nokia n8 review week

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Nokia N8 Review Week Day 3 Symbian^3 And UISubmitted by Rita on November 10, 2010 3:55 pm17 Comments

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Hello and welcome everyone to the Nokia N8 Review Week here on Fone Arena! Each day of this week, one of

our team members will cover one area of Nokias imaging flagship with all the dos and donts. This should make for an exciti ng

week and were all looking forward to that! Today is Wednesday, our names are Rita El Khoury and Sloan Bowman, and we

have joined forces to tell you about the Nokia N8 software and what you can expect of it. Since the software/UI is a very

objective and personal matter, we thought we would give you two real-world opinions of it, sometimes well agree, other t imes

well have radically opposing impressions. Enjoy reading along and if you have any questions on that matter, leave a comment!

After tackling the Hardware and Camera in the previous days, two aspects where the Nokia N8 excels by anyones standards, we

come to the most controversial aspect of the N8,the software or Symbian^3 and its UI. Symbian^3 is the first major software

leap since Nokia brought S60 5th Edition on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. Upon introduction, Symbian^3 was described as an

evolutional not revolutional progression, meant to fix allthe major issues that plagued Symbians first iteration with

a touchscreenUI, and which were most heartfelt on the Nokia N97.

First Boot

Rita says - The first boot experience on a Nokia is never spectacular yet always functional. You can just pick it up and go if you

so wish. My most positive impression of the first boot on the N8 was the fact that I was asked to activate my Nokia/Ovi account

instantly. It isnt much, but its a good page to be stolen from the Android book, yet its usefulness is quite limited as of now. It

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willin

egra

e with

vi

ync and

vi

ap , butthat pretty much it. Itwont ign you into the

vi

tore, itwont even etup a

okia

e aging inbox with that

vi

ail ign in.

The Device

etup wizard kick in a

ter you ign in to

vi. Thiswizard,

irstintroduced with the

okia

86, makesit easierto

get going in 4 steps. Data Transferwilllet you synchronize your

ontacts,

alendar,

otes and more with a previous phone or

from

vi via

vi

ync. Phone Personalization asks you to set a

luetooth name, the ringing tones, theme and wallpaper.

etup

maillets you set up yourinboxes, butthey wontsupport your previously created

okia

essaging account, so yes, you will

have to set up every inbox again separately.

oftware

pdate checkswhetherthere is a newfirmware version and installsit

which is greatto make sure youre running the latest and greatest.

The first boot experience might be miles ahead of

pplesiOS, with no computer connection required, butitis miles beyond

ndroidin terms ofgetting to workinstantly. Oviisstill notfully integratedinto Symbian^3 andthisshowsin howthe

8

handlessynchronization with yourOvi account.

Sloan

ay

Powering up a

okia device forthe firsttime is always an enlightening experience. This can be portrayedin two

ways.

irst being the device comesto life with the familiar

okia chime leaving you with a feeling ofenlightenment. Second

being thatliterally the entire room isfilledwith white light asthe extremely brightscreen powers up, blinding anyone initswake.

owever you choose to see it, when you power up a

okia there is no doubtwhatdevice isin your hands.

Overthe years

okia haslearned howimportantinitialsetup and migration from existing phones has become for consumers. The

8 provides a simple setup that can have you up and running quickly. Ifyou are migrating from an existing phone you can use

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the Data transferwizardwhich allows you to sync your

ontacts,

alendar,

oteswith Oviservices ( ifyou are an existing

okia

Ovi user) or you may choose to importfrom an existing phone which workswellwith my experience.

The benefitSymbian has over other popular platformsisthat out ofthe box you can have a working phone with orwithout a

cloudservice forsyncing or a computerto activate the device.

sdevices become more service dependantthey tendto forgetthat

not everybody wantsto use these features. Symbian gives you the choice to simply use the device as a phone, which after all, is

the intended purpose.

