The Phones Show 84 with Symbian interview and N86 review

[slitchfield]

The Phones Show 84 is now public (embedded below too), with a reprise commentary on the Nokia E75, a hands-on review of the Nokia N86 8MP and a interview with the Symbian Foundation's Executive Director Lee Williams, asking him some of your questions, on the subjects of robot duck overlords, LTE, touchscreens, open source OS and, of course, which phone does he personally use(!)

Read on in the full article.

[DevilsRejection]

N86 video = amazing, hope you end up using a retail unit as the main device for the phones show from now on.

The interview with Lee = bit soft on the questions, I was hoping their would be more hot button issues, like what we talked about over Skype.

Can't wait next week to see what you think of the iPhone 3GS!

Haircut!

It's Steve's twin brother.

[slitchfield]

@Stefan:

Don't worry, there were another dozen questions asked, all captured in Rafe's much longer audio podcast. Watch this space. Rafe?

[mCrem]

noticed the haircut too..


I'll say I was pretty surprised when the executive director of SF pulled out that i8910 and said those comments about it.. Pretty much said what I think of my unlocked version!

[rvirga]

The i8910 was Orange! If it were me, I would have asked if he had already de-branded it...

[timsalmon]

Following my first week with the N86 and Steve's announced intention on his Twitter feed today to shortly reveal the RUBBISH sides of the device, I must admit that I'm struggling to find any, so will be keen to hear his observations. I also have one eye on Ewan's musings, posing the 'why upgrade for few features' article today when I say that I can't find any fault with the N86. It's as close to a perfect device for me as I think I'm going to get. I love the keypad. It's gorgeous. As is the screen. (And as various editors have stated here - QVGA is fine for now.) Of course, it's back to the old question of 'one man's meat is another man's poison' and the answer to these questions certainly depends on one's leanings as to what features are important. Of course. We all know this! But for my money, and if anyone's interested in another opinion, this device coupled with a Nokia BT Keyboard (for occassional use) will meet most people's demands, most of the time. And the build quality is just super. When I look back and remember N95/N95 8GB models and their terrible 'slide' mechanism, this is just a joy. If I was going to be really, really picky, I might ask why there's a 'lock' slide on the device when the 'main slide' can be assigned to do what you want and the camera is invoked by sliding it's cover off. I think I miss the point there. But this is trivia. I sent a photo over to Steve the other day of a 'party' scene taken with it and the flash coverage coupled with 28mm (equiv.) lens was just super in that pic. I have an N81 in front of me too and I remember well when I took that to a Christmas Dinner and the photos it produced were just awful. The N86 has come a long way and even without Xenon (Steve et al) this device has made things approach standards set down by stand-alone digital cameras. Nice. And I don't apologise for saying again that the styling of the buttons is very 'Sony' - and we all know the quality standards there.

Tim

Nokia did not put the correct buttons on the Front of the N86 the only one o.k is the menu button but the others are to small,i had 3 Nokia N86s in 5 days an the main cursor button got stuck all the time,the reviewer was right the Speakers are not loud at all,i tried the camera out but the camera to me was not good at all in dark conditions,since the N95 Nokia do not seem to want compete in the camera mobile market nowdays even the mobile- review.com reviewer stated that,Nokia are thinking just because of there previous good name everyone will still buy there mobiles but they are getting shown up nowdays by Samsung an even Lg so people will start looking elsewere instead,the N95 8gb is still there best phone,as the N96,N85 an the N86 have been a let down from Nokia

Absolutely disagree. I've had the n86 for two weeks now and it is brilliant. Fast,easy to use,stable and solidly built. I had the n95 8gb and the n86 is head and shoulders above. I had the n85 too and it sucked , but the n86 is another story . They got this one right and it will be difficult for nokia to get me to upgrade now as I suspect this phone will serve me well for some time to come.

[Violet Juniper]

Nokia did not put the correct buttons on the Front of the N86 the only one o.k is the menu button but the others are to small,i had 3 Nokia N86s in 5 days an the main cursor button got stuck all the time,the reviewer was right the Speakers are not loud at all,i tried the camera out but the camera to me was not good at all in dark conditions,since the N95 Nokia do not seem to want compete in the camera mobile market nowdays even the mobile- review.com reviewer stated that,Nokia are thinking just because of there previous good name everyone will still buy there mobiles but they are getting shown up nowdays by Samsung an even Lg so people will start looking elsewere instead,the N95 8gb is still there best phone,as the N96,N85 an the N86 have been a let down from Nokia.

Saying it twice doesn't make you right.

[mkr10001]

Steve you got same laptop as my sister haha

[MonzaMike]

Steve, I've always thought the N95 Classic has GREAT audio quality when recording video (in TV-HQ). Now, when comparing the N95 & N86 in your SS84, the audio quality of the N86 seemed to me to be worse, in particular, lacking a bit of HF (treble). Is it a worse microphone, or is there a lower bitrate for audio encoding?
How about a comparison of phone audio recording quality, Steve?