Ewan continues his multipart look at the new Nokia X6 Comes with Music. Part 1 of this review looked at the X6's externals, while part 2 was heavily critical of the core Music player and performance and part 3 looked at the X6's camera and photography functions. In this, (the final) part 4, Ewan rounds up the X6's general applications and interface odds and bobs.
Read on in the full article.
What was the X6 aiming at?
Music?
The core music application of a music phone has a memory leak and can't handle an audiophile's music library.
Video consumption?
This comes to mind considering 16:9 screen and stereo speakers.Sadly though, the screen scores a 0 on sunlight legibility,Nokia don't collaborate with Corecodec's Coreplayer to have a video player which plays 720p videos out-of-the-box on my E63 and still stick to the rusty old Real player.
'Touchy-feely'phone?
Not quite ,since Symbian has always been a touch-me-not UI.There was nothing much to click on a non-touch Symbian phone.Symbian,sadly,feels dated on touch devices.The whole purpose of touch screens is to do the task at hand the fancy,intuitive way.Nokia could have done better if they specifically designed a UI that runs on top of Symbian(eg.Touch flo).
'Capacitive goodness'
Seriously,the X6 is nowhere near capacitive touchscreen heaven.Pinch zooming?Multi-touch? All these are unheard of in the X6s spec sheet.
'Cameraa..'
No excuse if Ewan or any other person on the planet took it, the photos scream Cheap lens,compromised optics.
Fash/Glam crowd
The X6 has quirky and somewhat questionable looks.The 'tube' 5800 looks better,sturdier.
listen there is one word that sums up Nokia phones as of late: RUN!
- Run and never look back! This Nokia company has become the General Motors of the phone industry! They have scale, they manufacture themselves, they are the creators of this industry but like the General they lack innovation and what consumers really want.
That's because their leadership has gotten old! They are old, fat and rich! I'm not holding my breath for anything great coming from them this year.
While i resisted the first 3 gens of the iphone simply because it lacked basic phone functions and thinking Nokia will out do them at some point i came to realize that Nokia is nolonger what it once was!
With the 4th gen iphone 4G they will move so far away no one is evers gonna catch them, just like no one ever caught the iPod. With dual-core 2Ghz, multi-tasking, OLED screen, dual cams and the undisputed iTunes, Apple has created a revolution. The only thing thats missing is a keyboard and widgets but i'm sure we know more next week. They could own the smartphone market with the iphone if they just released a second iphone with a keyboard, one that opens up like the Palm Pre not like the stupid N97.
swisstech wrote:listen there is one word that sums up Nokia phones as of late: RUN!- Run and never look back! This Nokia company has become the General Motors of the phone industry! They have scale, they manufacture themselves, they are the creators of this industry but like the General they lack innovation and what consumers really want.
That's because their leadership has gotten old! They are old, fat and rich! I'm not holding my breath for anything great coming from them this year.
While i resisted the first 3 gens of the iphone simply because it lacked basic phone functions and thinking Nokia will out do them at some point i came to realize that Nokia is nolonger what it once was!
With the 4th gen iphone 4G they will move so far away no one is evers gonna catch them, just like no one ever caught the iPod. With dual-core 2Ghz, multi-tasking, OLED screen, dual cams and the undisputed iTunes, Apple has created a revolution. The only thing thats missing is a keyboard and widgets but i'm sure we know more next week. They could own the smartphone market with the iphone if they just released a second iphone with a keyboard, one that opens up like the Palm Pre not like the stupid N97.
The keyboard is not the main problem of the N97. The mechanism is actually complimented by most reviewers. I'm actually waiting for Palm to release a GSM pre. They still know how to make good PIMs.
I did not know the 4G is phone is going to have a dual-core 2Ghz processor. OLED and dual-cam is more possible since Nokia and Samsung had them years ago. I have an ipod and actually use itunes. I have no problems with it but of course I'm forced to use it since I can't drag and drop my songs. There are alternatives I know but the average consumer will not bother.
swisstech wrote:listen there is one word that sums up Nokia phones as of late: RUN!- Run and never look back! This Nokia company has become the General Motors of the phone industry! They have scale, they manufacture themselves, they are the creators of this industry but like the General they lack innovation and what consumers really want.
