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Why I hate Nokia now... (1 Viewer)

seremify007

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We all laugh at Apple fanboys who blindly buy Apple products the moment Steve Jobs announces something. Then we laugh at the almost cliche anti-Apple club which is as non-conformist as... wait a sec, doesn't that mean they use Windows? (bar the <1% of people who use *nix of some sort). Anyway, at least those guys are buying products which have proven that with enough of a userbase, they get better, and with more support, there's more applications and features and bugfixes and things get better, etc...

I'm like that except for Nokia. For many years I've bought countless Nokias- off the top of my head I've owned: 3810, 6110, 3210, 6210, 8310, 3650, 6100, 7250i, 7610, e65, n93, e71, e51, n97 mini.... (also owned an SE w800i, Samsung D600, Ericsson T... somethingarather). The point is, I've stood by Nokias for a long time even when they started to become a bit boring and tried to reinvent themselves.

Now, despite buying flagship Nokias several times bar the luxury models, and typically at launch, I feel like I have been very left behind by Nokia as someone who they take for granted to pay lots of money for sub par products.

So what am I disappointed about?

The fact that Nokia releases buggy devices, buggy software, and doesn't do squat to fix it. The n97 mini was really the tipping point where I avoided buying an iPhone and thought Nokia's trusty series 60 interface would be the winner in the end especially with touch screen and better hardware (and supposedly a better camera).

The firmware- yes there are updates; but they're locked. I have an unlocked n97 mini yet I'm not able to access the latest firmware updates in Europe which have been out for 6 months now. My email still crashes and isn't reliable. I've had several hard resets and even lost the licence to some programs I paid for through Ovi store.

The applications- despite trying to mimic the Apple App Store, Ovi store is slow to load, feels half assed, and the other applications are just poorly implemented with touch screen controls which are clearly an afterthought. Nokia Email is a joke and so is their web browser. Doesn't even support secure online websites properly.

The battery life is decent at the start of every Nokia product but it's as if they have been designed with planned obsolescence from the start. My e71 barely lasts a day without a full recharge... and that's without me using it much now due to me being scared it'll run out before my work day is over.

Other features which were meant to be 'iPhone killer' such as tilt to switch orientation are fruitless. Why would I want a 'slide to answer' button if it moves when I pick up the phone (i.e. tilts from potrait to landscape). Making matters worse, the hardware is so laggy that the screen goes blank for about 2-3 seconds which means by the time the answer button reappears on the screen, it's too late to answer. Funnily enough the hardware buttons to call/end don't do anything when keylock was on (which is what your phone would usually be in if you were picking up a call and not already using your phone). In the end I found a way to turn orientation switch off.

Anyway the point of this rant is to warn people against buying Nokia stuff. The only reason I'm suckered into this is because AFAIK I can't synchronise calendar and contacts with my work software (Lotus Notes) and I have 1500+ contacts which may not transfer smoothly to another device; nor is there a comparable product which lets me synchronise two iPhones easily for contacts/etc without relying on a computer (I carry at least two phones all the time).

So as a heavy duty mobile phone user (monthly bill ranges from $100 to $200 not including handset costs), let this be a warning. There's probably a reason why every company is trying to match the damn iPhone.
 
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appletoa

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I'm inclined to agree with you on this, Nokia's been annoying me lately. For starters, the whole free navigation in ovi maps was made such a big deal of, but they conveniently forget to mention that they blocked many devices from updating to it, such as the n95. Now you might think that that's because of the age of the phone, but they have enabled the update for the E series nokias, including the e60, which was brought out a year before the n95. Basically their thinking must be that their N series phones have't improved enough that people will get a new one if they can get current software on their old phone, but they might get a new one for some new software features.

And the firmware updates thing really gets to me as well. There's been a new version out for a while now for the n95-3 (which is what I have), but unless I go and change the product code of the phone to a US or European number, it's not going to even recognise there is an update available.

And the whole certificates thing if you want to install something old or without a certificate. I know that's not Nokia per se, rather a Symbian thing, but it's really quite annoying after a while. You'd think you could have an option to turn off the certificate checking, but there's no such thing (at least not on my phone).

Last thing on my list of complaints is the fact that there is no office suite included in the out of the box programs (unless they've changed policy since the n95). Now this may seem like a case of wanting too much, but considering that the previous handheld devices I've owned, namely two Palms (zire 72 and tungsten t3), and an Ipaq rx4540, have come pre-loaded with full featured (for mobile apps) word processors and spreadsheet programs at least, Nokia could have at least included a word processor.

