Nokia has released the N8, a multitouch smartphone with a 12MP camera. It runs Symbian^3, a new version of an old operating system. Nokia clearly hopes it will help carve back some of the profits that the rest of the industry has been losing to Apple, but what are initial reports like?
Nokia itself blazed triumphant with a post crammed with photos like the one above. Customers in Helsinki, Beijing, Shanghai and Moscow were very keen to get their hands on a new N8, it said.
Lisa Gade at Mobile TechReview had one of the first reviews we saw, with a comprehensive video looking at the device from every angle. On the whole, she liked it. It’s clear that the N8 is a solid and sturdy device, although you could see that the touch screen was not always immediately responsive to her commands (that might have been to do with holding the phone awkwardly for filming, though).
Matthew Miller at ZDNet called it “the best Nokia Nseries ever made”, although he doubted that it would tempt many existing iPhone or Android owners, simply because Symbian^3 isn’t a very tempting OS.
The N8 is penta-band, has an HDMI out and mini USB ports, a microSD slot, and a 640×360 display. Like the iPhone, the battery is sealed in (although Engadget says you can get to it if you try).
Gareth Beavis at TechRadar like the camera, the finish, and the widgets; but disliked the browser and the OS as a whole. Overall, he said, “the Nokia N8 works in the same way as the Nokia N97 and the Nokia X6 should have worked when they were released.”
Steve Litchfield at All About Symbian wrote a good article comparing the N8 camera to its predecessors, with lots of example pictures. He declared that “the N8’s camera and its output will utterly delight you.”
What do you make of it? Can Symbian^3 compete with iOS and Android, or is Nokia running behind?
