Handful of Nothing

How to make a review totally undressed of Fan-Boy opinions? Reviewing a device trying to be totally impartial is just like the work of a Interaction Designer trying not to be the user: An almost impossible task.

So read this review with somethings in mind:

a. I am a technology savvy kind of user. Actually a little too much.
b. I am a professional in the field of Interaction Design, product concept and so on. So I want more than a regular user, and different stuff than a business man wants.
c. I am a heavy user of web services. The regular jargon 2.0-ready dude. This means: browser matters. A lot.

So why I still use this phone and didn’t come back to the iPhone

Click to read the rest of the (HUGE) post :)

I will do that using my needs, ordered by priorities. The importance of those points maybe define how much this phone can serve you:

1. Browser. This is actually more important than the phone itself for me. I know this is a bold statement but I realized that I am always using more, needing more the browser then the calling features. So I need a fast, stable and able to multitask nicely, browse to fulfill my daily needs. Why the N95 and other Nokias failed on me? The browser could simply not open my Flickr account, or handle my Wordpress blogging dashboard. It was a no go. Opera mini is the solution for some of those problems, but it also has limitations (after all is not a real browser, it’s a proxy) so I need now and then the browser to work. Another thing that kills me in the s60 browser is this minimap. It’s just useless and bothers me soo much, that now the first thing to do is always disable it. So I need the full site view, and nice zooming and wandering around freely like in the iPhone. I can only get that with opera mini right now. It’s not near the iphone experience but it gets the job done.

Score on Browsing : Average, 5 out of 10 for S60 browser 6.5 out of 10 for opera Browser. 8.5 out of 10 for the iPhone (flash is not there)

2. Calling
Calling for me is becoming more important. This must be a good signal in my career :) so after a couple of months being more presents in meetings I have started being more on conference calls than ever. This brought the importance of the loudspeaker, as well basic international to national number handling.

The loudspeaker: Its really loud. I can do calls while driving (I know it illegal :/) I can really use it at the office when needed, and most important I can also listen to some music in the car when I don have the stereo available. I don know about most of people, but this is a killer feature for me. That’s actually why I used the Nokia 3250 for so long.

Score: 9 out of 10 | iPhone 2 out of 10 (come on, it almost useless)

Call quality: It’s way better than the iPhone. Here I would say that it’s unfair to compare because Nokia has years of excellent work in that field, so their antenna is much superior. I don’t even need to say that the Nokia holds the signal in bad places way better was well. This is a must for me, and I use it a lot indoors where the iphone was failing a lot (Specially on my desk!)

Score: 8 out of 10 | iPhone (same Claro network): 5 out of 10

3. Camera & Video
This was clear for me. The iPhone camera is on the limit. It not only not good for a 2mp camera but it clearly under featured in a lot ways. It seems that jobs said “place the cheapest thing on the market there… just to say that we have it”.

The E71 Camera is nice. a 3.2mp, not so bigger in numbers, but believe me way better than the iPhone in good light situations, and usable (not good thought) on low light (simple led flash) where the iphone is just a joke. Also, the iPhone made me realize how much I need video recording, and although now there’s a couple of softwares doing that the camera quality gets even worst. And you move it a little bit more you can see how much distortion it causes on the elements, while the E71 is way better on any standard.

4. Industrial Design and performance of hardware
This are some strong points in the E71. It feels smaller, heavier and actually better than the iPhone in the hands. Nokia usage of real metal gives it a lot of “classy” power and makes it stand from the crowd. The keys above the keyboard are also quite nice to use, and I have had almost no problem with then since my first day. I also need to make some notes about the back cover with a nice texture engraved on it.

Also on the hardware side, it’s worth mentioning that you can FELL the speed up on the system. S60 is already a cluttered system, but if you have low cpu power + low ram then you are in hell. This was fortunately minimized and you can get sometimes amazed but how fast it is :) This should not happen, but it does because of the past of most of s60 devices. I need also to place here that the welcoming addition of RAM now makes possible for me to visit my flickr without crashing the browser like in the 6120 classic.

Score: 9 out of 10 | iPhone : 9 out of 10

5. Instant messenger
I have tried to use appollo on the iPhone but it didn work, and at the time I didn’t had the Gtalk capable client. I know that this is a “software” problem and can be solved, but agile messenger and fring are way better than any iPhone app right now. iPhone has already a pre-release fring version so this may not be a real problem anymore. Anyhow between fring and Agile, I prefer agile. The real difference here goes to the keyboard. The physical keyboard on the E71 it’s a work of art. Try it for 10 minutes. It just works great. I am quite fast with iphones virtual keyboard but like many of my friends I still commit too many mistakes. Compared to the N71 I am at least 50% better. And this is important if you write too much.
Score: 8 out of 10 (A google gtalk would be a 9) | iPhone (fring) 7 out of 10 - keyboard.

