Click on me for full screen awesomeness!

The amazing people at Nokia Connects were nice enough to send me a Lumia 800 to trial out for a while, so first off a shout out them for making this possible, they have some truly wonderful people working for them.

Now a bit about the extent of my relationship with OSes other than Symbian/S^3, I have an HP touchpad (Firesale FTW) so I’ve used WebOS as well as Android (CM7 Mods FTW too) on it, I’ve never owned an iOS device but I’ve seen my friends iphones, ipads and ipods more than enough to know quite a bit about the OS; but I have NEVER used Windows Phone (be it Mango, 7 or even 6.5) so the experience with the Lumia 800 was weirdly exciting for me because it mixed an amazing hardware design with an OS that could only be described as “Different”.

Therefore the main point of this review is to hopefully give readers a good look at what Windows Phone is all about, more than a review the Lumia 800 itself. The way I see it most of us Nokia fans were too busy fawning over the N8-00 when Windows Phone was first released (November 2010), of course back then S^3 was still fresh so nobody could have possibly imagined that within a year Nokia phones would be running Windows, for that reason I realized/guessed (possibly incorrectly) that a lot of Nokia fans have no idea what WP is like (to be specific: ME), I don’t want to get into a discussion of whether it was the right choice or not, the fact is that it IS done so let’s see what the new Nokia looks like.

#1) Unboxing + Design

#2) Setting Up the 800

#3) Metro UI & People Hub

#4) Camera:

1) Unboxing + Design:

Box Contents all lined up

There are more than enough unboxing videos of the Lumia 800 floating around the internet, and the hardware specs of the device have been covered more than enough; regardless no review would be complete without an unboxing so here’s my attempt (My first unboxing vid ever, I obviously did a wonderful job, dropping the device before it’s even out of the box and all!)- filmed using my ingenious N8 quad-pod (patent pending)

My first impression of the device design wise is that it’s GORGEOUS, (I had requested a Cyan one but oh well). Even though the 800 is made of polycarbonate (which in all honesty is basically plastic) Nokia still have managed to make it feel amazing. I fail to understand how this feels sturdier than me Aluminum bodied N8 but it does, it feels more compact (which just proves that you can make a device that isn’t glass or metal that doesn’t feel like twig- *cough cough SII Cough* ).

The phone comes with what you would expect: Standard 3.5mm earphones, A Micro-USB cable which doubles out as a charger when attached to the plug converter thing; however Nokia have gone above and beyond, providing a Silicon-Rubber housing for the 800, which hardly adds any width to the device at all, and has a super snug fit (personally I wouldn’t use it; simply because I love the feel of polycarbonate). As you might have noticed in the Quick unboxing I wasn’t all too impressed with the headphones accompanying the device, they had no dedicated music control (just a single talk/answer button) and I couldn’t get them to stay in my ears at all! Not even to test out the sound quality, I literally could not keep them in for more than 5 seconds.

Of course the Lumia 800 (and the 710) use Micro-sims rather than normal sims (seeing as this is a trial device I couldn’t bring myself to cut my sim for a review sorry). The sim and charger port mechanism is really interesting and/or weird; the charger port/USB  is a sort of flip thing where you press down on one side to make it pop-up (very fragile, so be careful), once the USB port door is open you can slide the micro-sim slot to the left a bit to have it pop-out as well; the cool part is that the area around the sim and USB slots are magnetic, to ensure proper closure of the ports I guess.

Design-wise I think it would have been better to have the USB port at either end of the device, not next to the Headphone jack, just because it would be easier to press down on (really difficult to explain but anyone who’s tried the 800 or the N9 should be able to understand).

The 800 comes with a 3.7″ (800×480) AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, which like the N9 is ever so slightly curved making those glorious swiping motions much more fun. I’ve read reviews about where people were bashing the 800 and the N9 for using something called PenTile display (basically if you look really close you *should* be able to see a bunch of lines running through the screen) personally I see nothing at all; in fact the screen is the second best thing about the 800 (after the amazing design), due to the curvature of the screen anything on the display looks like it’s floating somewhere between the phone and you’re fingertips (in the interest of being un-bias it is possible that I don’t see the PenTile because I’m upgrading from my N8 which has a less than acceptable Pixel density).

2) Setting Up the 800:

The first time you boot the Lumia 800 you have an option to set-up your Windows Live account as well as your Nokia account immediately before getting  to anything else (visible in the un-boxing video); however since the WiFi connection wouldn’t have been setup yet I skipped over that part and set it up later. As soon as the Lumia detects a Wifi network in range it asks if you’d like to set-up a Wifi connection with it, alternatively you can set it up through “Setting>Wi-Fi”, However try as I might I wasn’t able to locate the “Nokia Account” later (by the prompt I understood it was referring to a Nokia account similar to my Symbian Nokia account and not a Nokia/Ovi Email account).

Is this Nokia account the Same as Nokia email?

Nokia have included a handy tool called “Contacts Transfer” which can be used to copy all your contacts from an older Symbian device over to your new WP device via Bluetooth, which works quite smoothly (demonstrated below), however one feature I missed was the ability to transfer SMS messages from your older phone onto the new one as well (this function as available between older Symbian devices and Symbian 3).

Setting up your accounts can be a bit tricky if it’s your first time around on WP (check out the Video for a walk-through), I spent the first 30 minutes trying set it up from my “ME hub” rather than from the “Settings>Emails+Accounts” menu. Once you’ve got your accounts up and running all your contacts from all accounts (Facebook, Gmail, Hotmail, Twitter) will appear merged together in your “People Hub”. You can choose to filter out these accounts leaving only ‘Windows Live’ (Phone numbers/contacts are saved to your windows live account); unfortunately with 4 different accounts synced my people hub became a complete mess, cluttered with emails of people I only contacted once mixed with random Facebook friends and twitter followers; a feature that is definitely needed here is a confirmation of contact syncing when the details aren’t enough e.g.: if I have two contacts simply named ‘Joe’ on two different accounts I would have preferred a prompt checking if this the same Joe or not.

3) Metro UI & People Hub

Side By Side against My N8 Running Belle

One of the most unique features about WP is the Metro UI/Tiles look, rather than Widgets; WP is based on a single ‘Homescreen’ on which you can place as many  ‘Live Tiles’ as you want, but only 2 or 1 tiles per row depending on the width of the tile (Reminds me of early S^3 widgets). The tiles on WP Mango are called “Live Tiles” due to the fact they are constantly updated/refreshed to give a more interactive feel to the user, allowing you to view your missed calls, emails, messages and much more without having to access said location; the Live tile simply displays the fact that you have a message on your home screen.

When In standby mode there is almost no way to tell if the Lumia 800 is even on or not, unlike the N9 which has the amazing “double-Tap” to wake up, or S^3 phones with their always on Clocks, the 800 appears dead unless the lock screen button is pressed, upon which you get to the unlock screen which displays your upcoming events, the time & date, notifications as well as battery life.

Once the phone is unlocked you get to the Metro-UI which can be customized to multiple colors depending on your preference, to change the theme color simply head to ‘settings>Theme and choose whatever color suites your mood.  However the Lumia 800 comes with a special “Nokia-Blue” color for its UI which seems to be the most attractive on the phone.

