I would love to find Nokia winning me back as I have always trusted their brand.

I would love to find Nokia winning me back as I have always trusted their brand.

But i seriously hate touch screen phones. coz when I'm at a mosque and the phone accidentally rings coz I forgot to silent the phone, I suddenly become the DEVIL there. People stare at me coz the phone was ringing the whole time and I couldnt silence it like old button phones at the instance. Your phone shouldn't ring at the mosque or a church or anything like that in Asian countries, people seriously claim you to be satan here!

But i seriously hate touch screen phones. coz when I'm at a mosque and the phone accidentally rings coz I forgot to silent the phone, I suddenly become the DEVIL there. People stare at me coz the phone was ringing the whole time and I couldnt silence it like old button phones at the instance. Your phone shouldn't ring at the mosque or a church or anything like that in Asian countries, people seriously claim you to be satan here!

6. Games: Even though I admit my iPhone makes a great gaming platform, I always rather use my PSP or my XBOX 360 for that… Besides nGage platform is more robust than anything else mobile out there… Have you seen nGage games?

5. Built in HTML email: Nokia Messaging it's been out for a good while with HTML support. My Nokia N97 is a great email platform as a matter of fact. A great contender for my iPhone 3G

4. Tweetdeck: Have you tried Gravity? There's simply no substitutes for Gravity on any platform as of yet.

3. Video Autofocus: However true, the lack of autofocus on video is fixable through a firmware upgrade or patch (perhaps even hacks) so that lacking alone it's not worthwhile.

2. Multitasking: What? Since when iPhone has become a multitasking OS? That's not multitasking brother!… That's just some gimmick Apple invented to let the user think he's multitasking… But don't be fooled!

1. Web Browsing: True, iPhone's web browsing experience (since iPhone One) it's been awesome.. Too bad it does not display ActiveX, Javascript and most importantly (for many) Flash content like the N97's browser that can display pretty much everything I throw at it…

So, don't confuse people here okay?

Cheers!
RayanMX

Mark, since you were switching between the two devices can you confirm this?

The Iphone cant multi task! Every time you go back into an app it has to load up, yeh it might go back to where you left it but you still have to load it! That is not multi tasking!!!!

On the N97 i have Nimbuzz, Browser, Maps, Video, Music, Iplayer, Facebook and whatever else i want running all at the same time, and can switch between apps just by pressing the menu hardkey.

The Iphone has no multi tasking feature at all that i can see. You have to close each app and load up the next one individually. That is not multi tasking!!!

Every phone I have had since I got my first cellphone has been a Nokia, but I had not bought a new phone since 2003, when Nokia was still king and its smartphone (the 3600) was the first. Recently bought an E75 from Dell and it was RIDICULOUSLY buggy. Several times it came up with the RESTART FAIL screen. Got it to restart twice using advice on this and other sites–Nokia was no help telling me to ship it back to Dell and get another one. Hoped that v. 110. firmware I kept reading about would help since it was released in what, June? To this day, not available for the NAM version. Finally just gave up and shipped it back Dell.

I'm trying to stay committed to Nokia (briefly tried an HTC last year, but discovered I don't really like touch screen or WinMo), but this was heartbreaking 'cuz I had read about it, waited for it and finally saved enough money for it. So even though touch screens and I don't get along, what options do I have?

With a swipe of your finger on the screen it shows you all apps which are running and you can drag one of them to the bottom to close it etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_YEZW2Gmwk

I thought my N95 would be up to the task, I was wrong. Not only did it not support HTML, the Exchange client was lacking to say the least.

I tried using RoadSync, but it had no support for HTML on Exchange 2003 SP2 either.

I finally gave the iPhone a shot and although I want to throw it through a wall everyday because of dropped calls….when it comes to the Exchange and HTML support….it works really well.

I had the N97 on pre-order for a long time, bragged about it at work how it was going to replace the iPhone.

Lets just say that it came up short. I was like a kid at X-mas when the box arrived. Loved the design, build and was glad to have my camera back. The iPhone blows @ taking pictures. The UI was a bit clunky, but I would be able to live with it.

The browser was decent, not as snappy or easy to use like the iPhone, but again…I was willing to live with it.

The deal breaker was the Exchange support with HTML. I cant believe in this day and age, a company like Nokia that has a good relationship with MS, does not have a solid Exchange client or email app.

With the iPhone it displays my email perfectly, I can even open up all my docs right there in the email, no need to save.

If an iPhone had a better camera with flash and dropped less calls I could honestly say it would be a perfect phone. Jailbroken of course, without the draconian Apple bs.

This is coming from someone that swore to never purchase an Apple device.

Very disappointing last couple of years from Nokia. First the BS they pulled with the N96 and now the N97.

Wake up Nokia!!!!!!

