In the words of Kim Jong-il in Team America
.... "Do Nokia have to be so f****** stupid"
Ive been using Nokia Phones for the last 10 years and my first s60 device was a 3650 and Nokia have ALWAYS ALWAYS made some stupid design decision in their s60 phones that just makes you think WHY! If it's not the stupid keyboard designs, lack of forward camera for video calling or lack of ram it's something else.
They take a phone that's almost perfect at the time, and then cripple it in some annoying way that just makes you want to face palm and slap the designers around the head.
The N95 is quite possibly one of the best phones ive owned and Nokia crippled it by adding a completely pointless charger port (USB kicks out the same voltage), GPS that needs the phone to be opened, woefully poor battery life which can see a phone dead in 3 hours simply by plugging it into a PC and crippled it in the ram department.
Their solution was the 8GB which overkilled the ram siltation and improved and battery slightly ( then gave you a bigger screen to drain it quicker ). At the same time they removed the lens protection, killed the external memory card reader and ditched some of the nicities such as a video suite ( a very useful feature of the N95 ) other than the ram a minor improvement but not.
Ive recently been looking at my next phone and it's looking like an N85 or N96. Im swaying more to the N85 and was quite taken by it's nice shiny OLED screen, USB Charging, FM Transmitter, smaller design and it all sounds good.... that was until I read the manual.
1) USB Port is at the top of the phone meaning that the charger is going to be trailing out of the top. No Desktop Stand, and as it's coming out the top if you get a phonecall while it's docked it's just going to be in the way ALL the time ( better location for headphones port though ) theirs a reason charging ports are in the bottom of the phone as it allows them to be plugeed into cradles, stands and car holders without having to pleb about with a 5cm length of cable.
2) Judging by the manual it's looking like the FM Transmitter can only be used for music ( within music player ) meaning that hands free calls, playing video and youtube etc are out of the question ( sigh ) I hope not but...
3) Are my eyes correct in seeing that BOTH speakers are on the same side of the device? surely unless your using the phone in landscape mode this is going to mean one is always going to covered when holding the phone ( particually when in loudspeaker call )
4) Rumoured Lack of 3D acceleration ( although prob correct ) and debatable wether I will use this but seems a backwards step to me.
5) GPS Reciever on the BACK of the phone ( dear god do they learn nothing )
No doubt there be other things such as the lack of video editing and ghastly menu ( as opposed to the swanky animated one on the N95 )
Now my rant is over anyone care to add any more 😉