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.
At this time of year, the hardest thing to hear is a relative asking “what would you like for Christmas?” So I've come up with nine top gift ideas that you can handily print out, then ring one (or two) of them with a big marker pen before casually leaving it on the dinner table. Want a smartphone Christmas? Here’s what you need.
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.
Throughout 2008, I worked through a series of features, entitled 'Camera Nitty Gritty', looking at specific aspects of camera phone performance, with special focus on Symbian-powered hardware and on exploding (and expanding on, as appropriate) some mobile photography myths. Two full years on and with the new Symbian^3-powered generation of devices now available from Nokia, it's high time for an update, although I'm not going to make you work through another series of twelve articles - this time I'll keep it concise and keep everything in the one feature!
Talk about the clash of the titans. But not really as equals - you'll remember my musings last week on smartphone (converged devices, where, by my definition, Nokia and Symbian are strongest) vs superphone (large-screened Internet-centric devices)? I've picked arguably the best of each breed here, the Nokia N8 and the massive HTC Desire HD, and stuck them in a room to fight it out. Thankfully, my theories are borne out in the head to head below, their different strengths and weaknesses hopefully evident to all. Whatever your own theories and favoured platform though, I'm sure you'll find the blow by blow comparison interesting.
You'll remember that I've been evolving a number of theories on the subject of just what makes a 'smartphone' smart? I postulated that Nokia's definition (and mine) of a 'smartphone' differed rather wildly from that of the popular tech media, who are really talking about what we're now starting to term 'superphones'. In the feature below, I present more analysis of the mobile device world, showing that there are in fact four specific 'bands' of form and functionality - bands that will always exist - one size really can't fit all.
The current wave of all-singing, all dancing capacitive touchscreen Symbian phones have their attractions, surely. But we shouldn't write off some of the classic S60 3rd Edition FP2 phones, some of which still have world beating characteristics and, with a little tweaking here and there, make a smartphone to be reckoned with. As evidence of this, here's the latest in my 'Pimping' series of tutorials: Pimping the Nokia E55. As you might expect, virtually all of this also applies to its sister device, the E52.
