Nokia N8 Review

After releasing the ahead-of-its-time N95 in 2007, Nokia did not keep pace with Apple, HTC, Motorola, and various handset-makers. Now, Nokia has rolled out the N8, whose 12-megapixel camera puts it at or near the surface of all smart phones with regards to still and video-recording capabilities.

Design
The N8 measures 4.3 x 2.4 x 0.6 inches and weighs 3.7 ounces. Its rounded edges are similar to the apple iphone, but the two ends of the N8 taper in slightly. The N8's camera and flash protrude jarringly from the back, but the device's dark aluminum case looks stylish and is particularly comfortable to keep.The front of the N8 is covered with the touchscreen; one particular home/menu button is below in the bottom left corner. The left side incorporates a microSD slot, a Sim slot, as well as a microUSB charging port. The right side incorporates a volume bar, a sleep button, as well as a physical camera button for carrying pictures.

Keyboard
The horizontal virtual keyboard is really a full QWERTY one that is quicker but has small input keys that are all the same size. Both keyboards have haptic feedback, which had been sufficiently strong enough to note, and not overwhelming. Still, Android smart phones and the iPhone have both portrait and landscape QWERTY keyboards, making it simpler to type it doesn't matter how you possess those devices.

Display
The display offers a built-in accelerometer and pinch-to-zoom support. The responsiveness of both features is a little inconsistent. On occasion, it can be quick or instantaneous, and at additionally, there can be hook delay. This is also true of the touch screen on the whole. For the most part, it registered our touches but there was occasions where it just didn't respond or that it was so slow to answer that individuals thought there were a dilemma. Also, scrolling through lists and home screen panels isn't quite as smooth or zippy as it is some competing phones.

User Interface
Nokia chose to use the new Symbian^3 operating system for the N8, which is essentially the earlier version of Symbian OS optimized for touch screens. It adds in home screens, multitouch, and HDMI outputting, but it still lacks the intuitiveness and sophistication of competing mobile OSes. Each screen can be customized with widgets just like an e-mail preview or shortcuts for apps, but the process involves several more steps than Android does. Say, one example is, you desired to feature the camera shortcut to the screen. First, you have to press and hold the screen thirty seconds until it buzzes; a box and plus sign might appear for you to include a wigdet.

Performance
The Nokia N8 has a 680-MHz ARM 11 processor and 256MB of RAM. The latest Android devices and various smartphones typically carry 1-GHz processors and twice that level of RAM. When all apps are closed, the N8 runs smoothly, specifically when flipping the orientation from landscape to portrait (the phone posseses an accelerometer) or flicking between the three homepages. But after you adapt apps and some are open, the device decelerates and mars the experience.

Multimedia and Camera
The best feature of the N8 is its 12-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with flash, which produced several of the best photos we have seen at a camera phone. The camera targets its subjects quickly, and there's a plethora more selections for modifying white balance, exposure, ISO, contrast, and color tone. Furthermore, it has facial recognition software that even conditions posters of people's faces.Outdoor photos with good sunlight looked gorgeous with plenty of detail and eye-popping color. Specifically, a picture of dogs playing within a park looked fantastic--we often see the detail of their fur. The N8 took photos over a par with the iPhone; within a shot of flowers outdoors. The video abilities on the N8 are usually top-of-the-line. 720p HD videos look sharp, specifically when shot outside with decent lighting. Videos were steady with few artifacts and heavy variety of detail besides poor lighting. Sound also came through loud and clear. Rrt had been uncomplicated to connect the N8 to a HDTV via HDMI using the included adapter; we had arrived watching our home movies on the hd right away, and were impressed using their smoothness

Call Quality
The call quality on the N8 was simply OK--not great, and not bad either. Using both AT&T and T-Mobile over 3G, voices sounded slightly bare but the volume may get plenty loud in the earpiece. Callers said we sounded fine, but slightly fuzzy. The speakerphone is additionally just decent. The main speaker is on the backside of the phone, close to the camera speaker also it can the simple to accidentally cover it up if you are holding the phone with speakerphone enabled.

Battery life
Considering the specs for the Nokia N8 the process under way fret about the battery life when you consider it's only 1200mAh, this is a lot below its competitors, many of which pick a 1500mAh power cell. However, the nice thing is the Nokia N8 belies this spec and actually will outlast plenty of its peers with regards to battery prowess.