Pros and Cons: Moving from Nokia to Android

After about 15 years of using Nokia phones, I will be moving to a Samsung Galaxy S II Google Android handset.

This is a bittersweet decision, because I rate Nokia handsets as some of the most durable phones on the market. If only Nokia decided to push forward with MeeGo, or became a handset OEM like HTC, I might not be writing this entry.

I currently own a Nokia N8, which in today's handset marketplace has an inadequate processor, RAM, and arguably OS in comparison with the Dual Core 1GB RAM Android handsets.  The N8 has one feature I rate incredibly highly on a Phone however: the camera. The N8 sports a 12MP Carl Zeiss CCD. At the time of writing this, there is simply no better camera hardware on a smart phone out there. Fact.

I'm of the "one device to rule them all" mindset, so having a great camera at my fingertips is something I rate highly. The amount of times I have been able to capture critical family moments, or capture something unique and beautiful while I'm out and about have made the Nokia N8 worth every single cent.

For me, camera quality has made the transition over to Android very difficult. There are plenty of Android handsets out there with Dual Cores and 1GB RAM, but the Achilles heel of every handset I've researched is the camera. While Android phones like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Arc have probably the best camera optics out there, their overall processor and RAM specifications are, well, not up to spec.

From my research, I've come to accept there is currently no Android phone out there with the right combination of specifications for me:

• 12MP, quality camera 
• a Xenon flash 
• minimum 1.2 GHz dual cores 
• minimum 1GB RAM. 

At best, handsets have dual LED flash. Most have single LED.

I know I'm taking a downgrade in camera features, but here's how I see the losses and gains from moving from Nokia Symbian 3 to Android (in my case Gingerbread):

Nokia Losses:

• Best of breed Carl Zeiss camera phone technology. Android OEMs: get with the program here.
• Great handset build quality.
• Interface familiarity.
• Gravity Social Media client. Probably the best twitter client invented, and constantly requested by Nokia deserters using iOS and Android.

Android Gains (with Nokia N8 Symbian 3 comparisons):

• Device specifications that are not redundant before they are even released. 
• Nokia are only just releasing 1Ghz processor phones to the market. 
• Rapidly evolving OS, with a reliable release cadence.
• Symbian 3 Anna (PR2.0) worldwide deployment was delayed at least 6 months later than promised at launch. Why is this such a big deal? This update introduced a PORTRAIT QWERTY keyboard. Yes, this was not shipped by default with the original PR1.0
• When Nokia did release PR2.0, Australia was last on the list.
• Symbian 3 Belle (PR3.0), the next major cosmetic interface change has already slipped into next year. 
• Android users will be amazed to hear that PR3.0 gives Symbian users a pull-down NOTIFICATIONS TRAY. Better late than never, I guess...
• App ecosystem that has much wider commercial uptake and support. 
• Developers rarely port apps to Symbian 3. Too much trouble for too little return.
• Open content-rich web pages quickly and reliably. 
• Try to open complex pages on Symbian 3 N8, and you can almost bet you'll get the "Out Of Memory" error pop up. It's embarrassing. 256MB RAM is simply not enough.
• I recently learned that the separate GPU in the Nokia N8 is allocated a measly 32Mb. This will make it even harder for game developers to make titles backwards compatible for older devices. Makes navigation choppy, and gaming limited.
• Having application choices for basic user tasks. 
• Symbian 3 makes it really difficult to specify any base application that isn't core. 
• Music Player default is basically hard-coded.
• Camera button will only open the Symbian 3 camera interface. 
• You can select a default browser other than the WebKit Nokia browser, which was (and still is) utter rubbish. However for native Symbian apps, the WebKit browser is loaded anyhow, totally ignoring your preferences. Grrr!
• Google integration natively supported. 
• On Symbian 3, I have to shoehorn in Google services. It is not natively offered.
• GoogaSync for *multiple* Google Calendars. 
• SyncML to get my Google contacts. 
• The only natively-supported way to import basic Google contacts and your primary calendar is to use the single Mail for Exchange profile available. If you need that single MfE account for your work emails, you're out of luck, sport!

I won't list the different types of Nokia handsets I've owned over my lifetime as a mobile phone consumer. Most of them were revolutionary at the time, and I still have fond memories of them. I will have fond memories of the Nokia N8, but sometimes you have to realise that vendor loyalty is not a reason to stick with something.

Hopefully I won't live to regret it.

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