Windows Phone distinguishes itself from other OSes by bringing your contacts to life, on WP contacts stop being names on your phone and become ‘people’; hence the People Hub, which combines all your accounts from Google, Windows Live, Facebook and Twitter all in one place to keep you updated and constantly linked. WP automatically merges contacts from different accounts with the same name together (which lead to a bit of confusion due to incorrect merging), each contact has a number or tabs including: the main contact info/Profile, What’s New (which brings you the latest updates from FB and twitter), Pictures (which brings all pictures recently uploaded) and history which displays your latest contact with the contact be it via email, phone or FB message.

I love how some of the next pane/tab is visible at the end of the screen

The Virtual keyboard on WP is an absolute joy to use, with accurate text correction and nice tapping sounds every time a key is hit, it’s definitely my favorite onscreen keyboard; a complete 180 degrees polar opposite of the atrocious stock S^3 keyboard that we all love to hate. I didn’t bother reviewing the Keyboard here as Jay has already made a nice comparison video between Symbian Anna and WP 7.5 which can be found HERE. My only complaint about the onscreen keyboard would be that in landscape mode the space on the edges is not fully utilized, losing about a complete centimeter to the time in the upper left corner.

Market place & Pre-Loaded Apps:

Apps… the whole reason Nokia have a Windows Phone, “ecosystem” that magical word, what’s so special about the Windows Phone market place? At this point I’m going to say something that I’ve never believed until I used WP: “Quantity is irrelevant!” this is where my usage of Android kicks in, sure android might have a gazillion apps, but almost 75% of them are buggy, have a garbage UI and consist of trying to connect two dots together (Nokias Snake on the 2100 was more sophisticated than some of the apps on the android marketplace).

Windows Phone on the other hand seems to be promising in both aspects, quantity as well as quantity; the growth of the WP market is steadily increasing (currently at 55K) but what’s more important is the fact that they are fifty-five thousand quality apps out there. The one consistent factor between almost all apps I’ve tried on the Lumia 800 is the fact that they have a beautiful UI alongside a well coded game/app engine (due mainly to the fact that Microsoft is offering large incentives to bring in the developers).

The market place app itself is beautifully designed dividing its content into Nokia collection/apps/games/music/podcasts, with detailed classification of each category/genre of apps and games; for example games in the market place are classified into Xbox live/ top/ free/ new making finding whatever you’re looking for loads easier. Another wonderful feature is that as far as I can tell every single app/game has a trial mode meaning no need for buyer’s remorse, try out the app if you like it buy it; if not nothing lost.

One feature setting the Lumia 800 apart from the rest of the Windows Phones out there is the inclusion of the ever amazing Nokia Maps/Drive, which is just as smooth and amazing as it is on S^3 with a considerably faster GPS lock than that on my N8. Maps can be downloaded for your selected country from within ‘Nokia Drive’ to enable navigating in offline mode. Nokia Maps also has a feature to find nearby popular places, relying on tour guides as well as other users reviews to give you the best recommendations of nearby places.

Places of Interest

Nokia also includes their own “Nokia Music” which enables you to connect to Nokias Own music server (formerly Ovi Music) rather than connecting to the Windows Phone marketplace to download any tracks you might have purchased on your old Symbian phone. Nokia also included ‘Gig Finder” which locates nearby concerts/events depending on your location and will display them within the app (sadly no gigs were located when I tried this in Jordan); one other interesting feature is something called “Nokia Mix Radio” which is their own Online Radio service that customizes playlists depending on what music you have on your phone, to help find music similar to your taste. Nokia Mix Radio enables you to directly download the tracks you enjoy from the Music store; however my Lumia 800 didn’t have Mix Radio at all, nor was there an option to activate it (possibly region related?? Although it’s an online music service so that shouldn’t matter???).

*Should* Display Mix Radio as well in the list

4) Camera:

Now to what is usually the most notable feature on Nokia phones: The camera. Without beating around the bush I must say that the 8mp shooter in the Lumia 800 was sadly a let-down, here’s why. The main reason is that alot of previous N8 owners who fell in love with the N8s camera are going to be switching to WP soon, unless they want to stick around for the rumored N8 successor which is supposedly running Symbian as well; regardless for me transitioning from the king of camera phones down to the Lumia 800 (yes, I used the word ‘down’ cause it is indeed a couple of steps down) was a difficult process, on my N8 I became used to “Quick-Draw Point and Shoot” with almost all pictures coming out at near professional range quality. The Lumia 800 on the other hand is a phone that is difficult to get a handle on, but once you get setting just right to it can still produce an impressive shot.

Now the 800s camera isn’t as horrible as I’m making it out to be but as mentioned I’m comparing it to the abilities of my N8. Normal everyday capturing is quick and simple, and will usually give you a decent picture provided there’s enough lighting available; however the landscape low light photos were absolutely dreadful barely capturing any light at all (smaller lens?) compared to the iPhone4s and the N8 it didn’t stand a chance at low-light images. Macro images surprisingly were extremely nice, even with below optimal lighting they still came out stunning, even somehow surpassing those of my N8s when it came to super closeups.

Random well-lit photo, with full auto settings on.

A close-up macro mode in low light, surprisingly nice (the candle is surrounded by glass so no flash was used for capturing this)

Cookie anyone?

Un-impressive low light scene capture, the water isn't supposed to be lit, it's just normal water (BTW that's the worlds tallest fountain)

Same Exact photo taken with the iPhone4s 8MP camera.

More Images Here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/23218958@N05/sets/72157628855141245/

The video capturing was above par on the 800, it has the ability to shoot at 720p with full autofocus, which results in decent sample videos even with indoor fluorescent lighting; the autofocus was snappy to respond and coped well with closeups/macro videos. However it did seem that some colors ended up over saturated when filming up close, in the video below (final 5 seconds or so) the crown of the parrots head is actually closer to a greenish-yellow, yet in the video it appears almost blue/turquoise, regardless I can’t complain about the Lumia 800s video capturing abilities as it was overall impressive.

Another point worth mentioning is the beautiful camera/video camera UI on windows phone, it’s a completely flexible experience allowing you to swipe directly into your gallery from the camera view, as well as pinch out to view your previously taken pictures side by side with whatever you’re looking at in normal camera view. I also loved the display of the video length during recording; the big numbers on the screen are large enough to be viewed from 3 feet away yet un-obtrusive to your recording view.

Split screen of previous image alongside live view from camera lens

I’m not sure whether this option is unavailable in all WP or just the Lumia 800; but there is no ability to zoom while recording (you have to select your preferred zoom level before starting, and stick with it). Another thing that puzzled me is the inability to use the volume buttons to zoom in/out in normal camera mode, nor can you pinch to zoom, the only way to zoom is to use the onscreen +/- buttons which in all honesty is annoying.

Beautiful Camera UI

5) Media (Pictures, Videos and Music)

Media on Windows Phone is split into Music and Pictures, with each type of content appearing in its respective category; while videos appear in both categories. Both Pictures and Music come with their own live tiles that continuously randomizes different background depending on the content of the phone.

