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PR2.0 browser - Any facts?

48 replies · 26,448 views · Started 14 March 2011

matthewrleech 14 Mar 2011, 19:17

Does anybody have concrete facts on what we can expect from the PR2.0 browser?

Everything I've read is positive and it's supposedly 'rewritten', but I've got this horrible feeling...

ShekBeew 14 Mar 2011, 21:52

Does anybody have concrete facts on what we can expect from the PR2.0 browser? Everything I've read is positive and it's supposedly 'rewritten', but I've got this horrible feeling...

😞

matthewrleech 15 Mar 2011, 08:58

ironass wrote:Wouldn't hold your breath on the browser though according to this.

Bring on that "horrible feeling" matthewrleech 😡

http://mynokiablog.com/2011/03/14/video-9-minutes-of-pr2-0-on-nokia-c7-rm675-flashed-with-rm691-firmware/

Just watched the video and that familiar sinking feeling took hold. I'm surprised to see any positive comments about the browser, performance looks the same as PR1.1 to me. The address bar is welcome but hardly ground-breaking.

Ok, sinking feeling shaken off! I'm now back to enjoying all the N8's positives 😊

yellowcan 16 Mar 2011, 08:04

just watched the vid.......looks like the new browser is still not fit for purpose! save us opera, you're our only hope😉

ironass 18 Mar 2011, 01:22

matthewrleech wrote:Another PR2.0 browser video (found it on mynokiablog):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoPz2OrKbg4

That is truly awful. An embarrassment to both Nokia and the user.

I thought it was a joke and had to pause the video to check the details at the beginning. It really is firmware v020.037... Software version date 2011-03-04...Browser version 7.3... Flash version 4... Java version 2.2

That was an agonising 14.15 min's.

Considering it's connected via WiFi, it's slow and laggy. Pinch and zoom has to wait whilst the cross hatching on the page disappears.

You can see the handset having to play "catch-up" all the time as the user gestures and nothing happens and then it suddenly jerks into action.

At around 3.30 min's it's really awful trying to load the DailyMobile page and takes 1.13 min's to do so. This is repeated on other websites.

God only knows what is happening, or supposed to happen from 8.20 min's into the video. I guess it was an attempt to scroll through some of the pages but I'm not sure.

At 11.34 min's after, eventually, loading the New York Times page there is obvious problems with pinch and zoom again as it takes about 7 seconds to catch-up", after which it then has trouble accepting any further gestures to move around the page showing the Japanese Emperor. After this it seems to lose the plot in rendering and pinch and zoom again as well as becoming very jerky.

So, this is the long awaited upgraded browser for Symbian^3 handsets such as the N8, E7, C7, etc.

If this were 2007/8 I might be a bit enthusiastic about it... but it's 2011 and I'm comparing it to my Nexus One on 2.3 (Gingerbread) and to the iPhone 4... and it's cr*p!

In the words of Nokia's CEO, Stephen Elop... "Unbelievable"

matthewrleech 18 Mar 2011, 09:15

@ironass I'm not sure I understood your point 😕

Seriously though, if this is how PR2.0's browser it's going to perform then I'm a little disappointed.

I also think that if the person in that video had been a little more patient and waited for things to load/render before frantically tapping and swiping, our perception would be more favorable.

I just watched the engadget part of the video again and then loaded up the page on my colleague's iPhone. What I noticed was that iPhone's Safari throws up the blank checkerboard when it's got too much to do (such as scrolling quickly while the page is still loading/rendering) which stops the user from trying to click/scroll even more, they're given a visual indication that the phone is busy. During the same page load on Symbian the browser pauses the scroll but leaves the web page on show, this indicates that the scroll gesture has not been recognised and so the user is tempted to have another go thus putting even more load on the browser. On the iPhone I found that once I had the checkerboard up I could almost keep it there indefinitely by quickly applying more scrolling gestures, just like our man did in the video.

Don't get me wrong, I think that the S^3 browser should be better than this. If it was like the iPhone3gs browser I'd be happy.

