The smarter Grid

[slitchfield]

Having had a bit of a re-jig of some of the attributes in my all-singing, all-dancing interactive smartphone-choosing Grid, I proudly present it to the masses on AAS for approval. And yes, by plugging in different profiles, I've managed to get it to pick everything from Apple iPhone to Nokia E61i. See what it now picks as your best option. Did it pick your current smartphone? Your next intended phone?

Read on in the full article.

[lovesign]

Bang on the money Steve Had me down for an N95, which is what I have

[Dr Tran]

I think the N82 should be the only 10 for camera.

fantastic! i had my e61i ahead of all the rest even tho i chose 'very' for all multimedia critera. is word processing/spreadsheet really that bad on the n-series? i also think that e61i gets a '9' instead of '10' in local connectivity. bluetooth is version 1.2, usb is pop-port, no tv-out, and no audio output jack.

why n82 scored a very low 5 on local connectivity? only infrared port is missing w/c nobody use anyway.

[Insane Reindeer]

It scored 380 for both the E90 and N95 8GB so now I am really going to have to think long and hard what one I want to upgrade to from my lovely old N91 (4GB)! My only problem is that the E90 only seems to take up to 2GB of Micro SD storage, is this something that could be changed with a firmware update? If/when the next one comes out, or is it more of a hardware limitation?

[slitchfield]

@Dr Tran: Possibly. I'll tweak these scores in the near future.

@Unregistered: I was looking at default apps, the Nseries only come with office *viewers*. Re: infrared, this is still important for a lot of people, especially when printing and beaming stuff to PDAs.

@Insane Reindeer: No, the E90 takes SDHC, I've had a 6GB card in mine for ages.
8-)

[shadamehr]

Steve, couple of issues...

It was close, oh so very close, to my ideal/current phone, but the grid failed for a key reason or two, some of which others already mention in the existing comments.

You see, my previous phone was N95 Classic.

My new phone is N82.

But the grid suggested N95-8GB as the winner, and the N95 Classic as the runner up.

Why is this so wrong though, given that my last phone was indeed an N95...?

Form Factor!

I do not like at all, sliders (where a choice NOW exists, but didn't at the time I got my N95), but of course, whilst this is sufficiently important enough to be the one and only deal-breaker for many people, your grid doesn't even include something as fundamental as this. The closest you get is something about size/weight, but that's no use as this would just as much fail the fairly bulky N82, whose actual form factor and size I DO like.

So the Grid suggested my ideal phone as an N95-8GB even though this is nowhere near the case, as I was unable to give it any input into favouring Monoblock over slide, over flip.

I would urge you to add that criteria in ASAP, as outlined - so you can give weight to a monoblock or flip, or slide preference if you have one.

Finally, to add to prior comments, giving the N82 a 5 score for local connectivity just because it omits Infra-Red is way too severe/out of proportion a penalty. I know you like the backward reliance on IR, but most others don't and even then, if they did, as I say, this is too disproportionate a weighting penalty. Bar IR, it's the most connected device in device-dom. So to hit it with a 5 is utterly wrong IMHO - it's disproportionate.

And as also mentioned, it's camera weighting wants to stand out even more, from the rest - i.e. be given an even higher weighting score.

Hope these comments help to make the Grid an even more reliable and useful tool.

Interesting that it recommends the e90 which is EXACTLY the phone that I WAS going buy but then I decided to buy n95 8gb which is the runner up. I decided not to buy the e90 because of the keyboard which again is funny because I wanted to buy the e90 exactly because of the keyboard. Unfortunately its just too stiff. So I though "sod it" I will get the flashy phone.

Hey Steve!

Could you please put the E51 in the grid too? I went from an E90 to an E51 a few weeks ago and I'm really curious if I made a right choice :-)
Greetings from Holland :-)

Wouter

[bills2north]

The grid is interesting..and very close but..

N95 black beauty must be a super phone!
Even when I "cheated" N95 8gb popped-up while my E90 was runner up, and sometimes didn't show at all . It's curious since I need the keyboard of E90 to type different languages ie addresses, pronouns etc.

The numeric keypad of any phone is too slow. Well, N93's keypad is pretty fast too until I need to change T9 back & forth.

It was fun plus informative at any rate. Good work! Hey, maybe it sheds some light on the subconscience..
"Wah, ha, ha!" ;-)

[gdroth]

Thanks, Steve, for updating this very helpful and useful grid. Not to quibble but a couple of thoughts. In North America we can't get subsidies on top end phones, especially from Nokia, since they are not offered by the operators. Having purchased a Nokia E61 and E61i at unsubsidized prices that exceed those of the iPhone I am surprised that you give the latter a 1 and the former a 6. I think you should compare unsubsidized prices only to make the comparisons cleaner. Second, even though I am a Nokia fan boy I am surprised that you rate my E61i a 10 for software stability. I have to turn it off/on every couple of days to get my software to function properly. Last, the iPhone should get a 10, or some grade measurably higher than the competition for web browsing. It is the gold standard in my humble opinion, in that category.

[kontraband]

good... worked exactly right for me!

[slitchfield]

@gdroth: "Having purchased a Nokia E61 and E61i at unsubsidized prices that exceed those of the iPhone I am surprised that you give the latter a 1 and the former a 6. I think you should compare unsubsidized prices"

Err... how can the price of an E61i exceed that of the iPhone, when the latter works out to $2000 over 18 months???! The iPhone is VERY expensive.

"I am surprised that you rate my E61i a 10 for software stability."

Mine's been very stable indeed. Must be something you've installed 8-)

"properly. Last, the iPhone should get a 10, or some grade measurably higher than the competition for web browsing. It is the gold standard in my humble opinion, in that category."

Mainly because of the touch-screen and larger resolution - but I'd argue that the Nokia E90 isn't that far behind etc. S60 Web is just as good, being based on the same code as the iPhone's Safari etc.

Steve

[xerxes]

I'm sorry Steve you are just wrong about S60 Web being as good as iPhone Safari. Web was the best until the iPhone came out but its definitely number 2 now.

As weak as I think the iPhone is generally, the browser, when used over wifi, is absolutely the best mobile browser on any platform.

S60 might get the lead back when Touch comes out but I doubt it unless Nokia substantially improves the screen resolution cv the same time.