A few weeks ago, I had a few visits to my blog which resulted in someone actually taking the time to fill in the oft-overlooked contact form. They had seen my blog, and wondered if I would be interested in trying out the
Nokia N78 before it hits the market.
What can I say? I like gadgets, especially free ones (shame I have to give it back in two weeks). And who knows, maybe if I review one gadget, I'll get sent more. Like an iPhone. A 3G iPhone. For free. And I won't have to give it back. Hint hint Mr Jobs.
If you're reading this post from 16 May onwards, then you are reading a revised version of the post. I will be explicit here.
THIS IS NOT A TECHNOLOGY BLOG. I AM NOT A TECHNOLOGY JOURNALIST. In fact, this blog mostly covers law, politics, justice and my odd little thoughts.
I like to use technology. I love the digital lifestyle. But I like technology that is useful, intuitive and useable, without me having to worry about the processes behind the scenes. If that's the kind of review you want, then go elsewhere.
I received a shiny new N78 from the good people at the
WOM World Nokia blog on Monday 12 May. The instructions were:
Whilst this isn’t strictly a beta test, if you chose to take part, you and nine others globally will get the device before it goes on sale. You’re free to use the phone however you like, play around with it, experiment with it, and just generally test it out. The final intention is that after two weeks of play, there’ll be an online question and answer session with the product manager for you to feedback any thoughts you have.
They want an honest review. They may never send me anything again...
FIRST IMPRESSIONSI opened the pack up, and was delighted first of all to have also received some
Nokia MD-4 Mini Speakers to try out. Since I pretty much sit and listen to music and podcasts all day whilst working, this was an added bonus. When I've played about with them, expect a separate review.
I opened up the box. Jet black phone. I like it already, very reminiscent of an iPod. The Nokia N95 is often referenced as a rival to the iPhone, so I wonder if the N78 is going to be going toe-to-toe with the iPhone? The numbers and letters are virtually invisible, and obviously will light up when I turn the phone on.
Very impressed that there is a 2GB memory card included, and I wonder if this is as standard. Tunneling through the lairs of packaging, I collect the phone, battery, headphones, hands free and... wait a minute - what's this???
The phone came with a European phone charger, not a UK phone charger. Now, apparently I should have known this (see comments). Pre-release phones are always sent with European phone chargers. Luckily, I'm already a Nokia phone owner, so have a charger I can use with it. But what if I'd never owned a Nokia before? Or if my previous phone was an older Nokia, with the larger charging pin (unsuitable for the newer Nokia phones). I would have been boned. A two week trial without the ability to charge the phone? I think there's something not quite right there.
Thinking of this, why did Nokia change the charger anyway? That particular little item was ubiquitous in offices up and down the country - I remember the panicky e-mails being sent round my old law firm saying "does anyone have a charger for the new Nokias? Please, this is desperate!!"
What else was in the box? The PC sync cable. This comes with a built-in cable organiser. Such a simple idea, yet a good one. Mould the damn cable tie to the cable and you never lose it. So we've got the sync cable and an instruction... manual... Where are the instructions for this thing? Now, I realise I'm unusual for a guy, but I
do like to have an instruction manual to fall back on. There is a
box for the manual, but no manual.
I remember back in the day when Nokias looked different but acted the same. Everything was identical. But recently, it seems that every model works slightly differently. My N95 is similar to how my 6630 worked, but they were vastly different from the intervening 6131, which in turn wasn't quite like the 6111. And with customizable menus, even the same model differs between owners. So with no guarantee that the N78 wouldn't have differences in behaviour, I wasn't looking forward to the trial and error experience.
Again, if you read the comments, I ought to have known this too, as it is standard to send out pre-release phones with no manual. And again, I have to question, isn't this short-sighted? If I hadn't already used a Nokia phone before, how would I know how to use this one? Guesswork? And to labour the point a little bit more, if I'm to review the amazing features of the phone, it would help if I knew what they were, and how to use them.
USING THE PHONE - WELL, KIND OF...I swapped over my SIM card, and turned it on. Time to try out Switch, Nokia's built in software for changing your phone. The idea with Switch is that your old phone sends contacts, settings, files, calendar entries, photos etc to your new phone via Bluetooth, without having to use a computer. If you don't own a computer, then this is the best way to quickly start using a new phone, and is an excellent idea. However, my experiences with Switch aren't as smooth as you would hope for.
