GSMArena has reviewed 808 PureView and as you know they are famous for taking their work rather seriously and coming out with in-depth reviews, which are considered to be one of the most unbiased and authentic ever. Though a chunk of people sometimes try to paint them favouring Android a bit, but if you ask us we have always found their analysis and reviews truly one of the best and unbiased.
Now GSMArena has some really very nice things to say about the UI and Symbian Belle FP1 OS, 808 PureView is running along with its amazing camera capabilities. We will focus here, what GSMArena thinks about the Belle FP1 OS as we have already reported about GSMArena’s shootout articles for testing 808 PureView’s Camera amd how 808 PureView seems to match even DSLRs in image quality.
The conclusion about Symbian Belle FP1 exeprience goes like this,
The Symbian experience is light years ahead of what it was on the 5800 XpressMusic. The OS has caught up to the competition with the numerous UI and usability updates, and it’s lightweight enough so even the 1.3GHz single-core processor of old architecture delivers a fast, fluid experience.
But seems even GSMArena team is dissapointed with Nokia’s decision of not going ahead with Symbian at a time when it looks really promising.
Symbian has faded into the background of the smartphone scene, which is a shame since it finally caught up to the competition in terms of features with Belle and now we have Feature Pack 1 to polish it.
Time to check the detailed impressions of GSMArena team about the OS.
User Interface animations and transitions :
Great to see GSMArena noting that,
The lightweight Symbian Belle was always a snappy OS even on limited (by today’s standards) resources. The bump to 1.3GHz (older Belle phones ran at 1GHz tops) enables buttery smooth animations and transitions.
With the Nokia 808 PureView you really don’t notice you’re running on a single-core processor.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=MTaYCeGQj38]
New widgets and features, Microsoft Apps and Speed Bump :
GSMArena describes in detail the impressive processor speed bump, new widgets, features and applications which polish the experience.
Perhaps the biggest change in FP1 is that the CPU is clocked at 1.3GHz, which should be a good enough speed boost. There are new widgets too, as well as Dolby-enhanced sound, some Microsoft Apps along with updates to the browser and Nokia Maps.
Widgets come in up to five sizes. In addition, you can also put shortcuts and contacts on the homescreen. FP1 brings with it a number of new widgets. For example, you now get 3G, Offline, Bluetooth and Mobile Data on/off toggles in addition to the Wi-Fi on/off toggle you got with Belle. There’s also a Mobile data tracker that is great for those on limited plans. There’s also a couple of new clock widgets, a additional calendar widget, two music player widgets, Facebook and Twitter widgets, a DLNA server widget, Microsoft Apps widget, and a couple of weather widgets among others.
All round connectivity, Better Web browser and Great Organizer:
GSMArena thinks Browser wise Belle FP1 is a major improvement and feels browser to be fluid and fast. That sounds great.
On the surface, the Feature Pack 1 browser hasn’t seen much change. Underneath, however, Nokia has done a great job at expanding the HTML5 support and making pages load even faster.
The browser supports FlashLight 4. It felt fluid and fast when we panned around a page and zoomed in and out. We didn’t really see any pages break in the browser either. Nokia has definitely brought up its browser a huge step forward thanks to the updated browser engine.
Connectivity options also impressed them highly.
The Nokia 808 PureView has an expectedly impressive set of connectivity options. Starting off with the basics, you get a true worldwide-ready phone: quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE and penta-band 3G with HSDPA (14.4Mbps) and HSUPA (5.76Mbps). Local connectivity is well covered too. You get Wi-Fi b/g/n with DLNA and Wi-Fi tethering thanks to the JoikuSpot app. Bluetooth 3.0 is on board with A2DP stereo, but unfortunately lacks an HS profile. There’s USB with On-The-Go support for wired connectivity, which worked with everything we threw at it, except USB hubs. NFC is increasingly popular of late and the PureView supports it. Pairing is as simple as you could possibly imagine, just put two NFC-enabled gadgets (usually, two smartphones) together and they will connect. Hooray, no more PIN codes!
GSMArean folks reckon that “Organizer offered by the OS is simply great”. Read more,
Symbian has a solid track record in the PIM department and the Nokia 808 PureView with Symbian Belle is no exception. Nokia has just tweaked a thing or two.
Impressive Social application and Nokia Maps with free lifetime offilne navigation:
This one is a bit surprising and encouraging as well, as many consider Social appliation to be a weakness of Symbian. But seems in Belle FP1, it has been improved a lot in performance and has started impressing reviewers as well.
The Nokia 808 PureView is quite a social gadget. The dedicated Social app is the hub for all things social – with support for the two most popular networks, Facebook and Twitter. You can have multiple accounts on each network but only one of each can be active at a time. The Facebook section offers a wide range of options with an easy to use, touch-optimized user interface. Posting a status update is as simple as attaching a photo or video (or shooting one on the spot) as well as adding geotagging data.
A cool feature is the All Activity section that becomes available when you add both Facebook and Twitter accounts. It pulls status updates from both networks into a single list. You can also post a status update on both networks simultaneously from there.
Nokia Maps is obviously present with all its cool and powerful features on Belle FP1 as well. But nice to see that change in perception about OS is leading to the due attention and praise that Nokia Maps always deserved.
The Nokia 808 PureView comes with a built-in GPS receiver, which locked onto satellites in less than a minute upon a cold start (A-GPS turned off). Keeping the lock from then on was not an issue for the 808 PureView even in a dense urban environment.
One of the best perks of buying a Symbian from Nokia is that you get free voice-guided navigation for life. The voice guidance is currently available in over 70 countries and over 40 different languages, with even traffic information for more than 10 of those. In addition, Nokia did a pretty decent job of the Nokia Maps application itself, giving it a cool, touch-friendly interface, as well as nice features such as location info from Lonely Planet or Qype (you get a different source for the different locations).
Read the full review here,
http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_808_pureview-review-776.php
