AAS Insight 116 - The Nokia N8

Massive improvements under the hood? I like it already 😊

Funny comment re icons UI 😃

Rafe,

You mention in the podcast that Bluetooth v3 is low-power. It's not. That's Bluetooth v4. Bluetooth v3 is high-speed Bluetooth over 802.11 radio.

In section about something missing from the phone. I would say the one thing you missed is divX/Xvid decoders.

I'm ready to buy the N8 in a heart beat but the striking question is: Would it be upgradable to Symbian^4, because I don't wanna be stucked with an OS that would become obsolete in 6 months. Thanks

jrmt wrote:Rafe,

You mention in the podcast that Bluetooth v3 is low-power. It's not. That's Bluetooth v4. Bluetooth v3 is high-speed Bluetooth over 802.11 radio.

Thanks - I thought as I said that there was something not quite right. I should have checked though 😞

Will try and remember to include a correction in the next podcast.

yade wrote:In section about something missing from the phone. I would say the one thing you missed is divX/Xvid decoders.

I think we may see movement in this area before release. But yes it is a good point... I hope we'll see some third party support for this too.

I'm ready to buy the N8 in a heart beat but the striking question is: Would it be upgradable to Symbian^4, because I don't wanna be stucked with an OS that would become obsolete in 6 months. Thanks

Nokia wont comment on this. Past history would suggest this is unlikely though... but then again with the open sourcing of Symbian one of the barrier to this has been removed. But there's a break in compatibility for software so I think it unlikely.

Melly wrote:I'm ready to buy the N8 in a heart beat but the striking question is: Would it be upgradable to Symbian^4, because I don't wanna be stucked with an OS that would become obsolete in 6 months. Thanks

What's your definition of obsolete? If you mean not the latest version then yes. If you think you'll be left without any apps being developed for this "older" platform then I don't think that will be the case. Anyone developing an app for Symbian^4 will have to use Qt. As long as there is a match between the version of Qt on your phone and the version of Qt the app was developed for, you'll be fine.

I'd also be interested to hear more about the supported video codecs & HDMI out resolutions.

From Nokia's specs here:

http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n8/specifications

we have:

H.264 (base profile, main profile, high profile), MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark, Real video 10

... which doesn't explicitly say DivX as a supported container. It would be a pity of this container format is NOT supported, as I am sure most users would like to copy across their DivX media and not have to change containers. This is one great thing about Samsung devices (e.g. i8510 and i8910 in the Symbian world) that other companies do not seem to implement.

In terms of HDMI output we have:

Video playback time (H.264 720p, 30 fps, maximum): 6 h (via HDMI to TV)

This LOOKS like we would be able to output native 720p video to a HDTV, but i'd love to have this confirmed. If it just upscales the 360x640 display output it would be a bit of a disappointment to me & probably many others too, but wouldn't surprise me greatly.

mwarner wrote:I'd also be interested to hear more about the supported video codecs & HDMI out resolutions.

From Nokia's specs here:

http://europe.nokia.com/find-products/devices/nokia-n8/specifications

we have:

H.264 (base profile, main profile, high profile), MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark, Real video 10

... which doesn't explicitly say DivX as a supported container. It would be a pity of this container format is NOT supported, as I am sure most users would like to copy across their DivX media and not have to change containers. This is one great thing about Samsung devices (e.g. i8510 and i8910 in the Symbian world) that other companies do not seem to implement.

In terms of HDMI output we have:

Video playback time (H.264 720p, 30 fps, maximum): 6 h (via HDMI to TV)

This LOOKS like we would be able to output native 720p video to a HDTV, but i'd love to have this confirmed. If it just upscales the 360x640 display output it would be a bit of a disappointment to me & probably many others too, but wouldn't surprise me greatly.

Yes. it outputs at genuine 720p, not 360*640 scaled up. That's what you get with the Vivaz because it doesn't have a HDMI port built in. Tell me - why would they put a HDMI port in if they were going to waste it like that?

Melly wrote:I'm ready to buy the N8 in a heart beat but the striking question is: Would it be upgradable to Symbian^4, because I don't wanna be stucked with an OS that would become obsolete in 6 months. Thanks

That's actually my conern with the N8 as well. I already bought one abandon-ware Symbian device from Samsung; I'm not in a hurry to do the same from Nokia.

