I can honestly say that when I received an email from Paul at Nokia Connects about the Nokia N9 trial, I was the happiest man on Earth. And as it turns out, my expectations were actually surpassed when I finally received the device.
The N9 is a bliss. The user interface is much, much more than what I expected. The interaction with the phone is natural and addictive. Swiping applications away is as close to reality as you can get with today's technology.
Starting with the curved body that fits perfectly in hand, continuing with the curved display that makes swiping a pleasure, the N9 feels not like a phone, but more like a pet. Man's best friend is no longer the dog, it's the Nokia N9.
You gently tap it to wake it up, just like you would do when you wanna wake someone up. You push apps aside when you no longer want to use them, just like you do with things on your desk.
The three homescreens are spot on, with the events home where you can see all your news feeds, Twitter and Facebook feeds, missed calls, messages and calendar events.
Harmattan is just what the mobile tech landscape needs today. The Nokia N9 is the new iPhone. Just like the iPhone changed the smartphone landscape in 2007, the Nokia N9 can do it in 2011.
Only one word can characterize the N9 in all it's splendor: MAGNIFICENT!
Anyway, here is my unboxing and user interface tour:
Today marks the end of the fourth week since I received the Nokia 500 from the nice people at Nokia Connects. After a coffee incident I was smartphone-less and I asked Paul to lend a hand. So he did, and a few days later I received the 500. At first I did not know what to expect from it. I knew a few things about. It was the first 1GHz Symbian phone launched by Nokia, but I also knew it was an entry level smartphone, so I was confused.
During the 4 week trial, I was impressed with the phone, and especially with the looks of the phone and even more with it's battery life. Even though it's a smaller battery, I got a lot of life out of it. But let's get on with the review.
What's in the box
The box contains the phone itself, a Nokia pin-hole charge, a micro-USB data cable, a set of Nokia hands free, the 1110mAh BL-4U battery and three interchangeable back covers(red, blue and black).
Design
The design of the Nokia 500 is reminiscent of the Nokia X6 design. It's also about the same size as the X6.
The front panel is dominated by the capacitive 3.2 inch TFT display, with the usual three buttons below: the Call button, the Menu/Home button and the End call button. On top there is the ear piece with the Nokia logo below it and the proximity sensor to the right side. The mouth piece is located just above the End call button.
The capacitive touchscreen is very sensitive, and the lightest of touches does the job well. This is probably one of the reasons that the portrait QWERTY keyboard works so well on such a small display.
The left side is clean because the SD card and SIM card housings are located below the battery.
The right side brings the volume rocker and the lock/unlock button. Yes, no more unlock knob, even though I for one have missed it(a lot).
On the top of the phone we can find the Nokia pin hole charging port, the Micro-USB port and the 3.5mm jack port. The 500 does charge trough the USB port too.
The bottom of the phone is also clean.
The back of the phone hosts the 5MP camera, the speaker grill and the neatly vertical aligned N9 style silver looking Nokia engraving.
Another design aspect are the interchangeable back covers that come with the phone. I got a black one, a red one and a blue one. I have to say that it's been a hard everyday choice to pick a cover to wear that day.
Build quality
The first thing that struck me when I first opened up the 500 box, was the looks of the phone. Moments before I picked it up I remember thinking "well, it looks gorgeous, but does it feel cheap?". The answer came quick enough. No! The back covers have a soft rubbery feel and they're not there just for the looks of the phone, but they also help with the grip. Whatever you do, the phone seems to be glued to your hand. No way of dropping this little fella.
The glossy plastic looks great and the buttons as well. The phone is solidly built, there are no squeaks or stuff to give away the all plastic build. The overall impression this phone leaves you with is... premium. You may think I am deranged, mad or lunatic, but yes, at this price point the Nokia 500 feels premium.
Hardware
The phone has a 1GHz CPU, but unfortunately Nokia left out the GPU chip so serious gaming is a no go on the 500. You get a decent amount of 256MB of RAM, which is more than enough for Symbian to dwell in.
With the 500 you also get a 2GB of internal storage and and a 512MB of ROM, which should be more than enough for the upcoming Belle update. There is of course the option to extend your 500's storage memory with an additional micro-SD card, up to 32GB. The micro-SD card however, is not hot swappable, the slot being located under the battery.
As far as connectivity goes, the usual suspects are all there, WiFi b/g (no n), 3G, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP and A-GPS.
