Nokia N8 – The best phone in the world!

Yes, i truly mean what I’ve wrote in the title and in the next rows I will try to explain you why.
I only want to mention one more thing before I continue with the review, the fact that I have received the Nokia N8 from the good folks at WOMWorld and they allowed me to have 2 wonderful weeks with the device, so thank you guys!

Introduction and features

The phone has been released last year in October so it is fairly new to the market. It comes in 6 colors: Dark Grey, Silver White, Green, Blue, Orange, Pink and it is the first Symbian^3 device that Nokia has launched and personally I think they made a great decision by launching their new operating system first on this phone. The N8 has 16 GB of internal storage, 256MB RAM, 512 MB ROM and is powered by a 680 MHz ARM 11 processor and a Broadcom BCM2727 GPU. It also supports microSD cards up to 32GB.
The connectivity is also great on the N8 as it has support for class 33 EDGE/GPRS and HSPDA 10.2Mbps and HSUPA 2.0 Mbps 3G connections and it also has Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP and b/g/n WiFi. Plus it has stereo FM radio with RDS and FM transmitter.
GPS is also present with A-GPS support and Ovi Maps 3.0 out of the box and a digital compass to help with pedestrian navigation.

The box

The phone comes in a thin blue box and in the box we have the wall charger, the data cable, in-ear hands-free headphones, the USB-on-the-go cable that we have talked about in the E7 review and the mini-HDMI adapter that plugs into the TV-out port and allows you to have 720p video via HDMI with Dolby Digital Plus sound on your living room TV. So I think it’s fair to say that Nokia has provided us with all the accessories we need. I can think only about two more extras I personally would require: a car charger and a car holder. And it’s great that Nokia has provided us with the possibility to charge the phone not only by using the micro-USB port but also with a standard Nokia 2mm charger because nowadays we can find a Nokia 2mm charger almost everywhere.

Design and construction

The Nokia N8 has a 3.5 inch beautiful 16M colors display, with a 640 x 360 pixel resolution, and an AMOLED capacitive touch screen with scratch resistant Gorilla glass display that also supports multi touch so you will be able to enjoy the iPhone-like pinch to zoom feature. Weighting only 135 grams it feels very light in the hand but it also gives you the feel of a well built device, because of the materials used: anodized aluminum and high-quality plastic.
I don’t have an issue with the fact that the camera sticks a little out of the back of the phone because I understand that it would’ve been impossible to fit the camera inside the device considering the big sensor they used. The only design issue I have is with the fact that Nokia chose to put the speaker on the back so when the phone sits on the table you can barely hear it ring. And it happen to me a couple of times to miss phone calls because of this problem. Stereo speakers on the side would have been a smarter choice.

Camera

It’s now time to talk about the strong point of the device, the camera. The Nokia N8 packs a 12 megapixel autofocus camera with the largest optical sensor ever fitted inside a mobile phone that measures 1/1.83''. Plus we have an abundance of other camera gismos: Carl Zeiss optics, mechanical shutter, ND filter, Xenon flash, geo-tagging and face detection. And it also can take 720p video with a frame rate of 25fps with great audio capture.
But I can’t convince you about the amazing quality of the photos the N8 takes using only words, so I will let the images talk for themselves. Bellow you have some outdoor pictures (taken in low sunlight) and some indoor ones with a comparison between no-flash and flash pictures taken indoor with artificial light.

Conclusion

I have said very little about the device but it has so many great features that I don’t have the time to write about all of them in detail. With the soon-to-be released Anna update to he Symbian^3 OS family the N8 is truly the best phone in the world at the moment and it has everything a Smartphone user would want. I can’t but recommend the N8 especially as the price point for it has dropped in the last months.

Finally I leave you with two comparison photos between the N8 and the phone that has replaced my E7, the Nokia N900. But more about the N900 in another review. Stay tuned!