Despite the assurances from the gang on this blog, who I'm sure are sincere, I'm not even considering the device until I hear it officially from Nokia. If the N8 gets an update to ^4, then it's all good.

brendand wrote:Yes. it outputs at genuine 720p, not 360*640 scaled up. That's what you get with the Vivaz because it doesn't have a HDMI port built in. Tell me - why would they put a HDMI port in if they were going to waste it like that?

I'm assuming that the Vivaz has the same Composite Out as my i8910, which purely replicates the 360x640 display of the device. My worry is that the N8 will do exactly the same, just with a higher quality output - i.e. 360x640 upscaled to 720p, and if a 720p video is displayed it will once again just upscale the display of the phone rather than rendering it at 720p over HDMI and downscaling it to 360x640 on the device.

I am not saying that this is definitely going to happen, but it would be by far the easier solution, and i'm not sure the phone could cope with displaying both resolutions simultaneously.

Jimmy1 - I have said elsewhere that, on balance, I think a Symbian^4 upgrade is unlikely.

Videos and pictures are output at full / true 720p resolution (i.e. when you have them in full screen mode).

When using the rest of the UI - that is upscaled rather that outputted at 720p.

That's great news Rafe - it certainly steers me towards the N8 as my next phone. I don't suppose you have any insights as to what container formats are supported do you?

mwarner wrote:That's great news Rafe - it certainly steers me towards the N8 as my next phone. I don't suppose you have any insights as to what container formats are supported do you?

I worked on testing the New Graphics Architecture that enables this, so you can believe me as well as Rafe 😉

Support for the MKV format would be great, I hope it will be possible to play these files.

from Nokia Q&A:
Is it true that the N8 will be able to play .mkv files?
Yes, the Nokia does play .mkv files 😊

http://thenokiablog.com/2010/04/28/nokia-n8-answers-questions/

brendand wrote:I worked on testing the New Graphics Architecture that enables this, so you can believe me as well as Rafe 😉

May I say that I am extremely impressed by the participation of Symbian and Nokia staff. Last time it was the N8 camera guru and now its Brendan on the OS side. This is really refrehing and is one more thing I appreciate about the open nature of Symbian. You will never get this with e.g. Apple. Well done Brendan, cant wait to enjoy the fruits of your labour. 😊

Nokia almost got me excited with this handset, but then I started to think about all of the handsets I had bought and then sold and how they just seemed to be getting worse until I finally had enough and started to spend my money elsewhere.

The hardware looks awesome, and I am sure it will fell great in the hand but I just don't believe that symbian 3 will be any different from s60 5th ed. I understand that the UI is new and improved and technically the OS is very advanced, etc, but when I look at the screen shots it just looks like the same crap that drove me away from Nokia. The icons, the menus, the apps all look the same. I hated the calendar app, and the phonebook and especially the messaging client in the n97 and n97 mini to the point that I had to get rid of the phones despite the beautiful hardware. I just don't see this version being any different. Even the widgets which you guys love to talk about are basically useless. There is no real useful info displayed, especially when you compare the widgets to android. Symbians widgets are just too small, and even the app shortcuts are poorly implemented as they are grouped together in 4s instead of individually so they can be placed anywhere. Now that you guys have some experience with android can you see what I mean?

Another fear I have is that the aluminum body will mean poor rf performance, just like the n97 mini and the e71 and e72. Steve was concerned about the antennas in the HTC hero being placed at the bottom of the phone so I wonder if he will have the same concerns with the n8? I am guessing that they will be placed in the same area near the only plastic pieces?

I guess I am just not ready to fall for the same crappy user experience wrapped up in a beautiful shell with a killer camera. I will live with my nexus one's average camera so I can enjoy the user experience that android gives me. Great job on the coverage and I am still hoping that you all will work on a site called allaboutandroid as your team does a great job on this site and I would love to see you cover android instead!

@gdigenis

While I respect your opinion, I would say that different people have different tastes. I tried the Droid (supposedly the summit of Android handsets for a while) and while a liked several things, it was more than easy to find flaws in that too. You say that you don't like the way widgets work in Symbian? Well what about the way they work in Android? Go to a screen of widgets that's not quite full yet and try adding stuff from the catalog. 9 times out of 10 it will tell you there's not enough space for that widget, but there's no attempt by the UI to indicate how much space the widget takes up. I'm not here to bash Android, I just wanted to show that it has flaws too.

