The Nokia N8. Review on Nokia N8

Whew!! Was lucky enough to get my hands on a Nokia N8. Playing with it since last week and here is my verdict...

Thumbs up for.....

• 12 MP Camera - THE usp of this phone. Video quality is out of the world. Don't think u will find a phone in the market that gives u better quality photos and videos

Will paste a youtube link for my video here shortly. Tried shooting some videos sitting in my car and was amazed at clarity and smoothness of the video, not one jerk ever.. 720p HD working it's magic.

Disappointed that Macro mode video doesn't work well enough though. Don't have a Dolby system in my house but think HDMI output is sweet.

..and here is the video as promised https://youtube.com/watch?v=yda2e_zHfdw

• Performance - In one word - "Awesome". Almost everything launches in less than 500 ms. 680 MHz processor + Graphics H/W accelrator + Symbian 3 seems to have worked a good combination.

  
  




• Touch Experience is way better than any Nokia I have seen before. Capacitive touch makes it's presence felt and no touch failures. Almost there but still some catching up

  
  

to do with HTC Legend, iPhone which I used earlier

• Transitions - Much needed and late in the game from Nokia. But really refreshing to see some good transitions, effects for application launch, exit

  
  




• HomeScreen - 3 Homescreens, Configurable with widgets, shortcuts which is comparable but not as good as Android.Some people may prefer that shortcuts are aligned with grid rather than free floating though. Personally I preferred a free floating Homescreen though. But I liked the fact that transition across homescreen views happens fast

  
  




• 16 GB internal memory :), AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, Anodized aluminium exterior

  
  

Call experience

Old Symbian look and feel makes way for a new call dialer interface.

• Dialling a number is much faster and easier

  
  




• Finding a name quickly from contacts list is not all that fast but - max 3-4 seconds for scrolling to any name in list which is OK IMO

  
  




• Dialer, Contacts, Call log all integrated in one view which is good.

  
  




• As expected from Nokia, call signal strength and reception is good. No complaints from friends on being unreachable.

  
  

Music Player

• The UX is great. Coverflow widget concept is similar to iPhone but is implemented very well. Scrolling across various songs is a pleasure.

Photos

• Whew!! Nokia seem to have got the Grid photo view to work perfectly. Can't make out which one's better iphone photo grid or N8.

OVI Maps

• Got my GPRS connection and gave this a try. Had to travel to DPS in Kanakpura road. Went into drive mode in OVI Maps and took off. Couldn't believe the voice instructions

were so precise and took me to my destination uptil the last curve bend. I felt like a Tomahawk missile.

Messaging

• Conversation view makes a late entry in Nokia Messaging application. everyone else seems to have this now, this view seems more of a facade and switches to old way of messaging if u try any serious operation like clipboard copy etc

Battery

• So much better than my Android experience

OVI Store - Have to start digging into this yet.

Disappointments for...

• Virtual keyboard - This is a bore. Some improvements like popup suggestions while typing in QWERTY but if u were expecting a big overhaul in Symbian 3, forget it :). No Qwerty in Portrait mode also

  
  




• Browser - For me this is the big disappointment. No improvement on earlier version of Symbian. Cant accept that I have to go to a new screen with VKB for typing in a URL

  
  

However performance of browser is better than N97. Had an OK Facebook experience though, worked well enough for me.

• Contacts List Scrolling, Seems sluggish.. surprising since heavier applications like music player, photos have great scrolling performance.

  
  




• Wished they had changed the icons of the Applications, would have given a newer look and feel

  
  




• Calendar, Clock, Alarm etc...nothing new here. was hoping for some flashy way to set my alarm.:)

  
  

Summary - Think Nokia have a winner here. Analysts believe this is a turnaround phone for the company. If you liked Nokia phones for it's reliability and call experience and were earlier disappointed with the user experience, this phone will make you glad. Nokia have revamped the UX with their Symbian 3 UI and performance of applications in this phone. Also think the camera is just great..have to see it to believe it. If this is available at anything around 25 k I think it's a super deal.

Personally I think Nokia always made great phones but lacked on the UI front big time and here they have started addressing this issue. I have begun to like the N8 in the few days that I have used it. With no degree of doubt, this is the best phone at least Nokia has ever made. Probably N900 lovers may disagree with this.

PS - Wonder why there is a wrong image of N8 posted in mouthshut.