Nokia N8 Successor Rumours galore: Sounds awesome, will make N8 users upgrade :D (it might still be Symbian)
I take info about upcoming phones very lightly, often we have had to ignore tips on upcoming phones as we don’t know where the news is from.
However, dsmobile should be no stranger to you. He told us back in JANUARY 2011, that the newly designed Nokia N9 was the,
“ sexiest mobile ever done. It’s bye bye for HW qwerty and welcome candybar back in my life
“
Holy cow, how right was he? The N9 isn’t just the sexiest phones to us Nokia fans, it has swayed even Nokia’s worst critics and has been voted to the top of best design list. e.g. TB’s sexiest gadgets of 2011 (yeah it was 800 but the design we saw in N9 first!) Gizmodo, Engadget, TheVerge, SlashGear, MobileBurn, MobileTechReview, PhoneArena, FoneArena, all the WP sites, and all the other tech sites I’m failing to mention adored the N9 design, with many putting it above the iPhone 4S. Quite a feat given how hardened many are to Cupertinos lines.
Anyway, that’s not the only example that dsmobile had been right. He talks about more specifics in that link such as the simplicity in setting up accounts, no home key, as well as many other examples in other posts (also quite worryingly he mentions how MeeGo was moving so slowly. This is January. We heard about the slowness of MeeGo’s pace in articles post Feb 11, about how Kai warned Elop on the pace of MeeGo or lack of it. Anyway, that’s not what this post is about).
Now knowing this source is very trustworthy, listen to dsmobile’s information on the Nokia N8 successor.
Next version of N8 will make everyone who has N8 to upgrade. Well everyone who has no problems with money and you will need new HDMI cable.
N8 will feel low weight but Hy*****n looks great and fits in hand. And camera updates damn. Too bad I cant give more info.
Lets hope that one will come out in first half of 2012.
- “Next version of N8 will make everyone who has N8 to upgrade.”It will be awesome, N8 folks. I think the fact you need to be N8 user right now means it’s on Symbian. A lot of Symbian N8 owners don’t care what it’s on, but the staunchest supporters love it for being Symbian and wouldn’t want to touch WP. I cannot look at Anna right now, but Belle is fine enough to use with a bit of tweaking. It would be awesome if they could bundle Carla or Donna with Swipe, no? Also note that about 6 months ago,über Symbian fan, Ninja had apparently spoken to friends higher up at a UK mobile network who also gave us some info on the N8 successor claiming it was also on Symbian, despite the expected WP. Whilst Ninja can be very evangelical on the gospel of Symbian and so might just be hoping, remember how he said the Nokia 700 would appear in September? That was before 700 was launched to even know availability dates.
- “everyone who has no problems with money” It will be priced as a high end device. It won’t come cheap. Possibly nearer the £500 mark?
- “you will need new HDMI cable.” MicroHDMI out?
- “N8 will feel low weight but Hy*****n” N9/800 are relatively heavy phones but do not feel it at all because of their design.
- “looks great and fits in hand..” Haha, not too revealing about what it looks like.
- And camera updates damn. Wow, looks to have a damn good camera.
- Too bad I cant give more info. Understandable. But we’ve got a lot here of credible info.
- Lets hope that one will come out in first half of 2012. Hope? It must come out first half 2012. I hope you know more that it’s due around that time. Nokia are supposed to be coming big in MWC, and earlier rumours pointed to N8 successor being unveiled around that time.
Let’s remember also some previous N8 successor rumours.
This is the one with quite specific on the feature list. Nothing to go on here.
Another spec list, still suggesting nHD. Nothing to go on here.
http://mynokiablog.com/2011/08/29/nokia-801-possible-16mp-belle-or-make-believe/
Supposedly for june 2012
This could be the housing for it.
Here’s a Nokia staff member confirming the N8 successor. Whilst you may say it’s obvious, it’s good to hear as we did not have any this year. Expect better than the N8 is said.
http://mynokiablog.com/2011/11/15/nokia-confirms-n8-successor-for-next-year/
This post suggested the N8 successor would be in Symbian but also in WP.
