The Nokia N8 has ruled the roost for almost nine months of course - and I don't think anyone reading this is going to expect it to be toppled even by the best of the rest, tested here. But what I was interested in was how much other devices and systems have closed the gap, as at June 2011. Surely the current batch of 8 megapixel-toting smartphones have good enough cameras for most users these days? I wanted to gather some data points, looking right down at pixel level, at four photos in four different scenarios/light levels, for each device.
Reading Slashgear's thoughts on Good Companies and Bad Products this morning, I was struck by one of those moments of "ooh, we've seen this before." Right now, a lot of people are looking at the decision of Nokia to bring Windows Phone into their portfolio while continuing to push Symbian and S40 as a bad idea, and are drawing lots of comparisons to companies like Ratners and Osborne Computing as this being a silly thing to do - why not just polish Symbian and Meego a bit more and keep selling smartphones running those?
Have Facebook and Linked In reached a position where we don't need any more social networks? Probably not, because these sites are some of the most personal content sites you can have. Used correctly they can be one of the most effective Web 2.0 tools out there. Pair that up with a smartphone, and you have a potent recipe that can be used over and over again.
It's never easy finding an exact match across different smartphone platforms for these head to heads, but these two devices are certainly surprisingly close. Nokia's X7 is here now in retail form, while the older Nexus S has been available now for almost six months but retains its 'pure Google, latest OS' reputation. Appropriately, the X7 too has the latest Symbian OS, in the form of the Anna software. Matched at every level then, how do the two smartphones stack up?
Cloud Computing is, of course, the new big thing. At least if you listen to the Silicon Valley crowd. And, being an advocate of Google Mail, Google Documents and Dropbox, I seem to have moved much of my own workflow into The Cloud too. But that's mainly from the desktop, i.e. with access primarily from a big-screened, broadband-connected computer. To what extent is The Cloud relevant to smartphones, what are the pros and cons, and in what state is Symbian access to this new world of online data and services?
What's set the world alight after the Apple Developer's Conference keynote yesterday? That's right, all the Android users complaining that the new features in iOS are lifted from their favourite phone. To which I say "stamp your card N95 and join the club." But the traction in tech circles so far seems to be iMessages, Apple's proprietary instant messaging system that will be part of the latest firmware.
Something caught my eye with the new Symbian client for LinkedIn last month. Partly it was "ooh, a Web 2.0 site has decided to release a Symbian version, we need more of those", but given the business nature of LinkedIn I don't think this is a huge surprise. No, what got me was that the application felt horribly familiar. Yes it's nicely polished, has all the functionality that you would expect, but something about it seemed to echo in my brain. This was a new app, but it felt as old as the digital superhighway.
I know, I know, I promised to go quiet on the subject of EDoF for a while - but I was out and about in glorious weather with the Nokia E7 and Samsung Galaxy S II (recently named the no. 1 smartphone in the world in Phones Show 140) in my pocket - and I couldn't resist a direct comparison. Both units have cameras of similar size and resolution - the E7 has EDoF and the SGS II auto-focus, but I wasn't majoring on macros shots here - more on raw performance. Full images are shown and available below - which do you think are best? How does the business-focussed E7's camera fare?
Carrying on with my look at the Windows Phone system while attending the Blog World New York conference, it's time to turn my eye to something that's becoming more important to every smartphone platform - the interaction with social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Can you keep up with your online presence on Windows Phone, and what impact does this have on the rest of your day with the latest smartphone?
Alongside our coverage of the Windows Phone Mango announcement, I'm attending the BlogWorld conference in New York. Like most of my trips to the USA, this is a good opportunity to try out new smartphone hardware in a real world, fast moving environment. This time, rather than a new Symbian device, I'll be looking at a Windows Phone device - specifically the HTC Trophy.