The Photo hub consist of 3 different panes Content on Phone/What’s New/ Favorites, Displayed on a backdrop of a random photo from your album split onto three separate screens giving a sort of panoramic view to your pictures.  “Content on the phone” display all content on the phone itself be it downloaded, captured or photos from a favorite contact you chose to save on your phone. “What’s New” displays the latest photo media coming from all accounts you have linked to your phone be it Twitter updates, Facebook, or skydrive pictures shared via Windows Live; What’s new also enable you to directly view all comments on a specific picture and to add your own without having to enter the browser or Social hub. Favorites are a set of photos you choose to star or add to favorites, making them quickly accessible and making them appear as the background for the Photo Hub and the Live tile more often.

The Music Live Tile will take you to your music library where you are first greeted with a pane containing your last played music, and currently playing for quick access; from there you can quickly access the rest of your music library and playlists by simply swiping to the right. The Music hub directly supports entering the Zune music store to download Music, Videos or Podcasts from the Music Marketplace; exclusive to Lumia phones however is “Nokia Music” which also syncs your OVI account music files to your phone and bringing you access to Nokias “Mix Radio”.

When playing music you have an option to use “Smart DJ-Mixer” which is an addition to Windows Phone Music player, basically it searches your music library to tracks similar to what you choose to play be it by Genre, Artist, or Album and plays them after each other to suite your mood, a nice feature for those of us with 16GBs of music. Music can also be controlled from your homescreen or lock screen by simply pressing the volume buttons, which will bring up the currently playing track with the options to skip/previous and Play/Pause.

Videos as mentioned can be accessed from both the Music hub and Picture Gallery, playing only in landscape mode with the ability to resize to full screen or play in a slightly windowed mode. Unfortunately the Lumia 800 is incapable of playing DivX files and .AVI which must first be formatted into .Mp4 through Zune. As a long time Symbian user I found myself constantly long pressing on photos looking for  a “mark multiple” option, which sadly does not exist, therefore you have to delete each photo/video separately one-by-one.

6) Bing Search:

Search on Belle Vs. Mango (Winner is obvious)

In all honesty the moment I opened the search feature on the Lumia 800 I tried to look into the settings on how to switch the default search engine to Google (hint: you can’t), for good reason though. The Bing search that comes bundled with the Lumia 800 is nowhere near the slow socially awkward search engine that I last tried about 4 years ago, the new Bing is fast smooth and sexy, coming with image search, voice input search and a music finder (similar to Shazam) it truly is a fully functional wonder.

The background Image on the Bing Search (Quickly accessed by the capacitive magnifying glass button) changes every day showing you a random image with a set of new ‘information squares’ related to the search image, which will either take you to a related Photo or Map location depending on the ‘hint’.

Normal text searches are straight forward carried out on Bing bringing you Web Results, Images Results and even Location based results depending on where you are. Once your location is enable you can select any location from Bing maps and search for Highlighted areas, Shopping places, ‘eat & drink’ as well as ‘See + Do’. My two favorite features regarding Bing search are Picture Search and music detecting service, Picture search scans QR codes and gives you their direct link to their source, or it can be used to scan text and translate it into multiple different languages. The even more impressive feature is the music identifying feature (Anyone who’s used Shazam knows what I’m talking about); it took less than 5 seconds of playing “Adele’s- Set Fire to The Rain” (at random time-frames) for it to pop-up as the result with a link directly to the Zune Marketplace in case you feel like purchasing whatever track you just found.

Overall Bing search is extremely impressive (although I’d prefer it if Microsoft stopped promoting the phrase ‘Bing it’), if Bing had as much functionality on my desktop as it did on the Lumia 800 then it would be my default engine in a heart-beat.

*Note: I didn’t review the browser due to the fact that I’m not really good at browser comparison, the only note I can say about it is that don’t let the fact that it’s called “Internet Explorer” put you off, it’s really good

7) Miscellaneous:

(Some of the things about WP in general that bugged me, especially being a long time Symbian user)

First off of course is the fact that WP is a closed platform, meaning there’s a very limited amount of freedom when it comes to customization and side-loaded apps; in all honesty my biggest argument against iPhones was “at least I can do what I want without jumping through hoops”, sadly you can’t say the same when you’re using a Windows Phone. Until almost 2 weeks ago Windows had offered a small piece of solace in the form of “Chevron unlocker” which for $9.00 enabled you to purchase a token that ‘unlocks’ your Windows Phone device, this unlock enabled you to side-load (install from outside the marketplace) up to 10 apps at a time; not exactly Symbian/Android freedom, but it was nice. Unfortunately as of two weeks ago Chevron ran out of unlockers and this option is no longer available; the only alternative is a $99 developers unlock which is quite pricy for something that most of us have grown to as a standard. Sadly the lockdown on outside settings isn’t just for applications, even the ringtones are just a selected few, without the direct option to set your favorite tunes as your ringtone. The limitations have even hit Bluetooth, meaning you can’t send media files over Bluetooth from one device to another (I tried multiple times with my N8 as well as my touchpad to the Lumia but always received the same failure message).

Another puzzling ‘feature’ about Windows Phone is that every-time you lock the screen your WiFi disconnects, presumably in the interest of saving battery, but I found this ridiculous; considering how  if your connected to cellular data the data connection remains active when the device is in standby which definitely takes a much larger toll on the battery life. At the very least there should be an option to stay connected to WiFi while device is locked, how else would someone without a data plan receive Emails and Notifications???

The battery life on the 800 is ‘amusing’ to say the least, as it doesn’t seem to follow any laws at all; the first two days that I received the device it barely made it 6 hours each day (without a sim/airplane mode)! However the battery life has steadily increased with me over the past week to make it easily through a complete day; add to that the promised Battery update sometime mid-January and it shouldn’t be a problem.

Props to @Stephenquin58 for this!

Of course if you plan on owning a windows phone you’d better have Zune installed on your PC/Laptop as it’s the only easy way to copy content to and from your mobile. Thankfully though Zune isn’t as tedious to use as the original Ovi Suite.

Wrap-Up:

The Lumia 800 is a beautiful phone, paired with what is possibly one of the most beautiful and consistent UIs I’ve seen so far, sure it might have some niggles in the design and setbacks in the OS being walled up; but when I think about the amazing People hub, the beautiful screen design and the general feel of the device it’s definitely a phone that shouldn’t be passed on, or at least not before taking an extremely long look at what you’re giving up, followed by second thoughts and doubts if you choose something else.

Windows Phone is an OS that was obviously not rushed, it was kept under covers until almost every bug and defect were weeded out, appearing only in its best; unfortunately the OS itself is more walled up than most Symbian fans will be used to, but nothing that’s an absolute deal breaker alone.

Obviously the 800 isn’t for everyone, if you want a N8 Successor this IS NOT the phone for you, if you want a second N900 this IS NOT the phone for you. If like me you grew bored of having an amazing phone that unfortunately had almost no proper apps, running an OS that had potential but was neglected and under-appreciated, if you want to upgrade your phone to something more modern with an OS that’s silky smooth and a beautiful yet strange UI then THIS IS the phone for you.

-Once again thanks to the people at Nokia Connects for making this possible, you guys are great!

It’s been a while since we mentioned anything about Symbian apps so here’s a nice FREE one to keep you busy, Incredible Circus by Developers  INDT is a cute loosely physics based game where you star as a circus stunt performer, your objective is straight-forward: get to the top platform. But as always it’s not that simple, you have to bounce off walls, through barrels, past blindfolded knive throwers and Fire breathers to get there.

