Nokia's already
tipped its hand for the year Twenty Ten by publicly stating its intent to deliver a sleeker, more attractive, and faster Symbian UI; fewer nags; and at least
one Maemo handset before the year is done. What we've been missing though, are the details. While we still don't have the complete story, it is beginning to take shape according to alleged leaks received by
Tom's Guide. First up is a new naming convention, something already telegraphed by Nokia's
Xseries launch and
Cseries trademark. According to the French language site, Nokia will end the use of monikers like XpressMusic or Classic as it simplifies around the following five ranges:
- C: voice-centric handsets.
- X: targeting youth, entertainment.
- E: business focused.
- N: high-end.
- S: limited editions.
Tom's Guide claims to be privy to 14 new models, a few of which it spilled the beans on today. Click through for the gossip.
Here's the best of what's supposedly coming from Nokia in the first half of the year:
- C5-00: seen previously, this is a basic handset with built-in GPS (available June in France).
- C3-00: low-cost S40 with "full keyboard" for those multitasking youngsters with email (July).
- C5-01: or is it the C6 that we've already seen? Regardless, it's called a better C3-00 that's meant to go head-to-head with BlackBerry.
Last but not least is mention of the N8-00 (aka, N87 using traditional Nokia naming) -- the best Nokia will have to offer in the first half of the year. Scheduled for a summer release, it will feature a 3.5-inch capacitive touchscreen for the new
Symbian^3 OS' multitouch and gesture support. It's also said to pack a 12 megapixel camera that grabs 720p/30fps video with HDMI-out to quickly share the events you capture or videos pulled from a new video on demand service rumored for the Ovi store. We can't confirm any of this yet, but we will be meeting with Nokia at Mobile World Congress in just a few days -- Monday to be exact -- so it won't be long.
posted Feb 11th 2010 8:51AM
i: Targeting everyone
:-)
You people just can't handle fact!
@BUNT2 That 12mp cam surely perk someone up. I think i'll go for the silver. Just hopefully it gets released early Q3.
Price is indeed surprising low, but i guess this is the part when they really start moving MeeGo to high end Symbian flagship is already 200 euros cheaper than the previous. Reactions. http://j.mp/nokia-n8-compiled-impressions
Looking good. I like Symbian, they just need to bump the performance , which it looks they are doing.
I hated when my Xpress Music will give me the "No enough memory available" and closed MSN and Opera. :S
That is the reason why I returned it. I guess more memory more performance - improved UI - better performance + other goodies - best performance. :D
Go, Nokia, Go!
@TikiTeko At least you could run msn and opera at the same time!
@phoenix004 yupe. but, Help is on the way my fellow Symbian and Simian lovers !
Yeah. I hope Symbian and Nokia can bring its OS into 2010 and be a serious contender to the Smartphone market.
Just make sure its a good product in everything from software to hardware to finish to touch&feel..
@Engagged This phone also needs a Xenon flash, Nokia use very good camera lenses & when they put a xenon flash on there phones no one can compete with them.
No Nokia phone has had axenon flash since N82, it is about time they gave us another one.
@Newwales
"No Nokia phone has had axenon flash since N82"
The Nokia 6220 has xenon flash as well.
And I fully agree that xenon flash should be on more phones. I'd personally like both xenon and LED, since both have their uses (like video). I find myself using the LED as a torch, too.
Using an N79 now, I can't imagine using a phone with a worse camera, no matter how nice the UI is. The iPhone has started a stupid trend of limited cameras on smartphones, I really hope Nokia won't follow suite.
The phone cameras are very close in replacing dedicated cameras for CASUAL (!!) photography. In some cases they already did.
Bring it Nokia! Can't wait. :)
@ChazClout The possibility of netflix-like streaming on a mobile with the mentioned OviStore streaming would be huge!
HOLY SHIT
I hope this will support xvid videos and possibly matroska container aswell. That would make this phone the best with an hdmi output aswell.
Cone ON NOKIA YOU CAN DO THIS.
@Thor
Symbian S60 Nokias can already play those formats. No one is stopping you from installing CorePlayer or whatever.. this is not Apple, you know. ;)
But maybe you meant you want to play those natively.. in that case, I agree. :)
So let's hope with these handsets Nokia goes back to # 1
@beckhams777 Goes back?
It is still number one and never left... What are you talking about.
@beckhams777
by any chance, when you say "goes back to", do you really mean "stays at"?
@Mr w00t yes fair enough, but nokia isn't what it was when the n95 came out. let's hope thins brings it back to that
@beckhams777 UH last I checked Nokia is still the world number 1 but I guess some people think that if it is not the 300 million in the US then the other 6 billion people don't really count. Maybe thats how you got your figures
@beckhams777
I agree with numbers, Nokia outsells most of the others... but I would like to see again the success that previous Nokia phones have had in the N series (yes, i know the N900) but nowadays most people just seem to be concerned with the Nexus One, iPhone, and HTC's....
