions


The experience on the N9 is very good  and the "3 views" style UI works brilliantly. There are no stutters, and even devices running with almost full memory continue to function smoothly (for the most part). However, some of the design decisions on the software side bother me. I never quite feel as in control over my running apps as I do on the N900, because sometimes a same direction swipe means changing between playing songs, viewing pictures or sending the app to the background. Granted, this will only get better and better as you use it more and more, and will probably be refined in software updates to come.


My biggest gripe with the software, however are the native apps and the browser. The Facebook and Twitter apps open a drastically simplified app of what we're all probably used to. Perhaps this is also due to it being an early software version. On the other hand, they're stylistically so simplified, that I can't help but fear that it is part of the design choice and won't be altered. Or in Nokia fashion its "left to the community to fix" but at the same time they're closed source apps. Please correct me if they are in fact open source! Most of the pages in the stock browser open up as mobile websites by default (if someone knows how to tweak this, let me know!) and pages won't let you change to the full site, probably because of the lack of support for Flash. In worst cases sites offer you to change from "Simplified mobile" to "Text based version". Hrrr, 600€ for a text version of Facebook? This reminds me too much of that other product. Granted this could be due to websites not fully recognizing the N9 yet, or a premature browser software version.

Browser king?


To dwell into the browser issue more, the browser experience is perhaps one of the two biggest dissapointments for me about the N9. One big reason to why the N900 is such a timeless device is its browser. Everything is moving towards web apps, so why not perfect a near perfect browser and thus future-proof the phone? The answer to this is probably in switching over to MeeGo's browser that doesn't and probably will not support Flash, and so its basically a completely different browser to MicroB found on the N900. As Anidel points out in the comments, however, technically it is in a sense very advanced, but until sites decide to make full use of it, it leaves a simple impression.


Totally in-line with the rest of the native apps, the browser is missing some basic functionality. For example, clearing your browsing history is not (at least at the moment) possible inside the browser (thanks for correction) the saving or clearing of passwords is not present, and it doesn't even have bookmarks and making bookmarks could be a bit more intuitive. The browser tries to form "tags" around what you've browsed to or searched on the web, which I couldn't find much use for. Also, this tag system is not incredibly accurate either. For some reason my first search for the nearest swimming halls remains huge in the "tags" and I've only done the search once. Unfortunately also the e-mail app is also lacking in some features that people probably expect to be there by default. For me it was OK, though, I get along with the N900's e-mail app just fine, so I'm probably not so needy as some of you guys.


The browser is also suffering from some text-entry box related oddness I remember first spotting in the earliest MeeGo Developer Edition releases. When tapping on a text box, the view zooms too close to it, the virtual keyboard blocks a huge part of the text box plus the text box isn't completely visible. The end result is that you have to type blind. Pinch-zooming will only confuse the browser more. Sites where I saw this happen were Maemo.org and TweetGo.net.


All in all, though, the performance of the applications on the N9 is superb, Nokia Store might not be filled to brim with apps but makes up for it in quality and stutters of Nokias' past is nowhere to be seen here. It seems that first apps in the Nokia Store have really caught on to the design style of Nokia's MeeGo-Harmattan, and together with the phone UI they make up a wonderful experience.




The Achille's heel


The next thing I'm going to rant about will probably not even matter for 90% of people the N9 is aimed for, but its a showstopper for me. I think you've been waiting for this remark all review long: the N9 doesn't have a hardware keyboard. And it Sucks. Nuts.


It sucks Nuts.


I tried and I tried, but a VKB (virtual keyboard) just can't keep up with me and just can't satisfy my needs. A lot of people seem to get on fine with their touch-only text-entry keyboards, but nobody can pull off sending a SMS with more complex contents than "OK" when on the run. Also, I enter a lot of text on my N900, part of this blog entry is written on my N900. The N900 is my main device for reading and replying to e-mail, I Twitter more on my N900 than on my desktop, and I use IM more on my N900 than on my desktop PC. And I'm also a kind of a blabbermouth of a guy. So it simply infuriates me when a device forces me to get down on my knees and only send "OK" messages around to my friends if I don't have 5-10mins to stop and tap in letters for a message. Swype should be making an appearance in the first software update to the N9. Sadly I doubt that it will allow me to write messages on the run any better.


One thing I must make clear though: the N9's virtual keyboard is NOT a bad virtual keyboard. Nokia's keyboards on Symbian³ are terrible. They're rubbish. The virtual keyboard on the N9 is, ironically, in my view one of the most aesthetically pleasing aspects about the device. The keyboard click sound, combined with the haptic feedback and beautiful screen makes for a wonderful experience. It is the most pleasurable virtual keyboard out there and is perhaps the crucial feature about this device that gives it its premium feel. Expect this to be imitated in competitors' devices.