Anything else I’ve missed?
Come on Nokia, before someone steals the imaging crown from N8 as you’ve left the N9/800 to represent you now for imaging and they’re kinda ‘meh’.
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Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and facebook.com/MyNokiaBlog. Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
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you think you sound cool with your foolish accent
Nokia Hypogean???
Nokia Hyperion… look at my post further down!
[@DSMobile, read your PMs on M-R forum(Note: at least for me it does not notify of new messages anymore).]
Sounds good. “Fits in hand” sounds like a relatively small screen (i.e. not more than 4 inches) OR perhaps a design along the N9/800 lines.
No optical zoom for me, “just” a 1/1.7” sensor camera with f2.7 aperture. A thought of a Zoom in a phone makes me nervous. First make sure the photos are amazing, and only after that implement breakable mechanisms.
Or, perhaps they could make it rather big device and fit even bigger sensor and take serious lead in mobile cameras for years. I’m not usually into big phones, but in this case there would be some advantages. If it was half way to a tablet, you could fit a lot bigger battery and could also have elbowroom for impressive processor too, which at Nokias pace would last a serious period of time, and you wouldn’t be able to take everything out of, say, ST-Ericsson A9600 in years anyway.
If it was like Samsungs Note and had stylus, it would be fun to make photo editing on the go with pressure sensitive stylus. I would still make serious work on PC…but then again, I would take my serious photos with SLR. But at least communicational and fun photos would benefit.
A camera behemoth with 5″ screen and N9 -like body.
-2500 mAh battery(have no idea, just took it out from the Note’s specs)
-A 1/1.7” sensor camera with f2.7 aperture or bigger even, as 5 incher could swallow more
-ST-Ericsson A9600 -> 2 core Cortex A15 and PowerVR series 6
-Stylus with pressure sensitivity
Aah! Exactly what I want. And even more exactly what my wife wants!!!
Mine too! My wife asked me if “the camera phones”(N8) successor have been announced already and told me to get a Samsung Note for her, if it doesn’t get announced soon.
F/2.7? That’s slow as hell for me. I need atleast F/2 maximum aperture, the faster the better. I bet I’m not the only one who likes low-light photography witouth flash.
F value doesn’t mean speed. It tells how much light goes to sensor. F/2 is not common even in dedicated cameras, let alone in mobile phones -> there is not a phone for your “needs”. f2.7 aperture would be on par with Canon best non-slr camera.
I’m a N8 user and I got it mainly due to the AWESOME camera, but also for the free sat nav and it was competitively priced at the time (got it cheap via vodafones customer retention!).
Overall I’m happy with the phone but the software is AWFUL! Had a play with the Lumia 800 and was impressed, prefer WP7 to Symbian. So I hope this N8 successor will be anything but Symbian!
I’m waiting for the Belle update, so will give Symbian another chance, but really Symbian is just SO FAR BEHIND Android (and iOS) in user experience. So it’s fair to say I’m pretty sceptical about Belle.
No matter how good the hardware is, it can’t make up for clunky software.
WP7 is a maturing OS, so things can only get better (I hope!).
I see it as a competitor to mid-range Android phones and so would expect to see WP7 taking some of Androids market share this year.
Apple, iPhone etc are almost untouchable so I doubt people who are looking at the iPhone will consider ANY alternatives (god knows I’ve tried!) as it’s really just a status symbol like a Range Rover, BMW, Rolex etc.
The only concern is the battery life. Is WP7 power hungry or is it because the Lumia has a smaller battery!?? Web reviews on batt test differ, and I’m aware of software fixes… but it’s still a concern. I’m willing to give it some leeway as practically every new OS has these ‘teething problems’.
If I was looking for MID RANGE phone at the moment I’d probably get the Lumia 800, it isn’t perfect but it’s a good overall package.
Btw: Cool blog dude, been reading for a year, so might as-well start posting!
+1 man. After using WP7, I can’t see myself using any other OS. I don’t mean that Belle is bad, it’s quite awesome, but I’m in love with those tiles UI.
