Does anyone still rate them?

As a smart phone no, even Nokia has pretty much admitted to that.

Yes, their older ones are brilliant. Mines being going strong for like 3 years now? Still looks as good as new.

Doesn’t do all those fancy things, but I rarely want it to, and what it does do is work 24/7, which is nice.

They make good phones (ie the actual telephoning people bit) and the free satnav is handy but they are way behind on smartphones. I still like mine as a GPS as the battery life is way better than most smartphones.

I had one of those ^ about 4 years ago, still going strong with my mother in law, brilliant phone.

Currently got a 5800 Xpress Music which is actually a pretty good smartphone. Not as good as an HTC but as its 2 years old its still going strong and does apps, internet etc etc.

I’d buy a new one but the old brick is still going strong. I bought a cheapie 7 years ago when I came over here for a few months and used it constantly since.

I do keep it clean though. It’s been through the washing machine twice.

I’m tempted by the ones with navigation built in though. Is that real GPS or is it just from the phone towers?

(I have a couple of new unused later phones in my drawer – the family keeps trying to upgrade me)

I’ve got an N8, and it’s running Symbian^3. I think it’s superb. Hardware-wise Nokia have always been great, but they got caught out when all their competitors made huge strides on usability. They’re catching up now, and the latest version of the UI (“Bella” which is in Beta but officially realeased in a couple of weeks) is excellent.
Sadly, because they had a brief period of being slightly behind, everyone now just says “Nokia are crap”.

Also, the camera on the N8 is unreal. Spectacularly good for a phone camera – it’s easily better than many compacts.

EDIT: Sat nav is excellent. They bought the technology from Navman, I believe.

See i’ve got an x6 and it does everything i need, sat nav, good camera. Reason i’m askin is my contract is up soon and you can get some good deals on short contracts for nokia because ‘they are crap’ and everyone wants iphone or android.

Im a bit of a technology fan but still love my N86. It does everything that a iPhone can do, i use it for viewranger, sportstracker and even watching stuff on the iplayer plus the battery lasts 2+ days even the camera is ace.

I got given an N97 by someone who works there because they couldn’t stand it as their company phone. It is without question the biggest POS of of phone I have ever had the misfortune to use.

Not since this beauty when Nokia were at their best…

M_F – I loved my 8290! Wish I still had it really, small, light, good.

Got a Blackberry for work which is pretty average (although good for emails) got a 5800 for my own phone which is ok. Good for Sports Tracker, the GPS works pretty well too.

If you want small and light…

As above, in terms of being a camera, the N8 knocks everything else into a cocked hat.

TBH the main weakness is the web browser, and as above it’s improving. But too late I think.

Looking forward to (hopefully) getting hands on with their new windows phone devices next week.

Where they do well is the low end IMO. OK, if you’re spending £600 on a phone, get an iPhone*, but you can spend £70 on a nokia, get touchscreen, free satnav (that’ll work offline), spotify, facebook, twitter etc. It won’t work as slickly, but it’ll work, and save you enough for a nice holiday.

And at the really low end, you can spend £10 on a nokia and know you can chuck it in your camelback and it’ll be there, charged and working when you need it.

So “rate” them – yes, for some use cases. If you want a phone to browse the web though, buy an iPhone/android. My personal device is a SGS2 FWIW, but I have an N8 too for riding, and a cheapy 1200 or something for getting knocked about.

Despite using a samsung as my daily device tho, I will admit I’m a nokia fan, probably a bit biased.

*don’t give me any of that “but my iphone was free/£100” nonsense. You pay for it in the contract, if not upfront.

They’ve tied up with MS now so it’ll be Windows with everything from here on in

They had some shocking management over the last few years

I loved my 8290!

Not unless you’re American you didn’t. It’s an 8210, that.