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Nokia N8 in Review
By Mike Browne on December 24,
 2010 at 00:00,

The Nokia N8 has no doubt been the most talked about smartphone of 2010. With its huge list of Nokia first’s, to its stunning design and all-around appeal, and that’s without mentioning the 12-Megapixel camera. But how did the Nokia N8 get to be everyone’s favourite high-end smartphone. Read our Nokia N8 in review and find out…

The Nokia N8 has filled more column inches in 2010 than just about any other smartphone. After all, we managed to find 16 unique innovations from the more obvious facts, such as it being the first Symbian^3 smartphone, to less well known features such as Dolby Digital Plus Sound or the first Nokia with HDMI-out capabilities.

The Nokia N8 in and of itself is a truly innovative smartphone. The brand new body shape for Nokia came with a full metal unibody and the 3.5-inch touchscreen means you can easily swish between the three Homescreens with ease. Then there is that 12-Megapixel camera allowing you to not only capture stunning photographs but with full support for HD video, which you can hook up to your HD TV, this is the true media choice for anyone who loves being in the thick of the action.

One of the biggest debates around the Nokia N8 was how well it handled going head-to-head against the Apple iPhone 4. However, early on it was highlighted that in terms of innovation, spec and usability, the two devices are in different leagues, with the Nokia N8 being a premiership device for high-end users, while the mildly upgraded iPhone 4 was better suited to entry-level users.

Nokia may have made a mistake by announcing the existence early in 2010 as it meant we had to wait a long time until it finally arrived in September. However, as any true Nokia fan knows, it has been worth waiting for.

When we finally got our hands on the Nokia N8 it delivered everything we could have hoped for, commenting that ‘as soon as you take the Nokia N8 out of the box, it’s obvious that Nokia has got the design and quality spot on.’ Even the Symbian^3 operating system came in for praise in our initial review ‘The Symbian ^3 operating system will be familiar to existing Nokia owners, but it also moves the game on. Menus are easier to navigate, and it’s an incredibly quick OS.’

The Nokia N8 relies on a virtual keyboard for firing out texts and messages but as we found with our Nokia N8 keyboard review, this is no problem. The mix of a capacitive screen of a good size and the new highly responsive OS, makes staying in touch with the social networking crowd a doddle with the Nokia N8.

So, has the Nokia N8 had a good year in 2010? We’d like to think so. Sure, there were those few teething problems with the odd Nokia N8 having startup problems but this was very much blown out of proportion and anyone with a problem soon found it solved.

The Nokia N8 has started life as one of the fastest selling Nokia smartphones of all time and as we head into 2011 it shows no signs of slowing. What do you think, is the Nokia N8 everything you’d hoped for from a high-end Nokia and if there was anything you’d change, what is it? Let us know your thoughts in the Comments below.

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Tags: 3.5-inch N8 Nokia Nokia N8 Symbian^3
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  • andy burgin

    The Nokia N8 is worth all the Praise its getting better value than the iPhone4 ,o.k it was along drag waiting for the N8 as we saw it in April an thought 2 months later it would be available,but Edgar on mobile-review doomed the N8 an this made Nokia think about releasing it to early an get themselves a really bad name after the Bad N97,so i waited instead of buying something else,an i am really glad i did,an the N8 is truelly getting Nokia back on track,an with further updates to come the N8 will be get even better,Cheers Nokia!

  • Karan Sharma

    Well Noika N8 is a great device as far as features are concerned.
    1. My handset went bad just in 7 days from the day of purchase .. the camera switch stopped responding. The hardware is the most basic thing which has to be upto the mark. So… NOKIA , improve the HARDWARE QUALITY.
    2. Symbian^3 is a great OS as compared to S60v3 and S60v5. But when compared to Android or IOS,,, its kind of stone aged and crappy.
    3. The BATTERY LIFE on Nokia N8 is quite disappointing as compared to N82 and Nokia 5800 ( which I have).
    4. As far as changes in SYMBIAN^3 are concerned …. better UI , better TRANSITIONS , MORE LIBERTY to the user to set up the HOMESCREENS / WIDGETS , better QWERTY layout (which i think would be covered up in the forthcoming update) better use of RAM …….
    5. The videos should get saved in another folder by default, its kind of cumbersome to find videos form the images.
    6.The touch response should be bit better , its good but not as good as compared to Iphone or android handsets of this cost range.

    “Why not to develop an emulator which can play Android games on Symbian phones”.

    So Nokia need to wprk hard on the build quality of the handsets … and I think we should wait to see how upcoming updates improve the UI and covers up the bugs persisting in the current OS.

  • marty

    i bought this device on dec 11,2010. so far after almost 3 weeks of working with it, i am surprised that is has incredibly stable software. i never experience any systems freeze (hangs) at all. hopefully, it wouldn’t. the performance is great, and it cost just right. i am actually stunned by its price. only about USD493.18. for its finely crafted body which is anodized aluminum and gorilla glass display. quite cheap for a high-end device… i am actually expecting it to be at around above $500.00. but enough about the price… the picture is just great.. it actually dwarfs other phones’ camera resolution… :) music experience is also great as it has album flow feature and a good headset too… :)
    for me, its worth waiting for even if the release date was delayed… :)

    i am still eager to have and update on this device as there are some bugs here such as:

    1> poorer text input response when listening to music and constructing text message at the same time.
    2> photo viewing ( the photo when zoomed out using the double tap on screen the photo will become very small) it happens seldomly though.
    3> adding a music player widgets on different home screens ( the music wont update when pressed next or previous track on the home screen. the music will change but the title won’t be updated on home screen)

    so far, thats all the bugs i experienced.. hopefully nokia do something about it on next firmware update…

    also, i heard news that some of nokia n8 has power problem, “small number of its nokia n8 have power problems.” as nokia quoted it. it simply means that the device automatically shuts down on its own and fails to power on again even if the power button is pressed… hopefully this wont happen to my device as nokia said, only “SMALL number of its nokia n8 have power failure” problem.

    that will be all by now…. i should be returning here for further updates on my device.. please do write and share about your problems or experiences on your n8 device… :)