I have got this phone with high expectations after reading a lot about it so it was a hard task for this phone to defend it’s unofficial title which we will discuss in the very end of this article. The packaging is very modern and relatively small. The box itself is a little bit wider and taller then the phone which is located on the top of the package, and a bit below there is a rubber protection for the whole phone. You also get  a charger, USB cable and a pair of in-ear buds like You can get with pretty much any phone today.

The charger itself is very uniquely designed and I dare to say I would have never guessed it’s a phone charger if someone showed it to me. That said have in mind I think this design is very clever while it seamlessly melts with the euro wall socket. USB cable is very high quality and the headset is, while looking good, just above average for something that comes with a Nokia logo on it.

Now, the handset itself is just plain gorgeous! There really are no real words that can describe this whole new unibody experience that Nokia has created with this phone. The outer shell is precision machined from one whole part that is made to fit a curved Gorilla Glass in it, and that is pretty much it! I’m sure most of You are aware of the design of this phone, but for those who are not I can tell You this phone is “pillow-shaped” with all four edges being thinner than the middle of the phone and the glass too follows these curves very precisely so when You move your fingers from the shell to the screen You cannot feel any transition at all. It’s like this is all one piece, crafted from one material. And the material is actually plastic polycarbonate, but the color is not painted on it but rather mixed in the material. This means that You cannot scratch the paint no matter how deep the scratch is. Also the color is mate in most of the N9 variants: Blue, Black and Pink. While the white one is glossy. My blue variant looks fantastic, but I have heard people praising the white one even more.

So, on the body bottom we have a speaker grille made of holes in the body itself. On the right side there is a power switch and a volume rocker. On the other side there are no keys just as in front, and on the top there is a hidden USB port for charging and data transfer. Visible audio jack port, and a hidden micro SIM card holder. This is a second mobile phone on market that uses this new microSIM format. On the front of the phone, except the screen which covers almost whole of the phones surface, we can find the earpiece on the top and front camera at the bottom.

Above photos are representing N9 dressed in original rubber protection

I was thinking about the idea of putting the camera on the bottom for a few days and I was not sure what to think of it since this phone cannot really use it, yet. There is no software for it, currently, but while I have remembered how the 90° angle of the front cameras on all the phones was making me hold my phone in unpleasant position I started seeing the advantage of this position which might allow me to hold the phone more naturally while video-calling. But really, I cannot confirm that until there is a video-calling app for N9, be it improved Skype or whatever else. If You ask me, I would vote for GoogleTalk video option but there is really no reason why Skype would not be able to use that camera too.

Let me start the phone now. When You start it for the first time it greets You with an option to log in with Your Nokia account which is actually expected from a smartphone these days, but from what I have seen in the following days this functionality is many levels above Symbian in terms of quality of the integration of that account into the phone’s software. I will get to that after the next paragraph. Worth mentioning at this point is that this phone has the same always-on clock as the E7 and N8 have. It is so because of the AMOLED screen technology where only active pixels use the energy from the battery. All others are simply turned off. This is a very useful feature when You just need to check the time without the need of actually touching the phone.

The accounts app effectively joins all Your accounts in one place. This might seem like a trivial thing at the first glance but this is actually one of the strongpoints of this phone. A real jewel. Currently this phone supports the following (as You can see from the stretched screenshot): Facebook, Flick, Google, Mail for Exchange, Nokia account, Picasa, SIP, Skype, Twitter and Youtube. After You initially log into the services You will use on the phone it will not ask You to log in again. Nowhere. Having an account on most of them I was also able to test most of them. For example, You will log in to all Your favorite services once You start the phone for the first time and when You find Yourself wanting to go to any Google web page You will see that Your account is constantly logged in from the phone’s system. If You find Yourself in the gallery and wanting to upload Your video or a photo somewhere You just need to push the share button and choose the compatible service to do it. If You choose Facebook upload the phones menu will automatically list all Your Facebook albums and give You an opportunity to choose which one would You like to use for this upload. I know there are apps capable of doing this sort of thing but having this kind of integration in the phone itself is just magical. Really magical and I must admit I was dreaming about exactly this kind of integration ever since I first saw the option “share my location” on my ex-jewel the Nokia N95. There, of course, is a possibility to share with other internet services, but not only from the gallery but also from the web browser and other apps. And after using a different phone brand for quite a while may I remind You all how wonderful it is to choose an option to upload a large video, push the publish button and put the phone into a pocket and not to worry that he will upload it sooner or later, depending on a network speed of course.

I have mentioned a Nokia account previously, and although this might seem funny the N9 never asked me to log in again after my initial setup, while my E7 does that regularly after he forgets who I am or what my password is. The smartphone is a very personal device and there is no reason why should it require my password twice or more, so no matter I find this feature basic and required – I say thank You Nokia for finally doing it right!

In accounts setting there is one service that was not mentioned in any web blog or a review but is very important to me and to my work. It is a built in SIP client. Do You know what is a SIP client? It’s a functionality that enables You to connect to a remote phone system in Your company or somewhere else on internet if You have an account at some Voice Over IP provider. For example You all have landline phones, or at least most of You do. Today to own an “landline” number it is not relevant to actually rent a physical wire to Your house but rather just pay for online service called VoIP, and Your provider will give you a personal phone number with a calling code of Your own city which requires You to purchase an IP phone to use it (internet connection is mostly required too) or in this example all You need is a Nokia smartphone (yes, Symbian phones can do that too but with a little bit more effort in the beginning) in which You will enter the providers server address, your phone number and Your password and You will be ready to go wherever You are! Be it in Your own house or are You in a different country at the moment being connected to a local McDonalds WiFi You have Your landline phone number ready in Your pocket. And You do calls with it just as You are at home right now. I will not go further into direction of explaining the benefits of VoIP as I might write another article about it so stay tuned for it. I just wanted to stress how this option is often neglected in the smartphone world but otherwise very important for many who are simply not aware of it.