Overall feel

Rita

ay

- I will only say this once. Symbian^3 makesS60 5th

dition andSymbian^1 feel retarded.!

ton ofthings have been

fixed, improved, and I cantsee myselfmoving backto a previousSymbiantouchscreen phone. Ifyoure a Symbian veteran, this

is a majorleap forward;ifyou got usedto iOS and!

ndroid, Symbian^3 is a majorleap backward. Its a question ofperspective.

One ofthe major benefits ofSymbian, since itsinception, isthatits a fully themable"

I. The#

8 doesnt breakthat rule,and

when you gettired ofa certain look andfeel, you can easily download and apply a newtheme, which will change the homescreen

background, menu, icons, progress bars, keyboard, and more.


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Sloan$

ay$

I will preface thiswith ifyou are expecting itto feellike an%

ndroid oriPhone device you are starting on the wrong

foot. Symbian in its currentstate iswhat I like to callin hold-over mode. This release bridgesthe gap between whatisto come

andwhat nevershould have been.&

owthatwe have that out ofthe way letsdiscuss howthe latest edition ofSymbian feels on

the&

okia&

8. The majority ofpeople that purchasedthe&

8 are orwere previous&

okia users.'

rom that aspect, the experience

has been vastly improved. The phone feels quicker and addsseveral visually pleasing upgradesthat make itfeel new.(

nderthe

visual enhancements a lot ofworkwasdone andshould not be ignored.

The majorissue isthatsome ofthe thingsthatwere a problem 5 years ago still remain problems atthis point. The userinterface

isinconstant and attimes confusing. I will give two examples andleave it atthat. When entering any textthe keyboardfillsthe

entire screen taking you out ofthe context ofwhat you are working on. This alone is a problem butthe real problem issomeinput

fields allow predictive input and othersdont. There is no indication asto why andthis makesfor a very frustrated user. Second

there are several casesin which selection toggles behave differently. In one case you touch to change the option in others you

touch the menu andselect change option. Visually there is no way to indicate which is required.)

ow can you expect userstoget

comfortable using a system thatdoesnt have a consistent experience? The experience has been improved butis nowhere close to

being where it needsto be to escape criticism.

Screen & Keyboard

Rita

0

ay

0

- Lets getthis out ofthe way. The

1

8stouch implementation isterrible.

2

y default, ittakes a fraction ofa secondlongerto register a touch on the

1

8sscreen comparedto othertouchscreen devices (iOS,3

ndroid and others). It might not

soundlike much, butfor many people, thiswillseem asifthe1

8 isnt responsive asthey will click, click, click, with nothing


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happening, then out offrustration cliiiiiick a long one and kaboom it happens. Several ofmy friendswere dumbfounded by the4

8 thinking the screen waslockedwhen allittookwas a slightly longer pressfor every action.5

ultitouch isimplementedin photo browsing, in the6

amera (to switch between the 125

P 47 3 ratio image andthe 95

P

widescreen image), in the Web browser andin8

mail. Itis not available on Ovi5

aps out ofthe box, as you will have to update to

the latest beta from9

etaLabswhich brings multitouch support.9

utwhatsthe most mind boggling, isthat multitouch isnt

implementedin the one area where you would needit badly andthe mostfrequently7 the keyboard.

The keyboard lets you insert almost all symbols without going to the Insert Symbol menu.

When you firststarttyping on the4

8, you will have to take a deep breath and press each letter, lift yourfinger, hope thatitdidnt

registerthe clickwrong which itdoes halfthe time, exhale, and repeat. Why hurry, really?@

elax. I thinkitstheA

innish

medication forstress relief, exceptits really stressful. Well, thatis until you find everything else thatiswrong with the on-screen

keyboards.

B

es, you will curse between yourteeth many many times, like when you notice it makes a hundred accuracy errors aminute, orwhen you see thatthe space barisso small you hitthe arrows nextto it by mistake most ofthe time, messing upyour

whole text, orwhen you findthat predictive textisntthere, orwhen you discover that predictive text ISthere butisnt enabled

by default (really?), orwhen you try typing in portrait and get hit by this horrible T9 keyboard. I hate that one,4

OT because its




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not a portrait QWC D

TE

, but because the arrows and ok keys are located belowthe 12 keys.C

very single phone,F

okia or other

brand, since the dawn oftime, has haditsselection keys and arrowsG

H

OVC

the keypad, not belowit, why switch now?I

ounter

intuitive at best.