N9 & the competition


Since the launch of the iPhone Nokia's devices have all been pitted against the iPhone, regardless if these devices have actually targeted the same audience. The N9 however (finally) has an air about it that makes it seem as if it aims to take on the iPhone. This is noticeable from the wy the N9 focuses heavily on user experience, in the good and the bad. 


It seems the N9 was designed with the rule-of-thumb to favour user experience over functionality. INo think this explains the rudimentariness of the stock apps. My guess is functionality is missing in fear of cluttering up the UI. 


The N9 also seems to carry a bit of a grudge over from experiences with people and media criticising the landscape-only orientation of the N900. The N9 strikes back by allowing portrait mode everywhere, but sadly it over-compensates just a little bit. Most of the stock apps, such as the mentioned Facebook and Twitter apps don't rotate to landscape orientation --at all. Not even when you're inserting text. So the portrait qwerty is all you get. Trying to work around this problem is browsing to the website, but then you have to face the shortcomings of the browser.


In general I think the main guideline for the experience was the iPhone, at least in mentality: everything must look good, but there's no way to get to the nitty-gritty and no customizability. This made me feel at times like I'd been thrown back to 2007. On the other hand however, using the N9 is aesthetically an incredibly pleasant experience. The way it feels in your hand, the sounds and graphics add up to a very pristine and classy experience. Not to mention the effect of the VKB. 


Compared to the N9, the iPhone feels like a lifeless and cold slab of metal and glass that you tap and pat. That's it. The N9 responds to every tap, connects with your natural way of doing things, and constantly rewards you for using the device. There's no eye-candy here per se, just grace and intuitiveness. So yeah, the N9 is a better phone than the iPhone.





Final comments


The N9 exceeds in everything it sets out to accomplish and even beats the competition in their own game, so you can't really say its a bad device. What's important to realize here is, that the N9 is in no way a successor of the N900, even if its initial efforts might've been to that direction. The mobile Linux enthusiast is better off somewhere else (but where?).


The N9 led me to realise that there are now two manufacturers in the game that know how to combine what you feel in your hands with what you hear and see to form a comprehensive, wholesome aesthetic experience. And in this sense, the Nokia N9 manages to surpass the iPhone by a hundred miles. It's great to be able to say this about a Nokia device. 


The N9 might not ever have the apps the iPhone has, but all in all at this time, the Nokia N9 is a better device than the iPhone for that crowd that appreciates the iPhone to begin with. If, however you are looking for something along the lines of the N900, the N9 isn't the device for you. If you decide to go for the N9 anyway, many familiar Maemo apps are available in the Nokia Store, such as: Filebox, Twimgo and gPodder.


There's a software update coming to the N9 from Nokia soon, so a lot of what I ranted about might be changed. I try to remind myself also of the fact, that the N9 runs on MeeGo and I know there's a hacker community around this device that will let the rest of us in on tweaking the insides of this device. For me personally though, no amount of modifying the N9 will bring me a hardware keyboard. Without a hardware keyboard, I feel the N9 is only holding me back, not setting me free.

R.I.P.

Do you agree/disagree? Please leave a comment below.


Thanks for reading,
Chris

Collection of reads on the Microkia alliance: summing up, material for opinions

This piece will serve as a sum-up of the events around the Nokia-Microsoft alliance, but more than that these articles are the basis for my opinion that is still slowly forming about all this. I also hope to address a few misunderstandings that might get popular on the web about things relating to this alliance.

UPDATE 9th of March 2011: Added link to Symbian's new UI. Forgot to include this!

Nobody can claim to have not been surprised come February 11th 2011 and Nokia's CEO Stephen Elop's announcement that Nokia would form a "strategic alliance" with Microsoft. Conversation has been heated on the internet, with people arguing the pros and cons of this marriage.

I really love sitting down and getting to the bottom of things I care about, so here's some of the articles I've read about the Microkia alliance. Initially I planned to draw some kind of conclusion of all this, but this proved impossible. New articles pop up daily, so I can only show you which articles gave me the most information I felt I could use. I hope you enjoy this collection.