Let’s rest for a moment with some easy reading. N9′s screen is a pen-tile matrix amoled clear black display with a FWVGA resolution of 854×480 pixels. The CBD brand is a Nokias term for a polarized filter on top of the screen which improves visibility in sunlight. That is a very positive fact, but there is also the negative one with this otherwise gorgeous screen. It is a pen-tile matrix. You see, most of the screens we use in our daily lives are RGB based which means that each pixel is represented by three so called sub pixels which are: one red, one green, and one blue. This is rather simple to understand since You can produce any color with this combination. Standard RGB display with 854×480 resolution would have 1229760 sub pixels. But with pen-tile matrix there is no RGB, or at least it’s not that simple because pen-tile matrix screen don’t have three sub-pixels but rather only one and a half. Actually there are two sub-pixels, but only one (green) is persistent in each pixel while the other one alternates between red and blue for every second pixel. That said, You see, pen-tile matrix have a one-third less sub pixels so they are not that much sharp as are those RGB based at the same declared resolution. This is, for some, a minor problem and if the software is aware of this kind of screen the problem can be avoided for the most part. But when You buy an expensive phone You just don’t expect this kind of a thing on it. There is at least one more top model phone of another popular brand that has this kind of a display and most people don’t even notice the difference.

Incoming call is presented as a name or a number on the screen just above the swipe up message. Swiping up does not actually answer the call but rather only reveals more options where You get to choose what next to do: answer, reject, or send a predefined text message where You state You inability to answer right now so the caller knows that You have seen his call. I find this last option very useful ever since Nokia N95 and not only that, I find it a required feature!

The camera on the back of the phone is 8 megapixel autofocus unit with Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash. The hardware itself is very good just as You would expect from Nokias camera module, but the software that runs the camera is absolutely perfect! If You are a long time Nokia user like me, You would notice a great improvement in cameras software design which is even better than the one in Belle OS. Everything is well placed and within reach. There is no need to tap a lot of times to get some option activated. I usually force the phone to macro mode or portrait and for that You only need two clicks, but even better thing is that if You keep the phone in full auto mode it will focus objects up close even if You don’t tell him You are trying to capture in macro mode. Very nice improvement! Generally, the automatic mode just works really good and not many people will ever need to enter the camera setup.

This combo of camera module and it accompanying software has the fastest autofocus in the world. Just drag Your finger across the screen and it will constantly autofocus for You. When done aiming just touch the shutter icon. Also, You can hold the shutter icon for autofocus in the middle of the screen and release to shoot. There are all other options for picture manipulation that are pretty much standard on any Carl Zeiss based and other Nokia phones that I will not describe in this article. Worth mentioning extra is the option to switch to and from video mode which happens in about 0.5 seconds which is really fast too. Pictures that this phone captures are, of course, not as good as Nokia N8′s pictures since the CMOS sensor is a LOT smaller made to fit the thin case, but the quality is not that much worse as one would expect. Actually I would dare to say that N9 is Nokias second best camera today and I really enjoyed using it as a pocket camera.

What is even better, the built in gallery has an ability to edit pictures with automatic enhancement and many other filters and effect You might ever need for Your photos. And what’s even more magical this is the first phone that features a non destructive photo editing. It keeps the history of changes in the photos just like professional photo editing tools do. At any time You can go to gallery, pick the picture You altered last month and change Your mind and undo every change You made or do just one step back. Truly fantastic idea!

The voice quality for GSM and UMTS calls is excellent (I didn’t expect nothing less) and as an addition to that, it has the secondary microphone for noise cancelation purpose. So when You are talking in the middle of the street the person You are speaking to will always hear You very clearly without hearing the most noise around You. This secondary microphone is at least present at two more Nokia devices I have tested: N8 and E7. This microphone is also used for stereo sound recording during video sessions.

Speaking of video this phone shoots in todays standard 720p with 30 frames per second. The video is recorded in very good quality and I can recommend this phone as a fine replacement for Your handycam.

Very popular capability lately is NFC. Nokia N9 is one in the line of Nokias new NFC capable phones. NFC is a near-field-communication technology that most of the time acts as a middleman in some more common scenarios such as sharing photos between devices. What You would normally do is pair two phones with bluetooth, and then go to gallery, choose Your picture, select options, send, and then choose the remote device and push accept on it and transfer would start. In case where You use NFC the scenario goes like this: You open the picture in the gallery and touch the other phone. That is all. The built-in intelligence knows that if the other device is a phone and You are currently having a picture open that You want to send that picture via bluetooth which NFC will automatically pair and setup for You. In another scenario You will be listening to music on You phone and You will want this music to continue playing on Your home stereo at some point. In order to do that, to transfer music to Your home stereo You will only need to touch the NFC receiver You have purchased from Nokia. Alternatively there are Nokias NFC enabled office speakers which also boast this functionality.

Another great example of using NFC is touching the NFC tags. The NFC tags are preprogrammed to do all sort of things. In Croatia there are Taxi posters all around the city clubs where You only need to touch the taxi icon of the preferred company You wish to call and Your phone will do exactly that for You. There are of course other great examples where the URL opens. For example a coffee shop is giving away free first coffee just for liking them on facebook, but sometimes opening the Facebook app and searching for their FB page is hard, but NFC can surely help there. The NFC tag can be preprogrammed to open the web page and aim at the Like button displaying it for You to push it. That way You get the free coffee the easy way!

I would like to return to a unibody shell design and the screen for a moment, but only for a moment! This phone it tough, very tough! And I really mean it because when You grab the Nokia N9 for the first time with Your hand You will feel one hard and precisely built object shaped to fit between fingers perfectly and without compromise. Maybe it’s well worth noting that the polycarbonate material used to produce the N9 unibody is also used to produce the cockpit canopy of the F-22 Raptor jet fighter! When we are talking jet planes I’m sure now You understand which king of toughness we are speaking about here. And for the Corning Gorilla glass screen we cannot say nothing less dramatic. With a special chemical process called an ion exchange Corning is compressing it’s glass basically by dipping the aluminosilicate in a potassium bath at around 400°C (752°F). Believe me that I’m no chemistry expert but like everyone else I understand that when You fill the tiny holes in the material with even tinier particles of another material the holes are not just filled but the material produced like that is much tougher then and harder to damage. That’s why the N9 successfully defends itself from accidental scratches, drops, cuts, etc.

