23 January 2009

A Different Perspective:
Nokia Tube First Impressions

I recently got my hands on a Nokia tube from a mate of mine. The first thing that struck me is how plastic feeling the unit was.

What I did like though was the deep rich red plastic it was made of and in certain angles; a bright red strip could be seen beneath the semi translucent side plastic casing.

Next something of new, was the resolution of the screen. It looks absolutely gorgeous, and I believe this is what the N95 should have had from day one!

It was pleasing to see was that users of the non touch screen Symbian phones would feel right at home, as everything is pretty much exactly the same, except with the exception of being able to touch the screen.

Rather than using a d-pad for navigation. Application and menus, all seem to be the same, but the input method is greatly different, allowing for multiple input styles, like hand writing, QWERTY keyboard, or numeric keypad input which closely simulates a regular numeric pad on a non touchscreen mobile.

What was not so pleasing was the way the OS handled this new touch screen. A screen whereby text input was required was cluttered, and complex to use. I found even with my smaller fingers, hard to write a sentence without a lot of mistakes. Changing input styles was a chore, and using my fingers to try to move the cursor between words for correction was laborious.

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The worst part of all was whenever the screen needed scrolling up or down; I literally had to use my finger nail to try to accurately hit the scroll bar to drag. On the iPhone this is not the case, and holding and dragging anywhere in the screen moves it in any direction like a moving a piece of paper.

I found that the Nokia Tube really needs the use of the stylus, and after taking it out, I found the tube significantly easier to use. It is obvious Nokia never intended on users to use their fingers to any amount on the touch screen, but rather use the stylus. With the stylus, I was able to form good sentences with a lot less errors than if I was using my fingers.

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Another disappointment was the touch screen itself. It is a resistive touch screen as opposed to a capacitive touch screen. This means the touch screen on the Tube cannot be made out of hardened glass, and it not protected could be damaged easily. The iPhone on the other hand , does have this glass, and I cannot even scratch it with my keys deliberately.

The UI compared to the iPhone in my opinion is greatly inferior to the iPhone. Many other manufacturers, like Windows mobile on the Touch diamond and other touch mobiles from Samsung have tired to mimick and beat the iPhone UI, but none have managed to do so. The Nokia tube here does not either, and in my opinion may be harder to use for the average user when compared to Samsungs Touch screen mobiles.

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I sure if this has already been done, but I would have liked to see the side up and down buttons to be allowed to be mapped from scrolling a page up and down, rather than me having to try hit the narrow scroll bar.

On the plus side, we see Nokia Tube really excelling in its wireless technology, with seamless wifi , 3G working as it should, and a fantastic Bluetooth stack as it should be. The iPhone on the other hand, still can't get these simple things right, like a proper Bluetooth stack that is not incomplete and 3G engine that can be temperamental