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
What’s HAPPening at Nokia…
It’s all about the applications now. Ever since Apple pushed the concept of apps and app development to the mainstream in 2008, companies such as Nokia have been caught off-guard. This is the one area where Nokia still has a lot of work to do. The N8, as with almost all Nokia devices in recent history, has a very inconsistent and frustrating app ecosystem. As with the E5, the Ovi Store app doesn’t even come installed by default on the N8. Instead, clicking on the Ovi Store shortcut in the menu opens up the browser and takes you to a page where you are required to setup an Ovi Store account and download the app. This is ridiculous enough in itself, but to make things worse, I could not get the app store working no matter what I tried on the N8.
(Left, Center) The Ovi Store was a pain to get up and running on the N8; (Right) when the Ovi Store works
Each and every time I tried opening the Ovi Store, the browser would be launched and it would open up a blank page with the Ovi Store icon on top. Nothing would happen after this, no matter what I did. Searching on the internet, I found that this was in fact a well-known problem that multiple people were facing with the N8 and apparently had to do with a particular version of the Ovi Store app having problems with Symbian^3 devices. Deleting and trying to re-download the app didn’t help. Finally, the only thing that seemed to work was to log into the Ovi Store via the PC, searching for the Ovi Store app, and sending a download link for it to the phone via text. Really, Nokia?
And it’s not just the Ovi Store app that had issues either. The default email app basically doesn’t work the way it should. Unlike the E5 where there was a definite (if non-obvious) procedure to getting push email working, on the N8 there is no set procedure. Accepting or declining Nokia’s terms and conditions while setting up your email account decides whether or not push notifications are enabled. With push notifications enabled, the N8 refused to sync my Gmail inbox after a couple of hours. Deleting an email from the N8 would have no effect on my Gmail inbox.
Worse yet, the push-email system on the N8 does not let you select the folders you want to sync. Since the N8’s email client didn’t have an “Archive” option, I was forced to mark and move emails to the “All Mails” folder, only to find out that this folder is not available for sync with push notifications turned on. Since this was absolutely essential to the way I used Gmail, I decided to forego push functionality and set up my email accounts again, declining the terms and conditions and with a polling interval of every 10 minutes.
Although you do have control over the folders you want to sync via this method and the N8 does faithfully poll the Gmail servers every 10 mins as configured, no matter what I did, I could not get it to sync my emails properly. To elaborate, if I marked an email as read and deleted it, upon the next sync, it would still show up as unread in my inbox. If I manually “moved it to trash”, after syncing, I would still see it as an unread email in the “All Mails” folder. Again, a quick search on the internet reveals that I’m not alone.
(L-R) The inconsistent email app, clunky default browser, browser menu, Opera Mobile 10
The last bit of software that Nokia needs to upgrade, pronto, is the lethargic webkit-based browser on the N8. Hoping that this would have definitely been one of the updates to Symbian^3, I was disappointed to find that apart from tweaking the UI to be touch more friendly, not much has changed with the browser. The GPU-accelerated UI definitely makes things more responsive, and the vibrant 3.5” screen is a marked improvement over the 2.36” in the E5, but the browser itself is very slow and inconsistent in its rendering. It cannot hold a candle next to Mobile Safari, or the Android/WebOS Webkit browsers.
Once again, Opera Mobile 10 mitigates these problems, picks up Nokia’s slack, and makes surfing the web on the N8 a decent experience. But it is an absolute shame that Nokia did not update the browser in this release of Symbian^3. Thankfully however, Nokia has promised to update the browser with the next update, and I sincerely hope they live up to this promise.
(L-R) A very good Nokia Swype app; the photo browser app makes good use of the GPU; the excellent Ovi Maps
Other apps worked as they should, including the excellent Ovi Maps app. The N8 uses its integrated GPS, A-GPS and WiFi-positioning for navigation duties and also sports a compass. You can have a look at a more detailed discussion of Ovi Maps in my E5 review here. I did however notice with the N8 that it took an awful long time to get hold of a cold GPS signal, and Nokia made a questionable decision of not including maps on the N8 out of the box.
One feature that I found very interesting was the “Turning Control” that could be used to silence a call or snooze an alarm, simply by flipping the N8 over on its front. The N8 is now my official snooze tool! The music player uses a Cover Flow-esq design that works very well with the GPU driving the fluid animation. And although I couldn’t test the video calling function out-of-the-box (and with Skype not having implemented Video Chat capability on the Symbian platform), I did manage to make a few test calls with Fring and it seems to work just fine (although a friend of mine did say that she couldn’t see my video on her iPod Touch 2G).
(L-R): Video call on Fring; Skype on S^3; some of the interesting Nokia Beta apps
Also, I encourage you to look up Nokia’s beta apps portal, as there seem to be some really interesting albeit experimental apps in there. I found an excellent Swype keyboard implementation, a cool photo browser that makes very good use of the GPU, and the very interesting “Nokia Bots” applications in there, amongst others.
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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.