Matt writes today:
It has been about a year since I used Symbian for any extended period of time so the Symbian fans in the audience quickly chimed in to respond to my post and provide me with some great feedback on apps and other considerations. I decided to put the 808 through more extensive testing and purchased my own 808 PureView last week. After several more days with it, I have to say the $760 I spent was worth it and I am really loving the device....
...I took along my 808 PureView to a party this weekend and everyone was blown away by the quality of photos I was taking. When I told them it was priced at $700 and worked as a smartphone, I was surprised that many thought that was fair given the quality of the photos. It was funny to see the 808 PureView blowing away all the other Android phones at the party....
...Last week I listed a few apps that I access often on Android and Windows Phone and since then I learned of a few Symbian alternatives and for the most part am quite satisfied with what is available. I've discussed before that we tend to focus too much on apps and if you REALLY look at what you use and need every day it is likely that only five or fewer apps are truly essential. If the OS is powerful enough, it includes most of the essential applications without the need for 3rd party apps.
I installed something like 20 apps on the Nokia 808 PureView, but here are some key ones that I use every day or two:
- Gravity: The BEST app ever for Symbian that I use for Twitter and Google Reader. I have it setup for Facebook too, but use another client for that service.
- Facinate: This is a new Facebook client I heard about and am testing out.
- Notekeeper: A very solid application that syncs to Evernote and one I have never heard of before I posted my article last week.
- Spotify: My favorite cross platform music service.
- MeeBible: A decent Bible app that meets my daily reading needs, but doesn't have the slick YouVersion daily reading plans.
- Skyfiles: A solid SkyDrive client.
- Cutebox: A good Dropbox client which I use, along with SkyDrive, as my backup and storage cloud solutions.
- Microsoft Apps: This suite of Office apps works well and is nice to see as an alternative to Quickoffice. We are getting Lync in August so I look forward to trying that out soon too.
- Opera Mobile: The default web browser is OK, but Opera Mobile is better. I especially like the Opera Link syncing support in this browser.
...BTW, I complained a bit about the display resolution last week and even though the PureView doesn't have as high of a resolution as new devices, movies and photos actually look great. While fonts on the home screen and launcher are not superb, they are acceptable. Media content is what is important for viewing in great resolution and this content works well on the PureView display...
...The Nokia 808 PureView is helping me look at the world around me a bit more as I seek out things to capture with the camera. The photos are so fantastic that I am now excited about mobile phone photography and rather than just accepting that photos taken with a phone are junk, I no longer have to compromise with the phone in my pocket.
Do read the whole article, it's quite long. And kudos to Matt for giving the Nokia 808 a decent chance and getting to know its strengths and some of the workaround apps available.
And, especially for Rafe, here's my favourite of Matt's sample images taken with his new Nokia 808 PureView. Cute, eh?