Blast through cannons on 32 levels as a bodysuited daredevil. Use elastic bands and trampolines to jump above obstacles or through fire rings, remembering to avoid falling and cracking your helmet. Be on the lookout for fire breathers as you bounce walls on multiple combos in the pursuit of cheers and trophies. The fun goes on as more and more circuses open their doors for this incredible stuntman.

Most importantly, the app itself IS NOT ported form any other OS as far as I can tell, which would explain why it’s wonderfully smooth from start to finish, the design is gorgeous and the graphics are quite nice.

Once you start the game you get a simple enough menu witha  backdrop of our hero/circus performer.

Once you choose to play you can select which ‘circus you want to preform in’ (currently they’re are only two available but it says “Coming soon” on the third so expect some updates.

Of course as is usual you get to the level select, where you can only reach the next level by beating the previous level (which of course constantly get harder and more frustrating).

Drag the stretchy cord down to hurl your fearless stuntman from platform to platform, or into walls if you feel like it…

Your score is calculated based on where you land on the platform (Middle =Perfect 150 points, to the side = 80 points, at the edges = 30 points), try to get as many perfects as possible in a row to get a multiplication bonus!

Once you reach the final platform you receive a trophy depending on how well you did (Gold/Silver/Bronze).

Over all Incredible Circus is a entertaining app (possibly addictive), at first I expected an Angry birds rip-off so I pushed back trying it out; but once I played around on it I’d say it’s a mix between “Cut the Rope” and “Doodle Jump” with an interesting twist of it’s own. Definitely a game worth trying out, especially since it’s free!

Link: http://store.ovi.com/content/214283 (currently available for all S^3 devices- regardless of version)

*Of course I was stupid enough to download this game the night of my Oral Pathology Final….. Goodbye Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma; Hello Circus Performer (If I don’t stop playing I’ll probably end up a circus performer myself)

HAPPY NEW YEAR Nokia Fans and Employees!

Anyway, I am not here to talk about the success of these devices or the Nokia “ecosystem” and their strategy. I am here though, to share a comparison between the N9 and Lumia 800, MeeGo vs. Mango, Swipe vs. Metro. I won’t bother with the hardware a lot, just mainly when it comes in conjunction with aspects of the software.

Jay: Michael asked me to just take a look but I decided to butt in and interrupt now and again instead of waiting to comment later :p I’ve grayed it out though so you pay attention more to Michael’s stuff.

Likes about N9 and MeeGo

• Swipe: So simple and so easy to pick up. It has definitely become second nature. In fact, I swipe on my N8 and on any other phone I use, because it has become a habit. [Jay: It's amazing. Really. Except in some games where you accidentally swipe away, other than that, everywhere else, swipe is just very, very awesome]
• Double tap screen to wake: Like swipe, second nature. When I first opened the Lumia 800′s box, booted it, I double tapped the screen. I got frustrated that it wasn’t working, until I realised, “Wait, it’s not my N9″. [Jay: This and the swipe to unlock is actually not a natural movement at first. Everyone I've shown N9 to can't unlock the screen. However, once they get it, they find it very straight forward. This like pinch and zoom (which is also unnatural at first) becomes a must have gesture when you learn it.]
• Unique: It is the only device of its kind. (Sorry N950, you don’t count! )
• Three Homescreens: These views are so easy to use and get used to, I am having trouble living without it on the Lumia. (Live tiles helps and I’ll talk about that too.)
• Hackability: I know this isn’t for everyone, but neither is the device. The N9 does target a niche market. I like the inclusion of developer mode. Although the OS isn’t as user customisable as Symbian and Android, you can still modify the system A LOT. ( Like I’ve shown you with adding IM accounts, changing icons from static to dynamic etc.)
• No self reboots: The only reboots I ever do, are after I use terminal, and the restart is needed for changes to take effect.
• Real Multitasking: This is probably the largest thing that I forget about when using multiple devices. MeeGo-Harmattan doesn’t “freeze” the applications. They indeed run in the background, visible when you navigate to a webpage, swipe away, and watch it load in the Multitasking homescreen.
• Screensaver: I struggle to live without this. It is so handy just pick up the device, look at the screen and see the time, as well as any new email, call or message notifications.
• Laminated Screen: It just feels so nice under your fingers. I know I said I wouldn’t talk about the hardware, but it relates to software. It makes those swiping action so much easier and smoother

Dislikes about N9 and MeeGo:

• “Dead OS”: Although Nokia continually states it will get support, many are skeptical. This mainly impacts developers. No users, No developers, No apps. And consequently, No apps, No Users.
• Battery Consumption: The N9 has decent battery life, but I expect it to be better. In the current times of smartphones, battery is a major part that influences user decision. (Android is renowned for being heavy on the battery, thus many people will go elsewhere.) I tend to get at least a day ( my day is usually 13+ hours switching between 3G, WiFi and no signal at all, so that is something to consider) out of it. Which is still good don’t get me wrong. I am just greedy and want more. For most people, this will be enough.
• Ringer Volume: I find it is way too soft, even on full. I had to go through some terminal commands, to up the volume. (Yes, even though it is full, the volume can go higher? ) [I find speakers on both Lumia and N9 to be quite poor. There's no body to the sound and they're kinda quiet. Tinny and quiet. It's annoying to hear punchier sounds from my Omnia )
• Keyboard: It is way better than Symbian Anna/Belle, but I tend to, more often than not, hit the full stop/period ( . ) instead of a space. It is quite annoying. (At least some apps let me use landscape keyboard so this alleviates the issue a bit, but still, it is annoying.) No, I will not use Swype, it is even worse. [Haha, agree. It's the best Nokia virtual keyboard by far, but usability pales in comparison to Lumia/4S]
• Messaging: I love it. You can have Skype, MSN, Facebook chat, etc. in the one app. (“Wait, why is this in the dislikes?”)  I dislike that each service is separated. It would be nice if (like iOS and Mango) the services where in the same thread or linked contacts, just differentiated by a line across the thread saying “Text”, “Skype”, “Facebook” or whatever, or even, a thumbnail icon next to the time stamp.

Likes about Lumia 800 and Mango:

• Live Tiles: Okay, they aren’t the widgets you are used to on Symbian or Android, but they are still very helpful. Its simple, and elegant, looking a lot less cluttered than Symbian.
• Metro UI and Minimalism: Something I wasn’t sure about using at first was the whole Metro UI (Tiles and panoramic view), but I am warming up to it. It is incredibly fluid and simple to use.
• Camera UI: I like the way you swiping from the top(or left if in landscape), to view previously captured items is a really polished and fluid feature. Saves having to select gallery and scroll through items.
• 270 Degree Screen Rotation: I like it because it is different from what I am used to. It helps in bed sometimes as whilst it is charging, the phone can rotate so the cable isn’t being pulled as much.
• Pictures: This is super cool. The gallery actually connects to your Facebook account, and populates itself with the albums you have shared with your friends.
• Messaging: Like I stated above, I like how Mango groups your chat messages and texts in the same thread, and it is so simple to switch between the two.
• Build Quality: I know it isn’t SW related, but I must say, the glass on the Lumia 800 flows seamlessly into the body. I cannot feel the edge of the glass. Sadly, I can’t say the same for my N9. Maybe I am just unlucky?
• “Me” Tile: This is really handy. It retrieves notifications for you automatically, and will inform you when you have “new items”. Helps when your Facebook tile isn’t up the top and you forget to scroll down and look.
• Keyboard: This is by far, the best keyboard on a touch screen I have ever used. I think I have spelt two words wrong so far. That is way better than the constant full-stop instead of space that happens with my N9.

