Nokia N8 review

Looking forward to a MeeGo version

I would certainly consider a MeeGo version of this phone, although there is still the problem of a very limited choice of apps.

By jason404 on 5 Nov 2010

Meh!

Excellent call quality, superior camera, brilliant battery life. I'm afraid you'll need more than that to wean the Apple fan boi off of his iPhone 4.

By Lacrobat on 6 Nov 2010

@ Meh

if that's not enough try this then....for the apple fan bois

Screen/User Interface:
iDon’t have themes support.
iDon’t have a scalable OS, apps on the iPad are simply stretched to fit.
iDon’t have a desktop, entire UI is organized as a single “start” menu.
iDon’t have parallax (finger/screen offset) adjusting – low precision especially on small objects.
iDon’t have a touch friendly screen, gloves, pens, styluses and not even fingernails work!
iDon’t have neither haptic nor any other type feedback whatsoever.
iDon’t have any precision compared to resistive touchscreens.
iDon’t have a standard(16:10, 16:9, 4:3) aspect ratio only Apple custom ones(3:2) will fit my screen.
Power:
iDon’t have USB charging without a dock adapter.
iDon’t have any safety garment for the battery(1) melting is known to occur in Apple products(2)
iDon’t have warranty for damage made by “external” force aka. the above.
GSM connectivity:
iDon’t have full 3G HSDPA speed (7mb/s vs. 2008 smatphones that have 10mb/s).
iDon’t have full GPRS/EDGE speed (CLASS 10 is four times slower than CLASS 33!)
iDon’t have a decent GSM/GPS/WiFi signal(1) the connection is far worse than on 3GS(2)
iDon’t handle videocall via the network, gTalk etc.
WLAN connectivity:
iDon’t have DLNA (streaming HD content wireless on a HDTV).
iDon’t have UPnP technology (automatic WiFi setup) some networks simply don’t work.
Bluetooth connectivity:
iDon’t A2DP right (BT stereo) right: lags on videos(1) and games(2).
iDon’t have rSAP, Remote SIM Access Profile(1) – iDon’t work with your in-car hands free(2).
iDon’t fully support AVRCP (BT remote)(1) industry standard(2) can’t skip tracks.
iDon’t support any Bluetooth services when pairing with a MacBook.
iDon’t have any BT file sharing my BT is almost useless!
Cable connectivity:
iDon’t have standard USB connectivity(1) only custom cables(2)
iDon’t give a damn about the environment: short cables but tons of iAccesories.
Misc connectivity:
iDon’t have PC/MAC/LINUX connectivity without iTunes.
iDon’t have IR, can’t control: basic household items(1) TV, HDTV(2) DSLR camera(3) MAC(4)
Media/camera:
iDon’t have stereo speakers.
iDon’t have radio.
iDon’t have FM transmitter.
iDon’t have decent camera (small sensor and 72 DPI, which is less than most 5mp phones)
iDon’t have fine detail in pictures, high noise reduction smears the finer details.
iDon’t have video stabilization.
iDon’t have exposure control (ISO).
Design:
iDon’t eject my sim without a special key.
iDon’t have a removable battery.
iDon’t have hot swappable memory.
iDon’t sell cheap but my value at FOXCONN in China(1), where I am made, is ~190$(2)
iOS 4.0
Web:
iDon’t have audio/video streaming for 90% of the multimedia sites.
iDon’t offer a real web experience, various sites only offer a phone version.
iDon’t have Flash or Flash Lite – flash sites, apps or games simply do not work.
iDon’t have push idle so battery drains fast even on push.
iDon’t have push e-mail if i’m jailbroken, even if you pay!
iDon’t render HTML5 graphics, nor can iHandle HTML5 controls.
iDon’t process HTML attachments correctly.
File management:
iDon’t have access to my internal folders by any means – no app in the iStore allows this!
iDon’t even have access to set mp3s as ringtones.
iDon’t have MIDP/JAVA support.
iDon’t handle DivX, XviD, FLV native video.
iDon’t handle ZIP, RAR or SFX – no app in the iStore allows this!

By zenobi97 on 6 Nov 2010

Oh God Mr.Author, the Nokia browser DOES support flash 10.1.

By skyline100 on 6 Nov 2010

Thats right zenobi97

Tell them what they are missing.
iDon’t have USB charging without a dock adapter.
not sure what you mean here but you could use the USB to charge using computer, i guess i would disagree with you on this point, but the rest are all very good points. going off topic for a bit, i don;t see how apple gets away with all this and still charges like 600 pounds for it. (also talking about ipad) look here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HcfF4e5kCs&feature
=player_embedded#! its a bit old but still the specs way better then ipad)
back on topic -
unfortunately there is WP7 out and not sure how this would effect this phones demand, my friend says that WP7 is brilliant but we shall see.

By mobilegnet on 6 Nov 2010

Most of things in zenobi's list sound more or less correct, except this:

"iDon’t have decent camera (small sensor and 72 DPI, which is less than most 5mp phones)"

I don't really understand what it supposed to mean.

