Nokia N8 – Hands-On Experience and Review

I am just exploring my new Nokia N8 since a couple of weeks. Most of you would like me to tell you some thing good or bad about this smartphone to help you make decision to buy it or not to buy it. So I was not only enjoying but I did my best to explore most of the things from it to spread the words about.

First thing you need to know that it is the very first version of the software which is 011.012 on release PR1.0, I’ll be talking about. So it’s fair to consider it the very first Symbian^3 platform in Nokia N8 with earliest production release. And it is being considered that the 2nd release PR1.1 is to be released sooner or later, but it will surely be there. Some changes to be available in PR1.1 have already been in rumors you would want to read it.

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The Good Things

The Design:

The design of Nokia N8 is really not lacking some thing in outlook. In fact it’s actually being liked by any one having an idea about the smartphones. I didn’t meet any one who have seen this smart phone, took it in hands, spread the eyes around it, and have said “It’s not looking good”. All of the comments on it were including the word “lovely design”. And it really is lovely if I say about it. The AMOLED display is better in outdoor environment and with 3.5″ screen it is really nice fit in hands.

The Nokia N8 is very well wrapped in the aluminium body with a completely unique design. It’s really great.

But the outlook is not all you need to know. The outlook was good so I listed it in Good things. However there are some technical issues with the design (not something serious though) I’ll list them in the things I didn’t like. So just continue reading.

The Camera:

Of course the most prominent feature in Nokia N8, to attract a common man, 12 Mega Pixel Camera with Carl Zeiss Optics and Xenon Flash with auto red-eye removal. 4000×3000 px resolution, 12.0 Megapixel CMOS Sensor, DZ 2x (for still) 3x (for video) with considerable specs including 28mm FL, f:2.8 (not variable, it’s fixed). (auto focus is not currently in video recording, may be included in later versions)

Many reviewers have already praised the superb camera in just a smart phone like Nokia N8 which actually, yet, has not come in any other phone. But most of them have not reviewed the camera in as much detail as a photographer would like to know about it. So I was actually near to start writing some more facts about the camera to tell here but before I go ahead and start writing I just tried to search in-depth detail if already have been written by some one. And fortunately I found it here. If you want to know more about the camera in Nokia N8, just go ahead and read about that.

Symbian^3:

I would confidently say that there is a lot of improvement in the platform. Before talking about the Symbian^3, I would mention that the earlier Symbian platform was already excellent in non-touch devices. I never compared that with the ones in new era’s touch screen smartphones. Because you shouldn’t compare the platform that was never designed specifically for touch screens and forcibly deployed under the touch screens. I would say that Nokia didn’t manage the situation well in competing the new touch-screen devices. And that was the reason I never went for any touch screen device by Nokia until Nokia N8 was launched, and I in fact pre-ordered for it.

Symbian^3 has actually improved and been optimized specifically keeping in mind that it is to go under touch screens. This is a lot faster and responsive under capacitive touchscreen. Just like in earlier platforms the Symbian^3 also is excellent in multitasking, contact management, power/battery management. including organizable widgets and icons in better way. Connection Management is really improved in Symbian^3, that you will not have to face all the time “connect to” prompt for each individual application if you are connected.

But there is still room for improvement in user interface. The menu navigation has been reduced but not as much to consider it a very good change. Nokia has to reduce it in steps.

Underlying Hardware: ARM11 CPU with clock speed 680MHz is really a key factor of the faster and responsive Symbian^3 on it, under better mutli-touch capacitive touchscreen. The factor also include 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0. Gaming Nokia N8 is great so far. I played Angry Birds, NFS Shift, Hero of Sparta, Asphalt 5, They all were just great to play on Nokia N8.

Qt Framwork: If you are in-depth-geek in development then I really want you to know that Qt integrated into the Symbian^3 is the framework that enables the devices to give you a wide range of quality applications to run on your Symbian^3 as well as on Maemo and MeeGo. This is what makes the Symbian^3 the most flexible platform in development than ever. Qt Mobility libraries are also available for earlier Symbian platforms.

Multi-Touch support in Apps: Due to multi-touch capable capacitive touch screen and with the native support in Symbian^3, any application can use this functionality for the user’s ease where needed. By default the Photo Gallery and the Internet Browser use the multi-touch functionality to support pinch-to-zoom as well as double tap.

