AAS Video podcast 37: Visit to Nokia's Test Centre in Farnborough
On November 19th, I and a couple of other guest journalists were 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.
This video podcast is compiled with footage from the tour (taken on the N93 and N82, for those that are interested) and will let anyone who's interested spend 35 minutes or so being 'on the tour' with me. Light and noise conditions weren't ideal in some of the labs, but you can still clearly see and hear what was going on. Enjoy.
(If the embedding below doesn't work for you then here's the direct (and slightly higher resolution) web-watch URL: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1683931603521695595&hl=en)
Play this media item now:
Download this Media Item (Size: 128MB)
We recommend you right click this link and choose 'Save link as...'.
The file is in a MP4 format which is suitable for QuickTime and other
PC media players and most modern Symbian phones.
Download this Video Item to Nokia Video Manager
Nokia Video Manager 1.5 must be installed for the above link to work. Details here.
Did you know:
- Kevin Smith, Rob Johnson and their team 'break' around 2000 production handsets PER MODEL tested. Staggering.
- Each model has to pass over 200 different mechanical tests.
- Temperature testing takes place from -40 Centigrade to +85 Centigrade, a 135 degree range!
- The slow-motion camera used to film the drop tests runs at 100,000 frames per second, 2000 times faster than TV...
- Nokia test phone keys, d-pads and other moving parts up to a million times. Each, i.e. per physical phone.
Seeing what all Nokia's handsets have to go through in order to be approved for production gave me a new respect for the reliability and reputation of its hardware. Watch the video if you think I'm easily swayed.....
Special thanks again to Ray Haddow of Nokia for putting the tour together. Look out for more information from the test labs tour on AAS soon.
Steve Litchfield
Embed this media on your webpage or blog
You can embed our media in your webpage or blog. Simply copy and paste the HTML code below into your page or blog entry.
Media Discussion
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.!
still, really cool
LOL - dont we all want that? :)
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.
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 [I]extremely[/I] 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?
If there are any other handsets that you'd like Rafe to water-test, drop him an email!!
gizmodo also published a similar story
[url]http://gizmodo.com/5094602/a-look-at-the-nokia-damage-test-labs[/url]
It's not a campaign, as such, they've just opened their doors in a very public way for a day.
ILG
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.
I seem to remember reading a Nokia (I think!) blog post about this, where they were saying how the operational temperature range for the iPhone wasn't suitable for use in Finland.
I suppose that the capacitive screen is also a bit tricky to use outside with gloves on (not that buttons are much easier).
You can download any video from Youtube, Megavideo, etc. from vid23.com
15 Comments / Post New Comment
Videocast Information
The AAS videocast is an episodic video show which features recordings from trade shows, opinion piece and reviews and interviews.
You can subscribe to the podcast via RSS by adding the URL to your client, or you can one-click subscribe to the show if you have iTunes. If you do not wish to use a podcast player/client you can use are online videocast player.
