When I became a S60 User
Hi all!
In my very first blog entry in this blog I’ll tell you what happened to me when I was introduced to a S60 phone.
My first interaction with an S60 phone happened quite late in my life, about 2 1/2 years ago. It was not a good start for our relationship since this S60 phone (from work) was a Nokia 3650 with the “round” keypad. Oh god, that was hard to get used to!
I’m not a patient user—in fact, I’m very impatient. If something does not work for me right away, I abandon it. This is what happened with the 3650. Behind my boss’s back I put the S60 phone (that he wanted me to use) to my drawer and started using my simple and small Series 40 phone again. (Hopefully he won’t read this…:).
Then, about a year later, I started using an S60 phone voluntarily, the Nokia 6630. It was, and is, a basic ok phone that I was able to use without getting annoyed. Of course, since I had been a Series 40 user for a very long time, I had some adjustment problems in the beginning.
Overall, I felt that my old Series 40 phone had been more straight forward than my new S60 phone. With my ex-phone I had done simple step-wise choices to complete my tasks, whereas with the S60 I felt I had to go through different kinds of menus and forms prior to conducting a task (e.g. sending a quick SMS). The S60 phone felt more like a computer than a mobile phone to me: yes, it had more features and options…but it took me a longer time to complete my simple tasks.
Sending a text message with the S60 phone sent my blood pressure soaring (or at least it felt like that!) multiple times. As a Series 40 user, I was accustomed to entering the recipient’s phone number after writing the message. However, as we all know, this is not the way you do it with S60. Even though I knew I had already written the person’s number in the message before writing it, I hesitated and had to think about it many times before getting used to this new process.
These were my problems when I first started using an S60 phone. It would be nice to hear if anyone else has had similar (or different 
problems, when they were introduced to the S60 interface. I’ve heard at least that some people have had the same problem with the SMS logic…
//maija
New Edtion To The S60 Blog Family
A new edition has been added to the S60 family of blogs and according to the site it focuses on user experience. I applaud this and the other S60 blogs as well because in this manner they are reaching
My first S60 phone was also the 3650 and I too didn’t have the patience to understand it. Lol this is when I actually first began reading the phones user manual. Since it was also my first camera phone I think I started with that first. The biggest issue was understanding the different internet settings for wap, mms and t-zones.
Being able to make a S60 device do the things that you want it to do with third party apps and such is the extreme form of customization!
The good thing is now that I do understand it, I can’t see myself going back to a S40 phone
Hey, interesting that this pops up the same day I pen a little something along vaguely similar lines on AAS
http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/How_to_launch_and_switch_to_applications_more_quickly.php
Steve
Excuse me? I almost always fill in the recipient field after writing the message. On S60.
What do you mean?
My first S60 phone was the 7650. I got it the minute it came out. I was flirting it since Nov2001… when I saw it I fell in love.
To me it was very good to work with, and when i tried it i knew i would never have a non-S60 phone again.
I agree with you, I think that UI of Serie60 is designed with computer model in mind, and that a nightmare…I took so long to do things that are so easy to do with other phone: installing an app, removing it, finding something…. There are so many ways to do things, that it’s counterproductive.
That’s of course a Geek dream, where you can customize everything, but I still do not understand why UI improvment does not happens more rapidly with serie 60….
Hi all and thanks for your comments! As Wendy wrote I’ve been on holidays (sking in Lapland:), but now I’m back.
I’d like to answer to you comment Anonymous: I probably put my words a little unclear: What I meant with the before and after thing was that with S40 (at least with the older versions) you have to write the message first then press “send” and then write the number and then press “send” (or similar) again, but in S60 you submit the number and the message with one press — this was really exiting for me many times :).
I’m now using two phones, a S60 (N70) and a S40 (3200) and see advantages and disadvanteges in both phones - but surely there are many more things you can do with the S60 phone than with the old S40 phone. The old phone is better for more careless use (like dropping it or losing it :).
I don’t find smsing to be too much of a problem, the 6385 was the first phone that did this to me, except instead of having the option, it was an extra step before writing the text, at least with S60 you can fill it in afterward.
After that experience I found a new option from contacts that I use a lot now “send message”. I spose what I miss more is iTap on the motorola, very nice indeed, and is much easier to used to.
But, I only got my new 6630 a week ago, and I’m already comfortable with it, in the 12 months before the 6630, I have owned k500I, SK65, 7600, V360 (most of the time i was using two or three), and for a PDA I’ve had a Palm 3x, and I was thinking about upgrading, but S60 negates that, maybe a windows smartphone, just to play
Great reading, keep up the great posts.
Peace, JiggaDigga