In the next video, I do a quick demo/review of the N9′s Camera app, Gallery, Music player and Video player.
CAMERA
[Note: This is not meant to represent camera quality, only the UI]
Although it’s not the 12mp of the N8, I still think it’s very good. I never actually used all 12mp on my N8, instead choosing the 9mp setting. So for me, it’s only 1mp difference. The UI is very nice. Slim, helpful, everything that you need is available quickly, and in my opinion, a very modern approach to a camera. This would have been nice to see in the N8.
The shot to shot time is definitely very quick, as well as the swap from still to video recording. Something that I did not like with the N8 was the long time it took to change and even start up. I like the manual focus option too, again, something else that would have been nice to see in the N8.
For the camera enthusiasts, there are extensive settings, that I think will please you. If not, CameraPro N9 is already out in the Nokia Store (currently in beta and free) so it may fix your issues.
GALLERY
I like the new gallery. It is simple, yet, does a lot. The option to choose what content in shown, via the selection, is something I find handy, especially when trying to showcase Camera samples.
There are only three options, but I think it’s all you need; Share Items, Edit Tags, Delete Items.
Share Items allows you to mark the items you want, then send via Mail, MMS, NFC and Bluetooth, as well as allowing you to upload to some social networks. Edit Tags, obviously, allows you to edit the tags of the image. This is useful when using the “View by tags” option. Delete items allows marking of items, then deletion of the marked items.
MUSIC PLAYER
The music player is nicely designed. The inclusion of swipe to change song, is subtle, yet, still brings that whole “Swipe” experience to apps, not just multitasking.Although there is still no equalizer option, but after having the N8 for a year, I got used to its absence. For those that use the Ovi Music Store, there is a shortcut to get to it, straight from the Music Player.
VIDEO PLAYER
The only criticism I have with the video player, is the swipe away. I wish the animation dragged the whole video and not just cut it. But that aside, very simple to use. Nice and polished UI.
Here is a 19 minute review of the currently top Belle handset, the Nokia 701. It’s in Italian so it might just be more useful to our Italian speaking readers. Nevertheless, it’s still worth a watch to see performance of the 701.
According to GSM Arena’s tests, the Nokia N9 manages to play a whopping 8H and 40 minutes of video playback.
In comparison, I get about 5h with my N8. It has less pixels to push (640×360 vs 854×480) but it does have less battery life (1200mAh vs 1450mAh in N9).
For a bit of context:
Handset charged fully
looped standard definition Xvid video.
Brightness at 50%
Stopped when battery was at 10% (so it could have done a little more. They note that some phones turn off video player and don’t allow restarting. I’m not sure if N9 has this ‘feature’.
GSM Arena notes that the only thing beating it is the iPhone 4.
Jay Kim/ShootSpeak tipped us of his new post, checking out the performance of the Nokia N9. It ‘s a great read, covering boot up time, file transfer time, App loading times, Camera Speed, Multitasking and Browser Benchmark.
In terms of camera speed, the details there are from the NokConv post, but he confirms it’s very fast. Writing speed via cable is very good, as is via WiFi N (20mb/s, 3.4mb/s). Some apps taking between 4-16 seconds to boot (16 being maps. You can see this in Michael’s video, here.)
this review, I’ll be showing you Nokia Maps, Drive Navigation, Ovi Music and the Nokia Store.
MAPS
Maps takes a bit of time to boot. Don’t worry, your new N9 isn’t laggy already. I think it has a very well designed interface. Like the video says, not sure yet how to add more maps at this stage, but I will endeavour to try and do it.
I’m glad they added two finger rotation is this version, was something I definitely thought needed to be included in the Symbian versions. The load time of searches and the 3D buildings were quite quick (over a WiFi connection) and I didn’t notice too much lag.
The bottom toolbar allows you to choose between the Map, Nearby locations and events, Navigation and Settings.
DRIVE
The Drive part of Maps is a little complicated to initiate at first, but I think it wouldn’t take too long for you to get used to how it works. I used this on Friday night and I found it to be very accurate in finding a decent route and also staying locked on my position (despite travelling through heavy bushland).
OVI MUSIC
The Ovi Music store is a very modern looking app to purchase and listen to music. At first, you are required to select the country you reside in, and this cannot be changed.
Although I’m not quite purchasing music yet, it was a pleasant experience to just scroll through the app. The difficulty I had with finding ways to preview the song would have to be my only criticism for the Music Store.
NOKIA STORE
Finally, the Nokia Store (although labelled with Ovi Store) is very smooth and elegant. It reminds me of the Nokia Store just released to Symbian (or should I say the Symbian store replicates this).
There are quite a few apps already available in the store, and hopefully a lot more to come.
P.S I apologise for stopping half way. A weird clicking noise was coming from my N9 just before it went all laggy.
As requested, I’ve put together a little showcase/review of EmuMaster, an emulator for the N9. I haven’t installed anything to it (so it’s not a real review as such), but I like it, as it has multiple platform support; NES, SNES, GBA and PSX.
