Nokia's seemingly massive push behind EDoF ("Full focus") cameras has been a mystery to many onlookers. Though to be fair, the reviewers and users doing the complaining are the very 1% of users who need more than EDoF in a smartphone. And there still seems to be huge confusion over what EDoF is whether it's a showstopping limitation or not. In this feature, I want to summarise the technology and its use cases. Why has Nokia gone all out for EDoF in the face of auto-focus from every other manufacturer?
The Nokia Communicator marque strikes a chord for most of us, especially those who have been here since 2001 or so. The original 9210 was a break through device, offering most of the functionality of our old Psion palmtops, with a large full colour screen and phone and connectivity built-in. In many ways it was ahead of its time, as was the Psion before it. After ten years, how close are we now to the 'Ultimate Nokia Communicator'? Not very. Let's look at the background to the question and examine a few contenders.
I realise that some may mistake this short piece as an attempt at humour. And I'm already bracing myself for the flurry of N97-hating comments. And this in no way lets Nokia off the hook for underspecifying the N97's memory or putting in a completely hopeless GPS antenna. But I wanted to give credit where credit is due. Some aspects of the N97's design were absolutely right, some even outright genius. Here are seven things that Nokia got RIGHT with the N97...
As writers who often seem to be taking Nokia's side, against the prevailing mood in the world tech press, I'd like to justify why our faith isn't misplaced. Specifically, in the context of updates and stability. It's at this point that I have to acknowledge the few who have bought specific network-branded, locked Nokia smartphones in some countries and been left high and dry, but on the whole Nokia's firmware and application update programme has been relatively impressive. Read on for my thoughts and a cautionary tale or three.
I have a new party trick and you won't be surprised it involves my smartphone. And a kitchen knife. All of which has got me musing about the nature (and role) of touchscreens on handheld devices through the years. Expectations and roles sure have changed. Though it's tempting to say that there's nowhere else for the touchscreen to go. The rest is surely up to the programmers behind the glass?
Yes, yes, a year ago, I'd simply have been able to say 'Stick some more RAM and flash memory in your phones!' and that would have been it. Thankfully, this has finally been addressed in the current crop of Symbian^3 phones from Nokia, only to be replaced by a few other hardware design issues and concerns. Think of this as an open letter to Nokia, ahead of its 2011 campaigns...
It's no secret that, in comparison to Android and iOS smartphones, some of the 'connected' features on the Nokia N8, running Symbian^3, lack a certain flair. And, though Nokia will improve things, it's still entirely possible the N8 won't offer quite such 'joined up' functionality as the competition. But - one day you'll look back on your ownership of your phone in 2010, 2011 and 2012 and, especially at Christmas and over New Years events, you'll be extremely glad that the N8 was the device that went everywhere with you. Here's why.
This is going to sound a little trite, but, as mentioned in Pimping the N96, I'm a big fan of an accessory which comes in the box of many Nokia smartphones, the not-so-humble multimedia headset, giving easy and complete control over playback of podcasts and music. With photos of the usual suspects, here's why the multimedia headset rocks (literally) and why, if your Nokia smartphone didn't come with one, you might like to snap one up on the accessories market.
Maybe I'm turning into a sentimental old codger, but despite Nokia's efforts with the recent E7 (and N97 before it), the majority of modern smartphones are turning into either large screened tablets or tiny-screened thumb qwerty affairs, with a side branch of low end numeric key-driven devices, effectively for the feature phone market. It occurs to me that five of the very best form factors of the last decade, all of which debuted on Symbian, have been (sadly) forgotten, despite their proven advantages. A quirk of providence? Or negligence on behalf of the manufacturers? Here are the form factors which I'd like to see revived, with modern software and services on-board.
It's always good to take a reality check. Cooped up in AAS Towers, scribbling away until the small hours, whipped on by Rafe (but enough of our own private life), it's easy to get caught up the same sort of technological whirlpool as those over in San Francisco in the USA. With our thoughts full of smartphones, operating systems, Internet clients, app stores and email protocols, we forget that we don't represent the mainstream. In the push towards all these mobile devices simply being called 'phones', a huge, whopping caveat needs to be borne in mind.