Dislikes about Lumia 800 and Mango:

• Random Shutdowns: Within the first two days, the device shut itself down about a dozen times. The first was during installing apps, so I shrugged it off. Then they became more random, not having a common cause. (During messaging, calling Voicemail, WhatsApp, Facebook, XBox Live!, Standby and surfing the web.) [Jay: I'd just like to add that another Lumia from Nokia Connects, the one we're using with Steve is experiencing similar random shut down problems. Mine and my batman lumia have had none at all. Never had it in 10 months with Omnia. Batch problem?]
• Arranging Live Tiles: When you arrange the tiles, there can sometimes be blank spaces where the tile once was, due to shifting it around. Tiles don’t just move to the next spot, pushing everything over one, instead creating a new gap. Some people may like this, I sadly don’t. [Jay: I would also like live tiles to have a scroll bar at the side so when I have filled my screen with tonnes of tiles, I can quickly jump to particular group of tiles via scrollbar]
• Contact Transfer: This was shocking. I had the vast majority of my contacts entered as “<unnamed>” or just the number. Even after using it for a week or two, my contacts differ between Lumia and N9, even though it is the same Sim-Card. [Jay: I love Contact Transfer. It's what my Omnia dearly misses and is a great Nokia asset to transfer contacts. It works a treat for me, and Steve even managed to get his to pick him his LG dumbphone contacts]
• Call Quality: This is shocking. Even when I have full signal, (which is rare on the Lumia), I can barely hear the recipient of the call, and they can barely hear me. [No issue with call quality on mine. Normally on HSDPA but it depends on T-Mobile which seems to have a 70% suck rate in the UK. My Lumia on O2 always has signal, like N9 and N8]
• Signal Strength: I know it is supposed to be the same as my N9, but I doubt it. Maybe the indicator is too weird for my liking, as it is greyed out all the time, and I’m not sure if that is for 2G connection, or no signal :/ I find I need to reboot the device for it to fetch a signal and download text messages backed up for days.
• No Screensaver/Standby Screen: Extremely hard to get used to, coming from the N9. It is so useful as I take a glance at my phone and I know the time, and if anyone has contacted me. Okay, I know I can tap the lock button on the 800, but it is just that one less task that, for me, would make the experience a bit more pleasant and refined. [Jay: I love the N9/Symbian's AMOLED standby clock. I like seeing it when the light is off and I don't know where my Lumia/Omnia has gone but can see N8/N9. Or if just at a glance, I can look at the time, no button pressing necessary]
• Tethered Software Updates: The “luxury” that I have grown accustomed to on Symbian and MeeGo, of updating OTA through the device, is a must. Forcing the user to connect the device to a computer to update, is stupid. It will most likely mean that the user won’t update for a while, because of the hassle, or won’t update at all. (App updates happen on device, so why not FW? Besides more complex etc. )
• Ringtone Customisation: As far as I can tell, and I’ll be happy to be wrong, the only way to add additional ringtones, is through apps. This is stupid. If the app doesn’t have the latest tune you’re looking for, you can’t set it as your tone. [Jay: Whilst WP has done themselves a service by making ringtone apps, the whole act of adding a ringtone yourself is a little cumbersome. Pus you don't get to set it as a message tone. It's a little annoying and needs to be addressed in Tango/Apollo. Seriously, it's not difficult to do, right?]

I could definitely go on and on about both for hours. But I think I have put you readers through enough torturous reading. You are probably thinking, “well, what is Michael’s verdict?” The answer isn’t simple. If you want different, you go for the N9. Completely different experience (at least for now) than anything else you will find. If you want something with apps, and that will get all the love and support you want, go Lumia 800. Personally, I love both. I have been swapping them around every few days, spending more time with the Lumia 800. (Maybe because I know I have to give it back soon ) I like the simplicity of the Lumia 800, but then again, why “use the front door when you can use the back, or side doors” of the N9, thanks to Swipe?

I do know I will miss some things from the Lumia, mainly the Virtual KBD, “Me Tile”, push notifications for Facebook, sync/backup to skydrive etc, but they are all things that can be added to the N9 in updates, and also will be improved upon in the Lumia devices to come and WP Apollo and Tango updates.

Michael

I’m not exactly sure how many of you are racing enthusiasts, even if you aren’t I suggest you try this app (Yes I’m recommending the app before even starting the review, here’s why). Personally I consider myself an above-average car fan, nothing over the top but just enough to get excited when I see a rare car (I don’t follow ANY championships AT ALL), but I was interested in the WRC because one of the legs/tracks is actually in Jerash, Jordan- seen above (that’s where I am YAY!- I was planning on checking it out with some friends but we totally forgot about it).

Well a quick re-cap anyways, the 2011 season is of course over, won by Sebastian Loeb  for the eighth time straight, I would not want to mess with this guy, I’ve tried rally driving on Gran Turismo 5 and IT IS HARD!!! so that’s a serious achievement. The 2012 season starts sometime late January, and if you’re interested in cars at all I suggest you keep this app with you till then.

The Review:

Nokias’ WRC Live app is available for all Nokia platforms from S40 to Windows Phone- (Exclusive for Nokia Lumias) & Meego too! FOR FREE.  The app itself is EXTREMELY thorough, it has everything from normal news, to championship rankings, to hall of fame, and of course it has content Exclusive to the app not even available on the official WRC.com from images to videos to live text commentary.

Now as mentioned above I’ve never followed a single racing event (Except what I hear on TopGear – Salute to Jezzah, Hamster and James for my favorite show), so I wasn’t expecting much once I installed the app (My initial intention was just a quick review to enter the contest- more on that later); but I was honestly surprised once I saw how awesome the app was.

From a developers point of view the integration of the app into the OS is really impressive (tested on S^3/N8-00), I assume it’s written in QT (not sure how to check) which would explain why it’s really smooth. For an app with as much content as this I expected slow stuttering performance with the occasional un-responsiveness, but none of that was there at all. Transition from one topic/content section to another is nice and fluid with no apparent lag.

One thing I really liked about the app was the integration of the phone’s status onto it, something as simple as informing me that my battery is low is a nice touch that proves that the app was made by someone who understands how the OS runs (of course being an official Nokia app they should).

Once you open the app after the initial loading screen (first screen-shot) you get to the screen above/ home-screen, as you can see you can select between news (the bar on-top automatically refreshes giving you the latest news. To the left under “just finished” you’ll find a re-cap of the latest race (in this case the final race of the season in Wales), and on the right you can access ALOT of information about whatever you want, be it Race results, Drivers history/hall of fame, or exclusive media.

News:

Once you select the “News” tab you’ll find a list of articles even in the off season (23rd of Dec. = today), which means you can stay on top of things even when the seasons over, best part is it’s not an RSS feed, it’s a full news app; meaning no need to open the browser for more pictures/details jsut tap on it and you’re there. You can even share the news article through Facebook or Email!

Live Text- commentary, Race Overview & Championship Standings-

Simple but effective, live updates for you on the go brings you twitter feeds with the “#WRC” hashtag as well as official updates for when you’re not in front of the TV.

