Conclusions from the back of beyond

[slitchfield]

Living near a big city, it's all too easy to think of my phone/smartphone experience as being typical of the norm. During the course of a week away in the country, I made several observations which show that we should never take 'our' mobile environment for granted or assume any level of capability in other mobile users. And, along the way, I managed to crash an 'iPhone' and get a couple of people to go all dizzy while explaining what I was doing with the N95 8GB...

Read on in the full article.

I got an N95-1 when the price dropped, after a year and a half of finding out a deperssingly long list of problems (not just non-smartphone non-features, but PROBLEMS) with my otherwise very nice Samsung A701, and that list of yours is just about my every day usage. With, also, MP3 player and audiobook reader (thank you Nokia Beta Labs for a dedicated player!)

Lots of people ask me why I bother with somethnig like that, and then when I start telling them, they quickly switch to thinking how weird I am and move rapidly away.

But at least they know that they can ask me questions about mobiles and get an informed answer.

P.S.: My partner and I were giving a friend a lift to his families property in the country, and he hadn't been back for so long that we got lost. No worries! I thought, and pulled out my Samsung. No network signal AT ALL. So Google Maps was just as useless as the idea of ringing for directions. I'm almost waiting for the day I can nonchalantly pull out my N95 when we're lost in a no-network area... And find out that the local roads are too insignificant to be included on Nokia's maps.

[kflyer]

Well, sometimes Nokia Maps has better coverage than Google Maps. At least in Sri Lanka. Well, may be both have their own uniquenesses. Steve, I'm sure that you agree with me Sri Lanka is better than Somerset due to the fact that I'm under HSDPA while still being nearly 60km away from capital !

"Considering that he had in his hands one of the most iconic designs in mobile computing and still a candidate for best phone in the entire world, I have to admit feeling a little despair..."...

Sadly being a N95 8 GB user... i would have to be disagree with the words saying 'most inconic designs' and 'candidate for the best phone in the entire world'!

Iphone 2.0 simply blows n95 8Gb off... The kind of user productivity and friendly apps being released for iphone (that is only still in millions while so called N series is in tens of millions) say a long way about how user friendliness of the iphone...

Again I have a n95 8gb, n800 etc etc but I would never buy a nokia device again.... completely un intutive... especially if u consider n800...a simple waste of money! clumsy interface... frustrating slow experience.... no good apps compared to touch.....

Nokia needs to redefine their design and think from customer perspective to roll out intutive devices rather than feature rich paper tigers

[slitchfield]

Chendur, you're a troll. "iconic" essentially means recognisable, which the N95 range eminently IS.

"a simple waste of money! clumsy interface... frustrating slow experience.... no good apps compared to touch..... "

There you go, a troll. Personally, I speed around S60. And there are some great third party and Nokia-written apps. I don't deny the potential of Apple's creation, but they don't have a monopoly on good design and power.

[bartmanekul]

Ah, network based satnav.

Thats why I have been saying till Im blue in the face that data reliant satnav programs are seriously flawed.

This includes Nokia maps, which needs an online connection to find an address or POI (please no-one tell me otherwise, the offline results are dire to non existant).

Your article amused me greatly, although I dont live that far into the boonies, I dont really see any 3G coverage. So I live with sub 56k speeds daily if I want to be mobile. Sounded like you felt your arm had been cut off

Im suprised at what you say about the people though, thats what I thought most people were like. I work with techies, and dispite most of them being extremely technical, only one (apart from me) has a smartphone. The others are just not interested.

Ive seen loads of N95s about*, and yet Id wage a vast amount of money on the bet that most of them dont use a fraction of it.


*I haven't actually seen a single iphone in the wild, only in my O2 store. Maybe country yokels just dont like them?

Steve , I think you are getting into a habit of calling people trolls .Second time in as many weeks....

The N95 is certainly not the best "phone" in the entire world. I dont think any S60 device would get past the heats in such a comparison. Take any high end non-s60 phone and compare it with the N95 on the PIM front.

"one of the most iconic designs in mobile computing" - I guess so.....although I shudder every time I see an ad-line that says "is this what computers have become".
And that is because of some of the basic principles of the symbian os, especially in its security architecture do not lend themselves well to commoditization (the same commoditization you were talking about some time ago, and which is firmly established in the PC industry). If this is indeed what computers have become, then it is a giant leap backward - God help us all.