And now I shall stop going on about this while my post is still shorter than the OP :p
 

FlipX

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^ This.

Nokia's designs are solid and the batteries tend to last well. There's also none of Apple's wank-factor. :)

That said...

  1. The Symbian OS needs to die. Pronto.
  2. Ovi needs to follow Apple's lead and start putting out a wider selection of decent apps.
Is Android the way out?
 
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Depends what you want from it.
For me a phone is just for seeing what time it is and sending/recieving maybe 1 text message a week. I really only have it just incase I need immediate communication for some reason.
 

seremify007

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I'm inclined to agree with you on this, Nokia's been annoying me lately. For starters, the whole free navigation in ovi maps was made such a big deal of, but they conveniently forget to mention that they blocked many devices from updating to it, such as the n95. Now you might think that that's because of the age of the phone, but they have enabled the update for the E series nokias, including the e60, which was brought out a year before the n95. Basically their thinking must be that their N series phones have't improved enough that people will get a new one if they can get current software on their old phone, but they might get a new one for some new software features.
I thought Ovi maps was crap anyway. Not that great a program.

And the firmware updates thing really gets to me as well. There's been a new version out for a while now for the n95-3 (which is what I have), but unless I go and change the product code of the phone to a US or European number, it's not going to even recognise there is an update available.
Agreed muchly. My N93 and N97 Mini are so damn unstable. What's the point of giving everyone access to NSU (Nokia Software Updater) if you release your firmware unevenly throughout the world? I admit Apple's "play by our rules" approach has worked wonders for firmware and standardisation. People who don't like Apple's approach have yet to experience the **** where each country's telcos has control over the phone's OS.

And the whole certificates thing if you want to install something old or without a certificate. I know that's not Nokia per se, rather a Symbian thing, but it's really quite annoying after a while. You'd think you could have an option to turn off the certificate checking, but there's no such thing (at least not on my phone).
Considering Symbian is largely owned or contributed to by Nokia anyway (don't think any other manufacturers make anywhere near as many Symbian based phones as Nokia), I treat it as their fault. The OS was great in it's heyday but now it's showing it's age and even with more resources, it's not as efficient in getting jobs done or battery wise. That being said, they were a lot quicker than others to implement copy+paste, file managers, multitasking than the other OS's... I still remember having Gameboy Color emulators on it back in the day!

Last thing on my list of complaints is the fact that there is no office suite included in the out of the box programs (unless they've changed policy since the n95). Now this may seem like a case of wanting too much, but considering that the previous handheld devices I've owned, namely two Palms (zire 72 and tungsten t3), and an Ipaq rx4540, have come pre-loaded with full featured (for mobile apps) word processors and spreadsheet programs at least, Nokia could have at least included a word processor.
This is the only point I'd disagree with you on. The E series Nokias come with QuickOffice out of the box and it works for editing Excel files (has saved me in a few meetings before by being able to make a spreadsheet on the run!) and Word docs. But then, my Tungsten E came with Documents to Go which was pretty decent (but could not natively create Doc files IIRC?... long time ago). Remember N is for multimedia/entertainment whereas E is business.

On another note though, I can't believe you can't get Acrobat Reader for the touch screen Nokia devices despite running s60. Yep, Adobe charges for it. The LE is no longer free like it was on the other models.

And now I shall stop going on about this while my post is still shorter than the OP :p
Better now? :)
 

seremify007

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Depends what you want from it.
For me a phone is just for seeing what time it is and sending/recieving maybe 1 text message a week. I really only have it just incase I need immediate communication for some reason.
Word of advice then- stick to the basic Nokia phones. They work GREAT. Anything which doesn't promise to be a smartphone, should be pretty steady out of the box. One thing Nokia can do which noone else comes close to (presuming it's a "good" model) is make kickass keyboards and good typing interfaces for SMSing.

^ This.

Nokia's designs are solid and the batteries tend to last well. There's also none of Apple's wank-factor. :)

That said...

  1. The Symbian OS needs to die. Pronto.
  2. Ovi needs to follow Apple's lead and start putting out a wider selection of decent apps.
Is Android the way out?
1. They need to stop tacking stuff onto it. It's a good OS but it's laggy and has serious issues. They were kicking ass in terms of user customisability for a while but now that there's so much disparity between models/versions and firmware, the inconsistencies really peeve people.
2. Ovi is crap. Mine is also crap at managing licences as mentioned in OP. Even Planet 3 is better for buying stuff.
4. Android came and went pretty quick.... the initial hype is over. It's funny that this proves people are happy buying closed-software (like Windows) as long as it works as opposed to open-source software which doesn't do everything you need and is buggy anyway.
 
