You can usually trust James Whatley to have his head screwed on more or less straight when it comes to assessing the merits of various phones and smartphones - I suspect even more go through his hands than through mine.... Anyway, he's written up his judging process for The Really Mobile Project 'Phone of the year' and.... I think you'll be surprised. And then you'll go "Well, yes, I see his point". Interesting stuff, though my phone of the year is the less mass market Nokia N97 mini - it's just a shame this came in so late in 2009...
Read on in the full article.
I liked the 'loser' caption under the iPhone. Finally an influential blogger who doesn't seem fall for cheap Cupertino spin. In the end mettle, real mettle, always shows.
Snoozer article of the year.
What a boring piece of clap-trap.
Unregistered wrote:Snoozer article of the year. What a boring piece of clap-trap.
Snoozer POST of the year.
What a boring piece of clap-trap
I've long been saying that the [spoiler deleted] is a brilliant and under-rated device. People don't like it because it lacks pretty stuff, but look at what it can do for the money and compact size! Just brilliant!
I would rate the iPhone differently too, I think the PAYG price is cheap for what you get for the money. Unfortunately it is just too large, a problem suffered by many new devices.
This cannot be the phone of the year or even Nokia's phone of the year.
The introduction of the OS with this form factor splintered the Nokia user base. In the early months of this year, many S60v3 users did adopt the phone only to be disappointed with how the operating system worked, the resistive screen, and/or the lack of applications.
While it may have been targeted at a specific demographic, even that demographic was aware of other modern touchscreen phones, which led to inevitable comparisons. Subsequent Nokia touchscreens have not enjoyed the success of this initial model, perhaps due to increased consumer expectations or disappointment from this model.
It is the embodiment of how the Nokia ecosystem fumbled opportunity early this year and should never be a celebrated phone.
I totally agree with this article. Any phone that can sell as many units as the 5800 can is truly a phone that is widly loved! Therefore I think the 5800 absolutly deserves the title. I just wish that Nokia would finally give us kinetic scrolling everywhere and a descent homescreen... ARE YOU LISTENING NOKIA????!!!!!
Huschke2go wrote:I totally agree with this article. Any phone that can sell as many units as the 5800 can is truly a phone that is widly loved! Therefore I think the 5800 absolutly deserves the title. I just wish that Nokia would finally give us kinetic scrolling everywhere and a descent homescreen... ARE YOU LISTENING NOKIA????!!!!!
Nokia are doing kinetic scrolling on the new phones. 5530, X6, N97, Mini. The 5800 was just too early.
I've got kinetic on my spare (5530). It's no big deal.
Unregistered wrote:This cannot be the phone of the year or even Nokia's phone of the year.The introduction of the OS with this form factor splintered the Nokia user base. In the early months of this year, many S60v3 users did adopt the phone only to be disappointed with how the operating system worked, the resistive screen, and/or the lack of applications.
While it may have been targeted at a specific demographic, even that demographic was aware of other modern touchscreen phones, which led to inevitable comparisons. Subsequent Nokia touchscreens have not enjoyed the success of this initial model, perhaps due to increased consumer expectations or disappointment from this model.
It is the embodiment of how the Nokia ecosystem fumbled opportunity early this year and should never be a celebrated phone.
Do you do any non-fiction?
GJW wrote:I liked the 'loser' caption under the iPhone. Finally an influential blogger who doesn't seem fall for cheap Cupertino spin. In the end mettle, real mettle, always shows.
This to describe a guy that uses the word 'linkbait' in his opening paragraph? 😊
Even more troubling is Steve describing this article as a 'process'. I'm sorry, The Hound of the Baskervilles this is not. Just more subjective claptrap, no sorry, I mean utter bollocks from this James Whatley character:
iPhone - loses because it is too expensive
HTC Hero - he prefers the Magic and anyway, Android is still 'in beta'
N97 - 'early firmware troubles' - never mind some major f***ing hardware troubles!
N86 - apparently you don't see it anywhere!
I won't spoil the eventual winner for you, however try making a sentence out of the following words: 'bottom scraping the barrel of the'. Not that the winner is a bad phone but I think the author has only chosen it so he can wear his cryptic costume on New Years Eve and Steve is concluding his year of round-the-clock Nokia bias.
