Over the summer I’ve had a chance to test-ride N80, one of the high-end Nokia smartphones. You know, the one that is listening while you’re talking. At first all the functionality got me really excited and I was really looking forward to using it for all kinds of practical things on the go. N80 looked promising on paper, but failed to deliver on many accounts. It sure can do practically all the things I have expected, but it is a pain to use. Here’s a list of nine things that have annoyed me from day one.

It takes longer to boot than my G4 PowerBook (heck, it takes almost as long as any Windows PC). I used to keep my Windows computer running around the clock so that I didn’t have to spend Windows minutes when I wanted to use it. That probably saved me several days every year. N80 reminded me of those days, because it takes almost a minute from turning it on to when I can start using it. Only that it cannot stay up all night, because …

Battery does not have a life. This phone is a real power hog. Seriously, I need to charge it every other day even though I hardly ever used it. Has anyone at Nokia tested this device before sending it to production? Try using Wi-Fi and N80 drains the battery in a couple of hours. In other words, it’s better to use it with the phone plugged right into the grid. Goodbye to everything wireless. Oh, my.

Proprietary connectors and expensive cables. N80 leaves an impression that Nokia lives in a bubble where widely adopted standards do not exist. Even though this is a high-end phone it has no USB and no regular earphone jack. It uses proprietary cables, connectors and adapters that cost more than they are worth. It’s like buying a book for which you need special glasses to see the vowels. No thank you.

Wi-Fi reception is incredibly poor. When I first started using this phone I thought, great now I can check for available Wi-Fi spots without firing up the computer and walking around town like a dork before I find one. Boy was I wrong. This phone does not find nowhere near as many as that old PowerBook of mine does.

Performance like we’re in 1995 again. It takes literally a couple of seconds from sliding the phone open until the background light goes on and you can start using the phone. Add a few more when opening and  SMS you’ve just received. Even something as simple as opening N80’s phone book takes long enough to want me memorize all the numbers stored there. Image gallery? Don’t. Even. Think. About. Opening.

An odd bunch of useless software. Nokia had to come up with their very own browser, but are unable to develop even a decent text editor. Both suck. Does Visual Radio sound revolutionary? It is, just check the cool Web site at visualradio.com and you’ll known instantly why you’ve never heard about it (and never will). The audio recording software that comes with the phone can miraculously record only one minute of sound. 60 seconds. Useful for what?

Let there be buttons, many of them. Product functionality does not seem to be a coordinated activity at Nokia. Seriously, the phone has 27 buttons and it does not even have a full keyboard. What a waste. Multimedia button? I’ve pressed it only once to see where it leads. After that I’ve used it only to show people how useless it is. Yes, the keypad might present an incredible design accomplishment to Nokia, but is difficult and clumsy to use at best.

Phone is ridden with usability stupidity. The phone interface feels like it has been designed by programmers during lunch breaks when the interface design team was away. Let’s add weird icons and surprise our users with what those buttons do. How about making it impossible to view the date and time anywhere else but on the home screen? Check. Has anyone ever heard of copy-pasting? Switching between applications? Switch what? Switch the phone, I say.

Let’s make it short-lived. In the age of hyper-consumerism, the shorter the lifespan of a product, the better off is the company making it. You’ve guessed right, the N80 I’ve used is dead. Although the reason is not really low-tech, it is just as stupefying. The phone expired when the cable connecting the sliding part of the phone cracked. At Nokia they surely knew people will be sliding their phones open and shut (I mean, they designed it so) but they still installed a 2-cent cable that effectively obliterated a 400 Euro phone. Not that the cable looks like it could take the strain it ought to.

The verdict? N80 sucks and obviously I am not the only one to complain. But the real problem is that things are not getting better. I’ve talked about most of these issues at Ars Electronica in Linz back in the fall of 2006 with Matt Jones, who was participating at a panel as Nokia’s user-experience design director. Back then I complained about disappointing experience with Nokia’s Internet tablet N800. I was hoping to hear a reaffirming reply that, yes, we are aware, working on it, please give us a couple of years to polish things out. But was surprised when the gentleman carefully listened, took a deep breath, acknowledged that these really are important issues and apologized for delivering a disappointing experience. Not exactly what I have expected, but at least he had not tried to comfort me, since things really have not changed. And I’m sure he knew what I was talking about as he was working then on the N-series phones, the mothership of N80.