Portrait T9 on the N8 vs the 5800 XpressMusic. Notice where the selection keys and arrows are? G

nddont even get me started on the smart keyboardwhen youre searching for contacts.G

fter you type the firstletter, you

have to waitforitto registerthat andshow you an updated view ofthe keyboardwith only the possible following letters. Letter

placeswillshift, ittakestime and honestly it makesthings much harder. Instead, ifonefull qwerty wasshown, with irrelevant

lettersdimming out (not removed) and remaining letterslighting up (not reordered), itwould have been much better.




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Notice how this smart keyboard shifts the key placements, theres no typing blind here, definitely!

RitaP opinion on why a lackofportraitqwerty wa P a gooddecision Ok, lets clarify this.Q

okia uses a 640360 screen,

meaning the lengthR

width ratio is 1.77. In comparison, the iPhone has a 1.5 lengthR

width ratio and most androiddevices havea

1.66. Whatdoesthis mean? ThatQ

okiasscreens are lesswide than the iPhone, even on the same 3.5 on paper, andthanS

ndroid handsets (the lattersomewhat compensate vsthe iPhone by having 3.7 and 4screens).T

eing lesswide, portrait qwerty

keyboardswould be extremely cramped on theQ

8, and addto thatthe realterrible accuracy that even plaguesthe landscape

qwerty, anditwill be a horrible experience.T

ut (un)luckily, everyone kept harassingQ

okia for a portrait qwerty, not

understanding the physicaldifficulty ofimplementing it, andQ

okia has caved, which they shouldnt have.U

utureQ

8 firmwares

will addthe portrait qwerty.V

njoy it, people. Itwill be cramped, definitely, though accuracy might be improved.




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Physical proportions of the portrait QWERTY keyboard on the N8 (thanks to an implementation on the Twitter client, Gravity)

and on an iPhone. Notice how more cramped, in width, the N8 keyboard is?

Sloan says - The screen being the only methodto interactwith Symbian on theW

8 meansthat a lot oftime and research needsto

be putinto making sure the experience is a good one.X

sers expectto touch the screen and be presentedwith resultsimmediately.

Due to the long overdue addition ofthe nY

D (640 x 360) capacitive display on theW

8, the screen is close to achieving justthat.

oving aroundthe phone issnappy andin most casestouches are registered and processed quickly. There are timesthat pressing

a menu item or button will be delayedwhich can leadto a bad experience, possibly causing some to become aggravated and give

up. In most cases, thiswill happen in third party applications and even more specifically Wa

T (Weba

untime) applications.

Wa

T applicationstendto be very slowto respondto touch giving the perception thatthe screen isntworking. Dontbelieve me?

Downloadthe WordPress app which is a full QT application andsee how quickly you can move around and how accurate the

touch inputis.W

exttry the builtinSocial network application andtell me you dontsee the difference. This provesto me thatthe

hardware isin place butSymbian hasntworked outthe performance problemswith some ofthe applicationsthat run on it.

The screen is one ofthe bestW

okia has ever released howeverthere are stillsome issuesthat needto be worked out.

ore time

needsto be spent making sure sure the touch experience is a not a good one but a great one. TheW

8 is nice andworkswell but

when comparedto other modern touch screen phones, doesntfeel asfluid. Ifyou have to thinkto yourselfdid I missthe

button? at anytime during your usage itisnt good enough.

b

or many, the on-screen keyboardisthe deciding factorfor any touch screen phone. Ifyou cannottype with ease a touch-only

smartphone might aswell be a nice looking paperweight. When it comesto the Symbian keyboardimplementation, there really

is nothing more I can say otherthan itisnt good. In comparison to the previousW

okia 5800c

, itis much improveddue to the

capacitive display but not because ofany design changes.