I'm fortunate that intensive web browsing is low on my list of mobile device requirements.

-- Lol! I just read through my post and spotted a two-word phrase that shows I've been working in Ireland for too long! See if you can find it 🙄 --

yellowcan 18 Mar 2011, 19:30

the new browser really is the killer app for nokia but not in a good way! android and apple owners will be laughing their heads off if they see this video😮

a message for people responsible for new browser.....you lazy bast****! you deserve to be unemployed. i would'nt pay you in dog sh!t

bchliu 18 Mar 2011, 23:57

Probably too early of an indication since this is NOT the final release version. Remember, it is leaked and optimisations do happen right at the end of the development cycle before release. Hold your judgements until you see it on your phone.

jake20 19 Mar 2011, 02:56

yellowcan wrote:the new browser really is the killer app for nokia but not in a good way! android and apple owners will be laughing their heads off if they see this video😮

a message for people responsible for new browser.....you lazy bast****! you deserve to be unemployed. i would'nt pay you in dog sh!t

while i would never wish anyone to get fired, as people have families that depend on them...
but you really have to wonder about the skill, and competence of these Symbian developers for Nokia..

I mean why has it taken so many years to get Symbian modernized? and they still cannot seem to get it right.

Perhaps Elop realized this as well?

monkeyandweasel 19 Mar 2011, 09:59

bchliu wrote:Probably too early of an indication since this is NOT the final release version. Remember, it is leaked and optimisations do happen right at the end of the development cycle before release. Hold your judgements until you see it on your phone.

I am with bchliu on this. Let's see the final release before we start throwing insults at people for not doing their job properly. I would certainly want people to be mature enough to give me the same respect on any project I was working on.

ironass 20 Mar 2011, 07:24

matthewrleech wrote:@ironass I'm not sure I understood your point 😕

Sorry for the delay in replying but I was at the mercy of a few thousand Irishmen on Friday and more than a few pints of Guinness.

I did in fact test out some of those web sites against my Android Nexus One on Gingerbread before posting and I have to say that it did not experience any of the problems demonstrated in that video... either loading or pinch and zoom. Also, 1.13 min's to load the DailyMobile page and the 7 second lag on the New York Times is unacceptable.

I was hoping for something a lot better from PR2.0 than what I already have.

Which brings me to my next point...

bchliu wrote:Probably too early of an indication since this is NOT the final release version. Remember, it is leaked and optimisations do happen right at the end of the development cycle before release. Hold your judgements until you see it on your phone.

As ever bchliu, the voice of reason.

You're right, although dated the 4th March 2011, version 7.3, there could... I sincerely hope... be more developement on it. After all, 7.3 is only one step above the present browser, 7.2, that I'm using.

Try as I might, I cannot find a release date for the v20 firmware in the video.

matthewrleech wrote:-- Lol! I just read through my post and spotted a two-word phrase that shows I've been working in Ireland for too long! See if you can find it 🙄 --

Would it be...

matthewrleech wrote:Seriously though,
? 😃

matthewrleech 20 Mar 2011, 11:55

ironass wrote:Would it be..."seriously though"

Good try 😉

The answer is "our man" 😃

Unfortunately I boobed! After setting the challenge I told the guys in the office and they (my Irish co-workers) couldn't get it either. The reason was that the phrase is "your man" not "our man". They lol'd and said that it was an easy mistake for a posh Englishman to make.

Stuntman 21 Mar 2011, 05:33

I am disappointed in the performance of the browser in this video. I will reserve judgement until I see the official browser. In any case, I still feel that the Android browser on my Desire Z that was announced on the same week as the C7 is still better than the browser on the C7 with a date of this month. Comparing the entire package, my Desire Z with no updates yet is still ahead of the C7 with a very new browser update.

bchliu 22 Mar 2011, 12:43

Never been a fan of Opera - but have been for the Opera Mini though.

