The Nokia N8 is Bonerific; Hands-On Report

It’s been a week since Nokia India allowed us to take a sneak peak at their latest unreleased Symbian Device offering.

And for a week I’ve been staring at this post, thinking of where to begin and where to end. You see, a lot of other mobile blogs in a lot of other countries have already had access to play around with the Nokia N8 ages ago. Hence there was nothing ‘new‘ we found, that could really tell you about the N8. Everything you’ve read about it everywhere else on the Internet, still stands true. Mostly.

From an Indian perspective, all we got to know was that the device is expected to hit shelves in India around September sometime, and that all the showcased colors would be available (Something Nokia India has never really done before, so I’m a bit skeptical on that front).

But hey, y’know what? Screw all that.

Here’s what I, Clinton Jeff, long time user of the Nokia N82, defender of the Xenon Flash and cameraphone-kind, thought of the Nokia N8.

When Nokia India told us we were finally getting some time with the Nokia N8, we were ecstatic. Here’s the phone that was supposed to replace my aging N82.

My Aging, 3 Years old, Survived-my-backpack-trip-around-india, never-let-me-down, Nokia N82. Obviously it had big shoes to fill.

I read up on everything I could find on the N8. Things that I already knew, Things I found along the way. Early Hands-on reviews, previews, everything. And on August 6th 2010, I went prepared to the Venue Nokia told us to meet them at.

There we met the other Mobile Bloggers, some whom we hadnt seen in months, and some new faces. A bit of small talk, and we were told to enter the main hall, where we spied several Green N8s being used by the Nokians, one of which was wired up to a High Def Tv.

Ah the puke-green N8. Not one of the colors I was particularly fond of. But hey, to each his/her own. My eyes darted across the room, looking for the N8 I wanted. The Black N8. I’m so emo like that.

We all sat down and watched as Nokia connected the N8 to the high-def tv and began projecting everything from the N8, on it. It’s not just a mirrored projection this time around, the gpu in the N8 actually chugs along a separate, better defined, clearer Image to your television. They had to, I mean, imagine how bad that 640×360 screen would look if it was stretched out that much.

So yes, everything was nice and clear, and the N8 was coping with it fine. But Nokia wasnt done yet. “Wait till you check this out“. The Tron trailer popped up, being played from the N8, in glorious HD. I sat there and looked. Waiting for some frame to be skipped. Waiting for some sort of memory-full error. Nothing. I whispered to Vaibhav from TheHandheldblog, who was sitting next to me. “I cant believe this is all happening on a Symbian phone!“.

It wasnt just the HD output and the ability of the N8 to cope, that impressed me. It was also the fact that this thing was chugging out true Dolby Digital Plus. The music went right where it was supposed to go. And to prove that, Nokia then played a Dolby sound-test video just to make sure we knew that. “This is the right channel“. “This is the left Front“. It took me back to the days when I got my first surround sound system. Ah the joys of surround sound.

Once they were done with that, they connected a usb pen-drive to the N8 and browsed through a couple folders. You can open up files, play music, yada yada, with much ease. I bought along my external Hard-drive to test out how much the N8 could really handle, but unfortunately we werent allowed to check out that particular feature ourselves.

At that point, I was itching to get the N8 in my hands. A bit more introductions to the device, things we already knew, “gyaan” is the Indian word for it I’m told, and the Nokia folks handed us a couple clearly-marked prototype devices to check out. We were divided into teams of 2 people each, with one Nokia person nearby to make sure we didnt run away with the N8. Drat, so much for that plan.

I got paired up with Vaibhav from TheHandheldBlog and we set off to check out the N8.

One minute with the thing, and the mobile geek in me had the metaphorical boner. That aluminum shell, is class. Class, I say.

“And hey it’s totally scratch-proof” I heard someone say, as the Nokia guy next to me proceeded to try to scratch the back of the device with his pen. On the inside I wanted to scream. You DONT do that to a device, any device. But hey, nothing happened. Not a single scratch.

What?

So the N8 can definitely take a beating. We heard the same about the Glass screen on the front, but we couldnt get confirmation, neither did we dare try. We could not find out if the N8 did, infact, have the famous ‘Gorilla Glass” though, Nokia India did not want to comment on it.

All this time we were being pestered by waiters serving us food. Food? Can you not see I’m reviewing a prototype, unreleased device here? Pfft.

But on a sidenote, the food was fabulous. Thank you Nokia.

Moving on, we figured we’d get out first moments with the device, on camera. So y’all, our readers, could tell our reactions and our first impressions. As fresh as they could get.

Video Part 1 of our N8 hands-on (in association with TheHandheldBlog):

Part 2 of our N8 hands-on (in association with TheHandheldBlog):

As you can see, the N8′s Symbian^3 OS seems to move along pretty quickly. I was as skeptical as everyone else, when I heard about the measly 680MHz CPU and 256MB of RAM. Measly compared to devices like the Samsung Galaxy S. But way more powerful and better equipped than previous Symbian devices. And much to our suprise, everything was fast and quick. The Symbian^3 UI had all the ‘pretty‘ transitions and effects that you’d want (and we could not find a way to turn them off, need confirmation on that). Things we could not test out though, were how deep the Social Networking integration in Nokia’s version of the Symbian^3 OS goes. One of the things we loved about Maemo and Android, was how slick the phonebook integration was with Facebook, Twitter, Skype and heck, everything else. That’s something that remains to be seen on the N8.

