Thanks to @WOMworld for inviting me to the Nokia n8 launch event held at Bang & Olufsen, Toronto. It was busier than I expected—a lot of media types there.
I had a good chat with one of the reps stationed at the OVI stand.
Overall, very impressive launch:
- Awesome camera. I mean, truly best in class.
- The phone feels great. Top-notch finishing.
- The usability of the device was much improved in comparison to the last Nokia Touch device (5800) that I had.
- If past phones are any indication, I’m sure the RF performance will be outstanding.
That said, there were things that left me unimpressed.
I was able to crash the camera application when I was trying to record a movie (I was at the OVI desk), but otherwise the device was stable.
- I found the N8’s performance a bit sluggish, almost hesitant. I’m curious to see how much of this is software vs. hardware.
- Browser did not impress (e.g., it couldn’t render my employer’s website – http://kobobooks.com)
- The keyboard in landscape is horrible. However, there is a part of me that appreciates the old-school T9 input pad while in portrait.
- I wish the keyboard context was more intelligent, T9 works great for SMS, but is practically useless when trying to enter aURL into the browser field.
- Alternate methods such as “Swype” would be appreciated
- Horrible typography. Rather, Nokia refuses to update their standard font. They don’t even provide a Serif font. This makes web-browsing, document browsing—reading look horrible (e.g., don’t visit NY Times on this phone).
- The devices were plain-jane, straight-from-the-box. It would have been nice if they spent the time to add email accounts, text messages, etc. I would have loved to have seen the phone in a “lived-in” state.
- Some of the reps were not knowledgeable.
I’m glad to see much improved usability and interactivity. It’s a good start for Nokia, and I hope that the organizational changes that Nokia HQ is undergoing are a sign that things will only get better from a software user experience (arguably Nokia’s Achilles’ heel). The movie player and music player was very impressive. Hope to see many firmware updates, in quick succession, akin to the iPhone, in the near future.
I would love to do a deeper dive into phone’s UX, in particular the call-log, email, calendaring, VoIP, the Ovi store experience and navigation. However,
1-hour is just not enough time, nor a launch event an appropriate place to
undertake such an effort.