Viipottaja, you still go to MR??
I haven’t been on there in ages, the forum died a while back it seems.
Jay, have you thought about doing a forum on here?
No I don’t (well, maybe once a month) other than just to PM with a few people there. Even the PM function seems broken now though – don’t see a notification of a new PM and have to go the inbox to see if there are any new ones.
I do not use MR anymore.
Carla is lovely girl but I still like Swipe UI even it has it’s faults specially if kids play with it.
Beside Belle and Carla are sisters and pretty similar. Other has more expensive taste with details.
Donna might come from different family.
My self I am not really looking camera when buying a phone I am more for fashion phones like N9 or Vertu if I had money for it.
I know you don’t but would be great if you could reply my PM there. Long time no talk.
I can even find login for that forum anymore. How you can even login there?
cant
I think PM is not working. so you will need a new forum if want to pm me =)
Are you implying donna might come from a different os? like harmattan?
What about Meltemi or full touch S40?
Wow better cam than n8. I assume 16mp with optical zoom along with bigger sensor, but will it be able to do full hd vid rec even with 1 cpu and 512mb ram?. Its pretty much a nokia 701 with wvga screen and mega cam.
I think as long as they put in the BCM2763, it should be fine.
I would like to see something similar to Lumia 800 in terms of design. Perhaps it could be a bit bulkier to show of its awesome camera (N8 even looks like a digital camera which is awesome!).
About the camera, I’m satisfied with my N8 and see no reason to change it much. Perhaps optical zoom.
It must have HDMI out, and preferably USB-otg. I don’t care about NFC or FFC.
And finaly, it has to run WINDOWS PHONE 7. Yes! No matter how “great” Symbian is, I’m not gonna spend €500 on a platform that’s dead. OK, it has support until 2015 something, but is has NO support from app developers until then = dead.
All Symbian apps are now in Qt. Qt based Symbian apps still have MASSIVE support from developers. The addressable market is about 150 million phones for goodness sake! Symbian downloads on Nokia Store are growing hugely and have been for some time, as have the number of apps – and that IS developer support!
The platform is nowhere near dead, there are roughly the same number of Qt-supporting Symbians out there are there are Android and iPhones out there.
What’s more Symbian apps, ie. Qt ARE NOT DEAD – Qt is going to be in the next billion low end phones (which will be easily smartphone level power) and future Nokia devices, and looks likely on Nokia’s WP devices too.
Then Symbian itself has some 300 million users currently today.
Symbian is the farthest from being dead of any platform out there! The only difference is the end of line has been announced whereas it has not for other mobile OSes.
look how Symbian is “dead”: http://www.phonearena.com/news/Symbian-still-the-most-widespread-mobile-OS-in-2011-Apple-surges-with-the-iPhone-4S_id25494
I’m not gonna argue with you about installed user base or downloads on the nokia store, but the fact is. In the eyes of developers Symbian is dead last when it comes to high quality apps. Symbian is always last to get the apps “everyone else” have (if lucky enough to even get them). Have you looked around Nokia Store lately? Perhaps you did notice that 95% of the apps are pure crap and mostly non-QT stuff together with even crappier themes, backgrounds and ring tones.
WP7 is the way to go to be part of the fun!
Perhaps Symbian C(lara?) will change the game and prove me wrong. But as long as Symbian Belle is the best they have, it’s not gonna make any app developers think twice. It looks old, it feels old and the UI is still far from 100%.
And how the hell do you know what app developers think and what will make ANY developer think twice? First become one, then pass your judgement. Whether some platform looks old, or feel old – that’s barely of any developer’s concern, that’s what concerns users. Us, developers, just want the best possible tools and the most achievable control over our apps, and of course – enough of a target market to make it worthwhile to develop for it.
I’d rather develop in pure C++ and that god-awful-kill-it-with-fire Avkon/Quikon, than .NET, #$%#$% Silverlight or XNA. That’s not part of the fun, that’s part of the pain…
Thankfully, there is Qt to ease the pain
You tell it like it is, Andreas
And you’re right – millions of millions of install base/users, only about 50K apps in the store (a store that is almost 3 years old), and still no big name, appealling apps! Major developers aren’t interested, as evidenced by the small number of app accrual over a 3 year period, and Belle isn’t going to change that.
