There were many things I was looking forward to being revealed in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress 2008. Nokia’s UI was one of the things that had me excited, also to see which new devices they would be revealing, which they did. The 6210 Navigator and the N78 at which Zach at SiMo seems to be very happy with and so he should be, finally Nokia have done something right for the NAM market. Myself personally, I couldn’t give a (insert expletive here)! Yes they give the NAM market a reason to love Nokia and will probably give them a way into the US market as evidently it has been a pretty poor show on their part.
The N96 and 6220 classic were also announced and yet still I’m not the slightest bit excited, so there seems to be only one thing left that could get me excited, Nokia S60 Touch UI! Wow!, Well it should have been, except it kinda blows, why? Two main reasons:
- What’s New? Apart from it being a “touch” OS there has been nothing added nor is there any WOW factor in the UI to get excited about. Yes it keeps in with the S60 OS and users will be familiar with the interface and menus, but where is the WOW factor!?
- Where is an actual working model? Even a prototype model running the Touch UI would have gotten a better response and anticipation, seeing is believing, see the Google Android Demo here, working on an actual device!
Personally I was expecting more from Nokia, and as it seems to have been for the last few years, they don’t seem to do it first time!
One thing that did WOW me and nearly knocked the socks off me was the first pictures of Sony Ericsson’s Experia X1.
Let’s just take a few moments to gawk at this beauty (click through for full size and more pictures…)
Now breath in again…
This is exactly what I mean about the WOW factor! Just the pictures have gotten me all intrigued into finding out more about it. What is it? When is it available? What are the specs? None of the questions I had in my mind when viewing the Nokia handsets released nor the Touch UI Demo. Last time I got that excited was with the Nokia N95 and I went out and purchased it first day of release!
Moving on to the Experia X1, clearly that’s where the attention deserves to be on the sheer wave of excitement. Some of the key features to look out for; HSUPA! 3-inch TFT Display! QWERTY Keypad! Touch UI! Is that not enough? Well it also comes with aGPS, 3.2 Megapixel Camera, 30fps VGA video capture and playback, Windows Mobile OS. Still not enough?! Seriously?! For the full specs and product page, check them out on the Experia X1 web page and Product Page respectively.
The big question here is, will this be replacing my N95 and N800 combo? My answer right now is most likely it will. I had my mind set on the N82 Black, but as it still hasn’t been made available here and as I have yet to visit the Nokia flagship store in London (which would have been the deciding factor) it looks like Nokia missed the boat on that one.
Will I be missing the S60 OS, perhaps, as we all know there has been lot of progress made in the year or so, and with it’s great developers it will get stronger. What the S60 needs right now is perhaps better marketing strategy and some WOW features to freshen things up.
Whilst S60 bloggers have been throwing the convergence word around a lot, I have yet to see something that actually lives up to a solid convergence device. The N95 did a lot striving towards it, but ever since then it’s been an evolution from one device to another. What’s needed here is a revolution not an evolution. Look what the iPhone did to the Mobile Market last year. It got everyone realising what seemed like a dream (pretty close one mind) into reality with the blink of an eye. The iPhone might not have been the best device in terms of features but what it did was revolutionise the market. It brought fantasy to reality, made the consumer “realise” they could do more with their handset than voice and SMS. Who’s going to take the torch and carry it forward? Nokia? My bet, probably not.
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