I don’t remember when I sold my Samsung I8910, but I do remember that I was sad to see it go. To this day, it is still the most reliable and impressive Symbian device I ever laid my hands on. Though in a very large way, that is what made me decide to move on. Having the top of the line hardware in the I8910 allowed me to really get the most out of Symbian, and help me realize that it wasn’t a lack of hardware that was making me so dissatisfied with the platform; it was the software all along.

When this finally hit me, I started looking around. Due to past experiences, I knew I didn’t want an iPhone, but I was curious about Android’s progress with the Motorola Droid having been available for a few months on Verizon at the time. Only shortly after, rumors started coming in about an unlocked Android device direct from Google and built by HTC with double the RAM as my I8910, a 1Ghz CPU, 3.7″ WVGA OLED capacitive touchscreen, 802.11b/g/n, 7.2mpbs HSDPA, and an even newer version of Android than what the Droid was running. I followed Google’s announcement as it happened on January 5th, and when they announced the $529 price tag and opened the web store for business, that was all it took. I don’t know if I’ve ever typed in my credit card number faster, and I didn’t even care that it didn’t support 3G on my network.

When the device arrived, the unboxing alone was an experience. It had all the characteristics of unboxing an iPhone, with attention paid to every detail. The top of the box slowly slid open with air-tight compression, the accessories were neatly packed in soft, recycled material bags (not the typical plastic bags you usually see with electronics), positioned to make the best of the available space, and each side of the box was lined with a different color, matching the multicolored “X” of the Nexus One logo. And what’s this? The phone even came with a signature pouch with Andy on it too. What was the last phone you bought that came with a case at all, much less a useful one?

The phone itself is easily in my top list of superior hardware builds. It has excellent weight to it and feels very sturdy overall. The scratch resistant glass with oleophobic coating on the front and the teflon and metal combination on the back make for an extremely well built device.

I followed the directions and let it charge for several hours before I turned it on (and in several locations, since I was going out that night). The charging LED finally turned green while I was at my buddy’s house. As we turned it on and watched the colorful particles fly in to form that bright boot screen, nothing sums up what we felt better than what Dan said in that moment: “…it’s Goog-ing!”

After our initial session of playing around with the device, I was hooked. There was never a moment of hesitation, lock up, or any other unwanted surprises I had become so used to when dealing with Symbian devices built by Nokia. On top of that, it natively supported all of the UI features I had really been wanting from Symbian’s touch interface since the 5800 XpressMusic. Kinetic scrolling, multitouch (after the update that came out just weeks after its release), threaded SMS, a virtual keyboard with prediction and auto-completion that works (in both landscape and portrait), native speech-to-text for all text input fields, reliable OTA software updates for both firmware and applications, copying text and multiple tabs in the browser (finally!), a YouTube app that doesn’t suck, not having to refresh the music player to find added music, all of these features felt so polished and commonplace in the device that it almost felt ridiculous not to have them in any other device for so long. It was also just easy. Navigation through the phone, customizing the homescreen, and just getting things done like I want to on a smartphone became headache free. It really felt…enlightening.

The next step was synchronizing all of my data. My entire life was stored in Microsoft Outlook (and a broken version was stored somewhere on Nokia’s servers for Ovi Sync) and I had no idea how sync worked for Android in general. After reading around for a bit, I found that I could import my Outlook contacts and calendar into my Gmail account and sync from there. What I didn’t know was that’s all I had to do. Literally seconds after the import finished, when I picked up my phone, all of my contacts and calendar entries were there waiting for me. To make things even easier, adding my Facebook account to the device allowed me to synchronize my current contacts with the information provided from Facebook, nearly identical to how Blackberry handles Facebook sync. That means I no longer have to change photos or any other details for each person I would care to as it’s already done for me. Aside from errors I caused myself when messing around with flashing multiple ROM’s in a single sitting (and adding my account details to sync each time), I have not had a hiccup since. Changes made on either server or device are constantly being synchronized and since it’s all through Gmail, that meant I could do so from any device with web access. What’s even better is any Outlook event sent to me at work automatically shows up in my calendar just by forwarding the email to my Gmail account.

Recently I’ve started regularly using Google Voice to handle all of my calls and text messages and this has added yet another dimension of convenience to my experience with Android. Since the phone is able to constantly synchronize with Google Voice, I have been able to almost stop using my text messages through my carrier altogether and just use the service exclusively. I keep the Google Voice tab open at home and at work when I don’t have my phone nearby to keep myself on top of incoming calls and messages. Though it’s still early, if I’m able to effectively migrate all of my text traffic through Google Voice and cancel my $30 unlimited text package each month, Google will earn a new level of respect I’ve never had for any other company.

Between the cloud sync and Google Voice, Google has properly achieved what Nokia has tried to build with the Ovi services over the past 3 years. I waited patiently for Nokia to properly converge their device portfolio and get their online services out of beta, but it just never happened. Those who used them were left with a half-baked experience that paled in comparison to the seamless image of online services Nokia had painted as their vision of what Ovi was supposed to become. Without even marketing it as such, Google did what Nokia couldn’t and built a reliable set of services that are now allowing me to use my device in a way Nokia could only tease.

Since getting the Nexus One, my friends became so impressed with what it could do that it inspired several of them to get one of their own. Within my closest circle of friends, eleven of them migrated to Android in one form or another, four of which bought the exact same device (my girlfriend included). What makes this so significant to me is that these were the same friends that I had always tried to switch to some kind of Symbian device in the past. Some took to it, most didn’t, and those who did typically didn’t stick with it very long like I did. Of the eleven that made the switch to Android, they’re all still using it and some are even on their second device. All these numbers aside, it speaks volumes about how impacting the Android experience has been on all of us, so much so that we want to tell our friends about it and actually keep these devices for more than 6 months. With the exception of maybe the N95 series, there isn’t another Symbian device I could say the same.

One of the things that kept me with Symbian for so long was the Ovi Maps navigation as I have never owned a standalone GPS unit and had used the service since it started as Smart2Go several years ago. Since Google Maps on a Symbian device was always the fallback for finding points of interest when Ovi Maps failed, having the same application provide the voice navigation was simply a logical solution. What’s better is that it synchronizes bookmarks automatically with my Gmail account just like the rest of my data, but the best part is the voice control. By simply holding the search button, you can use the Voice Search to say a command like “Navigate to Starbucks” or any other POI or address. That’s it. Unless more than one result comes back in your search requiring you to further specify where you’re looking to go, there’s no additional input necessary. The navigation automatically starts, downloads the map and traffic data on the fly, and starts taking you there, complete with TTS to announce the names of the roads as you approach them. No more slowly downloading maps on the fly or downloading various states in the country before a trip, no more waving the phone in a figure-8 like an idiot trying to calibrate the compass, and again, no more headaches. It’s another example of a very simple service that works exceptionally well without any additional maintenance or user input. Yes, the synthesized female voice Google uses is less than desirable, but she still gets the job done.