+1
I agree with Andreas…
HDMI and USB OTG but also removable media.
I also was on mr forums since 2006 lol. No one talks their much, where is dsmobile posting?, was it from the forum or his twitter?
Not anyone here speculating about the name? DS gave us a chance to guess, he wrote this “Hy*****n”.
My bet is HYPERION! The ‘problem’ I have with this is the fact that Hyperion is a moon of Saturn. And moon is also….. LUMIA of Windows Mobile.
It really is not a problem for me though – I’ll get in in any way or form it comes
Anyone got better speculations?
One more interesting thing about the name speculation for Nokia Hyperion 850 (just making that number up) is what is written about Hyperion on wikipedia – “Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation, the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well, in that they are caused by these bodies, and to make these facts known to others; and that for this reason he was called the father of these bodies, since he had begotten, so to speak, the speculation about them and their nature.”
That somewhat fits with a device that ‘understands.. observes.. and make these facts known to others…’
It’s my bet too.
I do like how Nokia is naming its phones. In a way, calling phones just a model number makes it a device, something not fun. Nokia’s compromise to have some model numbers, yet add on to it by having a product family name, is a good way to stick an identity to your product. Not many remember what model their IBM laptops were, they just know it by the Thinkpad.
Bigger sensor, wider aperture than the N8
Make video shooting better
Upgrade/Add CPU/GPU/NFC and other hardware modules of the latest Symbian devices
Use 1GB RAM instead of 512MB
Retain the microHDMI
Upgrade to microSDXC
Upgrade the FFC
Speakers on the front or bottom
Body design like the N8 or N9
Price is reasonably
And that’s it, we are all set…
:O 1 GB ram? then it’d be more powerful than the N9???
Is there such a thing as tech-gasm?
Honestly the only upgrades i want for my N8 is more RAM and bigger battery… Maybe a better processor since it looks like symbian apps an’t gonna be developed to make use of a high end processor anyways.
ADD NFC !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Both hardware and software will absolutely have to be better. As much as I like Symbian and love Maemo5 I am very impressed with the fluidity of WP 7.5. The Hy*****n should have smooth UI that matches WP and N9 Meego. I want to see Swipe UI on Symbian.
No Xenon, no N8 sucessor, no chance!
With nokia’s camera phone flagship profiles, chances are slim that the next camera flagship will be LEDed
They need to be both `LEDed` and `Xenoned` – first for video, focusing and some other practical uses (flashlight etc.) – second for taking a damn-good low-light photos. To this day I find it hard to believe that they didn’t include even a single bright-LED to the N8 for the video mode…
Style over function my friend.. Style over function.
If its WP7 i’m jumping off to the next best thing…
Very doubtful they can bolt great camera with all the software that should accompany it to WP so quickly. Just take a look at the current WPhones camera performance\software features – light years behind symbian.
The micro or mini HDMI shouldn’t matter as Nokia gave us an adapter last time, so long as they give another adapter it’s just a matter of switching the adaptor out or maybe buying a micro to mini adapter (lol)
Screen size and camera details is what I want to know
I’d love to see Symbian here. Maybe some of visitors think that Symbian is not having many apps. But the fact is what we have now is already enough for most tasks. Or do you need more games? I admit that Symbian is lacking of games. But I don’t care.
Sounds good.. But i just have 2 essential requirements. Big battery and larger screen.. thats it.. then N8 mk2 here i come.
Bit of a busy comments section but I feel like contributing my hopes too!
First off, I don’t want any hardware feature dropped from the N8! I use the MicroSD slot, I use the TV-out and HDMI functions, I use the FM radio transmitter. I even use the DAB headset via the USB-OTG port.
I’ll make an exception for the single face button though. It’s useless apart from often being the only way to get to the task manager. Ditch it and make the face buttonless, and extend the screen without making the phone wider, like the N9 has demonstrated. Bring swipe to ‘Carla’ so we can multitask that way.