The update is nice, but kinda bit overrated imho.. I just tried doing a very quick and rough comparison between the native Browser, Opera 11 (SISX) on my N8 and the native Android Browser on my Acer Liquid E (2.2, 768Mhz). Tried three different pages (normal not mobile pages) and funny enough, Symbian Browser came up first, then Opera, then Android.

My biggest gripe with Native browser is the lack of full flash..

Stuntman 22 Mar 2011, 17:19

bchliu wrote:Never been a fan of Opera - but have been for the Opera Mini though.

The update is nice, but kinda bit overrated imho.. I just tried doing a very quick and rough comparison between the native Browser, Opera 11 (SISX) on my N8 and the native Android Browser on my Acer Liquid E (2.2, 768Mhz). Tried three different pages (normal not mobile pages) and funny enough, Symbian Browser came up first, then Opera, then Android.

My biggest gripe with Native browser is the lack of full flash..

Have you tried Opera Mobile 11 on your Android phone? I'd be interested in the comparison. I believe that Opera Mobile 11 for Android supports Flash.

bchliu 22 Mar 2011, 21:47

Stuntman wrote:Have you tried Opera Mobile 11 on your Android phone? I'd be interested in the comparison. I believe that Opera Mobile 11 for Android supports Flash.

I havent yet.. but will try when I get the chance to. Want to see if I can film side-by-side:

1) Nokia Browser (N8)
2) N900@900Mhz Browser (Cant remember the name of it!!)
3) Android 2.2 Browser (Acer Liquid-E)
4) Opera 11 (SE Vivaz)
5) iPod Touch 8GB 4th Gen 4.2.1 Browser

obviously not very scientific - just doing a few "full" sites.. My guess is that the N900 would come out on top with iPod tipping in a second. But it may very well be dependent on the sites that I visit and whether it is optimised for it.

MontyN95 23 Mar 2011, 17:27

Why's everyone so worked up about the browser. It looks fine to me! Fine it's jerky in places but that's not enough to get overly worked up about. The main reason why the Nokia browser is never gonna be as slick as opera is down to the flash loadin! It's also the reason why other OS browsers seem better than symbian's browser. Even PCs suffer with loading heavy flash based websites so give Nokia a break! We all just want to have our cake and eat it.

IMHO, that browser looks good! I was quite impressed with the way it fully loaded the engadget page which is a very heavy page even for PCs! Even with the impatientness of the user queing up more and more actions for the N8 to deal with hence making it even slower and more jerky. I'm not saying the browser is perfect, but it's very very useable for a mobile phone. It's a long way away from the N900 browser but don't think you'll find a mobile device that will be able to match that for a while!

For everyone throwing their toys out the pram because of the N8 browser, shut up and use Opera, or go buy a bl**dy iPhone and save us all from all your constant dribble and moaning.

Stuntman 23 Mar 2011, 18:21

MontyN95 wrote:Why's everyone so worked up about the browser. It looks fine to me! Fine it's jerky in places but that's not enough to get overly worked up about. The main reason why the Nokia browser is never gonna be as slick as opera is down to the flash loadin! It's also the reason why other OS browsers seem better than symbian's browser. Even PCs suffer with loading heavy flash based websites so give Nokia a break! We all just want to have our cake and eat it.

I use the browser on my phone a lot. The Android browser does a very good job in loading the sites that I frequent. I use Flash content on demand, so I am able to load heavy Flash sites without any major issues. From what I have seen the Symbian browser just doesn't match up to the Android browser and it isn't even close. I want my cake and eat it and I am able to with Android.

For everyone throwing their toys out the pram because of the N8 browser, shut up and use Opera, or go buy a bl**dy iPhone and save us all from all your constant dribble and moaning.

Even though I use an Android phone now, I do not rule out moving back to Nokia in the future. I do have an interest in non-Android phones and do want to see Nokia improve its browser. If my comments and criticisms of the Nokia browser somehow contributes to Nokia improving their browser in the future, then everyone benefits with an improved browser.