The Nokia N8 is a currently unreleased camera phone from Nokia. It was announced in April, 2010 and has an expected release date of Quarter 3, 2010, which is July to September. In this article we will cover why you should be looking forward to potentially the best camera/Smartphone released this year and should post pone signing any length contracts until this phone is released.
Nokia N8 Front Look
The main selling point of the upcoming Nokia N8 is its 12MP camera, backed up by its 720p HD video recording. It also has a lot of quirky features like smile and face detection along with geo-tagging. Samples from test models show very good results that rival today’s compact cameras. And as the phone has HSUPA you can upload your high quality pictures to your favourite social network site such as Facebook and other more photo-orientated sites such as Flickr.
The heart of the phone is the large 3.5 inch touch screen which is similar size to the iPhone although this screen is expected to be more widescreen. The touch screen has a resolution of 360×640 and this is much higher than the iPhone for example, which has a measly 320×480 in comparison, but sadly not as impressive as the HTC Desire which has a resolution of 480×800 and a 3.7inch screen, but is still very good and we can expect pictures to look nice and sharp.
Nokia N8 Screen
The touch screen is capacitive, which means it uses the bodies electrical properties. This results in being able to use it with just light touches but cannot be used with gloved hands or styluses and typically you can do ‘multi-touch’ gestures. Think of the famous pinch to zoom technology on the iPhone if you cannot understand. The iPhone and HTC desire also use this technology. Finally the display is AMOLED which basically means that compared to traditional TFT touch screens, colours will appear more vibrant and has a greater viewing angle so you can easily show friends that funny picture you found.
Nokia N8 Camera
The phone also has all the necessary connectivity you need, with HSDPA and HSUPA providing fast internet anywhere and we advise getting a data plan with this phone to get the most out of the phone. And for when you are at home you can connect to your Wi-Fi for even faster browsing and downloading speeds provided you have a fast internet connection. And it of course has both Bluetooth and infrared connectivity so you can send and receive multimedia files from your friends.
Also this phone can easily double as a satnav with the award winning Ovi-Maps which relies on the phones built in GPS to give you directions to places. I have used it on my Nokia 5230, and can confirm this is practically identical to a dedicated sat nav such as the Tom-Tom. You can download maps for any country in the world for free. The Ovi-Maps application is also free.
The phone runs the Symbian ^3 OS which although isn’t as popular as Android and as user friendly as the iPhone OS, it is stable and has a lot of the popular programs supporting it such as Opera Mobile, which is, in my opinion, the best web browser for phones and it is most likely the number one ‘third-party’ web browser. If you have used for example the Nokia 5800 you will be at home with the Symbian OS. This phone would be perfect if it was running Androids operating system.
This phone also has a huge 16GB of built in memory, and if that isn’t enough you can have up to 32GB extra storage through the MicroSD card slot, although 32GB memory cards are still ‘early-adopter’ technology so expect to shed out quite a bit if you want the max storage you can possibly get.
This phone will most likely be marketed as a camera and music phone, but as we can tell it might be classed as a Smartphone. The selling point of this phone is clearly the 12MP camera. I expect this phone might launch with the ‘comes-with-music’ program which allows unlimited track downloads for at least a year from the Nokia Music Store.
We can also expect to see colourful ads for this phone as it is available in many colours such as the business like dark grey or white, but it will also be available in more ‘quirky’ colours such as green, blue and orange. This is the first time Nokia have tried to enter the customization niche bar their rather weak attempt with the Nokia 5230 and its changeable back plates. These colours cover the front as well and are not interchangeable so be sure to pick the right colour.
This phone is seemingly being regarded as the up market Nokia X6 and we can predict it will be ‘free’ on £30 a month 24 month contracts on a variety of UK networks but we cannot comment on US contracts, as we are unsure if it will be an exclusive, and maybe subsidised on lower contracts. We are predicting a SIM-Free cost of roughly £400 and maybe £350 on PAYG when you go through a network.
In conclusion, we strongly expect it to be the phone everyone wants so before you commit yourself to a 24 month contract, consider waiting for this phone particularly if you are going to be getting a ‘high-level’ contract around the £30+ a month range. At the very least the phone you are looking at currently will be available for £5-£10 a month cheaper in 6 months time.
Nokia N8
Although if you are urgent to get a new phone we would recommend you consider the HTC Desire which is similar in many ways to the Nokia N8, bar the lower quality camera but it does have Android which is commonly regarded as the best phone OS out at the moment, albeit a bit ‘geeky’ but it is quickly becoming more user friendly, and rivals the iPhone OS but with a open platform and support for many popular features such as Multi-tasking which can be very useful.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Finally a post worth my time. Blogs are just getting so boring nowadays. If only more people wrote like you..! Regards, Sean Mandolini,
An interesting article indeed!
However, I have a feeling that there will be a lot of loyal Nokia users who will certainly not want to wait for a further 6 months after release to be able to put this new model through its paces… me for one!