[Ratkat]

I was interested in your comments on Nokia maps.
Back in April I spent a week on the Isle of Wight and with 3 months free nav and voice guidance on my N82 decided it was the ideal time to try it out.
At the time I was using Nokia Maps 1.2 and rather to my surprise the routing was truly suburb.
Fast forward to a fortnight ago and a return to the IOW, same N82 but with Nokia maps 2.0, this time the routing was at times appalling, trying to take me down single track lanes frequently.
Up until this point I had been most impressed with maps 2.0 certainly on the mainland I hadn't been able to fault its routing.

[bartmanekul]

There is no best phone in the world. Not for everyone, but for individuals there is.

Hence real world tests and reviews, to enable people to make their own indiviual decisions.


As for trolls, yes AAS gets a lot, of both sides. The blatent 'the iphone suxxors' or 'nokia sucks balls' are deleted. But theres a lot more saying 'I have the N95/iphone and its just rubbish copmpared to Nokias/iphones.'

I suspect a lot of these are simple fanboy comments, but since theres no way of telling, and AAS is not a biased site, they are left there.

You have no way of knowing if said person does have all those devices to compare and are making a genuine assumption, or just trolling. So in general, the comments get left.

Some of them though, you have to take a healthy dose of salt with.

Steve... Have you used N800? And ever used a ipod touch? Then you would know the difference...

a simple waste of money! clumsy interface... frustrating slow experience.... no good apps compared to touch..... " - These are for N800...
Again Dont say they are different devices blah blah... take one simple comparison... how touch interface works in itouch and how it works in n800.... how much intutive that device is?

I have been a nokia user for more than 8 odd years and seeing an apple device i realize how simple and intutive things can be....
working on a nokia device feels like using say linux (linux is Good/Great... i am just using it from UI / normal user point of view) or windows xp.... while itouch/phone feels and works like a mac... simple!

again I am a core techie and there are hundreds of so called advanced features and stuff that are provided by n95... but if i have to give something from a child to granny... the awe feature of iphone is simply missing in n95....

i had my n95 with me when my friend showed his iphone to my mom and she is 'awed' completely at ease while using the iphone while i had a different experience when i gave my n95 when i had to explain everything from unlocking the phone to hove to navigate through those small icons!

on my opinion n95 is for techies.... iphone is for both techies and non techies alike!

[slitchfield]

>>Steve... Have you used an ipod touch? Then you would know the difference...

Yes, I own an iPod Touch, with iPhone 2.0 firmware....

>>working on a nokia device feels like using say linux (linux is Good/Great... i am just using it from UI / normal user point of view) or windows xp.... while itouch/phone feels and works like a mac... simple!

All depends on what you're used to. Trying a Mac a few weeks ago, for a week, I found OS X decidedly non-simple. In fact, it was confusing. Having said that, I've got a Macbook arriving here shortly for a month's loan, so will give it another try in the interests of doing some S60-Mac connectivity features.

>>i had my n95 with me when my friend showed his iphone to my mom and she is 'awed' completely at ease while using the iphone while i had a different experience when i gave my n95 when i had to explain everything from unlocking the phone to hove to navigate through those small icons!

There's no doubting that full-screen capacitive touchscreen devices are the way forward for some people, mainly new users and those with leisure time and two hands free. But there's an arguably bigger market segment for 'phone-like' devices with real buttons and a one-handed interface. Room for both. At the moment the latter segment is dominated by Nokia and their high end devices have by far the greatest overall functionality.

>>on my opinion n95 is for techies.... iphone is for both techies and non techies alike!

I disagree. Any techie will be restricted by current iPhone functions the moment he needs to cut and paste something. Or send something by Bluetooth. Or send a photo by email. Or work on a spreadsheet. Or one of a dozen other things we've done for many years under S60.

Steve Litchfield

[Slartibartfast]

Steve,

it would help if you stopped saying, 'I have an iPod touch and it's the same." It isn't. Here are some points I've noticed since switching:

1. If I have two contacts with the same number in memory the iPhone says "John Doe or Jill Doe" when they call - it knows there are two matches.

2. Visual voicemail is brilliant - you have to try it!

3. Using a large touch screen to get in and out of conference calls etc is great.

4. Push mail on this thing blows ActiveSync / Dataviz Road Warrior out of the water. OK - not all features are there but the keyboard is spookily good and it renders the emails in a rich, HTML based, format.

5. It synchronizes well. I've not had any of those "Hmmm ... I'm sure I edited that number on the phone last time but it's gone / hasn't changed now"

6. The PIM functionality is far, far better. Multiple calanders! Hooray! Why NOKIA still can't see the importance of things like this is beyond me.

