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 
!
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
About the Author (Author Profile)
So you've read something I've written. yay!! As you already know, my name is Andre and I'm currently a student based in Atlanta. Much like Jay, I pretty much blog here in my free time. Follow me on twitter @andre1989 or contact me directly at Andre(at)mynokiablog(dot)com. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Comments (38)
Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed
Sites That Link to this Post
- Nokia N8 unboxing and first impressions | WOMWorld/Nokia | January 28, 2011
3 months after unpacking? and first impressions?
LOL,these are our first impressions from a reviewers standpoint. I didn’t buy this device and this was most certainly done TODAY.
sorry i dont understand this post. this device is out since how many months?!
This is MY review, or will be my review… there’s a lot to cover. And hopefully it coincides with the release of PR 1.1 firmware
What’s the PR version on it?
1.0 for now… I’ll keep checking for 1.1
Congrats on finally getting one to play with
Finland or China?
China
Man you slept really late… We all have it, playing with it, loving it… The N8… Since 3 monthes…
Hi Andre, could you please check if the unit you’re reviewing has a reddish tint in the dark parts while playing movies. I’m asking because many N8′s in Greece have this “problem”, even though Nokia here doesn’t recognize it as a problem, I’m just curious to know because our units are made in finland. Thanks in advance.
Get swype!
“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”
I’ve had the same experience. Add split screen input and everything will be fine. I don’t even use swype anymore.
For me with split screen input, a new browser, and an improved Social client, the N8 will be perfect (for my needs)
Andre, I’d MUCH rather see your considered, matured impressions after some use of the N8 rather than first impressions, which almost always change in people as they get used to a device, understand the differences, learn how it works and so on.
I think you are making a big mistake giving first impressions which are really pretty useless (sorry to be harsh, but it’s also true). You seem fairly wise and knowledgeable about Nokia, so I hope to see your thoughts again when you have used the N8 daily as your main phone for 1 or preferably 2 months, as I have.
My conclusion? Best phone on the planet bar none, even though there are niggles that annoy me (e.g. portrait keyboard is slower than I want, but that’s about it). Also EASILY the best convergence device (which Steve Litchfield at AllAboutSymbian says too) in the world and best ‘multimedia computer’. And yes, I have used iPhones and Androids and every generation of previous Nokia smartphone, and plenty of dumb/featurephones.
Yeah.. split screen is the most important for me.. It affects the use in every part of the N8. Maybe it will reduce the amount of clicks.
I don’t understand ? Review, now ? What for ? There is many exelent review’s around the internet. What do you tell us what we don’t know already ?! You are retired. Don’t waste your time.
He was asleep for 3 months and just did not realized that we are already in end of January 2011 !!
guy’s , just let andre enjoy his new n8, we all remember how excited we were when we got our n8′s . I would love to see what he thinks of it .
I own an n8 , though i love it, i find the interface not as smooth and lag free as i would like. But then again, i bought this phone for the features it has, i wouldn’t buy a phone just for its interace.
Come on nokia, give us ur wonderful hardware with meego!!!! Hell, i want linux in my pocket , i held back buying a Nokia n900 for too long!
I see a lot of comments here saying that I shouldn’t do this review or that it’s a waste of time and while the fact that it’s 3 months post release I feel like in that time a lot of the niggles that bothered other reviewers such as Engadget, have either been fixed or minimized significantly.
Furthermore the level of detail that I intend to go over in this review will be far and away more objective than any of the other reviews I’ve seen around the internet.
Whether you want to read it or not is entirely on you. But this is something I intend to do. Regardless of any dissent you may show
Enjoy your respective days
@Emmmanuel, true, true;) @fahoum, I’ve purchased my N900 a year ago, don’t regret and also waiting for meegoo device from N. Rightnow only valuble “review” (tutorial) can looks like this – http://mobilernr.com/10-steps-to-make-sure-your-symbian-experience-is-enjoyable/
@Andre, the point is that you can’t tell us (and your self;) ) nothig that we alredy don’t know, nothing valuable, so don’t bother
After 5 part review’s from Steve Litchfield, Gsmarena, mobile-review and this one for example 7 parts review http://themediaguru.blogspot.com/2010/11/nokia-n8-review-part-1-hardware.html I dont have to read nothing more cuz is pure waste of time.
Fell free to write whatsover about N8, off course…but just realized it
And you REALLY think there is NOTHING that I’ve read in all of those reviews… that I read in their entirety myself mind you, that I couldn’t improve or add to?
Do you really think that having heard the myriad of issues they encountered with those devices that I couldn’t try to better investigate them.
If you really don’t believe that there are people here that WANT to read our review then that’s your opinion. For those of here still sitting on the fence and wondering whether to stay with their current devices or take the plunge, another, slightly differing opinion is ALWAYS appreciated.
“So yes, I’m about to waste two weeks of my time according to you.”
Case in point, the same keyboard mentioned has got slated in almost every review for being a separate app or the lack of portrait qwerty but NOT A SINGLE ONE has impartially and objectively compared the speed of typing a test statement using the predictive text and comparing it to iOS, Android, webOS or previous versions of Symbian.
Web-browsing test benchmarks have almost unerringingly been Opera 10.1, Opera Mini and default browser with default settings. I intend to perform slightly different benchmarks for default browser performance.
But I digress. If you’re not interested in our review…… Don’t read it.
Heeyyy Andre, sorry for being a little bit sarcastic and hope you don’t feel offended. It was just stupid humor at my end…
For us it is interesting to see people from US (I guess this is where you are based) discovering NOKIA products and enjoying them.
