Now I Wish I Had Bought an IPhone
Posted on June 10, 2008
Filed Under: Mobile and hand-held web.
See Also:
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nokia
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Back in April I purchased a new Nokia N95 8GB from Dell for around $630. I was content in knowing that while I was most likely overpaying for the device, I could at least be smug about the 3G support and other features that made my phone clearly superior to the IPhone everyone else was toting around.
Fast forward to three months later. Apple announces the IPhone 2.0, leaving me wallowing in gadget envy and despair.
| Feature | Nokia N95 8GB (N95-4) | Apple IPhone 3G |
| 3G Support US | Yup | Uh huh |
| 3G Support International | Nope (there goes using my phone on my trips to Japan) | Covered |
| Screen Resolution | 240 x 320 | 480x 320 - Hey, that is bigger... |
| Camera | The 5MP camera is really, really good. I don't feel the need for a separate camera. | 2MP... meh... |
| Video Recording | Passable, particularly for video intended for web publishing. | Apparently not possible |
| Browser Experience | Fairly good browser – nothing to complain about... | Safari, probably the best mobile browsing experience. In addition, it seems like every site in existence is putting up IPhone specific content. If this continues this is going to be a big problem for any other mobile phone trying to offer a first class browsing experience. |
| Secure VPN | No... really? Kind of hard to believe, but Nokia pulled its VPN client, which kind of sucked anyway. | Yup... the supposedly 'not for business' IPhone beats the Flagship Nokia for secure VPN access... |
| SIP Client | Got it... somewhat buggy but it works. Of course, since there is no VPN client, this is not as useful as you might hope. | There are third party SIP clients available for unlocked IPhones, but I don't believe any with the official blessing of Apple, yet... |
| Multi Language Display | If you are willing to hack around with your OS, you can get this to work, but it is not simple. | Kanji is accepted here... |
| Multi Language Input | Nope... there is a third party solution, but getting it installed requires the skills of a software engineer, and it doesn't work in all applications. | Multiple input methods for Chinese and Japanese, including hand writing recognition. |
| Touch Screen | No. | Yes. |
| Automatic Screen Rotation | No... again. | Yes. Of course, it's an Apple product. They wouldn't leave out such an obvious usability improvement. |
There is no denying that the N95 is still a feature rich phone, but the N95 is shockingly missing several key feature when compared to the new, MUCH cheaper IPhone.
Particularly damning to the N95 is the lack of international support in both the reception and character support. I wasn't aware of this limitation when I purchased the phone, and would not have bought it if I had been. A $700 phone and it can't display Japanese characters without hacking the OS? Is this a joke?
Further, the lack of any viable VPN option seriously limits the N95's use for corporations.
The N95 wins hands down for photography and video—though if picture quality is extremely important, you most likely own a separate camera anyway.
The lack of touch screen isn't a fault of the N95—it's not a touch screen phone and some people prefer key pads. It is interesting to note that while Nokia has a touch screen product in development, it's not available yet. If you prefer touch screens you are out of luck with Nokia.
An important point to make is that the N95 is an unlocked phone—with no carrier subsidy or contract requirements. Still, if you are paying $400 more for a phone (at least $400 more, many dealers are listing the N95 at $700 or more), you should not have to deal with feature envy, particularly in areas like VPN support.
Apple also seems committed to releasing regular updates to the OS offering substantial amounts of new features, which it has not (to date) charged for. In the time I have had the N95-4, Nokia has released one update and it offered nothing in the way of new features.
Nokia will apparently not be the company to step up to Apple continued juggernaut-like march to dominate the cell phone market. Even the upcoming N96 offers little to justify the price difference when compared to Apple's offering, and it will be months before we see a US 3G version of that phone. We will have to wait to see if the Samsung Omnia or the Sony X1 fare better (both also still months away from a US 3G release), but I can't help but ponder the question, how did every other cell phone manufacturer allow Apple to step in a catch them with their pants down like this?