Video: The Phones Show – Episode 84 (Review of Nokia N86 and

In episode 84 of The Phones Show, Steve:

• takes a quick look back at the E75
• reviews the Nokia N86, 8MP camera phone
• interviews Lee Williams, Executive Director of the Symbian Foundation

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0A9QyWWFKc4]

The interview of Lee Williams is slightly disheartening as there are various indications that Symbian will predominantly focus on hard key input, and not the growing trend in touch.

When asked about where he stood on Touch vs Hardware button control [at 08:04], Williams answers,

“Well I think when you look at the total size of the smartphone market and the types of products that are relevant for consumers in that market place, I speculate that no more than 30% of that overall market will actually end up being occupied by touch screen products and display only products. So I think you have at least 70% market place out there that will always be well represented by products of a different form factor where people really like their QWERTY, really like their hard inputs and really like the fous that shows up in the UI so that you can one handed and use it in many different aspects of your life”

I’m sure one handed use is not a virtue of hardware keys alone.

Right now, touch screen handsets are the ones bringing innovation to the mobile phone world in terms of changing how the masses perceive how we interact with phones. If Symbian is going to try and entice developers into producing apps, those apps MUST be optimized for touch.  Maybe it shouldn’t be touch vs hardware input, but a combination of the two – but both being equally optimised forms of input, e.g. Palm Pre, G1 and perhaps even the N97.

The interview also covers the new branding of Symbian Foundation, with images that “look like something my four year old can draw”. Hopefully, it is meant to say that the future of Symbian is something so user friendly, that even a four year old can pick it up and use it.

Another interesting part at 10:40, Williams shows us his Samsung i8910 and Nokia N97, but doesn’t show us  the prototype he’s carrying. Maybe the Sony Ericsson Satio? Or could it be a new Nokia? That’s not really the interesting bit – it’s that Williams favours the Samsung product over the Nokia handset – that’s right. Not Nokia….the manufacturer that SHOULD be the king of Symbian handsets.

via 3lib

Tags: n86, N97, Nokia, Nokia n86, Review, Samsung i8910

Category: 3rd edition, 5th Edition, Nokia, Nseries, Reviews, S60, Symbian, Video