Nokia N8 review: Director of photography (tech, news, mobile, phone, android, 2010, report, update, Auckland)

Introduction

We’ve come to take Nokia for granted in the low end or the business class but it seems it has lost the knack for killer phones, run out of royal blood. It’s up to the Nseries to fix it all up. The Nokia N8 may just turn out to be the right cure. With that kind of hardware, it’s a smartphone you’d be mad to ignore. For a change we are not talking netbook-grade processing power or loads of RAM. Nokia have instead given their flagship an industry-leading camera and stuff like HDMI port and USB-On-the-Go.  <http://tiny.cc/NokiaN8>

The Finnish engineers often like to make a point about Symbian being the most resource-effective OS. We’ve seen it run reasonably fast indeed on even slower CPUs. This time though it’s Symbian ^3, so we’ll have to see it again to believe it.

Key features

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Penta-band 3G with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA support
Sleek anodized aluminum unibody
3.5" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
12 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and 720p@25fps video recording
Camera features: large 1/1.83” camera sensor, mechanical shutter, ND filter, geo-tagging, face detection
Symbian^3 OS
680 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 256 MB RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
microHDMI port for 720p TV-out functionality
GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
Digital compass
16GB on-board storage, expandable through the microSD card slot
Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic

DivX and XviD video support
Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
Flash and Java support for the web browser
Stereo Bluetooth 3.0
Nice audio reproduction quality
Smart and voice dialing
Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display
Main disadvantages
Symbian^3 is still behind Android and iOS usability standards
No video light
Camera interface is decidedly outdated
Relatively limited 3rd party software availability
No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)
Video player has some issues
Battery life is not on par with best in the business
Battery is not user-replaceable
 
There’s certainly a lot of pressure on the Nokia N8. People are probably expecting more from it than the very guys who designed it. But the N8 was never meant to compete with the iPhone 4 or the Galaxy S. At least, that’s what Nokia will gladly have you believe.
You see, with the Nokia N8 it’s not about who the competition is. Not about the business benefits of a smartphone, not about the available apps. It’s about the best camera in the business. Now, we’ll have to see about that. Again.

The N8 already managed to put a dedicated digicam to shame in our recent blind test. But it will take more than that to get the thumbs up at the end of a full review. The camera is certainly impressive but it’s the overall balance and bang-for-buck that count most in our books here so the N8 better have more aces up its sleeve.
We pop the box open after the break.