Review: Nokia N8*

Nokia N8

Happy clappy me got sent a Nokia N8 to review. Awesome!

I really got excited when it was delivered to my office and the first thing I did was as usual pull it out of the box and get my sim card in it. The phone on first looks is awesome, smooth, slick but a little heavy. Turn it around and your head does a tailspin and begs the question: “Now why would you have the camera jutting out?”. That little mistake for me kills the streamline beauty of the phone. But it’s a small thing and I can work with that.

Clever Nokia RSA guys sent me a cover with the phone. For future reference – I am not a pink girl and really not a lover of the colour, I’m more a red, blue, black, purple kind of person. But definitely a clever move by them as I do managed to scratch my phones faster then regular people.

So lets get going… Sim inserted on the side of phone, so no back cover and no battery to remove. Nifty if I didn’t bite my nails [should I have even said that urrr] and could open the flap, but that is no problem at all. It means sim is secure on the side. Good but weird move [I think].

I have to admit that this is the first proper Nokia I have played with since I owned the Nokia 7210 [fond memories I have of that phone]. So this for me is an all-new experience.

The phone is not as responsive to my touch as I would have liked and that makes a touch screen a bit tricky for me. The interface is a step away from Nokia’s easy to use. When you think Nokia you think: “Hey anyone can use this, that’s why people buy it”. I understand that with the way technology is moving forward phones are expected to change and develop but somehow I miss the easy functionality that can normally be found on a Nokia.

What I do love about the phone though is the amazing camera. I am such a camera happy clicker that this 12 megapixel phone is one awesome beauty! Also its HDMI ready, but not sure how much I would really use that. Happiness for intense geekers but not so much for me.

The regular apps like mail works awesome. Bit tricky with the Facebook and Twitter one. Battery life is reasonable but that’s mainly if I kill all open applications – which is true for any smart phone. It runs Symbian^3, which again not so sure on as I am no techy geek [well completely!]. Is not Android the way to go?

Plug and play with the N8 is not that easy. I’m also a Mac user so it becomes a whole lot more trickier. I still have not been able to download my pics but I will keep snapping away till Nokia takes the phone back.

I added a few apps from the Nokia OVI store and they run smooth, though the phone somehow manage to freeze on me twice and then crash thrice. A few times I pulled it out of my pocket it was off. Not sure maybe it was the battery or maybe it was unlocked and something was pressed in my pocket. Eitherway – freaky!

Overall this phone scored a 6.5 for me. Only because I love the camera.

*Disclaimer: Chances are that Nokia may not be happy with my review, but this is me being honest, and I am ok with them being unhappy and never sending me anything else to review. They are running a little review and keep competition. See Casey’s tweet: @NokiaRSA (client) has 60 N8s for folks like me and you to review.Top 8 reviews keep the unit. Just wanted to say unit http://bit.ly/d6DSDT

12 Megapixels Rock!