Antti Akonniemi

I was invited to Nokia’s event to hear about their the new flagship model N97. I wrote my experiences done, but hesitated sharing them because there’s already ton of reviews/bashes/etc out there. I already wrote them so what the heck. Here are my thoughts.

The event

It’s very good that Nokia is opening up. Proof of that is that in Old-Nokia’s event I probably would have been thrown out because of my questions (or they would only accept approved questions).

Venue was good except it was hot as hell.

Not enough test phones for everyone. I mean, you are a phone manufacturer? Right?

@jussipekka and @heleneauramo are great speakers.

Also Twitter screen was very nice!

Actual device

Is pretty good. Design is nice, keyboard is acceptable (for iPhone user), opening mechanism is very nice. Phone is a bit lighter than iPhone (or at least it feels like it). Touch screen needs a stylus or nail. I had hard times trying to transfer my “iPhone touch screen skills” to N97.

Software

First the good things: Homescreen is great, except I don’t like the design. I mean do you want your customers to pimp their homescreens? If someone shows their N97 to me, the first impression will probably be awful unless the person is a designer. Plus I’ll see his/hers Facebook/Twitter/Email messages which nobody wants.

Oh, back to the good things :) Ovi Store will have operator billing. Best thing? Finnish TVKaista works in N97.

Now the juicy part.

Homescreen widgets? Widsets? Whaat? Nokia seems to have dropped Widsets and are now calling them widgets. I asked about this, but the Nokia people didn’t seem to understand my question.

Three ways to type – stylus, “normal phone keyboard” and the slide. Why three? One is enough.

Ovi Store – (joke and punchline combined).

Ovi Store was slow, UI was horrible and they did not demo the payment.

Symbian. Symbian is still slow.

Conclusion

Nokia: Drop Symbian NOW. You’ve been building Linux based OS for long time. Take the jump. Symbian is too old and bloated.

Nokia: Take chances. Design = choices. You’re not making them, you are just passing them to the user. You can also call this engineer driven design.

@setok made really good question: “Is this the device that will help Nokia to catch Apple?” – No and I was hoping for so much more.

I also did some interviews at the event (in Finnish): video