While applications were never really very important to me (aside from the set applications I used regularly), I reached a point with Symbian where I knew I wanted to do certain things and simply couldn’t because nothing had been developed to support it yet. Growth in the Ovi Store was at a crawl and with the N97 being the figurehead of development, things weren’t changing anytime soon. With the Android market exploding, I was easily able to find replacements for all of the applications I used on Symbian as well as applications for all the things I had wanted to do and previously couldn’t. It seems almost every week I’m adding another set of apps that find their way into my daily rotation and it keeps my phone feeling fresh all the time.

If that wasn’t enough, the development community for the Nexus One and Android in general is absolutely enormous. Rooting the device and installing customized apps, entire ROM’s, and modified kernels for additional features is a breeze and remarkably easier than any level of hacking I used to do with Symbian. In fact, most of the tinkering can be done on the phone without needing a computer whatsoever, and in much less time as well.

I wasn’t going to bring this up, but I know it will come up anyway if I don’t. Several people have regarded rooting and modifying an Android handset as a mark against the platform because they feel it’s required for these devices to perform properly. With the exception of some of the heavily carrier customized Android devices of late, this simply isn’t true. Without ever accessing the full file system, Android as a platform lets you customize almost every aspect of the phone, if not natively, then with an app easily installed from the Market. The ROM I’m running now is mostly stock with minor tweaks and my girlfriend’s isn’t rooted at all. The added customization in rooting makes what’s already great even better. The difference with rooting an Android device versus hacking a Symbian device is the fun factor; I root Android because I want to, I used to hack Symbian because I was desperately trying to get more functionality out of it.

Speaking of customization, the customizable home screen has also played an integral part in my decision to switch. For years, I longed for a decent weather application that would show me up-to-date weather information on the homescreen of any of my Symbian devices. It was only in 2009 when the N97 finally debuted with a single weather widget from Accuweather. Compared to Android, it’s actually easy to get lost when looking through all the weather widgets available, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg for homescreen customization. In fact, there’s so much available, I’d almost say there’s too many options that the average user would be too intimidated by them all and would rather not customize altogether.

Another added bonus to the Nexus One experience was the accessories that were made available for it. I purchased both the desk and car docks and could not be happier with both. Similar to the Touchstone for the Palm Pre, the Nexus One connects to and charges in these docks not with the microUSB port, but with three gold connectors on the bottom of the phone just by making contact with the dock. If the platform itself wasn’t easy enough, it’s as if these accessories were designed specifically to enhance the ease of use that much further.

If there’s one thing I do miss from Symbian, it is definitely the high-end cameras Nokia delivered. The camera on the Nexus One (and all Android devices for that matter) are certainly passable, but none of them really hold a candle to the Carl Zeiss optics and settings available on the Nseries cameras. With that in mind, I’m okay without having an outstanding camera on my phone. One of the things I learned from trying to use the N97 as a completely converged device from our trip last year is that you can’t, if for no other reason than there is no battery that can possibly withstand the abuse. While having a single device connected all day and replacing all of your devices is certainly still a dream I hope to see achieved one day, in the current state of battery technology, it just simply isn’t possible without some form of power source throughout any given day. Because of this, I decided to buy myself a standalone Panasonic camera to use when I know I’ll need to take excellent shots. It’s not as convenient as having everything in one device, but the added features and end result pictures are significantly better than any smartphone camera could possibly achieve, both now and probably for several years to come.

On the topic of batteries, that would have to be my other complaint about the Nexus One and Android in general. Be it because I now use my phone more, the battery meter being much more accurate than any other phone I’ve ever used, or Android just sucking more power than anything else, one of my constant concerns is trying to keep my phone charged. I shouldn’t, because really, it’s never been a problem for the phone to last a full day of heavy usage, but it doesn’t sit well knowing that if I miss a charge I will most likely end up without my phone for the better part of the day.

Since I bought that first Nexus One, I’ve probably gone through a total of five or six between me and my girlfriend. I eventually sold our original T-Mobile versions in favor of the AT&T variants to take advantage of their 3G. I also sent a couple of mine in for replacement due to very minor hardware inconsistencies. I did this mostly because I knew I would be keeping this phone for a very long time and wanted to make sure I had one without any defects, no matter how minor they may be, and it looks like I was right. This is easily the longest I’ve ever had a smartphone before and it still feels brand new to me every time I pick it up.

For me, Android is providing the simplified experience that made the iPhone so popular while simultaneously providing me with the customization options I had desperately been trying to use with Symbian for so many years. My Nexus One is truly my own and allows me to do what I need to consistently and reliably on a daily basis.

What now?

Given the changes over the past several months, it almost goes without saying that I will no longer be updating this site. I still plan to keep it open for reference sake as some of the tutorials still work for even Nokia’s newest devices. I still haven’t decided whether or not I will be opening another site. All of my contact information will stay the same going forward and I will keep it posted here and any of the other spaces I occupy, so please, feel free to hit me up and keep in touch.

I now feel I better understand how Nokia operates and the decisions they make, but for me, that means I will no longer be a part of their ecosystem. I appreciate all of the memories and experiences I’ve gained over the years as a consumer, a member of the S60 community, and writing for my site, but it’s time to move on. Perhaps in a couple years if Nokia decides to take another stab at the US market, I might be interested, but I know and understand that they can’t focus on the US when they’re trying to cater to hundreds of other markets all over the world that are so conditioned to using S60 already.

Lastly, I want to say thank you to everyone that has read my site over the past three years. My site never achieved astronomical amounts of page hits, but it still allowed me to meet plenty of new people, get my thoughts down, and give back at least in part to some of the best people on the internet. So to everyone, thank you, and I hope we cross paths again in the future.

*#0228#

As I mentioned in my review of the Samsung i8910HD, there are several manufacturer codes that can be used to tweak performance of all sorts of different features. While the phone is very capable out of the box, it’s a real advantage to be able to access these hidden settings to tune your device exactly to your liking. In this brief, I’ll go some of the major tweaks, how to perform the tweaks yourself, and how to not damage your phone in the process.

This list is my compilation of information found on the Samsung i8910 Omnia forums and all credit goes to Briggs and the members. If you’d like to read about more device codes to experiment with,  please feel free to give them a visit and say thanks if you do.

Before you attempt any of the codes found in this guide, I want to warn that it is not clear what implications this may have on your warranty. While this guide is safe to make minor improvements to the i8910HD, I take no liability for any damage you do to your phone if you experiment outside the parameters of this guide, nor if your warranty becomes void from performing any of these changes. You are making alterations to your device at your own risk. It is also recommended you write down the previous values for any settings you change in the event you want to change them back to default.

3G/UMTS Tuning (*#2263#)

If you’re in the US on AT&T’s 3G, there’s no reason to have your i8910HD operate on any UMTS frequency than 1900. Although the normal settings menu only supports switching between GSM, UMTS, and Dual mode, you can use the manufacturer codes to turn off the other two UMTS radios.

From the dialer on your phone, type  *#2263#  . Press the number 2 on the onscreen number pad for “WCDMA Band Preference”. It should show a star next to the first option, “WCDMA All”. Press 4 on the number pad and then press “OK”. The menu should now have a star next to the “WCDMA 1900″ option, locking your UMTS radio to only that frequency. You can follow the screen shots below for reference.