What I'd rather do is try and get you some info about changes in Symbian^3 that may alleviate some of your problems. If your problem is with the general look and feel of S60 then I'd say you won't be impressed, but look and feel is not the same as function (and I'd rate the latter as much more important).

So what about messaging?
(I don't have 1st hand experience of the new email app, as it's coming from Nokia)

- Full HTML email by default.
- Conversations (threaded SMS) integrated into messaging

Contacts

- Re-arranged, 'card-style' contact view, not the ugly list you recall from 5th edition.
- Single-tap paradigm (all over the UI in fact), no more double tapping. A single tap brings you to the screen where you can choose to call or message (like Android)
- Search contacts by company
- Merge contacts (if duplicates exist)

Calendar

- Multiple calendars

So you can see that even though on the outside it might look the same, on the inside it's quite different.

While I'm here, I thought I'd point out a common conundrum that comes up when people are talking about Symbian on Nokia hardware - they always say, 'oh, this Nokia HW is great - camera is great, HDMI is great, USB OTG is great - if only it had some different software like Android it would be so much better', without taking the time to think that in fact Symbian enables all these features, and enables them well. It handles multimedia use-cases much better than Android, at least in my experience.

Merge contacts (if duplicates exist)

Re-arranged, 'card-style' contact view, not the ugly list you recall from 5th edition.

If your problem is with the general look and feel of S60 then I'd say you won't be impressed, but look and feel is not the same as function (and I'd rate the latter as much more important).

Full HTML email by default.

Cheers,
Miki

I'm almost certain we'll see Swype on the very high-end devices soon by Nokia considering they have a investment in swype
http://moconews.net/article/419-nokia-samsung-invest-in-swype-to-improve-typing-on-touchscreens/

I haven`t really said anything on the N8 yet but for what it`s worth here are a couple of my first thoughts on it.

It looks like a really nice device it`s a shame that it`s not going to be here until Aug/Sep and that is going to hurt as users take up the iPhone and new Android devices but in all probability I think these users were probably lost to Nokia anyway. Obviously Nokia realise the overall package is not up to the top-flight and have cleverly priced it to keep it away from competing with such devices and have generated a package that looks like it offers excellent value at the moment - they seemed to have learned something from the N97`s failure and unfavourable comparison with similarly priced competitors here. As far as the hardware goes I like the look and the colours (black etc are like soooo last year 😎 ) we`ll have to wait and see how the processor GPU package delivers and after N97 I`m no longer willing to trust Nokia or reassurances from tech sites about the hardware platform, I am willing to believe that the RAM is probably sufficient given SF^3`s mem paging however on the face of it the processor is just enough and the C: with 135MB left to the users looks possibly skimpy (again!) to me. As a hardware bundle it looks just enough but a bit 2009 (if brought out last year it would have killed - when will Nokia learn on this) with the exception of the camera which on the face of it seems very good. Whether there`s overwhelming demand for a mega camera with a compromised user experience we`ll see I`m not sure many people really care that much about the cam as long as it`s good enough to upload to FB they just want to be "cool" and cam geekery isn`t.

There seem to be two themes that stand out from the N8`s reception to me, one is that it has received quite a hard ride despite clearly not being priced at the top end of the market. This is I think because of two factors, one Nokia doesn`t have a flagship product other than this to show at the moment so the N8 as the only recently announced not bottom/mid tier phone is being held up in comparison to devices that are really a class above it, and secondly after the fiasco of the N97 there is a lot of scepticism about the Symbian platform and Nokia upper end devices, something I don`t think a lot closely involved with Symbian realised has built up over the last years of delays and disappointments.

