Nokia. The smartphone business is booming, and yet, the Finnish company – the quintessential phone maker – is getting pretty much none of the glitz and glamour. Their latest the device, the Nokia N8, is supposed to turn the tide, and Engadget has a thorough review of the device. Conclusion? It’s getting repetitive, but hardware – awesome, software – not so much.
Even from looking at the pretty pictures it becomes clear just what a looker the N8 really is. A unique design, beautiful all-aluminium case, gorilla glass – not even Apple can produce something quite as exquisite as this. It’s got a 680Mhz ARM11 processor, which may seem a little sparse, but remember that it has a separate Broadcom GPU to go with that. Add the truly idiotic 12 megapixel (!) camera and you’ve got some serious hardware here.
But then again, hardware has never been a problem for Nokia. They can build phones that will outlast the apocalypse – it’s just that the software these phones run probably will not. Symbian is long in the tooth, and simply can’t compare favourably with more modern operating systems like iOS and Android (for most people). Nokia is hard at work transitioning its developers from Avkon to Qt, and Symbian^3 is somewhat of an intermediate release, with Symbian^4 (and MeeGo) being Qt-focussed. The N8 is the first Symbian^3 phone.
Symbian’s age is showing, even on this flagship Nokia device. Engadget mentions the main sore spots, chief among which is the pretty barren application landscape. The Ovi Store is not included in the default ROM, and needs to be downloaded from a website. Once that archaic approach to application retrieval is over with, you’ll encounter a store that is lacking in many large names – heck, the Facebook ‘application’ is a glorified web page (and I can attest to its horribleness), the few Google applications it does have are archaic, and the only decent Twitter client will set you back 10 USD, to name a few.
The browser is still problematic, too. “It repeatedly crashed loading engadget.com for us (though the mobile version worked fine, thank goodness), regularly ground to a halt while scrolling, and didn’t look as good, largely because text isn’t anti-aliased regardless of size or style,” Engadget notes. These are unacceptable flaws in today’s mobile world.
The keyboard is also a major sore spot, according to Engadget. In landscape mode, you only get a numeric keypad (so letters have to be entered using T9 or triple-tapping), and in landscape mode, the QWERTY keyboard covers the entire screen. Again – in today’s smartphone world, these are unacceptable flaws.
It’s not all bad, though. Symbian’s multitasking is still pretty much the king – even on my ageing E71 which I was forced to use while my iPhone was in repairs, multitasking on Symbian is a joy to use. iOS’ glorified recently used applications list doesn’t even hold a candle to that.
The N8 also comes with a really good photo editing application, and the transition to a fully finger-friendly user interface is complete, so there’s absolutely no need for a stylus (it doesn’t have one either as it’s a capacitive touch screen).
So, where does that leave the N8, according to Engadget? Well, while it is easily the best Smybian device out there, it can’t compete with the likes of iOS and Android.
“By evolving at a glacial (and largely superficial) pace, Symbian itself continues to cater specifically to a market of individuals who were early smartphone adopters five or more years ago,” Engadget concludes, “That’s a market whose continued loyalty only stands to shrink, not grow. And at a time when 720p video recording is no longer novel and 3.5″ screens are starting to look a bit on the small side, even DSLR-like image quality isn’t enough to justify a phone without a fantastic and thoroughly modern user experience to match. Symbian^3, sadly, regrettably, heartrendingly, isn’t there yet.”
It’s time for MeeGo, Nokia. Be bold, be brave, look at Palm, RIM, Microsoft. They all took the plunge to a new operating system.
Hmm, not to sound fanboyish, but I just have a harder time accepting that review from Engadget, seeing that some other tech blogs gave it a better score than what Engadget gave.
They have a reputation by some of being rabid iPhone fanboys.
certainly merited reputation. if you’ve seen their N8 vs iphone4 pictures show before that N8 review (funny how in the review they say the N8 camera is great, while in their comparison with ip4, its like “n8 is worse than iphone 1”)
Well you have to think megapixels really don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things. So while the camera may be great compared to say an EVO, image quality may not be as good as an Iphone 4. I haven’t used either so I don’t know that to be true, but I’ve heard the iphone’s camera seems to outperform higher specced phone cameras in terms on image quality.