I got my contacts and my calendars, but nothing else. Internet settings? No. Bookmarks? 50% of what is important to me is not good enough, especially for an
internet enabled phone. If Switch sets up my new phone to be like my old one, then I don't want to have to re-enter all my bookmarks, my internet settings, my passwords etc. This is not a SIM issue (who stores info on a SIM anymore? This is an issue with Nokia software. Switch ought to seemlessly transfer my old phone memory to my new phone memory, and my old memory card information to my new memory card. It should take all my old personalisations and settings to my new phone, but it doesn't.
So I tried another way. I would back up my N95 to it's memory card (
NOT SIM card Madeline), then restore from this card to the N78.
The N78 spat out my San Disk memory card the first time. On the second attempt it started to behave itself. I restored from the backup, and some things were installed. My pictures, but not the folders I had set up. In fact, any pictures in folders were missing. My music and playlists were nowhere to be seen. Stored text messages? Gone.
In the end I decided, as I was in a rush to get to a meeting, that I would just swap back to my N95 and have a more detailed play with the N78 later. In hindsight, this was a huge mistake.
I swapped back my memory card and SIM. And my N95 stopped working. Web n Walk (Web on a T-Mobile Nokia phone) wouldn't launch. My photos were missing. I tried to restore from the memory card, and my settings got wiped. Messages vanished into the ether. The things I relied on my phone for - Google Maps, Web n Walk, Search? No longer accessible. I was out and about and sort of needed the internet access to get directions to my meeting. But I couldn't get it to work on either phone. My opinion of the N78 plummeted, and I hoped that I could revive my N95.
When I got home, I had to restore the N95 operating system software, then restore from the memory card. This was, itself, no easy process, because Nokia hasn't produced PC Sync softare for Mac users like it has for PC users. I used the Toshiba laptop rather than my Powerbook to carry out the updates and rstore, and my N95 was back, and everything was still on it - messages, photos etc.
My new plan? Completely back up my N95 on to the PC using Nokia PC Sync, then restore that back up to the N78. Surely
EVERYTHING would come with it if I did that? I was cloning the phone. Nothing could go wrong with this!
Never say never. The plan would only work
if I could hook up my N78 to the computer. Just as they did with the phone charger a few years ago, Nokia have decided on a new shape to the PC Sync cable for the N78. It still uses a USB A connector to connect to the computer, but the phone end is wider and thinner than before. The cable that came with my N95 wouldn't fit. The cable that came with the N78 was still in the office. So I couldn't do anything with the phone. Not until today, when I got access to the new PC Sync cable.
So that's all done. I have all my messages and photos. Yet my music still hasn't transferred. At least my internet setting have come across. I shall wait until I get home to see if my wi-fi network setting has been brought across, or if I need to add that. I lost Gmail mailbox from the messages menu, which is a pain. And I haven't even
ATTEMPTED to use this with iSync on my Powerbook yet (my preferred method of keeping my contacts and calendars in sync).
At the end of the first day, my feelings are mixed. Just trying to get the phone up to the standard I need it to be before I begin to test it was frustrating. Software not working, hardware incompatibilities. The user experience was hardly seemless. Some of these difficulties will not be encountered by consumers on release (you'll have a phone charger for your locality, and an instruction booklet) but it didn't leave me in the best frame of mind.
All told, the phone is gorgeous to look at. The controls are a bit strange to get used to. I keep inadvertently hitting the button that brings up the photo gallery (I don't know it's name, as there are no instructions!) - it is inconveniently located just under the right selection key, and is overly sensitive,
and prominent. There is no clear distinction between the left selection key, the call answer key and the menu key, nor the right selection key, the call reject key and the clear key. They are all part of the same seamless piece of plastic, which from a design point of view is eyecatching, but in my experience I wound up pressing one when I wanted the other - it would seem that the menu was unresponsive, when in reality I simply hadn't pressed the key as I thought I had.
The four way control pad in the center has an iPod like scroll wheel function. This was unexpected, and is incredibly sensitive. Too senstive actually. For someone used to pressing the direction key, having the menu move left or right as you select up is off-putting. The discovery of the scroll wheel was accidental, and unless I can change the sensitivity I'd rather not have it. It glows too, a pulsing white light, sort of like Iron Man's chest in the new movie! I suppose it answers the question of how do you find a jet black phone in a dark room at night...
I know a new phone takes some time getting used to. I've had the phone less than 24 hours. But it has succeeded in frustrating me and really inconveniencing me in a very short space of time. It has two weeks to redeem itself...
