The 35 minute virtual tour of Nokia Test Labs

[slitchfield]

A couple of days ago, I was invited to spend the day at Nokia's Testing Labs at Farnborough, UK, being given a tour of the facilities and numerous demonstrations along the way. The aim was to spread the word about how rigorously Nokia test their handsets' hardware and on that front I was extremely impressed. AAS video podcast 37 is a fairly full 35 minutes of footage from the tour (taken on the N93 and N82, for those that are interested) and will let you see and hear what I saw. Enjoy.


Read on in the full article.

[Micky!]

Excellent. I will sit down with a cuppa, and watch this. really enjoyed watch Ewan's video last night over on MIR.

I would be like a kid in a sweet shop. I really envy you guys for getting the chance to go and visit these labs, it would be a dream come true for me. Every boys dreams. Well, Nokia enthusiasts anyway.

Well done Steve.!

[fernando20]

and they still didn't get the first N95s slider problems? </unrelated ranting>

still, really cool

Can you ask them to break just 1999 phones and give me the last one?:-D

[malerocks]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Can you ask them to break just 1999 phones and give me the last one?:-D

LOL - dont we all want that?

[Micky!]

Fanstastic.! Just finished watching the video, amazing, simply amazing!

[Tzer2]

and they still didn't get the first N95s slider problems?

Speaking as someone who has a very used N95 which has no slider problems, I reckon they did fix the slider issue at some point, at least on my handset.

[Tzer2]

Temperature testing takes place from -40 Centigrade to +85 Centigrade, a 135 degree range!

Actually just came to mind what that would be: someone in Finland stepping in from the cold and then going into a sauna. ;-)

[neilhoskins]

Originally Posted by Tzer2

Actually just came to mind what that would be: someone in Finland stepping in from the cold and then going into a sauna. ;-)

So... do they also beat the test units with birch brances? ;-)

Anyway, thanks for putting that up, Steve, it's extremely interesting. I've done a bit of life testing myself in previous lives. Very perceptive questions too, if I may make so bold.

I see their Kevin Smith is a similar size to Kevin Smith the film director, but not as funny. Sorry, Kevin: I hear the American one is rubbish at engineering.

Steve, what became of your flooded E71?

[slitchfield]

You mean Rafe's E71? It's now working again, more or less OK. And this is after 10 minutes in a freezing river 8-) Quite a few scratches, presumably from the river pebbles though.....

If there are any other handsets that you'd like Rafe to water-test, drop him an email!!

[chilko]

i wonder is this is a part from some marketing campaign?
gizmodo also published a similar story

http://gizmodo.com/5094602/a-look-at...mage-test-labs

[slitchfield]

In addition to the video that I (and Ewan M) shot, there were some pro-photos and a couple of small videos released to the wider public, gizmodo have just written some editorial around the public photos.

It's not a campaign, as such, they've just opened their doors in a very public way for a day.

[JOHNNYGLYNN]

i did shed a tear for those N79's being treated so ruthlessly.

[ILoveGadgets]

Thanks guys, I really enjoyed this. It would be very interesting to see if the more-boutique phone manufacturers put their handsets through similar tests. (bet they don't)

ILG

[Tzer2]

I would love to see an independent test centre put all the major handsets from all major manufacturers through these tests and publish the full results.

The problem is that these test machines seem to cost a fortune (I think he said just one slow motion camera on one test unit cost £10,000) and it's hard to see where the money would come from to do it.