Nokia N8 Smartphone
December 25, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment
Nokia N8 Smartphone came with a smart looking charger, an HDMI adapter, a USB adapter, a decent headset and a lot of booklets. You get to download unlimited music from the Ovi Music Store for one year on this device. The charger plug has a slide out top pin, which can makes the entire charger slim enough to comfortably pack and carry.
First Impression
Take the N8 out of the box and you will be immediately impressed by the build quality. The anodized aluminum body comes with a nice finish, and the phone I had dark grey one, although the phone is available in multiple colors. Nokia have done a great job with the body- making it scratch less. In case the surface does get scratched, just wipe it with a cloth, and the scratch disappears!
The 3.5 inch screen is accompanied by one single button on the front panel- the Menu one. Well, there is a front facing video call camera, but that is safely hidden away from sight. One side panel has the volume control, the camera and the screen lock buttons, while the other side has the sim-slot as well as the slot for the memory card, The microUSB port is also on this side.
The rear panel has a monster 12 MP camera, and just to fit the camera in, Nokia had to raise the area around the camera just a little bit. What this does is open the camera to a risk of scratches when you place it on the table or even keep it in the pocket with other stuff like keys and pens.
Also, Nokia has tried to give the phone a powerfully rugged feel by making two screws visible on either side panel. It may look good to some, but seems like an unfinished product to me. The multiple color options are also a thoughtful addition, something which widens the scope for more buyers who can now choose the phone depending on their color preference.
Performance
The ARM11 processor powering the N8 clocks at 680MHz, and I believe that is more than sufficient if the loaded operating system is efficient. The OS this phone comes loaded with is the Symbian^3, which makes this the first phone in the world to do so.
The 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen is a delight to use, and I have to admit, I did not expect it to be this good. Plus, the fact that it is AMOLED also lends a really high quality feel to it. Nokia have really come a long way since the pathetic touchscreen efforts of the N97 and the 5800 XpressMusic. The N8 responds instantly, pinch and zoom works well and the screen is a delight to watch multimedia content on. The touchscreen quality is superb, in a nutshell.
Moreover, this touchscreen is the Gorilla Glass type- which does not get scratched, no matter what you do with it. Good thing, since most phone buyers don’t bother buying a screen protector and the screen inevitably gets badly scratched.
The 12MP camera is just the biggest camera we have seen in a smartphone, so much so that Nokia had to give it an elevated platform on the rear panel to allow it to fit in the device body! Images are great and comparable with any compact camera- as far as a brightly lit environment is concerned. In the dark, this one too becomes a bit temperamental, just like most phone cameras. HD video recording is smooth as silk, and I had no complaints there. Basically, the camera is the best thing this phone has, by a very long way.
The 680MHz processor, in the opinion of a lot of people, is a tad underpowered for a smartphone. Most Smartphone these days come powered with a 1GHz processor. I don’t agree with this logic, however. For me, 680MHz processor is more than enough, if the phone’s OS is able to manage the power properly. If the N8 is able to play 720p videos successfully, then the processor is more than adequate- And yes, the N8 handled HD videos perfectly. No stutter, phone freeze or the general jerkiness. No complaints about the processor speed, at my end!
Another testament to the fact that the processor is more than adequately powerful is that a gaming session playing the NFS Shift (downloaded, for Free, from the OVI Store) unveiled a smooth gaming experience and absolutely no jerkiness.
16GB built-in memory and the ability to expand to 48GB more via the external memory slot is a feature worth it for people who click and store a lifetime of memories in the photo gallery and keep the entire soundtrack of their lives in the Music folder!
The HDMI out is a thoughtful feature. I connected this to my Samsung LCD television and watched a couple of HD videos off the phone, and it was perfect quality. Even more so that if someone just walks into the room and does know that the video is being played off the phone, he/she will certainly imagine it’s some device like the WD TV media player or a BluRay player. Apart from this, when the phone is connected to a television, you can see on the TV everything you can see on the phone screen.
