It’s almost 10 days now with Nokia’s most anticipated device N8, Having the most impressive spec sheet yet, advanced photography features and new Symbian^3 OS, N8 got lot more to explore. So, lets get inside Nokia N8 .

We got awesome Green N8 from Nokia India, much thanks to The Bloggers Mind.

But before we start, We like you guys to check our previous posts on N8 :

• The Nokia N8 Unboxing!
• Nokia N8 First Impressions!
• Nokia N8 Size Comparison with Blackberry Storm & Nokia N97 Mini

Its Nokia’s very first Symbian^3 based device, so we are going to see some huge advancement from Symbian^1 OS, Basically Nokia’s N Series belongs to multimedia & entertainment and N8 full-fills both requirement, Clearly - 12 MP camera with Xenon Flash, HD video & Stereo audio recording, HDMI port, FM transmitter, GPS, a good Media Player with real loud mono speakers is WIN WIN.

N8′s comes with non-replaceable 1200mAh battery ( with this much feature we expected better one) and without camera shutter. Well, have you given your hands-on to N8 – We think N8 has awesome design and some time its not possible to fit all things at one place.

But let’s not fall on the negatives, N8 has much more positive and new things.

Let’s start with the Hardware:

• It  has ARM 11, 680 MHz CPU and 256 MB of RAM.

When today’s most of the smart-phones are coming with 1 GHz CPU power N8′s 680 MHz CPU looks slow, but if we look further we have HW Graphics Accelerator and much more free RAM for better management. N8 is really fast with absolutely no lagging .

• 2D/3D Graphics HW Accelerator with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0

So what does that mean, With dedicated graphic acceleration you have all the eye candy, Yes enjoy your HD contents on N8 without any hiccups. You really need to play some HD movies and HD games on N8 to understand this, Its called awesomeness ;D

• It has 3.5″ AMOLED capacitive touchscreen and Gorilla Glass with an anti-reflection layer.

N8′s 3.5″ AMOLED touchscreen with gorilla glass is very responsive & crisp , I mean you don’t need to tap twice like we use to on Nokia N97 mini. The  anti-reflection layer beneath the glass works well, giving clear view outside in sunlight.

• It has 512 MB of  System disk-space with 16 GB of mass memory and support upto 32 GB of micro SD card.

Truly, Nokia has learnt a lesson here.  With 512 MB of system disk space user will get about 185MB free on device first startup. Where with 16 GB of mass memory user will get about 14.3 GB free space. (Some space is kept reserved for virtual memory or pagefile  )

• N8 also support two new wireless standards - WLAN ’N’ and Bluetooth 3.0.

Nokia N8 support WLAN b/g/n ( N in 2.4GHz ) & Bluetooth 3.0 . WLAN ‘N’ & Bluetooth 3.0  - both are new standards , gives improve network throughput over their previous standards.

• It has some inbuilt sensors – Accelerometer Sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Magnetometer Sensor, Proximity Sensor.

As name suggest- Accelerometer Sensor used to detect motion, Ambient Light Sensor detect light, Magnetometer Sensor work as compass and Proximity Sensor used to detect the presence of nearby objects without any physical contact. We will learn their applications later.

• N8 has USB OTG or USB On The GO support.

This means that you can connect pendrives, small hardrives or even other phones which support mass storage mode via the microUSB-USB adapter to the N8 and copy or play the supported contents using the file manager.

• It has TV output via HDMI mini C Connector and standard 3.5 mm AV connector, Supports Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 channel surround sound via HDMI on home theater.

True entertainer, Now you can watch HD movies experiencing true Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound on your home entertainment system using the HDMI port on N8, N8 also support Analog TV out through 3.5mm AV connector via Nokia CA 75U cable.

• It has 12 megapixel camera – Carl Zeiss lens, Xenon Flash and Stereo audio recording through two microphones.