I think the camera shutter button may be approaching the end of its life too, as I find myself using the timer more and more to take steady shots that show off the 12MP resolution of my N8. Although currently it isn’t in the way of anything.
If the camera adds to the depth of the phone, like it did on the N8, don’t make it a silly little island. Extend that depth along the body and make the battery fatter. And stereo speakers. And a kickstand, that can be used either for hands-free media viewing, or for taking photos. Funny thing is, the N8′s rear looks like a kickstand was supposed to be there but it broke off!
While an optical zoom would be nice, I’m not expecting it unless Nokia are going to look at the N93 form factor again. It’s too difficult to hold a phone steady enough for it to be worthwhile unless you have a tripod. Still, what Ninja has said before has intrigued me. Nokia’s EDoF technology and the way the N9 uses its sensor has surprised me enough to think that maybe Nokia really do have a means of enabling a working zoom feature that doesn’t require a traditional mechanism. Sub-pixel capturing maybe? Have they managed to get liquid lenses to work?
I’m hoping for 1080p video, and 60fps, 120 fps or even more frames per second available at lower resolutions.
Along with xenon and LED flash (for video in the dark) being included, I’d love to see the flash as far away from the camera lens as possible, so we can diffuse it, or bounce the light onto a ceiling or wall with our hands or a bit of card. The red-eye my N8 sometimes comes up with is far too much for automatic removal. It’s rarely even red; it’s usually bright white and covers some of the iris.
Don’t care too much about CPU so long as the GPU continues to be up to all the most frequent tasks without being a massive drain on the battery. Resolution doesn’t bother me either, as being able to read lines of text a millimetre high sounds like a painful headache, and I feel it’s just a numbers game for the marketing people. A generous amount of RAM so that it doesn’t end up in Out Of Memory hell in less than a year is essential though. 256MB seemed great, until we learned Symbian^3 ate up about 3/4 of it. Plus I somehow filled up my C: drive despite installing everything on E: unless otherwise instructed.
Yes, and I also think that even the games would benefit from lower resolutions, as you could use the processing power to the much more important shaders.
I agree.
Alas, have you seen how much iOS users moan if a game doesn’t support Retina Display? I don’t think many developers would be brave enough to release beautiful, smooth but low-res games, as any unqualified idiot can spew up a one-star store review just because a game doesn’t fully show off their latest hardware purchase (while at the same time draining the battery, warming their hands and not being as responsive as a touch-screen game demands).
Come to think of it, I do recall being told by an iOS game developer that the 3GS pretty much hit the sweet spot as far as graphics were concerned. But the jump to Retina Display on iPhone 4 wasn’t accompanied by a GPU upgrade, which meant that they couldn’t include many effects because the pixel fill-rate just wasn’t up to it. The public know what a resolution increase is though, but not necessarily what a pixel shader is, so pixel shaders have been neglected even on the king of mobile phone gaming
Ah, one more thing. The microphones should be positioned to they are easy to cover with your fingers if you’re taking a video in a really loud place, so you don’t end up with that wind-like sound (does anyone else get that? Here’s an example http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFfJE97fHIA).
Genuine stereo recording would be nice too, although I like how the N8 uses its face mic. An option to selectively turn mics off would be nice, for the current N8 and not just the successor.
Years back I saw an ingenious implementation of mic cover on some cheapo mp3 player/recorder – it uses two parallel air pipes to stream air (and vibrations in it) to a shielded mic – if there is wind or high noice – the pressure differential cancels it at the point where those two ‘pipes’ meet and the mic gets pristine, albeit a bit muffled sound.
Sure, it will also cancel very low sound as well, so it’s not the best for all situations, but it’s a damn good for windy/noisy recording.