By Lomskij on 6 Nov 2010

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_per_inch

read this

By mobilegnet on 6 Nov 2010

@mobilegnet

Exactly - "A digitally stored image has no inherent physical dimensions, measured in inches or centimetres."

Digital camera doesn't have DPI per se, so that "72 DPI" value has no significance whatsoever.

By Lomskij on 7 Nov 2010

@zenobi97

...but iAm easy to use which clearly shows millions value usability more than features.

Clearly Apple are giving the masses what they want. Not sure why that is so hard for you to accept?

By kingjulian on 7 Nov 2010

Giving the masses what they want?

So what? Since when were the masses at all hard to fool? Apple offer fewer features than competing phones and the excuse is always "Who cares about that except the geeks?" Then the next generation of iProduct comes out and suddenly the fanbois fall over themselves to get the features geeks already had.

By windywoo on 7 Nov 2010

Why do you see giving people what they want equal to fooling them? And from what I've seen, it's when Apple release a new product it's all the other manufacturers who are falling over themselves to release a competing product.

Most people dont care about 95% of the abovementioned'iDonts' and personally I would happily trade them for a slick, stable OS. Which is what millions of others apparently seem to want to.

By kingjulian on 8 Nov 2010

Slick OS's

iOS isn't the only 'Slick and Stable' OS out there, Android and WP7 get very good reviews too, and Symbian is as Stable as its possible to get, although these days its not so Slick. But to a fanboi, 'Love is Blind'. As for 'What people want', utter tosh! I want access to folders, and to use 'normal' MP3's on my phone, and Flash should be there too - sorry Apple, you're not giving me what I want, and they aren't huge demands in the first place, just normal human expectations. So to be a Fanboi, you just need to ignore a whole raft of Apple faults. Wow! Love really is Blind!

By Wilbert3 on 11 Nov 2010

Sick of slick!

Never mind the feature ticking and peripheral fluff - What about the basics? My iPhone's definitely slick, but the novelty wore off very quickly as it did with playing with apps. Now I'm left with a smartphone that's really quite unsuited to business use and isn't much help organising my personal life either. There's no proper backup system (only last sync copy) and even this involves having the iTunes window open whenever I connect to sync/charge - Very appropriate on a business desktop!

Then there's no support for Tasks at all - Apple don't even mention this in the manual showing they don't even recognise the significance of Tasks, one of the three basic elements of any personal management system. Mind you, Nokia don't support Tasks either - at least not so they can be synchronised with Exchange, so I guess all my hopes are on Windows Phone 7 helping to restore the cock-eyed balance of style over substance.

Given my previous experience with Windows CE/Mobile, I'll not be holding my breath!

By tolqua on 11 Nov 2010

Don't knock Nokia

Well said, zenobi97. I recently bought an N8 and it is the most perfect of all the handsets I have ever owned. There's nothing wrong with the user interface, or the browser. They work speedily and efficiently, with no stuttering. Professional reviewers can't resist being subjective, comparing products with their personal favourites instead of sticking to the facts. So this reviewer can't help comparing the N8 to the Iphone 4 as if the latter were the litmus test of excellence when it is, in fact, underspecified and overpriced. And the reviewer seems addicted to Apps -a frivolous one day wonder for the kid in all of us, which fades into insignificance compared with the value-adding features in which the N8 excels. And the reviewer has a problem with the Symbian OS simpply because it doesn't work as 'standard' by today's measure. Who cares if it's not standard? Get over it, take the trouble to get used to it and you'll find that it's better than bog-standard. Forget the naysayers who criticise every handset because it doesn't work like an iphone. The N8 is superior to anything else on the market.

By tonybond1 on 12 Nov 2010

Reviewer doesn't understand difference between UI & OS

I just read the magazine hardcopy of this review last night - it shows that the reviewer does not understand the fundamentals of what makes up a smartphone...

The first part of the review gushes with all the great features of the N8 - how good the display is, the camera, the battery life etc, then writes it off because of the use of Symbian^3.

Symbian is the underlying OS - and though it provides some of the core services used by upper-layers of the smartphone s/w stack - it is not the reason the user experience leaves less to be desired on the N8 - that would be the S60 UI (and application framework) which is more a Nokia invention then a Symbian one. Nokia were too late in deciding to jettison the existing S60 UI (and move to Qt etc) for the N8 - its a shame because the h/w is very good and the underlying Symbian OS perfectly capable of supporting a new slick UI [and even some Qt apps to go with it].

Mr Bray - the OS isn't so important as the UI and application framework you build on top it - this dictates the user experience (and the 3rd party developer proposition too)

By Billius on 20 Dec 2010

how to buy it

this phone is really good !!! but if anybody want to buy it
I suggest you go
http://www.2011bestphone.com/?p=153
to know more about it !!! i think it wil help you very much

By guoxing on 27 Jun 2011