The Nokia N8 has been my primary smartphone for eight months now, having upgraded from the Nokia 5800. Sure, I’ve dallied with the Nokia E7, and currently enjoying the Nokia E6, but the N8 is the one I keep coming back to. Find out with our Nokia N8 review – 8 months on…
The Nokia N8 remains the smartphone others are compared to. Since it was launched last year it’s garnered more praise than any other. It’s that combination of sleek design and cutting-edge technology that simply makes it desirable.
Check out our Nokia N8 ultimate users guide
With the Symbian Anna update just around the corner, we felt it was time to look at how the Nokia N8 has fared. In terms of build quality and design, we’ve been amazed at how robust the anodised aluminium body has been. It’s stood up to all sorts of drops and bumps and still looks almost new. Sure, it suffers from being slippy in the hand – something people have commented on – but we added a Case-Mate Barely There cover to the back and that solved the issue straightaway.
The 3.5-inch AMOLED screen is nice and sharp. We have to admit, it’s not as bright as the Nokia E7 but for everyday use it’s worked fine. It can be used and viewed both indoors and outdoors, which isn’t simply the case with lesser smartphones.
When it comes to the touchscreen function of the Nokia N8 screen, there are times when it feels laggie and slow to respond but we’re hoping the Symbian Anna update will resolve most of those issues. With three Homescreens on offer we have to admit, maybe we’re lazy, but we tend to only use two (do you use all three, let us know?)
The layout of the Nokia N8 is fairly standard and comes with a 3.5mm audio jack, an HDMI port for hooking up your HD TV, and the Power switch. The front of the Nokia N8 is limited simply to a single Menu button. On the left side of the Nokia N8, you'll find a micro USB port – both for syncing and charging – and above that there are sockets for both the SIM card and a microSD card. On the right-hand side, you'll find volume keys, a hardware locking key, and the camera shutter button.
We’ve found this layout works well, we like having the Screenlock on the right, for example, and navigating the Nokia N8 is pretty straightforward.
The big selling point of the Nokia N8 has to be the 12-Megapixel camera and while it hasn’t turned us into a professional, simply having that power at your fingertips makes for some pretty good snaps and videos. We’ve certainly used the camera functions more on this device than any other.
Yes, there are niggles with the Nokia N8, the Symbian^3 operating system can be slow, especially when loading apps but over the last eight months there have been some fairly major changes, a quicker Ovi Store, a new Ovi Suite client, Nokia Maps 3.08, so looking back this is very much a different device than Nokia launched back in 2010.
We've used the Nokia N8 a great deal for messaging and email, as well as for surfing the web and making phone calls. For work it's a great device to use and with multiple email boxes on one page you can balance work and leisure with with. It even makes a great games machine and with Ovi Store offering more games all the time, there seems no excuse to stop!
When all that is said and done, the Nokia N8 remains a great smartphone and with good reason, it’s a great size, it works well and the battery life is better than you could expect from this class of machine.
Own a Nokia N8? Share your experiences with us by leaving a note in the Comments below.