It’s been a fantastic 2008 for Nokia, from new handsets and services to concepts that’ve blown our minds. But they're not the only things we have to be thankful for this Christmas.
Nokia has also done NokNok some personal favours, opening doors for us and giving us a few sneek peeks behind the scenes to see how our favourite phones come into being, and how they're destroyed for that matter.
We owe the Big N a big thank you for all of these things, so we’re giving them ten Christmas cheers!
N97 announcement
Anyone still cooing over Apple’s iPhone now needs their head read. The N97’s huge capacity, monster touchscreen and gorgeous slim design shows Nokia’s still the best mobile maker in the world, and that’s before we even consider the Symbian operating system, which will soon be open source, and more powerful than ever. Hooray for the N97.
Nokia Maps 3.0 and Maps on Ovi
Nokia Maps was terrific before its latest update, but with version 3.0 it becomes a force to conquer all comers. 3D landmarks make navigating by car much simpler, and a refined pedestrian mode, including directions in areas without paths or roads, make it a daily essential. Live traffic, speed camera and lane assistance make it simply the best mobile navigation software, while Maps on Ovi brings the same experience to desktops too.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
Touchscreen phones were the pricey until Nokia got involved. The 5800 XpressMusic changed that, offering a slim handset with a flexible and finger-friendly interface all at a price attainable by everyone. Add Comes With Music into the package, and you’re looking at the best value Nokia ever made.
Morph phone
We’re used to Nokia pushing the boundaries, but when the Morph phone was unveiled it blew our tiny minds. Cooked up between Nokia and the Cambridge Nanoscience Centre it’s a futuristic concept that uses nano technology to bend itself to almost any function. Sure, it’s a long way off, but the fact Nokia’s already working on it makes it the most forward thinking of all manufacturers.
GPS everywhere
Nokia’s spent 2008 packing satnav skills into more phones than ever before. From the N96 and the stunning 6260 Slide to the 5800 XpressMusic, it seemed like everything slipping out of Nokia over the last 12 months has been packed with GPS. And it’s not just good for running Nokia Maps, new services and apps like Nokia Location Tagger and Sports Tracker rely on satnav to teach us new ways to use our phones, for for that we’re truly thankful.
First HSUPA phone
The 6260 Slide broke the mould for Nokia. It’s the first phone with HSUPA built in, allowing ultra-fast uploads, and a new wave of apps, like video and video sharing at lightning speeds. More HSUPA handsets will follow, but the 6260 is so good looking it’s impossible not to fall in love with it.
The 25 year phone
It’s hard not to love Nokia’s 25 year phone concept for its eco-friendliness, and its prediction that we’ll learn to love and customise our phones over years of use. Best of all, the Big N says our handsets will get better with age, as chips become powerful enough to run anything thrown at them, and its software improves with age.
Letting us into Test Labs
Few phone firms are as open as Nokia, and when it let us peep behind the curtain at its testing labs, we jumped at the chance. The result was a lesson in quality control. Did you know a handset will pass 200 different tests before being deemed good enough for a hallowed Nokia badge?
Live video streaming
2008 will be remembered as the year live streaming from mobiles brought a new immediacy to online video. And which hardware was behind it? Nokia’s N-Series of course. With the Symbian OS doing all the grunt work inside, Wi-Fi and 3G flinging it to the web and five megapixel cameras delivering cracking visuals, Nokia’s handsets are the number one choice for anyone using Qik or Kyte, and praised daily by their viewers.
20,000 free FIFA games
Remember Nokia’s early Christmas present back in April? The first 20,000 to sign up for N-Gage were gifted a copy of FIFA 08. Considering each one usually cost £8 that’s a £160k bill for the Big N, all in the name of giving you a good time. Aren’t you sorry you didn’t write a thank you note now?
Photo via kev.flanagan