Nokia teamed up with Niki Minaj for a performance smack-dab in the middle of Times Square today. Taking over some of the biggest electronic screens in Times Square, Niki Minaj performed a few numbers from her new album Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded.
The performance was delivered to kick off the launch of Nokia’s new Windows Phone the Noki Lumia 900. The phone is now available state-side for a cool $100 bucks on AT&T. The phone is 4G LTE capable and has been hailed as one of the sexiest physical designed phones thus far.
We took a look at Nokia’s first Windows Phone 7 Phone the Nokia Lumia 710. Wary about this new relationship? See below to find out if it’s all a hype or the real deal.
Likes
Form Factor
The Nokia Lumia 710 is a very handsome phone. It’s not oozing sexiness, but it’s close. I love the clear black display that Nokia has going on – it makes everything on the screen pop. The shape is simple and elegant. As a phone that won’t break the bank, one certainly won’t feel ashamed to pull it out in public.
Metro
Windows Phone’s new Metro stylings go surprisingly well with the elegant physical form of the device. It’s got beauty and smarts too. The best of both worlds. The UI is super slick and extremely fluid. I rarely stuttered or lagged at all and the minimalist design of the apps underscores the brilliant display. The screen is only 3.7″, but you don’t feel cheated. The UI is also very intuitive. I haven’t used Windows Phone 7.5 a great deal, but I never felt confused or out of step at all. I also love linking the multiple numbers and email address I have for the same person together. Microsoft really paid attention to those little details which really made the experience refreshing. I was also able to sync my contacts from my old phone via Bluetooth in less than 2 minutes. Linked my facebook and twitter accounts and it was off to the races!
Ease of Use
Simply put, this phone was just a pleasure to use. There may not be as many Windows Phone 7 apps as there are iPhone apps, but there was definitely something for most people to enjoy. Nokia also adds to the party with select apps of their own like Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Contacts Transfer to name a few. I was also quite impressed with the Office Suite – especially Outlook. I usually hate to check my emails via phone because it can get quite confusing and annoying, but it was a dream on the Lumia 710. I could carry on full blown conversations while out of the office which I will classify as a good thing in this write-up, and a bad thing for my social life.
Dislikes:
Battery Life
The battery life wasn’t atrocious, but I will say that I needed to charge by the end of day with moderate use over wifi which kind of hampered my experience a little. Even while idle, I found the phone needed charging even if I didn’t use it for the majority of the day.
Size/No Expandable Memory Slot
I found myself wanting a bigger screen simply because I enjoyed the experience so much. The guts are surprisingly premium, with the whole 9 yards of sensors and chips. You can find the complete breakdown here. It also comes with 8 Gigs of internal memory, but no ability to upgrade which is a little annoying if you’re like me and don’t like being told what to do.
Overall:
My overall impression of this phone is that it’s a sleeper. Understated elegance in the simple yet alluring form factor. Surprisingly simple yet quite functional OS make for a pleasant user experience. Wifi/Bluetooth connectivity, FM Radio, 3D accelerometer, 2 microphones etc… . I wish the phone was a little bigger, and lasted a little longer, but I was definitely impressed with using it. If you’re not interested in the flash, and need and need a simple and effective phone to keep up socially and even work-wise – check this phone out.
So Nokia just debuted their newest device – the Nokia N9 and it is getting A LOT of buzz. I believe this is because Nokia has a lot of people rooting for it. Symbian just wasn’t cutting it though to be quite frank and if the videos and images hold up we are all in for a refreshing treat! You can find the full press release here, but the high points are as follows:
The phone’s sexy curves are made from a fancy-schmancy piece of “polycarbonate” which should make it hard to spot scratches. They did away with that annoying button on the face present in the N8 and E7 and just have one multipurpose button to the side (besides the volume rocker). You can also double tap the screen which will “wake” the phone. You can then swipe across the full length of the phone horizontally or vertically to get to the home screen. This gesture is also how you get in and out of apps quickly.
The phone is sporting an 8 MP camera with a Carl Zeiss auto-focus lens. The display is a 3.9 inch curved piece of Gorilla Glass. The N9 also comes with NFC (Near Field Communication) which means tap to play or pay with other devices which support NFC functionality are a go!
It doesn’t look like Nokia have set a definite date, but it’s supposed to drop sometime “later this year”
I got a chance to take a look at Nokia’s E7 and I had a blast doing so. It was cool getting stares and having people ask what type of phone it was. I have the lowdown on what it was like to actually use the phone. Though my relationship was short-lived, about two weeks, I had some ups and downs. Read on to find out what they were.
Likes:
Form
So did I mention this phone is sexy? I got the Austin Martin Grey (ok I made that up). The phone just looks and feels nice in the hand. It has gentle angular curves on both ends of the device much like the N8 which no other device really has. It’s not the thinnest device, but it doesn’t feel flimsy at all like the Nexus S or the Galaxy S. In fact, it’s sturdy enough to hang out in the pocket all day and come out unscathed without the aid of conventional phone armor. I’m still not a fan of the slidy-nob to unlock but at least the center button serves that function as well. There is also another slidy-nob on the top right of the device that serves as a zoom in/out or volume control which I found clever. I also loved the slide-out sim-card trey. It keeps you from having to open the phone for switching sims if your into that kinda thing.