The WRC Live App even has a Route Overview which shows you the track/course outline on our favorite Ovi/Nokia Maps (another sign of how well integrated this app is, reminds me of sportstracker a bit; except instead of running/hiking your zooming through mud, sand and snow)

You can even turn on Itinerary/split time records to get detailed info about how long it takes each racer to finish each leg/lap, plus the split difference between the racers!

Of course you can always check the rally results at any time to see what the standing of your favorite driver is under Championship Standings,  where you can find detailed results for every single leg of the  rally so far including what position each driver got and what their total score is.

Drivers/Teams-

Here you can find all the information about every driver participating in the rally along with a nice list of ‘Hall of Famers” each with more information about their career history than a Wikipedia page.

Anyone else notice “The Stig” ???

Media Content:

As mentioned before the app contains Exclusive Images and Videos (that’s how Nokia rolls, none of that mainstream stuff) from crashes to interviews to race round-ups, unfortunately for some reason I wasn’t able to view any of the videos as I kept on getting a server error. (Can someone check if it’s a wide-spread problem or only me?)

Thankfully though the images were working fine, and that by itself is a treat; some of the images available are truly breathtaking, capable of conveying the intensity and sheer awesomeness involved in the World Rally Championship. Which is of course the main point of this whole app; so well done on that front Nokia

Of course you can also choose to share these photos via email/Facebook as well, so you have no excuse not to spread the racing fever.

Wrap-up:

Throughout the whole experience of this app I only felt that two things were missing; (well not missing, probably just because this app spoiled me so much that I found myself craving for more). Anyways if possible two things I’d like to see are:

• The ability to save/download media content onto your own mobile device, or at least be able to set them as wallpaper. (If I can share them with others I might as well help myself first)
• A little silly but I felt that the app could use some background music, maybe at least through the first loading screen; something rally related, maybe some engines roaring or crowds cheering- Just my own personal crazy opinion.

The Nokia WRC app is truly something worth downloading, it has more content than most “premium/paid” apps and it runs as smooth as you could hope for; head on over to the Nokia store to download it.

http://store.ovi.com/content/128268

Or if you’re still not convinced watch our quick video review (not really that quick):

And heres the official preview video by Nokia:

How to Win a Lumia 800-

(I know it’s the part most of you are here for), The people over at Nokia connects are running a competition, simply all you have to do is review the Nokia WRC app and share it to enter the competition to win a Lumia 800.

- As I was saying above I was planning on doing a tiny review in the comments section about the app, just to enter the competition, but once I tried the app it felt unfair to sum it up in 50 words. Good Luck.

In case you’re interested here are some shots of 2011 season (showing Nokias partnership with the WRC, as well as some awesome looking cars)

Of course you can find a bunch more over at Nokia Connects Flickr Page or at the Official WRC Website (contains alot of the images available through the app):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nokiaconnects/sets/72157628536008907/

http://www.wrc.com/fanzone/gallery/

Of all the Nokia phones I’ve owned the sturdy 2100 is the clear winner, that thing was a beast; not only was it impossible to break but one night I forgot it outside on the balcony in the pouring rain and all the buttons stopped working (of course I was too afraid to tell my dad), so I simply popped off the covers and put it on top of  the radiator over night… Next day it was as good as new.

Now of course as technology has advanced screens have grown in size, phones have become slimmer and a million new pieces of gadgetry have been crammed in… All the more things to go wrong. What truly surprises me is that not a lot does go wrong when it comes to modern Nokias, sure the body work gets messed up (will get to that later) but the main components of the phone seem to keep on truckin’.

I’m the last person in the world to whom the words ‘gentle’ or ‘careful’ can be applied, especially when it comes to emptying my pockets after a 6 hour lab, I’ve literally thrown my phones across the room; now alot of people do that but the difference is that with a Nokia you don’t run after it to make sure it’s alright, you either wait for it to bounce back to you or you pick it up in the morning on your way out. There is no need for excessive care that takes out the delights of what a phone should be, which in my opinion is ‘to make your life easier’; not to have you constantly worrying about what’s going to happen. With Nokias what’s going to happen to the phone in your pocket is an after-thought (if at all) rather than dictating your actions for fear of it’s safety.

The Body:

So we’ve established that dropping your phone probably won’t mess up your camera, or ruin your speaker; but what about the casing of modern Nokia phones? My past 3 Nokia phones have all faired nicely against the everyday test (which is basically living with me) but interestingly each one of them had it’s own critical design flaw. (starting in reverse order)

• N73- Amazing build overall (even-though it was just plastic) but the main problem was the joystick key in the middle, which would start to get screwy after a couple of months (not just in mine, more than 5 friends had the same problem).
• X5800- Sadly possibly one of the lesser quality Nokia phones as the plastic casing material felt ridiculously cheap, and  the Slider/Housing for the stylus was horrible; after just 3 days the stylus started falling out on its own. Plus the pins that kept the batter casing in place were also extremely flimsy.
• N8-00- (I don’t know why I bother with the ‘-00′ even though the N8 successor obviously isn’t going to be ‘-01′ ,but not the point right now) The casing on the N8 is a work of beauty, the Adonized Aluminum is truly a stroke of genius it absorbs more hits and damage than anything you could imagine, sadly the N8′s fatal flaw: the black plastic casing on the end-caps. I know the normal end-caps are there for increased reception-which is fine, sure they get a bit scratched but that’s only normal; however the black casing on both ends is just some REALLY thin and fragile, I mean this stuff just falls right off (I lost the part around the headphone jack when it fell from my pocket at the gym onto a carpeted floor- less than 2 feet! And I just noticed the part around the power button – FAIL). Also notice the hairline crack on the mini-HDMI port, if you head over to the Nokia forums you’ll see that loads of people (myself included) had that crack after just opening the port once. Another major problem I’m facing with the design of the N8 is the micro-USB port which doesn’t connect to my PC/Charger unless it’s set JUST right, meaning even the tiniest wiggle will cause it to disconnect; which of course makes it extremely difficult so synch or charge (not sure if this is only me or if it’s a common problem.)

Well that’s my take on Nokias build quality, let us know what you think about your recent Nokia devices, how do they stand everyday usage? do they have a “crucial Design Flaw”? What’s your all time ‘Best-Design Nokia”? (feel free to post links to photos of your phones, or even just tell us about a crazy Nokia survival story)

Side Note 1: I’m particularly interested in people with the E7, how’s that Hinge on the keyboard holding up?

Side Note 2: Regardless of all the N8s flaws I’m still hopelessly in love with it as a design (I think the camera bump on the back just gives it extra character)

Grab it here:

http://store.ovi.com/content/225051

 

Kik Messenger is the totally free, crazy-fast cross-platform messenger app that connects you to your friends in real-time. Use Kik to chat, share pictures, plan outings with groups, and stay connected to the people who matter most.

You ’re going to fall in love with Kik Messenger. Here’s why:

* Hands-down the fastest smartphone messenger
* Instant message notifications – Sent, Delivered, Read
* Beautiful look and feel

*note: I will add some screenshots as soon as I get the app up and running.

Update:

Ok I got the application installed and registered, unfortunately none of my contacts have their numbers on their kik account so I’ll have to add them via their User-names one by one. Thankfully the kind people at kik were kind enough to give us a mock account to talk to (similar to cleverbot I guess) so I gave the app a little spin.