The second theme is something I`ve brought up before and that is the awkward transition OS that SF^3 seems to be and I think it`s something that should be made clear to people but is almost certainly not going to be because it`s a bit awkward. Blithe assurances from Brendan and others that apps will "probably be OK' is not enough there needs to be a clear statetment from the Symbian Foundation at some point as to what the compatibility situation is that end users/purchasers can understand. And with this regard it`s a particular shame that this first full iteration of Symbian will have taken so long to come to market because SF^3->SF^4 was always going to be a tough transition without it having to carry the first flagships on the platform. In the spirit of full disclosure it`s going to take a lot of persuading for me to buy an SF^3 device for one simple reason SF^4 (from what I know at the moment); given that SF^3 is a new OS and platform and after the incorrect reassurances given out about concerns for the N97 platform last year (and you have to give Eldar this he was the first to point out the Emperor`s missing clothes on the N97 which is why he carries some credibility on his SF^3 utterances) and also following advice given out by Steve and Rafe on the site and in several podcasts concerning the lifespan of platforms it would seem prudent to make sure it isn`t another Alphaware turkey like S60V5 and the N97 to wait 3 months at least after the first SF^3 device`s (prob the N8) release which taking mid Q3 is mid Aug with wide avilability towards mid/end Sep probably? Right so three months wait after this takes you to November at least at which point you might as well wait to see how great an improvement SF^4 brings or what`s going on with Meego (one of the problems of having a published timetable) and I would/will advise anyone to wait and see. The problem with having lost trust by dumping unfit for release devices on the market. this is not being helped by the fact that in still screen shots it looks very like SF^1, I`m willing to accept that a lot of work has been done 'under the hood' but like most of the public I suspect I don`t really care I just want an OS that`s a pleasure to use and works with me and ABOVE ALL is reliable and until I see it/ try it for myself it looks suspiciously like SF^1 and several review sites - Symbian Fra, Tweakers.net on top of mobile review have expressed disappointment that the OS hasn`t improved more. (I know I know Steve, 40 gazillion lines of code have been Open Sourced - so what forget open sourcing and write a proper UI, they`ve had over 3 freaking years since Apple brought out first iPhone and why wasn`t something happening before that anyway). I hope the mail app certainly has improved and obviously the single/double click inconsistency but disappointingly the feeble browser seems pretty much the same and the SF^1 one is poor but let`s hope with the added delay it really is a stable Symbian touch release at last.

So in summary seems like nice device but with the exception of the price which is excellent and may be nokia`s best competitive edge the N8 is rather 2009 (when it would have been a really good device) in late summer 2010 is the cam going to be enough with the price - I don`t know. I don`t think it`s the really compelling device that I think Nokia needs to raise it`s profit margins and I certainly will be holding fire on SF^3.

Hey guys. Could anyone please shed some light on the screen tech?

I read in the specs sheet that it is OLED -(AMOLED) i presume- but is this the previous generation tech that leaves the device useless outdoors or is the the new samsung screen (SuperAMOLED) that is transleflective and readable in bright light?

Imho this will be a major factor in sales of the device in many parts of the world, esp Asia where the sun is out 10months of the year!

It's not a blithe assurance thank you very much - Symbian does work to ensure backwards compatibility between versions. 50% of my job is running the tests and tools that ensure this. If I've ever said to anyone that apps will 'probably be okay' it would have been on Twitter and I would merely have been trying to shorten the sentiment that compatibility like quality is a tricky area. All efforts can be made to ensure it, but there might be a slip up here and there. I assure you we're not taking a hit and hope approach to this.

To read more about our break management process: http://developer.symbian.org/wiki/index.php/Symbian_BC_Break_Management_Process

I can understand why a number of comments about the N8, and Symbian^3 in particular, are fairly negative.

I would think that 90% of phone users / purchasers do not give a jot about the majority of the 'under the hood' changes to the OS. As tech-heads even some of us aren't too bothered about some of these things, let alone your average teenage girl / boy. Most ordinary users only really care about two things:

- How cool the UI looks, in terms of aesthetics, transition effects and smoothness
- How easy it is to do the basics - phone people up, send texts, listen to music and browse the web

Being a developer myself (although not a smartphone application developer I admit!), I understand that a number of under the hood changes are required before an improved UI can be implemented.

Personally, however, I think that goals of Symbian^3 and Symbian^4 should have been swapped over as much as possible - i.e. to have made Symbian^3 the one which introduced the new UI and Symbain^4 to have implemented the newer APIs & optimisations.

My point is that for the vast majority UI >> OS functionality and the main grip of Symbian phone users is NOT poor functionality, but rather that the UI is outdated.

How easy it is to do the basics - phone people up, send texts, listen to music and browse the web

snoFlake wrote:I haven`t really said anything on the N8 yet but for what it`s worth here are a couple of my first thoughts on it. <blah blah blah>
.

