Yes, yes, it's a Friday feature, which can only mean that I'm allowed a certain leeway in terms of content. In this case, and I'm sure the designers of the Nokia E7 will be utterly horrified, I present a DIY way of improving the Nokia E7 using nothing more than a glue stick and a couple of scraps of grip matting, in true 'Blue Peter' style....
INQ CEO Frank Meehan got himself into hot water a few days ago for suggesting that "pretty girls prefer iPhone and BlackBerry to Android" - making sweeping statements about demographics always gets quoted and there's usually a backlash of some kind. But, with no mention of Symbian (naturally enough, given Nokia's recent pronouncement), I figured that if Frank could do it then so could I. Read on for my own sweeping (and equally unscientific) demographic analysis, delivered with a healthy degree of hyperbole....
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.
Ahead of part 2 of our detailed review of the Nokia E7, covering its camera functions and multimedia generally, you'll recall EDoF's inability to shoot anything closer than about 40cm crisply? This limitation is a far more serious one for the potential E7 owner than it is for (say) someone with the C7 or C6-01, whose main 'macro' subjects might be cats, flowers and bowls of fruit(!) A mobile professional is going to want to use the E7 camera as a scanning/recording device, to snap white boards, back-of-envelope sketches, logos, documents and business cards, in some cases with recognition software to process what's been captured. Can it be done?
One of my loyal Twitter following asked me an interesting question last week: if I had the choice between a Nokia N8 and an identical N8 (hardware-wise) running Android 2.3, which would I go for? It's a testament to Nokia's hardware prowess that I had to think about my answer (of which more below). And, in the same week, I observed exactly the same thing when reviewing the HTC Desire Z, which (despite its obvious attractions) had me immediately pining for Nokia's build quality and component choice. It's (nearly) all about the hardware - for me, at least.
After my extended musings on what makes a smartphone and on the varying definitions around the world (see below for a summary), something else hit me yesterday as I pondered more pronouncements from around the world. Apologies if this seems like me rehashing an old argument, but it seems that there's more to the very word 'smartphone' than meets the eye too! Read on....
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?
In fact, not so much '2011' as 'within the next 3 months', to be honest. Written as a companion piece to the hardware-focussed article 'Five things Nokia is doing wrong in their smartphones - and could put right in 2011' (by popular demand), and at the risk of stating the obvious, here's the software equivalent, my somewhat impatient to-do list for Nokia's Symbian teams....