Ability to tap screen to snap (full res) picture while recording video would be nice too.
it would be very awesome if Nokia kept the N9 design for its high end devices for sometime
im fine with my N8 for quite awhile yet so this N8 successor better blow my mind and if it does have the rumored Optical Zoom and 1080p recording then
by “need a new HDMI” that makes me think hdmi 1.4a (aka 3D)
While I personally cannot go back to Symbian after Maemo/MeeGo, here’s to some Symbian love at last…
If there is something that has to be improved in the camera department of the N8 it is its macro mode – both my N900 (w/ FCam drivers) and the N9 take better macro shots than the ‘best camera in a phone’ N8, which is kind of silly. Apart from that, a slightly bigger sensor to accommodate wide and 4:3 shots (the idea implemented in the N9) would be damn sweet.
And of course, camera cover (hopefully automatic one!) and dual bright-LEDs for low-light video taking and focus calculations are more than welcome additions.
Those small changes alone would make it unparalleled for years to come. Everything on top of that is a pure bonus.
I own my N8 for more than year, and im very content with it. I will certainly upgrade to it’s successor if Symbian-based.
—
What i would like to see:
- premium design (i would really like N9 design, maybe slightly modified, so no one can use “old design” card; after all they have to integrate larger camera module)
- ClearBlack AMOLED display (i want my “always on” clock)
- 3.7″ – 3.9″ would be great, can live with 3.5″, 4.3″ or more is just too big
- 960×540 would be great news, and decent progress from 640×360 for other future Symbian smartphones aswell. (854×480 should be skipped, or else Nokia will find itself again behind others in year or two; 1280×720 is just too good to expect, and the price and availability, especially if AMOLED, might be problematic) Anyway, im afraid they will stick with 640×360 which will look pretty bad in comparision with 1280×720 2012 high-ends
- 1 GHz Cortex A8 CPU would be enough for me (just make sure that UI, browsing and basic apps such as Nokia Maps would be smooth). However, in these days of dualcore and quadcore smartphones (even WP will have dualcore support by then), they better launch it with dualcore CPU, or people will not consider it high-end. ST-Ericsson dualcore platforms would be great.
- 512 MB RAM should be enough. Depends on how memory hungry future Symbian update will be though.
- memory card slot is a must. SDXC support would be nice
- improvements in video quality, 1080p 30fps recording, radical camera interface improvements (this one is really important or reviewers will get mad), possibility to switch between continuous AF and touch focus would be nice, aswell as optionable slow-motion recording (60fps 720p, 120+ fps 480p ?) Im very excited to see their new camera-tech, especially TrueZoom
- additional LED flash (so we can use it as a torch) would be nice
- existing futures i got used to: HDMI out (Nokia Big Screen app FTW), FM transmitter, USB OTG)
- NFC (maybe BT4, DLNA, Wifi Direct… to make it more future-proof), gyroscope, HD audio
1 GHz dual core cortex a7 coupled with something new from Broadcom, with 768-1024 mb RAM should sufficiently lay claim to the title “Symbian power flagship”
Camera phone will have NFC and Xenon and…
Screen is bigger than N8 and CBD with Clock.
Front design is really nice, white one looks really cool. That design in slim phone with basic camera would also work really nice.
Battery is back to old school and you can change it your self with out tools. =)
dsmobile…can you let us know something? Is it closer to N9 or N8 in material construction?
N9
Hi DSMobile, I replied your PM.
Oh and N9is design and new chasis sound good!
well not really design but materials.
Hi dsmobile.
One question: Buy Lumia 900 or wait for N8 successor?
Lumia 900 has same camera as Lumia 800.
what’s about processors?
same as 701/700/603 or a new chasis?
new
ST Ericsson? U8500 or U9500 DUAL-core soc?
can’t say.
wonderful n8 successor! i wait for dual core for a long time. thx very much
Well, even Cortex A8 1GHz+ would be new, comparing to ARM11 used in current generation. But i have a feeling it will be dualcore.
dsmobile, thanks a lot for all the info!
Can you tell us if the phone will have a higher screen resolution?
hey dsmobile, nice to see you answering some questions. Can you say if there are any buttons on the front (like N9)? Hope the device has enough storage or microsd slot.
If it’s not Symbian, there would be no reason to call it “N8′s successor”. Unless you mean e.g. the successor in the title of best camera around…