The basics of the matter

To start you off, here's a videoclip of the bossman himself, mr. Stephen Elop in Engadget's well-rounded interview:





AllAboutSymbian.com were naturally there on Feb 11th, and they summed up what was said in the press event:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/12584_Nokias_new_strategy_and_struct.php


Articles focusing on the business side of things, impact on industry:

Being a Finn, I'm quite concerned for everyone in the threat of losing their jobs. A few finnish blogs have been written in finnish talking about it, the one below is a good read in English:
http://www.ecyrd.com/ButtUgly/wiki/Main_blogentry_130211_1

Tomi Ahonen (@tomiahonen), the king of mobile analysts and his first reaction:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/02/first-analysis-of-nokia-microsoft-alliance-wow-this-is-good-for-microsoft.html

Tomi went on to twist and turn the possible outcomes of this alliance, but failed to find out how there could be a bright future ahead for Nokia:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/02/when-things-get-even-worse-than-you-thought-1st-preview-of-potential-for-nokia-microsoft-partnership.html

In short, Tomi feels that the once great Nokia will be reduced to a hardware vendor, as they no longer have the luxury of having their own software to run on their devices. Tomi fears that Nokia will become a Dell, just another company putting Windows in a box and shipping it to the world. Tomi feels the greatest shame of all will be that Nokia is sacrificing all the good that Nokia is, for something it thinks everyone wants it to be. Tomi sees no future in this.

A great moment in all this came as Tomi posted something to help his friends in the industry find another job, reassuring them and giving tips:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2011/02/to-nokia-colleagues-being-laid-off-or-fearing-for-job-survival-here-a-little-bit-of-advice.html

Also worth checking out are the comments to the above post:

"Come together, get investors and buy AAVA mobile. Bring new Qt-based MeeGo and Symbian AAVA phones to the world. MeeGo and Symbian are both open source. Elop can't remove that license even if he wanted to. Kill the mother company. It's not just the hardware, it's the software stupid!!! If anyone starts this, you have a guaranteed €50.000 investment from me. There are many people like me who would help you guys start the next Nokia.
All the best for the future."

I guess people with some forte read Tomi's blog (even though they're not too clear on the status of Symbian ;) ). Later on, Aava announced that they are not interested in becoming the next Nokia. So sadly, this is only fantasy.

The internet went rampant with claims that Steve Ballmer had put a trojan horse into Nokia. Intuitively, it did make sense as Elop had just come from Microsoft, and sha-zam, come the first big announcement it would be about creating a strategy together with Microsoft. Fishy!

The Wall Street Journal has caught on to the real story, though:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604576150502994792270.html

Articles thinking about Nokia's plans going forward:

For very many people, the Microkia alliance is the exact fix for Nokia's wavering situation.WP7 looks good, is something completely new and between the lines people want to be relieved that another company besides Nokia will actually be in charge of Nokia software.

The article below supports the alliance:

http://www.osnews.com/story/24400/Why_Nokia_Chose_Windows_Phone_7_and_Why_It_s_a_Good_Move

Here's a passionate post from CellOuts.net about why WP7 is the best thing for Nokia right now:
http://www.cellouts.net/2011/02/nokiamicrosoftthe-enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend/

A fascinating incident was the coming forward of '9 young investors' looking to sell a "PlanB" to the Nokia board of executives:
http://www.planb.com

What followed after Plan B was PlanC, PlanD ... and eventually the entire alphabet of plans for Nokia:
http://mynokiablog.com/2011/02/16/nokia-alphabet-of-back-up-plans/


Articles mostly about the survival of MeeGo, Symbian and/or Qt:

For me, the bigges thing about the Microkia alliance was Nokia reducing MeeGo down to a developmental platform (again). Maemo-MeeGo was supposed to be "step 6 of 6" towards a commercial product, but this turn of events put MeeGo back to square 1. Other concerns of mine were the resources and effort put into Qt, now seemingly being thrown away. What's the truth behind the future of the software side of things?

Nokia CTO Rich Green got up on stage to talk about the future of all the mentioned software:
http://mynokiablog.com/2011/02/16/nokia-cto-rich-green-talks-meego-symbian-qt-windows-phone-and-a-new-disruptive-platform/

Here's a look at what we know about the new Symbian UI. If Symbian's dead, then when's the funeral?
http://mynokiablog.com/2011/02/23/the-new-symbian-ui-nokia-n8-new-homescreen-for-upcoming-firmware-update/

Another twist in the software plot was news that Microsoft had banned all open source software at their Windows Marketplace. Linux veterans were grabbing their waraxes from the closet again, as Microsoft and open source have a somewhat heated history. Here's Simon to give us a more devoted look at the entire story behind this incident:
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2011/02/microsoft-bans-its-own-licenses/index.htm

Qt and MeeGo have for long felt like proof-of-concept software, and now with the Microkia announcement, people feel that they will finally be laid to rest. At least in the mobile world. Here's an article from CellOuts.net talking about Qt and developers:
http://www.cellouts.net/2011/02/nokia-betrayed-their-developerswhat-developers/


With Finnish company Digia picking up Qt, the fate of Qt doesn't seem so dark after all:
http://www.digia.com/C2256FEF0043E9C1/0/405002251



Further reading, some videos and podcasts for easier information consumption

Its hard to reach any conclusions about all this, as new news articles pop up almost daily. Mobile World Congress was a great MeeGo event, with the unveiling of the MeeGo tablet UI:



So it seems MeeGo will be able to survive even with Nokia not being part of the effort. However, will "MeeGo handset" be critically affected by this remains to be seen.