Actually after reading the review I see what you mean. They say the camera takes better or at least more natural pictures then turn on a dime for the score. Maybe they forgot what they wrote in the review when it came time to score.
Edited 2010-10-15 14:35 UTC
The camera is great. The review with the images is just written by a complete tard.
So basically, you will only accept a review that gives the N8 a good score. Engadget explains why it scores the N8 the way they do, and their review is pretty thorough. It’s bascially what anyone would have predicted. Very good/brilliant hardware, iffy software. And we knew that already given that Nokia is already wanting to replace Symbian as its top of the line OS. That does sound fanboyish!
Uh,no, I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that the N8 was generally given a pretty good score as opposed to the review score from Engadget, and that I feel that Engadget does have a little bit of bias when dealing with Nokia. Maybe because Engadget is an American tech blog and seeing that Nokia doesn’t really have much penetration in the North American market as Google and Apple does, that it’s possible that it doesn’t really appeal to them.
Please don’t take what I said out of context.
After having read their comparison of N8 shakycam vs iPhone4, in which they couldn’t even hold the N8 still, and disregarded the iPhone’s oversaturated colours, I simply don’t trust them. No other reviewers have been unable to take decent photos with the N8, only Engadget. Their test was rigged, and their criticism evidently biased.
You mean the other way around?
http://mynokiablog.com/2010/10/03/the-truth-about-engadgets-nokia-n…
http://thehandheldblog.com/2010/10/04/shootout-nokia-n8-v-canon-550…
I’ve killed my flash plugin since it crashes my browser, maybe this was the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viv56drLjEk
But the N8 camera is way better than the iPhone4 and there are no exceptions.
If you want to boost the contrast and increase saturation feel free to do that on the N8 images to. It will still kick ass.
What gets my goat is that the actual written review is pretty fair. It’s the score that’s shit. They rave about the hardware and specs and all the stuff it can do but then, because it’s not iphone os, half-marks.
And you can tell that’s where the writer is coming from because whenever there’s a feature that iphone has that this didn’t, that was another gripe. They are used to having something a certain way, so a phone not having it is a sore point. But when an os has a feature that the iphone doesn’t, it counts for naught, they hardly notice it.
They should just leave the score out of it.
Jaylaa, I think you will find this “summary” of the Engadget review most interesting:
http://engadgetsucks.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/engadget-review-of-n8…
😉
Certainly every newspaper, magazine and website I’ve seen says essentially the same thing as engadget (awesome hardware, half baked software). In fact I’ve not seen anyone say nice thing about the software. Can you point me to some of these positive reviews.
Edited 2010-10-15 07:29 UTC
It’s the platform is it not that’s letting it down? The action is on iOS and Android.
How does the screen look under sunlight? How is the media player? How do email and messaging work? How easy is it to send a contact, or a picture to another mobile through Bluetooth? How is the phone functionality? Is it easy to find someone in the list, make a call, use the handsfree?
How do videocalls work? Are they easy to make? Don’t they work over 3G like normal calls? Can they connect with any of the billions of 3G phones in the world, or only with similar phones that happen to be on WiFi in that very moment? (Does anybody really care?)
The review is anything but complete, and is quite unfair as a result.
And, BTW, why the hell does anybody want to see 720p movies on a cellphone screen (and in this case, with 360 lines!)
And, BTW, why the hell does anybody want to see 720p movies on a cellphone screen (and in this case, with 360 lines!)
Well, maybe when plugged to an external output, like a TV for example, it can do higher resolution than the phone screen? Then it would make sense to be able to play back higher-resolution video too.
I’m pretty sure that’s an interesting feature only for a very miniscule number of actual cellphone users.
Except outputting to a different device as already mention of course being able to decode the video at all is an advantage against not being able to. Since you can just download them without having to convert them.
Knowing what they did when testing the camera, I wouldn’t trust Engadget for testing anything made by Nokia, especially if it competes with anything made by Apple.