“video capture on all current Nseries devices (N86 included) is H.263″
- looks like we are both mistaken. using the ffmpegX frontend for ffmpeg, i've realized that my N97 (and my old N95, and my wife's N82) are actually recording in MPEG-4 part 10 compliant AVC – h.264 is an extension to this (DivX, for example, is an extension to mpeg-4 part 2 and is a much simpler and less efficient codec). so: h.264? not exactly, but the codec used is that which h.264 is based on and the results are almost identical. h.263? hell no – that's old school and only used in MMS so that the recipient phone is surely able to decode it.

as for h.264 PLAYBACK – i used to rip DVDs into h.264 for playback on my N95 all the time. an example configuration was well defined here (though personally i used Handbrake since i was familiar with it from my old days running BeOS):
http://thenokiablog.com/2007/04/10/how-to-conve…

apple taking credit for the mp4 container format? fair enough, though it was decided upon by the mpeg standardization group, they did base it entirely on apple's mov format (from quicktime).

RAW/TIFF/DNG support on nokia mobiles? you want the long version? this post is already long enough, so i'll give the medium length version, call it a checklist of tractable tasks:
1. use the system API to trap the camera lens open/closed events
2. use the system API to call our new camera app when the lens event occurs
3. use the system API to trap the camera button event for focusing
4. use the imaging API to request camera focusing, block until focus completed
5. use the system API to trap the camera button capture event
6. use the imaging API to request image capture, block until capture is completed
7. pass the image data through a real-time lossless compressor (this is the only tough part so far – though it is certainly tractable)
8. format the image data into whatever filetype you want (RAW, TIFF, DNG – they all have some basic formatting requirements)
9. dump the data into a file on the memory card
10. return to the idle loop, waiting on new camera focus event requests

i dont see a single step in there that leaves me wondering, “is it possible”, or ,”but HOW would i do that”. in fact, the least obvious part to me is the gui work – the rest is just a set of API calls and an implementation of two image processing algorithms (lossless compressor and formatting wrapper).

-bit

5. HTML email. I'm using over a dozen email accounts, but I can't remember having ever really needed HTML support in them. Anyways, Nokia Messaging is still there if you're nitpicky. Not built-in, but with an open platform like S60, we don't need things to be built-in.

4. Twitter. Hmph. I don't see the hype about it either (a recent study I read, just showed how unpopular Twitter actually is among youth), but Gravity performs just fine too. If one doesn't follow everyone and their cousins, there's no need for grouping, because things won't get confusing anyway. That said, I'm quite sure it's only a matter of time before an application with the grouping feature makes its way onto S60 too – and that's not one device, but a whole wide range of devices and the community using them.

3. Video autofocus. Lol, okay, congrats, you found the one feature in the camera that the iPhone knows and the N97 doesn't. So what? Anything else and the iPhone camera is still inferior.

2. Multitasking. …you didn't really just brought up a point against the N97 that iPhone just QUASI-able to do, did you? You complain about the N97 not having BUILT-IN HTML email just a few lines above, but you go with an argument for which, to be true in its entirety, the iPhone needs to be JB'd…? Please.

1. Web browsing. I lol'd. Seriously. Okay, it doesn't need to reload pages because of memory. Is that good? If you're saving on your data plan, then yes. But apart from that? There might be tons of new stuffs on the site, which you won't know of unless you manually reload the page. Bothersome. And then, only one word to add here: flash. And if you say “who needs flash in a browser?”, well…pretty much everyone. It's rather convenient, you know, not to need to fire up a separate application just to watch those youtube videos, for example. And yeah, there are other browsers too for the S60, unlike for the iPhone.

Final words? iPhone has a great User Interface, and in case of the 3GS, strong hardware. I've never argued that. But beyond the UI and the hardware? It's just a ghost, not a solid body. And I don't wanna go on listing a whole bunch of other things about the iPhone just now, cuz it would be off-topic. That said, the iPhone OS still runs on virtually one hardware, and it's quite old and polished (how long the Mac OS X has been around exactly?), whereas S60 runs on dozens of different devices, not to mention the fact that the 5th Ed. is still quite new and young. Just to remember that, 'cause it's sorta not all the same.

At the end of the day, we all get excited by features and multi-mega pixel cameras, but nothing beats good natural lighting and being in the right place at the right time.

Common usage for autofocus in video capture? Many of my home movies have macro (or close up) video sequences. Sometimes the beauty of a scene is in the small details.

I too would like to see RAW or TIFF supported on the N97. And yes, I'd like to read your 'long winded' observation.

wait – you mean Nokia dropped h.264? no no no, they couldn't have. (just checked, and indeed Quicktime on my mac sees my N97 videos as h.264. Apple even takes the credit for the format, despite it being an open standard…)

i'll agree that the focusing would be nice to have, for close up videos. but close up videos just aren't common enough for me to accept the argument that this really has a substantial effect overall. recording the kids soccer games? far away. recording your brother's wedding? far away. that sailboat about to crash into a dingy? hopefully, far away.

can you give a good example of a COMMON use case for videos less than a meter out?

photos less processed on the iphone? sounds good to me. [i wrote a really long winded observation that i myself should be able to write a RAW image capture app for my N97 - and i removed it because i'm sure no one wants to read it. dam i can be long winded].