Changing this setting is beneficial for two reasons: it will save the phone from searching for two UMTS frequencies that aren’t available in the US, and it also allows a 3G connection to be made much faster often in less than 3 seconds!

Audio Tuning (*#0002*28346#)

If you find the audio to be too low when you’re on a call, there’s a code for that too. Type *#0002*28346# in the dialer to enter the audio tuning menu. From here, press option 1 for Voice call. This menu will present you with 5 options for all the various output devices, including the Handset (ear speaker), Handfree (loudspeaker), Headset (mono wired headset), Headphone (stereo wired headphones), and Bluetooth (wireless mono headset).

Before you continue, BE CAREFUL with these settings. If you change any of these values too high, it is possible and likely to blow any of the speakers. I urge you to make only minor changes and if you do want to test higher values, be sure to turn the volume down on your headset before allowing the device to emit any sounds through any hardware.

Handset and Bluetooth Headset Volume

I personally found the earpiece quality adequate, but I thought it would be better if I could turn it up a bit. From the Audio Tuning menu, press option 1 “Voice Call”, and option 1 again for “Handset” as shown above.

You can compare my screenshots below to your phone to see the differences. You can see I have changed the Tx Channel and Rx Channel both to 12 dB. I wouldn’t recommend tuning this value any higher to avoid distortion and risk potentially damaging your phone.

To change the values, tap the line you’d like to change, and you’ll be presented with a black tuning screen. This screen shows you the default value, the current value, the lowest and highest you can set the values, and what increments are used to change each value (Step). Following the Step value, you can type in the numbers you’d like to change the values to, and press # to set them.

I also felt that the volume of my Bluetooth headset was a bit low. Press back until you get to the Voice Call menu and select option 5 “Bluetooth”. I recommend changing the Tx Channel to 18 dB and the Rx Channel to 6dB. (notice the Step value is 3 dB in this menu instead of 1 dB  in the handset settings. This means that you can only change the values by multiples of 3).

When finished making your changes, press back until you get to the first Audio Tuning menu, and select option 6, “Backup”. This will finalize all of the changes you made so that they will remain after you’ve restarted or reformatted the device. (Note: all of these settings will be set back to their defaults when new firmware is installed).

MP3 and Video Playback Quality/Volume (settings recommended by Briggs)

Although I am satisfied with the audio quality of MP3 and video playback, some have commented that it can be too quiet or would just like to get better quality sound. Also in the audio tuning menu, option 2 “Play Sound” allows you to adjust these settings to get fuller, louder playback through both the loudspeaker and headphones.

In the “Play Sound” menu, select option 2 “MP3 HeadPHN”and change option 4 “HS Gain” to 6 dB. I don’t recommend changing this setting much higher since it may not only damage your headphones, but it could also damage your ears!

Now to improve the volume of video playback for videos, select option 3 “MP4 LoudSPK”. In this menu, change option 4 “PreDR Gain” to 6 dB. Again, I don’t recommend changing this to anything higher since it can very well damage your external speakers on full volume.

Don’t forget to use the Backup menu to save your settings!

Camcorder Microphone Sensitivity

When recording video in very loud environments, it is common for an unnatural hissing noise to be captured due to the microphone sensitivity. There is yet another manufacturer code to change the sensitivity of the microphone to boost performance in general and also allow you to capture audio correctly in said loud environments.

Once again in the audio tuning menu, press option 3 “Record” and then option 4 “CamcordARM_AMR”.

In this menu, select option 1 “Tx MicAmp” and change the value to whatever you’d like (by multiples of 6 as shown) as you did for the any of the audio settings above. I have mine set to 18dB for everyday recording, but you can also change it to a much lower value if you anticipate recording in a very noisy environment like a concert or similar.

Again, don’t forget to use the Backup menu to save your settings!

I purchased two defective 8gb i8910HD’s from CellsWholesale (pending a full refund) and I purchased the 16gb i8910HD used in this review from Mobile City Online for $725 total ($699+25 overnight shipping, now backordered).

Thanks to all who attended the live Q+A on Qik! If you missed it (and have a couple hours to kill), you can watch the full video here.

Build Quality

The first two thing you notice when handling the i8910HD is how solid it feels in your hand. This isn’t too difficult to achieve with a monoblock form factor that has no moving parts to the design, but the feel of the materials used combined with the weight and balance of the device make for a very gratifying feeling when holding it. When I had the opportunity to hold the N97 in one hand and the i8910HD in the other, it really made the N97 feel very cheap, plasticky, and hollow, similar to how the N95 felt when it was first released. It’s piano-black finish and reflective chrome accents around the outside of the camera lens and screen makes it very eye-catching.

The downside is that the black plastic is an absolute fingerprint magnet. It’s not quite as bad as handling a black iPhone, but very close. After only a couple minutes of use, I found myself needing to wipe the entire phone down with my jeans and when it became really bad, an alcohol pad.

Another thing I’m not crazy about is the durability of the plastic. In addition to collecting fingerprints, it also seems to show hairline scratches even though I’ve made it a point to be very careful in handling the device.

For size reference, the i8910HD is a bit taller than an iPhone 3GS, but a less wide, making it much easier to grip. To keep it in perspective, the phone is also very thin, especially considering all of the hardware it’s packing. It’s 1mm thinner than the original Motorola RAZR!

Screen

The i8910HD is the only device currently available with such a large combination of features. It certainly isn’t everyday you see a 3.7″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen at 640×360 resolution displaying 16 million colors. If that sounds like a mouthful, well it is, and the display speaks for itself. Even with all of the pictures that are currently floating around on the internet, none of them do the screen proper justice. With an N85 in the house that shares similar AMOLED technology, the brightness and colors of the screen are on a completely different level that needs to be seen with your own eyes to fully understand.

I was surprised at just how accurate the capacitive screen is, given the nature of the technology. I feared that using applications specifically designed for use with a stylus would be difficult to use, but thus far, I’ve only run into a couple instances where it’s been a issue. The size of the screen helps helps make up the lack of stylus support considerably.

The Achilles heel of the i8910HD’s gorgeous screen is undoubtedly its performance outdoors. Although all LCD screens are effected by direct sunlight differently, AMOLED screens are the worst. That said, the display is still readable and usable under such conditions, a bit more so than the N85, but it’s not something you’d want to deal with for several hours each day.

Operation and Network Performance

Briefly recapping the hardware specs of the i8910HD,

-600MHz CPU (with PowerVR SGX hardware acceleration)
-256mb of RAM (about 170mb available on boot)
-45mb of available internal memory (NOT the 16gb mass storage)

And revisiting the hardware in the N97,

-434MHz CPU (without hardware acceleration)
-128mb of RAM (about 42mb available on boot)
-56mb of available internal memory (NOT the 32gb mass storage)

Of those specs, I think the processor speed really is negligible. Though the i8910HD is noticeably faster than the N97, the speed difference is barely noticeable in most applications. The larger amount of RAM is what makes the bigger difference. I can confidently say I have not once had to worry about how many applications I was running in the background, a claim I can not make about the N97. It is literally impossible to crash it.