As you said, this review is half-done.
If you read the review you will know that this phone has an HDMI port, it can play 720p video to your HDTV.
It works quite well, and just as easy as normal vioce calls.
Work with regular cellular networks, not WiFi.
Yes.
No one does, and that’s why it comes with a HDMI port.
Edited 2010-10-15 09:13 UTC
OK, it comes with an HDMI port. So what? Piping HD video out of a phone onto a TV seems of extremely marginal interest.
Sure it is possible to come up with use cases, as it would for an edible screen protector, or a built-in screwdriver.
I can see a typical use case : when visiting friends, you can show your photos on the TV (as you’d do with a compact camera), and watch one of the movies stored on your phone together.
This feature is about real life social networking integration, imo
Edited 2010-10-15 18:39 UTC
But that is an Applism.. Most TVs have USB storage and often SD storage inputs, you just take your standard non-apple device and plug it in. There is not need for special cables or converters, just the standard USB cable you also use to charge the phone. All this because everybody but Apple likes following the industry standards. This way you will have the TV itself decode the images or video at the resolution it is capable of showing.
Edited 2010-10-17 15:15 UTC
It’s clear you don’t own a Sony TV or HDD recorder…
Their mass storage drivers are artificially crippled so that they can only read photos from the device. A Sony executive would call that copy protection, I think.
Moreover, what if you have videos in a format that the TV can’t handle ? It’s safer to have the phone output its video on the TV, because you already know that it can read that.
Edited 2010-10-18 05:50 UTC
Since you can use the phone to make that HD video, it sounds like most easy and natural way to watch it.
What’s with all the App talk? I understand that the N8 is a little lacking in this department, but that’s not all there is to a phone. Besides some games (which I could do without) I have no apps on my smartphone and a lot of my friends couldn’t care less about apps on their phones, or about Twitter, or Facebook or the latest fads.
So how is it as a phone?
And BTW, what’s wrong with this keyboard: http://www.best-choice-tech.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/untitled…
Your experience is not the norm.
Had you read the review, you would’ve known.
Neither is yours or the reviewer’s. Do you happen to have a study at hand that shows that having a rich App ecosystem is a must have feature for the majority of users?
I’ve read it and I think the fact that in portrait mode you get a big numeric keyboard is a feature not a bug. The other annoyances the author mentions I think are non-issues, just bitching for the sake of bitching.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/ByteOfTheApple/blog/archives…
over a billion apps downloaded off the appstore, with an average of 50 apps per iphone sold.
Personally, i don’t really like talking on the phone that much, but I love my iphone
iPhone statistics do not represent the majority of users though.
Even with the issues (old?) OVIstore and old Symbian phones may have OVIstore delivers 2.3 million downloads per day.
the OPs arguement was that him and none of his friends care about smartphone apps, and he wanted a link showing otherwise. that link shows that on average, iphone users install 50 apps on their phones.
Thom,
Have you tested the “old school” J2ME apps on the N8?? These apps have been around for a long time, but for some strange reason never on Ovi.
In particular, I would like to know if “Twim” (a lightweight twitter client) works well on N8:
http://code.google.com/p/twim/
More importantly: What’s wrong with this keyboard?
http://www.tech-vise.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Nokia-E7_green1…
I don’t see why anyone would get the N8 instead if it doesn’t cost much less but whatever
. E7 ftw. Business-version of the same phone.
If you’re used to Symbian, you’re probably thinking “what’s the big deal” with the following gripes. But if you’re used to WebOS, iPhone, or Android, all you can think is “they actually shipped something like that?”
The Ovi Store is not included in the default ROM, and needs to be downloaded from a website. Once that archaic approach to application retrieval is over with, you’ll encounter a store that is lacking in many large names – heck, the Facebook ‘application’ is a glorified web page (and I can attest to its horribleness), the few Google applications it does have are archaic, and the only decent Twitter client will set you back 10 USD, to name a few.
You load the Ovi store from the computer? Good grief.
