Nick Jones

Yesterday Nokia and Intel announced they are collaborating (at least a little). The press and analyst call was strong on mutual admiration and broad visions, but weak on concrete deliverables, however there are some implications for Gartner clients, especially those in the vendor space. We’re just tidying up a Gartner first take with some advice for clients which will be on the web site soon.

As you’ve probably noticed from some of the other blog posts, I like interesting user interfaces. I recently got to play briefly with new Nokia E72 which is a worthy successor to the E71. One of its neat features is a new optical joystick, to use it you just run your finger across the optical sensor. Based on a couple of minutes playing I think it’s a great interface. It means that at last a Nokia business handset has a really good high speed way to scroll long contact lists, web pages, and other content. I hope Nokia start adding this to some of their other non-touch devices.

I’ve also been playing with Nokia’s new flagship N97, and am, as my US friends might say, conflicted. This is the ultimate hi tech handset. Nokia have squeezed in every technology known to man including WIFi, 3G, GPS, compass, touch, motion sensors, 5 Mpix camera, QWERTY, FM transmitter (for car use), Bluetooth, the new Ovi storefront, and everything else you’d expect to find in a smartphone. The result is pretty much like having a PC in your pocket. And that’s why I’m conflicted. For techno addicts like myself it may be OK, but I’m not sure how many people really want a PC in their pocket. And power + flexibility = complexity, I reckon I’m fairly competent at the technical stuff and I’m puzzled by the N97’s behaviour at times. For example I still can’t download anything over the cellular connection from the Ovi store application. However downloads work fine over WiFi. I suspect this is something to do with my O2 contract because I have the same problem on another device, but O2 assure me they are not filtering packets or anything like that.

However it’s early days, I’ll report back after I’ve been experimenting for a couple of weeks and have discovered how well it fits into both my lifestyle and my pocket.