Nokia N8 Review: Nokia's New Flagship
by Mithun Chandrasekhar on January 12, 2011 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Nokia
- N8
- Symbian
- Mobile
The N8’s 12MP centerpiece
As I had briefly mentioned earlier, the Nokia N8 has what is probably the best camera to make home in a mobile phone. And Nokia is making no bones in letting people know about this. While Apple may talk about letting in more photons with a backside illuminated sensor, Nokia has actually gone ahead and done something about it—both with the optics and sensor size. At the heart of the N8’s camera is a 1/1.83” sensor which is in fact larger than most point and shoot cameras (which often carry sensors ranging from 1/2.3 – 1/2.5” in size) that are currently available. While a large sensor can’t do much by itself, Carl Zeiss has provided a decent 28mm equivalent lens that makes good of the sensor, given the tight confines and dimensional restrictions of a mobile phone. In fact, much of the N8’s physical profile is dictated by that optical system.
Just to drive home the point as to how serious it is about the N8 as an imaging device, Nokia has equipped the phone with a real xenon flash (and an AF-assist lamp in the same housing) along with an active neutral density filter that automatically slides in place if you were to try and take pictures with a lot of bright light in it. This combined with features such as face detection and video stabilization (not image) make the N8 a reasonably good replacement to most entry-level point and shoot cameras currently available. The N8 could pull off pretty good shots without much issue in all but the poorest of lighting conditions. In poorly-lit scenarios, the N8 succumbs to its camera phone roots and produces visibly noisy pictures that lack detail. Pulling down the ISO manually and using a tripod would help, but this IS a phone after all.
I haven’t been able to pull up a guide number for the xenon flash, but suffice to say that it is an order of magnitude better than the LED/dual-LED flash found in most phones. Also, since the N8 lacks a motorized lens, it has a digital-only zoom which Nokia has consciously restricted to 2x for still photos and 3x for videos for the sake of maintaining image quality. The average size of a 4000x3000 pixel (12MP) image taken by the N8 is about 2.4MB which means it is compressed a fair bit. When set to “Close Up” mode the N8 can focus on objects as close as 3”.
Shots with the N8’s brilliant 12MP camera. The gallery has more camera shots.
Speaking of video, the N8 can record 720p video at 25fps with stereo sound. The N8 has 2 mics; one next to the camera module and another on the front of the phone. In test, the N8 could capture pretty decent audio even in moderately noisy and windy environments. It looks like the positioning of the mics and the noise cancellation algorithms together are doing a decent job of cutting out the background noise. In use, the N8 captured 720p video at an average bit rate of about 10 Mbps in the H.264/AVC format. The N8 makes use of something called an active hyperfocal system to maintain focus between about 60cm to infinity, without having to use a continuous focusing system. To describe this in a little more detail without diving too deep, the hyperfocal length of a lens is a measure of some distance at which, if the lens is focused, everything from a particular point (60cm in case of the N8) to infinity will be in complete focus. In the N8, the camera and software adjust the position of the lens if needed, to maintain this hyperfocal length and hence the “active” moniker. Because of this, the N8 can make do without hefty auto-focusing motors and deliver good focusing performance.
Bench Video
Demo Video
The camera interface itself is pretty straightforward and easy to use. You can easily change the captured image resolution, white balance, color tone, flash, scene mode and ISO options. There are quite a few still photo and video editing options available on the phone and the N8 seems to do a reasonably quick job of post processing. The one thing that I found quite annoying, was having to make all edits in one go on the N8. You cannot “save” a project as such; you have to make all your edits at once and save the file.
In-phone editing options on the N8
The N8 does not support panorama shots out of the box and I found this a bit surprising. Only when I casually dug through the Ovi Store did I find the “Panorama” app by Nokia.
Why this isn’t included from the get go or even pointed to by a link somewhere beats me. Either way, the panorama app does its job without any issues, although I must say I had to read the help section to try and understand how to get it working; not the most straightforward implementation for taking panorama shots. As with most camera phones now-a-days, the N8 also supports geo-tagging photos and videos. At the end of it, the one thing that’s blatantly clear is that the camera on the N8 is not a checkbox feature. It really is a well-engineered piece of hardware that Nokia seems to have integrated very well with the N8, instead of just tacking it on as an after-thought.
