The official Nokia N8 owners thread

Forums › Legacy mobile platforms (Windows Mobile, Palm OS, Web OS, Symbian, Meego, Blackberry) › The official Nokia N8 owners thread

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#392414 15-Oct-2010 22:56

Even at $1200 it compares very well with some other smart phones especially when you look at the specs. However I guess to be fair one competitor is way over priced and over hyped. A sub $1000 price is more like it. Even $850 is pretty hard for me to justify.

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Kickass

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#392709 16-Oct-2010 20:02

http://www.digitalmobile.co.nz/mobile-phones/nokia/nokia-n8.html

alanz

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#396644 28-Oct-2010 08:01

Hi people. 1st time poster etc etc :)

Quick question for you guys, is there a real disadvantage to buy from a parrell importer as opposed to "official" sellers of mobiles? (I am talking about local importers have the N8 in stock now)

The pricing appears to be on par with the big guys, not inflated.

Are all these phones the same, or are there important differences for particular markets?

Hope this makes sense!!

Am starting to get an itchy wallet now I have seen one for real and still have no accurate Vodafone etc delivery.

thanks in advance

Technofreak

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#396827 28-Oct-2010 13:47

I'm getting itchy too, though prob can't afford one just yet.

Generally, they will the same. There are pluses and minuses.

The pluses are that an imported one will not be locked to a carrier and will have genreric firmware therefore, you will not have to wait for Vodafone/Telecom to release their version of any future firmware updates.

One potential minus it that while the imported phones will have the frequencies for New Zealand, the phone may be from a part of the world that has options that differ to those that will be offered here, i.e. pre installed Apps etc.

Providing you do your homework you should be fine.

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Charles000

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#396997 28-Oct-2010 20:08

I have an itchy wallet too. Got the cash to buy one now, but a bit hesitant about buying from a parallel importer. But I don't want to have to wait on Vodafone to issue firmware updates either.

I don't know why it's impossible to buy an unadulterated phone from an authorised reseller in New Zealand.

cdouble

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#397006 28-Oct-2010 20:27

I got one today from a parallel importer. If you have any questions fire away. The firmware in this one is a Hong Kong based firmware. It runs fine, in English. MMS, SMS, etc worked out of the box. Hotlink even works (according to the 'welcome to hotlink' vodafone message. I haven't actually used it yet).

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#397616 30-Oct-2010 00:16

cdouble: I got one today from a parallel importer. If you have any questions fire away. The firmware in this one is a Hong Kong based firmware. It runs fine, in English. MMS, SMS, etc worked out of the box. Hotlink even works (according to the 'welcome to hotlink' vodafone message. I haven't actually used it yet).

So far I like it after a days usage. I didn't have the highest of expectations from reading reviews but it's managed to exceed them. It runs well, good build quality, and doesn't seem sluggish. It has played a few videos I've thrown at it without problem in various formats (MP4, AVI, MKV). Video playback and sound quality is excellent.

The Ovi store is a lot better than on previous Nokia phones I've used. The look and feel of it is similar to the market app on recent android phones. Just with less apps. A lot less.

I bought Angry Birds and this plays exactly like the N900 and Android versions I've tried. Gameplay is smooth and touchscreen usage is fine.

A free update was available today with two games - Need for Speed Shift and Galaxy on Fire. Need for Speed has excellent graphics and the accelerometer based steering and controls was fine. Very similar to racing games I've tried on the Nexus One. Galaxy on Fire also had good accelerometer based controls.

So far I'm impressed with the gaming capability.

Battery life appears to be good. I've only had it for a bit more than a day with plenty of usage and it hasn't needed charging yet.

YouTube videos play in the browser using a 'beta player' that uses flash. This plays in a flash window in the page, or you can long click to full screen it. Performance seems to be fine. You can also use a 'standard player' which appears to launch an app to play the video.

GPS lock is fast. At least I assume it was GPS when I ran the map app. It could be wifi location or cell location. Whatever it is it is fast and gave an accurate location.

I hate Ovi Suite with a passion. Sorry Nokia. It's better than previous versions of the Suite but I still had trouble syncing and getting files copied across. I couldn't get the 'Music Transfer Service' to work but copying songs using the USB mass storage driver worked fine.

The built in 'Social' app does Twitter and Facebook adequately. I like the way it can give a combined view of a newsfeed from both services. A better client app is the free 'Socially' from the Ovi store. Looks and works nice.

I'm trying Contact and Calendar syncing using the Ovi services. Usually I use the Google Sync services. The latter worked fine using the 'Mail for Exchange' facility but I thought I'd try Ovi out to compare. It syncs so I guess it works.

The web browser is....ok. Definitely not as capable as N900, Android or iPhone. I hear a rumour a new browser is coming but Nokia seems to have pulled the YouTube video of it so don't know much about it. I hope it has a more recent WebKit or Gecko browser engine.

No regrets getting it so far, but I haven't stressed it much yet. For comparison I've had an iPhone 3G, Nexus One on Android 2.2, Nokia N900 and now this to compare. It holds up favorably.

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#397622 30-Oct-2010 00:40

Thanks for your feedback! It's good to hear from a fellow iPhone and Android user.

How do you find the file transfer rate from PC to the internal memory of the phone? I have read that it is fairly slow?

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#397623 30-Oct-2010 00:43

I think many of the reviews are from the US where no matter how good something is if it's not made in the US it's no good. Also they seem to forget that what is good or popular in the US may not be good or popular for the rest of the world. In other owrds they are not the world.

