Nokia N82 Trial, Day 7: Parting Shots

I’ll be getting in touch with the kind folks at Nokia’s WOM World today about getting their N82 back to them. My time with this device isn’t officially quite up, but I’ve a show opening tonight and will be needing my trusty E61i back at my side.

I’ve been deliberately holding off on posting about the keypad because I’m not used to the whole predictive text thing, having used QWERTY smartphones almost exclusively since 2002.

The good news is that using T9 with Nokia is far more intuitive than I feared. You can easily switch back and forth between it and the traditional multi-tap with a simple press of the pound button, and a list of other symbols can be accessed via the star key.

The two bits of bad news are

1. With a new handset, at least, you’ll have to stop in the middle of a message to teach the built-in dictionary the surname of one of your friends or your favourite dirty word.
2. You’ll have no choice but to switch to tedious multi-tap when entering a web URL into your browser.

As for me I could maybe ween myself off a QWERTY for a handset with a superior camera, but I’d likely go for the bigger keys (and screen) on Nokia’s N95 over this newer model. I didn’t find the N82’s keys especially stiff, but I did find their spacing too close together. It’s certainly not unusable, but not exactly comfortable either, for me anyway.

There’s a thread over on N95Users.com warning owners of the latest N95 models to take special care against getting their camera lenses scratched up. Maybe they can take solace in this sad discovery: On no less than three separate occasions my protective lens shield somehow slid into the “open” position on its own accord while stowed in my bag. This, combined with the extra headache of opening up the camera lens to take a screenshot (see item #4 at this link) makes the shield of somewhat dubious value in my opinion.

Of course, having a 5-megapixel autofocus camera and that sweet, sweet Xenon flash is probably what brought you here in the first place, wasn’t it? Be sure to pay a visit to my N82 Flickr set to see what this baby can do — it’s pretty astounding!

For your friends and family who aren’t on Flickr the N82 comes with this handy multi-purpose A/V out jack. I used the included cable that you get with the phone to watch some video I shot previously on my big 50-inch projection TV and the image quality held up — provided that your subjects were fairly close to the camera and reasonably lit.

I also plugged in a big old pair of Grado headphones to check the N82’s audio quality. The volume was maybe a little low but what I heard seemed every bit as good as the iPod I take with me every other day to the gym.

And then there’s this Micro-USB connector… You know, I’ve got a BlackBerry 8700 and an HTC TyTN sitting in my drawer and they both do fine transferring data via Mini-USB. Even the BlackBerry Pearl, a much more diminutive handset than the N82, comes with a standard Mini-USB connector. And you know what else? All these devices can charge their batteries via this same connector… So Nokia, can you please tell me what is so fantastic about a Micro-USB connector that can’t charge your phone?!

On my first day out and about with this device a friend of mine asked if Nokia would let me buy it. I told him I probably wouldn’t be interested and still feel the same way some seven days later — for me the N95’s significantly bigger screen and keypad trumps the N82’s lens shield and flash. Of course, the N95’s slider design is also burdened with more moving parts that could eventually wear down or break.

But the honest truth is that I find myself absolutely jonesing to pop my SIM card back into my E61i and fire it up. I suspect that this review won’t really be over until I’ve had some time to reflect.

That, and maybe an N95 from WOM World to play with?

Nokia N82 Trial, Days 4, 5 & 6 – UI UI

Oh, no… It’s gotta go.

I need to be up front here and state right off the top that I’m an unabashed user interface snob, having studied such things in nerd school and being spoiled for many years by the Macintosh OS. One of the big reasons why I gave up on the cutting edge HTC TyTN last year was because of the general fugliness of Windows Mobile. Sure it was only version five-point-something, but WinMo 6 ain’t much of an improvement!

I should also point out that I recently got a new iPod Nano, and the small-screen UI of that device also sets the bar pretty darn high.

So onto the N82… What we’re looking at here is the default grid layout of the S60 Applications Folder. Pretty standard stuff, this, with a highlight around the selected icon, and a little blue dot in the top right corner to let us know that that particular app is currently running.

Pretty intuitive, right? I’d certainly say so. But the problems start when we press the N82’s Multimedia key…

It’s not that said key is a bad idea — on the contrary, having quick access to games, music, video and the like is almost a necessity on such a high-powered multimedia device. It’s how this stuff is visually presented that I’ve an issue with.