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Voldenuit - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
"Mobile devices are service-enabling platforms, not software-execution platforms."BOOM-Tish! Somebody give this man a dollar, he's hit the nail on the head!
As mithun said in his review, if a faster processor does not enable more functionality, all it's doing is sucking more power.
Yes, we all want the latest and greatest, but it seems nokia made the smart move by focusing on the GPU and coupling it with a CPU that's just fast enough for its needs.
The 3GS was a marked improvement on the 3G in terms of speed and responsiveness, but the N8 is about as responsive as the 3GS using a much slower CPU because of its more compact/efficient OS and being smart about offloading to the GPU when needed. This is what fusion should be about.
anactoraaron - Thursday, January 13, 2011 - link
I do see your point, however every other phone manufacturer is always updating to the "latest and greatest" while still keeping power usage under control. ...how do they do this? tech as it evolves gets smaller- and I shouldn't need to explain moore's law to anyone here. The phone software shoud be optimized to the latest and greatest to take advantage of BOTH the speed AND power usage of the device.Selling the nexus one with eclair and reselling it a year later with gingerbread without improving anything from a hardware perspective is what I see Nokia doing here. All they have done is re-optimize symbian to offload as much work as possible to the gpu. But I would almost guarantee a faster cpu would speed up the browser. And then they would have to reoptimize that and the juggling act nokia has done here starts all over.
I wonder why the N900 isn't included with the benchmarks of this phone? Let's see... Sunspider benchmark... N900: 37816.... N8-00 (with opera 10- default browser is slower): 100029. So you can say "service-enabling platform" but if you're not optimizing the platform for commonly used tasks - AGAIN for a regularly executed function (web browsing, phone calls) than what are you optimizing it for? But Nokia decided that those thing weren't that important and while you get great battery life 3G browsing (wifi numbers will likely be similiar) - by sipping a slower cpu to save that battery life you get a HORRIBLE browsing experience.
I called this phone a "turd" because I view it as a step backwards from the N900 (the former and maybe still flagship Nokia phone) redesigned symbian and all.
'quote' but the N8 is about as responsive as the 3GS using a much slower CPU because of its more compact/efficient OS and being smart about offloading to the GPU when needed.
So you're saying that it's not as fast as the 3GS. This is their NEW flagship phone! And it's "about as responsive as a 3GS"- again a phone that's 1.5 years old! I simply want BETTER from Nokia to restart the "off contract" or "unlocked" market and this phone FAILS at doing so. I truly believe the N900 is a great phone! There are simply faster, much more responsive, longer battery life, all in all better phones out than this one (N8-00) right now.
Are they still planning on all but killing off symbian with meego (should it come out)? That would have to influence a purchase decision also.
Voldenuit - Thursday, January 13, 2011 - link
iPhone4 isn't faster than 3GS either. In fact, in some benchmarks, it's slower (because of the higher resolution display).3GS was significant because its speedup over the older models represented a milestone in device responsiveness and user expectations.
A phone which is faster than the 3GS would probably go unnoticed among many users, but one which is significantly slower would not be accepted.
The N8 is definitely snappy enough to fall into the first camp.
While AT is a tech site and its phone reviews are understandably geared towards the technical details and specifications of the chips that go into the phones, hardware specs are not the be all and end all of a smartphone. For most smartphone tasks, the N8 is quite up to the job.
