The Nexus Chronicles - replacing a Symbian flagship? - Part One

Another way of looking at this is how well could an N97 replace an Android phone or iPhone? Perhaps Steve is somewhat biased toward the features of the N97 because he's adapted his phone usage to Symbian's capabilities? If voice search is important, or customizable keyboards, or HTML e-mail then the other phones have superior functionality. Nokia has added some capabilities but still has some rough edges.

Integration of applications is also an issue on Symbian. It's nice on Android to be able to click on an address in any Google application (Contacts, Calendar, browser) and locate it on Maps with a single tap. Dialing a phone number within a calendar entry with a single tap is also a nice feature that I'm surprised is only partially implemented in Symbian phones.

If we measured the N97 in terms of "iPhone replaceability" or "Android replaceability" how would it fare?

Unregistered wrote: but this is not so in the rest of the world, and in the US of course Nokia/Symbian is not selling much anyway, while Apple sell most of their iPhones there (50+%?), so the competition is likely to be more between Android phones and iPhone, than Android versus Nokia/Symbian.

Certainly the Nexus 1 isn't doing as well as the iPhone did - by quite some distance. The market for an Android phone, or google type phone does have some competition of course, from phones like the droid but I don't think Android is anything out of the ordinary and certainly no sales blockbuster.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/05/nexus_one_halfway_to_goal/

Unregistered wrote:
My guess is that iPhone will not sell much more in 2010 than it did in 2009, amongst other things because of all the Android devices, the iPad (some cannibalization is likely to occur), and the fact that iPhone has lost some of its "novelty"; people start to want something different and there�s more and more iPhones in circulation.

Buyers are holding back waiting for rumoured iPhone 4, when that arrives the floodgates will open. Note, waiting for iPhone 4, not buying alternatives such as Droid and Nexus.

Unregistered wrote:
What about comparing the N900 with N97, or N900 with Nexus?

The N900 is not really at the races. The rumoured to be imminent N910 will be worth looking at but the N900 feels like a prototype, or a beta device. I wouldn't bother comparing that to anything, it would be embarassed.

Android is more than Nexus One, however. Supposedly 60,000 Android devices are shipping each day, which is slightly below the iPhone's sales rate, but more phones are on the way. I think it is a contender to be a major smartphone player in the coming years, perhaps taking WinMo's old role as the main OS for manufacturers who don't want to write their own. Its competition in this respect is not so much iPhone (which will always be an Apple-only OS) but Symbian Foundation.

Hi Steve,
Until we actually start talking about day-to-day stability, no amount of feature comparison would really justify the N97 to anyone except the diehard Nokia geek. The lack of RAM and all the hoops and hurdles Nokia desperately does to address THAT really poor design decision makes it look like crap next to any other smartphone in the market. On my N97 NAM with v21 the phone still hangs at random due to either 3G phone calls or 3.5G data usage, meaning something seems wrong the with radio firmware. I can't use the phone w/o rebooting every 2 days. and I don't even use 3rd party apps, which means Nokia can't get their act together! Right now, I'm using a modified HTC Raphael with Android Eclair just for kicks, and even THAT is more stable than my N97 for calls and data usage. No crashes unless I drop the phone on the ground because the SD card with the OS pops out. And free ram stays above 95MB with nothing up.

So let's start with basic argument of replacing a Symbian flagship - is the Nexus One more stable than the N97? I unfortunately have to ask for stability as a feature now because of Nokia.

But I don't just blame Nokia and the N97 for this - I blame S60v5 and S60v3.2, since both seems to be extreme memory hogs and basically tarnished Symbian's image so much that Symbian had to completely rebrand themselves and go thru a really brute force and seemingly uncoordinated soul searching project with ideas.symbian.org. Symbian really should just get the basics right first - get the minimal set of popular features for a smartphone OS, design their own look and feel, standardize the minimal HW requirements, and stick to a list of products they can actually manage. The only thing that seemed to have been going right for them was the E-Series, but even that seems shot after the E72!! Just read all the forums about RAM issues there too! I can't believe what happened to the N-series also happened to the E-series basically. It's like lightning hit Nokia - TWICE!!!!

An Alarm clock?

I think this is taking things a bit to far.

Buy an alarm clock and keep it by your bedside, it's not rocket science.

Ok, if you are away from home then the alarm thingy on a mobile has it's use if you forget to pack your clock; but a mobile won't replace your toothbrush.

😊

slitchfield wrote:

Why would anyone in their right mind want this? Seriously. We're talking about 20MB+ files here!