Still, after the good kicking Nokia has had this year I guess anything will do. Expect to hear 'Nokia N82 voted Phone of the Decade' in the next few days. 🙄
I couldn't agree more with James, not because it is groundbreaking in any way but because of its features against price and the way it has been such a success in so many markets. I was in Malaysia a couple of weeks back and I would say 70% of the people I met had a 5800, that ranged from people payed �1 per hour to highly payed executives. The phone is an exceptional example of Nokia's strength in a year when they have been widely slated in the media.
yade wrote:I couldn't agree more with James, not because it is groundbreaking in any way but because of its features against price and the way it has been such a success in so many markets. I was in Malaysia a couple of weeks back and I would say 70% of the people I met had a 5800, that ranged from people payed �1 per hour to highly payed executives. The phone is an exceptional example of Nokia's strength in a year when they have been widely slated in the media.
Good sensible post. Broader thinking, it needs people like you from outside the US and Europe to point out what the more parochial can't see.
Don't expect a bitter bigotted anti like morpheus to do anything other than pick nits in order to have a dig at Nokia
Yeah, he's right.
I bought a 5800 in January and it does what it says on the tin - it's cheap, a great music player, a capable phone and not bad at the web. It also supports the applications I use (Shozu, Shazam, Facebook, etc) and was cheap as chips. The only downer is the camera which is OK in daylight but hideous in poor light.
I'm reasonably well off and can afford all of the phones currently on the market either SIM free or contract but I just can't bring myself to at the moment because there's nothing worth splashing out on. Maybe an N86 for photos but I've heard the firmware's a bit dodgy...?
Oh what the hell...
Just bought an N86 on eBay for a couple of hundred quid. I loved my old N95 before it fell to bits so this should be the bees knees for a holiday camera phone!
Is AAS starting a new tradition of New Year's Fool day?
Well here's my gadget of the year:
A toothpick. It's value for money, it gets to all those hard to reach places, and to top it off, it also works with resistive screens!
brrip wrote:Is AAS starting a new tradition of New Year's Fool day?
Well you are here posting so the answer must be yes.
Still, after the good kicking Nokia has had this year I guess anything will do. Expect to hear 'Nokia N82 voted Phone of the Decade' in the next few days. 🙄
N82 deserves to be the phone of the decade.
Got a Nokia 5800 in the summer. The UI may not be sleek and shiny but it does the job and more functional than most gimmicky phones and is kind to the battery too.
I just got an N900 and while its got a great browser, it falls down flat on many areas where the 5800 excels. The 5800XM produces better sound than my iPod touch and multitasks excellently; is far more functional than the fabled N900 (Symbian is a better fit for mobile than all these Linux based battery drainer resource hogs). Phone call sound quality is excellent and speaker is well above average. Oh and its also very pocketable - a fact lost on most 'experts' and 'bloggers'.
Yes its also my phone of the year too - and it will continue to sell and sell. Its the smartphone for the rest of us. 😃
Hardeep1singh wrote:N82 deserves to be the phone of the decade.
People may joke about that, but the N82 is possibly a better phone than the either the N95-1 or N95 8gig. Its got the RAM of the N95-8gig, the expandable memory of the N95-1, and one of the best setup flashes on a phone.
I'm only wound up by the fact that they're damn difficult to get hold of!
I didn't particularly like the 5800 myself, but cannot argue with the OPs reasoning.
oniox wrote:
I just got an N900 and while its got a great browser, it falls down flat on many areas where the 5800 excels. is far more functional than the fabled N900 (Symbian is a better fit for mobile than all these Linux based battery drainer resource hogs).
You surely must be joking? LOL... funniest comment ever.
oniox wrote:I just got an N900 and while its got a great browser, it falls down flat on many areas where the 5800 excels. The 5800XM produces better sound than my iPod touch and multitasks excellently; is far more functional than the fabled N900 (Symbian is a better fit for mobile than all these Linux based battery drainer resource hogs).
Excellent comment, I completely agree. Good to see down to earth reasoning, beats techno-blindness everytime.#
clonmult wrote:People may joke about that, but the N82 is possibly a better phone than the either the N95-1 or N95 8gig. Its got the RAM of the N95-8gig, the expandable memory of the N95-1, and one of the best setup flashes on a phone.I'm only wound up by the fact that they're damn difficult to get hold of!
They are plastered all over Ebay.
The 5530 is to the 5800, as the N97 mini is to the N97. So phone of the year would have to be the 5530 and not the 5800, but for one thing; the Nokia 5630.
It has even more features that either the 5800 or the 5530 and is only 83 grams. That is assuming you can do without a qwerty keypad. But it does have intelligent text input.
Phone of the year is the Nokia 5630.
The i-phone should be called the i-pda.