So a quick run through: for those of you who aren’t familiar to kik it’s a instant messaging application for multiple platforms that uses WiFi/Mobile Data, the main advantage of all these applications (Whatsapp, Kik, Liveprofile) is push support for instantaneous message retrieval as well as being Extremly light on the data plan. Currently Kik supports iPhone, Android, Symbian, BB & WP 7.5

Here are a couple of screenshots and first thoughts about Kik running on my N8:

I have no idea why But I REALLY liked the anna squirkle icone for kik, I think it’s the dark grey in it but it just made it look really nice and professional (as promised).

Plain old start-up screen. (Auto-startup on reboot CAN BE disabled from the options menu, something that isn’t present in Whatsapp at the moment)

A nice and simple startup registration screen, where you set your real name/email as well as the username you choose to be identified by through other users (one of the advantages of Kik is the ability to add users with only a username no need for a phone number)

Of course you can still find contacts using their phone number, provided they supplied it upon registration (optional).

A default added contact is the “Kik Team” which I guess is there to check if the service is running properly, or just to pass time if like me you have no friends (Forever Alone).

Of course you can add smileys as well as attachments to your messages. (There is also a group messaging feature but I haven’t tried it out yet- no friends and all)

http://n33rg.blogspot.com/2011/11/whatsapp-vs-kik-nokia.html (thanks David)

We’ve brought you articles on the PR 1.1 FW being rolled out, available on NaviFirm and also Jason from SmashPop. After watching the video I thought I’d post up my thoughts on the update as well as details about the changes I have noticed.

I’ll talk about a few things in this post.

1. New Features
2. Changes and Fixes
3. Areas To Be Improved
4. Hopes for PR 1.2

1. New Features

As always when you get a Software Update, you look for the New Features. Like Kontorri mentioned, PR 1.1 is mainly to address bugs and provide some under the hood benefits. That does not mean that the User can’t find any goodies. The first is the addition of Swype into the OS. For those of you that don’t know, Swype is a style of text input, where the user simply drags their finger over the letters to spell the word.

The next major update is Music Player controls on the lock screen. The clock gets replaced with the title of the song, and a Play, Forward and Reverse button are included. If you have notifications, they will still be present in their original location, at the bottom of the screen.

2. Changes and Fixes

Something that we like about Software Updates, besides new features, is when existing features are improved. PR 1.1 did not disappoint on that front (at least not entirely). The Facebook client has been updated. It is now quite smooth, with a new top toolbar icon change. The down arrow we saw previously, has now been replaced with a 3×3 grid, as well as, if the user has notifications, the globe with the number of notifications present will appear next to it.

On the standby screen, there is now a “charging icon” that sits above the time aligned to the right. All other notification icons (Mail, Messages, Chat, etc. ) still sit below the time, but are now also aligned to the right, not centred.

Camera has received a minor update, with the inclusion of colour filters – Black & White, Sepia, Vivid, Negative and Solarise. The settings of the Camera app itself has also received a nice change. Previously, when altering the settings, these would be reset upon closing Camera. Now, even after turning the device off, the previously used settings will remain, until changed. This is something I am happy about, as I found it annoying when I forgot to take off flash each time I close the app.

Closing apps has also been changed – sort of. Swipe to close was present in the sales release (PR 1.0 ) of the N9, but was an option that had to be enabled in the settings. This is now on by default, and as far as I have noticed, there is no option to turn it off. (Not that I think anyone would want to.)

Twitter has received an update too! You can now post photos using the Twitter app on your N9. Unfortunately, you cannot upload the image straight from gallery like Facebook, Flickr etc. but it’s better than nothing.

Gallery has changed, with a new way of arranging the filter options. Prior to the updated, it was a scroll-like box. Now it is a semi transparent toolbar. Not really something that is going to captivate the masses, but it is a nice usability improvement. Speaking of toolbar changes, Calendar has also revamped their toolbar icons for “week view”, “month view” and “day view”. Also, the toolbars of native apps now seem to have a shadowing on them, making the toolbar “float” and allowing for scrolling through lists to look a lot more fluid and elegant.

The list of “Transfers” has also had a make-over, changing to an all black design. Previously it was that grey and white colour scheme that many have complained about, as it doesn’t match the “black background” theme that appears throughout most of the OS. Web has also had a bit of updating, now have predictive text. Sadly, there is still no copy/paste in web text boxes, nor can you scroll using the “Magnifier”

Maps, something that Nokia is notorious for, was implemented poorly on the N9. It’s loading time was shocking, getting about 18 secs start-up time. Now thankfully, it is a lot faster than that getting about 7 secs to change from the splash screen. Sadly, it’s still crap. I have to select the location dot everytime, for the app to “sweep” to the map showing my position. I know it’s no big deal but it is something that drives me insane!

Finally, a subtle change to the UI is the notifications. The notification icon used to be a green flag in the status bar. Now, there are separate blue icons for text messages, chat, mail, missed calls etc. (Haven’t had any SW updates since updating, so I’m not sure if that will be changed or not.)

Under the hood, the N9 has gone through some changes as well. Sadly, I don’t think for the better. And this brings me to the next part of my post.

3. Areas To Be Improved

The performance of the N9 has dropped significantly since the update. I now have a lot less apps then I did before (as the Update removed them all ) and I am finding that with only one app running (Resource Monitor), I am at 90 % capacity of RAM, 84.6% being “Idle”. (Idle refers to the OS itself.) This is pretty disappointing as I was amongst the first to praise how without heavy apps, the device was extremely snappy. Don’t get me wrong, it is still snappy, but I’d like to see more.

Not sure if I’m using my device differently, but I have also noticed a significant decrease in battery life since the update. I got only 6 hours the other day, with a constant 3G connection and random refresh of Facebook every now and then.

Facebook and Maps can still be improved a lot more. Although I have been using fMobi more regularly. (Shame it doesn’t support sending of Inbox Messages….yet :p ). Facebook for some reason, will not log in to chat saying “Incorrect Password” despite password being correct (I know its correct because I just change my status back to Online and it logs in. ). As well as being required on several occasions to enter my Facebook password for no apparent reason.

I have been getting a LOT more “Application Not Responding”. More frequently on apps I was getting it before, and now also on apps that ran perfectly fine on PR 1.0.

4. Hopes For PR 1.2

• Video Calling
• Improvements to Facebook and Maps
• Twitter Photo integration through “Share” in Gallery.
• Combined view in Messaging like on WP7 ( Skype, Text, Facebook etc. to same contact is shown in single thread)
• Integration of Windows Live Messenger
• Push Notifications for Facebook and Twitter (Mentions and Direct Messaging)
• Push for Apps downloaded from Ovi Store (At the moment I need to go to store instead of refreshing SW Update list)’
• Text input in web
• Universal text input featuring cut/copy/paste

So, if you own an N9, and haven’t updated you are probably thinking, should I? The answer is yes! Despite the negatives I have outlined, it is still very good. I have actually forgot what PR 1.0 used to be like. (I actually needed to look at my original review series to confirm some changes :p ).

Sorry for the long read. Hope it was worth it. If you have updated your N9, post your thoughts about it below, and I may update the post if trends occur.