It turns out, that Qt isn't dying either, as it has already found a new owner. Symbian definitely has a timeline though, as expressed by Rafe from the AllAboutSymbian podcast from Feb 12th 2011. Symbian still might interest a lot of people for a couple of years, with the UI upgrade coming out and all that.

What is still in the balance, then? Well to me its definitely Windows Phone 7, and how it will deliver. There's news of trouble on the software front for Windows Phone 7, as the "Mango" update (also referred to as "WinPhone 7.5") struggles to make it out before 2011. Bare in mind, Elop wants to publish a Windows Nokia phone during 2011 (see video interview in the beginning of this article). Has Nokia, the company deemed incompetent of producing software in time teamed up with another company suffering of the same flaw?


And finally

I hope the reads collected to this blogpost have been useful, and I want to leave you with one more that seems to have a more "universal" feel to it.

The next blogpost supports WP7, but it also discusses UI paradigms to such a level, that I think it might be current even a year or two years from now:
http://www.christianlindholm.com/christianlindholm/2011/02/the-beauty-of-the-nokia-microsoft-deal.html

Please leave me a comment if you have additional "good reads" on the subject!

- Chris

The new QWERTY slinger: the Nokia E7

I managed to get some time alone with the Nokia E7, so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the device.


As you'll quickly notice once you're in the presence of an E7, this thing looks really good. It's got a majestic air about it, something I haven't felt about a Nokia device in a long time. The build quality is superb as is to be expected, and I think the black / very dark gray colour is perhaps the best colour for this prestigious Communicatior heir.

I'm going to break it down real quick, though: for enthusiasts, the E7 is bad news. Its nothing special. For your regular business oriented person, there's no better alternative.

Strengths

Its pretty obvious what the strengths of this baby are.

The keyboard is simply fantastic, the legend makes perfect sense, plus Nokia has learned from past mistakes to make a decent Scandinavian localisation. Here you see the scandinavian layout of the keys.

The screen is boosted up to a full 4" from the N8's 3.5", which is more than welcome for when you have a lot of text on the screen. It's pretty cool watching videos and photos off this screen also.

Also, like I said the build quality is absolutely fantastic. Every port seems sturdy, and the sling-out mechanism of the keyboard feels solid. It is incredible how a device this slim can A) contain a hardware keyboard and B) achieve this level of sturdyness. Of course the slimness comes at a cost, and I'll talk about that in the weaknesses section.

The E7 comes loaded with the praised Multimedia software initially developed for the N8. Just as well, because the camera is very good, minus a few short comings.

The e-mail app in Symbian^3 is the best there is in any Nokia device, although I must say that Modest (on Maemo) is about as good. I also really enjoyed the calendar, as the big screen is really helpful when viewing the monthly view. The calendar is basically the same from any previous Nokia Symbian device, so rest assured it will probably fill your needs. Little tweaks here and there increase the functionality and appearance of the calendar.

Overall, the performance of the device is surprisingly good. Zinging around the menus is fast and happens without your random Symbian-like stutter, and the device really performs on packing and repacking the videos you capture on the device. I couldn't believe my eyes how fast editing a video and saving it was. I remember I used to edit my videos on my XM5800, and a 2 min clip would process for about 5 minutes after every change to it. Bravo, Nokia.

Below is me zinging around in Ovi Maps. KICK-ASS!




Weaknesses

Here we go again, about to embark on a quest into what the weaknesses of a S^3 device are. Now most of the things I ranted about on the N8 are still present. The menu structures are needlessly complicated, duplicate or nonsensical because of translation. English speakers don't really have to worry about the last bit,  but I can only imagine localizations in other countries if Nokia can't pull off a decent translation in its own (previously) native language.

To a large degree I agree with the claim that Symbian only needs an UI overhaul, but there must be a reason Nokia ends up implementing the same kind of mistakes into the UI. For example, the Conversations feature. The point seems to be to make your text message chats look like they do in Android and iOS. Some call this a threaded view. As something that was clearly crafted on Maemo and then implemented into Symbian, its astounding that the version on Symbian is so much worse.

Keskustelut = Conversations

Main gripe: there's the Conversations view and there's the Inbox view. Nokia wants to introduce the new way to do things, doesn't quite finish polishing it and then leaves another way of doing the same thing in the system. Result: clutter, duplicates of functions and confusion. Basically the point with Nokia's Conversations is, that you only get the view, but not the functionality from other platforms. Expect to be using the traditional Nokia method for viewing and replying to messages.

The Nokia E7 has an EDoF camera. This means, that it doesn't really contain optics, probably because of its incredible slimness. I think the camera's really good, except for the fact that I can't take really close-up shots.

