Nokia N8 Positives and Negatives

After a month of intimate relationship, I finally waved goodbye to the Nokia N8 as it goes back to the hands of WOMWorld in UK. Over the past month, we have seen the unboxing video of the phone, some tips on how to maximize the N8, and a cheaper price of the phone in the gray market. This post is more of a summary of my likes and dislikes about the phone.


Positives (+)

• Design and form factor that comes handy, looks posh, feels solid, weighs just enough. When you use it in landscape mode, the flat sides are just perfect for the hands.
• 16GB internal memory, thus not much need for a memory card, although option is there
• T9 way of typing on portrait mode and QWERTY on landscape
• Penta-band 3G with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA support
• 3.5-inches screen with AMOLED capacitive touchscreen that gives bright and crisp colors
  
• Scratch-resistant anodized aluminum body and screen
  
• USB on the go and 3.5mm jack for earphones
  
• TV-out via HDMI with Dolby Digital Plus sound
  
• 12 megapixels auto focus camera with shooting options (e.g. macro, face detection, etc.) and Xenon flash
  
• Built-in photo and video editing suite
  
• Intelligent Sensors - One that automatically adjusts screen brightness depending on light, and another than turns off the screen when phone is placed near the face while calling
• GPS navigation with downloadable maps
• Multi-tasking at its best
• Messaging option to view messages either in threaded type (via Conversations) or the old type (Inbox, Sent, etc.)
• Fast start up of phone
• Short battery charging at about 1 hour, but long battery life that lasted 11.5 hours with WiFi connected but with minimum surfing
• Built-in Facebook, Twitter, and Mail (push email available) apps
• Supports Flash lite and Java
• Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
• Clock as screensaver that uses very minimal battery life - very convenient
• Lock and unlock ticker on the right side of the phone
  

Negatives (-)

• Built-in browser lags on most complex sites
  
• Mail client is very slow and causes hanging on the phone, usually when left open overnight (it won't close anymore the next day)
  
• Homescreen only allows adding of shortcuts by 4's and size cannot be customized
• Too may clicks before you achieve what you want to do
  
• Un-intelligent phone dictionary that needs to always find matches - my Nokia E51's dictionary option is so much better
• No feature to turn the Xenon flash into a flashlight
  
• Bluetooth is buggy and hard to connect with other gadgets
• UI fluidity and accelerometer aren't as fast and smooth as Android or iOS
• Symbian^3 lacks something spectacularly new to the eyes, since it looks almost the same as other versions of Symbian but only on a larger scale
• Application developers need a lot of work to do to catch up and create awesome apps for Nokia N8
  
• Office applications are there, but you need to pay them to be able to access more features like editing documents
• No light option on video mode
• Battery is hard to replace, since you need to screw the casing off
• No infrared port
• Lacks more speedy processor to be able to handle all these features
  
• Cannot edit song and album details on the phone itself
• Inconsistent screen timeout and locking timeout - when you set the screen to timeout at 5 seconds but put locking timeout at 15 seconds, the phone will still light up until it locks at 15 seconds
  

Verdict

Nokia N8 is indeed a director of photography. The phone's camera is no doubt the winner in this model. Other mobile phones would be a better option if you're looking for the things that may be the opposite of the "negatives" I mentioned above. However, Nokia N8 is a promising phone for being able to give features and capabilities that other phones have, but at a lower price point.

As a consumer for example, I will choose Nokia N8 over an iPhone 4 because Nokia N8 has a lot of features iPhone does not. And yet the former is way cheaper than the latter. At the end of the day, it will be your choice depending on what matters to you and what features you are willing to give up for a cheaper or more expensive price. Remember, no phone is perfect; only the user's perspective will say a phone is.

For me, Nokia N8 is a good buy!