You may know, I am not a big fan of Nokia anymore since they released the N97, the worst Nokia device i ever owned. You also may know the early report of the Nokia N8, which wasn´t nice at all. But I think Nokia does quite well with the new “Flagship-Device”. You may ask why, and I try to tell you.
First, the design is just cool. It might remind you of the Sony Ericsson Aino, which i personally think is the most beautiful mobile ever made by Sony Ericsson, so Nokia can´t fail by adopting some style elements and mixing them with the style of the Sony Ericsson Vivaz (second best from them). The Nokia N8 will come in different modern colors, which is great. Most of the new handsets come in one or two colors, and those colors aren´t really eyecatchers. So, i guess Nokia targets the younger folks who care about design.
Second, Nokia did put a 12 Megapixel camera module into that phone, which will surely find some buyers. I personally still think (and lots of tests prove it) that a less pixel camera with a bigger lense is better, but hey, size (in that case megapixels) matters. Together with the 720p video recording, this device will be great for a whole bunch of active people who almost see their whole life through a camera lense. I don´t say that the camera is bad or anything, i just think that five or eight MP would have been more than enough. Isn´t it that most of the mobile users use their cell phone cams for snapshots? So why would i need the same MPs like on dedicated camera devices. Mobiles will not replace digicams for a long time.
Third, Nokia introduces Symbian^3 with the N8. That might be the worst thing they could do. Symbian^3 should have been skipped. App developers will have a hard time coding for Symbian^3 and they can double that when Symbian^4 is finally released. Of course, Nokia would have been blamed too, if they released another 5th edition handset, so they surely needed to take that step for not falling too far behind others, but the same way 5th edition can´t compete with Android or iPhone OS, Symbian^3 will neither. By the time the N8 is released there will be a new iPhone, and lots of new Android devices, which are, if you regard the operating system, simply better than any Symbian version.
The moderate price tag is what the N8 will make a well sold phone. Half the price of an iPhone (unlocked, without contract) and still cheaper than most of the high-end Android devices. It is announced for 370 Euro, so i bet, you will be able to grab it for about 300 Euro in no time. Without contract. Unlocked. No technical hassle with rooting or jailbreaking, just out of the box. This is quite great.
If Nokia does release the N8 with a stable firmware (not like the N97) even those who are now talking about a crappy OS (after having read an article from a prototype unit, with no final firmware at all), the N8 will sell. It isn´t a phone for the tech freaks, but the tech freaks are a minority. It is a phone for the masses, and masses will buy and like it. Design and functionality of the N8 seem to be the best Nokia ever has released, so maybe that is the model that will cover the waiting time until Symbian^4 is released, which will be Nokias last chance to get “back” (they still sell most of the smartphones, don´t they?) into the smartphone market. I for myself look forward to get my hands on one, though i would never buy any Nokia phone on release again.
What about you? Do you think Nokia will do well with the N8? Are you planning to buy one?
As Nokia promised, there will be more and more devices which will offer the free navigation (turn-by-turn, voice guided) in Ovi Maps. Now they added the e66 (in my opinion still the best Symbian device ever made) and the very popular e71. You can download the latest version at Nokia Website for free. Besides the lifetime free navigation it also offers synchronisation with Ovi Maps online, where you can easily define routes, POIs, and do a lot of other stuff. All it requires is an Ovi account which you most likely already have, if you use Ovi Store.
In total, Ovi Maps is now free on 14 different Symbian devices and it is very nice to see, that even older ones are not forgotten yet. Maybe Nokia slowly gets the point of consumer satisfaction after getting hit hard by Android and Apple.
Shortly after making the whole code of the most popular smartphone OS opensource, @Symbian started a twitter campaign to give away even more. Yesterday they started with giving away 2GB Flash Drives with the whole source code of Symbian on it, but what will it be today? Just give them a shout with hashtag #symbiangives to find out. A grand total of prizes worth $ 5.500 will be given away until February 19th, for full details just visit their giveaway site.
I think most people can´t imagine what a huuuuge thing it is to make a whole OS open source. People can do with it what they want, port it to devices they want, change it the way they want. I just hope that the mobile device manufacturers take the chance to make the best mobile OS ever and don´t try to cripple it down to nothing.
Am 21.Januar hat Nokia weltweit zu einem großen Ovi Event eingeladen. Die Spekulationen gingen dahin, dass der Ovi Store 2.0 vorgestellt wird oder irgendetwas anderes großartiges “Ovi-mäßiges” angekündigt wird. Dem war leider nicht so, doch was Nokia auspackte, ist nicht gerade klein. Die sprachgesteuerte Navigation von Ovi Maps (früher Nokia Maps) ist ab sofort kostenlos. Aber wie so oft hat die Sache einen Haken. Nokiatypisch werden nicht alle Handys davon profitieren, sondern nur einige Auserwählte. Es war die Rede von Nokia N97 Mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E72, Nokia 5230, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6730 classic und Nokia X6. Und schon ging der Aufschrei wieder los. Die arg gebeutelten N97 Nutzer werden außen vorgelassen? Vorerst. Ja. Aber mit dem Firmwareupdate (2.1) am 28. Januar, soll sich dann auch gleich die neue Ovi Maps Version mitinstallieren und kann ab dann natürlich auch kostenlos genutzt werden. Berichten zu Folge geht Nokia diesen Schritt, da die Installation über den Installler 20MB internen Speicher benötigt (9mb nach der Installation), und das Nokia N97 ja bekanntlich arge Probleme mit dem internen Speicher hat. Andere schreiben wiederum, dass die Installation auch jetzt schon möglich ist (wahrscheinlich die Glückskinder, die mehr als 20MB freien internen Speicher haben). Wer also nicht bis 28. Januar warten will, kann sein Glück ja mal probieren. Ovi Maps kann bei Nokia heruntergeladen werden.
Ich finde die Aktion sehr gut, Ovi Maps ist ein absolut geniales Navigationsprogramm und da die Karten über den PC heruntergeladen werden können, ist eine weltweite Navigation ohne Roaminggebühren möglich. Nokia geht damit einen großen Schritt in Richtung gegen Google, die auf ihrem Android System bereits seit einiger Zeit kostenlose Navigation anbieten.
