Nokia is in trouble. The brand has gone from ubiquitous to the stuff of tech nostalgia. Its next (last?) best stab at relevance? The N8. We pitted the N8 against two rivals, and the results aren’t pretty.
To conduct our highly non-scientific exercise, we recruited two savvy smartphoners from around the Gizmodo office to go head to head (to head) with the N8. After familiarising myself with the N8 for ample time, our trio competed in three simple smartphone tasks – sending the same email, mapping directions to the same place and taking a photo of the same object – we wanted to see which device is the king of usability mountain. Spoiler alert: not Nokia’s. The hardware itself is decent, but in terms of interface design – whoo boy. But we’ll let the battle footage speak for itself.
An extra gigantic thank you goes out to Gawker.TV’s Sarah Natochenny for help with the video.
Dubrave
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 3:15 PMIs it just me, or is there a strong anti-Nokia movement going on at Gizmodo? You guys have had nothing good to say about Nokia for quite some time, and I am sure it is not that bad IRL.
I tend to visit daily, for my dose of techno news, but more and more it feels like I am at an iOS 4 or Androind fanboy blog site.
Nothing wrong about that per say, but I do prefer a balanced view. Please try to lift your game.
blueevo
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 6:25 PMExactly.. I can barely stomach Gizmodo and Engagets love of apple and to a smaller extent android.
Tui Tupua
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 3:48 PMBLACKBERRY FTW
Matt Liu
Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 10:46 PMwhy does it seem that the Nokia guy takes a few seconds to actually move his finger even tho the timer is still on? Is it just my eyes or what
Ha
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:04 AMSorry, I’m posting this halfway through watching your video.
But you really did not familiarise yourself with the N8 properly obviously. If it takes you that long to send an email, then you are just really slow.
Ha
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:07 AMAnd it took you 8 seconds to press one button to start camera.
You’re doing it wrong.
Ha
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:36 AMSo possibly my final response to this: I used my 5800 and did similar tests. Mine is older and slower hardware with same interface.
I managed to send an email – ‘Hello’: 21 secs
Find directions: 30 secs
Take picture: just over 3 seconds, if I go by your video… start at same time, when I took the picture it says 3.137
So really, the speed is up to the user. This can be another set of results for your highly non-scientific exercise. :)
Clint
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 3:14 AMWith all due respect, that is the most pathetic thing I have ever seen!
It is fairly apparent that the users of the iPhone and BB are far more familiar with their units. The N8 users takes a few seconds each time just working out which application icon to press on the home screen. Then we won’t even talk about the typing skills, or lack thereof, of the N8 user.
DiibaDaaba
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:18 PMHaha that is propaganda. I guess Apple is sponsoring Gizmodo. Nokia guy spent on purpose more time than the others to make it look it is slower. Typing email, he switched the display to horizontal, he spent more time typing the email. Erasing once the whole email he had already written. What does this video prove? It proves, Apple is really worried about Nokia N8, needing to sponsor these dirt-throwing bullshit articles.
bobbob
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:38 PMThe fact that nokia try to sell different phones for different functions (music, business, cheapskate, oh and a touchphone etc) shows how out of touch they are with their customers.
How can they still be making phones that out of the box can’t playback xvid or DIVX without an extra paid for application ? At least RIM realised that if they are going to make a busines phone they might sell more of them if they improve their media playback capabilities or better integrate with other mail applications.
cg0191
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:53 PMNokia apologists take note.
wtf
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 2:08 PMthis guy obviously has never used an N8 before he has no idea what to press which is why he takes SO long to do anything, even typing.
Auntie
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 7:42 PM“We’ll let the battle footage speak for itself”.
Er… what footage would that be?
Rarkwest
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 11:13 PMWtf?! does she have a ogre finger or what, how does it take freaking 8 secs to open a camera and snap a picture?
Gabi
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 7:21 AMYou gotta be kiddin’ me. I’d write the same mail twice as fast as that bb user with my poor old nokia 5800.
JOedy
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 9:43 AMwhoever is using the iphone is pressing the function a second later then the blackberry and also typed too much of the email address when they could have just searched for it like on the blackberry
andronicus
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 10:13 AMI like the look of the N8 style wise….but not enough to even consider buying one.
It really is a shame for Nokia, they have the potential to be better and do better and create better than what they are giving us.
Peter Simpson
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 11:06 AMFail.
Jimmy
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 1:56 PMBias much? So much for real reviews, you give yourself what, 10 minutes to get familiar with the N8 and then pit yourself against people who have used their handsets for months now (perhaps even a year for the blackberry) and you think it’s fair? In every test you ran, it came down to how familiar you were with the phone.
You typed slow because you weren’t accustomed to the keyboard and you used the dedicated camera key, instead of the on screen button which caused the blurry photo. Please redo the review when you have someone who actually knows what they are doing.
Mark George
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 2:39 PMA huge portion of the speed differences I saw (particularly with the email test) was different typing speeds. The guy on the N8 was painful to watch.
lpotter
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 2:43 PMI am sorry but your “tests” are completely biased against Nokia.
The timer is started and then the user either wastes time by hunting for the icon, or even clicking an icon, and _then_ rotating the device.
By contrast, the iphone user has obviously been a user for years and is quite comfortable with that onscreen keyboard and how to to get things done and where things are.
I call BS and FUD on this….
Why not start the timer when the N8 user actually hits the camera button, and not count the time it take his laziness to slowly rotate the phone around. He wastes 6 seconds turning the phone around. Subtract that time from the N8 camera test and you get around 8 seconds for the camera to snap a photo.
Or better yet, take the time for the N8 user to use it for at least a month.
Or even better, take users that have never used those phones in the first place and let them have a go at it.
blueevo
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 2:45 PMWow.. that has to be one of the most terrible comparison videos ive ever seen in my life.
The guy was typing as slow as a turtle on the Nokia
Bob
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 3:06 PMHilarious. You can see the guy who uses the Nokia N8 is extremely slow with the device. For example, it takes him 3 seconds to find the button, whereas the iphone user just jumps straight to it.
Not a fair test, even if they claim it’s non-scientific.
Unfazed
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 3:47 PMwow was the guy with the n8 disabled? why did it take him forever to do anything, even his typing was terrible. Give the n8 to the slanket chick she knew how to use a fone.
Dzan
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 4:27 PMYeah, great stuff, iOS4 is the king of the UI, and Android will rule the world. Great “everyday usage” test. Keep up the good work.
Sam
Monday, October 4, 2010 at 11:47 PMits a shame how biased can some top “reviewers” be .
it was clear that the guy using nokia n8 was intentionally slow..
i mean who takes that long to open a camera or write n email….jeeeez.
when u r faking it ….keep it real
Andy
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 12:51 AMThat’s the worst piece of journalism I’ve ever seen. He spends 70% of his time looking for the application, and turning the phone on it’s side, when clearly the other users don’t bother with time wasting.
Owen
Tuesday, October 5, 2010 at 6:43 AMGoodnight, sweet prince.