h-town8
06-15-2006, 09:40 AM
...and I'm taking it back to the store this morning to exchange for an 8700.
I should've listened to my "little voice" yesterday in the store. The Cingular rep let me play with his 8700; it was so easy, quick, sharp, etc. But I was in love with Nokia (or at least, the IDEA of the Nokia).
Not a bad phone at all. Very solidly built, a little heavy but not a brick. But upon getting it home it was quickly apparent that Nokia really made some bonehead decisions in putting this thing together. Just basic things that I haven't NOT seen on a cell phone in years. A couple of examples:
-No ability to increase the volume while on a call from the phone (outside) portion. Rather, it requires that you open the clamshell and dig down into "audio". Baffling...
-Dialing from your names directory. It does integrate with contacts book no problem, however when you click on "Names" from the phone (outside) it requires you to do a "Find". So therefore it takes at least 3 clicks to find a name. By default it should pull up all names and allow you to scroll, or key in a letter and find for you. This wouldn't have been a deal-killer though; I probably could've lived with it. This could've also been overcome with voice dial, but Nokia did not include this on the phone (I knew this going in).
-No vibration (I knew this going in, too, but just baffling that ANY cell phone being manufactured these days does not have this). Again though, this would not have been a deal-killer.
-Ringtones. Let me start off by saying that I'm not one who cares to download ringtones or set goofy songs as my standard answering ring. I did expect though to be able to have 10-20 ringers installed that I could set to different contacts. After extensive searching I found none. Since there is a recorder there is the ability to make your own, if one so desires, which I do not. Again though, this would not have been a deal-killer.
-The "deal-killer" was just the whole setup is a little clunky to me. I'm not saying bad, but just clunky and definitely not very intuitive. This was accentuated by the fact that there's not even a manual in the box! Admittedly I haven't purchased a new cell phone in almost 3 years, so maybe this is the norm now. But all that was in the box was a couple of fold-out pamphelts that walked you through the setup. I did finally manage to find a PDF of the manual (burried in several folders down from the root of the CD).
-In addition to the above, the load times of certain applications were delayed. Usually only by 2-3 seconds, but again this was with no data synced over yet.
-Speaking of syncing, I did load the Nokia desktop software. It prompted me for an update, which I downloaded. It then said to restart, which I did. Upon rebooting the Nokia software did some kind of search and said "Cannot find connection, sync failed" or something to that effect, and that I'd need to reinstall the software. Huh? Never was I prompted to "Now plug in your device" or whatever. I'm sure if I'd tinkered with this long enough I could've got it going, but at this point I'd seen enough, my logic being that if it's this clunky right out of the box then it's probably not going to get much better as we move forward together.
I really, really wanted this to be "the phone" for the next couple of years. I loved the form factor, the idea of having a pure phone on the shell and all the tools I need under the hood. But they just didn't put this one together very well. A shame, really, because it's really a brilliant idea that had so much potential.
Who knows, maybe I'll check out the next version in a couple of years. For now though I will be part of the Blackberry 8700 family. From what I saw yesterday in the store I think it'll be exactly what I'm looking for. I only hope that I don't experience some of the phone problems that some have been reporting.
Chris
I should've listened to my "little voice" yesterday in the store. The Cingular rep let me play with his 8700; it was so easy, quick, sharp, etc. But I was in love with Nokia (or at least, the IDEA of the Nokia).
Not a bad phone at all. Very solidly built, a little heavy but not a brick. But upon getting it home it was quickly apparent that Nokia really made some bonehead decisions in putting this thing together. Just basic things that I haven't NOT seen on a cell phone in years. A couple of examples:
-No ability to increase the volume while on a call from the phone (outside) portion. Rather, it requires that you open the clamshell and dig down into "audio". Baffling...
-Dialing from your names directory. It does integrate with contacts book no problem, however when you click on "Names" from the phone (outside) it requires you to do a "Find". So therefore it takes at least 3 clicks to find a name. By default it should pull up all names and allow you to scroll, or key in a letter and find for you. This wouldn't have been a deal-killer though; I probably could've lived with it. This could've also been overcome with voice dial, but Nokia did not include this on the phone (I knew this going in).
-No vibration (I knew this going in, too, but just baffling that ANY cell phone being manufactured these days does not have this). Again though, this would not have been a deal-killer.
-Ringtones. Let me start off by saying that I'm not one who cares to download ringtones or set goofy songs as my standard answering ring. I did expect though to be able to have 10-20 ringers installed that I could set to different contacts. After extensive searching I found none. Since there is a recorder there is the ability to make your own, if one so desires, which I do not. Again though, this would not have been a deal-killer.
-The "deal-killer" was just the whole setup is a little clunky to me. I'm not saying bad, but just clunky and definitely not very intuitive. This was accentuated by the fact that there's not even a manual in the box! Admittedly I haven't purchased a new cell phone in almost 3 years, so maybe this is the norm now. But all that was in the box was a couple of fold-out pamphelts that walked you through the setup. I did finally manage to find a PDF of the manual (burried in several folders down from the root of the CD).
-In addition to the above, the load times of certain applications were delayed. Usually only by 2-3 seconds, but again this was with no data synced over yet.
-Speaking of syncing, I did load the Nokia desktop software. It prompted me for an update, which I downloaded. It then said to restart, which I did. Upon rebooting the Nokia software did some kind of search and said "Cannot find connection, sync failed" or something to that effect, and that I'd need to reinstall the software. Huh? Never was I prompted to "Now plug in your device" or whatever. I'm sure if I'd tinkered with this long enough I could've got it going, but at this point I'd seen enough, my logic being that if it's this clunky right out of the box then it's probably not going to get much better as we move forward together.
I really, really wanted this to be "the phone" for the next couple of years. I loved the form factor, the idea of having a pure phone on the shell and all the tools I need under the hood. But they just didn't put this one together very well. A shame, really, because it's really a brilliant idea that had so much potential.
Who knows, maybe I'll check out the next version in a couple of years. For now though I will be part of the Blackberry 8700 family. From what I saw yesterday in the store I think it'll be exactly what I'm looking for. I only hope that I don't experience some of the phone problems that some have been reporting.
Chris