That's because their leadership has gotten old! They are old, fat and rich! I'm not holding my breath for anything great coming from them this year.
While i resisted the first 3 gens of the iphone simply because it lacked basic phone functions and thinking Nokia will out do them at some point i came to realize that Nokia is nolonger what it once was!
With the 4th gen iphone 4G they will move so far away no one is evers gonna catch them, just like no one ever caught the iPod. With dual-core 2Ghz, multi-tasking, OLED screen, dual cams and the undisputed iTunes, Apple has created a revolution. The only thing thats missing is a keyboard and widgets but i'm sure we know more next week. They could own the smartphone market with the iphone if they just released a second iphone with a keyboard, one that opens up like the Palm Pre not like the stupid N97.
This is precisely what Apple do, release a groundreaking mobile device, provide new features,sit back and relax while the rest of the mobile industry tries to measure up to them in the following years.And then, they release a new version.
I'm definitely going for the next iphone(I too was waiting😊) coz, let's face it, there have been tens of thousands of iphone 'killers' by rival mobile companies and still,they aren't what the iphone was when it was released.
The iphone has been quite future-proof since launch and is limited only due to the hardware in very very specific usage scenarios.
Nokia is sure to witness a plateau,if not a downfall in 2010.Apple, is getting better and better.
The 5800 was a very good touch screen mobile an really deserved it praise but Nokia have done what they have done before,because of the success of one mobile they try to offer i an improved version but the improved version turns out worse,the N96 an N86 were two examples,i was really interested in the X6,but with this Honest an True Review i have read,there is no way i would purchase the X6 or tell anyone to dive in a buy it ,we might get a better software upgrade now an again but this one to overpriced,Hope this Review could be seen an read by Nokia themselves an there answers about the X6 they would give back an there excuses why such a promising mobile is way below par,i will wait till Febuary- March now to see what else Nokia as got on there way in 2010
raffmonster wrote:This is precisely what Apple do, release a groundreaking mobile device, provide new features,sit back and relax while the rest of the mobile industry tries to measure up to them in the following years.And then, they release a new version.
That's right, it took them over a year to add Copy&Paste, and the iPhone still doesn't multitask properly. Groundbreaking? Hardly.
I'm definitely going for the next iphone(I too was waiting😊) coz, let's face it, there have been tens of thousands of iphone 'killers' by rival mobile companies and still,they aren't what the iphone was when it was released.
I suspect that there haven't been tens of thousands of different models claiming to be iPhone killers. Most recent phones can do much more than the current iPhone can, especially as they aren't hampered by the nannying that passes for quality control on the App Store.
The sad fact is that when you own an iPhone you are forced to do much more using a PC/Mac than with other devices, as Apple force you into using iTunes. I personally never listen to podcasts on my iPod Touch, as it's much more straightforward using Podcasting on my E90, and God forbid you actually try to delete photos or music directly on your iPhone, coz you can't.
If you want to buy into the ring-fenced infrastructure that is Apple, all I can say is good luck...
I wonder why some thinks that the looks of X6 is far down from 5800. For me, I find it modern. The sharp corners add sleekness to the device and the color accents recover it from dullness. I like the black-red combo as it was always a color of music for me.
The conclusion of this review is hanging, as I expect. For tomorrow is always another day. Things will change. The question is how long will it take & how much. Nokia leaves us wanting more: a fact necessary for a long term relationship.
Apple and Nokia. Same story. Let us accept that we can hardly get all the things we want. That is the purpose why the word "growth" is in dictionary.
~Marvin from Philippines
swisstech wrote:
With the 4th gen iphone 4G they will move so far away no one is evers gonna catch them, just like no one ever caught the iPod. With dual-core 2Ghz, multi-tasking, OLED screen, dual cams and the undisputed iTunes, Apple has created a revolution. The only thing thats missing is a keyboard and widgets but i'm sure we know more next week. They could own the smartphone market with the iphone if they just released a second iphone with a keyboard, one that opens up like the Palm Pre not like the stupid N97.
