The Nokia N8 emerged shiny in a multitude of colours yesterday morning but it wasn't the first we'd seen or the Nokia N8 itself. No, we're not talking about the variety of blurry shots we've been squinting at for weeks, we're referring to the Nokia N8 preview that emerged a full 24 hours before the official launch. This wasn't part of the launch, so we have to ask: when in a preview nothing of the sort? Read on to find out why...

The story emerged over the weekend, a full hands-on preview of the Nokia N8 itself. Anyone would have given their back teeth to be in such a position, if it had been an officially sanctioned offering that it. Now, this was no 'official' leak – Nokia simply doesn't work that way, we've tried! So what was it?

Well a rather interesting story has popped up on Nokia Conversations, the official Nokia blog, under the title of 'One of Our Children in Missing' that makes reference to the Nokia N8 preview and the fact that it was a very early prototype running rather early code. As Doug's post pointed out 'This is a very early, pre-production prototype with dated software that is not yet ready. So the site’s comments that the software ‘felt premature’ is probably one of the more blindingly obvious things you will read this year.'

Now, no one is sure how this device fell into the reviews hands but at the time we raised the point that it had to be seriously early code. The tell tale signs were there, little detail, no real screengrabs and certainly no breathtaking insights into what will be an operating system worth waiting for.

Perhaps what works best about this post is that rather than send out the 'Secret Police' to try and reclaim the device, Nokia is simply asking for its property back, now that's a real class act!

Via: Nokia Conversations