Most other phone manufacturers are not much better (which is probably why Nokia doesn’t bother changing anything). I’m glad I had a chance to try out the N80. However, I’m switching from smart and useless to brick and handy before I get a pop-up notification saying that I have unused icons on my phonetop. Downgrading to good ol’ 1100.

Mladen

If you’re at least a little bit of a technophile, you’ve probably wondered how many people use this technology or that. I have, but have also been hardly ever satisfied with the numbers I received in return, since I’m aware that great majority of market share information isn’t much more than a guess based on someone’s speculation. Anyway, not something I’d call trustworthy.

Which is why I was pleasantly surprised to read about the research carried out by Antero Kivi of the Helsinki University of Technology in which he reveals what kind of mobile phones Finns use. What made me follow through the text is that he did not base his research on merely interviewing a representative sample of consumers (which is how the popular vote researches are usually done). Antero got the data straight from the horse’s mouth: the mobile operators.

He asked three largest Finnish mobile operators Sonera, Elisa and DNA about the usage of mobile phones on their networks. Naturally, the operators know exactly who is using their networks. Besides plethora of information an operator collects about each call they carry, operators also get to know the maker and model of the phone for every single phone call made on their network. This information is revealed by a unique IMEI code which the phone uses to introduces itself to the network. In other words, Antero got access to a treasure trove of information.

And the results? If you know at least a little bit about Finland, the results won’t come as a surprise. Finnish manufacturer of mobile phones Nokia leads the pack. Although merely saying that Nokia leads the pack is really glossing over the nation’s loyalty to Nokia. Of all the mobile phone makers, Nokia’s phones aren’t only taking all the top ten or top twenty spots. The first non-Nokia mobile phone maker got no higher than 57th place. Which translates Nokia’s position in terms of market share percentage into unbelievable 86%. In this incredibly competitive branch of consumer electronics industry such a market share is truly enviable in any single market. (Which makes me wonder what is Ericsson’s true market share in Sweden.)

Another interesting piece of information this research reveals is that of all the smart phones Nokia makes, the first four most commonly used (which adds up to 16,4% of all phones in Finland) are the cheapest and consequently the least smart (if you believe that being able to surf the Web already makes anything smart). The four most used phones are thus models 3310, 1100, 1600 and 3510i. On these phones you can’t do much more than make a phone call or send a text message. So a tad bit more than what your landline can do, although from a device you carry in your pocket.

Taking a step back, Nokia’s popularity in Finland is not even that surprising. The company importantly contributed to the ongoing Finnish economic uplift since the mid-1990s, to say the least. And Finns are openly proud of both. Putting this statement to a test is a real no-brainer; all you have to do is mention to a Finn Japan and Nokia in the same sentence. You won’t be able to stop them going on at length about everything from linguistic to cultural similarities between the two, which contribute to this terrible misunderstanding, not to mention the litanies you’ll hear about the injustice and desperate helplessness of trying to tell the world that Nokia is, for goodness sake, a Finnish brand. Oh my.

Mladen

iPod, a music player turned pop icon. It’s a continuous challenge for the nerds, its strong image was used to counter the war in Iraq, it inspired a book documenting its popularity and even sneaked into our daily vocabulary. Surprising? Not really. It looks nice, it’s easy to use and people love it. Apple sold millions, earn googols and marched onto new market.

Nevertheless, I was surprised to find that the talltale iPod player-earphone silhuette landed even on a Finnish rye-bread wrapping. It’s hard to tell if it was an easter egg cleverly smuggled by graphic designers or just a mere me-too statement by the Finnish food manufacturer Fazer gasping for street-cred with their Reissumies rye-bread. Whichever it is, iPod is now gone.

Since Apple jumped the fence onto the home turf of the most valuable Finnish brand, it was really just a matter of time before someone from Olli-Pekka’s office would again pick up the phone and order Fazer to replace that iPod with an Internet Tablet or a Nokia phone. And I wouldn’t be surprised if this is exactly what has happened, given the notoriety Nokia has gained when their head of security ordered a cleaning company to remove “Kallasvuo sucks” stencil graffitti from the walls of the E15 squat in Helsinki.

If that’s the case with Reissumies, I’m sure Nokia got a much more cooperative response and less resistance from Fazer than it did from E15. For the sake of posterity here are both old and new, con- and sans-iPod rye-bread wrappers.

Mladen