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In portrait mode you are presentedwith the T9 keyboardwhich is greatforone handedtyping ofshort messages but horrible for

thingslike filling outforms on web pages. Ifyou are thinking just bring up the portrait qwerty like on the 5800d e

, I willanswer

with I would, ifit existed. To my surprise there was no portrait qwerty supplied on the initialfirmware. To some this may not be

a big deal, for me itwas a shocker. Some may argue thatthe majority ofSymbian users are comfortable with T9 thusit makes

sense. This may be true however not even having a choice to use a portrait qwerty was a mistake in my eyes.

The landscape keyboard has been updated and now provides additional keyssuch asthe left and rightdirectional keysto the left

and right ofthe space bar. These are a nice addition buttendto getin the way whentyping.f

eyondthe changedlook and key

placement, I foundit very difficultto type accurately even with predictive inputturned on. Severalimprovements have been

made to the Symbian operating system butthe keyboardis just not one ofthem.g

or me, thisisthe worst aspect ofthe entire

Symbian experience. They needto take a step back and create a much more userfriendly design.




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Homescreen

Rita says - I will have to confessto a love-hate relationship with thisSymbian^3 homescreen. Ive wanted a personalized

homescreen on Symbian since 2006 andwhen theh

97 broughtit, I was ecstatic. I am even very happy thattheh

8 brings 3

homescreens, giving me a total of18 possible widgets. I am an organization freakso I find myselfquite at home with the

similarly-shaped, linearwidgets on it as opposedto the whirlwind ofentropy that are thei

aemo widgetsfor example.p

et most

ofthese widgets are quite meh.q

elieve it or not, the best one isthe default Dater

Time widget, thatlets you accessthes

lock,s

alendar andswitch Profiles easily. Theres also a side-scrollable 20s

ontactswidget and you can have multiple Shortcuts

widgets.t

few other options arei

usic Player, WiFi, FM Transmitter (only opensthe app),u

mail (only one inbox and 2 emails

perwidget), Search (slow as molasses), Social (ifyou use it),s

alendar (limitedto 3 events), some news and WebTV widgets.

Thatsumsit up.

Personally, I use Shortcutsthe most, allowing me to have accessto almost every app from my homescreen. I do realize Im

iPhoneing the

h

8 to some extent, butthisisthe best I can do to make these 3 homescreensfunctional. There isstill a severe lackofusefulwidgets out ofthe boxv no connectivity widgetthatlets you toggle bluetooth, WiFi, Data orscreen rotation

(luckily options are showing up), noq

irthdayswidget, no extensives

alendarwidget (ifyou want one, gets

omingh

ext), no

weatherwidget (SPq

Weatherdoes a good job). The advantage ofSymbian isthatthere will always be third-party developers

who willstep up to improve the usability glitches, so the overall homescreen experience is majorly improvedwhen you figure out

what you need andtry finding it on the OviStore or online.p

ou can organize these widgets as you wish, butdonttry to drag one to anotherscreen, itwont happen. Thisis horrible for

Shortcuts andu

mailwidgets, as you will have to re-setthem upon removing from a screen and re-inserting on another one.p

ou

can also sendthese widgetsto offline mode to save data and battery.




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Wallpaper management, however, ismessed up, to an extensive degree. See, you can set a differentwallpaper on each ofthe 3

homescreens, but you have to do itseparately, there is no way to pick a wallpaper and have it appliedto all 3, or using a

panoramic wallpaper across all 3 homescreens.w

ven ifyou try setting up a wallpaperfrom the Options menu while browsing a

photo, itwill only apply to the one homescreen you have open in the background, ie x

sey

autiously.

finalword ifyou wantthe

8 but hate the Symbian homescreen, do yourselfa favor and getSP

Mobile Shell.