Notice the scroll bar on the side of the task manager? This screenshot was taken with more than 40, forty, applications running simultaneously

Although the i8910HD does respond very quickly in most areas, the advantage of the boosted hardware is seen much more in the stability and reliability of the device. Regardless of what combination of applications is open or what you happen to be doing on the phone at any given time, you know that anything else you want to open is going to open in the same amount of time, every time. If you press the camera button, the camera opens, and opens quickly, every time. It was a feeling of confidence I haven’t felt when using a device since I first handled the N95-3, properly equipped with the added RAM it needed to keep up with my usage. It really set the bar for what I expected out of every device to come ever since, and everything between it and the i8910HD has had a significant compromise somewhere down the line.

Even with the faster CPU and over four times the available RAM , the i8910HD shares one critical flaw with the N97: low internal storage. After testing several firmware variants from different regions, the amount on available internal storage rests anywhere between 25 and 45mb after a fresh reformat. Now that I’ve set up my i8910HD with all of the applications I use regularly, I am down to 15mb of available storage and it will only get worse from here. I find myself clearing the cache of the browser before I close it every time I use it, I empty my messages almost daily, and still I feel like it will need another hard reset before the month is out. There’s no excuse for these 5th Edition devices not to have at least 100mb of available internal storage.

Network

As I wrote before, the i8910HD is equipped with a quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900) and tri-band UMTS radios (900/1900/2100) built primarily for the European market. While the typical spec for a “NAM” device includes support for both the 850 and 1900 UMTS frequencies, the i8910HD is only able to use AT&T’s 3G on the 1900 UMTS frequency here in the US.

To put it simply, the i8910HD DOES work with AT&T’s network and actually performs better than some NAM devices in areas where AT&T’s 1900 UMTS coverage exists.

There are two likely reasons for this noticeable difference in speed. The first is because the UMTS radio used in the i8910HD supports 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 5.7Mbps HSUPA (the N97 only supports 3.6Mbps HSDPA and 1.9Mbps HSUPA). The second is presumably because of the variation in network traffic. The i8910HD is forced on to the 1900 UMTS frequency which is more vacant than the newly established 850 UMTS towers that all the other 3G-enabled AT&T devices are connecting to in the area. This is good because those who have a strong 1900 UMTS frequency in their area get to reap the benefits of very fast HSDPA, but bad because those that do not have 1900 UMTS available in their area never will. AT&T is expanding only the 850 UMTS coverage where their 3G isn’t yet available. That means that if the i8910HD doesn’t pick up a 3G connection where you are now, it probably never will.

Generally speaking, the reception of the i8910HD appears to be lower than all other Nokia devices in the house, but it also has yet to make a difference. Even with only one bar in weak reception areas of certain rooms, the phone has not failed to send or receive calls or text messages. If anything, it appears to be a more realistic display of the reception I have, whereas I’ve been unable to make calls on occasion with some of the other devices in the house  when they are displaying full reception.

Another quirk I’ve noticed regarding the i8910HD’s network connectivity is the time it takes to connect. Any Nokia I have in the house takes less than 4 seconds or so to establish an active data connection, but the i8910HD seems to take around 10 seconds. With a couple automated applications running in the background all day that access the network, I usually never notice this, but for users who use their devices more traditionally, I can see how having to wait for this connection every time could get annoying real quick.

Text Input

The i8910HD features three different virtual methods for text input; a traditional keypad for T9 and traditional tap input, a large landscape QWERTY keyboard, and handwriting recognition using a finger instead of a stylus.

The virtual keypad is easily my favorite input method. Combined with the extra sensitivity of the capacitive screen, typing comes very natural and some pretty fast speeds can be achieved.

I wasn’t a big fan of the landscape QWERTY when I first started using it, but with the correct typing technique, I have grown to like it almost as much as the virtual T9. With the haptic vibration feedback turned up to 5, you can achieve much better results if you treat the keys as if they were really buttons instead of just tapping on a screen. This helps each press to be more focused and eliminates the “brushing” motion that usually results in undesired characters. It also helps to remember that the screen only recognizes one press at a time and the keyboard recognizes when your finger is lifted from the screen, not when the screen is pressed. Using these methods, I’ve been able to type nearly as fast as I can with the virtual T9.

Even with these two input methods being relatively fast, they still don’t hold a candle to hardware buttons. There have been several occasions where I found myself missing the hardware QWERTY on the N97. The virtual T9 keypad and the landscape QWERTY work well for messaging, web forms, or even a lengthy email, but for extensive blog posts in WordMobi? I’d honestly prefer to use an N97. As such, I highly doubt I’ll be doing as much mobile blogging as I would have liked to coming off the N97 24/7 trip.

I’ve heard several people complain about the lack of a virtual portrait QWERTY keyboard, but not only do I understand why it was left out, but I’m glad too. That keyboard was specifically designed to be used with a stylus on the Nokia 5800XM and I think I speak for a majority of 5800XM users when I say it was the least practical text input method. Even with the 3.7″ screen, the tip of your finger would cover 5 or more of the tiny keys and the capacitive screen would have to guess which character you were trying to press. Without some form of auto-correction similar to what’s found on the iPhone, a mini-portrait QWERTY would be simply unusable.

Battery Life

In terms of realistic, day-to-day usage, the i8910HD is able to withstand my heavy beatings for about a little more than a full day. Now that I’ve settled into using the device more regularly, the phone is starting to last considerably longer and I’ve been able to squeeze out an average of two days of battery life out of what I’d consider “moderate” usage. In one example, I streamed a 70+ minute Qik video on the highest quality settings over a WLAN connection and was left with one bar of battery (which lasted until around 9pm that night). In a similar example, the N85 only managed to make it through 45 minutes before dying entirely and forcing me to switch to the N97 to stream the rest of the Qik session that day. Generally speaking, the battery life has been very impressive and well received after going through batteries like water on the N97.

Unlike traditional Nokia S60 devices that usually remain at full bars all day and dramatically drop to one or zero bars in the last few hours of discharge, the i8910HD is almost the exact opposite. It seems to drop the first six bars within the first 4-6 hours and then “sticks” on one bar for several additional hours before the low battery prompt starts to pop up. While trying to train the battery (if that’s even necessary anymore), I have experienced several nights actively trying to kill the last bar of juice and had to wait close to 3-4 hours before it finally gave up. It has been suggested that the final bar of battery shows the remaining 30% of battery life, which seems about right.

A welcome addition to S60 5th Edition is a built-in battery saving mode. Although not like the power saving mode found on the most recent batch of 3rd Edition Nseries devices, the i8910HD automatically turns this setting on when the phone reaches a certain charge level (often when the phone shows zero bars). It disables the use of any native resource-intensive applications, dims the screen, and usually allows for an additional hour of use before the device dies entirely. I would like to have seen some customization options for this feature, but none are supported.

Camera and Media

Every review has talked about the camera on this behemoth of an imaging device, but they usually only mention the bigger points. I want to share some of the overlooked features of the i8910HD’s camera.