Nokia N9 has three home-screens which You of course switch with a swipe gesture. First one is an app launcher. This is the standard grid icon view where You can scroll up and down to locate Your app and launch it. In the PR1.1 firmware there are no folders or anything similar although there is a rumor that new firmware version might deal with this N9 users wish. I actually did not miss this option. The second screen shows notifications. On the top there is todays date with current weather which You can touch to launch the AccuWeather app. Below there are important notifications showed first. Those are next calendar events, different messages waiting for You and similar. Even below that I have installed a calendar feed app from Nokia store which basically shows more incoming calendar events, and further below there is the rest of the feed which includes Twitter and Facebook timeline, Foursquare notifications, RSS feeds reader titles with a bit of a text, etc. The last home screen is a multitasking switcher which is, like pretty much everything, very well animated. When You push the screenshot of the app You want to access it goes deeper in the dark and slides on top of everything coming from the side. To access You last viewed home screen while You’re in the app You need to slide away the app by swiping the finger from the very edge (left/right/bottom) of the screen, and to close the app (other than from within the task switcher) You need to swipe from the top down. Sliding from the bottom up has another useful feature: If You slide from the bottom up only for a part of the screen a quick launcher will appear on the bottom from where You can launch things like phone or camera. This is very useful while the phone is locked. You can double tap the screen to wake the phone and then just swipe up a little bit to reveal the quick launcher and from there launch the camera. That is a quick access for the camera, phone, messaging… As far as the multitasking capabilities go I have mostly had around 25 apps open at the time which did not slow down the phone not even a bit, but there were times when the phone felt a bit sluggish while having only 2 apps running. I suppose some background tasks are not fine tuned as they could be to make things just perfect! I did hear that people succeeded running over 100 apps at the time, but as much as it sounds cool (in a geek way) it is also absurd to run so many apps at once since I never even managed to install as many as 100 apps. Having 1GB of RAM is actually one of the things that makes a perfect phone in my peace of mind. Bravo Nokia!

While You are in the home screen view or in the app that supports it You can touch the top of the screen to reveal some common options (let’s just call it “the shade”) like profile change when You are on a meeting, and volume. There is also quick access to the WiFi and bluetooth menu. There is also an availability picker from within which You can choose the status of Your instant messaging services like Skype, GTalk, Facebook… There is also the transfers option which basically shows the status of Your downloads, uploads and syncs. To close the shade just touch the screen top again and it will go away. It is worth noting that on the very top of the screen You can for most of the time see Your network signal, clock and some events like activated alarm, etc. Just as You would expect from a smartphone these days.

Mail, calendar and clock. Those three apps are standard on any phone these days, or at least on a smartphone. As a Symbian Nokia user I can say Nokia was always doing a fine job with those three apps although they are all requiring a visual fine polish for a long time. As a surprise those apps on N9 are very polished! Mail app works fantastically from the simple swipe gesture implementation to switch to the next e-mail without the requirement to go back first all the way to using the built in browser engine to render HTML mails. The calendar app if used with Mail for exchange can also sync both ways and even send and receive event invitations. The clock app is something that has put a special smile on my face with the new intuitive way to setup an alarm which You do by dragging the clock hands with Your finger.

N9 music player is just one of many nicely visually  polished apps. Other than its primary function of playing music at request  the Nokia music player also renders a nice album cover art if there is no cover art embedded into Your albums. I’m sorry not to snap that picture because it really lifts the apps look a lot.

Nokia maps on this phone states it’s version 4. While comparing to version 3 on Symbian devices (even Belle) the newer version on N9 feels more native to QT, while I’m not even sure the older version even uses QT. This one seems to work a bit smoother, but while we are talking about voice guided navigation I must say no frame-rate can please me so I hope Nokia will continue to work on Maps app and make the best navigation app even better.

And why did I say best? I’m not sure how do those maps feel in other countries but in Croatia this is pretty much the best mapping software recently because it is constantly updated with more streets then even local mapping solutions has. Other than that it comes completely free on every GPS capable Nokia phones and the latest N9 version has user interface even more tailored for in-car usage with all the big buttons and easy to find destinations. I can’t really say nothing else but thumbs up Nokia for the new maps app!

Nokia store is different from Symbian’s QML store version but not necessarily better. What I did notice is that it never logged me out once I have setup my Nokia account. That was encouraging, but also when I first started using the N9 there were some problems with downloading apps. Whatever I tried to install failed in the beginning, but later I have downloaded some app that kind of a fixed it all, but I was not very pleased this ever happened at all. Nokia please work more on Your store service. There must not be any errors, especially while those errors count against Your maximum download attempts of purchased apps which was exactly what happened to me with N9. After nine failed attempts of downloading 4squick I was asked to pay again which I of course refused and went for the free version.

Now this is something new and cool. You already knew about the Music app, but other than the fact it does not work in Croatia which stopped me from testing it also has a Genre radio built in. You can choose a music genre to listen to and it tunes into the “station” from where it pulls the whole songs for You like on the picture on the right. You can skip a song from that screen or You can touch the info icon to try buying the song if You like it and of course if Your Country is supported. I must say I really enjoyed the genre radio in the listening-only mode.

The built-in Twitter app is rather cool looking but it lacks features. You can do every basic think You would think of but as a power Twitter user I missed features like remembering where You left off with reading the timeline. It supports viewing “in-reply-to” but it’s not very well implemented and it’s hard to use. It’s missing the “replies to this tweet” too, and although it has push notifications they work properly only when the app has the focus. Said that, it seems Nokia has some major push notifications problems here at Croatian’s T-Mobile operator. Even in other apps like Nokia Pulse. I am not sure how it is with other operators/countries. There is also a Facebook app which looks, feels and works very good. A much better job than Twitter from the review perspective I’d say.

