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18 October 2011

Google on N8 vs N9 vs E72

It may not be the newest phone, but I have recently come to conclude that when it comes to Nokia phones, Google loves the Nokia E72 the most. The compatibility of the Nokia E72 with many of Google's products has been even more demonstrated recently by the release of Nokia's new Meego powered N9 which looks every bit like an iphone-killer but with one achilles heel, it's incompatibility with Google. Here are a couple of examples.

Google Maps - Forget iphone 4s siri for a second and realise that Google Maps had awesome voice recognition capabilities which the E72 lovingly embraces. Google made it that you need to hold down the CALL button  to activate voice search of its Google Maps. As a result, since the Nokia N8 has no call button, there is no voice search on the N8. For the Nokia N9 you cannot even download it! Forget using a web based version either as this does not work on the N9 as well.

Google Search - Voice search of anything you want is also available on the E72 on Google's search application. Once again, the Nokia N8 and N9 do not have a call button and therefore the voice search does not work on those phones. Not sure if anyone has created a workaround?

Gmail - Symbian has an app that you can download which runs Gmail. It checks your email every 15 minutes or so and the phone vibrates when there is new mail. You can run multiple gmail accounts and switch between them seamlessly. The only limitation is in opening attachments. The Nokia N8 and E72 have that app available. The N9 does not.


Google Documents - For some reason the Nokia N9 cannot use Google docs spreadsheets in mobile mode. When you finally figure out how to switch to desktop mode, you can load up a spreadsheet but it is nigh impossible to update the cells. For whatever reason, as soon as you select a text field, the phone scrolls to some other part of the spreadsheet where you can't see what you are typing. However on the E72, whilst it is quite painful to click edit on every line that you want to modify, at least Google docs works to some extent.

So even if you feel a little left out as your friends show off their awesome camera capabilities on the N8 and brag about the smoothness of their N9 operating system, one thing you still have is Google's love.