Nokia N8 vs Nokia E72

As many of you will know, before getting the Nokia N8, I was using the Nokia E72 which I still find hard to part with, so currently I am using the E72 as my primary phone and the Nokia N8 as a complement to the E72.

So how does that work practically? Which phone do I use for what situations? From my own experience, this is what I have found to be the indispensable features of both phones which make letting go of either phone a great difficulty.

N8 pros vs E72 cons 

• Photos First of all, in my recent trip overseas, I did not take a point and shoot camera. Well I did, but it was more accurately called a camera phone and the Nokia N8 performed exceptionally well as a point and shoot. So for photos, the Nokia N8 is now my go to device. 
• Videos For the same reason we have dropped the point and shoot for the N8, the N8 is much preferred for shooting videos, producing HD videos worthy of a big TV screening later. 
• From 0 to Search As mentioned earlier, Nokia has created a widget which can be added to your N8 homescreen which allows you to type in your search. Then with one press of the button you can search your whole phone for this word or search Google. This is faster than opening up a browser in the E72, then running a search. 
• HDMI connectivity is probably only useful with the Nokia N8 camera but I've also found it quite a novelty to run Opera Mini on a very maxi TV screen! Add the bluetooth keyboard in and you've made your home (or friend's) TV internet ready :)
• USB thumb drives We won't even mention this with the E72 because such a feature was only in E72 developers' imaginations but the Nokia N8 allows you to open up documents in a thumb drive, view photos and even edit documents from your phone (thanks to QuickOffice being now available for N8 users) 

If you would like to see the arguments for keeping the Nokia E72, head over to our other blog here.

Preview of PR2.0 Coming soon

Nokia is working on a new firmware update for the Nokia N8 which is expected to come out in a few weeks time which will be PR 2.0. A video has appeared on youtube which purports to demo the new firmware. Some of the expected changes for 2.0 include a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode, something that fans have been crying for since the phone's release last year. What else is coming? You'll have to wait and see..

N8 Quick Search update now available

There has been yet another software update overnight with Quick Search Update now available via the Software Updates (go to Applications). This 1.3MB download will enable your N8 to do a search via Google or your preferred search engine from the home screen. We are currently downloading it for the N8 and will report on it soon...

What's the Best N8 Apps Reviews?

What's the point in having an awesome phone if you are not making the most of it? In the coming weeks, we'll be looking at the best Nokia N8 apps available and would like to have your thoughts as we go along. As a quick list, here are some apps I am looking forward to reviewing or have already been using

• Gravity for Twitter
• Angry Birds
• Night Light
• Google Maps 
• Nokia Maps
• SPB mobile shell

If you have some favourites to mention, leave a comment below and we'll take a look. We are interested in useful and awesome apps so that will be the perspective we will approach each N8 application. Should be an interesting journey so hope you all join us!

Purchase in progress. Confirming payment

If you have come to this blog post, there is a good chance that you are experiencing the same problem that I have just experienced. I purchased an application on the Ovi Store (the updated Ovi Store) and after selecting my payment option and confirming the purchase, the Store was stuck at "Purchase in progress. Confirming payment".

Meanwhile, I got an sms from ovi store saying confirming the purchase and included a confirmation code.

Back at the Ovi Store, the screen was still stuck confirming the payment. I tried a few days later and the same thing happened again. That time, I closed the Ovi Store and re-opened it, hoping to find my new "paid for" application in My Stuff.. but alas, no app. Anyone know what the problem is? Could it be to do with my phone number not being correctly linked to the Ovi username? Love your thoughts..

Edit: Well after waiting a good five minutes, the store came back to life, only to report that

"Server error. We are experiencing problems with the payment service. You will be taken back to the catalop page."

I am yet to find out if that means that my payment did not go through.. stay tuned..

Problems with the New N8 Firmware

I have noticed one problem with the new Web firmware update where the on screen keyboard sometimes fails to appear when you click on to a text field to type. This is quite frustrating and I was wondering whether anyone else is experiencing the same problem?

Updated
Another problem I have been experiencing is where the phone won't wake up from sleeping or crashes whilst sleeping. The only solution for this has been to restart the phone.

Discovering the Usefulness of Other Features 
Whilst travelling, internet access has been a challenge. One of the features I have found useful is the WIFI icon added to the home screen which allows you to see when your phone is connecting to a WLAN, connected to a WLAN or not connected to a WLAN.

How have you found  your firmware update?

What's good about the New 1.1 N8 Firmware?

OK so we just posted the changelog for the new firmware 13.0.16 PR1.1 which you should already be downloading from your N8 now (don't worry about backing up your data - should be ok to just update your phone). I have just installed the new firmware and the first thing I notice is that the touch screen vibration was no longer working. I checked my profile to ensure that it was enabled but it still did not work. I restarted the phone to see if that made a difference and after looking into the Profiles again, the touch screen vibration returned.

But how is it really going to make a difference for N8 users?

Web browsing - Opening up the Web browser following the upgrade, the web browser seems to be running faster. No options are immediately obvious as new additions following the upgrade. Opening up Google Docs, I still have the problem viewing spreadsheets where the phone will only allow me to view mobile mode which views one column at a time. Desktop view is not allowed.

EDITABLE Quickoffice!!! This is the biggest change for me. I could not believe when the N8 came out, that it did not include the ability to EDIT Office documents such as spreadsheets, word documents and presentations. Now Nokia seems to have repented of their ways and included the ability for you to create and edit documents on your Nokia N8. Get a bluetooth keyboard and exponentially increase your love for your Nokia N8 with this new update!! You are able to edit the documents with a bt keyboard without opening up the on screen keyboard as well, allowing you to use more of the phone's screen for editting. All they need to do now is add the ability to Quickoffice to sync with Google docs... hear that, developers??

No more fiddling with Dialler The new update means that you will not have to rotate your phone over and over again when you are using the dialler. Before the update, the dialler would only operate in portrait mode but now they have enabled landscape mode which will be great news for N8 users. Actually, this issue was something I was wondering about today whilst fiddling with my phone - why does the N8 dialler not work in landscape? in typical Nokia fashion, the solution was not far away.

Email to Maps integration This is a very useful feature which i have not tried out yet but let me know whether it works.

If you notice any other big changes following your N8 update, or you found these observations useful, please leave a comment.

Download New PR 1.1 N8 Firmware now!

A Nokia N8 firmware has just been released into the wild with 013.016 PR1.1 for RM-596 made available via the software update tool. You can download the new firmware by "calling" *#0000#.

The changelog for PR 1.1 is here:

• Web updated to 7.2.8.10
• Quickoffice updated to 6.4.166, editing functions now enabled on the N8 (i.e. don't have to pay to upgrade), improved zooming functions
• Adobe Reader updated to 2.5.653
• Big update to Nokia Email; performance improved; 'unread emails' flag added to homescreen widget; meeting requests can be accepted directly from email invitations; maps integration, which means people can view the meeting location on the map when the address is mentioned in the location field in the invite
• General performance improvements
• Dialler now works in landscape mode
• Previous performance updates are rolled in and, in the full (Ovi Suite-installed, >100MB) image, there's the facility to provide a better working starting point than hard resetting a PR 1.0 device