Nokia today introduced their first Symbian^3 device, the Nokia N8. It is a web aware, content creation and consumption smartphone flagship in a monoblock touch form factor. It features a 12 megapixel camera with Xenon flash and the ability to record 720p (HD) videos, a 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen with support for multi-touch gestures, 16 GB of mass memory, microSD card slot, HDMI out, FM transmitter, integrated GPS and comprehensive connectivity options (3G, Bluetooth, microUSB and b/g/n WiFi).
The phone will ship with a full range of Ovi services (Maps, Music, Messaging and Store) and marks the debut of Web TV and Social Networking integration service. With Symbian^3 comes a number of changes both to the platform and the UI. Among the highlights are support for multi-page homescreen, a renewed music experience with cover flow and easier access to albums, visual task switcher, streamlined menu structure with Direct UI single tap paradigm and much more.
The Nokia N8 will be available in Q3 2010 at a cost of €370 before taxes and subsidies.
Read on in the full article.
Or what the Idou/Satio should have been. ;/
Well a big HURRAH to this is all I can say. Lots of new good stuff, and a tacit admission that LEDs simply do NOT cut it for a high end camera phone (hello iPhone 4G/HD and your pinhole LED flash!). I think this is a great looking device spec wise, and frankly the one I've been waiting for - a worthy successor to the N82.
I also think the spec is highly competitive. While we are bound to see some poor souls whinging about this, that, or the other (come on whingers - I'm sure you can find something to moan about! 😉 ), this handset easily matches up to, and indeed beats the latest Androids and the next iPhone - especially considering a Symbian OS which is much better and more efficient in processor usage and battery conservation.
It is interesting to note that the next iPhone will, out of all it's touted advantages, only have one advantage that has not been matched by Nokia in this particular handset, and that's the rumoured pixel resolution, which is really not that important, 640 X 320 is very respectable and good enough I think. Software wise, the UI now clearly exceeds the iPhone, and easily matches Androids for anyone considering those. And the price is unmatched.
Good work Nokia, and I'm sure there will be others. And it's also encouraging that Nokia have held back the release to make some further improvements to the handset rather than releasing it in 'beta' form and making people wait for necessary firmware upgrades.
I look forward to reviews of the *finished* product (because there is no point to any review that does not cover the thing I will actually be spending money on).
Orange one is just cool and the price is reasonable could get this one.
It's a freakin nice offer at this price! 12MP w/Xenon cam, record in HD, free Nav, web TV, 16GB internal plus external card slot, 3 homescreens w/ tons of widgets, the design is finally good.. damn!!!
Nokia is finally pulling it together on the design department! They will sell this phone just purely on design, adding all those extra features is just killing the competition.
Hope it's not slow, it shouldn't be with 256MB of RAM. I have seen the green one with QWERTY in some blogs a couple months ago and it pretty much resembled this phone just with a slide out qwerty, I think once thats out Nokia will hold it's own quite well against the competition until Symbian^4 rolls out.
This device is going to kick the living shit out of the Apple and HTC, if Nokia delivers on the promise and price as announced!
1200mAh non-removable battery doesn't sound too promising
Dont forget Symbian has always been better at battery management than any other OS and Symbian3 has also more improvements with regards to power consumption.
I hope so, but multiple screens of widgets all connecting over 3G is never going to be battery friendly.
This is the device I have been looking for, I was almost there with the i8910 but this one is it.
I am staggered by the price, that is what makes it even more amazing!
This is suddenly so much better looking than the pics that came out earlier. Almost everythg I've hoped for is here, including xenon/led combo. And with that processor and ram, the nightmares with S^1 will hopefully be a thing of the past. And that �370 price is just sooo in yer face! Suck on that u whingers. And this is just the start.
Bravo Nokia 😊. A really good specced device! It took you long enough but now I can see why, this phone looks seriously promising! And I'm glad as competition is a GOOD thing and will drive the other handset makers to keep on innovating 😊
My only critiscism however is they haven't innovated at all tbh, everything on the handset has been done before (Better? Who knows) and some features down right stolen *Cough* Coverflow *Cough*. But that's honestly the only thing I can complain about, and for a Nokia handset, that's astonishing 😊
I look forward to American tech blogs now desperately trying to justify the latest Androids and the next iPhone in light of this device. Hopefully they will be man enough to admit an amazing handset when they see it, and not desperately try and nit-pick just because it's not iPhone or Android - i.e. US homegrown technology.
You wanted competition Apple and Google? You got competition. Lots and lots of it 😊
Great phone.
As for phone manufacturers stealing features from others, going to boil from my black kettle first.
So we're getting a non-removable battery and potentially a *slow* processor with *only* 256 MB RAM.
...sounds to me like we could be hearing a lot of iPhone style arguments going on in the near future.
The other problem Nokia are going to have is that the interface on Symbian^3 looks almost identical to that on Symbian^1, and that unfortunately now has a very bad reputation in the market place. When pitced to a normob against Android or iPhone (or Bada) Symbian^3 still looks clunky 😞
Finally, a worthy successor to the N82!
This phone should've been here in 2008 but I take it that Nokia lost its way and made some huge mistakes, happy to see them back on track now. :icon14:
> and some features down right stolen *Cough* Coverflow *Cough*
I fully support Nokia where they have copied from Apple - and noting that Apple for example ripped off multitouch from other earlier places. I want a handset with the best features, I don't care if they showed up somewhere else first. Nokia innovated enough for the past 20+ years in mobiles to have nothing to prove on that front.