The browser is still problematic, too. “It repeatedly crashed loading engadget.com for us (though the mobile version worked fine, thank goodness), regularly ground to a halt while scrolling, and didn’t look as good, largely because text isn’t anti-aliased regardless of size or style,” Engadget notes. These are unacceptable flaws in today’s mobile world.
The browser repeatedly crashed, and Nokia fanboys complain that it got a bad score. Really? Non-antialised fonts? What is this, 1990?
The keyboard is also a major sore spot, according to Engadget. In landscape mode, you only get a numeric keypad (so letters have to be entered using T9 or triple-tapping), and in landscape mode, the QWERTY keyboard covers the entire screen. Again – in today’s smartphone world, these are unacceptable flaws.
It what? Covers the whole screen? Seriously?
The problem is that people used to Android or iOS do not get Symbian and engadget does not get it either.
OVI is just ONE app store, among others. On Symbian, the most popular app store is GetJar and many carriers have their app stores (Vodafone, etc)
The browser is ONE browser. Nothing stops you from installing Opera mini. It’s like Windows coming with IE. Yes, IE sucks but no, it’s not a problem because you can install any browser you like.
People coming from iOS complain on the basis that you can’t install another browser, which is wrong on Symbian.
Now when you come from Symbian to the iPhone or to Android, you will find many thing to complain about. It’s frustrating not being able to do what you want with your phone. Not being able to use it as a USB storage, not having wifi ad-hoc, crappy multitasking, etc.
Symbian is NOT behind iOS or Android. The complain that is it not iOS or Android is unfair and mislead.
Just FYI, you _can_ install another browser on the iPhone 😉
You can install other browsers provided they don’t run their own interpreter (javascript, flash or anything)
In other words, you can install Opera mini because the engine is located on the server but you can’t install opera mobile. No complex javascript and no flash. That’s not really a replacement for Safari.
Where does it say that? “The Ovi Store is not included in the default ROM, and needs to be downloaded from a website.” I.e. it can be done on a computer or directly from the browser on the phone.
Regarding Meego, the upcoming PR1.3 update for Maemo and the N900 will provide N900 users with the ability to dual-boot to Meego.
http://thenokiablog.com/2010/10/13/nokia-n900-pr13-dual-boot-meego/
Edited 2010-10-15 08:52 UTC
Dual booting a phone is ridiculous, imo. Its a fucking PHONE!
Yeah, you’re right. Dual-booting is ridiculous… when you can TRIPLE AND QUAD boot! MeeGo, Maemo, NitDroid and probably soon Kubuntu Mobile.
Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Its only for developers though, not consumers, which means no support from Nokia. Personally, I am waiting for the Nokia N9. Basically a n900 with meego.
They had/have the lead so they were like Microsoft figured they didnt have to do much to keep their marketshare. They were WRONG! I like nokia i like their hardware but i dont like how they half heartedly support meego. If they were serious they would have dropped symbian 2 years ago. But they didnt and imho still dont push meego and they wonder why everyone wants Android and IOS powered devices over thier stuff. How can people have confidence in meego when nokia seems not to?
Meego is NOT a smartphone OS. MeeGO is for mobile computing. It sucks on phones. Nokia supports Maemo since a very long time already, on tablets. It is not adapted for the phone. That being said, it is a very good OS for mobile computing like on the N900 and the future N9.
It is suitable for devices that are not switched on 24/24, 7/7. The N900 is pretty powerful, and probably the best mobile computer around but you get 2 days of battery life, the keyboard makes the device bigger, the phone app is hidden and the hardware is not cheap.
Edited 2010-10-15 10:03 UTC
2 days? damn, I’m kinda jealous.
Both my HTC Touch Pro and my Blackberry Bold will barely make it two days. I’m not really a heavy user of anything besides email and that’s mostly receiving/reading rather than writing.
Sure the keyboard makes a phone bulkier, how could it not. But it’s nice having a keyboard.
– Meego is very much a smartphone OS. It behaves much more like a smartphone OS than Maemo. (Something I personally aren’t too fond of.)
