Better Late Than Never – My Nokia N8 Review

This is a review of Nokia N8. Got it from WOM/World Nokia for a three-week-trial on January. Adorable pictures coming up…

NOTE: I’m sorry about the delay. This review is six months late because I’ve been very busy and tired with school and haven’t had time to write. I started this review back in January and I finished it now on June. Some things may have been updated and improved on N8. I may have forgotten some important points too. But better late than never right?

N8 – Design

N8 has a simple design: it is a big, one peace touchscreen device with few buttons. At first I doubted that it would be very slippery to hold. Thankfully I realized that it actually fitted my hand pretty well and there had been only few times when it has almost flown off my hand. Although I doubt that others with different shape of hands might have trouble with that. I have held iPhone 3 (which surface is very smooth and slippery) before and compared to it N8 is much more comfy to hold.

In the front of the device N8 has a Menu key. The position of the menu key is a bit uncomfortable, because it is so down on the device. Holding the device with one hand and trying to reach the menu button with your thumb might cause you a dangerous situation (my thumb is kind of short though). When I want to press the Menu button I have to hold the device with other hand and press it with another. The screen is a finger print and dirt magnet.

Camera, Lock and Volume keys

On the right side of the device there are Camera, lock and volume keys. Care has to be taken when using the dedicated camera button because pressing it to hard may cause the phone to shake and make the camera loose focus. Locking the device is fast and the surface of the button is a bit rough so it was easy to slide. No complains about volume keys. The volume rocker can be used while screen is locked unlike on E72 and N97 Mini.

Micro SD, SIM and USB

On the left side there are Micro SD memory card (up to 48 GB) and SIM card slots. Adding SIM card is much easier on N8 since you don’t have to open the device and add it under the battery.

Power Key, HDMI and 3,5 mm AV connector

2 mm Charging connector

On the back N8 has a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics. As you can see you can’t easily remove the cover to see the battery. N8 is a first Nokia phone which you can’t replace battery on your own. N8 has a BL-4D 1200 mAh Li-Ion battery. Battery was not particularly great. It lasted as long as it lasts in a normal smart phone. The device didn’t heat up though during charging and the battery did last longer than on both E72 and N97 Mini.

N8 – Usage

The operating system on N8 is Symbian ^3. Touch screen of the N8 is much much better than in N97 Mini. It was smooth and usable. Getting used to the touch screen took much longer than I thought. I love hardware keyboards so that can be reason why I never really got used to typing with touch screen. Even after three weeks I was slow with text messages and it frustrated me. I didn’t even tweet as much as I did with other phones. This is my personal view. I believe people who have fast fingers and have handled touch devices before can find N8′s screen easy to handle.

Touch screen of the phone can turn 180 degrees and sometimes it was very slow to turn.

Texting

Qwerty on N8

Text message conversation

I love the conversation view you can have on N8. This is a feature I miss. I have E72 and I wish I could have this on it too.

Music

You can’t search music from the library but sliding the list is cool and easy. No complains about the music player.

Browsing And Connection

The browser on N8 is pretty good and viewing sites is easy on the big screen. At home on wifi worked fine. But at school browser refused to work and the connection failed. I tried it around the building and nothing helped. My friend was using the wifi on her phone (Nokia 5630 XpressMusic) also and hers worked fine.

My site on N8 browser

Trying to log in Wireless

Login failed

Applications

I used Gravity and Nimbuzz. Chatting with N8 is not fluent because A. You can’t see incoming messages while you’re trying to type because the keyboard fills the whole screen. B. Because if you’re slow to type you’re always behind in the conversation. Unfortunately Skype isn’t available for N8 (or at least it is not working well on it). Gravity was nice on N8.

Nimbuzz

Gravity

 

Camera

Camera on N8 is 12 megapixels which is huge for a phone. However taking pictures on N8 is challenging if your hand isn’t steady. I didn’t have time to take too much pictures with the phone but I got some good and clear shots with it. I would definitely want to carry around a phone with this good quality camera. Pictures taken with N8 can sometimes be as good as photos taken with system cameras.

Original Picture

Original picture

N8 – Thoughts And Conclusion

Good old Symbian N8 is a great camera phone. Taking pictures with this phone requires some practice and steady hands. It is not a business phone but it is not a social media phone either like N97 Mini was. N8 is a nice multimedia phone with HDMI. It can play almost any video format and has a lot of memory for movies example. You can shoot HD video and send it to TV from phone via HDMI. In my opinion youtubers and everyone who enjoys shooting videos anywhere should consider this phone. Personally this phone wouldn’t work for me because it doesn’t match to my needs. I’m happy with my E72 for now. :)