Nokia N8 > Reviews (21)

Looks and style

I'm a little fed up of buying phones and being disapointed with their build quality. Previous to buying my Nokia N8 I had 2 different Sony Ericssons - A Vivaz and an X10 and whilst being happy with them both to begin with after a few months I started having problems with them. This time when choosing a new phone my biggest requirement was that it had to be a quality item. I chose the Nokia N8 as I know Nokia are well known for their build quality and I have an old Nokia from about 6 years ago that still works fine now so I was pretty confident that it would be well made and not break within six months.
I've now had it for a couple of months and I have been very happy with it so far with only a couple of minor niggles.

The design of the N8 is a little different to the plethora of mobile phones that are available at the minute which really does help it stand out. The design won't be to everyones taste but personally I love it. It is still thin but it looks and feels more chunky than the other smart phones on the market.
The other thing that helps it stand out is the colour choice it comes in. You can get it in the usual black and silver but it also comes in a selection of bright colours depending on which network you buy it from. My one is green and although this may sound a little strange for a phone it looks great in the flesh and loads of people have commented on it.

The casing of the phone is made from metal and is scratch proof which is great for me as I am always dropping it. Before I bought it I watched a video on youtube which showed someone scratching it with a coin and then rubbing the scratches off and I can confirm that you can actually just rub any marks off the metal. The screen is made from gorilla glass which is supposed to also be almost indestructible. I love that I dont have to worry about having it in a case because I hate the bulk that cases put on my phones but there is a slight design flaw with this.
For some reason Nokia have made the back scratch proof metal and the front screen gorilla glass but they have then chosen to make the top and bottom plastic which means that if you drop it then those parts could be damaged. This seems a little strange to me and also a little annoying as the rest of the casing is so good.

The phone is touchscreen as you would expect from a modern smartphone and this is just right for me. It is easy to scroll through the phone with just one finger swipe and is very reactive but it isn't so sensitive that I end up pressing the wrong command. making a call is easy and the volume is good as is reception.
Texting is so much easier on this phone than my previous touchscreens as it has predictive text as well as an onscreen querty keyboard and I can now write a text as quick as I used to with my old button phone.

What really makes this phone stand out is the fact it has a 12 million mega pixel camera. Lot's of phones come with decent cameras now but this is by far and away the most impressive camera I have ever seen on a phone.

It compares very favourably with my 12 million mega pixel sony camera and I am now using my phone as my main camera.
Looking at the is great with the large 3.5 inch screen and the pictures come up bright and vivid and no one would be able to tell that the pictures had been taken with a phone. I had heard that the camera was the best on the market which was a draw when buying the phone but in the flesh it is so much more impressive than I imagined it would be.
It also has a proper flash instead of the usual lights seen on phones and this means that you can take a great picture in any light condition.
The phone also shoots and plays HD video which is just as good as my point and shoot video camera.
To launch the camera you don't need to go into the menu as the phone has a dedicated camera button which launches it and also takes the picture in seconds.

As for multimedia the Nokia N8 is well equiped. The music player is fantastic and the sound is impressive. There is the option to make playlists and anyone familar with ipods will recognise the coverflow feature where you can scroll through your albums.
Movies and TV shows look fantastic on the screen and are really easy to put on the phone as it plays a lot of files and when you cut and paste a video it automatically converts it to the optimum file for playing it.
It comes with a massive 16GB internal memory so you can store loads of vidoes and music files on it. I have hundreds of songs on it and quite a few movies and still have loads of room for more.
Other than the camera the second thing that made me buy this phone was that it has HDMI out so you can attach the phone to your widescreen TV and watch your movies that you have shot on the video camera or watch movies stored on your phone.
As I only now have a netbook with no HDMI I now transfer my movies to my phone to watch on the TV and this is the easiest thing in the world to do. In the box with the phone comes an adapter which you just plus into the phone and then attach a HDMI cable to this and then the TV. It takes seconds and works immediately with no faffing around.

The rest of the multimedia is a bit hit and miss. For apps there is the OVI store which is Nokias version of itunes where you can buy apps and games. There isn't anywhere near the choice that Itunes has but all the major ones are there such as facebook and angry birds.
There is a social networking app already installed on the phone but I found it easier to install the facebook app and go through this instead.
The biggest dissapointment for me is the internet which I just don't like using as I find it quite slow and not very intuative. To be fair I don't use the internet on my phone much anyway so I haven't been through the settings to see if it can be improved but it definately isn't up to the standards of the iphone and some Android phones.
Talking of Android a lot of people seem to have a problem with Symbian which is the operating system on the Nokia N8 but personally I quite like it. You can't just place all your apps anywhere you want on the screen as they have to be lined up in rows but I like this as it makes it cleaner looking.

It also only has 3 home screens but this should be enough for anyone.

One thing which impressed me is the battery life which is fantastic. With my other phones I needed to charge everynight but with the Nokia N8 the battery lasts days. With a full charge and light use then I can get 4 or 5 days out of it before it dies but even with using it very heavily playing music and videos and making calls I can get a couple of days out of it. This makes such a difference when I am out and about not having to worry that it is going to run out of battery.
For my green one I had to buy it on ebay sim free which cost me £350 as it was sold out in the shops. Nearly all the networks are selling it on contract but each one is selling a different colour. I would definately recommend getting a coloured one as it really does look good and looks much more exclusive.

I almost got an iphone but the colour, camera and HDMI swung me to this phone and I can honestly say that I am glad I bought it. The quality is fantastic and I have had no bugs or problems with the running of it and being a Nokia it will probably last years.
The Nokia N8 has the look of a premium phone and luckily it also has the goods underneath the gorgeous casing to let it compete with all the other smartphones on the market.