radical24’s blog

I have been all over creation and the pace does not seem to get any less. If anything I continually feel like I am chasing my tail, along with my two cats. I had a moment tho to review the Martin Fields overlay on my Nokia N97 and dropped few words on www.dailymobile.com 

Please excuse my absence, but circumstances beyond my control, have prevented me from writing. I had a mid Nokia crisis on top of that. First when my nearly brand new n85 broke. i begun to lose faith in the quality and lasting impressions about Nokia. It was the first time, that I begun to wonder why am I doing this. Why do I keep on writing about products that I may no longer believe in? I had to do some soul searching and regrouping in my head to over come this first unpleasant experience. I gave my old N95-3 to a friend of mine, while on vacation. He was besides himself with joy. It was a glimpse of positive wave for Nokia in my life. 

I've had a chance to explore the Nokia Navigator thanks to the good people of WOM world! The few weeks spend with the device were for the most part a great pleasure. For testing purposed I got the Maps license for my region as it is a navigation device it only made sense.

Build quality:

This slider with a 2.4 inch screen is a real winner when it comes to build quality. I was very surprised how difficult it was to get the back cover off in order to plug in my sim card. It was a bit of a 'breaking a sweat' moment. The back cover is tight and sits quietly and remarkably in place. There is no creaking noise anywhere on the device. The slider is amazingly sturdy which surprised me that a mid range device can have such amazing build quality and Nokia's very own N series suffer from the slider ill across the board consistently. It's a great rather light compact package with a huge screen and friendly design. Now when it comes to navi pad, it's great big and easy to use. The problem comes with the keypad. The keypad on this puppy especially the top buttons 1,2,3 are very uncomfortable to use as the slider design gets in the way. It's not a phone where you can type fast. With time you can get used to the buttons, still it remained one of my least favorite features the phone had.

Maps and Navigation:

I must confess that until recently I really disliked the Nokia Maps application. Not until I participated in the s60 Nokia Maps campaign did I start to appreciate the features and possibilities. The Navigator arrived shortly after the campaign ended so I had decent amount of familiarity with the Nokia Maps application. The Navigator has a dedicated Navigation launch button in the shape of the star in the center of the phone right below the d-pad. When the application is launched and being used, the star blinks in blue reminding user of its presence. I have upgraded the firmware to the latest version while the phone was with me in hope that I would get rid off a bug. It so happens that every now and then when I closed the Maps, the start would continue to blink as if the application was still open. There was not way to remove it, but to turn off the phone. When I powered it on, the display was back to normal and all phone functions were in order. The bug still remians. It was a lot of fun using maps and searching for various places in my area, from gas stations to museum's. Maps have come a long way since it's first apperance, they still have a ways to go, especially in some regions of the world. I am fortunate that I live in the US and maps appeared to be rather decent. That is not the case with Eastern European maps for example. Another curious thing is that the box says it uses Maps 3.0, in reality the phone came loaded with Maps 2.0 that I have upgraded to version 3.0 beta. The maps did ocasionally crash and warranted a reboot or even battery removal as the phone also had a tendency to freeze once in a while.

Another feature that seems like a great idea is the phones compass. The compass is a bit temperamental and it works when it wants to. I found it not to be too reliable, when it worked, it actually worked well, but more often it did some whacky stuff and not much use came out of that.  

General thoughts and impressions:

The phone came in one of the most impressive packages I have seen out of Nokia. The box was huge, solid and really appealing to look at. In the box you have the phone, cables the usual stuff plus it came with a bluetooth headset included. I have not used the bluetooth as I have very sensitive ears and only particular kinds are a go for me. The pictures are taken with the Navigator. They are in the best case mediocre. The outdoors pictures are a bit better, but it's a bit disappointing for a 3.2 mega pixel camera offering. It also only has LED flash as it is not a photo-centric solution.  

I realize that this is not a deliver all device and it's main niche is the Navigation but the camera could have been better. The lack of lens cover is also an issue that results in potential dirt particles, lens scratches and in turn poor camera performance.

The phone definitely delivers a lot of goodness in a relatively compact package. The battery life was poor for my needs and assessment. It did not even last a day with my use. I had to recharge it once or more a day. Again for an average user it might just be sufficient. The phone runs on FP2 which is awesome and I have grown really found of, since the first time I laid my hands on a phone with FP2, months ago that was a Nokia N78. Back then I was not convinced that FP2 would warrant justification of switching to a phone with FP2. Today I have no doubts. It's an amazing improvement over the FP1 phones. Tho a lot of changes and additions are subtle they are a huge difference when it comes to daily user operations. The Navigator had its lagging moments when surfing the menu and sub menu systems, still with that it was faster then my N95-3 with the most recent firmware update. It was painful going back to a FP1 high end device phone after Navigator's speed and ease of use. It does not support all FP2 features like the N series do, but for a general non- power user this is just enough juice to make you want to invest in this phone.

 The usual messaging set up for an FP2 phone which gives more options to the user of what and how to insert into the message. The vertical menu set up that is present in FP2 phones is also great, tho in the Navigator is it limited to four icons. Those icons deliver a lot of versatility tho. Another neat thing about the menu is that you can scroll through it and when you reach the end it shows up at the beginning. With N series like N85 for example that is not possible. I am not sure if it is a bug in the firmware but I find it a bit annoying. I find it even more annoying that a mid range device is completely capable of delivering such scroll. On the Navigator instead of applications folder you have a 'my own' folder where all of your downloaded applications end up.The 'my own' folder exists within the applications folder. It is easy to find and makes a lot of sense, in the N series it exists as an applications folder, end of story.

Another neat thing that none of the N series that I know of have is the ability of Navigator to silence calls and alarm snooze without any 3rd party application. It is build into the firmware. This is a great feature that is totally lacking in the N series.

 It is very easy to turn off the phone when you hang it up with the red button/end call button. The Navigator lacks a separate power button and all power operations also go through the red/end call button. I have turned my phone off a few times hanging up. This is just perhaps my bad habit of dealing with N series phones that have designated power buttons, for other users this may not be an issue at all.

Conclusion:  

Navigator does exactly what it was designed to do. It does maps well, I would have wished for a slightly bigger screen but a 2.4 inch is sufficient for most operations, tho it is a bit difficult to follow the screen while in the car. Fixing the bugs in the firmware would be another thing to add to my whislist. The compass needs serious looking into. If you produce a device with such technology the least a user can ask is for it to work well and be a dependable source of direction. It's a fast overall operating phone despite the occasional menu lag. Camera performance could be a tad bit better even tho it is not designed with photography in mind. There is no concern with memory, its got plenty of on board memory and it is expandable vis SD slot to accommodate up to 8GB cards. If battery life is not a concern for you, I would recommend this phone for those that are all about navigation, it also comes with a 6 month license included in the box. This makes sense given that it is a navigation solution in the Nokia line up.   

Comparisons

My very special new delivery just arrived. Swapping my sim and off to play. Thanks WOM world, I am off to play for now.

At night

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At night

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