Both Apple and Google have fully copied from Nokia previously, especially in less obvious areas - Apple are being sued royally by Nokia in the US courts right now because they used GSM tech and other mobile innards directly invented by Nokia and which all other manufacturers pay Nokia a license fee for but which Apple somehow thought they were special and didn't have to...
And remember, if multitouch, coverflow weren't on this handset, you'd all be saying 'Whinge whinge I'm getting an iPhone instead because it has multitouch and coverflow etc etc." 😊
have they done anything about the horrible touchscreen keyboard implementation that currently plagues s60 5th edition?
It is the single biggest problem with the ui atm imo.
Go on nokia. just do it like winmo,android and iphone. i.e not covering the entire screen.
This apparently runs on the BL-4D battery. What makes you think it isn't user replaceable?
iFanboy wrote:Bravo Nokia 😊. My only critiscism however is they haven't innovated at all tbh,
12mp with largest ever imaging sensor in a mobile
720p video with stereo audio recording
28mm wideangle Carl Zeiss optics
Xenon flash
HDMI
16GB on board + uSD slot
50 + hours music playback
OLED display
enacsed in glass and metal
the list goes on... all in a single product
Is that not innovation??
Looks great on paper (except that UI from 2007).
Now, from someone who has used one:
http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2010/birulki-64.shtml
(Apologies in advance for the shocking translation)
"In the aspect of the interface can only say one thing. All changes Symbian ^ 3 describes jackstraws earlier . I can only express my thoughts. In short - do not like. No development that we see in Android, iPhone OS, other systems, the same Bada from Samsung. Exactly the same as it was before with the same sauce, but with little change in functionality. Brushed, washed, but not polished. They made cosmetic customization, which should appeal to users. And she does not like. The feeling is that Nokia had settled in fairyland, in which users buy products company tons. However, it is not. And Nokia N8 as the flagship looks not just pale, it is something vague. Advertising to attract attention, will sell and sell. To scare Nokia brand even more people. The sense that the ranks of Nokia scouts ran into another vendor who conduct sabotage. Purposefully destroying the brand Nokia. Step by step. Otherwise it is impossible to explain what is happening."
So yes, if you're Nokia you can try to polish a turd.
And the same guy said the N900 was crap too so what does that tell us?
"This apparently runs on the BL-4D battery. What makes you think it isn't user replaceable? "
The words 'non-removable' in the original post (now partly changed).
The most important aspect of this N8 is.... it has the <b>RIGHT price</b>
N97 were great, but not for that price.
N8 with US$499 will surely rule the world
Great job nokia
This is GREAT!!!
Unregistered wrote:Now, from someone who has used one:
http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2010/birulki-64.shtml
Or who has actually used some pre production betas and can't really find that much to moan about. Mind you, although Eldar kind of blew his credibility a bit with the N900 I do share some of his concerns and I'll need to see this phone in action before making a decision.
That said, Symbian^3 get rid of my two biggest gripes - single/double tap UI inconsistency and network connection confirmation messages. If it tidies up the menu system even better. It's also a fair bet that, as with their recent popular phones, Nokia will continue to improve the firmware as time goes by.
The biggest wow here is the price point - �320 for a phone of that specification is just crazy. Unless Nokia have really buggered up the UI - and, no, that's not the same as not introducing something radical - this looks like a hit.
Dazzy wrote:And the same guy said the N900 was crap too so what does that tell us?
The N900 is crap, it runs a obsolete OS, has poor phone functionality, is 2cm thick when modern phones are 1.5cm or less, doesn't have mass market appeal, etc...
If Symbian 3 UI is anything like Symbian 5th edition it's going to be called crap, hopefully it won't or will improve quickly but early indications is otherwise.
Unregistered wrote:The N900 is crap, it runs a obsolete OS, has poor phone functionality, is 2cm thick when modern phones are 1.5cm or less, doesn't have mass market appeal, etc...If Symbian 3 UI is anything like Symbian 5th edition it's going to be called crap, hopefully it won't or will improve quickly but early indications is otherwise.
You're a Troll. There's one on my desk - it kicks arse and its OS kicks the non-multitasking iPhone's plastic butt. Do you have one?
Love the phone... My hands are itching to grab it.
Folks, dont mind me for criticizing, but past experience says that whenever Nokia releases something "new", the software is all buggy and to the extend that it receives a lot of flak and some handsets are written off. True, usually Nokia fixes them through firmware updates, but sometimes the product has just lost its reputation. Lets hope that in this phone's case, the firmware is a lot more stable at launch as compared to the previous launches. I don't expect a bug free phone, but do appreciate a small bug list.
The transalation by google in one the earlier posts really does not give it the justice. The reviewer, Eldar Murtazov, is definitely not very happy with the device, but at least in my opinion he does not belong to the category of people who will happily bash every new product from Nokia. This guy seems to be genuinly sad that the device is a somewhat modified clone of X6. In his opinion it will kill Nokia's presence in the high end for some time in the future. Murtazov's state of mind seems to be best summarized by the following passage, already quoted above:
Ощущение, что в ряды Nokia затесались разведчики другого производителя, которые проводят саботаж. Целенаправленно разрушая марку Nokia. Шаг за шагом. Иначе объяснить происходящее невозможно.
It leaves the impression that inside of Nokia there are saboteurs from another manufacturer. They on purpose destroy the brand. Step by step. Otherwise it is impossible to explain what is happening.
http://www.mobile-review.com/articles/2010/birulki-64.shtml