USB On-The-Go/HDMI Out/FM Transmitter/Internet Radio:

USB OTG is also one of the most prominent features in Nokia N8. To read more about USB OTG, go and wiki about it. Nokia N8 comes with a bundled USB On-The-Go adapter cable. It gives you an up hand to use your external USB drives e.g. USB Flash/Pen drive, USB HDD etc. as listed by Nokia. But some more hidden uses of this feature include the usage of USB Keyboard and USB Mouse. I also tried to connect my HP USB Printer to attach but Nokia N8 didn’t recognize it. You can try with your printer as USB On-The-Go really means direct connectivity to external USB devices so most of them should work with it. Go and try your USB devices.

Internet Radio is the add-on application preinstalled in Nokia N8 which includes a wide range of local Pakistani FM channels in the directory. Just connect to any feasible internet connection whether it’s data connection or WLAN and listen to your favorite FM channel.

Very rarely mentioned in reviews about FM Transmitter in Nokia N8 is really useful in your car, when no connectivity cable is in your reach. You can just turn the FM Transmitter on in your Nokia N8, play the music and tune your car stereo player into the frequency you set to broadcast on your Nokia N8. See how you can use FM-Transmitter in Nokia N8.

HDMI is just a great source of throwing high definition videos out of the Nokia N8 right on your HDTV. You would really feel excellent quality out there on your HDTV as Nokia N8 is bundled with many popular codecs currently being used. Just play any high definition video in your Nokia N8 and watch on your HDTV.

Playback/Recoding formats:

Recording formats: (25 fps)

• H.263 [QCIF 15fps 60kbps, audio 3gpp 12.2kbps 8kHz]
• H.264/AVC [H.264 baseline profile 3.1 720p 25fps 6Mbps mp4, audio AAC-LC 128kbps 48kHz stereo]
• MPEG-4

Playback formats: (30 fps)

• 3GPP formats (H.263)
• Flash Video
• H.264/AVC [H.264 Baseline, Main & High profiles 3.1 30fps 14Mbps]
• MPEG-4 [Advanced simple profile level 6 30fps 12Mbps. Audio: stereo 48kHz 128kbps]
• RealVideo 10 [QVGA 30fps]
• Sorenson Spark
• VC-1
• VP6
• WMV 9

Stereo audio recording is really needed to mention.

Improved Ovi Store:

The Ovi Store is really improved in Nokia N8 in regards to the navigation. It’s lot changed than the earlier versions of Ovi Store application in previous platforms. The new Ovi Store is based on Qt framework so it requires the Qt libraries already installed on the device which actually are.

The strange thing is that the whole Ovi Store application does have a white background while Nokia clearly said on the Nokia N8’s FAQs[19] page that it’s better to choose the darker theme for the battery to server more, because the AMOLED display requires more power when used brighter colors, which is true indeed. Then why Nokia itself designed the full application having a white background. The “Social” app and the “topApps” app are also fully designed with white background just like the “Ovi Store” app.

The AMOLED display in your device consumes more power with white color. Therefore the themes with a lot of white colors (e.g. in wallpaper image) may consume more power than the other themes.

I would like to see the next version of the application in darker color. The black background would actually suite it in even better way.

GPS and Navigation:

It really needs to mention about the GPS. It’s excellent in Nokia N8 than ever. It’s performance is better without any doubt. However in Pakistan we don’t have any use, yet so far, of Ovi Maps which is bundled with Nokia N8 with free-for-life navigation. But as I said we can’t use Ovi Maps in Pakistan because of no local detailed map data is available on Ovi Maps. But I personally have tested the GPS with GMobile XT and I can say that it was a great experience on Nokia N8.

Google Maps is also of course good on it but you will need a high data volume for online maps downloads all the way. If you don’t have unlimited data plan then I’ll not recommend to use Google Maps.

OK! I am not remembering any thing else but the main reason of liking and enjoying the Nokia N8 is that its build quality, design, faster response, and the competitive touch-screen. With all the great features it’s of course is a lovely device.

