Say anything negative about Apple, and you hear from the Apple fanboys. This week, I found out that Nokia has its fan club too.
Apple’s fanboys are well known by anyone who ever dared doubt the company. They have a full-time brief, to respond to any criticism of Apple, however muted, with a shrill accusation of bias.
Actually, it’s not full-time. Some of them have to man the queues outside the shops, in case Steve Jobs delivers any new products. I’ve just failed to buy a SIM from the O2 shop on Oxford Street because it is STILL blocked with fans queuing for an iPhone 4, nearly two weeks, and some antena problems issues after its launch.
Nokia fans, likewise, are dedicated to keeping journalists in line, and preventing any doubts or questioning. They don’t get out so much to queue in the shops though. It’s been about a year since Nokia had a “flagship” launch, and that was the N97, which turned out not to be so popular.
If anything, Nokia fans are rougher than Apple-lovers.
So last week, I found myself with a pre-production Nokia N8 smartphone to look at. In the last little while, I’ve tried more Nokia phones than any other brand, and day-to-day I’ve used the E71 and before that the E64. So I’m reasonably familiar with the look and feel of Nokia devices.
Even using these phones continuously, I’ve found the phones falling behind the standard of usability of other brands, and I’m moving to an Android – somewhat like the famed blogger, Symbian Guru, but without the emotional investment (the Guru, Ricky Cadden, just got a Nexus One Android phone and stopped adding to his blog, complaining Nokia’s N97 flagship was “craptastic”).
I’m not given to such highs and lows about phones, and I don’t think the N97 was crap. But I wondered if the N8, which dropped into my hands last week, would change my mind about Nokia’s ability to compete against Android or iPhone… or even Blackberry. And four pages of review (or technically, preview) later, I’ve got a fairly succinct summary.
This is a niche product. And phones shouldn’t be niche products.
As with the N97 before it, Nokia has shoved in a ton of features. There’s a 12 Mpixel camera, HD video, and HDMI output. But how many people actually want to cable a monitor to their phone to watch a movie? The USB can act as a host as well as a client – but how many people want to find an obscure cable to hook up a storage device to it?
Nokia’s publicity describes it as “the home cinema in your pocket“. It plays back video on large screens in native mode – as good as that screen can support – not as a clone of what is on the phone screen.
It does sound great. For those who want a pocket cinema, it’s cheaper and incomparably better than the iPhone.
I’d like to think that’s enough to sell shedloads of N8s, but I believe it’s a niche use case.
The comments on my review made it clear that there are many people for whom this is exactly the kind of product they want, and good luck to them.
They also raised some issues which I’ve taken to Nokia for further explanation – on the next page….
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Hello Mr. Judge!
I took note of the mentioned article, and while I generally have sympathy for Nokia, I don't like to see it expressed in such violent ways.
But I have to question your theory none the less. There is indeed one big competitor, that is making huge profits by limitting its users choice and cutting down the functionality of its products, like inhibiting usb-access.
I would suggest, that Apple's economic success is not a result of its product's lacking areas, but of the product's excellent marketing and interface. Your suggestion implies, that I-Phone sales would tumble, should Mr. Jobs implement more features. This is uncertain.
Certainly, a big pile of features can obstruct a phone's succes, if it harms its usability. But if the phone manages to keep the basics simple & accessible, than I don't see any logical connection. Noone is forced to use his phone as a mobile HD-media-platform. But it might affect the decision of a numerable size of buyers.
And considering that practically any TV sold today features HDMI and practically every houshold has some sort of digital camera, I cannont see how it would NOT appeal to a broad public to have a device, that would replace at the same time a point&shoot, a video-camera AND a Hifi-mediaplayer (feat. dolby-whatever). There are few people that I imagine to fancy having a huge pile of techno gadgets around, which each bring their own chargers, cables et cetera. So what the N8 offers here is not a feature overload but in fact a major simplification of life. A grandmother could appreciate that just as much as a mother as the techno-kid himself.
What remains to be seen is, if all those parts come together in a way, that the N8's no. 1 feature will keep up to Nokia's reputation: The phone.
Hey, judge. Stop making reviews of the Nokia N8. You don't know nothin'. Just wait for it to come out, buy it, and enjoy it.
The Nokia N8 is the worlds greatest gadget and phone ever made. You know why they're releasing it late? Perfecting it. Saving the best for last. The only thing that COULD topple it is their own Nokia N9, that N8-lookalike with QWERTY. But I don't know...
No, Peter, what you found were lots of people who don't like half assed, factually incorrect 'reviews' based on limited exposure to a pre-production prototype.
You jumped on a bandwagon, made a fool of yourself and were taken to task for it.
Don't try and disguise your own incompetence by pretending it's down to the preferences of others please.
Hi,
I think I know why there will be 2 charging ports. If you think about it it's kind of a no-brainer. There are so many people out there who are faithful to Nokia, who have car adapters, multiple AC adapters and such, so if they provide both they propagate customer loyalty by making a silent statement that the money you spent for your accessories was not all thrown out the window with the purchase of this new phone.
Just a thought.