The Extras
Again, I love the fact that it comes with a mini HDMI slot and adapter for Hi Definition output. Dual LED lights for a nice bright flash instead of the commoner’s one LED light source. Really spacious and well thought out keyboard that slides into a provocative pose. Though it takes a little getting used to at first, the sliding mechanism is quite sturdy and unique. Most people I showed the phone to were pleasantly surprised with the hidden keyboard. These are the little things that make the phone pleasant to use. The 4″ AMOLED screen certainly doesn’t hurt either. The display is quite bright and is makes video playback look great.
Staying Connected
You can stay connected through your OVI password. I liked being able to stay logged into my facebook and twitter and get updates via the widget on one of my homescreens. You also get updates from your different email accounts as well as messages from contacts.
Dislikes:
Audio
On more than one occasion, I did notice the phone quality seriously depreciate. The audio would sort of pop, almost like an old vinyl record would. Not sure what that was about, but it wasn’t often. However, I did notice it and thought it worth a mention. Other than that the audio quality was on par with my other phone experiences.
Browser
I’m not clear on what the vision is for the Symbian browser, but I wasn’t too impressed with the browsing experience. It was fairly fast on my T-mobile “3.5g” connection, however, I found it cumbersome to navigate. It would give me a list of sites to navigate, but it always felt like I was doing too much work to get from one place to another. The phone never really supplied me with possible sites I was trying to type out, nor was it visually engaging. Of course you can bookmark, the surfing with more than one window open wasn’t very elegant and was definitely difficult to do while on the go. You had to stop what you were doing in order to navigate and that can be a little annoying in a city like NY where I need my info ASAP while I’m on the street.
Data Input
The keyboard definitely helped with text input but I am still unsure of why Nokia doesn’t just break down and add a full digital keyboard for both portrait and landscape modes. Why do I have a number pad in portrait mode? It’s useful when talking with the drone on the other end of the phone when trying to pay a bill or turn the cable back on, but that’s about it. Wish there was at least an option to switch between keyboards. I also didn’t like being taken to a text area when typing up an email or response to a text. I think it would look better if I would see the text right there next to the original received message without first going into that text box. It feels like an extra step which ads to the time it takes to get simple things like that done.
Camera
Why oh why did you skinch on the camera for the E7? Give it the bulgy eye like you did with the N8. I don’t care if you guys were concerned about the slimness. I like my phones with curves in all the right places! I thought 8 Megapixels was good, but no true focus killed it for me. All of the pieces for a great shooting experience and no control over focus ruins the fun. It’s like going to the mall on a shopping spree and only having a dollar to spend. Ok I’m being a bit dramatic, but it did feel funky. I ended up wanting to wait till I got my true camera for picture taking.
Overall:
Overall I enjoyed the device and I can’t sing enough praises about how well made and beautiful the device looked and felt in hand. Other than a few funky sounding calls, and camera disappointments, I enjoyed using the phone and wouldn’t mind owning the device. However, I must say that Symbian is beginning to feel a bit aged, especially when I compare it to iOS or Android. It’s a shame because the phone itself is a true beauty.
The wonderful people over at womworld.com sent us a unit and below are my thoughts. The N8 is definitely a powerful device, and I was quite curious about what my experience with it would be like. So lets get to it!
Hardware:
Its a solid piece of hardware – that’s for sure. Once before, someone demoing the unit did a key-scratch test and it did nothing to the unit. Needless to say, I didn’t do that with my unit, but I have no problems believing that if it was accidentally scratched the phone would be ok. Its fully encased in an aluminum shell. The shape is a bit odd to me, but I ended up liking it. It feels really nice in my hand and had a nice weight to it. Not unbelievably light, but not too heavy either. It really was just right. For its thickness, I wondered if they would have had problems adding a keyboard, but I guess that’s what the E7 is for. It had plenty of buttons and protrusions. Dedicated camera button, screen-lock slider, and volume rocker all on the right side. Power button and HDMI port and 3.5 mm headphone jack on the top. Then there was the menu button on the bottom left and the 12 mp Camera with xenon flash, which was quite handy.
Software:
Symbian 3. It’s been re-worked and I think it does well in many areas. For example, you have three home screens which is nice, and the ability to add widgets. They are quite useful like an RSS Feeder, or time and date, Instant Messaging clients, email clients, music, etc…. Transitions are quite smooth and you can find a lot of pertinent information at a glance. Your menu button takes you into the menu of whichever application you happen to be in which is nice, and the camera button allows you to quickly jump out of an application for a quick snap when the mood hits you. If you hold down the menu, a very well done task manager appears where you can manage your applications. It shows you a preview of any application that is still open and you can ‘x’ out of any one. I found this extremely helpful and will now be looking for something similar in my next device. The OS was polished, but straightforward. Very simple.