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The battery life is decent at the start of every Nokia product but it's as if they have been designed with planned obsolescence from the start.
i've noticed this, phones seem to last little over a year then the battery completely goes to shit, they're not really built to last. i can hardly remember in high school where everyone kept the same phone for three years, those sturdy nokias that you could drop from the top floor of a building and they would still be intact at the bottom, though they were massively chunky by today's standards... i think you're very right about planned obsolescence.

i wonder if you wrote to customer service if they would actually do anything about it... like do they really take feedback into account in their engineering or whether they just ignore it/make excuses because it's embarrassing. seems like a lot of companies would prefer to do the latter these days.
 

seremify007

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I've posted on Nokia's own support forum with a bunch of other unhappy Nokia users... but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Easiest way to solve this is to vote with my feet.
 
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Word of advice then- stick to the basic Nokia phones. They work GREAT. Anything which doesn't promise to be a smartphone, should be pretty steady out of the box. One thing Nokia can do which noone else comes close to (presuming it's a "good" model) is make kickass keyboards and good typing interfaces for SMSing.
I'll keep that in mind.

If I ever want one of the cool, hip, magical experience, awesome new phones I'd prolly bite the bullet and get an iphone.

Well I'd have a look at what the interwebz has to say on a few cool, hip, magical experience, awesome new phones but yeh.
 
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-shrug- I've got the 5800. And yeah its got a few bugs, and I've had my music player crash sometimes and I might hard reset soon but honestly, the problems I have are fairly small. The biggest problem I have right now is that the call button won't bring up call log anymore and that my calendar shortcut isn't working, and its a known problem that can be solved by hard resetting lol but i cbb. But those problems are hardly life-shattering and I can live with them.

But in all honesty, I love my phone and seriously think it's one of the best value phones out there because it's got so much functionality for a comparatively cheap phone. And I disagree, I don't find Ovi store too bad at all. Sure, not as great as Itunes store but in all honesty, the free apps on itunes aren't that brilliant (quite a few are, but with all games, you generally get bored of them eventually). It's mainly my friends with the hacked iphones/ipod touches that seem to have the awesomest games, but that said, I think my game collection is pretty freaking awesome as well and I've probably got more than most of my friends on iphones lol. And I love the convenience of Ovi store sending a text to your phone to download games but some people may find this irritating.

And I love Comes With Music (basically 12 months free music downloads basically) because it is seriously convenient to just download songs directly to your phone. Although there's a lot of restrictions on the songs you download, (e.g. can't use as ringtone GR, but I think that's the music companies' fault not nokia) I am so going to miss it when my twelve months expires.

So yeah in general, I don't think Nokia is completely hopeless at all. Sure my phone has minor problems, but for half the price of the Iphone and pretty much the same functionality (and imo, someways better), I do think the iphone is a ripoff. And the customer service in their Nokia Care Centres isn't too bad at all for minor problems, my charger broke earlier on and they replaced it with minimal fuss
 

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omg nokia :evilfire:
bought an n97 mini and the screen was making a high pitch noise whenever it's on.
took it to nokia care on a friday noon and they saw what was wrong and shit and took it to repair. asked for a loan phone but nooo i don't have a credit card :pain:
monday i get a text saying it's ready, go to pick it up and all they did was reformat it and the noise was still there so i chucked a bitch fit at the girl there lol poor thing

tuesday i get another text and i go to find out they replaced the screen. it still makes a noise but not as bad but yeah i cbf going back there maybe later.

nokia is just releasing buggy phones and fixing the issues with updates AFTER several months :shouting::shouting::shouting:
 
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I've posted on Nokia's own support forum with a bunch of other unhappy Nokia users... but it seems to fall on deaf ears. Easiest way to solve this is to vote with my feet.
that's so stupid of them, i mean some companies pay people in marketing to find out what people want in their product/current problems/sentiments about the service, you're giving that to them for free and they decide to ignore it... what idiots lol. yeah switch i guess, if they're that hopeless they don't deserve your business.
 

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Nokia has always been shit compared to Sony Ericsson. iPhone os >*
 

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i had a 5800 for 3 months then ditched it for an iphone 3gs
best decision ever made

you think nokia with their market power would have their shit sorted in regards to software in the 3 years after the iphones release, but they aren't even remotely close.

only phone os's to ever consider, in order:
iphone
android
somewhat blackberry
 

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Hmm I'd still rate the Nokia Symbian s60 over Blackberry and Android (for now) but yeh, the iPhone OS has proven to be far more useful. Yes it's a closed system without memory cards and file managers, etc... but it does what customers want.

