Thursday, October 14, 2010

The Nokia N8: Day 1

I just got the Nokia N8 in the mail today. Now this blue box is sitting on my desk just waiting to be opened.


The Nokia N8 box is thinner than previous Nokia phone boxes. It's about 2/3rds the thickness of the N900 box

Similar to you, I've read a fair share of articles and blog posts about the Nokia N8, Nokia's upcoming flagship smartphone. With a long list of features such as the Xenon flash (which hasn't been seen on a Nokia since the Nokia N82 and Nokia 6220 Classic), HDMI output, and Dolby Digital output, who could not be excited in such a super phone? Not me for sure. So now it's in front of me, what do I do?

Obviously, open it!

This is such a tease. Show me the phone already!

Here lies the Nokia N8


It's longer than the N900 so at first glance it looked big. Stacking my E71 on top of the N8 shows that the dimensions are almost the same.

Picking up the N8, it felt light. It's lighter than my N900 but a long shot and it's a tad lighter than my E71. But it felt really solid - really hard aluminum and no creaks to mention.

In my hands, the N8 feels really thin compared to what I'm used to


For a few seconds, I looked in the package for the battery to insert but quickly remembered that the N8 battery is built-in, can't be removed, and doesn't need me to put it in. So I power it on and feel that little vibration to let me know that I've turned it on.

Once the screen was lit, my first impression was: This screen is so small. Maybe I was used to the N900. Maybe it was too many hours of Solitaire on my iPad. But my E71 screen was smaller. With my finger on the screen too, it didn't feel like there was much room for anything else on the screen. It was an odd feeling that I never got when I first turned on the N97 or N900. Maybe it was the surrounding black bezel that makes it feel smaller than it really is.

Just like any Nokia recent Nokia device, I'm welcomed to my phone with setting up the date followed by the phone wizard to guide me through setting up the device - as most power users would, I chose to skip it.

Up comes the familiar Symbian^3 / S60 5th edition homescreen of clock/date/profile and 5 customizable widget areas. The main selling point of the N8 is the much hyped 12MP so I click and hold the camera button to pull up the camera application. The camera application looks just like the N97's camera application, which isn't a bad thing. It just needs a little too many clicks to get into Scene mode. Since I was just testing around I snap a few photos with just auto (click for full image):


I wasn't amazed by the results like I did when I first got my SE W810i. I was taking the photos a dimly lit interior so I figure I had shaky hands.

I had to run to dinner with friends so I left the N8 and stuck to my N900:

1 comment:

ellaH said...

Hey!!! I'm planning to get a new phone and am tossed between the n8 and the n900~~~ Hurry up and finish your post on it!!! haha...