Theres many timed where I have been at work with no wifi access and a podcast has popped up. Id love to have the option to stream it for the journey home. I wouldn't do it all the time but a 'decent' data plan would make it a handy feature for me from time to time.

+2 for playback resumption. Shocked that feature is missing when I got back to my 5800.

moonshot wrote:An Alarm clock? I think this is taking things a bit to far.

Buy an alarm clock and keep it by your bedside, it's not rocket science.

I'm simply giving an honest assessment of the top 15 things I use my N97 *for*. I don't disagree that some of them could be done by lesser electronic devices 8-)

Nice Android/Symbian comparison, Steve.

AFAIK, you can get Navigon on Android for turn-by-turn navigation. IMHO, this one is superior to Ovi Maps by far, but it is exensive also (around � 70,-).

So you could get around 130% for Navigation on Android, if you are willing to pay.

Regarding Podcasting: for me, this is also the killer app on a smartphone, but I never liked the S60 Podcasting app. It always forgot the playing position after restart. Compared to Podcasting on the iPhone, which I use now, I would not give Podcasting on S60 more than 60%

slitchfield wrote:"Google's coverage of the world is much better then from Nokia. Meaning, in many places Ovi maps are USELESS"

I can't let this go without comment. Over something like 85% of the world's land area, there is NO phone signal at all, let alone 3G. How the heck will Google Maps work then? At least Ovi Maps lets you preload every country, so that you can navigate in the absence of phone/data connection.

daos wrote:And does it explain everything? And what about areas with full country 3g+ coverage with no nokia maps, nor is going to be(at least according nokia officials)? As for Google, not only their maps coverage is almost complete, but they are working on offline version, moreover in WM, Google maps work in offline - just connect to net, find route and "simulate" it at home. After that program works fine without any connection, mind you only in area where you "simulated". There is also Global Navigator for WM which uses Google maps, has voice navigation and can work offline. All i want to say is with Google and WM, for instance, one can find solution. But not so with Nokia.

Having to simulate the route first is just not good enough, it's a fudge and doesn't allow for diversion etc. What Google are working on is not really relevant, as Steve is comparing current products. Who knows what Nokia or any other company might be working on?

Simply, Google maps as they are now are crap.

Uninterested wrote:Certainly the Nexus 1 isn't doing as well as the iPhone did - by quite some distance. The market for an Android phone, or google type phone does have some competition of course, from phones like the droid but I don't think Android is anything out of the ordinary and certainly no sales blockbuster.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/05/nexus_one_halfway_to_goal/

Buyers are holding back waiting for rumoured iPhone 4, when that arrives the floodgates will open. Note, waiting for iPhone 4, not buying alternatives such as Droid and Nexus.

The N900 is not really at the races. The rumoured to be imminent N910 will be worth looking at but the N900 feels like a prototype, or a beta device. I wouldn't bother comparing that to anything, it would be embarassed.

But with the purported 60.000 Android devices sold daily, which should add up to over 20 million per year, plus 30 million or more iPhones expected to be sold this year (I think this figure is too high), I�m not so sure there�s enough people in the world that can afford this. We�re talking about phones that cost maybe $300-$600 unlocked. If we compare to the iPod, after an initial formidable growth, sales did stagnate from 2007 at about 50 million units per year, and most of those iPods costed less than $300. Even most of the netbooks sold today cost no more than $300.

In such a scenario I think that Android will take some market share from iPhone, as I don�t think much novelty will come to "iPhone4" in terms of software. Furthermore I�m not sure to what extent Apple has been able to grab new customers (people that have never owned an Apple product) with their iPhones. Obviously they were guaranteed to sell a lot of iPhones because this device was also an iPod and because Apple had a loyal customer base. But this customer base is still relatively limited.

Now, this must be compared to Nokia that due to its massive scale and production efficiency can sell similar models for 15% less than their competitors at the same margins, they currently sell the 5230 for $150 and will sell even cheaper Symbian touch devices later this year, I think. Nokia also has a loyal customer base that is 10 times bigger than Apple�s. And while some of these customers have "departed" to iPhone, many still have their "hearts" with Nokia according to their research.

In general I also wonder about the limitations of the networks. With more and more 3G netbooks, tablets and smartphones, the excessive demand for data may push prices up, which could put a brake on the sales growth of the mentioned devices. Some of this can be solved by using browsers like Opera, however, this may not be available on the iPhone.

Should be interesting to see how things unfold over the next year.