– A smartphone is also ‘mobile computing’. Maybe your definition of ‘mobile computing’ is a bit broken.
– Maemo5 is very much adapted to ‘the phone’. The tablet versions of Maemo you refer to are for tablets that did not even have phone functionality.
– You can keep your N900 powered on 24/7, 7/7 the same way you do with any other smartphone: You recharge the battery.
– “The keyboard makes the device bigger” Yes, and cows give milk.
– You can access the N900’s phone application with one press of the Home button, and one press on the Phone button. Exactly the number of actions required to load the Phone application on an iPhone.
– No top-tier smartphone is cheap.
I wonder, have you ever used a N900 with Maemo5 and/or Meego?
PS: Symbian is a piece of old-fashioned shit that should be buried next to WindowsXP and MacOSX.
Edited 2010-10-17 18:30 UTC
I actually own a N900 tablet and am actually very happy with it. I even develop for it and currently have an application being reviewed by OVI QA.
– Mobile computing is what the N900 is. It is a computer that you can put in your pocket. You can install applications and be creative with it. You can edit documents, develop applications, host a web server, etc … what a computer does. A smartphone is a consumption device with limited capabilities. A smartphone does not replace a computer.
– Maemo 5 is a tablet OS and indeed the N900 is a tablet with 3G support.
– Indeed you can recharge your battery but you have to do it often because Maemo runs services like a ssh server or whatever you want it to run. Maemo won’t kill your ssh server because the battery is running low. On smartphones like the N8 you get 10 to 15 days of battery life because it runs what is necessary for a smartphone. It does not run services like on the N900.
– On a smartphone you start typing numbers and the phone application starts calling.
PS: Please elaborate what you think is wrong about Symbian beside not being MeeGo.
First of all, you seem to have taken back some of your claims, which is nice. I say this because you seem to have forgotton about some of the claims that I nullified in your reply.
Here come the hyphens:
– I have a friend who owns a Google Nexus One. He installs applications on it, is creative with it, edits documents with it, develops applications with it, runs an FTP server on it, and uses an SSH client to connect to his remote irssi session with it. Does this make the Nexus One, clearly a smartphone, a mobile computer merely because he uses it this way?
– Maemo5 runs on the N900 only, and although the N900 is a curious device, it still is a smartphone. That’s what happens when you add Phone functionality to an ‘internet tablet’ (which is a stupid marketing term anyway).
– Maemo5 does not run services like sshd by default, so how should it know to turn it off when the battery is low? It’s a fairly mundane task to make Maemo5 check for running applications against battery life left and make it shut down applications accordingly. If I do this, does my N900 become a smartphone?
– On my N900, I only have to start typing a name to open the adress book, or a number to open the phone application.
PS: I nearly forgot. Symbian, although having recieved several updates to make it more (haha) competitive with iOS, Android and Maemo/Meego, is still a very old OS that clearly is not up to the task of competing with a modern OS like iOS, Android or Maemo/Meego. It’s like saying that if you give WindowsXP the look and feel of Windows7, it automatically becomes as modern as Windows7. Symbian is clearly an OS aimed at the lower regions of the mobile phone market, which it does great. However, put it next to a proper smartphone OS, and you clearly start to notice it’s basically just a patched up old hag.
Edited 2010-10-18 14:23 UTC
Actually I didn’t reply to everything for lack of time. I could have added that smartphones are expensive not because of hardware price but because the vendors rape you.
Sure and I know someone who hacked his TomTom GPS and install games on it.
You can do all kind of things with a smartphone but it is not the right tool for the job.
By that standard, my netbook with a 3G usb key is also a smartphone.
No, it does not become a smartphone. Hacking your GPS does not make it a console. You can use your computer as a smartphone but it is not one.
I just checked and indeed it works. The N900 is still a computer though, because it does a lot more than a smartphone.