Sloan says -Symbian is unique in thatit allows you to stack up to 6 widgets across 3 usable homescreens. The idea being you

can put anything you needto see or use right at yourfingertips.

dding and removing widgetsto the homescreen is easily

achieved by pressing on the screen and holding for roughly 3 seconds. From here, you click an empty slot and a widget catalogis

presentedwith yourselection ofavailable widgets. Ifyou wantto remove an existing widgettouch and hold and you will be

presentedwith the option to remove. To move a widget, you press and holdfollowed by dragging itto the location on the screen

that you wantitlocated, then release.

s easy asthatsounds, there are some caveatsthat you should be made aware of.

s ofthis

release you cannot move a widgetfrom one homescreen to another by dragging side to side. For me thiswasnt a big deal, butfor

a better experience thisshould be added at a laterdate.




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Size does matterwhen it comesto content andthe widgets on the Symbian homescreen arent big enough to be usefulin many

cases. What goodis a

alendarwidgetthat only showstwo items or an emailwidgetthatdisplays2 emailsubjects? Why not

allowthe userto decide how big orsmallthey wanttheirwidgetsto be andforthat matterwhere to place them on the screen. In

its currentdesign, widgets are glorifiedshortcutsto applicationswith a tease ofinformation to get you there. Symbian has always

been about being able to customize the experience. The current homescreen hastoo many guidelines and ruleslimiting what can

be done with it. Drop the rules and remove the boundaries andlet us make it our own.

Mult

tasking

Rita says - With Symbian^3, a new multitasking

I isintroduced giving you a live view ofyour apps. I putlive in quotes

because often times, youllfind yourselfwith justthe application icon, a black preview, orin best cases, itwill only show you a

screenshot ofwhat you lastsawwhen you hadthe app open, notwhatis happening now, ie ifyoure downloading something,

you couldnttrackthe progressthrough this.

ou can flickthrough allthese open apps, click on one to switch to it, clickon the

in the cornerto close it, orlong-clickto have the option to close all running apps.




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Multitasking visual: well just the icon in one case, and a black screen in the other.




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Symbian isdefinitely the only mass marketOS I knowthatdoesMultitasking like itshould be. iOSstill relies on appsto

implementit andtrue multitasking is only supportedfor a few actions, otherwise, itsstop-then-continue.

ndroid has a mess ofa

multitasking experience out ofthe box. Symbian doestrue multitasking and rocks atit, thisfact no one can argue over.

owever, in my humble opinion, this new multitasking

I is hellto use. For average users, itwill be cool because they willsee

whats happening, butfor power users, ifyou go anywhere above 4 open apps, it becomes more like trying to juggle 10 ballswith

one hand (read:impossible).

ou will clickto the taskswitcher, scrollleft, right, forgetwhat you were looking for, stopfor a

moment, think again, scroll again, missit, scroll back, then click. Try going to 7-8 open apps andthe beautiful

I becomes an

inefficientstressful

I. The choice to switch to a verticallist ofopen apps orsmalliconslike on previousSymbian iterations

would have been much more efficientfor power users.

Sloan says Multitasking is nothing newto Symbian having been builtwith the feature atthe core ofitssystem from the

beginning. With the latest release, there are some changesthat are ofinterest. The most noticeable being the newly designedtask-

manager. Instead ofthe bland pop up displaying application iconsthat users have been usedto overthe years, the task-manageris

nowfront and center anddisplays a screen snap ofeach running application in an easily viewable and more importantly

touchable design. They took an interesting approach to the cardstyle layout by using an actual capture ofthe top portion ofthe

application to use forthe image in the task-manager.

tfirstthisdoesntseem to make sense butifyou think aboutit, hadthey

included a fullimage re-sizedto fitthe constraints ofthe container you would not have been able to tellthe difference between

them visually.

y capturing only the top portion ofthe application you can easily differentiate between the applicationswith a

quick glance. Some may argue thatthe larger representation ofthe applications makesit more difficultto move between open




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applications andto an extent I agree. Ifyou have 8+ apps open (yes you can easily do that on the

8), it can be trivialfinding

what you want quickly. On the otherside ofthe argument however, is you have a nice viewable representation ofyour

applicationswhich are very easy to touch. For me itisnt perfect butitworks andis a welcome change.

