art with code

2017-11-10

Nokia 8 first impressions, iPhone X thoughts

[Update, Nov 26 Oreo update.] Gmail badge fixed, phone network name fixed, I can abuse the Night Light mode to tone the display white point warmer (by default it's super cold blue light: bright outdoors but eye-stabbing indoors. I've found no other way to adjust the white point but setting the Night Light mode always on (Custom Schedule 6am to 5:59am) at a low intensity.) Oreo likes to drop the UI framerate to 30fps for no reason, which is annoying. After a few minutes it jumps back to 60fps and ???? What's going on. Overheating from Night Light? Who knows, let's see if goes away after a few days... [Update 2] It's a Glance display bug. Turn off Glance display and it stops happening.


Got the tempered blue version of the Nokia 8. Around US$500 in Hong Kong. The chassis looks and feels great. The phone is very fast. Loud speaker. The LCD screen's great and shows the clock, calendar events and notifications when it's off.

The dark blue matte aluminium gets a bit smudged by fingerprints. Might be less of an issue with a silvery color - my ancient iPod Touch 5 doesn't smudge. The gold-colored iPad does smudge though. (Digression: the iPod Touch 5 is maybe the best-looking phone form factor Apple device. iPhones in comparison are marred by the antenna lines and weird design choices. Apart from the 3G, which is a great design but a bit thick. The new glass-back iPhones are better in terms of the overall design, but they're glassy.)

Back to the Nokia 8. Gmail shows a 9,999+ unread mails red badge. This is solvable, my Samsung Note 5 doesn't have that. [Fixed in the Oreo update]

In daylight, the camera quality is great. Indoors, the camera app optimizes for ISO instead of shutter speed, which makes taking photos of a bouncing six-month old an exercise in motion blur (thx 1/14 shutter speed at ISO 250.)

The camera hardware is not bad. Looking at full quality JPEG output, the noise is level is OK up to ISO 800. The camera app screws it up though.

The chassis design is generally excellent, very business-like. Might be the only phone around that doesn't look crazy. The volume and power buttons in particular look great. The shape feels good.

I've got a couple nitpicks though: the NOKIA logo on the back is recessed and looks like a sticker. It could be engraved or flush with the phone. The headphone jack doesn't have a shiny bevel and doesn't look great. The charging port might work with a bevel too. I'm not a fan of the "Designed by HMD, Made in China"-text at the back. The front face off-center Nokia logo placement is retro but grows on you. The front face fingerprint reader is recessed, which makes it gather specks of dust. Having it flush or with an Apple-style bevel would look better. The front-facing camera is a bit off-center from the hole in the face plate, and has a hard plastic looking border. This could be fixed with an alignment guide and a proper border material. Ditto for the back cameras. The front plate black plastic could maybe have a bit matte reflection so that it's not so plastic. The front speaker grille fabric gathers specks of dust. Metal mesh would be nice.

The phone appears as TA-1052 on the local network and Spotify. Which is.. confusing. [Fixed in the Oreo update]

The font on the lock screen and on the home screen clock is bolder than the glance screen font, and has a more spread out letter spacing. I prefer the glance screen thin font.

Good battery life.

Ok, that's it for the Nokia 8.

iPhone X. Played with it in the Apple Store. It works surprisingly well given the big hardware and UI overhaul. But, it's just an iPhone. Those were my thoughts, "Oh, it works surprisingly well." followed by ".. that's it?" That's really it. The software is iPhone, the identity is iPhone (with a bit of extra bling from the glass back). It's an iPhone.

The feel is quite Android though, with the bottom swipe to unlock and settings swipe down. The notch sucks in the landscape mode, looks ridiculous. The swipe gestures are invisible but quick to learn.

It's sort of like a Samsung version of the iPhone 4 in terms of the design language. Plus the notch.

The design philosophies are quite different. Samsung Note 8 is a slightly toned-down bling bling design phone. LG G6 is the techy phone searching for an identity. HTC U11 is the crazy night out phone. iPhone is the fancy party phone. Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 is the concept phone. Nokia 8 is the business phone - the dark blue two-piece suit.

Wrap up: Nokia 8 - slightly flawed execution of a great design, needs a better camera app. iPhone X - great execution of a flawed concept.

No comments:

Blog Archive