Yes, the browser is in definite need of improvement, I'm using Opera Mobile on it right now and even that is not fantastic, but it's enough for my purposes as the other advantages of the N8 (GPS, pentaband 3G, camera) outweighed it over the current crop of Android and iOS devices for my specific needs.
ojisama - Sunday, January 16, 2011 - link
I guess you didn't read the part about GPU. "Most of the heavy lifting in the N8 is done by the BCM2727". "Using an A8 Cortex-based 1Ghz+ part here to run Symbian^3 would have been overkill and power-inefficient."dagamer34 - Thursday, January 13, 2011 - link
As snappy as the 3GS except the 3GS is almost TWO YEARS OLD.AssBall - Thursday, January 13, 2011 - link
Funny, since most contracts are for TWO YEARS.Not every idiot gets a new phone every 6 months. Nokia has always been especially good at call quality, above other stuff. You know, in case you actually use your phone to CALL PEOPLE instead of some kind of nerdwit multimedia toy.
Exodite - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
While is has its issues to be sure, the browser being one of them, it's actually an awesome device as soon as you consider the phone implications.Audio quality is excellent and reception better than any handset I've used. The camera really deserves even more praise as it's not just better than those offered by current high-end smartphones but entirely in a league of its own.
Then there's the many convenient features like USB-on-the-go, BT keayboard and mouse connectivity, FM transmitter, 5.1 audio output, native DivX and MKV support etc.
My better half has one and running 3G and Wi-Fi enabled 24/7, live Twitter feeds and gmail updates through widgets, as well as snapping shots with the Xenon flash and playing the odd games she still gets about 3 days worth of battery out of the device.
It's awesome, as long as you want a phone with media functions and not the other way around.
That's not to say it's perfect but all the issues are really related to software and we can only hope Nokia takes fixing them to heart. Indeed, the only hardware omission I find annoying is a LED lamp for video and use as a torch.
Funny as it may sound I've actually come to rely on using my phone as a torch.
I have to say that I expected a bit more from this review, RightMark Audio Analyser tests, reception and signal strength tests, a more detailed look into the camera and image quality options.
That's not to say it's a bad review, only that the real strengths of this handset aren't immediately obvious to the same extent that its flaws are.
Voldenuit - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
"The camera really deserves even more praise as it's not just better than those offered by current high-end smartphones but entirely in a league of its own."Yes. It's 6 times bigger than the sensor on the iPhone4. SIX TIMES!!!
Something to chew on for a while.
Re: LED torch functionality, I can understand why it's missing (compared to previous nokias) because the Xenon flash is not designed for continuous output and the AF assist lamp is red (although I actually prefer the red setting on my 3rd party torch app to preserve nightvision in the dark).
I also notice that signal attenuation tests are missing from this review - maybe that's due to technical issues in measuring gain from the antenna?
Agreed that it's easier to point out the flaws than the strengths - the whole is better than the sum of its parts, because while all smartphones have their strengths, the N8 is very well balanced in its abilities. Some phones might do X or Y better, but the N8 excels at doing nearly everything consistently well (push email support aside, which is coming, and which has workarounds) and does some things (like Bluetooth 3, FM transmitter) that other phones don't even try to.
melgross - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
Awesome? Yeah, in mid 2009. Right now, the only thing that's awesome about this is that it's their top model, considering how backwards it it.All I can get from this review is that it's ok in most areas, not so hot in the others, and has a camera that's batter than in other phones but not so great when compared to dedicated compacts. That is, if you know something about photography.
Exodite - Wednesday, January 12, 2011 - link
Which is why I expected a more in-depth review in the first place.The N8 is priced like a mid-range smartphone but offer a lot of non-obvious advantages to the competition.
In my personal experience:
* Call/audio quality.
* Reception.
* Build quality/toughness.
* Battery life.
* Camera.
* Features (USB OTG, BT mouse/keyboard, FM transmitter, DivX/MKV playback, free GPS navigation with no roaming fees etc.)
* Design (like the two-stage dedicated camera button, hardware screen-lock snap-slider, lock-screen clock etc.)
Granted, it's not a handset for everyone but what is?
My ideal phone would be a Nokia design with Samsung electronics and HTC software and services but until that surfaces we have to make compromises. :)
In the case of Nokia those compromises are software related, like the browser and inconsistent services.
I could find equally serious issues with other high-end handsets, like the Desire HD and iPhone 4, but that doesn't mean that those devices don't deserve to be called 'awesome' as well.