A lot has been said about the Nokia N8, and we don’t doubt that a lot more will be, at least for a while, with the current state of the Symbian Foundation and the expectant air surrounding the MeeGo operating system and the Nokia N9. Whatever talk there is, one has to admit the Nokia N8 has a whole bunch of top-class features and some exceptional performance. Unfortunately, one is forced to admit that Nokia could have done a little bit better with many aspects of the phone, and these will be highlighted over the course of the review.

Build Quality, Ergonomics, & In the Box

Weighing in at 135 grams, the Nokia N8 is not too heavy by the standards of today’s smartphones, and has a nice hefty feel in your hand. With an outer body built almost entirely out of anodized aluminium, except for plastic buttons and port flaps, the phone has a great dull metallic sheen to it, really making the colour positively glow even in diffused light. The aluminium is also virtually scratch proof, with only very purposeful scratches making the slightest mark on it, leaving the rest to be brushed off. Featuring angled edges that give it an elongated octagonal shape, everything is quite solid and sturdy, with none of the buttons or plastic port flaps feeling flimsy.

On the front, the N8’s 3.5-inch screen has a thick black bezel, with a camera and proximity sensor on the top right, and the menu/task manager button on the bottom left edge. The power button is on top, alongside the covered micro-HDMI port and the 3.5mm audio jack. At the bottom is the charging socket. The left side of the phone has the micro-USB port, as well as the covered SIM card slot and microSD card slots. The right side of the phone comprises the volume rocker on top, with the screen lock switch and dedicated camera button below that. You will also notice shiny chrome screws on either side of the phone, which only serve to emphasise what the N8 is: a phone without a user-replaceable battery.

On the back panel, apart from no way to get at the innards of the device, lies the famed 12MP camera, resting comfortably on a rectangular extrusion, alongside the Xenon flash and the phone’s speaker. Unfortunately, the beautiful camera doesn’t feature a lens cover, though there is a removable (with a tab!) sticker on it straight out of the box. The lens is also made out of hardened glass, and will apparently withstand some harsh treatment. The placement of the speaker also reveals a small flaw in the extruded design, that if the phone is placed on its back, the resultant sound is partially muffled depending on the surface it is on i.e., cloth muffles a lot, while wood not so much. However, the biggest flaw in the extruded design is how it forces the phone to be slightly inclined on a flat surface, which while alright in portrait mode, makes for a strange viewing angle in landscape mode. 

Egonomics wise, one finds the camera button is placed with two-handed operation in mind (not necessarily a bad thing), though with a little hand gymnastics and some caution, one hand will suffice. The charging socket and 3.5mm audio jack are well placed, not coming in the way of using the phone. The in-ear headphones are of excellent quality, comfortable in ear, and have dedicated music and FM buttons.

In the box, comes a user manual, Ovi Suite disk, data cable (USB), charger, male micro-HDMI to female HDMI adapter, in-ear headphones, and, the USB-on-the-Go (male microUSB to female USB2.0) connector.

The screen, just like the camera lens, doesn’t feature a scratch proof screen guard safely stuck onto it, instead it has a removable screen guard with a non-adhesive tab sticking out, which by the second or third week of use, will have let in sufficient dust and air, and will have to be removed. That being said, it does have a scratch-resistant and toughened Gorilla glass display, however, we would recommend you get a good quality screen guard for yourself. The bundled removable screen guard loves fingerprints, and is much worse than the glass screen below it. The AMOLED display is beautiful, with great outdoor (sunlit) legibility, bright colours (16 million) and sharp contrast. However, the resolution (360x640) does leave something to be desired, especially when other top-end phones are packing screens with resolutions like 480x800, 640x960, etc.

As for the touch interface, the phone is comparable to the Samsung Galaxy S and Milestone XT720 in terms of responsiveness, and while it might be a bit out of Apple’s league in touch precision and fluidity, it is quite usable – rarely frustrating you. Pinch to zoom works well enough, while typing is very comfortable, with large and responsive onscreen keyboards, available in alphanumeric (in portrait) and QWERTY (in landscape) layouts. The adjustable haptic feedback makes it all quite tactile. However, the prediction and auto-completion features are not as usable as HTC’s XT9 or Apple’s own, requiring you to type out most of the word in many cases, and not displaying more than one suggestion at a time.

Read on to know more about the phone's interface, camera, and performance...