Nokia N8

Announced a few months back, the N8 is finally here. High-end smartphone, solidly equipped and very multimedia orientated, what is this Symbian^3 terminal worth, revisited as it is with a better touch facility? Answers below.

After the good 30 seconds or so you have to wait after switching it on, the home page interface pops up - it has been redesigned by Nokia to give it a better design than the Symbian one. Supposed to be the equal of the most popular touch interfaces, Nokia has worked hard to make browsing more coherent and agreeable, so as to limit (a bit) the number of clicks required for browsing the Symbian universe...
 

 

Successful? The home page, divided into three customizable displays, gives access to your favourite features (e-mail, social networks, photos, favourite contacts and so on) - a nice facelift as far as we're concerned.

For the rest, once you're in, you still have to work around a browsing system that lacks coherence and real shortcuts. There are too many stages before you get to where you want to go, or you have to scroll down or up too many features. If you know and like Symbian, you won't be disappointed or feel out of place here. For everyone else, there are frankly simpler and better optimised systems out there for a touchscreen interface.
 

Pretty precise, the touch keyboard is a little too squashed: keying errors all part and parcel


Pressing down on the physical button gives access to multitasking

Even with several applications working in the background, the N8 is still pretty responsive. All the same, when it comes to scrolling on the home page or web pages or the two finger zoom in images, it's still a long way from the sort of fluidity you get with the iPhone 4, the Galaxy S or the new Windows 7 Phones we've tried. Note that at times the terminal is subject to slowdowns before gearing itself back up again.
 

When it comes to audio and video, the N8's photo quality certainly jumps out at you. It has a 12 Mpixel camera - which isn't sufficient on its own to guarantee good pictures - and, above all, a high quality sensor. Very good results for a smartphone.


The details are rich and it even does ok in low light. Both set-up and picture execution are fast. There are plenty of retouching features too. To sum up then, the camera is this phone's strong point.

When it comes to video, the N8 also does well: 720p is clean and fluid. Note that it supports a large number of codecs, with diVx as native.

In terms of audio, the N8 is a good travelling companion. We advise you to change the headphones to enjoy the device's full potential. The speaker isn't great however, especially when volume is high.


When it comes to battery life, the N8 doesn't do too badly for an ultra-connected device that is so often sollicited. Good for a smartphone, which means... a good 24 hours.