Nokia Rant

In the midst of Ricky Cadden closing down Symbian-Guru.com after years of running it with Rita Khoury, there was indeed some shock for a quick moment. To imagine one of Symbian's greatest blog supporters shutting down his own site seemed to be very unlikely in the course of countless reviews and postings, but alas it happened anyway. When I read the words of Ricky and Rita in the final post and thought of why I had lost faith in Nokia a while back, I could only agree with every single point that was made.

I can recall when Nokia first announced its Symbian touch interface and aired that unforgettable promo video at a conference. An attractive European brunette was depicted at a harbor town with a phone resembling the current XpressMusic model or even the upcoming N8. The close up rendering shots of the interface were engaging with a black background, white Nokia font, and turquoise highlights. This was made all the more intriguing by a smooth touch response with every finger swipe and press onscreen, and I was instantly hooked! My mouth had hit the floor in shock upon seeing the flawless performance of the onboard camera recording a dog briskly walking by. After being so attached to Symbian 3rd edition for a while, I was excited to believe Nokia was taking initiative and bringing competition to a market mesmerized by the iPhone's debut. Practically being a crazed Nokia fan, I recorded this promo and watched it repeatedly in hopes of the next great gadget that would revolutionize the market. Nokia had done it before with the N95 being hailed as a mobile computer for its time, so there was no reason to doubt the company at that point. This enthusiasm I had for the brand was eventually tested when I saw footage of a prototype tablet running Symbian touch. To this day, my reaction to the performance of that video example can be recollected as if it occurred yesterday: utter disbelief. I refused to believe that the clunky aesthetic and jittery movement of this tablet was to be the destined path of the Symbian OS. After the amount of time I had spent gushing over units from the ESeries and NSeries line, there was absolutely no way that mediocrity would take hold at Nokia. Upon reminding myself of this tablet being only a prototype, I simply moved on with expectation of a better final product to be unveiled to the awaiting public.

N97 debuted with the Symbian 5th edition touch OS and caused a stir with vendors taking preorders, but was soon realized to be a curse in disguise. After much agonizing over calls to Amazon, reading blog articles, and watching photos and videos both official and unofficial, I finally got my hands on one! My first unboxing took place with usual surge of emotions as if it was Christmas day and I was back to being five all over again! As I opened the retail packaging, I was so eager to have my underwhelmed perception be proven wrong from first sight of that Symbian touch prototype. It was not. From first grip I was put off by the plastic construction and hollow weightlessness, but still I decided to consider its potential pros. In retrospect, bringing ridicule to the plastic build may have been too harsh since it was not an ESeries device. However, having great size dimensions for optimum portability, 32GB internal capacity, stereo speakers, Carl Zeiss optics camera, and a solid slider were not enough to downplay other pet peeves. The three row qwerty was limiting and hampered by soft tactile feedback (if any at all), and the touch interface was nowhere near polished or smooth in daily performance. In addition to unpredictable self resets and freezes, there were the irritating memory errors. After a good while with the N97, I hated it with a passion and no longer wanted to have anything to do with Symbian 5th edition. A brief stint with the N97 mini introduced a qwerty with improved feedback, but the damage had already been done by a clunky OS and poor hardware defects. I remembered looking back to those alluring N97 commercials and feeling absolutely cheated as a Nokia customer. True, a certain amount of caution should be given to watching promos for upcoming products, but the difference between the marketing and real world use was too huge for words! I could have been guilty for expecting too much of an iPhone experience, but this expectation was set by the flawless and speedy UI simulations on the promos. With time, I gradually pulled away from Nokia completely in search of a reliable touch OS. I won't even waste time with speaking of Ovi services which turned out to be an utter failure in software execution.

As time goes on with mounting competition from industry challengers, Nokia appears to not have a prayer in hell with Symbian, Maemo or even the upcoming Meego OS. I understand not rushing to avoid an incomplete product, but Nokia is dragging its feet at a glacial pace!! If it is going to improve its touch OS, there needs to be more than just smoothing out fonts and adding minor graphical changes. If it is to build a major fan base, it needs to announce products only shortly before public release to maintain interest. Manufacturing different hardware builds with the same, predictable, sub par Symbian OS only perpetuates the notion that innovation is dead and has no place at Nokia. If this company has a top spot as a reigning manufacturer in the world market, why can't its resources manage to give the perception that progress is being made?! Even though I've lost faith in Symbian touch and still have some respect for 3rd edition, there was a recent story stating that Samsung surpassed Nokia in feature phone sales in western Europe. The clock is ticking and ticking fast, Nokia seems to think that time is on its side. There needs to be a collective wake up call at those headquarters in Espoo, Finland to light the fire of urgency to at least take on Samsung and upcoming Windows 7 if not Android and iOS!!! The Nokia ship is continuing to sink with long-time fans and supporters bailing on lifeboats as competing ships surge on by, and this company doesn't seem to give a damn! In addition to online accounts of horrible N97 failures, a close friend had to tolerate his N97 being sent back to repairs FIVE times!! There is no excuse for this, and the best kind of protest is with one's wallet...which is why I refuse to purchase another Nokia product until worthwhile improvements have been made. Even after Maemo on the N900 and my conversion to Android and BlackBerry, my optimism is at an all-time low for Nokia's comeback. If I'm not mistaken, the term "ovi" is Finnish for door, and it is a shame that Nokia could be closing that door on opportunity as well as its well-meaning consumers.

TRENT
Sent via BlackBerry Bold 9000