The battery is smaller than the batteries that ship with the S^3 big brothers. It's a 1110 mAh battery, but I have to say that it delivers two days of moderate usage on one charge.
Browser
The browser feels faster than on the other Symbian 3 devices I've tested, but at times, after a long time with no reboot, it started to be laggy and even unresponsive. A reboot would usually take care of that. I have to say though, that since the last update a few days ago the browser issue seems to have magically disappeared. So if you're using version 010.032 you're good.
The browsing experience is lacking flash support, but maybe that's a good thing. To be honest each time I receive a Nokia Symbian device for testing, I disable flash from the browser. The browser becomes faster and more usable this way.
With the Anna browser you get kinda-tabbed browsing(windows, not really tabs), and a fully compliant browser with HTML5 standards. Compared to Opera which encounters problems with complex websites, the Anna browser renders them perfectly. If Nokia would integrate the cloud into the Symbian Anna browser, the data consumption would be considerably lower.
Media
Camera
The camera is a 5MP camera, which shoots pretty decent photos, but it can't be compared with the N8's or C7's camera. It seems to be slower at taking photos compared to the big brothers mentioned above.
The camera supports VGA recording at 15FPS, which is not something you would expect from a Symbian 3 phone, but I guess you have to cut on some features in order to keep the price low. However, the VGA recording is something I can live with since it is pretty decent, much better than the same VGA@15FPS that you get with the E5.
The media gallery application now called Photos is a mixed experience. Some photos can be viewed in full resolution, while others are downsized, which is really annoying if you want to see some fine details of the picture. Another thing that I find annoying is that the Photos application has some sort of inconsistent behavior. For example, it reads the pictures from the 2GB internal storage only from the Images and Videos folder, but when you plug in a micro-SD card, it reads all directories.
Sound
The sound quality of the speaker is acceptable, while the headphones provided in the package sound really good. The music playback is a comfy experience on the 500, and the good quality pack a decent punch.
The in-call volume is loud enough, but the loudspeaker volume is a bit low. I had no problems hearing people when I used the phone normally, but ran into some issues when I set it to loudspeaker and talked to someone while I was driving. The ambient noise interfered with the conversation, though the person on the other end of the line said I was loud and clear.
Software
The software pack is the usual Symbian 3 software, but Nokia left out the QuickOffice app this time. I don't know why, but I miss it. Check my Symbian^3 review and my Symbian Anna review to see what software is included.
The homescreen has three panes that can be filled with widgets and shortcuts. The homescreen loads very fast and the widgets become usable instantly.
Despite the fact that there is no GPU unit on board, the theme effects perform very well with no lag at all.
The menu is the same as on the rest of Symbian devices, the contacts application, messaging with conversations threaded view, and everything else besides QuickOffice. The task manager is also a very handy application.
On the downside, I had some issues with occasional freezes followed by reboots, but only after an hour or so of heavy use, and by heavy use I mean no standby for hours. It's most probably a software issue that will get fixed in future updates.
The new Nokia Store application performs extremely well, but unfortunately I could not find many apps that I really needed on the store. Probably because this is a new device and the software devs have to add compatibility with it.
The Nokia Store interface is a very nice touch, and it brings smooth navigation and easy search. It has the Categories view, which is very useful, and most importantly the My Stuff view straight on the bottom bar. You also get update notifications on the bottom bar, and you can update all your apps with one click.
Some software like SPB Shell started but was unusable, having flickering issues all over the place. Maybe the devs of the published apps should check compatibility with this device.
Conclusion
At the price point of the 500 (which is around 150 Euros after taxes) the phone is dirt cheap, and the features are hard to beat. Honestly. Imagine how the price will look like in a couple of months. For this kind of money you get the full Symbian experience, and more to follow. Nokia announced that they will update the 500 to Belle, so the 500 will look even more attractive then.
I was not expecting much when Paul from WOMWorld sent me the Nokia 500 trial agreement. Two days later, I received the package containing this little fella:
First I liked that it's very light, I think it's the lightest smartphone I ever held. On a closer inspection, I noticed the excellent build quality. The device feels premium, even if it is an entry level smartphone. The exchangeable back covers are covered in soft touch rubber, and improve the phone's grip.
The 1GHz CPU shows it's muscle everywhere around the OS, feeling somewhat faster than it's bigger brothers, C7, N8 and X7. Somehow, the E6 seems a bit faster than the 500, but then again, the E6 felt faster than any other S^3 device.
