Follow up: Nokia 8800 Arte “lived in” review

Following on a previous post I wrote (here), alas, the 8800 Arte has now departed my fair hands…..

Given it has now gone, I thought I would write just a small post about WHY. The total ownership period of this premium device from Nokia (NYSE: NOK) was only 2 weeks, but during that time it developed a hardware rattle – that is, something like a metallic element knocking about inside, when the handset was tapped.

Why would I tap the handset though? Oh, well, that’s apparently one of the features of the handset, in that you tap it twice to show the time on-screen. However, the usage of this feature exposed a hardware quality issue that I wasn’t expecting of the £700 device!

Subsequently, I’ve also had the opportunity to use a Nokia 3109. Now Expansys have the price of this at £74.99,  so imagine my surprise on usage to find that the O/Sis pretty much exactly the same! Of course these devices are both Series40, but my argument is that there is little O/S-wise separating a premium device (that costs nearly 10x as much) from an entry-level device. To my mind, the O/S of the 8800 should at least have been tweaked to differentiate it.

So overall then, not a great ending to the period using the 8800 Arte – it has a great feel and finish to it, but it was let down a bit by a hardware fault. Shame.