With all the always-on-line pushing active the battery lifetime could be better IMO. I have mostly managed to hold the charge for the whole day, but not for 24 hours. So as a standard I would disconnect it from the charger in the morning and have to plug it back in before going to sleep again. That was my average score while not hiding from You that I tortured the phone for the whole time, but that’s how I use todays smart phones anyway. Sometimes it lasted even a day and a half for me but sometimes it died even before I went to bed. I was unable to detect the origin of occasional faster battery depletion. It might be worth noting that N9 scored a double time on battery with Skype connected and online than my iPhone scored in the same conditions. 8 versus 4 hours of Skype-online-time per charge. That said, put Skype offline when You are not using it actively whatever phone You might have because it’s a terrible resources eater.

The calculator app looks sleek and cool too, but other than the looks there is no advanced scientific mode which could have been implemented.

The system settings feel very mature. While comparing with Symbian it is much easier to navigate and understand. Just for example the “Internet connection” toggle switch speaks for itself while on Symbian You have to dig through menus and understand what You are switching off and where. This is just a very good job in simplifying things and making them better. There is also a nice data limit warning which can be setup to alert You if You are close to spending all Your monthly data traffic. Very useful for those with smaller data plans. One more noteworthy setting is for push notifications for mail and for example for the Nokia Pulse app. There is a toggle switch for it, but as I mentioned earlier the push notification does not feel like it’s working properly for me. At least not in the Pulse app, while mail for Exchange (GMail) was delivered to me always and flawlessly. Uninstaller is pretty mush straightforward and worth noting there is an option to allow installation of apps from outside the Nokia store, just like there is an option to enable developer mode in the settings which basically gives You root access to device without any hacking effort.

Documents app is used for opening, well, documents. It seems to support any standard file format like a Word, Excel, PDF, and of course text files. It does not do editing though, but there is a hope that KOffice might get ported to N9 just like it was available for N900. So far QuickOffice is not available on N9.

The Feeds app is used to read RSS news. You just drop the feed URL to it and choose Your options on how often to check for new ones and whether to show them on notifications screen or not. The rest will get taken care of by the app itself. If You are not using the Google reader this might come in very handy for watching the news regularly. Each article can be sent via Twitter, Text message or E-mail, like I wrote in the beginning.

WiFi hotspot is also included. It gives You all the things You would expect from a mobile hotspot. You can choose the network name and encryption (WEP only though) and see the traffic each client generates and there is a possibility to disconnect each client and block them.

I will take my opportunity and mention some noteworthy apps from the N9 Nokia store. First of all there is a very functional Foursquare app for which I would dare to say it’s the best one they made so far. There is no radar feature, yet, but the navigation and animations implemented makes it the most eye-candy Foursquare app to date while maintaining the functionality at a high level. It would be so cool if other developers would follow these guys. The next one is Sports Tracker known from early Symbian days when it was a Symbian only app AFAIR. Also a very nice example of a beautiful UI presented to the user almost making us want to go out and practice more than usual. There is the Internet Radio app which out of the box had a lot of Croatian radio stations built in so it saved me from entering the streaming URLs by myself. Also a fine job. Nokia Pulse app is a new way to connect with Your loved ones. The concept is to create groups and invite people inside them. When You speak to the group, share a picture and Your location which is of course navigable by Nokia Drive/Maps other members will receive a notification, usually. Nokia Pulse is available for Symbian, N9/N950 and Windows Phone, but iOS and Android versions are also in the works. One more noteworthy app is Dropian. I’m a rather new Dropbox user but I’m already hooked to the service and it is crucial for me to have a mobile client. This app can handle multiple files upload and it also features notifications on the home screen for the finished uploads. It works perfectly in the background and it has a logical UI very easy to understand. Thumbs up!

One of the coolest things off all on this phone is it’s messaging app. While other phones and mobile platforms reserve the messaging app for SMS only this one embeds all instant messaging services into one sleek interface! When You open Your messaging app, whether launching it via app icon or by calling it from the notification screen, You will be presented with all Your chats. You can differentiate the services used for a particual chat by looking at the “number” fields which might say “mobile”, “home”, “skype”, “gtalk”… I think You get the picture! Really, one of my favorite functionalities of the phone. And when You want to start the new chat You don’t launch the services app icon like You would with any other phone but rather You do it through the phonebook app (much like People tile on WP) where You pick the person You wish to chat with and then by picking the services icon You start the chat or a phone call. Skype phone call is supported too, as is GTalk.

After a short conversation with mr. Steven Troughton-Smith I have taken a part of his own blog post on N9 just to add an extra opinion with my own. His opinion pretty much resembles everyone else’s.

The N9 is an absolutely stunning device – sleek, minimal, with a curved glass front and no visible buttons. What was more shocking, however, was the software. Nokia’s MeeGo ‘Harmattan’, powering the new flagship, was not only good, it was as stunning as the hardware.

This is Nokia’s iPhone; the attention to detail and design ethos is really befitting a modern smartphone platform. The OS feels alive, with UI elements swooping gracefully under your finger, alerts and dialogues popping onscreen with a bounce. The software and hardware feels like it was designed from the ground up together as a seamless whole. Multitasking is performed by swiping a finger from any side across the curved glass screen; notifications from all your services (Facebook, Twitter, mail, etc) have a dedicated section on your homescreen. The design language and iconography is a breath of fresh air. Performance-wise the device screams, as everything is running as native code and the GPU controls everything onscreen (a la Core Animation on iOS).

Wrap up time and thanks for reading so far! I think this is Nokias best product made so far, be it the unibody shell in companion with curved glass, be it the fresh Harmattan OS, of any other standpoint from my review. The whole device just works and while being very easy and intuitive to use it is also very pretty too look at from hardware and software point of view, and it’s generally like a jewel to hold in Your hands. From the perspective of the future it is of course smoked by Nokias decision to make it only a very live concept rather than a “real” product. Their decision is still very unknown and weird to me, but I surely hope QT, Swipe and Debian based Linux will live in future Nokia devices so N9 gets its proper successor in a year or two. It’s a very promising combination of hardware and software which should be marketed properly. Although that’s not the case, I hope with all my heart to earn one of those to use it proudly as my primary mobile device.