You're talking about the alleged tablet variant, *not* an iPhone.
A phone with dual core 2ghz processors will have battery life equivalent to, I dunno, something with lousy battery life. Unless Apple have done something amazing with battery technology, which I seriously doubt.
From the way you talk, you'd think that Apple held a massive lead over everyone else in the market - they don't have any lead in sales, only in mind share and the incredibly vocal ability of their inane fans. Don't get me wrong, I do like the iPhone, its a good bit of kit, but it isn't anywhere near as revolutionary as every other person seems to make it out to be.
What has prevented me from buying an iPhone is the size of the thing, I think it's too big, also the camera which is poor even by camera phone standards. The non-removeable battery is also a pain. If Apple correct the first two as rumoured (lighter, and 5MP camera) then I will probably buy. Fix hthe battery and it's a cert.
I also don't like pinch zoom and multi-touch - I believe some of the functions that are done with those should be one-handed. I will live with that crappy bit of design though.
Nokia make good phones which are the right pocketable size, do everything and have better (though still poor) cameras. Their user interface is way behind the Apple as far as a new user and instant productivity is concerned, but for an experienced user there's less in it.
The X6 is a 5800 with capacitive screen, 5MP and 32GB RAM to hold all free the CwM downloads. The exterior styling with sharp edges make the thing less pocketable. I wouldn't trade a 5800 for it because the 5800 is a fantastic phone.
The original iPhone never was any good. Brilliant user interface, limited hardware (GPS etc) and VERY poor telephony due to stupid design decisions with the metal casing and antenna shielding.
From the 3G on it was the UI leader and it is threatening with the G4 to lead hardware too. I hope they can keep the value for money thing because the 3G and 3GS are actually quite reasonable purchases now.
buster wrote:That's right, it took them over a year to add Copy&Paste, and the iPhone still doesn't multitask properly. Groundbreaking? Hardly.I suspect that there haven't been tens of thousands of different models claiming to be iPhone killers. Most recent phones can do much more than the current iPhone can, especially as they aren't hampered by the nannying that passes for quality control on the App Store.
The sad fact is that when you own an iPhone you are forced to do much more using a PC/Mac than with other devices, as Apple force you into using iTunes. I personally never listen to podcasts on my iPod Touch, as it's much more straightforward using Podcasting on my E90, and God forbid you actually try to delete photos or music directly on your iPhone, coz you can't.
If you want to buy into the ring-fenced infrastructure that is Apple, all I can say is good luck...
Yes,it didn't have features like copy/paste,multitasking etc. but there is always jailbreaking,and also Apple were quite straightforward with their firmware releases and have a proper changelog which Nokia deem as confidential data.
Almost every other touchscreen on the market is more or less built as a functional substitute for an iphone.I'm not saying it is only Apple who can innovate, but Nokia fanboy dreams were reality in the Apple world(kinetic scrolling,pinch zooming,accelerometer 'alive 'UI).
And,the app store, well, see the millions of apps and a hundred thousand developers ready to make apps.The developer base is much wider for he iphone.Nobody is ready to code for symbian except Nokia(and they fired the developer of Reset Generation, the best Ngage 2.0 game)
Ngage itself is going down,Symbian development is totally in the hands of Nokia with not much manufacturers showing interest.
About the App store, many developers whose apps could not be approved by apple have the uncertified versions to be installed into jailbroken phones.
Browsing the internet itself is a 'complete' experience on the iphone,you don't have to worry about low RAM,hanging,abruptly closing browser and all.
I'm not a Nokia hater/an Apple fanboy,it is just that something wildly impractical earlier seems like something sensible now.
raffmonster wrote:
Browsing the internet itself is a 'complete' experience on the iphone,you don't have to worry about low RAM,hanging,abruptly closing browser and all.