One thing that surprised me the first time I used the camera is how insanely fast it was. It took less than 2 seconds to launch and around 1 second to switch between image/video recording modes. Everything else I’ve used from Nokia has taken at least twice as long!

Digital Stills

The i8910HD brings a lot of camera features to S60 that haven’t been seen on any Nseries as of yet. A lot of them I don’t see myself using on a day-to-day basis, but even with automatic settings enabled, it takes some incredible stills.

Here are some quick shots taken on our recent night out to dinner.

As good as the images are during the day, it’s almost the exact opposite in any low light conditions. Every picture taken in less than bright conditions usually resulted in a blurry image that needed several retakes before I could get a decent shot. If your subject is moving, forget about it.

The flash is no help either. The single LED is very bright and useful for recording video, but overexposes most images when used as a camera flash. I never thought dual-LED made that much of a difference until I saw it for myself.

Video Recording

Although the initial firmware that came installed on the first batch of i8910HD’s suffered from a poor audio codec used when recording video, the current IG2 firmware available swapped it for a new AAC codec at 16000Hz. It’s still not at the same audio recording level as most Nseries devices, but to be fair, no Nseries is currently able to record in 720p (1280×720) or D1 (720×480) either. Aside from the aforementioned video recording settings, the camera also supports slow-motion capture, fast-motion capture, and several other recording settings that are fun to play around with.

I didn’t record any video samples for this review since it has clearly been covered to death, being the most popular feature of the i8910HD. If you’d like to see some samples, you can find dozens from owners of the device by searching YouTube for “i8910″.

In my own experience, I found the 720p video recording to be sufficient for what it is. I did experience some frame dropping, but it wasn’t too noticeable. I much preferred to use the D1 recording setting to get 30fps out of my videos.

I also found that there are manufacturer’s codes available that can alter the sensitivity of the microphone when recording video to capture audio more appropriately in different environments. For example, the microphone tends to pick up a lot of scratchy noise in loud environments, but adjusting this setting allows for the sound to be recorded more naturally and sound as it should during playback.

Video Playback

This is easily my favorite feature of the media aspects of the i8910HD. Several codecs are supported right out of the box which allows me to drag and drop unconverted video clips directly on to the internal storage or memory card and play them without any issues. The video looks fantastic on that awesome screen, and it’s ridiculously fast.

If the 3.7″ screen isn’t large enough for you, you can also launch the DLNA application to stream videos, music, and pictures wirelessly over a WLAN connection to a compatible DLNA device. In my case, I am able to stream my content to my HDTV through my PS3.

GPS

Regardless of which app you choose for navigation on the i8910HD, one thing remains consistent: the GPS lock is ridiculously fast and powerful. For reference, I have noticed that GoogleMaps will connect to 10 (yes, ten) satellites while indoors in a matter of seconds. Any of my previous Nokia-S60 devices would only connect to a maximum of 4 satellites indoors after several seconds longer, and that’s only when close to a window.

The reason the TTF(time to first fix) happens so quickly is largely due to the i8910HD’s unique method of obtaining assisted-GPS data. Traditionally, devices that use A-GPS download data in real-time when the GPS connection is requested, which requires a data connection every time an application that uses GPS is launched. Instead, the i8910HD uses an application called GPS+ to download all of the A-GPS data for an entire week in advance. That means that rather than download data every time a GPS application is launched, the information is already available to help acquire a fix.

Unfortunately, the GPS+ application can only download the A-GPS data over EDGE/HSDPA connections (not WLAN), though this method eats up considerably less data than the previous method for those who do not have an unlimited data plan. The cool thing is you can set the application to automatically download the A-GPS data weekly (which is how often the information expires).

For a much more detailed description of how this works, you can check out Michal Jerz’s i8910HD review on my-symbian.com.

Application Compatibility

For whatever reason, there has been a lot of speculation that traditional 3rd and 5th Edition applications would not be compatible with the i8910HD just because it’s a Samsung instead of a Nokia. Rather than go down a list of all of the applications that do work with this phone, I find it easier to describe the situations where applications do not install or work as they should.

API-specific applications

These types of applications are very rare, but they cause errors when trying to access the camera more than any other situation. This is usually because it’s a completely different camera module with completely different software that these applications can not interface with. The only other time I’ve seen this is when trying to use the digital compass with Nokia Maps, which doesn’t seem to recognize the i8910HD’s digital compass at all.

Unsigned applications

Just like any Nokia device, any unsigned apps need to be signed with a developer certificate before they are installed. Alternatively, your device needs to be hacked with a proper installserver.exe file to allow all apps to be installed without a certificate check. There is virtually no difference in this process between a Samsung S60 device and a Nokia S60 device (check the next section for details about signing and hacking applications and devices, respectably).

Nokia-specific applications

Out of the box, the i8910HD will not install any Nokia-specific applications at all since they are all signed with a Nokia-specific certificate. With the new hacking methods that are currently available (HelloOx2, RomPatcher+), numerous sites that generate IMEI-based certificate and key files to sign applications yourself (OPDA, iMobile, S60CertKey), and even simple hacks to allow the device to work with the Ovi Store website, it is relatively easy for even newcomers to get around these obstacles. To date, the only application that I have not been able to get working properly is Ovi Contacts, probably due to the integration with the default Contacts app. I’m currently using Ovi Maps,  Nokia Email, Wireless BT Keyboard, Barcode scanner, and SportsTracker without any noticeable differences (other then a lot of the larger apps opening and running faster). I was also able to get Ovi Sync working with the Nokia 5800XM settings and I’m hoping to see Nokia’s Communication Center working with the i8910HD in the future (since it is a cut above Samsung’s desktop messaging application in PC Studio).

General Gripes

While I’m overall very satisfied with the device for my needs, there are a few things that I am seriously missing coming from a long line of Nokias.

-No voice dialing. For reals. Although it can be found in the emulator for the i8910HD, this feature didn’t make it to the final product, nor to any of the firmwares I’ve tested thus far. I believe it has something to do with licensing to Nuance, the company that provides Nokia with their voice dialing solution. If that is correct, it also means it’s very unlikely this will ever be added in the future.

-No Share Online and a broken YouTube uploader. The i8910HD does feature its own online sharing solution called “Communities” that allows you to upload media to Facebook, Flickr, Friendster, MySpace, Photo Bucket, and YouTube, but with the most current firmware, the YouTube uploader fails to get uploaded videos to show up on your YouTube account. To add insult to injury, the Communities app is currently broken after setting up my device again. With no way to use any additional services such as PixelPipe like you can with Share Online, it really stifles the sharing abilities of the awesome camera.

-Old, buggy browser. While I don’t do too much web browsing on my phones as much as I used to, the browser on the i8910HD is almost identical to the older one found on the 5800XM. That means no kinetic scrolling, no scrolling at all until most pages are loaded entirely, slow rendering, and worst of all, the most recent firmware has a bug that closes the browser altogether if you press the “Stop” button while the page is loading. It’s manageable, but not something that can be overlooked for long. The now delayed H1 firmware is supposed to add several browser improvements and I’d be very surprised if fixing this issue wasn’t one of them.

