It looks like Nokia isn't too happy that its big
N8 / Symbian^3 reveal this morning was tarnished by
Eldar Murtazin's harsh preview of the device and OS a few days ago: in a new
Conversations blog post, the company says that Eldar's "salacious headlines" masked the fact that he was looking at a "very early, pre-production prototype with dated software that is not yet ready," and that it only ships products that are "refined, tested, re-tested, evaluated, [and] tested again." Now, Eldar says the devices he examined had the very latest hardware and software, so it's a bit of a he-said-she-said at this point, but there's no denying that Nokia's definitely shipped some not-quite-ready-for-prime-time devices lately -- the N900 and Maemo 5 shipped in
pretty roughed-out form, and the company itself has said the
N97 was a "tremendous disappointment." How that recent history reflects on Symbian^3 and the N8 remains to be seen, but it's clear that Nokia's feeling pretty defensive about things; Eldar's been scooping Espoo's gear for years now and the company's never made a peep about it. Either that, or someone at Nokia is just trying to cash in on all this
iPhone 4 drama by saying things like "we want our prototype back" and "we are not the Secret Police, and we want to maintain our culture of openness," but come on -- that would be a pretty crass publicity stunt, right? We want to believe.
posted April 27th 2010 5:29PM
Why is there no 1GHz chip in this thing? How hard can it be?
@Pearl Jam
Because it doesn't need one.
So suddenly Nokia is ashamed of releasing "early Software"? They weren't ashamed releasing the N97 with a collection of sh*t called software which has not really changed until now since Symbian^1 5th and the hardware are and will ever be inappopriate.
@RaphaelSymbianworld Simply not true. Why do you say that nothing had changed? Firmware 2.0 was a huge improvement. Even if it's still not there where everyone wished it was.
@user47alpha
Yes, FW 2.0/2.1 was an improvement, but improvement from WHAT?Every SW-release before 2.0 was just some kind of beta FW and nothing more. I chose to ignore it FOR NOKIAS SAKE since the versions before 2.0 just were a piece of impudence.
2.0/2.1 was the version they should have released the phone with and improve it from there which never happened until now. There is enough work to do on this "flagship" device. It is still full of bugs and laggy as hell and the FW has NOTHING to do with the FW we see in the commercials or on the promovids on Youtube, where you can see the actual device, but with other software, great animations etc.. Nokia simply fooled us all with this and they did it on purpose, since these commercials are still on air and Nokia knows, that the N97's software can't live up to the expectations. That's what turned me off from Nokia, selling my N97 and getting the HTC Desire, which eats the N97 for breakfast and IS CHEAPER after all.
Nokia has lost a LOT of friends and customers with the N97 since they took the money and gave us an average device with a yesterdays screen, a yesterdays OS/UI, a yesterdays processor, cheap plastics that make horrible sounds, unready components like the camera module (which by the way was said to be the same one as on the N95 but misses the anti reflective glass lens, which makes it perform badly in the dark, since the flash mirrors in the cheap plastic lens). If the N8 will become that bulky as it looks right now, Nokia has a serious problem.
Best. Raphael
The OS in those promo shots for this article look much better.
Notice how so many bloggers a la Boy Genius, Eldar and the slew of other "in the know" experts, have little to no formal technical background or credible experience working in the mobile industry, yet they have to offer up their analysis as if they know how the entire industry is run?
If Rush Limbaugh knows so much about politics, why doesn't he run for president? Oh right, because he has no relevant background and is full of his own holier-than-thou crap just like Eldar.
Glad to see others can understand the difference between beta and production software. Eldar would be better suited for TMZ or The Onion.
Its a very nice camera with phone capabilities. I like it but I have seen that idea of pinch and zoom, cover flow, before on some other device. I think it was some other company who came up with that idea before and then made a very successful phone.
@Raytem
Here's some news for you: That successful phone's touchscreen? Well, that was someone else's idea.
@Raytem
Oh and here's the kicker: the smartphone. That was also someone else's idea.
What? Nokia isn't going to send the police after the guy who has it? No army of legal attack dogs on the prowl? Grats Nokia, thanks for being civilized.