6. Connectivity to my laptop
Again another topic where iPhone users tend to say “but this is just a software problem”. Yes for most of devices it’s always a software problem only. I think the only think you can fool around in the iPhone is to say “Front camera” than it a mirror problem only right?

Back to the connectivity. 3g. iPhone is now 3G and you would probably get also the unlimited data. It makes sense. I have 3G and the Nokia connectivity is not only better (better reception) but also it comes easily integrated to my mac. I can connect my mac to the web with the phone. This is something that (AFAIK) iPhone still misses. Just software, but a pretty important one

Score: 8 out of 10 (still the disconnecting problem) | iphone 1 (you can use the browser on the iphone for basic tasks)

7. Maps
As we are comparing to the iPhone, I need to say: the iphone App is great. I would dare to say better than the Nokia maps one, but I use google maps. So, no problems on that. It serves me quite well, and I have almost everything I need. The good thing that is also present on the iPhone is the GPS support, and I don know how the iPhone 3G is doing that but on the n71 is surprisingly fast the fix time. So I would say that the experience, even not being as cool to use as the touchscreen based is really good.

Score: 8 out of 10 | iPhone 9 out of 10

8. Media
This is where the iPhone shines. I can talk a lot of bad stuff about this, but you can read on the web several reviews on s60 media features. Gallery sucks, the music player is regular to pathetic and the quality it’s really bellow the ipod/iphone quality.

A big drawback here is the non-standard plug of the n71. But being honest I also hate the iPhone’s sunken slot where my noise reductions phone don fit without and adapter. I will make this a draw in that sense. But quality wise the iPhone here is a winner.

the real deal: I didn’t gave this a heavy weight on my decision because of one simple thing: the place where I listen more to music is on a plane. So neither the iPhone or the E71 can help me on those. Flight mode is forbidden in Brazil and I have crossed the barrier to be “against” rules and being called attention by the flight attendant twice :)

Score: 6 out of 10 | iPhone 9 out of 10

9. email
Actually this is funny, but for me nothing beats the gmail java ME clients in email. as I am not a heavy user of attachments, but a heavy user of conversation view I got addicted to that little software and it one of my best experiences as well that still just impossible on the iPhone (until google comes out with a native application). I could say that the iPhone google version of the web service could do the trick, but I am talking about native applications, so please no web based comparisons for that. :)

10. Small annoyances

I hate a lot of things in the s60 UI. So it quite common to hear my opinions : “this device deserved a better GUI”. Actually this is really true. The UI is not up to the level of the industrial design of the E71. You will find yourself amazed in how they improved (mail client now is easier to configure) but also really frustrated how it works, and how it complicated to go around it (a messy inbox that mixes everything in a not so good way). But for me the worst thing is really to face the lack of consistency across the S60 user experience. Sometimes there’s auto completion, sometimes not, sometimes commands are only on the “middle softkey” that officially doesn’t exist but they call the middle, select button this already on the s60, sometimes you get error messages like this :

“Error: communication problems, click to read more info”, then you click and get what?
“Error: communication problem.” Thanks for the double, useless info.

Also a really serious problems is the sea of “dialogs” for everything. It should exists ( I understand the importance of having warnings) an way to tell the phone that I have unlimited data and that I don’t want to choose access point for everything all the time, that I want to automatically join my favorite networks and that I actually don’t care about the gmail app exchanging data with the internet. That it’s only purpose.

While it really importance to have security, or to avoid costs it’s more and more common to have heavy users with unlimited data and an unlimited wish of having a less dialog-based ui. Please learn a little bit of user, and keep the choices he makes if he wants so. S60 provides somehow a lot of little “don’t ask, always ask” options but it’s also a mess and really inconsistent across the whole GUI.

I could over an over a lot of small issues like that, but I have to admit one thing: Nokia ironed out plenty of them. So things seems to be evolving. I have to admit that while I think the home screen is a MESS I granted it forgiveness when I saw the “remove voicemail notification” option. This was a gift from the UI heavens.

Anyhow I could say that in this small details iPhone is certain more than a winner, it a classroom for improvements, but that would not work as it is on s60. S60 needs a revamp from deep ground, but when you analyze the legacy you start realizing how big this challenge could be. I think the way things will change will be like in the E71 slowly and on small bits here and there. It will not be able to “jump” into hyperspace and pursuit the iphone on that but for sure will earn some heavy thrusters to empower you to do more :)

E71 score: 6.0 out of 10 (from a 4 out of 10 of other s60s) | iPhone 8.5 out 10

Conclusion: If you agreed with some of my points, and needs a little bit more than the close environment of the iphone can offer this phone is for you. Wifi, Bluetooth and 3G with a fast AGPS are really well done in this device and the ability to have more formats supported, attachments, copy and paste, and a nice, really improved over the iPhone battery life while using all of that makes this device a real deal for those that think that the iPhone is really cool, but something is missing.