I use my N900 on the subway and in the train. I don’t carry it everywhere. I still carry a S40 phone to make and receive phone calls. Why? Because my S40 has weeks of battery life, not days. I can fall it, even in the water and it still functions. It fits in my pocket along with keys, card and stuff, unlike my N900 which only fits in my pocket if alone. I won’t dual boot another system and brick my S40 phone. Symbian has more functions than my S40 phone. You can use it to write and receive emails, do instant messaging, occasional games and other smartphone stuff while still retaining battery life and it does not require fragile hardware. I can put it next to my N900 and see that they are completely different beasts and that one does not replace the other. Android is a Symbian wannabe that can be hacked to do some computing in a horrible way. It does not even support ad-hoc wifi or proper multitasking.
Edited 2010-10-18 17:39 UTC
– Saying a smartphone is expensive because the ‘vendors rape you’ is a rather generic comment. My Nokia N900 is also expensive because Nokia raped me. I like to be raped by Nokia though, if it gets me a device like the N900.
– My friend did not have to ‘hack’ his Nexus One in order to do all these things, so I don’t really know what your point is. Unless ‘installing an application’ (something that you say makes the N900 a ‘mobile computer’ instead of a smartphone) is what you call ‘hacking’.
– Comparing the N900 to your netbook is just as silly as the previous comment, since anyone can see the clear difference. One is a phone, the other is a portable PC.
– Indeed it works, so according to your own definition, this makes it a smartphone. Unless, naturally, your definition changes whenever it meets reality.
– I feel sorry for you that you have to carry around two phones. I use my N900 anywhere. I dropped it a few times, several scratches and dents mark its surface. It’s exactly like any other Nokia phone I’ve had, a class A piece of engineering, hardware-wise. Very solid indeed.
– About your Android-bashing: Symbian doesn’t get any better by trying to make the competition look worse. If you need to bash the competition in order to make your own product look better, your own product is probably lacking.
My point was that a fridge that can make and receive calls is a fridge with phone functions.
The N900 is a mobile computer that can make phone calls and MeeGo is a mobile computer OS. It can function as a smartphone but it can do a lot more than that. And no, Android can’t do what MeeGo can do. Anyone can see it is more limited than MeeGo. You can install some applications that can do what a computer can do but that’s about it. You don’t have access to the internals of the OS.
Repeating yourself does not make you sound any more correct. This is boring.
PS: http://source.android.com/ (to access the internals of the OS)
PS2: Please tell me how I can make my posts instantly recieve +1 score upon posting. I am sure this will make my posts look better too.
You don’t access the internals from the device. You don’t control boot process, you can’t replace parts of the OS, you don’t control how the OS behave on the device. You can compile the OS from an actual computer (like the N900 btw) and flash your device, that’s all.
There is a difference. A computer allows you to do more stuff. A computer does not restrict you to java programs and some libs.
PS: I don’t f–king know why my posts are instantly at 2. Maybe because I have posted a lot of posts or something.
Edited 2010-10-18 21:15 UTC
You have posted a lot of posts, and they have received very positive user reviews overall (hundreds of posts voted up vs a few dozens of posts voted down). So the OSnews comment system has flagged you as a “trusted user” (as can be seen on your profile) and automatically gives you a score of 2 as a reward.
At least that’s the way I see it works.
Edited 2010-10-19 06:41 UTC
Again your claims bend and change shape as you see fit. First you say you cannot acces the OS internals, to which I link you to the Android source. In reply, you say you can’t access the OS internals from the device.
I see a pattern here :>
FYI, I exactly know what Android is and have developed for it. I know where to find the sources. When I said your can’t access the Os internals, I meant from the device itself. I knew that the source code was available and that it can be compiled from a computer, which the device itself is not.
I hope that the way you write software recieves more attention than the way you write posts on OSnews.
Nokia will start promoting MeeGo right about the time they have a MeeGo phone available for purchase.
That might come as a surprise to many a layman, but it makes economic sense when you think about it a bit.
Ok, the N8 isn’t perfect but it shows Symbian is not the dead duck that people have taken it for. Underneath the cruft, there was always a good OS that should never have been allowed to become a mill-stone round Nokia and Sony-Ericsson’s necks.