Sincerely Yours, Jerko.

But what happens when that is not enough? Nokia as a proud sponsor of FIA WRC is offering You a premium quality APP for Your Nokia phone. Wether it’s a S40, Symbian^3, MeeGo or Windows device You can now enjoy hight quality real time GPS mapping of each cars position on the track, and see the live scores for free. Aditionally, as if fantastic live mapping is not enough, there are recently recorded (near-live) videos from the cars camera, from outside and from the helicopter – all with audio commentary. The same goes for the daily wrap ups. The app also features photos from the competition and Facebook integration for those wanting more socialization.

As cars racing enthusiast, Nokias WRC Live app is a really great value add-on for the WRC competition. It makes me want to watch more WRC as at 17-22 Jan 2012 there will be a Rally competition in Monte-Carlo. Nokias WRC Live app was downloaded close to one milion times in 2011!

To help You warm up You can watch the review of 2011 tour by clicking on the left thumbnail, and after that please click on the right thumbnail to see some of the WRC Live app features in action. Also, You will find a lot of snapshots from the app user interface taken with Nokia E7. Enjoy the Rally!

Download the app HERE.

Photos from the app:

Now not to go too deep into politics I’ll just skip a lot of possible text and go to my working field which is gadgets and my own stomach. Last week my wife and I got a bit late home from work and I was hungry. I told her to order me a pizza, and she passed a new pizzeria/restaurant recomendation from a friend to me. I Googled a phone number and order one Slavonian pizza. Now, the trouble is that the delivery guy was not able to locate my home so we had a rough start here. But as soon as I tweeted my bad mood – thing got interesting…

You see, this seems to be a first Twitter enabled pizzeria/restaurant in my city that I’m aware of and I’m not new to Twitter. This evening I tweeted my wish for a pizza to them and DM’d my home address and a telephone number (this is important). I got a confirmation for my order in about 15 minutes, and I got my pizza at my doorstep in another 20 minutes. That means they have a 40 minutes tweet-to-eat time which is very good if you don’t like to use the phone or just want to play mr. cool by ordering via Twitter

Now on to the pizza itself. Slavonian pizza was just very very good! Very juicy, enough of everything that was on the parts list for this pizza type, and they even cut my peperoni to pieces which made me unable to remove them like I sometimes do when I’m not sure of the outcome hehe. Oh boy those were hot and nice! I mean, I really don’t know these guys and I don’t like just any pizza but no matter the rough start last week I will for sure order again!

Tweet for your own pizza via their Twitter account: @PaesanoZG
Facebook account: Paesano
Web page:  http://www.paesano.hr/

Let’s talk about some brighter topic, shall we? The all new Nokia maps version 3.08 came preloaded with the phone and immediately You can see the differences. There is no more Nokia Maps launcher / start window. Every action now has its separate icon which takes You directly where You need. For example – if You click the drive icon it only takes another click to take You home, or to a destination chooser. There is now an all-new weather app that comes preloaded with the new Nokia Maps and it’s so simple and so gorgeous. I used to only have AccuWeather installed but it was an (I dare to say) old-style WRT app that was very buggy and relatively hard to get the information from. The new Nokia Maps weather app has no setup. After You first launch it it gives You current weather info for the local city and if You swipe the weather time line it gives You detailed prognosis for the next 24 hours and for the rest of the week in increments of 6 hours. I must repeat. Very simple to use and very much just gives the information I need! The Drive app itself also has some very welcome changes. Streets in the drive view now look and feel much better. Some colors are slightly changed and some outlines are added so when more streets are close in parallel You can now see better which one is which – even on a screen as small as the one on E6. So what can I really say about the 3.08 Maps update? It definitely worth the upgrade.

The E6 like most of the new Symbians has an USB OTG port which is very useful add-on. People just need to adapt to the fact that it’s possible to copy information from and to the USB drive. I can tell You I’m already using it and it really feels practical by giving me another moment when I don’t require to have a laptop with me. People: use the features Your Nokia device gives You! I know many of You use the phone just to make phone calls, but the fact is that todays phones really are not phones any more. At least not only the phones.

Since my primary job is VoIP technology based, of course I have tested some SIP capabilities of the E6, just like I did with my Nokia N95 years ago. This is a typical business phone that accommodates SIP service like it was born to do so. I know Symbian Anna’s primary role is not SIP but many people really forget what Nokia devices can do for them. So I have tested SIP with my business IP PBX and all I can tell You is that it works perfectly! @Nokia: Please continue developing amazing features under the hood!

There is another “feature” I wish to discuss with public in this article. The first day I got the phone I started infiltrating myself into it by adding a lot of services I use regularly and not so regularly. There we many on-line services which tried to drain the battery but they did not suceed “before tomorrow”. Later during the second week I have removed all the junk I have put on it and only left two mailboxes on-line. One Mail for Exchange with push, and the other in pull mode every 15 minutes (IMAP). Also I have used the phone these days like a regular business person who talks, sends SMS, email and surfs the web occasionally. Also I have used navigation twice to get home and back to work and I have checked into foursquare a few times and send a few tweets from device. By using the phone like this – which I consider a decent battery life test I have started measuring. After the first 24 hours battery dropper from 7 bars to 5 bars!? After 48 hours battery strength dropped 3 bar more so I was at 2 battery bars remaining before I got to bed the third day. That alone was too much for me to handle because I got used to charge my iPhone twice every day and although I wish for a phone that can last a day I really got used to charging more often. My best guess is that E6 can in average last 2.5 days on a single charge which i excellent info for all the business persons who might not always have access to a charger while traveling although the device itself comes with a USB cable who can charge it from a laptops USB port. If You are a light user with the need for email push only the phone itself probably will last more than three days – I’m sure of that. I really had the idea to test how much would the phone last without the internet (just for talking) but I just cannot use the phone that way and two weeks trial might even not be enough for such a test. Let me just congratulate Nokia for such a power saving device. Really good results!