As one of the luckiest bloggers that WOMWorld brought in Hong Kong last week, Nokia showered us with a treat of bringing the newest Nokia smartphones to try out for couple of weeks so I chose the Nokia 701 to try whilst my other friends went to Nokia 700 and 600. Nokia 700 has the brightest screen with 3.5″ IPS display with CBD technology, 1Ghz CPU, 512MB RAM, 8MP camera and running on Symbian Belle.
During we’re in HK we have had the opportunity to use these devices and my Nokia 701 was my primary cameraphone as we tour the majestic places there. So below are the few still and video shots I’ve captured with 701′s 8MP snapper. Although it’s on Full Focus and it can’t do some close up shots still the device performed well as a cameraphone both in video and still.
So after having using the Nokia E6 for about a week now, I am finally getting use to (and starting to enjoy) having a real keyboard again. I am now ready to start my series of reviews on the E6.
Part 1 Hardware:
First lets give you the official specs on the size of this phone. Dimensions: 4.54 x 2.32 x .41 inches I am aware that these dimensions don't really help you picture how big this phone is in your mind so...I have put it next to an E63 for comparison in every picture.
This phone feels solid in the hand like all of the recent Nokia phones I have tested. Even tough the most of the phone is plastic you get the feeling that if you dropped it nothing would happen to it. It feels good in the hand, and the metal trim gives you a good grip so you don't feel like your going to drop it. (this was one of my few problems with the N8)
Let's take a quick tour around the phone...
On the top of the phone is the power button, 3.5mm headset jack, and the Micro SD card slot. Not much to note here, expect the cover for the SD card hinges from the front as opposed from the middle like you would expect. This gives the cover a more solid feel than say the C7, or the N8.
Heading down the right side of the phone everything is as expected, volume control with voice command in the middle, and your physical lock and unlock button. If you look close on the very bottom you can see a spot for a lanyard...which is nice to see these days. Just because it is out of style does not make it useless all of sudden. It kind of threw me not to see a dedicated camera button on the bottom. I believe it is a form factor thing on the E series, I don't remember seeing it on the E71 and there is none on the E63 it is pictured with here either.
Not much to see here on the bottom, just a charging port. But this is a good shot to see just how thin this phone is as compared to the E63.
Just a mini USB port on this side, but you can really see how the D-pad is raised up a little from the face of the phone. This is something you can't really see from the front view. Also to be noted is finally you can charge your phone from the USB port, this is a recent event for Nokia phones.
On the back is the 8MP EDOF camera with dual flash and a single loudspeaker. The camera is raised up slightly, this does not affect the pocketablity of this phone at all. Nor does it affect the feel of the phone in your hand in any negative way. When holding this phone it seems to act as a kind of "stopper" for your index finger. I have found it allows me to pick up the phone "blindly" and orient the phone in my hand without even looking at it.
On the front of the phone starting from the top: earpiece, front facing camera, proximity sensor, psychical menu keys and keyboard. Notice how the two psychical buttons for "options and menu" are gone. They are now integrated into the touch screen, and will pop up on screen when they become necessary. The send, home, and calendar button are one big piece. The end, mail, and contact button also is now all one big piece. At first I thought this would be an issue with the phone "hitting the wrong button" but I have not had an issue with this once.
The keyboard is slightly smaller than the E63, but not to the point where I found myself pushing the wrong buttons. (Normally I type on this phone with one hand, using my fat thumb) It has a space bar which is four keys big, (which is really nice) but the trade off to this is you are losing two keys as compared to previous phones. All of these keys seem to have been moved expect the & symbol. I can't seem to find it and can't think of a good reason to omit it either.
All the hardware seems to be well placed and designed well on this phone. All expect for the notification light, which is now buried on the left hand side under the usb port. On all previous E series phones the notification light would light up around the middle D-pad where it was easily seen, in it's new spot it's kind of unnoticeable.
Coming up soon.....review on the E6's screen and software
The line of the Eseries devices of Nokia is proven to be top-notch in design and features. These smartphones are well-known to be leaders built on powerful and solid typing, connectivity,
and messaging tool. So let’s see if Nokia E6 will be worthy to be one.
Pros: Very compact, sleek and solid Touch-and-type is awesome Design is outstanding Symbian Anna brings stability in performance Free Ovi Maps with lifetime support of turn-by-turn navigation is big deal Landscape shooting and HD video Longer battery life above most of other devices Excellent call quality and audio output on headset Love the UI layout of Symbian Anna on E6
Cons: Nokia needs to get rid of FullFocus camera from their high-end devices Camera lens are prone to scratches Limited 3rd party apps due to resolution Social App of Nokia is slow and needs some big improvements
Messaging
Starting from the very basic function of business smartphones which is messaging, Nokia E6 evolves as the new type-and-touch leader of Nokia. It brings ease and speed solutions to users with its integrated full and multi-touch screen function to full physical QWERTY keyboard especially on typing a sms, email or chat.
Full QWERTY on E6
Nokia E6 is bundled with the aces of Nokia messaging apps. You have the threaded SMS which is a Symbian^3 features, a push-enabled email client and other is the communicator, and lastly the IM functions for chatty ones.