I'm not a Nokia hater/an Apple fanboy,it is just that something wildly impractical earlier seems like something sensible now.
I never worry about RAM, hanging and abbrupt closing when browsing on my Nokia. It just doesn't happen.
And my 'complete' browsing experience doesn't completely exclude flash content.
raffmonster wrote:Yes,it didn't have features like copy/paste,multitasking etc. but there is always jailbreaking,and also Apple were quite straightforward with their firmware releases and have a proper changelog which Nokia deem as confidential data.Almost every other touchscreen on the market is more or less built as a functional substitute for an iphone.I'm not saying it is only Apple who can innovate, but Nokia fanboy dreams were reality in the Apple world(kinetic scrolling,pinch zooming,accelerometer 'alive 'UI).
And,the app store, well, see the millions of apps and a hundred thousand developers ready to make apps.The developer base is much wider for he iphone.Nobody is ready to code for symbian except Nokia(and they fired the developer of Reset Generation, the best Ngage 2.0 game)
Ngage itself is going down,Symbian development is totally in the hands of Nokia with not much manufacturers showing interest.
About the App store, many developers whose apps could not be approved by apple have the uncertified versions to be installed into jailbroken phones.
Browsing the internet itself is a 'complete' experience on the iphone,you don't have to worry about low RAM,hanging,abruptly closing browser and all.
I'm not a Nokia hater/an Apple fanboy,it is just that something wildly impractical earlier seems like something sensible now.
The hundreds of thousands of apps are what turns me off the iPhone as a potential development platform. How the <bleep> are you supposed to make your app stand out from the thousands of others? Its close to impossible. Its success is also turning out to be its biggest problem.
The writing has been on the wall for Nokia gaming for years - they had a chance with the N95 (by far and away the best gaming platform Nokia have yet created), yet completely squandered the possibilities of that phone. dropping accelerated graphics when that was the route being followed by the rest of the industry? Utter numpties.
And sorry, but jailbreaking isn't a solution to the problem for a lot of people. Sure, its relatively easy to do, but its not something that should be needed.
I liked the browser on the Touch, but as of f/w v2 it was still occasionally liable to crashes, and the whole device needed rebooting every couple of days, as it would pipe silence out instead of music through my Alpine car audio kit.
None of the platforms out there is anything close to perfect, every single one out there has a compromise.
Unregistered wrote:What has prevented me from buying an iPhone is the size of the thing, I think it's too big, also the camera which is poor even by camera phone standards. The non-removeable battery is also a pain. If Apple correct the first two as rumoured (lighter, and 5MP camera) then I will probably buy. Fix hthe battery and it's a cert.I also don't like pinch zoom and multi-touch - I believe some of the functions that are done with those should be one-handed. I will live with that crappy bit of design though.
Nokia make good phones which are the right pocketable size, do everything and have better (though still poor) cameras. Their user interface is way behind the Apple as far as a new user and instant productivity is concerned, but for an experienced user there's less in it.
The X6 is a 5800 with capacitive screen, 5MP and 32GB RAM to hold all free the CwM downloads. The exterior styling with sharp edges make the thing less pocketable. I wouldn't trade a 5800 for it because the 5800 is a fantastic phone.
The original iPhone never was any good. Brilliant user interface, limited hardware (GPS etc) and VERY poor telephony due to stupid design decisions with the metal casing and antenna shielding.
From the 3G on it was the UI leader and it is threatening with the G4 to lead hardware too. I hope they can keep the value for money thing because the 3G and 3GS are actually quite reasonable purchases now.
The iPhone camera is poor by cameraphone standards? It is true it doesn't have a flash, but in other respects it is not bad at all with auto-white balance, touch to focus and a really nice video mode. I reckon it didn't have a flash because they couldn't find a solution that worked well enough. People don't like LED it seems, but Xenon is too bulky and slow. Like cut and paste, Apple doesn't seem to want half-baked solutions to tough problems. They'll wait till they've figured it out.
Most people don't remove or change their phone battery or laptop battery. Apple targets "most people", and there is now an iPhone hardware ecosystem of plug-in extenders for the few that do.