Here's a video shot using the camera, showing off this weakness:



I think this video quality is pretty damn impressive, and sound quality is really good as well. But I personally require a macro mode on my cam.

Worse than the lack of macro mode is the lack of any out-of-the-box method of sharing your photos and videos. You can set up your social networking apps such as Facebook and Twitter, but you can only share files up to about 25Mbs through these services. Just under 20s of video on the E7 is already well over 30Mb. I even tried sharing the file through e-mail, but I got an error message saying I couldn't attach anything larger than 300Kb. Is this the attachment size limit for Ovi Mail?

So this is another case of Nokia screwing over their top-of-the-line hardware with sofware that renders it obsolete.

Another strange thing was the browser experience. I don't know if the software on the E7 I was using was somehow jumbled up, but the browser seemed slower than usual. Scrolling was also really erratic  and at times what happened on the site seemed to bring the entire device to a halt. I had good reception and switching over to a fast Wifi didn't help. What's going on here?

Also, the E7 fails to make use of the volume rocker. I was expecting it to zoom in and out in the browser, but I'm stuck with either pinch to zoom or the awkward "tap on text to have the view zoom into it" feature, that makes the text unreadable without constant panning left and right. What's the point behind this feature?

Conclusions

Although my initial tweets about this device were ecstatic, I soon became overburdened by the confusion and shortcomings of Symbian. I'm a heavy user of my device and I demand that the device works the way I want it to, and not the other way around.

I totally see previous Nokia customers being happy with this, as its probably something very familiar to them. It is also a fact, that if previous Symbian devices have served you well, then there's really no risk of moving up to the E7. It will be well worth your money.

For me and other enthusiasts like me, the E7 will feel like it has a tonne of potential, but dissapointment is imminent as the software doesn't allow us to use it to the fullest.

- Chris

Second encounter with the N8 - Final batch of gripes (I swear!)

Recently I posted my thoughts that rose from my first encounter with the N8. The N8 in question was a prototype and it didn't have a SIM in it and was hardly connected to the internet, so really trying it out proved impossible.

This is "part two" of my encounter with the N8. This time there's a SIM on board, and I went ahead to put all my settings in to begin using it as if it was my own device.

Again, this post is going to focus on things I'd like to see changed in the N8, but I swear that after this I'm done with griping!

Ovi logins, and how it's driving me insane

Among the first things when starting up the phone was logging into the Ovi service to "get the full benefit" of Ovi services on my device. I logged in and then proceeded to do all the usual setting up one has to do. (Login to Ovi counter: 1)

My first priorities were to try out the Nokia Social Hub app and to then setup my e-mail. Steve Litchfield was quite harsh on the Social hub app, recommending everyone to give it a pass. In the Phones Show Episode 122 he shows us as the application stutters when you scroll. When I gave it a try it worked surprisingly well. Okay, I come from a Maemo-heavy background, so maybe I'm just used to stutter ( ;) ), but I found it quite usable. The desktop widget that came with this app was quite unintuitive, and it was hard to understand it's logic. My biggest problem was sorting out the different views you got to see by using the widget, and then not finding these views when using the app "normally" on its own fair and square. Wonder what on earth is going on here.

To add my Ovi chat or whatever to the Social program, I had to log-in. (Login to Ovi counter: 2)

Here's also a translation inconsistency in the bit where you add accounts:

Here I've added my Facebook account.

When I went to setup my Twitter account, the languge had changed to English.

The e-mail turned out to be a bit of a downer, as well. I set up my GMail and Ovi accounts. Guess did I have to log-in to my Ovi account again? Sure did! (Login to Ovi counter: 3)

Can't scroll by having my finger on the text, btw.

Above is me trying to scroll down the page by dragging the text. Won't work, you'll have to catch the miniscule scrollbar on the right to go down. Yawn. This was the only place in S^3 where I found myself doing this. Inconsistency! Argh.

Here's another oddity I ran into in the Mail app:

An e-mail from my GMail inbox.

When viewing mails from the GMail inbox, the text was nice and big and it mimiced the "threaded" view of e-mails you have in the PC browser version of GMail. This was really nice and enjoyable, and with pinch to zoom working quite nicely here. Then I opened an e-mail from my Ovi inbox:

Nice and... unreadable.

For some reason, when reading e-mails from my Ovi e-mail account, the text would settle itself very poorly on the screen. First, its too small to read unless you put the device right up in your face and second, if you pinch to zoom, then the text doesn't reallign itself with the changed view. So its either this miniscule print or then endless scrolling left-right-left-right to read one paragraph. C'mon, this renders the e-mail app on the N8 unusable for me. Why does it attempt to mimic the view you see in the webmail versions of these e-mail services anyway?

