A Quick Nokia C7 Review

 The Nokia C7 was going to be the phone that takes America - except it looks like that isn't going to happen.  I'm not 100% sure what's happening with Nokia and AT&T...  Nokia really don't seem to be able to work with US carriers - which, I suspect, is partly because the US carriers are as batshit crazy as they are.  I still am bemused by the lack of actual phones in US carriers and the way they still lock phones to their service even though that's completely anti-competitive...  seriously, for a free-market country there's a lot of stuff about the US that feels like 1970s Britain.

Anyway.  The C7.

Pros:
 - Amazing battery life.  I charged it yesterday morning and it's still showing full charge even after some phone calls, some internet stuff, push email turned on and a few games of Angry Birds. Oh, and the battery is replaceable so I don't have to carry external battery packs that don't really work
- Camera - 8MP AND a Flash
- Radio - showing consistently better signal on AT&T than the iPhone 3GS next to it... go figure, Apple don't understand mobile radio - who'd have thought?  (Oh yeah, I did...)

Cons:
- UI - from the font, which is still the same as it was 10 years ago, through the menu system, nothing "feels" all that intuitive...  it also all looks tired
- Too Many Menus - there's a lot you can do, but that also means there's too much you can do
- Soft Keyboards: the auto-correct isn't as good as an iPhone, better than an Android - and I'll give them a point for the T9 keyboard when the phone is in Portrait View, which actually makes a lot of sense

So, much much better than their recent phones, but unlikely to grab consumers as much as an iPhone or an Android.

Part of their problem (Apart from needing to improve the UI) is that they do have too many devices so their OVI App Store is MUCH more complicated than iPhone.  This is partly a feature of their overall and global success mind you.  If you have several dozen types of phone you need to support it makes life harder than having 3.

Laxy Sunday...

One of the issues with running your own business, especially a start-up is it's pretty much a 24/7 kind of life.  I've done some work every day this year, including a few 16+ hour days - obviously that's not all "work" work - but after a while it starts to feel like it.  I'm even getting twitchy now because there's a pile of things I *ought* to do and instead I've been playing with a phone and watching the food network.

Anyway, there might be work to be done, but before that, there's some work to do in the garden - I need to fence off the lawn from the beasties for the rest of the winter.  The beasties themselves need walking.

Then I might finish some templates that are needed for an app we're working on.  But honestly, I am trying to relax...