SnoFlake, it's fine for people to have questions and concerns, but in your case (as with other persistent critics who base their thoughts on misinformation and misunderstanding) I'm not going to take it too seriously. Firstly, and probably your biggest mistake, you have obviously been taken in by that pure nonsense so called 'review' from Eldar on mobile-review.com. The man is a known and discredited Nokia-hater who has been slapped down by Nokia before for leaks. He has got a massive anti-Nokia chip on his shoulder. Even if he were sane, fair and balanced, he was reviewing (as Nokia Conversations said) very early prototype hardware and software. Sadly blogs and tech sites (in the US especially, who wouldn't know a good mobile if it hit them in the head) jumped on this and publicised it. Shame on Eldar, and shame on them, and sorry for anyone that believes Eldar's pure rubbish. The ONLY fair way to judge the N8 is through one's own personal experience, plus MULTIPLE different reviews from experienced knowledgeable reviewers of hardware that is the same as that on sale, and finally from the general vibe of user opinon across use cases and countries.

> it`s a shame that it`s not going to be here until Aug/Sep
Well, in an ideal world you wouldn't have the delay, but a delay is MUCH better if it means slick finished hardware and software. Note that both Apple and Android-phones have all suffered delays of this type. Who cares when competitors are released? More fool people if they know about the N8 and choose a different path. But then everyone must buy what is best for them.

> one is that it has received quite a hard ride despite clearly not being priced at the top end of the market.
Total rubbish. You're referring to Eldar's joke of a 'review' and blogs repeating that nonsense. If you look at coverage since Nokia's proper announcement it's been generally somewhere been somewhere along the lines of 'Wow, amazing!'.

> Obviously Nokia realise the overall package is not up to the top-flight and have cleverly priced it to keep it away from competing with such devices

Oh dear. Said like a true Android/iPhone devotee. You're right, N8 is not at the same level as Android/iPhone (including next gen stuff). It blows them away on all counts quite frankly. And this is what has got Android and iPhone fans across the net seriously worried. They thought Nokia was something of a joke, to ridicule, not competition at the high end. N8 has been a real shock to the system. WAY cheaper, WAY better. Oh and by the way Nokia have seen significant smartphone market share growth for the last 2 quarters where iPhone was flat (as was the smartphone market as a whole) and Nokia achieved this on the basis of apparently 'crap' smartphones. Hmmm. You see, there's the Android/iPhone fans view of the world, and then there's the truth. I'd be seriously worried by Nokia if as a user, developer or shareholder I had pinned my colours to the iPhone/Android mast.

Please snoflake, at least have some objectivity, fairness and knowledge when considering Nokia. The standard issue iPhone/Android fanboy lines are getting boring (from others too). Thank you.

Oh dear. Said like a true Android/iPhone devotee. You're right, N8 is not at the same level as Android/iPhone (including next gen stuff). It blows them away on all counts quite frankly. And this is what has got Android and iPhone fans across the net seriously worried. They thought Nokia was something of a joke, to ridicule, not competition at the high end. N8 has been a real shock to the system. WAY cheaper, WAY better. Oh and by the way Nokia have seen significant smartphone market share growth for the last 2 quarters where iPhone was flat (as was the smartphone market as a whole) and Nokia achieved this on the basis of apparently 'crap' smartphones. Hmmm. You see, there's the Android/iPhone fans view of the world, and then there's the truth. I'd be seriously worried by Nokia if as a user, developer or shareholder I had pinned my colours to the iPhone/Android mast.

Please snoflake, at least have some objectivity, fairness and knowledge when considering Nokia. The standard issue iPhone/Android fanboy lines are getting boring (from others too). Thank you.[/QUOTE]

unless someone is 12 years old and highly immature i very much doubt that android/iphone devotees are worried about anything. who really cares these days about what they are using unless they are making money from the product? people just want to use something that ticks all of their needs and wants boxes. i was a s60 diehard for years and spent thousands of dollars upgrading to the latest and greatest only to come away disappointed. thats why i am using android now and thats why i doubt that this version of symbian will be pleasant to use. even ewen said it in this podcast, that most people wont even know there is a difference vs s60 5th, they will just know that things are working. i hated that ui and even when they brought in kinetic scrolling it didnt make it useable for me. i hope that symbian 4 does enough to distance itself from the look and feel of s60 5th.

i believe that the technical aspects of the ui are better and i believe that the hardware is better than its closest competitors but i just dont think the user experience will be good enough based on what has been shown. i cant see most of the user interaction being much different when the basic look of the ui is exactly the same. maybe i am wrong, so i will be watching videos of the ui when they become available.