I still think Nokia has the best quality out of all of them!
As a Nokia user, I have to admit that the Nokia's touch UI (and some other stuff) is far from being #1, which is maybe what the OP meant.
Nokia still offers a lot of value and other benefits in some cases, but lets not get carried away by fanboism. It desperately needs to improve in some areas.
@beckhams777 You are wrong! Just need to look beyong tech blogs and US of A.
Finally... a naming system for Nokia phones that's simpler and bound to get more complicated with time... :)
Competition = a good thing
Another take?
http://www.slashgear.com/nokia-n98-qwerty-style-slider-leaked-1173717/
Good hardware specs are nice, but hopefully Nokia's learned from the N97 - have a smooth interface and don't skimp on RAM.
@YpoCaramel Symbian^3 is build around multicores so i can pretty much guarantee N87 will be using same OMAP3 configuration as N900.
@YpoCaramel
The good thing is that SHAI will be ready (if I remember correctly) for Symbian^3 which means its' easier to develop on different hardware. Maybe this time Nokia won't get stuck suing same hardware too long.
12 megapixels, really? I think at this point they need to be focusing more on quality than resolution.
@Yankee Nokia phones have the best quality in cameras from all handsets available... Carl Zeirs lens and everything.
Just go to the Nokia Blog and compare the 5mp N900 x Nexus One and you will see what I am talking about.
@Mr w00t
To be fair, the best cameras on phones nowadays are on some Samsung and SE models.
Some Nokias do have good cameras as well, tho.
@Endadget
the best phone cams are NOT from SE and Samsung! They have models with more megapixels, but pixel for pixel, comparing similar resolutions, Nokia wins hands down. They use the best optical lenses in the market, with Carl Zeiss optics far better than the competition, and Kodak algorithms for processing. Nokia has always been the imaging king, and still leads on image quality. This is just a continuation of the N90, N73, N82/N95, N86 heritage as the best cameraphone line manufacturer ever. It was the Nseries' biggest lure in its beginning.
@christexaport
Dude, you need a reality check.
The Samsung Pixon series beat anything Nokia has to offer. Hell, even Samsung Innov8 beats anything Nokia has to offer. See for yourself:
http://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i8510_innov8-review-302p5.php
Same for some SE models.
Nokias might be better phones overall than the aforementioned. But they DON'T have better cameras.
@Endadget
Here's a direct comparison between the N86 and the Innov8:
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n86_8mp-review-366p7.php
Mind you, the Samsung Pixon12 is even better and easily beats anything else.
@Endadget I'm glad you posted that but NOTHING will get into the thick skulls of these Nokia fanboys. Not a peep from the one who was exalting "Nokia image quality" a few minutes ago. I've owned the N90, N93, N95 and they were great for their time but their time was 3 years ago. You can't keep posting in 2010 like it is still 2007. I hope Nokia gets with the program some time this year or next but from my experience I would not expect that this year's product will be competitive and that only Nokia fanboys will love it and suffer with it. Just go to Howard Forums and see the issues they have with the N97. They still keep buying it though. Maybe next year Symbian v4 might help Nokia's game. They just need to release RELIABLE software that actually does what it says. Having used Nokia flagship smartphones for many years I know there is a huge gap between what they say it does and what it actually does.
Anyway also I 100% guarantee that dozens of Nokia fanboys will down rate this until it is not visible. The thing is that most of them lack the maturity to counter with an actual point instead of just ganging up on the dissenter. If they listened to some dissent then maybe they could open their eyes to products that do certain things better and then ask Nokia to match or improve their product. As it stands they will just heap mountains and mountains of praise on anything that comes from Nokia. Even if it randomly reboots, or freezes or need to be sent for servicing every 2 months.
@Endadget
I agree on the Pixon, but its easy for a non smatrphone with little need for managing other functions. But for the innov8, I disagree, as do most others. http://wd.sharethis.com/share3x/lightbox.3aeb20f924d90e0b4e6668c1edee0e30.html#init/tabs=web%2Cpost%2Cemail/charset=utf-8/style=default/publisher=2cf14830-a0fb-43c4-b238-647470b7ec11/inactivebg=%23d1d1d1/linkfg=%23000566/hash_flag=false/sessionID=1265914846050.97701/fpc=2bfd61-1254fd82463-4cc2d2dd-12/pUrl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.allaboutsymbian.com%252Freviews%252Fitem%252FCamera_group_test_Nokia_N86_8MP_N97_N82_and_Samsung_I8510.php
Samsung may have a couple models that are competitive, but Nokia's entire Nseries as a line has better image quality, and even better comparing lower end models.