What I Liked:
I liked the ability to customize to a level that many other devices don’t allow. Loved being able to customize my sound profiles and schedule them! Loved the email widget. I could get a quick snapshot of my last few emails and figure out if I wanted to get in and reply or check in another few hours. Quick access to my music with the music widget, and I could change the images that would appear once I locked the screen and how long that transition would take. I could have the ringer use the voice program to literally “say” the name of the person who was calling me if they were in my phone book which was awesome! My phone would suddenly say the name of the person calling – thought those were great geeky moments.
One of my favorite applications was the social app. You could link it to your facebook or twitter account and get a stream of updates. It actually got me more involved in my twitter and facebook life because I can’t stand a long process of logging on just to say a few comments and logging back off. This app provided quick updates. I could say what I had to say – upload a pic and be done.
Another nice feature was the clock. While your phone is sleeping, you can set it to display a clock. Its very simple with no animation so it consumes very little battery life. While on the topic, the battery life was pretty good. I could get more than a day of full use. However, you’d have to use the phone gingerly the next day if you wanted the phone to last till you get home to charge. However, I found its battery consumption pretty impressive. You can obviously improve the performance by being diligent about your app management and display settings, but all in all the phone generally has enough juice to do what it has to do. Symbian 3 also has a battery saving mode you can switch to which makes certain tweaks to display, data consumption, etc…which will tighten your phone’s belt so-to-speak. It worked well, but I found it too restrictive so I rarely engaged it, but it was nice to know that it was there just in case you were in a jam.
I also loved the tactile feed back. Seriously – its the best I’ve ever felt on any device before. It really feels like I’ve depressed a real button when typing a message.
What I Disliked:
This part of the review is inevitable and to be honest I had a few gripes with the phone in certain areas. I’m not sure if this was the phone’s fault, but I found myself dropping calls – a lot. A lot more than usual. It was noticeable to many people I spoke to and they would end saying “Something’s wrong with your phone” or something to that effect. Once I switched back to my old phone (HD2) it was normal again.
Another issue was that I would be pressing buttons with my cheek while on a call. I didn’t know why at first because there is a light sensor which automatically turns the screen off when the phone is against the face. I think what the issue was, was the fact that the phone isn’t that large and when placed against the ear, some light may get in. Enough to confuse the sensor just enough to have the screen display for a moment and for me to press the mute icon or the hold icon. This was quite annoying.
The menu button was oddly placed in my opinion because of the slope design of the phone. On more than one occasion I almost dropped the phone because it was a stretch to press the button with my left thumb. Also, getting through the phone settings menu was a bit difficult as some things were pretty hard to find. It took me the longest time just to turn off the battery saver!
I didn’t like the fact that you can only put widgets of one size on the screen. I also didn’t like the fact that you couldn’t put shortcuts on the screen – only widgets. You could put a widget on the screen called shortcuts though, but I wanted a little bit more control here.
The keyboard was pretty nice, and as mentioned before, I really loved the tactile feed back. When horizontal, you get a full QWERTY keyboard which is great. They also give you a pretty good predictive text program. However, you really have to press to get your words out. Pretend that it’s a real button and things will go faster. However, my issue is that it’s not a real button and I don’t feel like I should have to press that hard or that long to get my letter to display. No QWERTY Keyboard while Vertical is unforgivable. Some people prefer texting with a dialer, but let us choose. Many of us no longer like typing with the number pad and decided to upgrade the phone. You can say, well they can always have the full keyboard in landscape mode. While this is true, it leads my to my last annoyance which is why is there always an extra step?
Web experience was decent, and quite fast. But nothing special. To be honest, I couldn’t really get into the web with this phone, so web surfing became a chore – mostly because of the keyboard and entry.
While using the phone, I always felt like there was an extra step to accomplish for everything. Typing a message. I had to navigate to the message app, then press it. Then press the empty field to activate the keyboard – which would lead to the text screen where I could then type. Why wasn’t the keyboard initiated once I got in the app? Why did I have to get to another screen just for the text? Same with email, and many of the other applications. I always felt like I was taking at least one more step than was necessary.
Wrap-Up:
Overall, I felt like the phone was a very nice device. I loved the looks it got from people who had never seen the N8 before. Great form-factor and it was quite functional. There were some slowdowns and dropped calls, errant button pressing, and redundancies but I still had a good feeling about the phone. It really does do a lot. Full HD to the TV! Flash support from the browser, customization. It’s all there.
Ok, so this really isn’t news right now, but I hadn’t gotten around to posting about this phone. It’s the Nokia N900, which by the way is available for pre-order right now! Now, I love my phones, and I’m always looking for something that has the right balance of sophistication, business savvy, as well as fun functionality. Now if the promo-vid is to be believed, this phone just about has it all. It looks like it can keep up with your slight A.D.D. as well as any device on the market right now and has the horsepower to do it clocking in at 600MHz, 1GB dedicated to application memory, and 256MB of RAM. It has a full QWERTY keyboard, and 3.5mm headphone jack which is a definite plus. It also has some nifty additions such as TV-out and an FM Tuner. Really interested in seeing how Maemo5 works (the Linux based interface we see in the video) and for a small $650.00 someone can buy this for me!