Lastly, this “blackberry” form factor that Nokia E6 is not really my own game, but I must admit the device is so gorgeous I just could not stop looking at it. I need the bigger screen, but I can honestly tell You one can easily adopt to this for factor and it’s small touchscreen. The keys on the keyboard are perfect for my hands (blackberry user said keys are too flat) and provide enough feedback for me to type fast enough and I really like software keyboard not popping up on the screen all the time (it never pops up, it does not exists). It gives You a lot of extra space to use for touching the screen. I can recommend this phone to everybody who needs a proper keyboard, an attractive device that will get peoples attention, and a smartphone with a really good battery life!

P.S. One last fact. E6 has the same 325 DPI “retina display” screen pixel density so You can bet it is VERY sharp!

Day 1. I have explicitly asked for the white version, since my best man is very much into white phones and I am on a mission to assimilate him from the world of BlackBerry into a world of Symbian. Wish me luck!

Getting the phone out of the box I realised “Wow! This is a gorgeous phone!” On first boot standard Symbian stuff awaits: Login to Nokia services. After You login, quite a few things setup automagicaly for You. After that comes setting it up. First of all my phonebook. Since I’m a Google user myself – I keep my phonebook, calendar and email there. So all three services I always setup with only one stroke: Exchange. Nokia has a great support for this service called Mail for Exchange. Enter Your details and the server address and that’s pretty much it.

The phone came preloaded with all-new Nokia Maps 3.08 version with sepparate Weather, drive, map apps. This is a welcome improvment in speed to setup Your route. For example if You wish to navigate home all it takes is two clicks in total. First click on the “Drive” icon, and the second one on “Drive home” button. Loading time of the navigation app is between 5 and 6 seconds. After that it takes about 2 to 3 more seconds to calculate a route around the city and the navigation starts. In total these 9 seconds are much less comparing Nokia Drive to a very popular navigation app on another smartphone with similar hardware specs. More on that another day.

For starters I have installed some apps I need this to become my main phone for two weeks. 4squick, Dropian, WhatsApp, Nokia Chat (for GTalk) and Gravity. Nokia Social , Shazam, and JoikuSpot premium were already installed. I have put shortcuts to all of them on my home screen along with new Nokia Maps Weather app. This app really showed it’s up to it’s task and in a very fancy way successfully obsoleting the AccuWeather widgety app I used to use. I have also installed recently much praised fMobi trial version to, well try it out. More on third party apps in some other story.

A little bit on the Weather app. After You start it for the first time it only says loading weather and … that’s it! It shows the forecast for Your city! Other than 5-day forecast You can view the next 24 hours in detail by dragging the timeline. Very easy to use and usefull app.

On the second home screen (there are four five) I have put three widgets: Chat (GTalk), Social App and Mail for Exchange. This way I can easily keep track of what’s going on without needing to shuffle between open apps. Music, Calendar and my favorite persons are on the third homepage and the last one only holds the Search widget for now. Plenty of home screens!

Chat app is similarly simple and effective as the weather is. You login to Your favorite chat service, drop the widget to the homescreen for instant notifications while the app is closed and that’s all. It doesn’t support voice or video calls though.

The screen of the Nokia E6 is, well .. Awesome! It a fairly small touchscreen and You have to be careful where You put Your finger, but some of the actions can be done the old fashion way with qwerty and d-pad + the touchscreen does what any other touchscreen does. A very welcome improvement to the famous old business phone I liked a lot, but missed the touch for surfing if nothing less. I am talking about E72 of course.

So far the smaller phone, its smaller keyboard and smaller screen are still in process of assimilating me, but they are on a good way of doing it right. Mentioning the screen again this phones screen has around 325 DPI (dots per inch) which goes on par with the best screens there are, effectively crossing the magical border of 300 DPI. Everything on this screen looks VERY sharp and Symbian Anna’s icons look fantastic in this DPI too!

A bit on buttons too. Much smaller qwerty keyboard (than on E7 I’m also using) took a day to catch speed but it is a very good keyboard which can help You type fast with two or even one hand on the go. The whole phone is actually perfectly suitable for one handed use because of it’s small form factor in particular. Extra double-action keys for email, calendar and phone book are also a very welcome addition on this kind of phone class. I got used to those instantly – like they were missing from all my other phones. Or it might be I was missing a E72 experience, I’m not sure. Nevertheless getting back to a business class smart phone for a change is a refreshment!

Read more about Nokia E6 in the following days of my trial where I’ll write some more about new Nokia Maps, the EDoF camera and if You have any questions You are welcome to ask me on Twitter.

First of all get Your supplies and check if everything required is ready for action. (metric)
- 1 yogurt (1.8dl)
- 1 yogurt glass of sugar
- 2 yogurt glasses of smooth flour [glatko brašno]
- 3/4 yogurt glass of kitchen oil [not engine oil]
- 1 vanillin [vanilin šećer]
- 1/2 baking powder [prašak za pecivo]
- 3 eggs
- butter [maslac]
- flour [oštro brašno]
- parfait powder in a box
- 6dl life milk [trajno mlijeko]

First of all spread butter over Your baking dish [thanks @MatejaSelene for translation] and specially on the edges so that the cake don’t stick.

Then spread flour all over and shake it well. Remove excess.

Next step: put the following inside the mixing bowl… (read from the two next pictures)

- 1 yogurt (1.8dl)
- 1 yogurt glass of sugar
- 2 yogurt glasses of smooth flour [glatko brašno]
- 3/4 yogurt glass of kitchen oil [not engine oil]
- 1 vanillin [vanilin šećer]
- 1/2 baking powder [prašak za pecivo]
- 3 eggs
- butter [maslac]

…and mix it!

While You’re mixing make sure Your oven is set to 170°C and pre-heated!

You can use the tool to check if it’s good but don’t eat too much because You’re going to end up on the toilet. You’we been warned.