You don't like multi-touch. Well that's kind of the point of the iPhone, didn't you know? How many Palm users used to peck the screen with their fingernails? Capacitive multi-touch is the natural...well, it feels natural.
I never had a problem with making calls on the iPhone, and although on the 2G there was no GPS, the tower triangulation was remarkably good in cities.
iPhone wasn't a UI leader from the 3G. It has the same UI as the 1G!
I've held the X6 in the Nokia store, and I thought it felt nice. The first Nokia competitor to the iPhone. So much for first impressions I guess. They need to just to ^4 as soon as they can and rewrite the core apps with a clean sheet. Maybe that's what they are doing?
clonmult wrote:The hundreds of thousands of apps are what turns me off the iPhone as a potential development platform. How the <bleep> are you supposed to make your app stand out from the thousands of others? Its close to impossible. Its success is also turning out to be its biggest problem.The writing has been on the wall for Nokia gaming for years - they had a chance with the N95 (by far and away the best gaming platform Nokia have yet created), yet completely squandered the possibilities of that phone. dropping accelerated graphics when that was the route being followed by the rest of the industry? Utter numpties.
And sorry, but jailbreaking isn't a solution to the problem for a lot of people. Sure, its relatively easy to do, but its not something that should be needed.
I liked the browser on the Touch, but as of f/w v2 it was still occasionally liable to crashes, and the whole device needed rebooting every couple of days, as it would pipe silence out instead of music through my Alpine car audio kit.
None of the platforms out there is anything close to perfect, every single one out there has a compromise.
You are right that Nokia ruined a prospective Gaming platform.Jailbreaking is as simple as hacking a S60 phone to be able to install unsigned apps, and there are automated softwares available for that.More apps and a broad dev. base gives you more variety of apps available to do a specific task,you don't get to hear that Slick is the BEST IM client in S60 and no app even comes close.
Platforms have drawbacks but,considering touch telephony,iphone seems to be the better of the currently available devices in the department.
Unregistered wrote:I never worry about RAM, hanging and abbrupt closing when browsing on my Nokia. It just doesn't happen.And my 'complete' browsing experience doesn't completely exclude flash content.
Ground reality: try loading up a youtube video and watch even N97s and X6s whine and groan and be brought to a grinding halt, and then restarted. There are videos which demonstrate that and I'm also a N97 user
raffmonster wrote:
Ground reality: try loading up a youtube video and watch even N97s and X6s whine and groan and be brought to a grinding halt, and then restarted. There are videos which demonstrate that and I'm also a N97 user
Real life experience reality: Works fine for me, youtube works fine, browser works fine. Regardless of what people set up on youtube, when I do it myself it works.
Saw somebody explode a coke bottle on youtube. They put mentos in it. There's more crap on you tube than any tabloid. I don't judge anything life by youtube.
Unregistered wrote:The iPhone camera is poor by cameraphone standards? It is true it doesn't have a flash, but in other respects it is not bad at all with auto-white balance, touch to focus and a really nice video mode.
Very nice. Images are still shitty noisy though.
Unregistered wrote:
Like cut and paste, Apple doesn't seem to want half-baked solutions to tough problems. They'll wait till they've figured it out.
LOL. Cut and paste has been around since there have been GUIs. Apple mastered cut and paste on the mac a long time ago. They just decreed it wan't needed then had ot eat their own shit when people complained. The camera on iPhone is half baked.
Unregistered wrote:
Most people don't remove or change their phone battery or laptop battery. Apple targets "most people", and there is now an iPhone hardware ecosystem of plug-in extenders for the few that do.
Good for most people. The problem with batteries is that they don't have an infinite life, 400 discharge cycles? So when your battery is shitted you can't just spend small change on a replacement, you have to pay to get the damn thing desoldered. Because nanny apple is scared people would use after market alternatives.
Unregistered wrote:
You don't like multi-touch. Well that's kind of the point of the iPhone, didn't you know? How many Palm users used to peck the screen with their fingernails? Capacitive multi-touch is the natural...well, it feels natural.
