Products · Product
Nokia phones
Raised as a usability problem by 122 people on Hacker News over 20 years (2007–2026), in 116 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
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- 5Web pages take ages to open on the phoneUnreviewed
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Every issue, all time, most people first
Interface is slow and laggy to interact withUnreviewed
20072026- Basic apps like phone, contacts and alarms lag badly and crash randomly2025-06-12
- UI was laggy, slow and cumbersome to use2022-12-22
- UI is sluggish when interacting with the phone2022-07-26
Features are hard to find in the confusing interfaceUnreviewed
20072026- Phone's UI is so unusable the user avoids non-essential tasks2019-09-18
- Menus, settings and navigation are non-intuitive, unlike familiar feature phone patterns2019-03-18
- Four nested layers of generic menus before reaching cramped, hard-to-read items2016-11-21
Keyboard lacks number row, making numbers and symbols painful to typeUnreviewed
20072026- Slide-out keyboard is hard to type on comfortably2025-03-15
- Keyboard is heavy to press and useless for typing more than a line or two2024-12-17
- Keyboard lacks a number row, so typing numbers and symbols is painful2021-03-18
Browser hard to use, stylus a pain, slow keyboard entryUnreviewed
20072026- Browser was slow to load pages and reformatting made websites barely usable2024-02-14
- Pages hard to interact with on small screen, arrow cursor, slow and crashing browser2015-09-01
- Browser is hard to use, stylus is a pain, keyboard entry is slow2008-07-11
Web pages take ages to open on the phoneUnreviewed
20072026- Phone was basically unusable on the web because of HTTPS certificate problems2021-03-18
- Pre-iPhone phones were a nightmare to use for browsing the web2012-02-23
- Phone software was a pain to use and slowed to a crawl when opening web pages2011-02-12
Screen only responds to a stylus, not fingersUnreviewed
20072026- Resistive touchscreen required a stylus, making the device awkward to use2025-01-16
- Resistive screen only responds to a stylus, so it frustrates users until they break it2022-09-28
- Phone is very slow to respond, and the resistive touchscreen on the 5800 is frustrating2019-10-23
Scrolling jerks, swipes fail, and zoom behaves unpredictablyUnreviewed
20072026- Screen tears and scrolling moves line-by-line, not smoothly, so interaction feels sluggish2017-06-03
- Scrolling and pinch-to-zoom feel slow and unresponsive, like filing requests2012-08-25
- Scrolling is jerky, swipes fail, zoom behaves unpredictably and selection is annoying2009-08-27
Touch screen too oversensitive to use comfortably without keyboardUnreviewed
20072026- Standard Linux apps are uncomfortable to use on its portrait capacitive touchscreen without a keyboard2026-07-17
- Single-touch screen feels worse than multitouch rivals, frustrating to use2021-08-16
- Nexus One touch screen is too oversensitive to use comfortably without a keyboard2010-10-27
Early touch phones had clunky single-touch, stylus-driven interfacesUnreviewed
20072026- Early touch phones had clunky single-touch, stylus-driven interfaces that were hard to use2025-01-10
- UI was hard to use without the stylus, unlike capacitive touchscreens2022-09-03
- Phone interfaces were so annoying to use that people wanted to throw them2014-06-23
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Communicators were big, slow and clunky to use in practice2026-09-25
- Clunky and annoying to use despite strong specs on paper2026-09-10
- Standard Linux apps are uncomfortable to use on its portrait capacitive touchscreen without a keyboard2026-07-17
- T9 dictionary is weak, making text entry frustrating2026-06-04
- Predictive text is diabolically bad, making typing frustrating2026-06-04
- Sliding keyboard adds cost and bulk to the device2025-12-14
- Zooming required an awkward finger spiral gesture that was hard to perform2025-12-12
- Hostile, really bad UI that makes the device hard to use2025-12-05
- Basic apps like phone, contacts and alarms lag badly and crash randomly2025-06-12
- Slide-out keyboard is hard to type on comfortably2025-03-15
- Caller names don't show for contacts unless VoLTE is turned off, degrading call quality2025-03-11
- Resistive touchscreen required a stylus, making the device awkward to use2025-01-16
- Early touch phones had clunky single-touch, stylus-driven interfaces that were hard to use2025-01-10
- Keyboard is heavy to press and useless for typing more than a line or two2024-12-17
- Calendar sync setup is terrible and requires manual configuration2024-10-06
- Media player navigation buttons had dreadful UI latency, making them sluggish to respond2024-06-22
- Feels slow and cumbersome, with progress bars while the calculator loads2024-02-14
- Browser was slow to load pages and reformatting made websites barely usable2024-02-14
- Dumbphone texting and calling UX is super shitty to use2024-02-05
- Recent calls list takes 8-9 seconds to appear, causing misdialed numbers2024-01-16
- Phone repeatedly drops Bluetooth connection with car head unit2023-09-20
- Had to use a stylus to move the cursor and click on things2023-09-02
- UI was laggy, slow and cumbersome to use2022-12-22
- Ordering from the website on a Nokia 6800 was awful and infuriating2022-11-14
- Resistive screen only responds to a stylus, so it frustrates users until they break it2022-09-28
- UI was hard to use without the stylus, unlike capacitive touchscreens2022-09-03
- UI is sluggish when interacting with the phone2022-07-26
- Connecting to other devices is awkward and the LCD is hard to read2022-05-25
- UI is slow, static and unfriendly to touch input2022-05-24
- Tiny buttons and an overengineered menu system that are unpleasant to use2022-01-25
- Built-in browser was unusable, forcing users to install third-party apps2021-11-10
- Couldn't find an easy-to-access silent mode, so the commenter returned the phone2021-08-21
- Web pages take minutes to load, making connected use impractical2021-08-16
- Single-touch screen feels worse than multitouch rivals, frustrating to use2021-08-16
- Replacement text predictive editor is worse than T9, hard to type with2021-08-16
- Messages from different apps no longer arrive in one central place, so contacts reach him unevenly2021-08-13
- Had to wait for a splash screen before accessing calendar2021-05-02
- UX inconsistent and menus tedious to click through with stylus2021-03-18
- Keyboard lacks a number row, so typing numbers and symbols is painful2021-03-18
- Phone was basically unusable on the web because of HTTPS certificate problems2021-03-18
- Phone capped Wi-Fi passphrase at 63 characters, blocking connection to a 64-character network2021-03-01
- Music playback UI is terrible; no browsing tracks by artist2020-11-06
- Father can't learn to use the feature phone's rocker buttons and navigation2020-08-31
- Phone is very slow to respond, and the resistive touchscreen on the 5800 is frustrating2019-10-23
- Phone's UI is so unusable the user avoids non-essential tasks2019-09-18
- Slow to respond to input, making simple tasks frustrating2019-09-03
- Cannot uninstall bundled Google apps, and predictive text is hard to find or missing2019-04-06
- WiFi works only once after reboot, then cannot be re-enabled2019-03-21
- Long text typed out and sent only to be lost when memory is full2019-03-18
- Messages appear in previews but not in the actual chat; notifications are inconsistent2019-03-18