Unregistered wrote:But with the purported 60.000 Android devices sold daily, which should add up to over 20 million per year, plus 30 million or more iPhones expected to be sold this year (I think this figure is too high), I�m not so sure there�s enough people in the world that can afford this. We�re talking about phones that cost maybe $300-$600 unlocked.

Current 3G and 3G S owners will upgrade, their old phones will be passed down the used market, the iPhone is very affordable.

Unregistered wrote:
Now, this must be compared to Nokia that due to its massive scale and production efficiency can sell similar models for 15% less than their competitors at the same margins, they currently sell the 5230 for $150 and will sell even cheaper Symbian touch devices later this year

The entry level Symbian touch phones 5230/5530 are being sold through mainstream high street outlets in the UK for the equivalent of $123, sim free, unlocked. This strategy of getting this style of phone into the hands of more people, and especially kids is a long term one. A well established one though, entry level purchasers will trade up to higher models with a familiar OS - when Nokia release their new phones.

Clever Finns.

germcevoy wrote:Theres many timed where I have been at work with no wifi access and a podcast has popped up. Id love to have the option to stream it for the journey home. I wouldn't do it all the time but a 'decent' data plan would make it a handy feature for me from time to time.

+2 for playback resumption. Shocked that feature is missing when I got back to my 5800.

what are you guys talking about the playback resumption? when i listen to podacasts on my n97, if i exit the music player halfway thru, it will resume from that spot when i start it back up again.

but maybe you are talking about playing the podcast from within the podcasting app itself. i never tried that. i always just download all my episodes, then go to the music player, find podcasting section, then listen from there, where playback resumption works just fine.

I find it shocking that everyone seems to be missing the biggest point of all... USER INTERFACE!!!:icon4: We can sit here all day defending the specific features of Symbian (It probably has most of the features on Android, iPhone etc) BUT its user interface lacks the innovation and (arguably) the intuitiveness of others.

Yes, Steve do I hear you say that UI is subjective. Of course, but you can't argue that if you gave the iPhone (for example) to a baby or a pensioner they could easily see how to open maps/notes straight away. (I know such simplicity comes with its problems e.g. multitasking).

I'll end with an example: A (40 year old) friend of mine had an n70 for 2 Years and it was only in her last week with the phone that she discovered the menu (by pressing the S60 menu key). She had used the active standby (which she had not customised) for the whole time.

USER INTERFACE is very important and the sad thing is that it is technically such a small part of a mobile OS.

RogerPodacter wrote:what are you guys talking about the playback resumption? when i listen to podacasts on my n97, if i exit the music player halfway thru, it will resume from that spot when i start it back up again.

but maybe you are talking about playing the podcast from within the podcasting app itself. i never tried that. i always just download all my episodes, then go to the music player, find podcasting section, then listen from there, where playback resumption works just fine.

yea I was refering to listening within podcasting. I'll try listening via the music player.

iphone
android
windows phone series 7
symbian
maemo/meego
blackberry
webos
windows mobile
bada

psycho27 wrote:I find it shocking that everyone seems to be missing the biggest point of all... USER INTERFACE!!!:icon4:

Errr.. you've rather missed the point of my piece. I was looking at pure real world functions that are important to me, trying to see whether an N1 could replace an N97 just for those functions.

See my *other* pieces on AAS for direct interface/form factor/feature comparisons.

daos wrote:And does it explain everything? And what about areas with full country 3g+ coverage with no nokia maps, nor is going to be(at least according nokia officials)?

Like where exactly? Full 3G coverage is difficult and expensive for everything less than congested central Europe. Also Google maps is available for Symbian, but it does not include turn by turn navigation until sometime in the future.

1) 'Unregistered' claims Nokia Messaging is the best solution for a multiple email-account holder on the go. Not true: get GMail to sync all your email addresses, apply sensible labels and filters, and it will send them to your Nexus One inbox perfectly, with full HTML support as well. Alternatively, you could configure the multiple accounts on your device and have it poll them separately in the mail (non-Gmail) app. Definitely, definitely beats the clunky email handling in Nokia Messaging on the n97.

2) Steve, I think you brushed Google Listen aside too fast: I use it, and the latest update makes it quite interesting in that it uses Google Reader to manage subscriptions. You can add, delete, or listen to podcasts from your desktop browser, and have the changes reflected in your podcast manager on the phone. The automatic download options are also very sophisticated, eg "only download new episodes when in Wi-fi range and when charging".

