The Nokia N8 is the best touch phone by Nokia so far.
There, I've said it and I mean it.
The N8's build quality is very good. Sturdy and solid, it sits in the hand very neatly and feels good with its cool aluminium casing and flush AMOLED 3.5" screen.
On the subject of the screen, it is a vast improvement over the TFT of the N97, although I would have liked a 3.7” for web browsing.
The beastie of a 12 mp camera mounted on the rear with its Xenon flash really looks, and is, the business.
Under the hood it has 256 MB of RAM, double that of the N97 classic, and roughly half of which is available during general use, a far cry from the measly 20 to 30 MB (or less) of the N97 classic.
The phone (C) memory is now 256 MB, which with the latest Ovi Maps 3.06, Nokia Midnight themes, SPB Shell and the two downloadable games plus sundry other app's, still leaves me with about 150 MB free.
Couple this with the 16 GB internal memory and the ability to add a 32 GB micro SD card and you have a mass storage monster.
Even the CPU has been ramped up from the N97 classics ARM 11 434 MHz to an ARM11 680MHz with 3D graphics HW accelerator.
Symbian ^3 is, outwardly, no different to its predecessor in appearance but it has, with the hardware, improved its performance over the N97. No more religiously closing each program before moving on to the next to conserve and husband RAM. This handset is designed to have multiple app's/program's running.
The built-in battery also offers a good life span too. Even with my initial "playing" with the N8 it only required charging at the end of the day and, in normal use, would probably last longer.
To those of you familiar with the N97, the layout of the N8 differs very little. The most obvious difference is the 3 home screen's of the N8 as opposed to the one of the N97. In all other respects and to all intents and purposes the layout and menu's and icons remain the same.
All in all, as I said at the beginning... The Nokia N8 is the best touch phone by Nokia so far.
So, why don't I like it?
"Hang on a minute", I hear you say. You just said it was, "The best touch phone by Nokia so far"... and so I did.
What I didn't say is, "It's the best touch phone on the market".
Therein lies the difference.
I've been a Nokia "fanboy" since the 3210 at the turn of the century. I've owned numerous smart phone’s from Nokia, the N80, N80IE, N95 and N95 8GB as well as my last phone, the N97.
However, a couple of months or so ago, I lost my beloved N97 handset and was forced to make an insurance claim. I was offered a selection of phones to replace my N97 classic, as it is no longer (within a year) manufactured by Nokia. I was gutted! I'd spent 100's of hours getting my N97 right. The GPS was fine, I wasn't experiencing too many crashes or freezes, so long as I was careful. I knew which app's worked and which didn't cause problems for various reasons. Whether it was due to bad programming or the limited N97 hardware.
Finally, I opted for the HTC Google Nexus running Android.
Mainly because I had heard and read good things about the Android platform and the Nexus had just been nominated as the Android developer handset.
When I first received the Nexus, it came with the latest and greatest, version of Android firmware (2.2 FroYo) on it, my initial reaction was that it didn't possess hardly any programmes and was very basic indeed but boy, oh boy, was it fast, slick and smooth.
No freezes, lags or crashes. I soon learnt that Android was all about customisation and began downloading app's that I wanted from the comprehensive, and very good, Android Market, in most cases, free-of-charge. I discovered that the ethos behind Android was to make it fully customizable and so I began searching out the app's that I missed from my N97... and they were there a plenty. What's more important, they worked!
More than that, the app's were updated automatically. No more trawling through the websites of various app designers to see if there was a newer version out. Also app designers that were previously bringing out stuff for Symbian were now doing the same for Android.
So now I could have Skype, Nimbuzz, Last FM and Truphone on the Nexus.
I do miss Ovi Maps with its downloadable map data already on the phone but, I have to say, Google is catching up with its real time navigation.
After the 100's of hours I'd spent backing up, restoring, reading, researching, tweaking, trialling, new and beta app's on the Nokia N97 in an effort to coax it into doing what I wanted it to do without crashing, freezing or locking up, the Android on 2.2 and the Nexus was a joy to use...
and that brings me to my point about the N8.
I was watching TV the other night and Stephen Fry, a British comedian, TV presenter, actor and self confessed techno freak, was fronting the new Windows Mobile launch. I found this odd as he's always been a big iPhone fan from the beginning.