Anyway, here's the usual unboxing video. I will come back with a full review in a week or two.
I was lucky enough to test drive a Nokia E6 for three weeks, courtesy of the nice people at WOMWorld/Nokia, and I have to say that I was impressed. I also reviewed the Nokia E6 a week ago and the best phrase to describe the E6 IMHO is, "E6 - Connnecting two worlds". Why? Because this phone blends the business and entertainment worlds seamlessly. Now, anyone can see why the E6 is a great business phone. The outstanding QWERTY keyboard, Symbian 3 and a high resolution touchscreen take care of that. But the entertainment part may be unclear to some folks. So, I decided to film a tour of my home city, Craiova, Romania, and show it to you. The following video was shot entirely on the E6. The video processing was also done of the E6 Video Editor. Here's the result:
Well, once upon a time there was a Java application that could do miracles for people who didn't own a smartphone. This application was not only a great Facebook and Twitter client, but a Weather, Movies and many, many more.
This application was called Snaptu, and it worked on virtually every phone in the world, being a MIDP 2.0 application.
For those of you who didn't have the pleasure to meet Snaptu I have to tell you that it was more than an app. It was a platform on top of which small apps were running. The small apps got updated on the fly(yes without having to install some update) because of the genius idea behind Snaptu.
So, this application was growing fast, and people were using it and spread the world about it everywhere. So a big bad idea-stealing-youngest-financial-mammoth wolf caught wind of this app, and thought "Why don't I buy this app and kill two birds with one stone?"
And so he did. The big bad wolf bought Snaptu and killed it's spirit. It turned Snaptu into a Facebook only app, killing the Twitter client for the masses. Did the big bad wolf win anything from this? Maybe so. But this kind of move against Twitter is IMHO as low as you can go.
Well, Nokia announced that it will close the Romanian factory near Cluj, by the end of the year. The people who lost their jobs will get a compensatory retribution for 3 months pay. The syndicate from the Romanian factory have no one to thank to by their own government who cut all fiscal facilities for every major manufacturer that invested in this country including Nokia, Ford and many, many more companies.
By adopting the new Labour Code this year, the government practically allows any employer to fire any employee at their disposal. The biggest problem is not this, because every company in it's sane mind, wouldn't fire hard working people.
The main problem is that the once the world wide financial crisis hit, the Romanian government has cut all fiscal facilities that were granted to the foreign investors, including Nokia.
So suddenly Nokia found itself paying 16% more for the same profit, which inevitably leads any company, not just Nokia to trying to find cheaper workforce. That cheaper workforce is found in Asia, and so another big company leaves Romania. Maybe if Ford will leave too, the government will come into their senses and try to attract foreign investors again.
So, yesterday I checked out a video from Mike Macias showing the new Nokia Store running on the Nokia N8. I quickly went to the Nokia BetaLabs website to download it for the E6 I got on trial(courtesy of WOMWorld). But I saw the E6 wasn't on the supported phones list. I was a little disappointed to see that, but I hit the download link anyway, expecting to see a "Sorry, this is not available for your device" message. Instead, the website somehow detected the phone as a X7(probably because of the X7 I got for trial last time), and allowed the download. So the app installed without a problem, and works flawlessly(except for D-pad navigation). The application is much faster now, and has fixed some of the annoying bugs from the Ovi Store app. It has an updated user interface, in line with the current Symbian Belle user interface. So here is a video with the app running on the E6:
It was a while back that I received my first Nokia candybar Qwerty phone from the nice people at WOMWorld, the E5 and it quickly turned me into a fan of the form factor and of the phone's itself. Today however the game changes. Don't get me wrong, the E5 is still very close to the E6 at the top of my list, but there are things that the E6 can do that the E5 or any other Qwerty phone cannot.
Some of these things are the screen resolution 640x480 pixels, which is the highest available on this form factor, and most important, the camera. HD recording and 8MP photos are hard to come by in this class. I sometimes miss the soft keys of the E5 but I think this is just a matter of adjusting.
Another thing that makes this my favorite Qwerty is the fact that it combines business class with entertainment to a level I've never seen before. This phone has played back every video file that I threw at it, and, you can play Angry Birds on it too.