@ango Well, According to Android implementation it is not.
The patent granted to Apple is very weak and Google guys know this. After all of this fight Google x Apple, Google is trying Apple to check if they are going to get sued...
Apple can not enforce this patent so easily.
Soon we'll have 20MP cameras on our mobile phones and every email my mom sends will have several 5MB attachments.
nice to see 720p, lots hope it uses AVC-HD or something. Hope the lens and sensor are decent otherwise the photos and videos won't look great. 12mp is just stupid for a camera phone, the quality will be very poor.
I'm a little skeptical about this... I got so excited about the N97 and don't want to go get disappointed again. With smart phone wars heating up to all time highs this year, it is indeed an awesome time to be a consumer in a "Mobile Computer" market. Face it. From here on out we aren't buying "Cell Phones" anymore as the line gets very blurred thanks to VOIP and 1Ghz+ processing. I'm hoping the next Maemo phone retains the qwerty keyboard or at least comes with a detachable one.
series40 implies that it is not symbian, but nokiaOS, like their most cheapos.
if it's a symbian device it would fit in s60 product family(^2^3 whatever you like to call it).
@glassfin ,
I think the S40 reference was a typo. I doubt they add multitasking to S40. There's no reason to.
Now with all due respect to Android, this phone, being a Nokia, is the only phone that has the potential to sweep over the rest of the world and sweep into every Pocket and be a real iPhone killer, in every sense of the word. Except in North America.
In America, the only phone I imagine could have this "iPhone effect", is an Android. But so far, Nexus One, the best Android, and the Droid have both failed...
@TareG
a device on this level is too expensive to sweep the globe. The 5800 did that.
And guys, seriously. Nokia is the NUMBER ONE SELLER OF TOUCHSCREEN PHONES!! They are the leaders, folks...
Started "hating" Nokia lately (I have a N82) and although I own Nokia phones since ever (from the banana-type from Matrix model) until now. I was about to look for something else this year, but now I think I will wait until late summer to see if Nokia can keep me as customer. Otherwise I will shift to Android systems and Nokia won't see me again, would be a shame, no?
So, Nokia, give it your best!
IMHO this is Nokia's last chance to prove they can do a better job than Google \ Android. If this new OS is as bad, buggy, and underdeveloped as the previous Symbian version, then they do not stand a chance!
@DoctarPeppar : Symbian's many things, but it's not underdeveloped. If anything it's dangerously overcooked at this stage, which is what all this Symbian^3 business should clear out. They've had to boot out a whole lot of old code during the open source process.
@sockatume
I strongly dissagree...Symbian S60v5 had no working VOIP (SIP), no multitouch _at_all_, a pretty crappy web browser that crashed alot, no decent game or application support (even to this day the majority of Symbian apps in all the app stores are for v3, and not compatible with v5).
@DoctarPeppar Good thing to remember that Maemo is high end nowadays while the real change of many different Maemo phones is in 2011 and most importantly Maemo 6/harmattan release this year.
Plus Symbian^3 is really just half way there. Glorified Symbian 5th edition probally. Symbian^4 is totally Qt based like Maemo 6 and uses direct UI by Nokia.
Still really interesting phone this N87 and it seems kind of solid that it's real, but it seems it's not yet seen in Nokia's own event in Barcelona yet, but still in 1h this year.
@DoctarPeppar
"strongly dissagree...Symbian S60v5 had no working VOIP (SIP), no multitouch _at_all_, a pretty crappy web browser that crashed alot, no decent game or application support (even to this day the majority of Symbian apps in all the app stores are for v3, and not compatible with v5). "
S60 5th had various third party SIP/VOIP clients. I preferred Nimbuzz myself. It did lack multitouch, but those devices with multitouch lacked much more that the N97 and other 5th Edition models had. What features are you willing to lose just to gain multitouch? Zooming via tapping or using OSK isn't ideal, but when added with multitasking and DVD quality video capture, support for more services, and Flash in the browser, who cares?
Crappy browser?! The one that plays Flash embedded videos? What are you judging the browser on? From your claims of it crashing alot, I assume your experience of the device wascursory around its launch. The firmware updates squared all that away, added kinetic scrolling throughout the UI, and my N97 rarely had an issue at all. But I bet you are one of those guys that returned it before allowing the firmware updates to fix it weeks later.
From your description of the Ovi Store, you never had an N97, and are judging the Ovi Store on your experienceing the web interface, not the dedicated app built into th device. It doesn't include apps from incompatible versions in the App Store. Try using the devices you read about, troll...