There's a topsy turvy piece over on My Nokia Blog, with regular writer deaconclgi expounding on the good and bad of two weeks with the Nokia 808 PureView. It's fair to say that he was stunned by the camera and very pleased with overall speed and even UI, but that 3G unreliability issues tarnished the fortnight. Was he just unlucky in where he lives or is this sort of network issue now more commonplace? Comments welcome. Personally, I tend to keep my 808 in 2G mode to save power and only flick on 3G when there's something heavyweight to do. SEE UPDATE BELOW.

Update: the bug he was hitting has been nailed, see here for his updated write-up!

The good first, from deaconclgi's piece:

First and foremost, everyone, everyone, (did I mention everyone) has been impressed with the results from the 41MP Sensor, no really, EVERYONE! Family, friends, coworkers, random people I’ve met, AT&T employees, store manager, people online, have all been blown away by the results!!! Their initial shocked response is a hearty  “NO WAY!!!!!” when they see 41MP Carl Zeiss on the camera hump! When I show them the pictures, either by starting out fully zoomed in to a 38MP photo and saying things like “Look at the accurate colors, you can zoom, see the letters, make out details, blah blah blah” and they are not overly impressed…

I then say this line “Looks pretty good for a phone (downplaying the quality), until you realize….that the picture was taken from…(zooms all the way OUT to show the scene below)”

People have literally been fumbling over themselves in disbelief, grabbing coworkers to come and see the amazing detail. Jaws…..dropped. I came back to the AT&T store for an issue with my wifes data plan and some employee I never met said “you must be that guy with that crazy camera phone, my boss wast JUST talking to me about you, err your phone!!!”  I also demonstrate the lack of noise and the purity of colors and people are won over. Once again…Jaws..of…EVERYONE…dropped…for….days. Of special note is that people respect the Carl Zeiss branding, and that name alone validates the 41MP camera and the sentence “Oh, it’s a Carl Zeiss too!!!” is the second thing heard after “My goodness….41Megapixels!!!!!!” Xenon flash freezing the moments? Look. Click. Captured. Done.

Great stuff, and deaconclgi then goes on to demo the Xenon flash, Rich Recording in video, the incredible screen contrast ratio, and much more.

The experience turned sour when he played with 3.5G data in his area though:

Notice I said “device” and not smart phone. I have never owned any electronic device this unstable. Just as honest as I am about the camera, I am honest about this. No dramatization,  my 808 restarts itself no less than 5 times a day, almost 7 days a week. Granted, it has only happened while using the phone about 3 times a WEEK but when I unlock the phone and see each home screen reloading, I know the phone has restarted itself. The phone has restarted when listening to music, browsing the web, looking at pictures in the gallery or just plain sitting on my desk. I have had to pull the battery about 3 times total over 2 weeks from the phone becoming frozen like a dummy display unit. A special thing that I must say, this is NOT the fault of Symbian so before anyone comes in and cries “Symbian Sucks!!!” it is a known HARDWARE issue.

I honestly, sincerely, almost teary eyed, do not understand how Nokia let these units be sold. It is actually sad, no, really, really sad. It is as if there wasn’t any quality testing on the devices themselves. I’m sorry Nokia but the state of a lot of the 808s out there is heartbreaking and not like the Nokia that we have all come to know and love and admire for industry leading build quality and reliability. If the 808 was a huge success, I believe Nokia would have to issue a recall or face a class action lawsuit. If it wasn’t for the A+++++++++++++++++++++ camera and Rich Recording, owning the 808 would not be recommended to anyone. Harsh, yes, true, definitely for THIS 808 and many others.

Special note, there are 808s that do not suffer the effects of the HSPA bug to the same extremity or at all and I hope that you all do not experience the baffling, sometimes frustrating, game changing instability with your 808. Your usage experience may vary.

 

Interesting stuff,  my 808 has only crashed once in the last month, while I was driving with 3G (though not HSDPA) turned on. Of course, the writer isn't helped by living in the USA (I think), where there's very limited Nokia Care Point availability in terms of fixing what is probably a marginal motherboard capacitor. In the meantime, I think he'd find the 808 completely stable with 3G turned off and relying on EDGE for email/social etc.

You can read on in the full article. Comments welcome.