Could the Nokia N8 and Symbian 3 win me back?

[Hands0n]

Well there's a question. And one that I find myself asking having seen a preview video on YouTube that actually shows the device and OS in a rather appealing light http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrRr_p6Au4s

Although published in June 2010 the video does have my interest sparked. If for no other reason that it could represent a fairly important response from Nokia to Apple and Google's partners in crime. For a few years now, these two new upstarts have had the smartphone field mostly to themselves as the notion of smartphone ownership was turned from niche to commodity.

The N8 is visually interesting and appealing with its metallic body, minimal glass (are you listening, Apple?) and adorned with the typical quantity of Nokia buttons. Interesting also the external doorways into the device in which to insert SIM and Flash memory. Little reason to have to pop the covers off, which is good.

Technical specs for the N8 are nothing extraordinary save for, perhaps, the 12 megapixel camera, the largest in a smartphone yet, and the xenon flash. A fast GPU seems to help the pre-production Symbian 3 work quite swiftly on the demo unit in the video.

So, with interest triggered, am I in the market for an N8? The answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is no, not at all. With the new device and even newer OS my strategy would be to wait and see, let the early adopters go through the muck and bullets. For this could very easily turn out to be a latter day Nokia N97, that abortion of a device that Nokia brought out when they saw how very well Apple were doing with their device. Good Lord what a pile of poop the N97 was. I do not know anyone who had one at the time who still does today - they've all taken the jump across to Apple and Google OS devices, and not one looks back.

The N8 and Symbian 3 have yet to prove themselves in the commercial environment, out in the street. Watching the video I was sufficiently impressed to pen this short article. But I have been bitten by Nokia's OS software before and didn't enjoy it then. I have seen nothing originate out of Nokia in the past three years that encourages and enthuses, until perhaps now.

In short, I am looking for the N8 and Symbian 3 to prove themselves - if not at commercial availability then within a few months of that with prompt and effective point releases of the OS to remove any snagging.

I have to wish Nokia well with this new device. But they are coming from a back foot and so the expectations are high.

[@NickyColman]

I've just watched the video.

Thoughts? Well, initially I was impressed that Symbian has taken a few steps forward in terms of UI etc. I was almost* considering it an alternative to an iPhone.

Then I got a grip of myself.

The truth is Symbian is a leopard thats failed to change its spots. I'll use the email client or Nokia Messaging, as they called it in the video, as an example.

From clicking the small email widget(?) on the homescreen to the point of when the app opened was excruciating. When it did open, it showed Nokia's solution to email was as half-baked as it was when I had an N95.

When an email was clicked to open a full HTML email it didnt even fully fit the screen! Whats that about!? I will use iPhone to compare it to, but even Apple have managed to get iPhone's email client to resize an email to fit the screen appropriately. How is it good for the customer to open an email then have to finger about the place to get the info they want?

The same can be said about the internet browser. I didnt even properly fit the screen.

Text all over the place, icons here there and everywhere, no flow or uniformity to the UI - Symbian OS/Nokia N8 seemed slow, laggy and buggy for a flagship handset. Truly disappointing if thats what Nokia have to offer.


I think Nokia's only hope is to develop a brand new OS from the ground up and ditch Symbian completely.





*by almost i mean a very very very slightly

[miffed]

Come on , Can you seriously look at that UI and say to yourself ... "Yes, that could stand shoulder to shoulder with iOS and Android " ?

Just as with the N900 / Maemo ..... its just more of the same from Nokia , It will be buggy ,and won't have enough RAM.

[@NickyColman]

@miffed - nope. definitely not.

Nokia need to quickly sack all of the Symbian staff, cancel all forthcoming handsets and go back to the drawing board.

Whilst they are on, ditch their 6 year old obsession with Nseries brand. We've had every N# handset under the sun and in no particular order. I think its been proven lately that the handsets that succeed tend to have names, eg: Desire, Galaxy S, Hero, iPhone, Pre etc. (I mention Palm Pre but only in terms of interest, rather than sales.)

Most people I know wouldnt go into their local phone shop and be able to recite the various Nokia handset models - N8, N97, N97 mini, 6700, 5600, 3210, 1001A mini 2, and so on. I think they'd find it much easier walking into a shop to say 'I want the Galaxy.'

The Nseries brand is old now. It carries no weight and serves no purpose at all. Get rid Nokia.

[Ben]

Couldn't agree more with what has been said, really.

Aesthetically I think the N8 looks pretty nasty. Very cool that it has a memory card slot and even a HDMI port but I personally wouldn't use either; I sync pictures off to my computer and I've got far better sources to display on my TV!

6 weeks out or otherwise, that software looks exactly as I'd expect it to on the shipping device. I think @NickyColman is spot on WRT things not even fitting on the screen properly.

It's too late for another 'me too' from Nokia. This should've been out years ago. Yes, the old faithful will make do, but everyone else has moved on and wont be coming back for this.

Perhaps MeeGo will reignite some interest when it debuts.

[hecatae]

I'm waiting for the Meego handsets