-No usable home screen. I didn’t cover the various home screens or TouchWiz in my review because as of now, none of them are very useful whatsoever. TouchWiz doesn’t currently have a large variety of useful widgets, so customizing the home screen with them is more like rebuilding what was already available on a standard S60 home screen. Using the traditional home screen is a bit better, but there’s no customization outside of the four icons (and no support for any messages at all). The last option is just a blank screen with no icons whatsoever. After being able to customize the N97′s home screen to death and with the recent Gravity update that features its own home screen widgets, I want THAT for my i8910HD. With luck, some more interesting things will come out of the widget contest Samsung is hosting.

-General availability and firmware distribution. As I briefly mentioned at the beginning of this review, I suffered through several headaches trying to get the most current firmware loaded onto this phone, an experience that’s made more painful by the high price tag and difficulty of acquiring this phone. It is currently only available as an import without a US warranty and it seems to have taken all summer just to get this far. Firmware updates are also region specific and if you happen to pick one up that isn’t from Italy, you’ll probably have to read up on some of the “unofficial” flashing guides to get the latest updates. The process isn’t too difficult, but since it requires a 32-bit Windows machine running XP or Vista and I happen to be running a 64-bit version of Windows 7, my first day with the i8910HD was a frustrating one indeed.

-No UDP. Part of the reason it has taken so long to get comfortable with this device is because EVERYTHING gets reset with every firmware update. I’m used to this with older S60 devices, but what with it being a Samsung and different in many areas of the Settings menu from similar S60 Nokias, it seems to take that much longer to get everything where I want it again. The biggest bit of help I have had thus far has been from an app called AutoInstaller, which was recently updated to support 5th Edition devices. With a hacked phone, all you have to do is drop all of your sis files into the thinkchange/e folder, launch the application, and hit “Start Install”. As long as it doesn’t run into any errors, it will install all of your apps without prompting you whatsoever.

Conclusion

No device is perfect, and the i8910HD is no exception. I recently read a forum post describing the i8910HD as “the iPhone of S60″ and I completely agree with that. Where it lacks in the smooth software experience that’s synonymous with the iPhone, it makes up for with impressive hardware that doesn’t let you down, combining several high-end features into a nearly complete all-in-one package. Even with its shortcomings, the overall speed and stability deliver a consistent experience for even the biggest power-users. It certainly isn’t for everyone, and newcomers to S60 altogether may feel a bit feint of heart when reading about all of the hacking and customizations that can be done to this device. The beauty though is that even right out of the box with the most recent firmware, the device is very capable of providing an above-par experience, even if you’re unfamiliar with smartphones entirely.

Seeing as this will be the final round of S60 devices we’ll see before everything begins to switch gears to the Symbian Foundation (the i8910HD and N97 being candidates), I feel very satisfied using the i8910HD until that switch is complete, especially since I’m trying to stick to my guns and avoid upgrading my phone no sooner than 6 months from now, if not longer. Reflecting on everything I’ve learned from the N97 24/7 trip, forcing myself to use a “normal” phone for 6 months, and going over everything that I or anyone else really need in a smartphone, I want to share a few links to keep everything in perspective.

In searching for the post I was looking for, I realized that the author, Stefan, also linked to the same video embedded above.

In Stefan’s post on IntoMobile.com regarding his path from mobile blogger to Nokia employee and back again, he wrote something that changed the way I view the mobile lifestyle.

What I’m about to say may have me labeled as a heretic by my peers, but the technology we have today is good enough. All progress could stop today, and I honestly would not give a damn. Today I can call anyone in the world, at any time. I can see where I am, and where my friends are, on a map. I have a laptop that, with a new battery, can last over 6 hours; some models on the market today can last for over 9 hours. I can download any photograph, audio recording or film ever made over broadband. These technology marvels exist today and will soon be available to everyone.

The economy crashed and many people lost their jobs, many people curbed their spending, but did many people stop and realize how truly awesome things are today?

I do suggest you read his entire post, but the bottom line is this; as a blogger, it’s easy to rip a device to shreds, find every single fault, and put it together in a post with media and links that’s probably longer than it should be. Whether you use an N97, an i8910HD, a Storm, a TouchPro2, a Hero, an iPhone, a Pre, or whatever else, be happy with it and if you’re not, buy something else. The best device available is what best fits you.

I hope this review has helped you decide whether or not the i8910HD is for you, and if not, I hope you can find yourself a device that does exactly what you want. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.

Update: If some research and a dab of common sense weren’t enough, Samsung India has taken down the 1GHz line from the product description and replaced it with the proper specifications listed below.

Recently, a lot of mobile blogs and forums have worked themselves into a tizzy over Samsung India posting the specs of the 16gb i8910HD with an added line that reads “1GHz CPU Powering Innovative 3D UI” and jumping to the conclusion that Samsung put in a newer, faster processor for this release. For those that bothered to look into the actual CPU hardware used in the Samsung i8910HD, you might have noticed this line:

Paying attention to the bolded numbers, neither of them come close to 1GHz. It’s only when you add the clockspeeds of the main CPU and the DSP that you get 1030MHz, or 1GHz. That’s all well and good, but NO other mobile CPU is clocked in the same manner. If they were, then that means the N97 is running at 694MHz, the N95 is clocked at 552MHz, and the Palm Pre is clocked over 1GHz.

It also means that EVERY i8910HD on the market has a 1GHz CPU as well.

TechRadar’s post regarding the same topic digs a bit deeper and reminds of Samsung’s previous history with errors on their own website. I’m reminded of Nokia copying and pasting information from the Euro device specifications onto the NAM device pages without bothering to change even the frequencies.

Still don’t believe me? Consider the contrary. Pretending Samsung DID change the processor  it would be a production miracle if Samsung was able to…

A-1. place an order for X,000 (or more) new Qualcomm chipsets (including all of the licensing and purchasing details from TI), OR
A-2. rush their own 1GHz Hummingbird CPU into production a few weeks after it was announced,
B. re-write the drivers necessary for the hardware and operating system to work properly with the new chipset,
C. re-manufacture the next batch of i8910HD’s with this new chipset, and
D. do it all within the 2-3 months the original has been available.

There is NO 1GHz i8910HD. Or, if you like, ALL i8910HD’s are 1GHz. You decide. Either way,

it’s the same device.

Trivium and the crowd, taken with the N97.

This really got me rethinking the quality of the entire Nseries line (post-N95) and it dawned on me that this would be an excellent opportunity for Nokia to make an impact in the US market. There are very few devices that can record video (with excellent audio as well) and take pictures as nicely as the Nseries devices do, and I can’t imagine those people trying to use those alternative devices are happy reviewing the media they captured when they get home. Those devices certainly don’t capture anything you’d want to effectively share with friends or upload to a sharing website.

I would guess that over 99% of the people there had a phone of some kind and Lakewood Amphitheatre’s capacity is just under 20,000. Something as simple as a commercial showcasing the high-end video recording capabilities would go a long way. I imagine a narrator talking over a guy recording a video of his favorite band at a concert, cut to him getting home to watch the video and being disappointed at how pixelated and choppy it came out. A quick pitch of x device or the Nseries while he records that band again, an after shot of him looking much happier at his desktop, reviewing and uploading a much better quality video, and you’ve got a winning commercial.