Enjoy your new N8 and let us know what you like and don’t like…
I’ve been aware of the N8 since it’s very first leak.
So it’s not a matter of discovering but utlisation from a reviewer’s standpoint
Try to get PR 1.1, which should be coming soon. I am sure you will have a better experience, even with UI of input although very minor improvements, with Symbian 3 than those reviewers with release firmware.
Nothing personal, but I’m so tire of hearing the ‘coming soon’ bell being rang again. I know Nokia hasn’t mentioned any dates for when it where to come.
But how long does it take to just change the text input for instance. Split screen text entry would already take away so much irritations when SMS’ing or typing in general.
OVI Maps 3.06 has is it, so why not the entire OS?
Nokia just has to make 2 changes: Web browser and text entry. With those fixed the N8 is wonderful.
Sorry for doing justice to my name here.
The coming soon bell needs to be cut down, broken into pieces, melted and made into something useful.
Let me tell you what 1.1 was mainly done or focused. It included most of the critical bug fixes, of course, a lot of internal improvements for stability and performance. Big UI improvements have been allocated to major updates. If you work as developers or just work at a software house, it is not difficult to understand this logic and decision.
As far as I know the very last fixes were two critical bugs,one for Tai variant and one for emergency call respectively. It will a few days at least to test the regression in addition to the verification of bug fixes…
@Alex: I understand it takes time, I’ve done some website developing and even that is hard times trying to determine what does what and causes a fault.
Problem is more that a lot of blogs are going on about it will be here then and then. People think YAY!
What Nokia should do is just announce an estimated time of arrival for the updates. Build in a decent margin for error and if it is early; everybody more happy than if it were late.
Ah well, I’m just ranting away cause I want something new again.
Any info on minor speed improvements BTW? I’m experiencing some lag every now and then when I open the menu or items within it.
one thing i was quite surprised with lately, i finally used the built in ‘search’ function the other dah and IT has a split-screen qwerty! you would think that they would have added it to the browser as well
Precisely, I use it to quick search Google (very handy)and was amazed at the split screen functionality. As with OVI Maps. And yet is isn’t implemented in the browser/sms/etc. Ah well, that’s Nokia for ya.
I can think of two reasons why local search has split screen input but browser etc doesn’t. One reason might be local search was developed in a late phase and Nokia had received the feedback from reviewers about the poor input screen and had enough time to improve it during the development. N8 was released at the end of Oct, but I guess the features and improvements were frozen already in August and only critical bug fixes were allowed…
Browser is built on WRT and I don’t know if it can support split screen input. In my memory, new improved Ovi client was released later almost the same time as new Ovi map but still does not support split screen input for search while new improved Ovi Map 3.0.6 supports split screen input.
Of course, Nokia UI specifiers should design usable and better UI in the first place when Nokia started Symbian 3 development. Unfortunately, they failed to do the job. What a shame!
Regarding UI design one thing to keep in mind is that NOKIA people design the S ^3 UI for different devices :
- pure ‘touch’ like the N8
- touch and keyboard like the E7
- pure keyboard like upcoming ‘E6′
I also think that S^3 was initially intended to run on the N97… touch screen but no multi-touch
Thank you for your review!!!!
Much appreciated 
@Andre, you wrote: I’m about to waste two weeks of my time according to you.”
)) Go ahead ! I wish you luck, wish you the best, but I only put my opinion right here. You still don’t understand, you doing it too late, VERY late. I believe that there are people here that WANT to read your review, and will worth to read it (not for me) but is to late. N8 is nothing new, and this is not the NASA spaceship full of mysteries.
WHY? For example, if I need to find something about N8, so I will find it on planty of Nokia forums or sites,or I just will ask and talk about it directly WITH N8 USERS. Dont need to read another review- briliant or not. Everything you mention about you want to put in your review I can simply ask for on forums or reviews authors from sites mantioned above.
Yes, I will not read your review, boredom, boredom, boredom… no offense Andre! but its to many of them, to many points of view, I will rather buy N8 for that matter, and share my thoughts on forums, twitter, facebook with another N8 users.
Hmmm..I tend to disagree to a point and for this reason only. Most consumers either don’t have the money right away or have the urgency to get a phone as soon as it comes out. I mean how many years did the N95 keep selling. I believe that by the time he is finished, hopefully the pr 1.1. is out and he can get us an objective view of how the OS has hopefully evolved to somewhat take full advantage of the hardware. I don’t think in the next year two many phones will be coming out with comparable specs to the N8 on any platform. Therefore, I believe that the N8 still has potential with the same form factor to be even better with just optimization of the OS. While for example Apple usually fixes most problems with a new phone. So I am curious to see what he thinks, and you never know he may figure out something new. Also what can it hurt lol….Lets see what you got Andre…
Hello, and thanks for a very good Nokiablog, very interesting.
Now I am wondering something:
Have you tested to record with a USB Microphone?
I am considering buying a Nokia N8, but this is important to me, perhaps you have seen this work?
Can you choose soundsource in Symbian 3?
http://conversations.nokia.com/2010/07/22/nokia-n8-and-its-audio-smarts/#
“Nokia N8 microphones
..You’ll find two microphones on the Nokia N8: one on the rear of the device and one on its face. Both microphones will record when you’re capturing video. The result? Audio that’s both rich and clear as day, in video voice-overs, video recording and calls.
Nokia N8 – Audio outputs
Naturally, the Nokia N8 comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack. Plug in any pair of buds or cans to enjoy your tunes. There’s also a micro USB connector for an additional microphone or specialist audio equipment.
.”
Can you confirm that this USB-microphone recording works?
Thanks