The point of the iPhone? There's more to the iPhone and the iPod touch than just that. Whoever designed this decided that it would be great to cradle in one hand and poke with the other. Never considered holding a bag in the street in one hand? Or hanging onto the hand of a small child whilst trying to zoom the map? What's wrong with poking the screen with your thumb and holding it there until it has zoomed as far as you want it?
Apple UI is generally good but in this instance I think they went too far and put gimmicky ahead of real practicality.
Unregistered wrote:
I never had a problem with making calls on the iPhone, and although on the 2G there was no GPS, the tower triangulation was remarkably good in cities.
Lucky you. I trialled that phone and in fringe reception areas it was dead whilst people with cheapo phones still had good multi-bar signal strength. It was CRAP big time, Apple even thought so which is why they changed the back design on the 3G, took the metal away.
raffmonster wrote:
Ground reality: try loading up a youtube video and watch even N97s and X6s whine and groan and be brought to a grinding halt, and then restarted. There are videos which demonstrate that and I'm also a N97 user
http://ipod.about.com/od/iphonetroubleshooting/a/iph_browser_fix.htm
"One of the most common complaints about the iPhone�s software is the tendency of the Safari web browser to crash.
These crashes seem to happen haphazardly and aren�t usually caused by using the iPhone in a particular way or visting any specific kind of website. This makes them all the more frustrating."
Ground reality is not exclusive to Nokia.
LOL: RaffMonster got pwned!
Unregistered wrote:http://ipod.about.com/od/iphonetroubleshooting/a/iph_browser_fix.htm"One of the most common complaints about the iPhone’s software is the tendency of the Safari web browser to crash.
These crashes seem to happen haphazardly and aren’t usually caused by using the iPhone in a particular way or visting any specific kind of website. This makes them all the more frustrating."
""Ground reality is not exclusive to Nokia.
But low RAM and low phone memory are.""
Look, Iphone vs Nokia/Samsung etc. topics have been debated at lengths over the year and lets not make this discussion into an Iphone/Nokia war. I want to stress more on the 'touch' aspect of the iphone and compare it to X6 as both have a capacitive screen.There is no device that does not have shortcomings. Nokia lately have been ignoring customer satisfaction and are on a new device spree and release devices with half-finished firmware.Nokia have one of the best hardware(electronics) in their phones,all spoilt by bug-ridden firmwares.After the N95,N82(my fav phone)Nokia have been pretty much going downhill.
I again say that my comments are not to glorify one company/bash the other, I have always preferred Nokia and all of my long list of owned phones are Nokias, I've been very upset with Nokia policy lately.
This is an open forum and I request the guests not to take undue advantage and post whatever comes to mind.Always follow forum rules.
Hmm. Raffmonster now seems to be attempting to distance himself from "complete web browser experiences". Regardless of the reason, a browser hanging or abrubt closing needs to be worried about on both. That was the original point.
Unregistered wrote:Hmm. Raffmonster now seems to be attempting to distance himself from "complete web browser experiences". Regardless of the reason, a browser hanging or abrubt closing needs to be worried about on both. That was the original point.
I think its quite a debatable subject. All opinions welcome
The hanging and crashing still happens on my n97. I am not distancing myself from any of my views.It is still better not to have Adobe flash than to have it for the sake of bragging.It is still very easy to trip the N97 UI over.And we all know about the omission of H/W accelerated graphics on Nokia phones since the N82, and also that web pages containing active content(videos/flash files) are better rendered on phones with a Graphics chip.
Neverthless, any phone aimed Browsing the web must have a Hi-res Vibrant screen with better sunlight legibility, none of which the X6 has.
Even till this date The do-all N97 does not perform all of its advertised tasks.
well i bought the x6 and mines fine, its only a phone trouble is your all to used to being spoilt with tech, its only about 18 years ago that i had a nokia 8800 and my mate had to carry a car battery everywhere !,you all seem to forget how good we've got it !!!