Say you’re suddenly presented with the screen at left, and are instructed to navigate to your contacts shortcut. And let’s say just for the sake of argument that time is of the essence — an emergency call, perhaps? You would probably deduce fairly easily that access to your contacts lies under the tab at the back-right, yes? But how do you get there? Do you navigate up or right? Sure it only takes an extra key press or two to figure it out, but Nokia has made this interface unnecessarily complicated by trying to represent three dimensions in a two-dimensional space, and for no good reason.

And it gets worse. This UI abomination is what your eyes are assaulted with when you launch the N82’s Gallery app. Sorry Nokia, but you really blew it here — this interface is an absolute disaster.

What you can’t see from this static screen grab is that navigating left or right takes you through your captured photos and videos in a clockwise or counterclockwise fashion, akin to a slide carousel, not that it matters — the Gallery app on my stuffy E61i is more usable… And easier on the eyes, too!

An example: In this, the N82’s Gallery app you hit the centre button to get a closer view of the selected pic or vid. But to zoom in on the file or to rotate it so it fills the screen — which you’d almost certainly want to do to show it off to your friends — you have to go into the menu system and futz through it from there.

Meanwhile in the Gallery app on my E61i you navigate through your media in the same left-right manner, except in a more appropriate two-dimensional space. If you click on an image you get the same dedicated view, but… You can simply press the asterisk key to make the image or video full-screen. When you’re done, hit the number key and you can perform additional functions or quit the app. These two shortcuts are, by the way, identical to the zoom in and out shortcuts you’d use in Nokia’s mapping software — now that’s good, consistent UI!

Hopefully these interface gaffes are merely a passing fad, and can be forever banished to history with a software update. I am a bit surprised that they ever made it into a production handset in the first place, though — particularly after reading Nokia’s own treatise on mobile usability. I mean, how could the geniuses who gave us the Navi-Key also be responsible for this?

Nokia N82 Trial, Day 3: The Games

Pretty much everyone who’s ever had a Nokia is familiar with the classic Snake game; Here’s a screen grab of Snakes 3D, the beefed-up version for Nseries multimedia devices.

It looks great but is almost entirely unplayable — I’m stuck somewhere around the fifth level and I’ve no idea why my snake keeps arbitrarily blowing up!

I had a similar experience with Nokia’s (lack of) game design when I covered E3 back in 2004. I was demoing some WWII sim on the original N-Gage handset at Nokia’s booth, and couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do. It didn’t help that some Finnish dude was hovering behind me barking curt and very complicated instructions..

Fortunately N-Gage is no longer the subject of ridicule, but instead a built-in application on Nseries phones. The idea shows a lot of promise, but definitely requires a WiFi connection or unlimited data plan on your handset.

(The N-Gage user interface…)

Like anything else these days N-Gage has a social networking layer to it. Meh. What’s far more interesting to me is that every single game in their catalogue has a free trial that ranges in scope from extremely generous (anything by Nokia) to ridiculously short (cough cough — Gameloft — cough).

I played the Mile High Pinball demo (no relation to the mile-high club — sorry) for a good ten minutes with no signs of being locked out. And with a good pedigree of game developers aboard, N-Gage could be a big hit for casual gamers everywhere.

The only problem is the actual games themselves. Have a look at the grab below, from Nokia’s own title Space Impact Kappa Base. Do you have any idea what’s going on here? Because I sure as hell don’t!

And here’s where I put on my old codger’s hat… I maintain that my stuffy E61i is every bit as suitable for gaming as the N82, for two big reasons:

First, any decent emulator will open your handset up to virtually the entire history of console video gaming. Second, console games were programmed for landscape 4×3 ratio TV sets, and fit perfectly on the E61i’s landscape 4×3 screen.

These console classics may not have 3D rendering or surround sound, but if that’s so important for you then you’re probably hauling around a DS or PSP in your Gundam-branded backpack anyway — i.e., you’re not a casual gamer, so STFU!

This all may change with the release of Reset Generation, which some are touting as the killer game for Nokia’s nascent N-Gage platform. Too bad it isn’t out now for me to play…