I keep thinking about the N93. I keep thinking about replacing my N95 8GB with the original N93. What does this say about Nokia, the Nseries and me?

Let's start with me...

I guess this means that the primary reason I decided to jump ship from Sony Ericsson (P900) and Sharp (903) to the Nseries was because of Nokia's innovation in photography and video capture. It also implies that I'm not that impressed by the majority of new features added since the N93. Be that as it may, let's take a look at what creative Nseries users have lost (and gained) since the launch of the N93 way back in July 2006.

What we've lost:

3x optical zoom

Stereo sound capture

Video editing

Superb camera and media controls

Amazing ‘transforming’ form factor

What we've gained:

1.8 million pixels

0.4 inches of screen size

Geotagging

As you can see, the creative Nseries user has lost some impressive features over the last 2 years. For me, the loss of optical zoom is the single biggest disappointment, I cannot overstate what a huge boon optical zoom is for anyone who has even a slight interest in landscape photography.

What does this mean for Nokia and the Nseries?

I am a geek. I'm easily the geekiest person I know, yet even I - as a total geek - have never used any Nseries device to collect my email, browse the internet for more than 30 minutes, listen to audio books or watch more than 25 minutes of video in one sitting. In short, Nokia's current solutions for these common tasks is for the most part clunky, clunky to the point where it hardly seems worth the effort.

Within my circle of friends, there are at least 7 N95 users, none of these use it to collect their email, 2 of them use it for music playback, 1 of them will use it occasionally for satellite navigation, but all of them use it as their primary camera. I truly believe that the reason most people buy the N95 is because of the 5 mega pixel camera and 'DVD like' video capture.

Of course, outside my circle of friends there are thousands of N95 and N82 users that use their devices for playing games, email, web browsing, SatNav and even Jaiku, but these are by far the minority, probably less than 5% of all N95 users.

In summary, in my real world experience, most Nseries users use their Nokia phones for 3 things. Calling, texting and photography. How has Nokia innovated in these 3 core areas in the last 2 years?

Calling

A no-brainer, Nokia have this nailed.

Texting

Nokia hasn't really moved on since the N93. Still no Qwerty keyboard.

Photography and video capture

Nokia has actually moved backwards since the N93!

Why is there no 3 or 5x optical zoom, stereo sound capture, better than DVD video capture, or even a VGA screen? I don't honestly know answer. I can only assume that the N93 and N93i didn't sell as well as Nokia expected and hence Nokia decided to focus on other features.

It's hard to argue with Nokia's amazing sales figures, clearly they know how to sell phones to people of all walks of life across the entire globe (North America excluded). However, I do feel like they have forget something that once made them special in my eyes.

I have given up using my Nokia as my main video camera. I have given up using my Nokia as my main phone, within a couple of months I might have stopped using it altogether. The video capture quality of the Nseries - though still decent by phone standards - has fallen massively behind cheap camcorders. As a phone, web browser and media playback device no Nokia can touch the iPhone, and super-cheap digital cameras leave even the mighty N82 for dead!

I'm just not inspired by Nokia these days. The N96, N79 and even the N85 all appear to be nothing more than warmed up N95 offerings.

For my money, the Nokia N93 is Nokia's finest achievement, a pointer to a time when Nokia out innovated absolutely everyone, no other phone manufacturer came close.

Yeah I know this is a bit of a rant, but like someone once said to me, “I only criticise you because I believe that you can do better!”

Please let me know what you think, I'm especially eager to hear from ex N93 owners.