Other things in general:

7. The interface is simple - it's a palm. A screen full of icons you click on. Now you can complain that this isn't S60's fault per se but I'm sick to death of trying to help people set-up applications on a NOKIA phone only to find that apps are in this folder on this phone and that folder on that phone. Why????

8 The Settings are all in one place. Simple. Not all over the shop as on a S60 device.

9. The App Store tells me when an update is available for any of my apps and I can download it easily.

10. I can have 8 windows of web browsing open at any time. I never, ever (thank God) get that poxy "how do you want me to connect this time" dialogue. It switches from wifi to 3G as needed, silently.

11. I've not had an "out of memory" message nor have I been told that too many connections are open .

12. The iPod bit is great - not having to "Refresh" in order to get the thing to spot new tracks and you can get the iPod element up at anytime by associating it with a double press on the home button.

13. When I update this iPhone (based on all experiences to date) I'm not going to be left with a phone that insists on searching for apps that aren't there every time it reboots. I ended up formatting everything to try to stop the n95 8GB doing that! What a pain.

14. The keyboard is really quite good. The more you relax into using it the more it amazes you by working out what you meant to type.

However:

1. I miss a better bluetooth stack. Where the N95 failed to sync with the SAAB properly and used to mute the audio everytime an email arrived even when I said don't - the iPhone just pairs to a headset and that's it. No clever modem stuff. Ironic given the Symbian Bluetooth stack is a bag of spanners code wise.

2. I miss the camera. The one in the iPhone is okay - but it's no N95.

3. The n95 is easier to use one handed. However - as a smart phone I'm prepared to compromise on this in return for all the other features.

4. Cut and paste - definitely.

5. For now - some apps I liked are missing - and the App store is filling up slowly. This reminds me of the pain we all had as signing was introduced for Symbian 9.

regards,

Slart.

[Tzer2]

Chendur, if you want to be taken seriously and not mistaken for a troll, you shouldn't use phrases like "no good apps compared to touch" and "I would never buy a nokia device again". They're such extreme positions that it sounds like propaganda.

You say you used Nokias for eight years, if that's true there must have been something about them you liked. Yet from your text it sounds like you hated every inch of them.

If you showed a bit of respect for whatever gadget you're criticising, your criticism would actually sound a lot more convicing. Look at Slartibartfast's reply, that sounds MUCH more like a balanced comparison, so people will take a lot more notice of it. Even if someone disagrees with Slarti's post, the post still contributes to the discussion by being calm and specific, not ranting and generalised.

You have no way of knowing if said person does have all those devices to compare and are making a genuine assumption, or just trolling. So in general, the comments get left.

Someone who's genuinely trying to assess a device would say "these are good and bad on device X, these are good and bad on device Y, I personally prefer X/Y". Or something like that.

What most comments seem to actually be are "X is great, Y is rubbish", which doesn't really help or convince anyone. Those are the ones that most seem like trolls, because the only thing their statement does is provoke, it has no information content at all.

I got a comment on one of my YouTube videos recently which said "This phone is ****, this video is ****, you are full of ****, why do you even waste your time doing these?". Why do people say stuff like that?

From the reviewers comments I take it the use of a touch along with is some admission that media is handled better by apple? Or maybe just interested in various technologies, suspect the later! Nobody ever wins the my phone is better than yours, playground humour at best , bit sad at the extremes! The phone you decide on is usually the best, myself having used numerous Nokia products have decided to jump ship to apple mainly for the media, my collection is based on iTunes so makes sense to me. Nokia have great technology but its too scattered across numerous web sites and apps. It just feels dis-jointed. As someone said too little time to spend tweaking through layers of menus just want the basics to work etc

[Tzer2]

From the reviewers comments I take it the use of a touch along with is some admission that media is handled better by apple?

Steve (who wrote the article) also does a regular mobile device review show ( http://www.thephonesshow.com/ ) where he covers all formats, not just Symbian. He's often given positive reviews to non-Symbian devices including the iPhone.

Outside AAS, I run a site devoted to the Nokia internet tablets ( http://tabletschool.blogspot.com/ ), which are also non-Symbian, and I'd say the tablets have a much better interface than S60.

Ewan and Rafe also have non-AAS stuff they do.

All the writers on this site also write articles outside the Symbian world, and they're perfectly happy to use non-Symbian devices, it's just it would be "off-topic" if they posted their totally non-Symbian articles on AAS.

Nokia have great technology but its too scattered across numerous web sites and apps.

That's why they're doing the Ovi service, to unify all the different services into one site with one login.

They haven't got there yet, but that's clearly what they're aiming for.