I activated multiple email accounts on the mail client of Symbian since from I got hold the phone and I can say that the push-emailing really works great as it saves me lot of battery life while giving me on time notifications whenever I’m connected. This app was improved to work better on Symbian^3 phones.
E6 has also lots of chat services included in its Chat app and that includes your Google Talk, Messenger, YM and more. But if you want some alternative for IM, the WhatsApp and Nimbuzz are the few top messaging apps that can be found free from Ovi Store.
For socialites, the bundled app is the Social app of Nokia. It’s useable for basic function the rest is I still find it slow and unorganized. It really needs big update especially on performance, integration and UI overhaul. But thanks to Gravity for an alternative 3rd party apps for twitter and other social networks.
Web and Apps
A big bottleneck of having a bigger screen resolution on the device is that the numbers of compatible 3rd party apps are not great specifically on games. But on messaging and utility apps, most of the top apps will run smoothly on E6. Example of those is your Nimbuzz, WhatsApp, Gravity, Opera Mobile and Mini and others.
The latest Symbian Anna brings an updated and improved web browser to Symbian^3 phones. Much of the improvements are on UI and performance. I noticed its faster compare to N8’s browser running on older Symbian firmware and not on Anna. New url bar on top is also noticeable as well as the few face lifts on UI.
All first generation Symbian^3 phones like N8, C7 and E7 will receive the update on the end of August.
To those E6 users, please share other working apps on E6 through comments. Thanks!
Multimedia
As a business inclined device, it should be understand the E6 is not rich with multimedia features when we compare it to Nseries lines. But differences on multimedia features are supplementary for some like your HDMI. But the rest are must-needed smartphone functions like your camera.
Talking of camera, E6 features EDoF or Full Focus like your Nokia E7, C7, X7 and other Symbian^3 phones. Having this is both a con and pro to me. Mainly because Auto-focusing is absent to FF camera and unlike on your Nokia N8, you can have close up shots or macro for video and still image. But the bright side of FF is that it is superior in HD video shooting especially on landscape and far-subject shots.
And through the petitions of most fans, Nokia will probably stop putting FullFocus camera on their next smartphones, and I hope so that it will happen.
We also tested the Nokia E6′s capability in QR reading so check it out.
For being a touch-and-type phone, simplicity from complexity is definitely the approach of Nokia in designing the E6. Yet for being a simplified device, it is still obvious that Nokia E6 holds a sexy and elegant design features.
Most of the noticeable features are on the sleek and solid construction of E6 that I experience every time I hold it. Typing on the keys is perfected too for your thumbs as it is very smooth and comfortable to type in. New D-pad layout is kinda my favourite part on the facade of the phone, though. You can also actually use E6 with only a hand due to the type and touch function.
And the drawback I found was the E6 camera lens as it is prone to scratches and I’d wish it was on gorilla proof too like on the vibrant 2.46” screen. Speaking of screen, 2.46″ is kinda small if you came from a big touchy screen device but if really want speed and compactness surely you will hooked on it. It’s the same as AMOLED screen on N8 or E7 but brightness settings is always mid and all icons and images are crispier to see on this big resolution screen.
Connectivity, Utilities, Battery
Symbian^3 brings more smarter features to Nokia E6 with the support of USB OTG which is useful on managing documents. You can edit files like Microsoft office documents using the Quick Office app that is pre-installed on your phone. Another useful thing is that Nokia E6 has a flashlight default shortcut through its slider lock.
E6 also brought wide connectivity solutions. With it’s Wi-Fi b/g/n, you can have a faster and wider support of net. The same on the pentaband connection for GSM and 3G combine which you can access net through E6 in many countries worldwide.
Battery life on E6 is excellent and that’s is true to most Eseries devices. Thanks to monstrous 1500mAh battery which actually being fitted on the compact body of E6. It’s really a reliable phone when you want longer battery life on all typical usage.
Symbian Anna and the verdict
The aches and pains due to slow or laggy experience from other Symbian^3 phones are now absent on Nokia E6 and that is considered to be one significant improvement of the upcoming new firmware update, Symbian Anna. So to sum up, performance wise it is better on E6 and UI layout on E6 is excellent. But I still believe it’s enough to keep Symbian users to keep holding on Anna until the next update comes which is codename Symbian Belle.
Top Questions
And for being the first its kind to step in the arena with Symbian^3, here are my top formulated questions with answers:
Is Nokia E6 worth the upgrade from E72/E71? > Definitely E6 is worth for upgrade. Design and performance was improved well from the predecessor, and for the market price points, it is absolutely a must-grab touch-and-type business phone of Nokia because of the small price difference.
Are you ready to give up your Nokia N8 and go for E6? > I think I can’t give up my N8 yet due to the fact that I’m already hooked with its superb camera, and E6 having of a FullFocus one which I can’t live with. But however, if I have the opportunity to own a Nokia E6, I would still wish to have them both with me and I will make E6 as my main phone. J
If I have to choose between Nokia E7 and E6 which will you pick? > I really love the hardware of both especially the design of Nokia E7 which surely make every user standout from the crowd. But for me, basing in my needs necessities and price preferences, I would pick Nokia E6. I think it’s worth for my money even it has an FullFocus. I would go to E7 if it has no FullFocus camera.