I then went on to have a look at the new Ovi Store (Login to Ovi counter: 4) although I first did it in the browser by accident, so I launched the Ovi Store app (Login to Ovi counter: 5) and found it to be nice and improved. I was intrigued by the topApps application (Login to Ovi counter: 6) although found it odd, that searching for other apps besides the ones listed in the assorted "most famous in category..." wasn't possible here. I then fired up Maps (Login to Ovi counter: 7) remembering something about pinch-to-zoom on the maps and it was pretty cool. I really enjoyed seeing the maps on the nice and bright screen, and maybe for the first time ever Maps didn't feel too heavy for the hardware it was running on.

Syncing my stuff

I was really hoping that on the N8 I could sync to my Ovi Calendar from the calendar app. For some reason, I had to do it through my address book, where it promted me to sync my contacts from the Ovi cloud service (Login to Ovi counter: 8). Upon starting this process, it asked me if I also wanted to sync the calendar and images or something, which I naturally did. Bit of a strange logic here.

When going through the syncing process, I was confronted with a message that I hastily tapped out of the view somehow, and suddenly this was staring at me:

Sorry... what?

This is in Finnish, so probably this wouldn't make any sense to many people anyway, but here's another example of something I griped about in my "part one" post. The finnish translation is really poor in S^3, and at times completely unreadable. Here words are cut so short that I've no idea what could be their meaning. "Automatic sync" yeah got that much, but what on earth is it asking me below? A weird check-box (that isn't one) and the option to Sync or get out. I was a bit lost here, went with "Sync". Syncing seemed to work fine.

Things I liked

Now, because I promised to stop griping about the N8 (or actually S^3 to be precise), I will end this post with a few notions of what I liked.

For some reason, I really enjoyed the SMS notification up front, on top of everything in the desktop view. I found that the little "bubble" was quite functional and well placed both in portrait and landscape mode:

Landscape SMS notification.

The turning of the screen was nice, although not the fastest I've seen. A huge difference to S60 5th was, however, that I think Nokia didn't want the device to be too sensitive to turning the screen, and therefore there's a "wait period" to see if the user's serious or if tilting was an accident. Somehow it just seemed to be implemented really well and the delay seemed intentional and well controlled. Thank you, Nokia! Gripe #1 from S60 5th Ed. fixed!

I really enjoy the threaded SMS conversation view:

Lookin' good! -b

Tapping on a message bubble reveals the SMS in its full:

Single SMS view.

The obvious thing I liked (no, loved): the friggin' awesome camera!

Conclusions

So there. I feel like I've made my peace with Symbian^3 and the N8. I've finally said a lot of what I wanted to say about why exactly S^3 is stilla way away from being great, the way it should be. No Symbian^3 device will find its way to be my main device, but I think a lot of people can enjoy it to the fullest. I also think that most people won't even notice half of the stuff I gripe about!

In bringin out these negative points I wasn't aiming to flame, but to show the aspects of the UI that still need work in my opinion. The purpose of this is two-fold: I want people to read about these little things that eat into your experience, and second, nowhere can you read detailed examples of what exactly is wrong with Symbian^3's UI, it just gets called old and lame. I think I'm somewhat fair here in taking the time and effort to point some of them out and hopefully I've made it clear as to why I think these "features" are faults. I think this should make it easier to fix them. Also, since I've called them out, so I've done my part.

Am I completely off here?

A Collection of Good Reads on Nokia

Inspired by an article written by Kyron over at Maemofanatics.com, I decided to put together a list of links to interesting articles about Nokia and the mobile industry.

With Nokia World 2010 coming up it's good to stop for a moment and make sure that your perspective of Nokia is accurate. So below I've tried to list the articles that have profound insight or a more holistic view of the mobily industry. All articles below understand that the history of the mobile industry didn't start with the iPhone nor even the Motorola Razr. The articles are in no particular order.

#1) The already mentioned article from Maemofanatics.com recapping the past 8 months of Nokia: http://www.maemofanatics.com/show-and-prove-why-its-too-late-for-nokia-to-be-secretive/

#2) Juhani Risku, former Nokia CEO shares his thoughts on how Nokia should be "rescued": http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/07/22/nokia_manifesto_risku/

#3) Symbian-Freak  Chris McFann: "The truth about Nokia, Symbian, Maemo, Nokia N900 and the Nokia N97", written about a year ago in August 2009, this article still rings true: http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/009/08/chris_truth_about_nokia_symbian_maemo_the_n900_and_n97.htm

#4) Feel that Nokia should adopt Android? Read this to find out why that's completely off: http://www.symbian-freak.com/news/010/07/why_symbian_and_meego_are_best_for_nokia_1.htm

#5) Hear it from the horse's (Anssi Vanjoki's) mouth: Nokia will not adopt Android: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703571704575340543144779152.html

