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Nokia N8 Review

2010-11-07
how's it going everyone it's John here from TechnoBuffalo and I've got the Nokia n8 here and I'm gonna share with you guys my experiences with it the Nokia n8 is a Symbian powered all touchy-touchy phone has made out of metal and glass with the 12 megapixel camera I've been a Symbian user for maybe about three or four years before I started using devices like the blackberry and now the iPhone and I'm gonna approach this review through the eyes of an average user you know like the average Joe or Jane actually don't know anybody named Joe or Jane you know just like a regular person who wants to do simple things like texting email web browsing watch videos mobile gaming and so on because honestly you shouldn't need three to four years of experience with a mobile OS to use the darn thing the hardware on the m8 is fantastic it's probably one of the most solid feeling devices I've ever held the slim profile is definitely very welcome compared to other Nokia devices like the Nokia n97 and the Nokia n900 the downside to the slimmer profile would be a smaller battery but it's not too bad it should get you through the day with regular media and data usage you know 3G Wi-Fi making phone calls and listen in to your jammie-jams or music I think that's about all the pros that I can say about the Nokia n8 the software on this thing sorry to say but terrible my opinion Symbian is very outdated compared to other mobile OS is like iOS and Android OS the UI is bla settings are a little confusing and folders look like applications so sometimes apps can be within a folder within a folder and you can never tell unless of course you're used to the operating system sure you're gonna load up a theme with folder icons but seriously why would you need to do that things like social networking and texting feel like a calculation anything that involves text entry on the Nokia n8 is while Achor in portrait mode you're presented with the traditional dial pad layout no important recorded keyboard here yeah Scott t9 predictive texting but I'd much rather have a portrait quartic keyboard the landscape keyboard could have been a lot better autocorrect isn't available and I find the placement of the left and right arrow keys very annoying not only doesn't make the spacebar unnecessarily smaller but I always find myself accidentally pressing either left or right which screws up whatever I'm typing which is definitely not the face on top of that even though the Nokia n8 supports multi-touch the area where I feel like multi-touch is needed the most you know the on-screen chord keyboard it's not there this requires you to fully lift off your finger before trying to type another key or the previous key that you entered doesn't show up once you get used to the keyboard it's not that big of a deal but it definitely shows you down not to mention you always have to be consciously aware of how you're typing on top what you're typing I mean I just want to respond to my friend telling him that I like balloons is it that hard I mean gah texting is definitely improved compared to other high-end Symbian devices like the Nokia n97 the integration of threaded text messaging definitely makes the flow of conversation a lot more organic but it's not as pretty as that on the iPhone but hey at least it works next would be email on my mobile device email is how you just I do a lot of work via email and the Nokia n8 emailing system it's terrible it's is PO there is no unified inbox it's not that big of a deal but it would be great for me as I have seven accounts fetching at one time basic things like scrolling through an inbox is dreadful I mean look at this what is this it lags is like crazy and you always accidentally open emails while you try to scroll ok the Nokia n8 is fully capable of smooth kinetic scrolling as you can see from this photo application but why I tend to do it with emails I have absolutely no idea opening emails of course is just a first half replying is the second half and it's really really tough if you need to write out long emails on big Nokia n8 it's about this point we're just kind of opt to just reading emails on the n8 and use my computer to reply to everything or just not use the NA for email at all I feel like this happens a lot with a Nokia n8 and any Symbian device that I've ever used whether it's emailing web browsing and watching YouTube videos whatever I always just opt to just doing it on my computer well it's a phone you're just supposed to make phone calls I'm sure we've all heard that plenty of times and yes the Nokia n8 is a phone and it's great and making phone calls but then why have all of those features in the phone in the first place with a Symbian devices I feel like they have a lot of features and they can do a lot of things but they can't do those things very well sort of like a jack of all trades master of none kind of thing I think that's the first time I said that in front of camera you know that phrase feels great at this point in the mobile game I definitely don't think it's good enough anymore especially if your competition is the iPhone or the latest Android smartphone one of the huge selling points of the Nokia n8 would be the camera it's a 12 megapixel camera loaded with the xenon flash that can autofocus and record 720p HD videos the camera works as you would expect it to and it's nice to be able to control certain things like white balance exposure ISO and so on and that's something that's missing from the iPhone 4 ah like the iPhone you can also record videos from the front-facing camera this is a personal thing but as a youtuber a huge huge plus would be able to have a solid mobile YouTube experience bn8 is mediocre at this the videos play with the flash supported web browser but the video quality is pretty bad even over a strong Wi-Fi connection and the video quality is terrible compared to that of the iPhone 4s the Symbian application store or ovie store is dreadful I think I'm running out of adjectives here is terrible dreadful who who's not an adjective who's a noun first of all it doesn't come pre-installed in the Nokia n8 there's an icon but it takes you to a website that asks you if you want to install it after you do I personally don't think that there's a lot of useful applications out there but that's totally a personal thing as for example I've only installed a handful of applications on my iPhone you know out of the bajillion amount of apps out there that involve farting or taking a picture your face and making you look chubby for laughs haha I honestly can't help but compare the nokia n8 to say the iPhone or the latest Android smartphone because as a user you're pretty much choosing your mobile smartphone and then your mobile operating system plus the iPhone is sort of like the only non simian touch phone that I have so I physically can't compare the n8 to anything else and because these phones are around the $500 a price range the last thing you want to feel is buyer's remorse so for you I highly recommend you do your research watch videos each pure vegetables and try the phones out in real life if you can borrow your friends phone but make sure you let them know or else that'd be stealing overall I personally don't like the n8 it's a lot better than say the Nokia n97 or the Nokia 5800 the camera and hardware is fantastic on this thing but that's about it for me at least if you're into either with a very pretty and organic looking you I definitely go for the iPhone or something Android loaded but if you are diehard Symbian fan then I recommend you skip the Nokia n8 and get the Nokia c7 it's pretty much the same phone but the hardware keyboard that's the key that'll keep your anxiety levels low when you need to you know do type @e type a day well I hope you found this review helpful this was John from TechnoBuffalo and I'll see you in the next video
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