Pour it into the destination. If You are unsure where then You should not be doing this.

And then put it into the oven for some 15-20 minutes.

This is how it should look like after some 10 minutes. Check for edges not to go black. That means the temperature is too high or it’s baking for too long.

Baking is finished after 15-20 minutes and looks like this. Don’t take it out just yet. Let the oven cool down with open door for a few minutes with Your future eating product inside. If You take it out too soon it will become flat. Use baking glove to take the hot product outside.

If the edges are not sticked to the baking dish it means You did the job with butter and fuor good.

This is it. Admire it for a moment because this part of the cake is probably the one Your guests will love more than the parfait itself.

Cover it and let is cool down for half an hour.

This is my cake cooling down on my balcony as You can tell from this picture taken with iPhone 3GS. LOL

While You think it’s almost cooled, mix the parfait powder and 6dl milk in the lowest gear first, or else the powder will be all over Your kitchen.

Speed up gradually and mix for exactly 4 minutes. If You mix too long it will fall apart and become unusable. Don’t tell me I did not warn You!

This is how it looks after 3 minutes.

Pour the parfait onto Your cake biscuit.

Make Your preffered graphics on it by using liquid chocolate. It’s the easyest way.

Put it in the fridge for at least an hour so it hardens properly, and don’t try cutting it before that.

Bon apetit!

But let’s go back to the troubling world, shall we? I have tested all the app categories on N8 that I have had interest in and pretty much everything passes with good grades (marks?) and some apps really deserve special mention. For example 4squick is an app that Symbian haters would not believe You is made for Symbian until You show them “about” window The other very fine example of a new era apps is gNewsReader for which I have only praises. Just by looking at those apps, oh boy, I can tell You Symbian is not dead! Symbian is comming!

Now where were I? Oh yes, the bad stuff. Symbian Anna’s improved browser is, well, … improved for sure, but after a longer period of usage I can conclude it’s not improved enough. It’s not slow to be honest but its touch interface, although organized much better than before, does not work very well. For a plain example pinch to zoom does not work every time as one would expect and it tends to do stuff You did not do with Your fingers so You repeat the gesture. Other than that scrolling feels jumpy often and I really did not like it because I read a lot of mobile web and in my opinion this browser has a lot more to improve on, specially performance now that UI is improved and I’m really looking forward to try a browser on Symbian Belle.

Last week I did a lot of video recording and that part of imaging features is similarly perfect as taking picture is. Video quality is fantastic and the zoom feature You would not believe how good it works. While You hold the volume rocker to zoom in it blurs the picture during the zooming time until it realizes how far You want to zoom in and than sharpens the picture. It really works very well and the results speak for themselves.

To conclude finaly, in the end of 2011 Nokia N8 might not be the fastest phone arround but for sure it still keeps some aces in it’s sleeve that no other phone offers and its karma is so big from a Nokia fan perspective that it makes every owner so proud. Whoever buys N8 today will not make a mistake since Symbian Belle is right now knocking at our doors and this update will for sure bring a lot of freshness to our beloved OS platform.

Greetings to all N8 users in the world from a big N8 fan as of today, more than before!

The most important fact about N8 is its most superior camera. I’m sure that everybody knows by today that N8 has a very good camera, with a large CMOS sensor that sees better in low light than many other phone sensors. But trust me when I tell You that N8 is THE best camera phone of all. There was a guy who recently said how proud he is that he can make phone calls with his camera. I think all N8 users will agree. Comparing an iPhone 3GS camera with N8 is ridiculous so I’ll just skip it. What is new and noteworthy is that N8 recently got an update for its camera with improved user interface and video recording frame rate boosted to 30 fps. Take a look at some sample pictures I took with this phone. Note the details on a macro shot and dynamics of the sensor being able to capture the object shot and light coming from the sky on the other cat picture outside. The other example of such dynamics is when You shoot directly at the light source in dark conditions You can still capture the stuff around it! (see the candle example) And the last one shows the xenon flash power of capturing portraits in the night.

Next up the bad things. As a smart phone power user, I’m using Exchange protocol to sync my address book, calendar and push e-mail. Just as with iPhone, it all works flawlessly with Nokia Symbian, except one thing. Since email and browser use the same rendering engine I must say that it’s a thing that should be improved in future Symbian editions. Both iPhone and Nokia use webkit, but Nokia still does not fit the text properly to screen for easy reading. There is too much scrolling left and right in many HTML emails and the web. I got used to mobile Safari being able to zoom and fit the text for reading properly to available screen size. I cannot say that iPhone does that perfectly, but it does the job better than Nokia’s web browser. Luckily You can install Opera mobile and set it as a default browser on Symbian, what You absolutely cannot do on iPhone even if You wanted to. Would You call this stupidity or freedom it’s up to You. I will call it freedom. Not to make the Nokia’s e-mail client unworthy it’s very important to note that You can add attachments to already started e-mail composer window, and You can add whichever attachment type You want to send. On iPhone, You have no options to attach a file nor You can send anything except Your photos or videos. Actually I’m not sure if You can even store any kind of other type of file in the iOS. I think You can only store other type of document inside the app that allows working with that type of attachment – for example document editor, but that again makes impossible for the other document editor installed in system to access that file. Symbian is very open in that perspective and mostly acts as a real desktop-like operating system.

While talking about acting as a desktop system I must address the built-in HDMI port, USB port, and a bluetooth support. I have connected my wireless keyboard’s USB dongle to the N8′s USB port (via provided adapter) and my HDTV to the phone’s HDMI out (also via provided cable). Take note that my keyboard has a built-in mouse which also worked plug-and-play. I have responded to a few of my emails in this way by using both mouse and keyboard and by watching into the HDTV. Also I have tested Need For Speed game on my HDTV that came with the phone. To play the game it’s sufficient just to tilt the phone to steer, and touch the screen to break. Very cool.