#6) Check yourself in to what MeeGo really is about in this good summary by Kyron over at Maemofanatics.com: http://www.maemofanatics.com/meego-what-it-is-and-what-it-isnt/

#7) A great recap of sir Tomi Ahonen's report on the marketshare situation Q3 2010. Mindhsare, marketshare and the truth about Apple's influence: http://mynokiablog.com/2010/07/23/nokia-cant-compete-in-the-high-end-really

And finally:

#8) What exactly did current Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo inherit? Is the buzz generated by Wall Street Journal really accurate? Another one of Tomi's children gets shortened down, this time by Mobile Industry Review here: http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2010/07/nokias-fall-from-grace-the-background-story.html


What do you think of these articles? Are there any more like these worth knowing about?

Let's hear about it in the comments.

- Chris

Quick hands-on with the Nokia C6

Hello, folks!

Today the Nokia C6 arrived for sale at the store I work in, and I got a chance to snap some photos of it with my N900. I also managed to play around for it a little, but here are the photos up front:

Shazam!

Boom!

Bang!

Sleeeeek.

All in all the Nokia C6 feels like a sturdy device, weighing in at 150 grams. It's mostly plastic, but some metallic highlights really make a difference. Also, I'm simply nuts about the backplate and the overall matte finish that engulfs this nifty device.

Two things struck me the most about the C6:
#1)

The status of the memory of the device straight out of the box.

See that? That's ~250Mb of internal memory for the phone. Right off the bat I associated the C6 to the 5800XM which I have previously used. My number one gripe with that device is the miniscule phone memory. Like you can see in the photo, this device comes with ~250Mb internal storage (I had stuff pre-installed), plus that 2Gb memory card. In practice this means that the device is snappier than the 5800XM.

#2)

Oh baby.

Oh baby that keyboard there is a heartbreaker. Lovely slightly rough, matte finish, the orange highlights and four rows of loveliness makes typing a worthwhile experience on the C6. Note also, that the d-pad is on the right side of the device. What you see here is the Scandinavian key layout.

The (somewhat) bad:

This is a S60 5th Edition device. My heart bleeds for this fact, but sadly it's the truth. This means that the device suffers in:
- No "wow" for the eye
- Functional, but primitive in presentation
- Limited browser experience, although all S60 device browsers beat for eg. the Android browser.
- Mucking about with your photos is slow, unintuitive and irregular.

Finally, an example shot from the C6 5Mp cam with CZ optics:

The grand Nokia N900, captured by the C6.

At the moment of typing this, the Nokia C6 clocks in at a good 300+ euros, but I expect this price to come down fairly soon. Trying to understand the focus group for this device is hard for me, because no mature person would buy this phone with this OS, but then again it's too advanced and serious to be a teen's device. That said, I'm considering getting this device my self once the price drops to around 200€.

The N8, summary of life so far

The Nokia N8 is bound for the shelves towards the end of Q3 of 2010 and so far the device's journey has been quite colourful. In this post I'll sum up some of the buzz around the device and contemplate on it's future. All this in a strongly oppinionated but I'll try to give some sources along the way!

The N8 first made it's appearance in leaked photos of a leaked prototype. Consequently, by now it seems that the N8 has quite efficiently been blogged to death. It seems that a video showing the prototype N8 has been released every other day since the first leak in March (was it March? correct me here any time) of 2010.

Since then official pleas by Nokia to the blogging public, the Russian authorities and finally legal action against a blogger have coloured the hype surrounding this device. Throw in the leak of yet another (similar) device sporting a physical keyboard and it's remote mid-review wipe, cheap chinese copies sporting a physical keyboard, and you pretty much have the story of the Nokia N8.

The reception

The N8 has been received with mixed impressions. Although the stunning camera quality has been praised everywhere, the rest of the phone has received only lukewarm reviews. Most feel that Symbian^3 simply isn't different enough for the N8 to be something to get excited about.


However, the general attitude has been very anti-Nokia for as about long as anyone can remember, with Nokia's #1 leak man Eldar Murtazin leading the lynch mob. This guy gets his hands on pre-release alpha versions of devices and forms often negative views of the devices. He has been criticized for being too eager to bash Nokia products, as some things he has said prove to be wrong or fixed in the next batch of prototype devices. None of this is about to change, as the man now faces Nokia's legal team in accusations of stolen property.

Click here to read mr. Murtazin's initial thoughts (Google Translated from Russian).

What does the N8 mean?

I've spent some time trying to put the N8 in perspective with everything else that Nokia is (seems) to be doing at the moment. Here are some things about it that I think it stands to mark:

- "At Nokia, we can do slim and attractive devices with huge capacitive touchscreens"
- "At Nokia, we like to stuff our devices full of technical features not present in other devices. "
- "We are adamant about the possibilites of Symbian as a smartphone platform, and so S^3 is present in this device."
- "The N8 is a natural continuation of our strivings to include better and badder camera hardware into our N-Series devices."