Michael

This review comes from our reader FireDragon. He installed iWindows on his N8 running Anna. Here’s what he thought.

I was checking this application and I like it so far other than how it looks.

iWindows brings a Windows Start Button to the Homescreen, over lapping the “Option” button. The Start Button’s graphic is horrible for my taste at least. I would like to see it better.

Pressing Start button will bring a menu and I am impressed by the easy arrangement of favorite application and system application. There are other features right under the fingertips such as “Restart”

Application is pretty easy and swift, but I didn’t like the fact that I cannot turn it on or off on my will. Once you install it is there to stay unless you uninstall. I haven’t found another way to end it yet. It doesn’t show in App Stop either. No idea its effects on battery either.

What’s missing in the app: Well personally I would like to see a menu of “Contacts” that would allow users to bring most frequently use contacts a step closer.

The menu have 3 theme and personally I didn’t like any of them fit to my taste so with the decent design addition, this application will worth its price for people who would want to keep things more organize in easy and old-fashioned way.

Back in UIQ days, through an amazing UI Designing software GDesk, I made a menu setup for everything and been using it so yes I found this little utility very useful and although I don’t like the look much but I am keeping it.

Like an application? Think others should know what you think? Drop review suggestions or even a review of your own in the tips section and who knows, maybe it’ll get it’s own post.

Cheers FireDragon for the work

Michael

So first we have what I enjoy:

The build quality of the device is better than I expected. The polycarbonate body feels good in your hand and just seems to fit perfectly. It is definitely nowhere near as slippery as my N8. I love how the device has a large enough screen yet, not too large it doesn’t fit in your hand, or your pocket. There’s nothing worse than having a bulky phone in your pocket, and the N9 is definitely slim enough to be comfortable while at the same time being sturdy enough that I’m not scared it’ll snap.

I like Swipe. The easiness of getting out of apps by simply swiping, never ceases to amaze me. In fact, sometimes I’ll open apps just to swipe away. It’s such an addictive experience. Actually, that’s how I find the N9. Addictive. Ever since I got it, I have found it hard to put down. The way your finger just glides over the screen as you swipe or scroll is awesome. The vibrant screen, and the way in which the icons seem fake and like they are floating, are breathtaking. So good in fact, my friends who are all pro iPhone, have been asking how much they are, because they all want one.

Despite being used to Symbian’s level of customisation, I like the N9′s interface, in addition to swipe. The inclusion of the three home screen views is something I found myself using quite a lot on my N8. Although, I don’t use the Events/Feed view on the N9 all that often, it is still handy to have. Even though it requires a third-party app to change the default selection, I like the ability to have your four favourite apps whenever you want by simply swiping up from the bottom and holding it half way, when in an app or on the lock screen.

The lock screen is another thing that has been implemented well. It allows you to have a quick glance of your notifications. Along with the standard display of your texts messages that many of us are familiar with from Symbian, you can see how many emails you have waiting, as well as Software Updates, and any other notifications that an app decides to push to the user. (It would be nice to see Facebook or Twitter notifications pushed to this or the Events view.)

The text input is something I was looking forward to, as it was poorly done in Anna and the leaked Belle. The predictive input is quite accurate, even though with the new layout I find myself not making as many mistakes. Unlike Belle, you can add new words to your custom dictionary straight from the portrait qwerty, by tapping on the underlined word. (Most likely because Belle used the Alphanumeric keypad to add words, a layout missing from the N9.)

The integration across the whole platform is something I admire. Everything from the consistent look and feel of native apps, to the way in which these apps interact with one another. I think Nokia made a massive mistake in letting MeeGo/Harmattan go. The N9 and MeeGo are definitely worthy of the praise it has been getting, at least in my opinion.

What I think needs work:

I think the slight pause/lag between hitting an icon and the app opening is something I’d like to see improved in the next update. Even if like in Belle, a loading icon would pop up as to say “don’t worry, you hit me. I’ll open soon.” I find it frustrated tapping the icon a few times and not knowing whether or not I pushed it correctly. Ideally, the app should just start instantly.

Speaking of start-up delays, Maps is in need of a serious overhaul. The experience of the app, once open, is definitely not bad, not great, but not bad. That load time is very annoying. Okay, it has a splash screen, but the loading icon is stationary and I often find myself getting impatient.

The apps. I know this isn’t a Nokia issue, but I’d still like to see more apps. Especially since many apps have been built-in QT, as well as those on the N900, and are yet to appear on the N9. I know it’s not that simple, but it would be nice to see more. Mainly since the current market is dominated by phones that have endless numbers of apps. (The new QT Mapping APIs for WP, iOS and Android may help. Just need to wait and see.)

I don’t like that the volume up key is used in camera as zoom out. I think, as an “up” button, it should zoom in, and not out. After having all my previous Nokia phones with a dedicated camera button, it is hard to get used to not having one. It also makes it hard when trying to take a photo when you can’t see the screen that well(eg. holding it above your head in a large crowd). It would be nice if the lock button could become the camera button when the camera app is open.

The volume of the ringing tones, both for calls, texts, and email. It is okay if you’re in a quiet environment, but when there is moderate noise around you, say like that found in a shopping centre, it is often hard to hear your device, even at the loudest setting. With this said, the speaker is not an issue as it plays music and audio from videos well.

The integration with Twitter and your contacts is frustrating. I can’t find a way to manually link contacts and I have found that allowing the phone to automatically link contacts is painful. I have had over 80% of my contacts mislinked, and the process to unlink them is annoying.I think there should be some sort of verification system put in place to ensure your Twitter contacts are linked to their corresponding phone contacts correctly. (Haven’t yet tried with Facebook.)

Occasionally, if I have Messages open behind the lock screen, I won’t get notified of new texts. This has also happened when Messages was swiped away. However, sometimes it’ll notify me when I do have Messages open, so I guess it’s just a little bit temperamental.

Some other ideas:

Like Sergejs said, the USB port cover is quite flimsy, especially seeing how frequently it used. Although it takes away from the design, the silicon case that comes with the N9 is good. It’s sturdy yet still thin that it doesn’t sit too high above the phone and look chunky.

Although it’s an “open” OS, there are still restrictions put in place. This is good as it protects those who don’t know what they are doing from damaging their phone. I like the ability, once you gain root access, to practically do anything, so long as you use the command line. (This is how I made all my icons squircles.)

Along with concerns about certain apps and features missing, it’s nice to see the community developers finding a work around. (Such as FM Radio and File Managers.) Apparently some Nokia Developers are in the process of adding an FM Transmitter function. As I mentioned in my post earlier this week, there is a lot of promise for this next update, mainly based on what I have seen already included in the device. Hopefully this will include correct use of the front facing camera, especially for Skype and even to use for Photos.

It would be nice to see NFC utilised for more than just simple Bluetooth pairing. It’s not a must, but being able to tap your phone to pay, or tap your phone to get into your apartment block or gym, would be handy, and would fit in with the device’s “beautifully simple” design concept.

Be careful when adding repositories, I’ve added one in order to demo VNC, and now, not sure if it’s related but I assume it is, apps will not install, both from the store and community.

If Konttori is right, and PR 1.1 is ready, (supported by Nokia Developer info in which an N9 app is listed as compatible with PR 1.1), we may see it “in the coming weeks”.

Michael