However, one thing he said struck a chord with me and summed up my feelings on the Nokia N8 that, previously, I couldn't quite put my finger on.
He said that, "A mobile phone should also be fun and a joy to use".
The N8 isn't in my opinion. After receiving it nearly two weeks ago and opening it up, I can only describe my feelings after a few hours with it as "underwhelmed, disappointed and a feeling of d�j� vu".
In spite of the larger RAM, bigger CPU and Symbian^3, I started to notice the same things happening that I'd witnessed on the N97 classic and my feeling of d�j� vu is increasing the more I use it on a day to day basis.
Occasional lags, temporary screen freezes, multiple screen taps required, scrolling stiff and laggy.
I placed the identical photos, videos and music on the N8 as I had the Nexus and was disappointed immediately with the Gallery. I'd expected the Photo Browser from Nokia Beta Labs but was greeted by just a very basic long list of thumbnails that scrolled from top to bottom in portrait mode and also in landscape mode. I would have expected a side to side scroll in landscape.
The next thing that disappointed me was the built-in browser. It just seems so slow and antiquated now. The Android 2.2 browser leaves it standing, both in terms of speed and ease of use I’m afraid.
Also I find that the multi-touch (pinch and zoom) on both the Gallery photo's and the browser, is a bit hit-and-miss and can cause freezing of the screen.
Also be warned that not all Symbian 3 app’s will be directly compatible with Symbian^3 and so you may find yourself waiting for updates from developers, Nokia and various companies.
Don't get me wrong, the N8 could be a very good handset with some more firmware updates and the right app's installed on it (SPB Shell, which Sony Ericsson are pre installing on their Vivaz and Vivaz Pro, springs to mind), however, I remember saying that about the N97 classic and then endured a year of frustration trying to just make the phone usable.
After the N97 fiasco, what else can I call it? Nokia badly needed a smartphone to compete with the iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile and I just don't think that "out of the gate" the N8 on Symbian ^3 is it. I'm not the only one who thinks that, as Symbian seems to have been abandoned by Samsung and, Nokia's partner in Symbian, Sony Ericsson, a decision that I doubt either of them took lightly. Even developers are now switching to other platforms.
I'm no techno wiz. I'm just, I like to think, a fairly average mobile phone buyer and user who feels that Symbian ^3, whilst an improvement on Symbian 3, is merely a stop gap measure to allow Nokia to carry on selling smart phone's whilst it develops MeeGo from the ground up. Perhaps worse than that, I get the feeling that Symbian^3 is still, “work in progress.”
If you don’t believe me about Symbian^3 then just take a look around the forums and see the problems already being reported.
I believe Nokia have made some mistakes and are in danger of losing their overall share of the phone market worldwide but, in particular the smart phone market, because of some very poor decisions in the past that are still affecting them now. They have allowed the iPhones, the Androids and Windows Mobiles to get a foot hold on the smart phone ladder and boy, are they climbing. By my reckoning, Nokia are now a couple of years behind and cannot afford to slip any further.
Since receiving the N8 I've constantly been asked, "Is it better than the N97?"
The answer is most definitely, "Yes", but there again... it couldn't be much worse.
The next question is usually, "Is it worth the money?"
The answer to that is, "No". You can buy other smart phone's that are better, or just as good, for less or on better contract terms.
If I were to mark the Nokia N8 out of 10 on Design, Features and Performance, in day-to-day use, against that which I had hoped for, it would be...
Design
Hoped for... 9.0
In use... 9.0
Features
Hoped for... 8.5
In use... 7.5
Performance
Hoped for... 9.0
In use... 7.0
This brings me back to Stephen Fry and his comment again about being, "A fun thing, and a joy to use".
My answer to that is, "No". I believe from my time with the N8 so far, that it will require the same due diligence, man hours, frustration and research that the N97 required to make it useable, not to mention a few firmware upgrades, and I am just not prepared to go down that road again with the possibility that in less than a year’s time the N8 is discontinued or abandoned in favour of the next new Nokia smart phone running MeeGo.
In closing I would like to reiterate that I'm no expert on mobile phones such as the likes of Steve Lichfield, Rafe and Ewan. I'm just a Mr Joe Average, like most of you, who puts his hard earned money down and wants to own a smart phone that does what it says and, "is a joy and fun to use."
