It's no doubt that the increased RAM of the newer S60 devices such as the N95 8gb and N82 greatly improve the functionality and overall experience of these phones. Heavy tasks and multitasking is now possible without crashing the phone or slowing it down to turtle speeds.
I remember about a year ago Nokia started using the tagline "multimedia computers" to describe the Nseries. That was back when I had the Nokia N73. The tagline never really caught on for me since opening the web browser along with a few other heavy applications would just cause the phone to lockup or simply close all open tasks. Multimedia computer didn't come to mind without enough RAM to multitask.
But now things have changed and it's possible to get more done at once. It's not likely that we'll have more than five applications at once, but I've ran into this situation before with the N95-4 that I'm trialing and the Nokia N82. Just the other day I was using Google Maps to give someone directions with the Web open at a page I was reading, Gallery and Share Online open uploading pics to my Ovi.com account, Location Tagger added GPS coordinates to a picture I had just taken, messaging open so I can send over the address of where I was at, and of course the contacts application. Flipping back and forth between all those applications was a breeze. I still had about 74mb left for my available RAM.
Just now I decided to see what happens if I open more that 10 application and flip back and forth between them. Now keep in mind this would be a rare occasion unless your a true power user.
Below is all the applications that I had running with no problem, and I still had 66.5mb of RAM available according to Handy Taskman. If I counted right 15 applications were open.
- Slick Instant Messenger
- Calcium Calculator
- Contacts
- Sports Tracker
- Qik
- Google Maps
- Web
- Share Online
- Internet Radio
- Calendar
- Messaging
- Location Tagger
- Music Player
- Screenshot
- Frozen Bubble Game
I'll post a screenshot of all this later.
Performance like this makes the newer Nseries phones feel like a real multimedia computer. The N95-4's large screen just compliments the computer experience and I have noticed that I haven't used the laptop in awhile, unless I need to make blog posts or update a website. All other media consumption that I used to do at home on the computer is now done on my phone when I'm on my lunch break or getting bored at work. Checking my RSS feeds is a breeze. Uploading my photos to the Web is simple. Emails are mostly handled on my phone now as well. I'm no longer worried about a slowdown or lockup because of two many taskes going on.
Devin from The Nokia Guide has posted a great article that I recommend all S60 users to read. He talks about multitasking and shows some great tips to get the most out of your multimedia computer. He talks about simple shortcuts like holding down the menu button to get your list of open applications and switch between them, something that a good handful of S60 users forget or don't know about. Devin also found a few good articles that give more advanced tips on multitasking. Click here to head over to that article and leave your comments.
What do you think? Are the newer Nseries devices such as the N95 8gb or Nokia N82 worth of such labels like "multimedia computer". Let us know your thoughts below...
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100% agreed
loving your blog! clean, organized, and great content so far!
hey mark. glad your liking this blog. i met the writer Al aka "dr. tran" from the nokia blog. he's a great dude to have writing for you. keep up the good work as well.