Nokia N8 review

A lot is riding on the success of the Nokia N8.

Not only is it the only high-end phone Nokia is set to release this year, it’s also the first device to ship with the new version of the Symbian operating system, Symbian^3.

Hardware

When you first lay eyes on the Nokia N8 one of the first things you’ll notice is the hump housing the camera at the back of the device.

The camera is one of the most compelling features of the N8, but its enclosure jutting out from the back of the phone creates a point of contact when the phone is laid down on a surface. This could lead to some wear and tear on the device casing if it isn’t placed in some sort of protective cover.

Upon handling the Nokia N8 one should notice the solid construction as well as the absence of a removable rear cover. The N8 is carved out of a solid block of anodised alumnium, but just like the iPhone the battery can’t be removed or replaced (easily). Since there is no rear compartment, the SIM and microSD cards are inserted into slots on the side of the device rather than under the battery.

The N8 supports microSD cards with up to 32GB storage capacity and it comes with 16GB internal storage, of which about 13GB was available.

Setup

Once the SIM and optional microSD card have been installed the phone can be switched on and set up. As one would expect from a competent smartphone, the initial setup is well guided and relatively painless.

The only niggle during setup was that there is no prompt to connect to a Wi-Fi network when initially setting up an Ovi Account.

Setting up calendar and contacts synchronisation if one is running Windows and Outlook is relatively easy. The latest version of Nokia Ovi Suite also supports Mozilla Thunderbird according to the list of updates.

Other than synchronising through the Ovi Suite software, the N8 also supports Microsoft Exchange.

Unfortunately the device doesn’t seem to have native support for syncing  contacts and calendars from services such as Google. Luckily Google provides a type of Microsoft Exchange emulation for its mail, contacts and calendar, but it’s not without its shortcomings.

Only the primary calendar in Google Calendar is synchronised, for example. Other calendars don’t seem to be downloaded at all.

It also takes anything from 3 – 15 minutes for contacts to be downloaded, with no real indication from the phone that it’s busy synchronising.

Interface

Sadly, the abovementioned weren’t the only shortcomings of the Symbian^3 user interface.

While Symbian^3′s menus are slick and responsive under the touch controls of the Nokia N8, the rest of the user experience leaves much to be desired.

Swiping between home screens feels like one is sending commands to the N8 over a latent network connection. Unlike other smartphone operating systems that have multiple home screens (such as Android and Bada), Symbian^3 only switches screens after the swipe gesture has been made. Usually one would expect the screen to move as you drag your finger.

Symbian^3 widgets are also all the same size, it seems. In Android terms they’re all sized “1×4,” or one vertical icon row by four horizontal icon rows.

There also doesn’t seem to be a way to disconnect from a Wi-Fi network once connected to one.

Scrolling in messages or lists of items is either too slow or decelerates too quickly.

This doesn’t seem to be a limitation in the operating system itself, considering that scrolling behaves as expected in a third party app such as Gravity. Gravity is a social networking application you’ll have to buy if you plan on using your N8 to access social networks.

Messaging

The default social networking apps on the N8 are sluggish and frustrating to use. We picked up on this when we first laid hands on the device for a few minutes and nothing seems to have changed since then. Scrolling is jittery and it takes really long for timelines to load.

The Nokia N8′s social networking applications also integrate poorly with the global contact list. It seems as though the only way to link contacts to their social networking profiles is to manually do so for every contact.

When one taps on the social networking Twitter widget, the app doesn’t go straight to the message, but to the last position in the timeline instead. Facebook does seem to go straight to the update. The N8′s default Twitter client also doesn’t seem to have the abillity to retweet.

Caveat Emptor

The biggest failure in the Symbian^3 interface is probably the way it handles text input, however.

Text input is a huge aspect of the modern phone, let alone smartphone. Not only is the way in which a phone handles text input critical to the user experience when SMSing, sending email or browsing, but it also affects the way you interact with services such as Twitter and Facebook.

Going from portrait to landscape orientation is fairly quick on the Nokia N8. Switching from text input back to the application, webpage or message isn’t seamless at all, however.

When typing text into a field, one first scrolls to the field and then taps it to activate text input. In some cases input activation can take so long that one might be inclined to tap again, which will cause the software keyboard and input block to not be displayed at all.

Having typed the text, one has to tap the green checkmark button to insert the text into the input field, whether message field, subject line, or any field one may come across in a website or application.

Only then can one proceed to the next field, tap to enter text, wait a few seconds, enter text, rinse repeat. It’s a very tedious way to navigate a highly text-driven interface.

Not all bad

The majority of this review has been dedicated to the shortcomings of the Nokia N8 but there are a number of things the device does very well.

Its most impressive feature by far is its camera. With a 12 megapixel sensor backed by Carl Zeiss optics one would expect decent looking photos and video, but what it provides is the best camera on a smartphone to date.

Photos look good even when taken in low light conditions and the HD video it records is crisp.

Nokia has also given the N8 the ability to output to external monitors via an HDMI output, as well as enabled it to access USB drives. To use either of these features one has to use the special cables provided in the N8′s box.

A car charging cable is also provided, though to use an N8 as a navigation device one would need to invest in a dock for the car.

This leads to two other features South Africans don’t currently have on other smartphone brands: Turn-by-turn navigation with voice prompts and Ovi Music Unlimited.

Nokia’s Ovi Maps doesn’t hold a candle to dedicated navigation devices such as Garmin or Tom Tom, but for those who want an all-in-one device in their pocket, Nokia is one of the few manufacturers that offers navigation with voice prompts in South Africa right out of the box.

The Nokia N8 also comes with a six-month subscription to Ovi Music Unlimited. This allows you to download as much music as you want for six months (and keep it forever thereafter). The drawback to this service is that you’ll only be able to listen to the music on your Nokia device or the PC you downloaded the music to thanks to the digital rights management (DRM) used by Nokia.

Conclusion

Nokia’s latest N-series phone is a fantastic piece of hardware let down by its software.

It might appeal to existing Symbian users, but as smartphone operating systems go Symbian will have to catch up much faster to the likes of iOS, Android, BlackBerry and even Bada.

The Nokia N8 is also for those who want a phone that gives them a fantastic camera in their pocket and aren’t too phased about the shortcomings of the device, or don’t plan on using social networking services or the text input features all that often.

Nokia N8 image gallery