I still am perplexed as to why my N97 Mini's "Nokia Email" program won't integrate with the rest of the phone. Oh wait, I know why. Because Nokia Email only integrates with the latest N97 Mini firmware... which is not yet available to people outside Europe.
 

seremify007

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nokia's
interface

SO
FCKING
UGLY
They used to be able to get away with it because it was functional and it worked the way you'd expect it to work. I still remember when Samsung relied solely on 'uber polyphonic ringtones' to sell phones rather than having a decent interface (anyone remember the E700?). And SonyEricsson has come a long way too in UI (although I still feel it's "weird" to use compared to Nokia).
 

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We all laugh at Apple fanboys who blindly buy Apple products the moment Steve Jobs announces something. Then we laugh at the almost cliche anti-Apple club which is as non-conformist as... wait a sec, doesn't that mean they use Windows? (bar the <1% of people who use *nix of some sort). Anyway, at least those guys are buying products which have proven that with enough of a userbase, they get better, and with more support, there's more applications and features and bugfixes and things get better, etc...

I'm like that except for Nokia. For many years I've bought countless Nokias- off the top of my head I've owned: 3810, 6110, 3210, 6210, 8310, 3650, 6100, 7250i, 7610, n93, e71, e51, n97 mini.... (also owned an SE w800i, Samsung D600, Ericsson T... somethingarather). The point is, I've stood by Nokias for a long time even when they started to become a bit boring and tried to reinvent themselves.

Now, despite buying flagship Nokias several times bar the luxury models, and typically at launch, I feel like I have been very left behind by Nokia as someone who they take for granted to pay lots of money for sub par products.

So what am I disappointed about?

The fact that Nokia releases buggy devices, buggy software, and doesn't do squat to fix it. The n97 mini was really the tipping point where I avoided buying an iPhone and thought Nokia's trusty series 60 interface would be the winner in the end especially with touch screen and better hardware (and supposedly a better camera).

The firmware- yes there are updates; but they're locked. I have an unlocked n97 mini yet I'm not able to access the latest firmware updates in Europe which have been out for 6 months now. My email still crashes and isn't reliable. I've had several hard resets and even lost the licence to some programs I paid for through Ovi store.

The applications- despite trying to mimic the Apple App Store, Ovi store is slow to load, feels half assed, and the other applications are just poorly implemented with touch screen controls which are clearly an afterthought. Nokia Email is a joke and so is their web browser. Doesn't even support secure online websites properly.

The battery life is decent at the start of every Nokia product but it's as if they have been designed with planned obsolescence from the start. My e71 barely lasts a day without a full recharge... and that's without me using it much now due to me being scared it'll run out before my work day is over.

Other features which were meant to be 'iPhone killer' such as tilt to switch orientation are fruitless. Why would I want a 'slide to answer' button if it moves when I pick up the phone (i.e. tilts from potrait to landscape). Making matters worse, the hardware is so laggy that the screen goes blank for about 2-3 seconds which means by the time the answer button reappears on the screen, it's too late to answer. Funnily enough the hardware buttons to call/end don't do anything when keylock was on (which is what your phone would usually be in if you were picking up a call and not already using your phone). In the end I found a way to turn orientation switch off.

Anyway the point of this rant is to warn people against buying Nokia stuff. The only reason I'm suckered into this is because AFAIK I can't synchronise calendar and contacts with my work software (Lotus Notes) and I have 1500+ contacts which may not transfer smoothly to another device; nor is there a comparable product which lets me synchronise two iPhones easily for contacts/etc without relying on a computer (I carry at least two phones all the time).

So as a heavy duty mobile phone user (monthly bill ranges from $100 to $200 not including handset costs), let this be a warning. There's probably a reason why every company is trying to match the damn iPhone.
The true iPhone killer from Nokia, which I own, is the N900. It runs on a Debian distribution and looks like a real touch phone. Has a full Firefox browser, too.
 

seremify007

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The true iPhone killer from Nokia, which I own, is the N900. It runs on a Debian distribution and looks like a real touch phone. Has a full Firefox browser, too.
It's a little late for me now... lost alot of faith in Nokia.

As for the N900 though, one of my mates bought one a while back when it was launched o/s. He still can't receive MMS for some reason.

I'm at the point in my life where I'm over the whole haxoring/modding/flashing/changing product code/etc... I literally am willing to pay money for a phone which works all the time, every time for what I need (internet, sms, email, good contacts management, battery life, calendar sync, and a camera). Surely my needs aren't that out of the ordinary :(
 

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