N8: Our unboxing and first impressions

Here I am sleeping late like the bum of a student that I am, when I hear a loud, unexpected knock on my door. Lo and behold it’s the courier from DHL bringing with him my first trial device for review :D!

Upon tearing the package upon, all I’m left with is a tiny, blue box with an outline of the N8. My first response was “They sure they put anything in this thing?”

Seriously small box

Compared to the packaging I’ve been accustomed to on past devices, this is minimalistic to the extreme! World’s greenest phone manufacturer without a doubt.

My favorite colour

Holding it in my hand, the first thoughts were “not heavy, very hand friendly and the cool feel of Aluminium”

In the hand

Moving around the sides of the phone my first remark was “it’s not particularly thin as say the Samsung Captivate I fondled last weekend but definitely easier on the hands and not nearly as chunky as some photos would have you believe.”

The rounded edges while they make it easier to handle, don’t exactly lend themselves to the perception of thinness either.  Accents around buttons definitely give this a sharp contrasting look, especially when compared to the dark color of the device.

Menu button was surprisingly easy to press given its location and my left-handedness LOL. Not much of a protrusion but definitely a good feel to it.

Contents

Box emptied and contents laid out. The included USB-OTG and HDMI adapters come in stark contrast to other manufacturers who conveniently neglect to put these in with their devices, only to charge a  $50  surcharge for them later.

Update 1:

One of my initial concerns was the text entry method used in Symbian^3. My impressions based on the little time I’ve had with the device are as follows.

Lack of split screen, while a frustration and annoyance is not a deal breaker. Better implementation, like in Ovi Maps 3.6 is needed across the OS.

I also feared that the lack of portrait Qwerty was down to a lack of decent layout and/or prediction algorithms. I couldn’t be any more wrong. The prediction algorithms are easily on par with iOS and the lack of multi-touch in the landscape keyboard has yet to prove a hindrance. I’ve been typing pretty quickly and accurately within 2hrs. Layout could do with a bit of tweaking but isn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.

Post will be updated every 2 hours. So keep checking back for more info and impressions

Tags: unboxing

Category: MNB, Nokia, Reviews, Symbian^3