But before you go with these I would like to mention some points I didn’t like in Nokia N8

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The Bad Things

• I’ve already mention that Nokia should consider to improve more in the user interface on Symbian^3 and preferably the through out navigation before its too late, because after iPhone 3G navigation on touchscreen smartphones has been completely changed. Nokia should have done it already. As personally I liked Nokia N8 with all which it currently has, I would like the next release of the firmware to be more optimized.
• Ah! the Nokia Browser…. However it’s much improved than the ones in earlier versions but I still didn’t like it. It does have pinch-to-zoom capability as well as double tap. Even I use it almost daily a few times. But it still doesn’t compete the Safari browser in iPhone or the one in Androids. It does have Flash support in browser and most of the in-page videos it can play, including the youtube (desktop site). It renders pages very well just like the other browsers. The smoothness of moving around on the page is also improved, but not upto the caliber of the other competing smartphones. The thing I didn’t like it for is the navigation inside the browser which still is the same as in earlier versions. The same big URL box at bottom, the big toolbox panel on right when in landscape mode. The keyboard covers the full screen when need to type any where on the page e.g. form fields. The thing to note is that I didn’t put the browser in the Good things.. But I hope it will be improved in next release as being rumored about it.
• Most of the reviewers mentioned that Nokia N8 now supports the single tap interface. Yes! it does, but it’s not native while it should have been. Over the native navigation and apps show up the single tap capability and it’s actually nice. But it currently has to be designed with in the app where as I think. There are some applications including the native Camera app which still are not capable of reacting on single tap. And as well the most of the third party apps come with the double tap interaction. However some third party apps built with the Qt framework does support single tap interaction.
• The design flaw in technical sense, which I mentioned above. It’s actually the un managed ports and buttons around the device. As the headset jack and the HDMI port is lying on the top panel of the device. So you just can’t use the device in landscape mode specially when texting along with the headset inserted in the jack and/or the HDMI cable is connected. Not as much bad for me, but I noticed it that some people wouldn’t feel comfortable with it so I listed this fact.
• The Social Network App is one of the Add-on applications came preinstalled in Nokia N8, is just not usable. It needs a lot of improvement. However there is many third party apps. But I think if Nokia has put the one as Nokia Social App preinstalled in this smartphone, it should be enough for users rather than they go searching for some other source.

Some browser layouts

And this is all I didn’t like about it. Which in short I can say that the most prominent things which are still not lovable include the Browser, The User Interface and the Social integration.

Last but not the least the Battery Timing. Power/Battery Management, as I mentioned above about it Nokia always had a lead in power management in its phones. It’s the best to go for a Nokia smartphone when it comes to the battery durability. I would say the same for Nokia N8. Not same but I have good opinion for the battery time in Nokia N8. I used it all the day mostly with WLAN turned on and in working state. I browsed, downloaded content, audio, video, and blah blah. And it could last up to 10 hours until the power saving mode was activated. It does have the power saving mode which automatically activates when the battery goes under the critical stage. In this state most of the power consuming features are disabled e.g. the background animations, theme effects, etc. The thing is that Nokia added only 1200mAh of battery in Nokia N8 which could have done even more if the higher capacity battery would have added. My Nokia E52 even have 1500mAh.

General Overview

To mention that the Nokia N8 doesn’t have portrait qwerty keyboard yet in current release, which hopefully is being added in PR1.1. And I would not add this thing in bad things and nor in the good things yet. Because I didn’t feel any thing bad about it even on T9 style keypad when in portrait mode. But many could suppose it to be a bad thing in Nokia N8 (well it is, actually) including the fact when the keyboard (in portrait or landscape mode) covers the full screen when you type.  Hope that it would be managed better in the next release of software.

On the other hand the Swype Keyboard Utility which is not native in Nokia N8 but it came out first for C7 and later for N8. This is very text friendly utility software which actually overrides the native QWERTY keyboard in Symbian devices. You would really want to see it’s usage, just google it. I personally liked it and would prefer this on a non-swype keyboard in any device.

So with all above features and some bad things, which actually can be fixed or added in future as apparently the Symbian^3 is very flexible now with Qt framework. So I don’t think there’s gonna be much work to add newer features. My personal opinion about the Nokia N8 is just more than positive to go for. It’s just a lovely device. I already said that I am enjoying it a lot and just waiting for the second release PR1.1 to arrive.

That’s all for now. I really tried not to be biased towards Nokia N8. I just wrote every thing which “I” liked and which “I” didn’t like. I tried to put every thing which “I” think, the Nokia has improved a lot or if some thing where, there is still room for improvement. So I hope you would have liked the review.

Your feedback will be much appreciated.