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How to fix N-Series

I wanted to share with you an open letter to Nokia, on how to fix N-Series. It’s a bit of a meandering rant, and for that a apologize. I notice tnkgrl Mobile has posted her’s too. I challenge other bloggers to share their thoughts on the subject as well. This is an open invitation.

. Hardware : This is what makes an N-Series an N-Series. Formerly the best of the best for Location services, best still camera, best video camera, best audio speakers, and the best storage/memory card upgradability.

For all the importance that Nokia is putting on sharing/geolocating pictures, places, and people, the GPS needs to work. Even if it’s AGPS, it should be able to get a lock fast. Here in SF, home if techies and 3.5G networks, GPS still doesn’t work well enough.

I’ve seen many on the internet lament the lack of an 8MP shooter from Nokia. Personally, I think 5MP is ok for stills to keep forever, and overkill for internet posting. But consumers like the bigger number, and easy statements like “this is the only 1000MP cameraphone out!” I’d personally rather see the N-Series camera be faster over gaining more MP. When it takes 10 seconds to focus and get a shot, and five seconds between shots, that’s a barrier to getting the image you want. The camera quality is good enough to replace a stand alone, so match the speed as well.

For video capture, autofocus and optical zoom would be nice. Maybe include something to help with wind noise, either in hardware or software. The built in mikes pick up wind very well, and that sucks. I use the full-video editor on my N95-3, and it’s missing from all newer models including V5. Why? I want it! HD might be a nice checkbox, and I know it’s coming. But HD footage is still a bitch to work with. There’s also still big problems with onlinve video hosting, because uploading 100′s of MB is still slow, and there’s no good free HD video hosts. Share on Ovi 4 can handle files around 100MB, Shozu is capped at 10MB. We need background huge file uploading.

For Audio playback, I think the speakers are getting better. I’d like to see volume adjustments in 5% moves instead of 10% moves. The 10% setting is loud enough to wake up my roomie at night. Anything over 60 or 70% distorts so much it’s worthless. Change the scale, so that you can crank it 150%, so you’d expect it to sound over-blown. I noticed on the N96, if you plug in headphones it can adjust the volume in 5% increments, but without the headphones it’s 10% increments.

Nokia is starting to include a “home” key, which is a very needed thing. Pressing Exit/back/back/exit/back eight times to get to the home screen feels very primitive. Get rid of the “symbian” key, because you can’t explain it to someone while providing tech support. Everyone can find a Home key with a picture of a house on it. Do this for all Nokias.

Faster processors! Maybe even some kind of Speed-Step support to throttle the procs when idle. The E71 was the first Nokia that doesn’t slow down. A $500 phone should never be slow.

Software: Make software really easy to install. Sometimes when I’m installing a .sis file, it has other requirements rolled into it, and it keeps asking way-too-many-questions. If I click “install” on my desktop computer, it’s because I want to install the software to my phone. Why does it keep asking all these questions? Apple doesn’t ask that many questions. Android installs nicely in the background without asking any other questions, and it doesn’t hog up the foreground with an app while it’s installing. Symbian is multitasking, so do it in the background, please.

The S60 UI changes from phone to phone. Why? Calling it Tools on E-Series and Settings on an N-Series doesn’t do anyone any good. Stay consistent, at least within S60V3 vs S60 V5, for example. Of course making the UI prettier/transparent/faster will impress. When you show someone a $500 phone, it should look like different than a cheap freebie. Make the vertical standby screen the standard out of the box on all FP2 devices! The N96 screen looks like my 6682!

Multitasking is easier in FP2 and S60V5.

When using T9, if the user presses 11 to get to B, and winds up waiting for 1 full second before pressing again to get to C everytime, the OS should realise that the user is waiting, and decrease the time to jump to the next character.

The interrupts should be faster. When a user presses a button, and there’s no feedback, most users will keep pressing the key until there is some feedback. On the N96, when powering on the device, the screen lights up for like 8 seconds before the Nokia logo appears. I’ve turned it off during that 8 seconds more than once, because I didn’t think it was powering on. Instant feedback is more important than processor speed. People don’t mind waiting, but make it clear what’s happening.

I like PC Suite a lot. Out of the box, it provides tools that some other companies charge for. I use the Browse Device and Picture/video syncing almost daily. The Backup feature is great, and the Internet Connect is really easy. Having the Firmware updater built in is smart too. I don’t use the Syncing, because I sync OTA to an Exchange server. Some Mac users feel left out, even though they don’t really need PC Suite. The Mac File Transfer tool is pretty good, ecept that it tries to load all of your iPhotos into your phone.

Services: I like Ovi a lot. I’d like to see single sign-in, full phone backups and restores, contacts backup and restores, file syncing all in one OVI app on the device. I like the Android technique of login once, get all of your settiings from Google. It OVI could do that, people would have one great reason to still with Nokia.

I’m not sure about NokiaviNe. I’m not convinced that normobs are going to want to share location, photos, videos and music playback all the time. It sounds fun to me, as an Advanced Tech Blogger, but even I don’t want my “fans” knowing exactly where I live. Seems like I’m five years ahead of normal folks on some things, so maybe my opinion on this is old-fashioned. The kids might want to share everything.

Marketing : Some of the commercials are too artsy for the US, I think. People want checklists that crush and loud music. Not poetry. These are supposed to be powertools. iPhone is your current competition, so figure out what Nokia does way better and focus on that. It’s a camcorder, it’s a boombox, it’s a … what else does N-Series dominate?

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