Taking it one step further, why not setup small experience centers AT the venues so people could watch that commercial and play with the devices first hand, right next to one of the stages, and see exactly how nice the video comes out? The center could have a flat-screen with an Nseries connected to it via a TV-out cable playing clips people have recorded or a slideshow of pictures captured of the various bands. After everyone gets blown away by all that, a rep could give a demo of Share Online and show them that they don’t even need to get back to their computer to share their content on their favorite sharing site. There are tons of opportunities and it would connect to people who like all different styles of music.

Hit the break for some a quick sample of video I took at the concert, just to give you an example.

And a picture of a weird looking guy. My buddy stole this shot with his Storm.

Qik.com/jbruha, live at 11am EST on 7/29

Update:

And it’s over! Thanks to everyone who showed up! It looks like we’re going to do several of these with each of the N97 24/7 Rockstars over the next week or so.

If you want to see what we talked about, you can check the embedded Qik videos after the break (Warning: It’s 6 parts and just under two hours).

I don’t see any sense in going over the media functions of the device since they are largely unchanged from previous devices. Everything from the music player to the camera is almost identical to the performance of previous devices. Instead, I thought it more constructive to focus on the things that really stand out.

Screen

As I found out very early into the trip, it is nowhere near as durable as I was led to believe. On the recommendations of Dan and several internet sources to remove the screen protector, I had managed to scratch the screen right in the center after the first night with it off. What perplexes me is that I didn’t have anything else in my pocket that night and it hasn’t seen nearly as bad a scratch since (though several noticeable smaller ones have formed). The scratches are difficult to see, but when I do see them, they drive me absolutely nuts.

I was really impressed with how well the phone and screen held up in extreme conditions. It was raining pretty hard during the scavenger hunt that took all day. After what I would consider to be pretty heavy water damage, not one of the 4 of us had any problems resulting from the abuse.

Per my previous post about the difference between resistive and capacitive screens, all of those differences still apply. For my personal usage, I could care less whether or not the screen was capacitive or resistive (shy of the durability issue). After all of the usage the N97s saw on this trip, its resistive screen wasn’t an issue at all. George was the only one who bothered to use the included stylus at all, but I still only rarely caught him using it. The screen is very finger friendly and sensitive enough for all types of usage.

Keyboard

I originally gave the N97 a lot of heat for how poor the feedback was on the original white unit I purchased. After all this intense usage, I have now grown very used to it and will definitely miss it moving to other devices. Like any keyboard, it takes some getting used to that can’t be done over the course of a few hours or even a few days. The space bar placement actually feels more natural to the right than it would in the center, the symbol key combinations start to come naturally the more you use it, and the smaller keys aren’t a problem at all.

My only remaining complaints are that the shift key placement makes it difficult for selecting text, even with two hands, and the tactile feedback is still not up to par with keyboards on other devices. For the latter reason, I still strongly recommend testing the keyboard to see if it will work for you or not before buying it.

Battery Life

From the white N97 I owned before the trip to the black pair of N97′s lent to me during the trip, NONE of them had even decent battery life. Even whilst observing all of the typical power-saving tips for S60 devices, each of our N97s would burn through 2 batteries per day at least and up to 4 on some heavier than normal days. Having brought my E90 and N810 and Andrew bringing his E71 (all using the same BP-4L battery) was the only reason the device was able to survive this trip at all (in addition to the backup N97 WOM World lent us). If conserving battery life was one of the reasons the older ARM11 processor architecture was chosen instead of the newer Cortex A8 architechture, then they made a HUGE mistake.

It was said several times on the trip that we can’t expect to properly judge battery life because we were using these phones harder than anyone typically would. While I agree that we were using them exceptionally hard, that concept fails to factor in the dispersion of device usage over the four of us. During heavier activities and challenges, it became the norm for us to assign a specific task to each device to avoid needlessly emptying a single device very quickly. Specifically, we did this during the Presidential Walk/Ride where George was responsible for capturing media, I was responsible for navigation with Nokia Maps and Google Maps, and Andrew was responsible for only running Sports Tracker. Should a normal person be interested in using the N97 like we did on their own tour of any given city with only one battery, it would be simply impossible.

General Performance Speed

Quickly recapping the N97s hardware,

-434mhz CPU (without hardware acceleration)
-128mb of RAM (about 42mb available on boot)
-56mb of available internal memory (NOT the 32gb mass storage)

It’s also worth noting the specifications of the N95-3 that launched in September of 2007.

-334mhz CPU (with hardware acceleration)
-128mb of RAM (about 80mb available on boot)
-130mb of available internal memory (independent of any storage card)

Even after a critical firmware update, the N97 still needs a lot of work to make better use of the meager internal hardware it’s using. My first impression of the N97 when I started using it for the first time was how much slower it was than I was used to on other devices I had used recently, and that hasn’t changed. It still feels very slow compared to even the aged E90 with its quick application buttons. The only thing that really impressed me was how much faster the browser was with all of the Flash and javascript elements turned on.

During the trip, it was a common occurrence for our N97s to require battery pulls, restarts, and continuously reopen applications that closed in the background due to a lack of RAM over the course of the trip. At its worst, I was forced to switch over to the spare N97 because the instability had gotten so out of control. I was very much reminded of the old days of S60 when devices had less than 20mb of available RAM. There were several times where I hesitated opening the camera or navigating away from a large webpage to respond to a text message since doing so would usually close the larger app I was running in the background.  On top of that, the N97 seems to handle an overload in a “panic mode” if you will. If the device begins to lock up due to too many thing being open, it frantically tries to close everything to get things working again, whereas older devices would just restart. Between the two options, I don’t think it matters either way. Doubling the RAM would have been the real solution here.

Giving those issues a pass, they pale in comparison to the low internal memory. Having only 56mb available, EVERY app needs to be installed to the mass storage for things to run smoothly, which also means those apps won’t be usable when connected to a PC in mass storage mode. Even so, there are some applications that force themselves to install onto the small internal memory and having too many of them quickly leads to some intense stability problems. I was forced to uninstall and reinstall Nokia Email a couple times when I was attempting to install the application updates to Nokia Maps and Ovi Contacts (I didn’t even bother with Ngage). I found myself constantly struggling to maintain 10mb of available memory by uninstalling widgets I will never use, clearing the cache in the browser after every session, and deleting larger emails with attachments I would have liked to keep. This issue also disabled any of us from sending a large file over Bluetooth to each others N97s because it would arrive in the inbox, also part of the internal memory by default.

Oh and themes? Forget about them. You can either install them to the mass storage and have your N97 change to a default theme when connected in mass storage mode (buggy on its own) or install them on the internal memory and perpetuate the stability issues. Pick your poison.

