Welcome UIQ To The Symbian Family
It was pointed out to me recently that my blog is titled "Symbian-Guru.com" and yet I focus mainly on S60, which is merely a version (??) of the Symbian OS. There’s also UIQ. So I set out to find myself a UIQ device to play with. I’d never touched one before, and thought it might be fun to see the similarities and differences.
I was recently able to get my hands on a "gently aged" SE P910a, which runs UIQ 2.0 (UIQ is up to 3.0, but I surely couldn’t afford the newer devices, and they don’t have the GSM 850 band, for the most part, and thus would have been useless to me).
I will be doing my best to use this as my primary device for at least the next few days. I am getting another Nokia N73 Music Edition later this week (yes, I’m still desperately hunting for the blue one) and it will be hard to ignore her highness very long. In any case, click through to read up on my initial thoughts/reactions, and check back for updates in the UIQ vs. S60 series.
Quite honestly I don’t know how to compare UIQ vs. S60. As far as I can tell, they are entirely different. I’ve found little similarities, other than the fact that they both use .sis files (though obviously not compatible with each other’s).
On the P910a - Most of my initial reactions are hardware based, and thus don’t really have anything to do with this. However, given that I haven’t had much time to truly play, I’ll go with those.
1. Connectivity - GPRS. That’s it. Granted, this device came out in 2004, but still. With everything else this phone can do, you’d think it’d at least have a lower class of EDGE. Also, I have yet to successfully pair it with my computer via Bluetooth, though the PC Sync software claims it can do so. It could be a conflict with Nokia’s PC Suite and the Bluetooth COM ports.
2. VGA camera. I’m getting the feeling that the P910a is closer to the 6620 than anything else.
3. There’s no d-pad or joystick. Just touchscreen and a scroll wheel (which is kind of handy). I’m beginning to come to terms with this, however, as you’re obviously intended to use the touchscreen as much as possible. Newer UIQ devices have d-pads, though.
4. This thing came with a TON of accessories:
- Desktop charging/sync stand (Nokia’s done this with a few devices, but I’d like to see it standard again)
- Spare stylus
- belt holster
- stereo headphones
- lens cleaning cloth
- wrist strap
- 32MB Memory Stick Duo
- (Most Interesting of All) a mini-screwdriver and set of screws with which to remove the "flip" (flip will be covered IN DETAIL in another post) and replace with a dummy end, so the phone can be touchscreen ONLY.
- Oh, and data cable, of course.
That’s about all I’ve got for now. I’ve only just begun playing with it. If you have any specific questions, please post them here. I don’t promise to get to them all, as I already have a TON of comparison posts started on specific different items, but it’ll give me something to go on.
Hey Ricky,
I’m really interested in reading your upcoming comparisons. I’m of the opinion that S60 reigns supreme, at least I’d take my E61i over my Sony Ericsson M600 any day of the week:) Also, just to let you know, the P910 is UIQ 2.1 and UIQ is up to 3.1 now with the Motorola RIZR Z8 (although its coming soon).
Cheers,
Chris
EQO Customer Evangelist
I’m interested to hear what you have to say as well. I’ve been a hardcore S60 fan for years, but I’ve tried out my fair share of other OS’s as well… last year I had the chance to swap my 6630 for a p910 for a time, so that I could use UIQ, and my buddy could use S60. I found UIQ 2.1 (and this has drastically improved I understand) to be much less intuitive to use. However, despite it’s lack of “intuitive-ness”, it’s still a great OS in many ways.
I think that UIQ has had media playback (video, mp3’s, etc) nailed far better than S60 has for a long time. Only now, with the advent of the ME series of devices, are we seeing Nokia trying to play catch up.
This largely makes sense, if you think about who it is that’s pushing UIQ primarily: Sony has had the music space cornered for a long time, and even now their feature phones in the Walkman line have the best phone music players on the planet (the w810i can take on any DAP any day, in my opinion, both for great sound quality, and up to 4GB of storage).
I think that if the new UIQ can gain enough traction, it will lead to some good innovative competition between Nokia and SE (and Moto now too apparently). Nokia is firmly aimed at the multimedia space, and UIQ gives them a reason to work harder at it.
However, all that being said, I STILL hate Stylii, and won’t use a touchscreen phone again.
-olly