On top of the phone you can find the power key, the 3.5mm jack port, and (strangely) the SD card slot. On the left side we only have the USB port. On the right, we have the volume rockers, the voice command key, and the unlock knob. On the bottom we have the Nokia pin charger hole.
The phone has a VGA front facing camera for video calls, which is visible on the top of the front panel, next to an array of sensors.
The E6 screen in protected by a layer of compressed Gorilla glass.
The phone is equipped with a 680MHz ARM11 CPU spiced up with a 2D/3D GPU. On the RAM side, it has 256MB, fully capable of running Symbian 3 without breaking a sweat. The OS is hosted on a 1GB ROM, leaving enough room to install upcoming Symbian iterations.
The 8MP camera is based on EDoF technology, also known as Full Focus. The pictures are snapped very fast, and they are very well balanced. It's a bit hard to take a steady shot, because of the form factor. The camera records HD video of 1280x720px at 25 FPS.
Unfortunately the social client is not very well optimized for D-pad navigation, but there's always Gravity around if you're willing to pay for it, or Socially for free. You can also choose the official Facebook client, and use a different software for twitter, like Tweets60.
The hardware shortcut keys can be configured to launch 2 apps each(except for the home key) so you can easily have 6 of your favorite apps launched in a heartbeat.
The hardware keyboard is excellent. I rarely had a mistype. I have to say that if you are used with a non touch Qwerty bar, you're gonna have to get used to do things without softkeys. You'll have to use the touchscreen instead. I love touchscreens as well as Qwerty bars, but there is one thing that I absolutely detest about touchscreens: they're useless while driving.
However smart the voice recognition software is on touchphones, there is still some glitch that drives you up the wall. I have to stop all the time and take a call, or call my wife. But, just as the E5 before it, the E6 comes to the rescue. You can call someone without even having to look at the screen. You just use the unlock knob, start typing the name you want to call, and press the call key. It's that easy. This was one of my favorite thingies on the E5 homescreen, and I am glad the E6 inherited that one.
The voice command key is lower than the volume rockers, so you won't confuse the volume keys. Also it helps locating the voice command key easier.
A very neat thing that I noticed was that along with the keyboard, the volume rocker and voice command keys light up too, so they are very handy in the dark. Unfortunately the E6 does not charge from the USB port like it's Symbian 3 brethren, and that can be a hassle if you're on the go and can't find a Nokia pin charger(highly unlikely though).
However, the battery life is excellent. I went 2 full days on a charge with heavy use. I guess it's because of the smaller screen that doesn't eat up that much power as a 4 incher for example. I found the ambient light sensor a bit too sensitive, changing the backlight instantly even when not necessarily needed. There may be a setting for this sensitivity, but I could not find it.
The E6 has a split personality, in a good way. During work hours it works as a perfect business phone, and when at home it becomes a perfect family man phone with it's 8MP camera and HD video recording. I do not know any other phone that can do both this tasks in this price range. Most people that need a business phone carry two phones, one for business and another personal phone, but the E6 fills both roles successfully.
Symbian Anna seems to be a perfect fit for the E6. I did not experience any lags at all in the two weeks I had this phone with me. Nokia managed to modify the homescreen so that it shows three fullsize widgets alongside the system widgets for Profiles, Clock and Notifications.
There is not much to say about the software, pretty much everything is the same as the Nokia X7 I already reviewed, besides the games. The E6 has no games preinstalled whatsoever. Being an Eseries phone it is somewhat expected. That doesn't mean you can't install our own if you want to.
There are user interface changes because of the non-standard resolution of the E6, but every app looks like it's running in landscape mode(which is exactly what happens), so for those of you who are familiar with Symbian 3, you should feel right at home.
The web browser acts better than it did one the X7, so there is no need now for Opera Mini as a substitute browser.
The phone has 8GB of memory onboard, which should be enough for most people, but if you like to record HD videos a lot, you should consider a bigger SD card to expand your memory. The HD video tends to eat up the available memory pretty fast.
So, if you're looking for a business phone that is small enough to carry in your pocket, that can shoot a decent picture and record HD video, this is the phone for your. On top of that you can also play touch games on it, even if it will feel weird the first time.
This phone is a very well deserved upgrade for E5 and E72 lovers.
Why "Connecting two worlds"? Because the E6 combines touch and hardware QWERTY seamlessly into one package. Because it connects the business world with the entertainment world.
P.S. I have to mention, that again, just like I did with the E5, most of this review was written on the device itself.
