Nokia N8 , the honest view

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I did review Nokia N8 here but that was before I got it and tried one or two things with it.  Here is my honest assessment of the phone and this time I will steer clear of the technical details and go straight to the real life experience. But before that  the first debate I had with my friends after getting the phone is whether Nokia has cracked the OS to the level of iOS and Andoid.  Not yet, but Nokia N8 running on Symbian ^3 is the most touch friendly I have seen on a Nokia gadget.   Although Nokia developers still have some journey to travel in order to catch up, the latest edition introduces major advances, including support for gestures such as multi touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom.   The phone is smooth and fitting.

Pictures and Videos

I can confirm that Nokia N8 is a true Camera phone. @Mwirigi protested when I showed up during the launch of Nokia N8 in Kenya at Sankara hotel Westlands with Sony DSC-W310, which is 12 mega pixels just like Nokia N8 camera.  The point was I wanted a close comparison of the two.  True to Mwirigi’s words no need of a camera when you have Nokia N8. The fact that you can edit the pictures and videos  on screen is a big plus.  Look at this picture of the happiest lady in the world during the Launch at Sankara.

Dorothy

@Dorothyooko of Nokia

Trying out my editing skills…bigup to @Chesssunday followers

@Chesssunday

HD-quality videos be the judge…here as Dorothy explain what Nokia N8 is all about

MultiTasking

At  first I struggled with this feature, you know ushamba kidogo, but when I came back to reality I found out that it is smarter, very cool indeed .  It has visual interface showing you both a preview of what’s running and a big X to kill any apps you no longer using.  I like the fact that  you can choose which apps to kill and which to keep running in the background.  Done with apps but you still want it to be running for later visit hit the physical home button and it remains doing its things in the background.  So you can open and use twitter and leave it running, go to facebook on the other browser, finish and leave there, check your email on Gmail, Receive a call, type a text and even take a pic while the others are running on the background.

Email

I was able to setup three email accounts , on Gmail, Maduqa.com and Finwebkenya.com emails. There are two ways to sync the emails, with possibility of filtering by sender, date or email account.  Out of the three or whatever the number, you can choose to have one mega inbox or separate each inbox according to your taste

Beauty

The anodised aluminium casing is what one would call sexy. Comes in variety of colors as shown below.

Nokia N8 Image

Nokia N8 Image

Showcase

@Dorothyooko, @Martingicheru and @Timnjiru

But the main function is to keep the phone scratch free. The framework is joined by the battery cover at the back. Now where is the battery and how does it look like exactly? I still don’t know. The battery is non-removable, somewhere behind tightly screwed cover.  Nokia has put two hinged gates on the side of the N8, giving access to the microSD card slot and the SIM card port. That means the  sim card slot is on the side of the phone, and completely different from the structure of the other nokia phones.

Battery life!

The battery longevity of a phone  is an open debate. It  is hard to tell exactly the battery life of a phone, as it purely depends on the usage. Nokia N8 with possibility of  multiple apps running at the same time might not be able to retain charge for long. So far the maximum time i have got on phone after charging it fully is 2 days.  But again i have never stopped listening to music, taking pics, videos sometime and being online throughout.

Find your way around- Ovi Maps

Facebook status update from the Office in Town…

Location

Location

With the latest edition of  Nokia Ovi Maps you can use walk & drive navigation feature to find your way around Nairobi street .  And if you are lost just check your exact location on the map. Nice

3G Connection

Apart from Safaricom, the other network operators are still stuck in the past. So you can only enjoy full 3G connection using Safaricom. The phone has three network options…3G, Dual mode and GSM.  There is separate WLan Connectivity for the wireless connection. So if you happen to be in Wi-Fi hotspots in Nairobi, enjoy.

Sound…Music

Dolby at it’s best,  the video player is great. The music player include cover flow esq imagery when you turn N8 to landscape mode. You can skip a track,  and go straight to your favorite. For the music crazy folks…grab it.

FM transmitter

Set up the frequency on the transmitter and any radio on the surrounding will pick it instantly.  You can  play your favorite tunes and mix  while driving in  car or at home.

Network Signal

Great call quality for both voice and video calls. Excellent signal/reception. Even our congested networks like Safaricom and sometime Zain …Airtel  fair nicely with N8

Price

Available in Nokia distributor and retail outlets as well as Safaricom retail centers, the estimated retail price of the Nokia N8 is around Kshs. 42,000

.

Finally, more pics here

Article Categories:
TECHNOLOGY

Comments

  • Great article. And great photos–crisp and clear!

    Dorothy Ooko November 25, 2010 15:30
  • If I need a camera I will go and buy a Camera. 42K is very steep for such a phone which has nothing to offer apart from the 12 MP. DO you know that a 14 MB HD 1080 SONY W320 cost 8k? I can have a phone also to complement it but not carry a fragile thing for 42K. Very very steep

    Mary November 25, 2010 17:52
  • Nice Article. I like the way Nokia has combined alot in one phone to much up with Apple and even do better in areas like the camera, FM receiver. I will forever be a NOKIA fun, have so save abit though to get this one maybe after a year…

    sam chege November 30, 2010 16:37
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