Nokia has announced its latest flagship phone — the Nokia N8 — and released numerous videos to hype the product. In addition to compatibility with both AT&T’s and T-Mobile’s 3G bands, the N8 has several features that are new to its phones. On the plus side, it has a capacitive touchscreen. Curiously, the battery isn’t user replaceable; while this helps the N8’s anodized aluminum body keep its sleek looks, not being able to replace the battery will surely piss off some users. The big addition is Symbian ^3, which is the first attempt at modernizing the aging Symbian platform. One tidbit that isn’t on the officials specs page is the CPU, which is purported to be an older ARM processor clocked at 680MHz.
International travelers will be interested in the phone’s use of Ovi Maps. Unlike most GPS systems on smartphones, Ovi Maps works — for free — in more than 70 countries and doesn’t require a mobile signal for use, as long as the maps for a specific country have been downloaded to the phone. As someone that travels (and sometimes gets lost), this feature is extremely attractive.
The phone will be out in Q3 2010 for around $500. Here are more specs and a slew of videos. Check ’em out and let me know what you think. Will the N8 help Nokia win back some ground in America? Or will it be like its other recent smartphones — popular everywhere in the world…except America.
- Symbian^3 operating system
- 3.5-inch capacitive OLED touchscreen (640×360)
- 12 megapixel camera (with Carl Zeiss optics and a Xenon flash)
- 802.11 b/g/n
- HDMI output
- 16GB of internal storage
- microSD expansion slot
- HD video recording
- Free Ovi Maps walk and drive navigation
I don't care if they named a phone after me…. I'm still a Machead.
@N8R I was actually thinking about you when I wrote the article. It would be hilarious if you rocked this phone. Perhaps I'm destined to own an RPad iPad.
@ Ray
I particularly like the line about:
"Will the N8 help Nokia win back some ground in America?"
That's classy.
@N8R You could cut promos for Nokia and end them with, "If you smelllllllllllelelelelalalala…what the N8…is cooking."
I think Nokia has lost too much mindshare in the US for this phone to get it's foothold back in the US. Especially with the multitude of Snapdragon phones on the market and the upcoming iPhone…this is gonna get a few Nokia fanboys but that's about it. Of course, I have been wrong before so…
I'm interested in it. I'm open to abandoning my Iphone. I wonder how the OS will work.
The Facebook video cracks me up. If you keep an eye on the loading bar on the phone you can see they put the video in FastFoward. Facebook apps are always super slow though.
Good catch Captain Planet, now what do we do about the cells in the trash?
This phone looks pretty cool so far. I wish Nokia didn't close their stores. Now how am i supposed to test drive it!
I'm still waiting to play with a phone where the touch screen is half as good as the iphone. Closest I've seen is some of the HTC android phones, but they don't really compare.
I haven't played with the Nexus but Google's OS hasn't impressed me either.
@ N8R
I'm the same way. Though it's not just that I'm such an avid Apple fan, but also that everything I use already is all Apple, and with my MobileMe subscription, everything just works. Well.
For contacts, Google Sync is much better than MobileMe. It's free and works across multiple devices.