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
Third time’s the charm
As mentioned earlier in the review, the N8 is Nokia’s first device to be based on the new Symbian^3 platform. Before we dive into Symbian^3 and how it works and what new features it brings along, let’s have a quick look at Symbian’s evolution in the recent years.
Evolution of Symbian; S60 1st Edition, S60 3rd Edition, Symbian^3 (L-R)
Although Symbian can trace its roots back to the 90’s and the days of Psion (known as EPOC OS back then), Symbian as we know it today only took shape earlier this decade with Nokia and Ericsson’s involvement. The basic design principle for Symbian OS was that of maintaining absolute simplicity, and making conscious and efficient use of the (then) spare resources available on mobile devices. As a result, the ‘OS’ itself did not come with a user interface of any sort. It simply included the (EKA2) nanokernel packaged with a few basic primitives, libraries and device drivers to extend it to the realm of a microkernel.
After an initial reference design, further development of the frontend itself was left to the device manufacturers, leading to the likes of the Nokia Series 60 UI, UIQ etc. Over the course of this decade, mainstream Symbian moved from version 6.0 to the version 9.4 used in Nokia’s last S60 update. Over the course of years, Nokia added features and updates to its S60 UI resulting in various editions and feature packs. The last major update made by Nokia was to add support for high-resolution touch screens resulting in S60 5th Edition. However, sometime in 2008, Symbian went open source and along with the OS, now came packaged the S60 UI, creating what is known as the Symbian Platform. It was also during this time that Nokia started pushing the use of Qt as the framework of choice for Symbian development.
The Symbian platform includes code not just from Nokia, which was the primary contributor to the code base, but also from other companies (Sony Ericsson being one of them) as they decided to withdraw from using and developing Symbian. The platform as such now also includes parts of other releases such as UIQ, MOAP etc. The first product based on Symbian Platform was Symbian^1, which was a mildly reworked S60 5th Edition. Symbian^2 was an insignificant release with only a handful of Japanese vendors releasing handsets based on it. What we see today, Symbian^3, is Nokia’s boldest move forward, bringing significant and much needed updates to the platform. It is also going to be the last major Symbian release for a while, with Symbian^4 having been cancelled and its code base and feature set having been rolled into Symbian^3.
On first look, it may seem like not a lot has changed between Symbian^3 and previous iterations, apart from an improved UI. But Symbian^3 is Nokia’s first OS built from the ground up for the high resolution touch-screen interface paradigm and it is a marked improvement over its rather poorly implemented (and received) S60 5th Edition touch interface. The OS is now finger-friendly and multi-touch capable (except the on-screen keyboard), not requiring a stylus, and makes use of single-tap interaction throughout, thereby eliminating the need to dig through layers of menus. Welcome to the party Nokia, better late than never!
(L-R) The slick screensaver that makes use of OLED’s ‘free’ black color, Multitasking in S^3, the Dialer app, a typical S^3 menu
Another significant update to Symbian^3 is the introduction of the GPU accelerated UI. While Symbian has never really been slow to respond to input, this was more a result of the fact that it was almost completely devoid of any animation or effects and as mentioned earlier, Symbian’s inherent thrift when it came to using available resources. Although functional, it looked outright prehistoric compared to most modern mobile operating systems, and having to deal with multiple menu hierarchies to change even fairly obvious settings and options didn’t win it any favors either.
With Symbian^3, Nokia has tried to make a clean transition to the present day and age and for the most part, Symbian^3 and the N8’s BCM2727 media processor is able to pull it off reasonably well. The N8’s response is quick, whether it be navigating the menus or switching between applications. The transitions are smooth with no lag; the phone doesn’t get bogged down even with multiple applications running in the background. It also responds to taps and gestures consistently without needing to double tap or repeat gestures. Overall, using the N8 is a fairly smooth experience with nothing to complain about.
Home screens in Symbian^3(first three), S^3 Widget Manager (Right)
Very similar to Android, Symbian^3 now also allows for multiple home screens (three to be exact), with the switching between them facilitated by a simple side-swipe gesture. The current home screen you are on is indicated by one of three dots at the bottom. It is very easy to customize each of the home screens with application shortcuts, notifications, and widgets such as weather, email, social networks, calendar, etc. This is facilitated by a long-press anywhere on the home screen, which initiates the widget manager.
The widgets themselves afford a decent amount of customization. You can also easily switch the widgets online and offline by selecting a single option, unlike the last time I used Symbian where this had to be done on a per application basis. And this logical simplification of actions runs deeper than just the home screen. For example, managing data connections is much simpler on the N8 than it was on the E5. Although it still makes use of “Destinations” to manage your data networks, which isn’t the most straightforward or efficient method to handle data-network related settings, at least all the options are now housed on one page. Symbian^3 also makes some updates to the network stack and it is now 4G ready, should Nokia decide to launch such a device.
There are some quirks in Symbian^3’s current incarnation. For one, the dialer app does not work in landscape mode. Secondly, there is no QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode. Also, using the keyboard in landscape mode takes up the entire screen. So if you are entering your name in a form on a site, clicking on the text field will open up the keyboard with a white text area up top; you cannot see the site itself. As I quickly learned on the Nokia Ovi Store registration page itself, it becomes very irritating when trying to enter CAPTCHAs. You either have to memorize the entire CAPTCHA, or switch back and forth between the website and landscape keyboard view. And finally, the battery indicator on the N8 is a fair bit off from the actual remaining battery life as reported by the N8 itself!
(L-R) S^3 lacks a QWERTY keyboard in portrait mode; battery indicator shows 3/4th of the battery is left, even though it’s not true; the landscape keyboard takes up the whole screen
I’d mentioned earlier that Symbian^3 is going to be Nokia’s last major OS release for a while and this is true. But this does not mean that Nokia plans on pulling on with this release in its current form for another decade. With the closing of Symbian^4 development, what Nokia is actually trying is to do is roll out regular, incremental features and updates to the Symbian^3 code base, instead of branching it off to a new OS release. This is needed for two reasons: to keep Nokia devices such as the N8 competitive, as well as to maintain forward momentum and consumer interest in the Symbian platform. Nokia has promised to make one such significant update to Symbian^3 in early 2011 and some of the updates are much needed.
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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.