To put a final nail in the performance coffin, I tried to use the N97 with one of the TV-out cables from an older device and the SU-8W BT keyboard using the Nokia Wireless Keyboard application to show off all my pictures and videos to my girlfriend. I say tried because I was able to scroll through about 30 items or so before the phone became extremely slow and unresponsive, disabling me from moving to the next image without having to wait tens of seconds in between each. It was salt in the open wound of dealing with all of its other issues throughout the entire trip. I was able to finally get it to work, however, by connecting the N97 to my desktop in mass storage mode and use my PS3 to browse the contents with PS3MediaServer.

Misc.

With all of that said, hope certainly should not be lost. For people who anticipate using their devices lightly or just more patiently than I do, the performance issues I faced may not rear their ugly heads nearly as often. This is something to keep in mind though long before you spend $600 on a high-end device. If you find yourself using the hell out of your devices, the N97 might not be the one for you.

To try to shed a bit more light on this review, one of the things the N97 certainly excelled at was being a mobile blogging tool. With WordMobi properly installed, it was impressively easy for me to throw up some quick posts at the end of the day, complete with links and images taken with the 5mp camera. It’s success in this area is hinged strongly on the robustness of WordMobi, the hardware QWERTY, and the ability to shoot and edit photos right on the device. I can confidently say that someone could very easily run their own WordPress blog with the N97 alone. As I’m typing this into WordMobi on my E90 (another exceptional blogging device, save the camera), I am worried that the lack of a hardware QWERTY keyboard on the i8910 will make a huge difference as compared.

Conclusion

What saddens me further is that even after all of that, I know there are dozens of other instances where the N97 completely fell flat that I just can’t remember. After each of us got ourselves more and more used to the N97, a lot of the members of our group became more interested in other devices we found on the trip. Andrew was considering picking up an N79, Matt and I both were struck again by the appeal of the N95-3/4, and after having used Ewan’s i8910 (lent to ) at the Mobile Camp in San Francisco, I was almost immediately sold. There was even a feeling of despair when I had to put it down, knowing that I had to continue to use the N97 for the rest of the trip instead. I think George said it best though when trying to describe the N97 experience: “A combination of new and old technologies with no refinements to make the device complete, a Frankenphone”. I completely agree.

If you considered the N95 revolutionary for 2007, you can say the same for the N97 in 2009, except it’s revolving backwards. The N97 bites off a bit more than it can chew, which is very unfortunate considering the potential this device really has. If it kept all of its current hardware features, received a solid firmware update to stabilize it, and was built with proper internal hardware to perform all of its boasted features properly, it would have been an absolute knockout. It its current incarnation though, it doesn’t live up to the flagship title it has been given. Anyone interested would be wise to wait for it to hit a $400 price point and receive a couple more firmware updates (that is, if you haven’t noticed any of the other devices on the market).

It was mentioned today that the N97 performs overall much better under normal, everyday conditions than it does as a powerhouse of constant multitasking and media consumption. I completely agree with this, but if that’s the case, it should also share a normal, everyday price instead of a the flagship premium. Currently the best price is Dell.com for $529.99+tax and shipping, which I still think is too high.

For me, I have an 8gb i8910 on its way to be delivered today. If it doesn’t survive after the same amount of rigorous testing, I’ll continue to use my E90 as a backup phone and wait for the next wave of flagship devices to come around.

If anyone has any questions or would like me to test anything on the N97 before I have to send it back to WOM World, please drop a comment or send me an email.

While waiting in line, I had the pleasure of finally meeting my long-time forum buddy ArLe and Erick (gwapz), both HoFo veterans.

All of our concerns about delivering the content Smart Fusion and WOM World was looking for, our excitement from the people we had yet to meet, and the upset that it was about to all be over culminated into a ball of tension in my gut that I just couldn’t shake. Then suddenly, as soon as we walked in, that all washed away.

"4 Bloggers, 2 Weeks on the road, 1 Goal, to test the Nokia N97 while creating maximum connection"

The kind folks at Smart Fusion had taken our hundreds of pictures, sifted through all of them, and printed enough to fill an entire wall, showcasing all of the highlights of everything we did over the past 2 weeks.

To the right of the huge wall, Jason from Smart Fusion had put together a compilation video of all the things we recorded on the trip for the small lounge area. Reminiscing over all of our content only days after we had experienced it was very surreal.

On the right wall near the staircase to the roof, two displays were set up to demonstrate Qik and Sports Tracker. One person was hired to run around Manhattan with an N97 connected to Sports Tracker and another person was hired to follow him on a bike, streaming his progress live over Qik. Pretty neat, but it seems kindof redundant after Andrew had spent all that time Qik-ing throughout the trip and I had led a few different teams to draw numbers on each city during our trip, no?

Aside from our content, Smart Fusion had put together a “sea of faces”, using 8×10 images of the people we connected with on the trip and also the people Smart Fusion had talked with about the N97.

A giant N97 was also set up on the left hand side of the room that gradually collected snapshots of people holding up chalk boards with their names and passions written on them. All of the photos were taken with an N97 and printed almost immediately after they were taken.

Also on the left side of the room was several display N97 stations with reps (from Smart Fusion?) showing off various features of the device to those who inquired.

As cool as all of this was, I was kinda confused about it all. I was under the impression that there would be a large number of Nokia staff from all tiers at this party, similar to what I remembered from the LA Mansion party in 2007. All of the specific people we had discussed during the trip weren’t going to make it for one reason or another. No, the people that we were meeting seemed to be community members; average consumers, a few bloggers, and complete strangers as well. In addition to ArLe and gwapz, I also had the pleasure of meeting Mark Guim from the Nokia Blog, another long-time forum buddy Lenny (THETRUTH#34), his buddy Adam (adamz), a “lite” HoFo user (though I do remember reading his posts in the past), and CrazyPhoneGuy, John Chew.

When I took a step back to look at all that was going on, it dawned on me that the party was where Nokia, WOM World, and Smart Fusion were looking to get their return on all of this. The entire trip was used as a way to showcase exactly what the N97 can do and ultimately sell it in one huge package at the finale party. All of the people that were invited were able to take advantage of the open bar, meet new people, and more directly, get to play with the N97, and see the results of us four bloggers struggling to use only the N97 for two weeks. There was even a flier given out to the attendees with a promotional discount for the N97 that could be used at the New York flagship store the next day. Everything that was put together was incredible, but I can’t help but feel the picture that was painted by all the imagery wasn’t the same experience we really went through in regards to the device. Or at least, it certainly wasn’t all roses like you would think from the way the content was put together. I have a review of the N97 in the works to better describe what I specifically went through on the trip that might put things back into perspective.

Regardless, the party was an absolute blast (maybe a bit short?) and gave us all a sense of finality to the trip. Everything we had done, the good times and the uncertain ones, were all coming to an end. It was a very satisfying feeling, albeit a bit depressing.

Towards the end, the four of us were invited to the roof for a “quick” interview that was to be sent directly to Nokia. I had no idea that the party was going to disperse so quickly and I apologize for not being able to say goodbye to any of the people I met that night. I’m really sorry!

If you’re trialing any devices for WOM World and use the terms “sir”, “dude”, or “man” in your emails to Siobhan, you owe her an apology.