( Bear in mind that these aren't actual quotes of Nokia's personnell! )

Here's a few thoughts on Nokia's strategy that they aren't quite as outspoken about:

- This is Nokia's attempt to get a hold on the competition and the trend of things: slapping on a gorgeous camera is something Nokia has been best at for years, so this is Nokia playing hardball at their own game.
- At the same time, the physical form factor is very foreign to be a Nokia device, thus marking that Nokia has subjected to competitors' pressures in this respect.
- The N8 must be a Symbian device, because MeeGo will simply not be ready by the release of the N8.
- Symbian^4 is still lightyears away, that's why the N8 must run S^3.
- The N8 will be sold at a price point, where only Symbian devices will be sold. In other words, Symbian will be the (high)mid range smartphone platform and only MeeGo devices will be sold at the highest smartphone price point.

Will the chicks dig it?

I think there's a chance that the answer is: ... Probably not.

I was tempted to write "Yes." but some field tests with female test subjects have ruled the device to being something between "OK" and "fugly". Why is it important if chicks dig it? Its because I feel that if the chicks dig it, then it has the chance for mass appeal. After all, roughly half of us are girls.

The males of the general public might find it quite enticing, however. It's got great specs, it's got the capacitive screen that everyone seems to want and you can do that pinching gesture. Personally I can say that the latter especially is nothing special. But hey, people come up with features they always want and ask after, whether they really need it or not. For example Bluetooth was a must for many, eventhough they never used BT devices. Of course as a result BT can now be found on every device.

It will come in nice colours, though (again, very unlike Nokia!):

So what do you think? 

What are your expectations and/or predictions for the N8?

Ovi Maps Comes With Music

Nokia's elaborate services plan visualised.

Nokia's announcement of beginning to offer it's Ovi Maps voice guided turn-by-turn navigation free of charge has sent a ripple through the market, as TomTom's share price lost 15% right after the giant's announcement. Free global navigation with no fear of roaming and license costs sounds almost too good to be true. Can it be true? The ultimate insider, Eldar Murtazin thinks that it is. And with just cause.


Mr. Murtazin's Tweets about Ovi Maps ever since right after the announcement have stated, that the now "free" Ovi Maps license will be added to mid- and high-range Nokia phone prices. So Nokia will bundle the "free" license with the phone, but will raise the price of new devices that launch since March 2010.

Force-feeding or countering losses?

Before you read on, I recommend that you read Mr. Murtazin's blogstory here.

He makes a point that Nokia's "Maps" service has never really caught on with people to the extent that they would pay for a voice guided navigation license. He continues to say, that Nokia has never released any statistics or sales figures of its navigation services.

Another point mr. Murtazin makes is, that Nokia is now "force-feeding" the unsuccesful Maps license to anyone buying the phone, as the customer will have to pay a little extra for the device from here on out. To me, this seems logical and it should come as no surprise that nothing is free in this world. Free stuff is always done at the expense of something else. So then, is this a new norm in Nokia's marketing strategy? Come to think of it, Nokia's done this kind of "trick" before and not too long ago.

Comes With Music. Remember that little service? It is the 12 month license for "free grabs" in the Nokia Music store, which sounds like a great deal to be getting with your phone. However, it was widely publicised that the "CWM" feature in a phone actually raised the price of the phone with about 100 euros. Nokia sells a fraction of its models that have CWM without the music store capability. And at least here in Finland, the CWM phones are the models that stores chose to begin selling. I think the reasons for this is quite obvious.

So how well has CWM worked for Nokia? Well, not very well. Before Christmas there were news that the CWM service wasn't really catching on and as a salesperson my self, I know that the steeper price of the device with CWM made a lot of people reconsider. It's also a bit contradictory when you think about it: services like Spotify and Nokia Music Store actually hold artists from only the largest record companies, meaning that the content is heavily pop-orientated. Now who are the biggest consumers of music that you hear on mainstream radio channels? Well people in an age group that you wouldn't buy a 700 euro phone for. To me it appears that there's a slight mis-match in supply and demand.

The bigger picture

So will the "freeing" of the Ovi Maps license turn out to be a good thing for Nokia with these experiences with Comes With Music in mind? Well, at least Ovi Maps is a service that people from pretty much all age groups can use, although only grown-ups tend to travel abroad and need be concerned about getting to places. Adults also have more money to invest into mobile devices, so this probably is a working match of service and demand. All this depends naturally on just how much the price will rise for Ovi Maps licensed phones.

Source: http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2010/ovi-maps-en.shtml

©Christopher Peake 2010