Too many reviewers seem hung up on the flashy GUI's that other phones may have and cannot see past these to see what the phone can or cannot do. They seem to blinded by the show and don't see that lack of go that some other phones may have.

I really like my 5800XM tho a bigger screen would be nice at times and the capacitive screens are generally nicer to use and are less likely to allow inadventent operations while in your pocket. The downside of the capacitive screen is that small check boxes on some apps or websites can be a tad difficult to check easily with a finger and are better checked with a stylus or finger nail, the problem being most capacitive screens don't support a stylus and a finger nail won't work either.

I think the N8 could easily replace both my PDA and phone. The PDA cost $750 two and bit years ago and the phone cost about $400 this year. In this light the N8 will probably be great value for the likes of me.

My only real question is what is Symbian 4 going to be like, how much better than Symbian 3, will it be worth waiting for, Will it be provided as an upgrade for the N8 or will a new phone be required?

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cdouble

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#397626 30-Oct-2010 01:31

heavenlywild: How do you find the file transfer rate from PC to the internal memory of the phone? I have read that it is fairly slow?

A 700 MB video file took about 70 seconds to copy to the internal storage. I'm not sure whether that's fast or not. Seems slow when you're watching it :)

cdouble

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#397627 30-Oct-2010 01:36

Technofreak: My only real question is what is Symbian 4 going to be like, how much better than Symbian 3, will it be worth waiting for, Will it be provided as an upgrade for the N8 or will a new phone be required?

It's a bit hard to know what the future holds. Nokia recently announced there would be no Symbian^4. At least, I think that's what the announcement was - I struggle to understand what's really going on:

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/features/item/12223_The_future_of_the_Symbian_plat.php

They seem to be moving to more of a rolling update model, pushing new Symbian features out to existing Symbian^3 devices. Their focus seems to be on getting developers using Qt rather than the Symbian API directly and they'd support Qt on Meego as well. This would make apps more portable.

While it sounds bad that they've said "No Symbian^4" I think a rolling update model is a better model. Less chance of current Symbian^3 devices having their operating system become obsolete. But who knows in the mobile phone world - things change so quickly.

I hope to get a better idea at the Nokia developer breakfast thing on Friday:

http://nokiadevmeet.co.nz/index.html

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#397668 30-Oct-2010 10:13

I agree, continued upgrading and development is probably the better way to go. I don't see a problem with the current offering of Symbian platforms. My comment was more to to with the fact that S4 was supposed to be released in the near future and therefore S3 would very soon be leapfrogged. Those that were prepared to wait a bit longer might be better off.

One has to wonder that the delay in releasing the N8 has resulted in S3 has being tweaked to the point that S4 isn't going to provide a quantum step forward, hence the possibility of not proceeding with S4.

I see so many comments on overseas websites bagging Symbian and suggesting that it's past its use by date. Many people seem to be getting mixed up between the GUI and the software running the phone. Sure the standard GUI in the Nokia might not be as flashy as some phones but the Symbian software does its job very well in my opinion. It dosen't need a big grunty hungry CPU, it has good power management, it multi tasks well and is stable. It has stood the test of time.

As to the comments about the vast number of Apps for Android and Apple. How many are really of much use? The really useful stuff in my opinion is there for Symbian, like Ovi maps (free), Skype (Free), Quick Office, Sport Tracker (Free), plus a few others like these. For me one of the most useful apps is the Ovi maps. What other phone has this type of app for free and dosen't require a good data plan?

Picking a phone up in a shop and having a play with it doesn't really tell you how it's going to work for you in the real world. I know, I've been there and done that. The flashy stuff sells but that's where it ends.

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NZtechfreak

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#397675 30-Oct-2010 10:26

Ah, the old 'but how many are useful apps?' argument. Tiny bit of truth in it, in that there are many useless apps on the other platforms, but its basically tosh. Android and iPhone also have much higher numbers of quality useful apps than Symbian, in addition to the thousands of farts apps and assorted rubbish that fill out their respective app markets.

I'm sorry to reality check you there, I'm a Symbian fan and long time poweruser of that platform, and I see that argument a lot at various symbian/mobile forums that I belong to (heck, I even used to make it a long time ago), but its rubbish I'm afraid.

Now saying that the N8 has all the apps you consider you need for your personal use is just fine, but for those who identify app availability as something important to them its important to be upfront about and honest about the apps situation.

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Charles000

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#397679 30-Oct-2010 11:00

I'm going to go and visit a parallel importer this afternoon. :)

Technofreak

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#397748 30-Oct-2010 15:12

NZtechfreak: Android and iPhone also have much higher numbers of quality useful apps than Symbian,

What are these quality useful apps exactly?

I guess we all have different priorities but most of the apps I have seen ouside the main stream areas are niche apps that have limited usefulness to most people. Palm probably has the biggest collection of useful apps and I've got stuff on my Palm TX which is very useful to me but certainly not all that useful to most Palm owners. However I don't intend using the Palm for too much longer and the one app that isn't available for Symbain can still be used on the Symbian platform with emulator software.

Granted some people buy because of a particular app that the phone can run however most phone owners don't buy because of the apps, outside of the main stream apps. They choose based on the features/hardware they want and like. Things like cameras, video and audio capability, connectivity functionality (USB, Bluetooth, infrared, HDMI, WiFi), GPS, operating system preferences, email and message handling clients, document handling, web browsing etc.

The apps generally come later.

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