The Ultimate Test: The N82 In The Hands Of A Non-Techie

The constelation seems right: N-series devices becoming more mature and mobile Internet access now affordable, it’s time for the ultimate test: How will a Nokia Nseries device fare in the hands of a non-techie for more than just voice calls? I don’t have the answer yet, the ‘experiment’ has just started, but I should know soon enough. After testing the N82 in and out for a week, I finally shipped it to ‘the user’ with 4 applications preconfigured: MP3 player with 40 or so CD’s preloaded, Profimail for eMail access, picture upload to Flickr and OperMini 4.1 beta for mobile web access. In addition, the phone will be used intensively as a data modem for the PC. So let’s see how that works out. I’ll keep you posted.

4 thoughts on “The Ultimate Test: The N82 In The Hands Of A Non-Techie”

  1. 2 questions:

    1. Why Opera Mini, and not the S60 Browser? Seems an odd choice, specially given the abilities of the latter.

    2. If you’ve preinstalled music, email, photo upload and a web browser, doesn’t that rather defeat the purpose of seeing how a ‘normob’ gets along? Shouldn’t the out-of-box experience be focused on, seeing as that’s how they’d typically receive it?

    Still looking forward to reading the results

  2. You know I know S60 fans (disclosure: I work for S60) love the built in browser, but I personally use Opera Mini 4.1 Beta as my main browser and before that version 4.0 and before that version 3.0.

    The only reason I purchased my first S60 device (Nokia E61) was for the QVGA resolution screen and QWERTY keyboard. Only later did I find out about this whole platform thing.

    Do tell us more about your test subject, age, sex, previous devices owned, things like that.

  3. Hi Ricky and Stefan,

    Like Stefan I prefer OperaMini over the built in browser since one can browse the ‘full Internet’ even over a slow wireless connection.

    Concerning the ‘pre-install’, I think it’s a ‘fair’ move since a lot of non-techies ask for help when they buy a new computer and afterwards to install some software. Same here.

    The user profile: Female, 30, uses computers a lot, but only as a tool, not for experiments. She’s happy to learn new things if shown but doesn’t venture out herself to find new things in the tech world. Just not her business.

    Let’s see how things go 🙂

    Cheers,
    Martin

  4. Interested in seeing how this “experiement” goes.

    Martin,

    Seems hard 2 find simple research (regd. smartphones and its applications) for ordinary users.

    PS We talked briefly at the Oxford Forum recently

    Lal

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