Menu and organization

Rita says - Ifyou have used any previousSymbian phone, you will be at home with the

8s menu. The lookisimproved

comparedto S60 5th

dition thanksto a 62 gridin landscape instead ofthe horrid 43 gridwith the huge Options/Exit buttons

on the right previously. Organization has been a bitimproved also: now you can move foldersin/out ofotherfolders, you can

long click on an app/folderto select a path to move itto.

lso when you move an icon to anotherfolder (parent orsub), you

wont be taken to thatfolderdirectly:thisis a welcome addition when youre doing some dusting aroundfolders.

major

drawbackisthatwith the built-in theme, you still canttellfoldersfrom applications.

Sloan says - Three years ago, I would have saidthatSymbian has a wonderfulfolderstructure and allowsforthe easiest

customization out ofthe major platforms.

ow I feelitislagging behind. Itstill allowsforthe customization that made itgreat

butlike the homescreens, I feelthatthere are too many guidelines.

ou can customize until your heartis content andthe optionsto do so are abundant but how you do it matters. I hate howiOSlimits you to the number ofapplications you can putin folders

but I love how easy itisto organize your apps on the otherwise clutteredscreen.With Symbian, to organize your applications

into folders, you selectthe menu andtouch organize.

ou can organize each application by long pressing and choosing move to

folder ordragging the folder or application icon into an existing folder. The problem for me is you have to be too precise in doing

so.

ou mustdrag the icon from the bottom into the folder you wantto drop itto otherwise you find yourselfplaying a nicegame

ofrubix cube trying to figure out howto getthe folderto go into the rightorder[Editor note: so true, best description I have read

of this issue]. Itshouldnt require skillto organize.

ou can get aroundthis by using the menu and move to folder butthatis a bit

tediouswhen youre moving a lot around. For me itis good butI was hoping for a change thistime around.


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Inconclusion

Rita says - In my opinion, Symbian^3 andits

I iswhatSymbian should have been on the

okia 5800

pressMusic when it

shippedin

ovember 2008. There is really no reason why we hadto wait 2yearsforthese improvementsto be implemented,

when none ofthem is really revolutionary. Symbian^3 would have been amazing in

ovember 2008, butin

ovember 2010? Itis

OK. Justthat. Some thingsworkwell, otherthingsstillsuck, massively, like the keyboard, the touch implementation that

okia

still cantseem to get right, the wallpapersetting, and otherthings are just average like the widgets, the menu orthe multitasking

I.

utletsface it, no one will buy the

okia

8 forits

I, no one willsay I love the

8

I unlessthey were stuckwith Motorola

Z

forthe pastdecade. People will getthe

8 forthe 12MP

amera, thej

D video recording with ambientsound, orthej

DMI out and Dolby Surroundsupport. The

I is just a plus you get and you have to live with. It alldepends on whether you

can live with it or not.

Sloan says - The Symbian

I is nowin a state thatitshould have been backin 2008 when the firstS60 touch screen phone was

released. The changes are all very welcome but have taken entirely too long to be added. I would never go asfar assaying the

I

is unusable because honestly thatis just nottrue. The truth iswe have become spoiled by other much more innovative interfaces

leaving the traditionalSymbian

I feeling old and cumbersome. It provides allthe neededtoolsto getthe job done but needsto

have some major changesifitwantsto compete. When allissaid anddone, it comesdown to what you are usedto andwhat youcan live with. Ifyou are a

okia/Symbian user, the

8 will be the best experience you have hadto date. Ifyou are trying it

coming from

ndroid, WebOS, oriPhone you will more than likely make snide commentsto all ofyourfriends about how old

thisfeels andthatis completely unusable. The thing that mattersisthatitis just as capable ifyou know howto use it.




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nokia n8 review week

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