The Image-viewer seemed about the same but slightly improved. The Music Player had a coverflow-ish landscape view. Nokia Messaging was pulling in Emails in a default HTML-view. The usual sorts of things you’ve probably already read about on N8 previews around the Internets.

Apart from all that, everything seemed really stable. I almost wanted a memory full error to pop up. I almost wanted an app to crash, just so that I’d know “yes, this is the Symbian Touch UI I know“. But nothing of that sort happened.

And they say this thing isnt ready yet?

Hardware-wise there’s nothing changed. The slight worry we had, was that there’s only one mono-speaker on the N8 (which apparently outputs in stereo?), which is on the back, and very easily muffled when placed on a flat surface, or against the walls of your pocket. Being an Nseries device we thought Nokia would have put the biggest baddest little mutha speakers in this thing, but remember, it’s not the Nseries Flagship. It’s just their imaging flagship, which is good enough for me.

The capacitive touchscreen is very welcome. It’s a lot more sensitive than the one on the X6, but not as much as the one on the Galaxy S. Speaking of which, the OLED screen was great, but again, not as great as the Super-AMOLED on the SGS. We would be politically correct to say it’s the best screen ever, on a Nokia phone.

So that about covers up what we thought of the hardware, and the software.

And then there’s the camera.

Oh god. That Camera.

That 12 Megapixel, Carl Zeiss, Xenon-Flash equipped camera.

That camera.

I’ve always been a camera guy. I love photography, and how it teaches you to look at the world around you. I try to carry my ‘camera’ with me everywhere in case I don’t look enough.

Unfortunately, I’m barely a middle-class-income sort of fellow. I cant afford a proper DSLR, and I’m against the whole Point-and-shoot Camera philosophy.

As a result of that, I’ve become the epitome of camera-phone-photographer-wannabe. I’m a big fan of convergence. I only have a limited amount of pockets, and when you take away my wallet pocket and the one I keep my keys in, there’s just even less.

Which is why, you’ll find my Flickr filled with my attempts at photography, on my camera-phone. For me, nothing beats taking out one device, that can do it all. Thats the reason the N82 has been my device of choice for so long.

Ironically, when I first saw the N82, I hated it. I mean look at that keypad, look at that boring monoblock formfactor. “My N95 is so much cooler“.

But then one day, I actually used one.

Within an hour, the Xenon Flash won me over, and within that hour, i bought myself one. That was the fastest decision I ever made in my life, which isnt like me at all since I usually go over something a billion times in my head. Permutations and Combinations on what/how the purchase would effect my future.

Thank Jebus I bought that N82. The phone has captured some of the best moments of my life.

My last days of College life, hanging out with friends, Graduation, those few nights at that one club in Manipal.

The year I backpacked around India, the ZOMGitsCj.com Launch Party, my trip back home to Kuwait after 4 years, my first Nokia India event, my move to Delhi.

Some of the best moments in my life.

As a result of which, I’ve grown rather attached to the thing. For it to survive the sort of torture it’s been through. It’s remarkable. No phone has come close to replacing it to me. Not even the N86.

The N8 had immensely huge shoes to fill.

You see, not only does it have to be a great camera-phone, it has to be able to manage being as good an all-around device as the N82.

And it has me convinced that it will.

That camera was freakkin gorgeous. The amount of detailed it captured in one shot, I’ve never seen done on a camera-phone before. It wont beat a proper DSLR, dont even kid yourself on believing it will. But it will take some damn fine pictures, better than some point and shoots I’ve seen. That might be because it’s using the largest imaging sensor ever used in a phone. It might be because of the Carl Zeiss lens and the Xenon Flash. All I know is, I’m sold on it.

The barely-middle-class-income guy, will love the N8.

We werent allowed to keep any of the camera samples we took with the N8. And I didnt want to piss off the Nokia guy watching over us, so I didnt even try to Bluetooth over an Image for my personal satisfaction. But I liked what I saw. Ofcourse, the OLED screen might have helped convince me though.

The Nokia N8 will be my next phone. It’s something that I can (finally) afford, that does everything I’d want in a phone. Symbian^3 has been improved massively over S60V5 (Symbian^1) while keeping everything almost boringly similar (in a good way).It’s like wearing a new pair of shoes from the same brand that you’ve been using for years. So very ‘comfortable‘.

We didnt have much time with the N8. So we couldnt cover everything that we wanted to. However, you’ve seen our first impressions in the video above, and you’ve read our thoughts.

I am Clinton Jeff. Long time user of the Nokia N82, defender of the Xenon Flash and cameraphone-kind. And I’ll be getting a Nokia N8 as soon as it freakkin launches here in India.

And when I get it. I’m going to review the pants off it.

Note: Ironically, we took way too many pictures at the Nokia N8 Event. Way way too many Pictures. You can check them all out on our Nokia N8 Hands-On Review Album on Flickr.

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Author Description

Clinton Jeff

Clinton is currently based in New Delhi, India and is executive editor for UnleashThePhones. He is responsible for all editorial decisions, and covers all forms of Mobile things. Cj is addicted to caffeine, social media, and technology. Always up for a good conversation, you can reach him through the contact form, his website, ClintonJeff.com, on Google Plus or on Facebook or Twitter below: Follow @clintonjeff

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