Mobile phone users can now order the new Symbian 3 smart-phone Nokia N8 in Germany. At the Nokia web store it is available for € 479.00, but it will not be delivered before September. Other web stores in Germany alreday list the Nokia N8 as well. Here purchase prices start at € 440.00 without contract. This week I met Nokia in Berlin and had the opportunity to take a first look at the N8 and I want to share my first impressions of the smart-phone running on the new operating system Symbian 3. Please consider that I have only seen a protoype of the Nokia N8 and the OS which will probably be developed further by the Finnish manufacturer until the smart-phone goes on sale. However, for Nokia fans going to buy a new smart-phone with good multi-media, social networking and messaging features it could be worthwhile to wait for two more months because the N8 shows that Nokia is back on the right track.

Nokia N8, Pictures: Phone Guide Germany

Much of the Nokia N8 Is neither New nor Innovative

To be clear on this point: Much of what the Nokia N8 offers is neither new nor innovative. You will find the typical Symbian look of the user interface with folders and of the icons. You will also find features such as multi-touch support and a social client that integrates status updates, news, messages and events of social networks like Facebook and Twitter that are new features of Nokia but which we are known from smart-phones of other manufacturers. We know multi-touch since the launch of the first Apple iPhone, for example, and the social client of the Nokia N8 is comparable to HTC’s Friend Stream or Sony Ericsson’s Timescape.

But with the N8 Nokia is getting closer again to other high-end smart-phones such as the iPhone, the HTC Desire, the Sony Ericsson X10, the Motorola Milestone or the Samsung Galaxy S (you will read a review of the Samsung Galaxy S soon). There are several improvements which will be discovered when using the smart-phone. The most important thing is: The Nokia N8 will offer a much better user experience than the Nokia N97 with Symbian S60  5th Edition due to improvements of the Symbian platform. The N8 can be used very easily and all scrolling as well as all applications and even HD videos seem to run fast and very smoothly on the phone. Forget about double-clicks for opening applications or having a hard time scrolling – everything is flowing.
The Nokia N8 is powered by an ARM processor with only 680 MHz, but it also has a separate graphics CPU.

The Nokia N8 also supports multi-tasking - supposedly real multi-tasking. Which means that applications do not freeze in the background until they are used again, but keep on running. For example, when interrupting a video sessions on the N8 and switching to another application, the movie should play on in the background. Unfortunately, this was not the case when I laid hands on the new Nokia smart-phone – pictures and sound paused. Nokia will jave to work on that during the remaining weeks until the launch of the N8. For changing between or for closing certain applications on the phone the Nokia N8 offers a task switcher.

Impressive Range of Features

More user friendliness is one thing about the Nokia N8, an impressive feature range another: You get fast mobile Internet connections via HSPA with up 10.2 mbps (download) and 2 mbps (upload) and WiFi (b/g/n). The Nokia web browser supports multi-touch and Flash. With a microSD card there is up to 48 GB of storage capacity on the phone. With “USB on the Go” you can connect the Nokia N8 to another storage device, for example another hard drive, and exchange data and files without having to switch on the computer. In addition, the N8 sports a GPS receiver for location based services and Nokia’s free turn-by-turn navigation service with Ovi Maps for more than 70 countries. And the Nokia N8 has an capacitive AMOLED touch-screen which – admittedly – is rather small: 3.5 inches with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels.

There is a 12-megapixel camera with a big lens (2.8) by Carl Zeiss, auto-focus, Xenon flash and video capture with a resolution of 1,280 x 720 pixels. The media player offers Dolby Digital Plus Surround and a 3.5-mm headset jack and Bluetooth for your favorite headset as well as an HDMI port for connecting the phone to your home entertainment system and an FM transmitter for playing music that is stored on the smart-phone on other music devices such as the car’s radio.

According to Nokia the N8 offers up to 12 hours of talk time in GSM mode, up to 5.5 hours of talk time in 3G mode. Supposedly, it is also possible to listen to music for up to 50 hours in a row or to watch videos for up to 7 hours with the Nokia N8. The 1,200 mAh battery of the Nokia N8 can be exhanged, but only by loosening two small screws first.

Summary

My first impression of the Nokia N8 prototype: Due to the improvements of the Symbian platform and because of its broad range of features, the Nokia N8 is a good smart-phone for making photos with a cell phone camera, for watching movies or for listening to music on the way as well as for surfing the web and for messaging and social networking. However, because of the comparably small screen the new flagship smart-phone of Nokia is not the best choice for using these services by mobile phone. Doing this is more convenient with smart-phones of that same price range that are produced by other manufacturers – I have already mentioned these smart-phones that I have in mind. By making the N8 more user friendly through Symbian 3, by separating processor and graphics CPU, by adding several data transfer connections and by givng the phone a powerful battery, Nokia is back on the right track – but when it comes to smart-phones the manufacturer still has to go quite some way.

Honestly: If I were to buy a new smart-phone I would wait until September and see what it will cost then and then decide on getting the Nokia N8 or another smart-phone.

Product Summary of the Nokia N8:
Processor: ARM with 680 MHz and 256 MB RAM
Operating System: Symbian 3
GSM Networks: 850, 900, 1,800, 1,900 MHz
Data Transfer: GPRS, EDGE, UMTS, HSDPA 10.2 mbps, HSUPA 2 mbps, WiFi (b/g/n)
Connectivity: Bluetooth (A2DP), USB 2.0
Screen: Capacitive 3.5-inch AMOLED-touch-screen with 800 x 480 pixels
Keyboard: virtual QWERTZ
Camera: 12-megapixel with autofocus, Xenon Flash and video capture (1,280 x 720 pixels at 25 f/s)
Other: Media Player with 3.5-mm headset jack, A-GPS
Storage: 16 GB + 32 GB MicroSD
Size: 113,5 x 59 x 12,9 mm
Weight: 135 g
Speaking Time: 12 hrs (GSM) or 5.5 hrs (UMTS)