3) Finally, you cannot understate just how well Android handles PIM, which in my opinion is the central aspect of smartphone ownership. Everything from html email across multiple accounts down to facebook pokes is seamlessly synced down to the handset without any need for third party software.

I am a life-long Nokia addict who just made a (temporary?) switch to Android with the Nexus One, and overall, it has comfortably outdone anything I previously owned (N97 and n95 8gb included). Symbian^3 will have to be quite the step up to win myself and others like me back.

lesiki wrote:1) 'Unregistered' claims Nokia Messaging is the best solution for a multiple email-account holder on the go. Not true: get GMail to sync all your email addresses, apply sensible labels and filters, and it will send them to your Nexus One inbox perfectly, with full HTML support as well. Alternatively, you could configure the multiple accounts on your device and have it poll them separately in the mail (non-Gmail) app. Definitely, definitely beats the clunky email handling in Nokia Messaging on the n97.

2) Steve, I think you brushed Google Listen aside too fast: I use it, and the latest update makes it quite interesting in that it uses Google Reader to manage subscriptions. You can add, delete, or listen to podcasts from your desktop browser, and have the changes reflected in your podcast manager on the phone. The automatic download options are also very sophisticated, eg "only download new episodes when in Wi-fi range and when charging".

3) Finally, you cannot understate just how well Android handles PIM, which in my opinion is the central aspect of smartphone ownership. Everything from html email across multiple accounts down to facebook pokes is seamlessly synced down to the handset without any need for third party software.

I am a life-long Nokia addict who just made a (temporary?) switch to Android with the Nexus One, and overall, it has comfortably outdone anything I previously owned (N97 and n95 8gb included). Symbian^3 will have to be quite the step up to win myself and others like me back.

No matter how good your arguments are, Steve will find another way to bury his head in the sand and proclaim that you misunderstood him, Nokia, the Arms race, the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, etc... He will never acknowledge the fact that the N97 was, is, and will remain an underpowered, RAM deficient, hardware failed, factory produced disaster. I have noting wrong with liking a phone but I also acknowledge when things are wrong. I have less and less faith in anything Steve reports on. For me, he has very limited credibility and a blinding bias that further erodes practically anything of value that he might report on.

[ Full disclosure - I have a Nexus One being shipping to me as I type, and the only S60 phone I've owned was a Sendo X (Google it) ]

I think you are mistaken. Bias is saying that things are better or worse than they are just because of their origin. Steve is always very clear about what he likes and what he doesn't, but he will praise good features of non-Symbian phones whilst bemoaning the faults of his current favourite. It sounds to me as though you have had bad experiences with an N97, but that doesn't mean that anyone who doesn't share your experiences is biased.

I would say that by asking the question this article poses, Steve is acknowledging that the N97 may not be the best phone around, which is surely a healthy attitude.

psycho27 wrote:
I'll end with an example: A (40 year old) friend of mine had an n70 for 2 Years and it was only in her last week with the phone that she discovered the menu (by pressing the S60 menu key). She had used the active standby (which she had not customised) for the whole time.

USER INTERFACE is very important and the sad thing is that it is technically such a small part of a mobile OS.

sadly also, many people do not read the accompanying manual, even if to reference something from the index or glossary.

hence, the term RTFM

Wouldn't the Milestone be a more apt comparison with the N97?

Is there a way to use Android without the Google apps? I don't mind them harvesting my web searches, but I'm really reluctant to turn over my PIM data to a company who's already been caught building a backdoor into Gmail for U.S. Homeland Security...

Unregistered wrote:Like where exactly? Full 3G coverage is difficult and expensive for everything less than congested central Europe. Also Google maps is available for Symbian, but it does not include turn by turn navigation until sometime in the future.

Israel has not only full country 3g, but 3g+ coverage, even in desert and mountain's regions (may be it was demand from Bedouins for camel navigation 😊) . All 4 operators provide 5Gb for 20$ per month or unlimited internet for 33-35$.

Steve,

you talked about synchronisation of PIM data, but you didn't say anything about the quality PIM apps between the two devices.

I really cant believe you are comparing the n97 to N1..

it like comparing an asus1000h to an alienwareM11x..
oh well, this is a symbian site.

I know im little bit OT, but People loves N1 because of its specs, N1 are for tech-freak people. plus (N1) Android is just keep updating unlike (N97) symbian.. (no im not talking about some minor update but an OS update)

with its specs, expect nexus one to have at least android version 5.0.

i get your point, yes the functionality.. but android is all about great and user friendly user interface, which is very important to many. (oh, look at symbian^4 copying android's UI)