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Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

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Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#31

Post by potatolicious »

sounddust wrote: post #21

I haven't seen a Nokia phone that has the kind of intuitive, well-organized, attractive, and responsive UI that we see with the iPhone and Android phones. I have some friends who have expensive Nokia phones and like to brag about their capabilities, but when you actually see these phones in use, they just aren't as enjoyable to use due to the OS which seems unrefined (I'd go so far as to say it seems unfinished). htt…

I have to echo this. In fact, I had the chance to use a N900 just a couple of days ago. I'm not going to lie, it's a gigantic piece of junk, let me enumerate the ways:

- Resistive touchscreen in this day and age? The light touches that I can use on every Android phone and iPhone turn into concerted screen-mashing on the Nokia. The drags and flicks that have become popular (and important) gestures are hard to do on the N900, if not impossible, because the hardware itself simply isn't up to the task.

- The UI was painfully, ridiculously slow. IMHO Android's UI on most current phones is already sluggish, but usable. Nokia's is just way into unusable-land. Button-press lag of over a second (sometimes several seconds) was common, and would elicit double-pressing by the user (which the OS will then happily process). Navigation of menus and other UI elements was just about completely impossible because of the slowness. How enjoyable would your computer be if every mouse click took a whole second to register, and you had no hint that the phone is actually working in the background? Couple this with an insensitive screen that would routinely miss presses in-hardware, and you can see where this is going.

- An insistence on animation on a platform that is clearly too slow for it. Apple's UI is a joy to use because of the transitions and animations that accompany many user actions. Android does this too, but the slight sluggishness makes this appear somewhat unrefined - but that's okay. The framerate I got on the Nokia apps was so slow that it became confusing if the machine is in the middle of a transition or just plain done.

The UI was also somewhat confusing - but I'm willing to let that one slide. Every platform has certain metaphors and paradigms that the user must learn, so having not used one on a day to day basis I can't really comment on whether or not the UI in fact sucks.

Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#34

Post by mikeleeorg »

Just to put forth another opinion, it's possible that you're just witnessing the bias of the US media.

Within the Silicon Valley area, iPhone & Android are all the rage. Within other parts of this country, I don't find a similar sentiment. Anecdotally, I know quite a few non-techies who own Nokias.

Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#35

Post by Tichy »

They are lagging behind at the moment, but I wouldn't say they are out of the equation yet. They just have to come up with one decent device (hardware), then the things you mention are in their favor.

Also, I don't think there will be only iOS and Android in the future. iOS limits you to Objective-C, Android to Java (JVM languages like Clojure seem to run not well on Android). So Nokia might be the only one allowing real freedom to pick the development tools in the end. Since it has native apps, all sorts of languages should be possible.

Yes, as somebody else mentioned, these are things that appeal to developers. But developers mean more apps, and developers/techies influence the buying decisions of non-techies.

Also I think their name has not faded completely yet. If they build one good modern phone, they can regain user's trust.

Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#36

Post by coderdude »

When I first noticed cell phones getting popular among the general populous (maybe around 12-14 years ago) the Nokia 5110 (or a model that looks very much like it) was the shit. Everyone had one. Since then they have steadily fallen out of the race for best phone in the US.

Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#38

Post by zandor »

potatolicious wrote: post #31
sounddust wrote: post #21

I haven't seen a Nokia phone that has the kind of intuitive, well-organized, attractive, and responsive UI that we see with the iPhone and Android phones. I have some friends who have expensive Nokia phones and like to brag about their capabilities, but when you actually see these phones in use, they just aren't as enjoyable to use due to the OS which seems unrefined (I'd go so far as to say it seems unfinished). htt…

I have to echo this. In fact, I had the chance to use a N900 just a couple of days ago. I'm not going to lie, it's a gigantic piece of junk, let me enumerate the ways: - Resistive touchscreen in this day and age? The light touches that I can use on every Android phone and iPhone turn into concerted screen-mashing on the Nokia. The drags and flicks that have become popular (and important) gestures are hard to do on th…

Well I'm typing this on a N900 and it's rather enjoyable. Not sure what might have been wrong with the model you tried, but the responsiveness on this one is easily on par with the iPhone or other Android phones. Better I might even say, especially while multitasking.

Regarding the resistive touchscreen, it only took me a couple of minutes to get used to and while I do miss multitouch, the accuracy is great. I am with you on the UI being a bit confusing though.

Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#39

Post by csmeder »

I'm from the US. In my mind Nokia has always meant:

Expensive and just not worth the price.

I think most americans were used to paying $0-$50 for their phone. Of if they were going to pay more they bought a black berry.

Things changed when the iPhone came out (and then the android). Basically, iPhone did well because it was expensive, but worth it.

Re: Ask HN: Why U.S. people dislike Nokia?

#40

Post by Lendal »

potatolicious wrote: post #31
sounddust wrote: post #21

I haven't seen a Nokia phone that has the kind of intuitive, well-organized, attractive, and responsive UI that we see with the iPhone and Android phones. I have some friends who have expensive Nokia phones and like to brag about their capabilities, but when you actually see these phones in use, they just aren't as enjoyable to use due to the OS which seems unrefined (I'd go so far as to say it seems unfinished). htt…

I have to echo this. In fact, I had the chance to use a N900 just a couple of days ago. I'm not going to lie, it's a gigantic piece of junk, let me enumerate the ways: - Resistive touchscreen in this day and age? The light touches that I can use on every Android phone and iPhone turn into concerted screen-mashing on the Nokia. The drags and flicks that have become popular (and important) gestures are hard to do on th…

Have to say I own an N900 in the US and I love it. I prefer the resistive screen because it works better. I can use the web and click on very small links and buttons without having to zoom in and out all the time. It can run Firefox too, but the browser it comes with is so far superior I don't even need it. How do you use a capacitive screen for browsing? You have to zoom in and out all the time. It's a pain. The resistive screen is much better for browsing, and you can fit more detail on screens of all kinds of apps. No constant zooming needed, (although the N900's zoom works just fine.) I'd just rather not have to zoom all the time.

The problem is that no US carrier subsidizes the N900, probably because it has Skype built-in and the US carriers don't like that. Oh well. I only hope one day that Nokia can break into the smartphone market here, even if it means dropping Skype. (Which would suck, but that's better than no Nokia smartphones at all, which is the current situation.)

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