I can see Nokia raiding Edalrs home....
These look like the same colors as the 1999 imacs.....?
"but there's no denying that Nokia's definitely shipped some not-quite-ready-for-prime-time devices lately"
NO SHIT!!! Even the venerable old N95 has a Wi-Fi issue where it disconnects after 4-5 software updates. I've searched high and low for a bug queue to file a fix request (and even put my skills to work to help fix the issue myself) but nothing of the sort exists.
I used to love Nokia, but their phones are getting worse and worse as time goes on. I now have an HTC Nexus One and love it. Perhaps Nokia should just start making point-and-shoot digital cameras now since that's pretty much all their good at anymore.
iPhone 4G,Nokia N8..."we lose our baby!" like a new way for free marketing? :)
what Eldar had was no where near the actually final symbian 3 n8 product everyone check out this link and you will find out the truth
look at the 2 photos the one on the right is clearly the prototype he reviewed and clearly far from finished compared to the one on the left he has been trying to sabotage Nokia for the longest he used to work for them and now he hates them http://www.fonearena.com/blog/16153/nokia-slaps-mobile-review-on-the-face-ask-for-n8-prototype-back.html
I got to play with the prototype and I can say the UI is even more responsive than the Iphone 3GS, the only problem, which nokia promised is 60 fps at all sectors of experience and I say the net surfing is still the gay 15 fps. So terrible compared to my zune HD.
For ppl who don't know the specs very well, it has A TEGRA 600, 3.5 inch amoled and 12 mp camera, if the browser would work ill consider. I hope their app store starts to get bigger soon.......
@rescawen Do you still have to sign the apps?
FYI, flash works perfectly!!
Good for functions but design look like LG.See more feature at http://www.yopi.co.th/prd_1990411
is Engadget neutral? or its just me?
why dont they put N8 official news into the headline tag but keeping the month-old news of iphone OS4 news?
maybe N8 is not cool enough for them?
@yauchildchew - yeah i agree pal.
The best of best comments i have seen about Nokia from Engadget are, at the most, neutral. The announcement of N8 yesterday was also just a fact list in a robotic tone.
Obviously we do not expect a jumping jack like Steve while launching the iPad..which IMHO was a bit overkill..but c'mon, show some love.
Anyway, as for N8, i think even if the Symbain UI is as fast/usable as iPhone UI..its still functional. Add to that a great h/w and amazing specs...i'd say its a good buy for 370 euros.
Last time i checked, Nokia wasnt even touting this phone to be a competition to iPhone...the diff in price segment is huge. So no point comparing with iPhone..although except for maybe UI, in every other aspect it will kick Apple's ass bright red !!
@MarkAnderson Its been said before but ppl seem to have forgotten so I am going to repeat it again.
Last year Eldar "outed" the n900(RX-51) as the next Nokia device & on his Livejournal & Twitter accounts he raved about it. When Nokia pressured him to reveal his source of getting the prototye (he said it was from Nokia, they said it was a stolen prototype not issued by them and with very early alpha build), his tone changed and went on to recommend a Samsung dumbphone instead! & has been slamming Nokia ever since.
The evidence (if it hasn't been deleted) should still be on the MR forums, twitter & his Livejournal blog.
--------
S^3 since the begining was supposed to iron out the bugs, streamline the interface and lay the groundwork (QT support etc) for s^4 six months later. As such, no one in the know expected it to be groundbreaking. Then again the complain from s60 users was never the functionality but the UX in that it was frustrating due to the number of steps and clicks required. They have already reduced this by 75% in S^3 and should provide a similar experience to the other touch screen OS's.
The proof's in the pudding and people should judge the device for themselves upon its release 4-5 months from now rather than a rant based on a 8month old prototype.
Where does engadgets hate come from?
It's not some he-said-she-said thing. It's an "some blogger got some prototype and the company says it's beta" thing. Even if his prototype was state-of-the-art when he got it, it's still early software.
And then engadgets simple wrong quote: FAIL. On so many levels... why Engadget? WHY DO YOU THINK YOU NEED TO LIE???
FUNNY, SAME AS N900!!! AND WE ARE STILL WAITING!!!!