The Nokia N8 is the latest flagship Nseries, flying the flag for Nokia’s fancy smartphone army. The question is — does it have anything that makes us want to buy one over a top Android like the HTC Desire, or Apple’s iPhone 4?
OS face-off
The Nokia N8 features an all-new version of the Symbian operating system — Symbian^3. This takes the long-term Nokia staple OS and brings it closer to rivals like Android by giving you more customisation options. Widgets and home screens are in, making the Nokia N8 more flexible than the iPhone 4 in simple personalisation terms.
Early reports on the Symbian^3 OS aren’t entirely complimentary though. Mobile-review’s Eldar Murtazin, who got his hands on an early, leaked version of the OS, says that in spite of improvements over the newest Symbian S60 OS, Symbian^3 just isn’t as good as Android. Symbian^4 is hot on Symbian^4’s heels too, suggesting that Nokia knows Symbian^3 isn’t quite as bombastic as originally intended.
In summary — Symbian^3 is better than S60, but not up there with the latest editions of Android and iOS
Camera crunch
Choosing the Nokia N8 over an iPhone 4 or top-end Android involves making a few smartphone sacrifices, but they’ll be worth it if you’re after an excellent camera phone. The Nokia N8 uses a fantastic 12-megapixel sensor that’s larger than seen before on a mobile.
It’s larger even than the sensor used in many digital compact cameras, and should secure the Nokia N8 the title of “best mobile phone camera ever”. The iPhone 4 surprised us by packing an excellent snapper, but with an LED flash and only five megapixels to its name (even if it makes great use of them), it can’t compete with the Nokia N8.
Further down the competence scale is the Samsung Galaxy S. It can record 720p HD video and uses touch focusing, but image quality isn’t as strong as either the Nokia N8 or iPhone 4, and without a flash it’ll only be of usem in decent sunlight. Down at the bottom of the barrel is the HTC Desire.
It’s another 5-megapixel camera, but image quality is just OK at the resolution and there’s no HD video recording. There is an LED flash though, making it ready for some party photography.
In summary — The Nokia N8’s camera sounds simply fantastic, blowing these rivals out of the water, even the iPhone 4
Apps
The Nokia N8 can rock apps made with the QT dev kit — which is the force behind the Nokia N900’s apps. Although the Nokia N8 uses an all-new operating system, its app scene won’t have to start completely from scratch. Nokia N900 apps will just have to go through a quick porting process to be up and running on the Nokia N8.
The Nokia N8’s app scene may be heading towards a healthy start, but it’s unlikely to ever have anywhere near as many apps as iPhone 4 or Android phones like the HTC Desire. There are more than 30,000 Android apps available from the Android Market and more than 200,000 from the iPhone App Store.
Sheer numbers aren’t enough to provide a good app experience — the quality of the app store itself means a lot too. The iPhone App Store is just too packed to make app discovery a doddle, but navigating its virtual shelves is painless, with desktop navigation via iTunes helping out too.
Android’s Market is less friendly, with poor structure making discovering apps even trickier than on the App Store. It needs work.
However, the Ovi Store, which is where the Nokia N8 will have to grab most of its apps from, is the least advanced of the three. It caters for dozens of handsets across a handful of platforms but doesn’t offer the same centralised experience as the Android Market and App Store — although a link to Ovi will almost certainly feature in the Nokia N8 as standard.
The Nokia N8 will want to roll with the big boys, but on the apps front, that’s a very tall order.
In summary — The head start Android and iPhone have on the Nokia N8 make sure it’s not the best choice for appaholics
The skinny
The Nokia N8’s in a difficult spot. It’s a high-end handset that’s held back by the software under its hood. Symbian^3 isn’t bad, but it doesn’t fare well in a comparison with iOS and Android, which have after all been updated, tweaked and changed regularly for 2-3 years now.
Symbian’s been around for a lot longer, but its path has been less focused, letting it slip quietly behind rivals. What the Nokia N8 has over every other smartphone on the market is a truly impressive camera. The only thing it’s missing is the optical zoom — if Nokia one day finds a way to drop one into a mobile without creating a chunky beast, we’ll be first in the queue to put our old compact cameras up on eBay.
Want apps? Go for Android or iPhone. Want a simpler phone that’ll play your vids and music, and do a fab job of making its own vids and snaps? Give the Nokia N8 some serious consideration.
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