It’s shame we’re not seeing Symbian^4 on the N8, as that would better mend its reputation. Still, even if this is last top-end Symbian phone, it can now go into graceful semi-retirement with a bit of the respect that it deserves…
If I were the CTO of Nokia, I would allocate 10 hardcore geeks to port Android to it and see where that track leads. I know they plowed down money in QT and Symbian but the 10 geeks as an alternative plan could be what saves their high end mobile mobile division. Betamax was better than VHS but who cares?
Android pretty much sucks (IMHO). Not to mention the Oracle vs Google lawsuit may force it to suck more. When even non-tech people complain to me about not being able to install just any app, and they are forced to use Market only apps because of buying a Dell Streak straight from Dell, but it was on AT&T..
I much prefer the more open platform of Maemo / MeeGo.
Symbian supporting the J2ME and in the future Qt apps, just makes it rock all the more.
One thing is for sure, after my short stint in using a Motorola Cliq, then switching to my N900 and then using NITDroid, I realized how much I hate Android’s interface. Especially when trying to deal with different tasks. Really annoying.
It’s better than WinMo 6, and less of a battle to hack^H^H^H^Hcustomize than iOS — and it is available on CDMA networks.
Agreed, and this is why I wish Nokia all the best. But I’m not holding my breath. Carriers don’t want open platforms, because that makes it harder for them to extract $$$ from you. For that and possible other reasons (e.g., no CDMA), I don’t see them increasing their penetration in the US all that much. That leaves Android, wats as it may have, as the second-best option for me.
Nokia already knows where that track leads:
http://www.engadget.com/2010/09/21/ce-oh-no-he-didnt-anssi-vanjoki-…
I think the race to the bottom is inevitable for Nokia. It’s going to be very hard to sell mass market devices and premium products which are branded the same. What android would allow them to do is to lower costs. Nokia had been hoping to do the same with Symbian, but Android pulled that rug from under their feet. Mobile phones are becoming commodities. Nokia may find that it is stuck with the not-very-lucrative non premium market.
Why would that be? Nobody is going to confuse, say, MeeGo with S40 even if both are branded Nokia. That’s already the case with N900 – it stands on its own, with no mental connection to consumer grade phones.
Nothing stops a bunch of Nokians leaving the company and starting to do Android phones. Android just doesn’t need the RnD machine Nokia has, in fact it would be a liability (since it costs money). Android is better suited to companies with little own RnD (google does all the work)
The fact that selling drill bits can be profitable doesn’t mean a car company should stop making cars and start manufacturing drill bits, even if its cheaper. If you want to do drill bits, start (or buy) a company that does drill bits.
Nokia does very well at low end S40 phones. It’s the high end where Nokia is the new challenger to Android and iPhone.
I don’t understand why articles from sites such as Engadget or Gruber’s fireball are still linked to websites.
They’re usually a full mix, not wait, every single time, a full mix ignorance and extremely biased view.
There’s much better reviews out there.
Alright. Point me to a review of the N8 which disagrees with the Engadget one.
Good luck.
Try this: http://tinyurl.com/36ugvlu
Most overall comments are the same, but summary and review “scores” are quite different. It is all very unsurprising Apple does appliance software well, they are only limited by crappy hardware and company policies.
Edited 2010-10-17 15:27 UTC
More importantly, Why this article? Seriously, there is no added value, you don’t have any N8 hardware to give your own opinion or put anything into perspective, you don’t even try: you basically paraphrase the engadget review. A questionable review, moreover.
The N97 came with the more oldschool “Symbian^2” but it was an incredibly botched implementation, buggy as hell. I got mine 10 months ago, it only reached nearly what it should have been in the first place after 9 of them.
The fact the N8’s software isn’t utter crap should be considered a very good sign.
I don’t know why everyone complains about Symbian though. The OS is fine, it’s the old UI that can’t compete. That’s been changing but it’s clearly taking time. It looks like Symbian^4 will make it competitive. Put that on newer hardware and it could make a very nice device.
Nokia can deliver when they want to, the N95 8GB was a wonderful phone, if they can do something as good as that in the future in a N97 style form factor and I’ll certainly look at getting one.