Hands-on with Nokia's S60 touch UI at MWC

Move along, nothing too new and thrilling here. We hunted down Nokia's touch demo and were completely un-thrilled by the whole package. Sure, it's still early days for the interface, but it's a case of same old same old as it's sporting the same UI, same OS, but now instead of using the d-pad, you're able to poke about with your finger. The demo was running on a small tablet in software only, no hardware yet, though, as we've already mentioned, devices should start arriving in the second half of the year. Hopefully Nokia will see the error -- in our opinion -- of its ways and drop some glitz -- feel free to pop on over and visit NVIDIA for some inspiration, Nokia -- down on this fairly glitz-free bit of wizardry. Hit the link to see the full gallery!

[Rich @ Feb 14th 2008 11:38AM]

Glitz is overrated. I want usability and responsiveness.

[mike @ Feb 14th 2008 11:41AM]

Me too! I can care less bout eyecandy!

[Anthony @ Feb 14th 2008 11:52AM]

Glitz is one thing, but usability is definitely a part of the "i" world too. I will say that while I like my S60 3rd device I find there are too many layers to get to what I want to do on anything but the basics & most consumers aren't going to dig into user settings & various subgroups.

Simple, ease & function can all come together.

[Richard @ Feb 14th 2008 1:15PM]

Hey!

It's S60 Touch. From Nokia.

A company that used to make toilet paper.

No S$%&!

[tab @ Feb 14th 2008 3:44PM]

Nokia has never made toilet paper. Nokia makes mobile phones, tyres and rubber boots.

[andi @ Feb 14th 2008 4:28PM]

Nokia's mistake was to leave the interface undumbified for the dumb consumer mind... s60 started as an interface for business, and in that it's much more usable than winmo. Using the same for consumers and business customers meant that they had to alter it so consumerminds don't break it, but also to keep a degree of complexity so power users can enjoy it. that ruined everything... there should be s60dumb and s60smart, imho..

[imacmatt09 @ Feb 14th 2008 11:44AM]

Way to copy and paste the article from Engadget Mobile.... The only original line from it is the last one...

[Adam @ Feb 14th 2008 12:02PM]

You realize the same person posted this for Engadget Mobile right?

[Anthony @ Feb 14th 2008 12:23PM]

These two sites should merge the user comments. I don't mind the cross posting, but having two strings for the same article is sorta annoying.

[Richard @ Feb 14th 2008 1:18PM]

Based on the volume of posts on Engadget vs. Engadget Mobile relative any shared topic, Engadget Mobile should go the way of the DoDo.

That it hasn't must mean they are getting some considerable revenue from the mobile-dedicated site.

[Stimpski @ Feb 14th 2008 2:50PM]

How embarrassing (for you)

[andi @ Feb 14th 2008 4:28PM]

name says it, avatar picture says it, he's a machead... what could you expect?..

[jim @ Feb 14th 2008 1:10PM]

That magnifying glass in the picture looks familiar.

[Ireland @ Feb 14th 2008 1:48PM]

If you are insinuating it looks like the one on the iPhone it doesn't, the one on the iPhone actually looks good.

[Alan Partridge @ Feb 14th 2008 1:11PM]

Whats with all the galleries? Give us some vidoes please!

[Armen @ Feb 14th 2008 2:27PM]

I really hope they pay Xerox and put Graffiti One for text input (along others) on that too. It's a very fast text entry system. It takes a little bit of time to learn but when you learn it but then you can enter text really fast. There was a little program on Palm which measured your speed and I could do 32 words per minute on my Palm.

[Armen @ Feb 14th 2008 2:32PM]

Oh! Or is it one of those iPhone type of touch-screens?

[Alslayer @ Feb 14th 2008 2:47PM]

Arg, What is that tablet they are running it on?

[TareX @ Feb 14th 2008 7:27PM]

Symbian knows its target audience and is willing to stay on its course to the SAME people. If you're a high-end power user, Symbian isn't cut out for you.

I personally love my E65 with s60v3. It does everything I want... Push mail... GBA emulations... Opera Mini.. Youtube... but I want more. And from what S60 Touch is showing, it won't be offering what I need in the near future.

Next stop, WM 6.1 or Android for me. Too bad I was obsessed with S60 Touch ever since the announcement months ago.

[Rik @ Feb 17th 2008 1:19PM]

Well I own a N95 but I know and love the E65 as well (it's a very pretty phone with functionality that comes close to the N95 and better batery life). Personally what bugs me the most about the N95 is the 240x320 screen res. Give me a higher res S60 phone and I'm happy. Personnaly I bought the N95 especially because I did not want a touch screen phone btw.

[nikster @ Feb 16th 2008 9:39PM]

This is looking increasingly sad - first winmobile with vapor-esque Xperia panels, now S60 touch looks like a case of me-too but too little too late same old same old. Steve Jobs said the iPhone interface was 5 years ahead of the competition and it now looks like both the Symbian camp and WinMo camps are doing their best (?) to prove him right.

Android looks to be the only hope now - its not weighed down by legacy requirements. Let's hope some handset manufacturers jump on it and shower it with money.

[Andrew @ Feb 18th 2008 8:52AM]

You've not seen the TouchWiz demos from Samsung then. Looks a little slow right now but I think it's my current top choice of interfaces.