The phone comes with a sufficient-to-many 16GB of built-in memory but You can expand it currently to 48GB max. If You still need even more space (for recording HD videos perhaps) You can transfer bigger files to a USB stick via already mentioned USB cable on the go. Extremely practical!

Apps. Now, one thing I miss a little bit is a better developer support. If You think for a second You will probably find most (if not all) the apps You really need in OVI store. But in the last few years there is a trend that developers first write their apps for iPhone and then think about OVI. For example there is VoIP app called Viber which I like very much and use on daily basis. Viber developers have Viber in roadmap but nothing more. There is also Evernote, a very popular cloud based note-taking service which is still not implemented on Symbian. Those two apps I really miss, but everything else I have found and installed to my test device. There is one App that I did NOT install to my Nokia and that is a GPS navigation app. I have bought Sygic navigation app for my iPhone because I consider it to be the best for my needs, and there is also Sygic for Symbian^3 devices available, but there is really no need to try it out since OVI maps works even better, and it FREE. Nothing more to comment after that. Bravo Nokia!

As a rather addicted Twitter user I can see the lack of professional Twitter apps for Symbian. Actually there is only one Twitter app on Symbian that is up to the job and that is Gravity. I have tried a few other recommendations and they are nothing but a waste of time IMHO. Concerning Facebook there are a few that You can choose from, including the original Facebook app. Google+ is not supported yet. For instant messaging there are Fring and Nimbuzz – the most used apps for this kind of purpose so You don’t need to worry. Also there is Skype which magically works a LOT faster than on iPhone. Actually Skype for iPhone is so slow that it makes it unusable for me.

One cool detail You will notice on N8 is the sleeping screen. When the phone is locked it always shows date, time, and new Gravity messages if You have it installed. And it shows this data with active lit pixels which don’t negatively impact on battery life since it’s an AMOLED screen which is known for its power saving abilities if just some pixels are active, but it’s negative side is if You use white backgrounds to read text so be prepared for battery drain or use the dark theme on Your phone. At least You can change the phone theme on Nokia without jailbreaking the device. That’s very nice touch for individualization which has been with Symbian since old days.

N8 has, as most Nokias do, a front facing camera that You can use with Fring or 3G calls. I have tried both and both work good. Too bad Nokia does not have its own video chat service. That would popularize its use for sure.

Something on Nokia’s innovations. Did You hear about Nokia Drop? It’s a very clever idea if You are in the frequent need of reading web on the mobile phone just after You find something interesting on Your computer. Just click one button in desktop Firefox or Chrome and the URL opens on Your phone. It works even with pictures and OVI apps since recently.

One thing that I’m also starting to like, while I wasn’t even aware that it can be so useful, it’s the desktop widgets. Calendar, e-mail and social networks stream live on the main screen of Your Symbian device is very convenient if You are unsure if You have any new messages that is waiting. No need for opening the app to check it out.

Although N8 has an older edition of ARM11 processor, while iPhone 3GS has a newer ARM Coretex 8 cpu I can feel many apps work much faster on Nokia than on iPhone, but there are also situations where Nokia lacks raw power to handle some jobs so I’ll call it a draw for now.

Back to multitasking for a moment. In the first days of my Nokia N8 evaluation I have had constant fear that everything will STOP on my phone if I leave it unattended and let the screen lock it self automatically. It’s normal thing on iPhone if You gave him a job to do (for example upload of a picture to Facebook) and Your network is slow You have no other option but to tap it on the screen every 30 seconds not to let it lock because upload will fail. I was most pleased to finally return, even just for two weeks, to a device that can properly multi task. Also worth mentioning I’m a heavy smart phone user and I have hit a memory limit on N8 a few times so far so it would be smart to note to myself if I ever decide to return to Symbian to buy a device with 512MB RAM and no less. In normal usage You can have 10 apps open at the same time with no trouble, while on iPhone You can probably have a maximum of 3 or 4 apps in memory at a time.

There is one thing VERY important from my perspective. It’s the voice dialing. I live in Croatia and from the perspective of voice dialing I really don’t care about English language. 95% of my contacts are Croatian people who I used to call via voice recognition system built into every Nokia in the last few years and maybe more. I just push the button, say the name (for example via car hands-free) and the phone finds that person in the phone book. Accuracy in the last 10 days worth of voice dialing is 100%. On iPhone there is also a voice recognition system which iPhone fans say it’s much more sophisticated than Nokias voice recognition system. Let me just tell You that iPhone’s voice recognition system’s accuracy that I have tested is below 1% so I can honestly say that iPhone has no voice dialing and that is very bad for a driver that is in need of calling work partners often.

Built in radio receiver and transmitter I have not tried myself but I’m sure my wife would find it equally useful as she uses her N900′s transmitter regularly in the car.

A useful update on Symbian is SMS conversation mode. I got used to that kind of messaging and I would not be able to go back to old system. Good work.

Pre-installed notes, Office, Adobe reader and ZIP archiver are very useful additions but I only use office for reading docs on the go, not for editing so I cannot comment on that too much. I have read today that Microsoft Office is coming to Symbian Belle this year which is fantastic news for current Symbian owner in the need of handling office documents on the go. One more bravo for Nokia, but also for Microsoft.

Battery life. Even though device is connected to internet all the time because of Exchange, if nothing more – I can say that battery lasts more than one day of very active usage while my iPhone leaves me mostly after a half of a day so I recharge it at least twice a day. I don’t need to recharge N8 during the day and I like that a lot. Only, though, if You use Gravity push notifications it feels like it drains battery faster but You might want to test it Yourself before taking it for granted.

I haven’t used many pictures in this article because I wanted to share my thoughts about device while comparing to iPhone which I hope many will like to read. For quality thouhts You need decent argument, and often there is no real need for pictures. Also, there really are tons of pictures of N8 on the internet. I hope You all liked my arguments and I would really like to hear from all of You on twitter where I can answer any other question You have while the device is still with me for a few more days. Also I would like to hear if You did not like my thought or if You disagree with me. I will address all You ask in my final thoughts by the end of next week and make some final words. My twitter account is @zvjer and thank You for reading!