Nokia N8 - Review

“The Nokia N8 is a significant threat to the iPhone 4, Samsung Galaxy S and most cameraphones. But slow app load times and numerous minor niggles stop the smartphone from being truly great”

HDMI video connection

Nokia N8: top notch video and camera features

The Nokia N8 is a valiant attempt at designing a smartphone with enough sex appeal and cutting-edge features to compete with the Samsung Galaxy S and Apple’s mighty iPhone 4.

As I held the N8 for the first time, I was struck by how sturdy and well constructed it feels. This is probably due to its “Anodized aluminium casing.”

But did that same feeling of quality continue as I tested the rest of the smartphone? In many areas, yes. But in some other important areas, sadly not.

The N8’s 12Mp camera is undeniably one of its best bits.

A shortcut button on one side of the phone booted the camera app in seconds and images snapped by the 12Mp lens were simply superb - sharp, crisp and, thanks to the integrated flash, bright.

Various image editing tools, including face recognition, crop and solarise, also helped make my pictures feel more personal.

The N8’s HDMI port is another of the smartphone’s strengths, because it lets you display literally anything on the phone’s screen on a big HD TV instead.

You need to buy an HDMI cable for this, but these days you can get one for £6 upwards, and it’ll be a wise investment when you discover how the N8’s “Web TV” channels (services like BBC iPlayer, basically) transform your living room telly into an internet-connected TV.

I spent several hours streaming BBC iPlayer shows from the N8 to my TV and, although colours were a little washed out, the overall experience was good.

Symbian^3 operating system

Apps are a sore point on the N8

I also played videogame Angry Birds on my TV, using the phone to control the action, and showed off the N8’s superior photographs to friends by displaying them on the TV.

Long periods of video playback drain the N8’s battery fairly quickly, as you might expect. But on balance I thought the N8’s battery life was very good - an entire day of use without a recharge.

Unfortunately the N8 crashed several times while streaming videos to my TV. Then after I unplugged the phone and HDMI cable, the smartphone’s menu layout messed up (see “Photos” tab) until I restarted it.

The N8 is one of Nokia’s first smartphones to run the Symbian^3 operating system (OS). The OS is a marked improvement from older Symbian versions, which run on more basic Nokia mobiles, and give the N8 an iPhone-ish aura.

Like the iPhone, the N8 is controlled by numerous apps spread across a series of homescreens.

Unlike the iPhone however, the N8 makes finding apps easier by dedicating one homescreen to apps, another to internet TV services and the third to email and music.

Ovi Store - Nokia’s answer to the iPhone App Store - still doesn’t contain many noteworthy apps. But keep in mind that Ovi Store is still in its infancy and contains many of the mainstream apps, including Facebook.

Apps occasionally took several seconds to load. Despite getting used to this quite quickly, the phone’s app sluggishness is still annoying.

Email and internet access was generally a pleasant experience on the N8, albeit with a few niggles.

12Mp camera

The N8's 12Mp camera took superb pictures

Web-based email accounts, such as Hotmail, can be swiftly and easily accessed and sorted on the Nokia N8. Webpages loaded quickly, were easy to zoom around using multi-touch and played Flash videos.

However, typing text while holding the phone vertically was painful because a full Qwerty keypad’s only displayed when you hold the smartphone horizontally. Nokia could probably fix this with a software update, though.

The process for scrolling back through previously visited webpages is also somewhat confusing, I found.

The N8’s music capabilities can’t be faulted. Connecting the phone to a computer, moving albums around and then flicking through them on the phone was all straightforward.

Music quality was good too, with lovers of powerful bass and more eclectic musical tastes - including Jazz - well catered for with a range of audio settings.

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