Videos: PhoneArena's 2 Part review of the Nokia N8 – a good phone? Of course it is, we'd even go so far to say it's a GR8 phone

PhoneArena reviews the N8 wondering if it lives up to all the hype.

• Design wise, N8 feels extremely solid – good weighting behind it.
• Flat top and bottom edge – we were dubious at first but it really helps when picking up the handset.
• AMOLED colours are really vibrant and pixel density is good.
• In direct sunlight it’s still perfectly usable – though gloss may prevent from watching movies.
• CAMERA – Nokia says this could double up as a compact camera replacement – let’s see if it does later on…
• Overall, we really like feel of the N8 – due to the non removable battery, Nokiia have made it more refined – feeling solid dense and secure in the process.
• S^3 doesn’t feel different enough or more to the point, LOOK different enough [oh boy here we go, ]
• Very happy with the music player – it has been rethought through. Once opened, immediately brought to artists and albums – no wading through menu as these are all available within one click from the menu.
• Album art and song integration list – really great idea – makes one handset scrolling a real pleasure
• Loudspeaker is a littlebit tinny and not good for prolonged use
• Photo viewer loads up extremely quickly. Given that these photos were taken by the 12MP camera, we’re really impressed by this.
• There’s absolutely no lag – really happy that this makes the N8 a really good photo viewer and sharer.
• Keyboard layout much improved – in portrait, half the screen is now for your message
• In landscape, keyboard is extremely usable, with a lot of superfluous icons taken away. (ODD, this is something eve Steve Litchfield has issues with)
• Video playback – thoroughly impressed with the N8’s codec support – it just works seamlessly.
• Really great, N8 can double up as a media hub through HDMI – Really is a multimedia solution for all occasions.
• [quite a big general overview on the camera.]
• Web pages loaded on N8 well, but S^3 browser quite jerky. We’re sure Nokia is going to remedy this in the future. We found ourselves switching to Opera Browser, even forgoing pinch to zoom
• USB – to go functionality is fantastic.
• Overall S^3 is a little bit of a let down, whilst it does do a good job of anything it does and doesn’t royally stuff up anywhere, design wise it’s just not pretty. [woohoo, come on style over substance]
• When iOS and Android are stealing the show are making us want to use it, Symbian is lagging behind a bit, not paying enough credence to design which to this day and age is becoming increasingly important
• N8 a good phone? Of course it is, we’ve even go so far as to say it’s a great phone.
• One of the best if not the best camera we’ve seen on a mobile phone [the latter boys]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk3l3rDkEYM]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJnuKZkoZo8]

Whilst we can argue about S^3 usability, in terms of Symbian as a whole, erm YES Symbian ARE paying attention to design of their UI. That’s why there is S^4 – but good to know that whilst achieving all the functionality through the current UI with a rating of “good job” is deemed a fail, for the intended market – this should be more than enough and the N8 will satisfy through the host of multimedia features with a decent UI that pulls it off without frustration – leading to MOST importantly, an excellent overall USER EXPERIENCE of the ENTIRE handset.

via PhoneArena

Tags: N8, Nokia, Nokia N8, Nseries, Review, Symbian^3, Video

Category: Nokia, Nseries, Reviews, Symbian, Video