Software, services and conclusion
The really contentious bit is the software, specifically the Symbian ^3 operating system. First there's the font; I've heard Nokia execs talk about how absurd it is to judge a complex piece of software by such a superficial criterion, but if you're looking for reassurance that Nokia is keeping up with the cool kids, a retro font doesn't help.
The UI is a pretty familiar one - a wall of apps on multiple (three) home screens. However there are some quirks. Each home screen is comprised of up to six equally-sized rectangles that cover the width of the screen which, with the exception of a predetermined one for time, date and profile icons, can accommodate either one widget or four app shortcuts.
This works reasonably well, but is a bit more clunky to set up than the ‘wall of apps' model - you usually have to go through at least a couple more stages in order to introduce a new homescreen feature than you do with Android, for example. And this is the main knock on Symbian ^3; you can do pretty much everything you can on other high-end smartphones, but it takes a little bit more effort and it's a bit less intuitive.
Another example of this is the on-screen keyboard (there's no slide-out qwerty). It's perfectly responsive and even offers some subtle, but gratifying, haptic feedback. But when you access the keyboard in portrait mode, you get a reproduction of a traditional mobile phone keypad, and only switch to qwerty when you physically rotate the phone to landscape mode. Also, there didn't seem to be any nice predictive assistance when typing.
Pros and cons
Having said all that, setting up the phone is quite intuitive. You can get email accounts such as Gmail going easily, although I struggled to set up Exchange - not for the first time I must stress. In principle it's easy to connect to social networks via Ovi - Nokia's app platform - but it kept failing to log me into Ovi via the social networking widget despite being happy to log me into the Store.
Once you get access to the apps and services you encounter a real strength of this phone. There are some cool preinstalled widgets, such as one for the BBC iPlayer and some handy music shortcuts. Then you get Ovi Maps, of course, which has cool extras like a tie-in with the Michelin Guide, and the Ovi Store has a decent range of apps and games, with the latter working well on this phone.
Then again I couldn't get Shazam to install, despite repeated attempts. And there is the concern I have for any platforms apart from iOS and Android - that there isn't the developer community to guarantee a continued stream of high quality apps and games. Another weakness is social networking integration, even if you can get the widget to work, it wasn't obvious how to share photos taken with the excellent camera via Twitter or Facebook.
The browser seems fine but access to the web, once more, is unintuitive as is navigation once you're there. The lack of a back button and the short delay when switching from profile to landscape modes both grate. You just get the impression that it will be an Internet phone if you really want it to, but it would rather not if given the choice.
Vodafone 360
We got this phone from Vodafone, and it must be noted that their PR agency were very helpful when the previous one went kaput, so that meant it came with a bunch of Vodafone 360 goodness thrown in.
In case you've forgotten, Vodafone 360 is a suite of Internet services provided by the operator designed to unify a lot of your social stuff, while at the same time backing it all up, in real time, remotely. It's been around for a while now and was heavily promoted a year ago via a baffling TV ad campaign, which we've embedded an example of below. But it didn't really seem to catch on, and was possibly ahead of its time.
Apart from the inconvenience of having to create yet another Internet services account, this is a decent added extra. There's a good music service, which let us sign up for a free trial - including ten downloads - without even asking for card details.
The web portal lets you set up certain content feeds, but it all takes a bit too long and the navigation is a bit too awkward to make it intuitive. The cloud sync works very well and I was impressed when I selected a service via the PC web portal, to see it become available on the phone almost immediately. The question remains, however, whether 360 provides sufficient added value to justify the significant outlay Vodafone has made on development and marketing.
Must try even harder
In fact the Nokia N8 and Vodafone 360 both have one fundamental thing in common: they are a valiant attempt by the two mobile market leaders to continue to differentiate themselves while the environment they have previously dominated transforms around them.
The phone and the service combined offer an Aladdin's cave of mobile yumminess. It feels churlish, bordering on ungrateful, to pick holes over things like intuitiveness when there is so much stuff at your fingertips that we would only have dreamt about a few years ago, and in isolation the Nokia N8 with Vodafone 360 is a miraculous piece of kit.
But the mobile phone market is in a state of dizzying transformation. The most awe-inspiring smartphones launched even at the start of this year are now bog-standard, mid-range models, and it's within this context that the N8 has to be judged.
In short, we would expect Nokia N8 owners to be delighted with what their phone does for them. But when they play with their friend's iOS, Android or WP7 phone, previously unnoticed imperfections will suddenly become apparent.
Good:
- Solid, practical handset
- Great camera
- Excellent range of services
Bad:
- Relatively awkward to use
- Underpowered chip
- Worries about ongoing size of development community
HEXUS Rating
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