The Nokia N8 is a photographer’s dream phone, comes with 12 MP camera Carl Zeiss 2.8/28 optics lens, 1/1.83″ largest image sensor for crystal clear detailed images, It has powerful Xenon Flash, uses some advance imaging algorithms. Features  - Auto Exposure, Auto Focus, Exposure Compensation, Face tracking/detection , Full Screen Viewfinder, Geotagging, Red-Eye Reduction and Self Timer.

N8 captures HD video at 720p and 25FPS, digital zoom also works great.  Although 25 fps is fine but some other 12 MP camera phones are coming with 30fps. N8 uses Stereo audio recording in video mode using its two microphones – first one is situated on the camera side and the other one is regular one used for handling the calls. N8 uses some noise cancellation algorithms to reduce wind noise and control recording level in harsh environments.

Check out some Image shot on N8, Please click on images to enlarge!

-

-

-

-

-

The Software - Symbian^3 OS:

Here we are giving you a overview of some noticeable changes in new Symbian^3 OS.

Social Integration: With device first start-up Nokia looked focused to its Ovi Services. Ovi is integrated deep, from single signin it cover all – from Ovi Maps to Sync. Although we didn’t find Ovi Sharing service anywhere. You can also feel Social Integration in contacts – connecting your contacts with Facebook & Twitter.

Three HomeScreens with Widget Support: Well N8 welcomes you with three Homescreens with widgets support, now you can organize your life in better way. We tried to move widgets across homescreen but this option is not available right now. In a glance you can easily spot some big changes and improvements like – Social networking profiles visible in phone contacts, Social networking events visible in phone calendar,  more personalization options, Photo & Video editor apps and a lot more.

More Simplified UI: The most noticeable is the UI changes- any Symbian^1 user can easily spot improvement in UI. Symbian^3 reduces the space taken in landscape mode - Check out the picture below – The first one is from Nokia N8′s picture gallery and the second one is from Nokia N97 mini’s picture gallery!

Nokia N8

Nokia N97 Mini

In Symbian^1, for any operation, we need to ‘select’ the desired object first and then we select ‘Option’ to perform the operation, But Symbian^3 brings much improvement – You just need a ‘long tap’ on desired object and you will get all the available option  for that. N8 also support multitouch pinch-to-zoom in some applications.

New Task Manager : You can also notice that their is no call or hangup buttons on N8 like older Symbian^1 phones, N8 has only Home or Menu button in front. Long-pressing this home button brings up the task switcher, giving live preview of all running applications – you can easily view, switch or close any opened application by swiping left/right on task manager.

Revamped Music Player: N8′s music player also get lots of improvement, noticeable change is the new cover flow feature, plus the same space thing as we mentioned earlier via Picture Galley screenshots is also implemented here. You can access your Podcasts , Buy music from Music Store direct from Music Player. We also find that editing Equalizer has been disabled in Symbian^3.

Ovi Store: sadly N8 doesn’t comes with pre-installed Ovi Store client, you have to download it first to access the store. The new Ovi Store 2.0 shows lots of improvements over its previous version. There are also lots of games available for N8 like Angy Birds and some HD games from Gameloft – such as Avatar, GT Racing, Asphalt 5, Hero of Sparta and Guitar Rock Tour 2, Free games include Angy Birds lite,  NFS HD, Galaxy on Fire and more!

Email: Nokia Messaging on the Symbian^3 has noticeably improved over its previous versions, HTML work like breeze support pinch-to-zoom & double click.

Browser: N8′s browser is below expectation , the problem starts with when you open heavy sites, but there’s a rumor that a newer browser is coming for Symbian^3, Lets hope it will sort out these problems.

Maps & Navigation : We got N8 with pre-installed Ovi Maps 3.04 beta & Indian Maps. A newer and much more stable  version 3.06 of Ovi Maps is now available over Nokia Betalabs. N8 comes with lifetime Free worldwide Walk & Drive Navigation.

These are few quick noticeable improvements on Symbian^3, there is lot more to explore and we are covering all in our next part.

Now let’s check the N8′s built!

N8′s main body is built on single piece of anodized aluminium, its matte aluminium body feels quite slippery in hands some times,  measuring 113 x 59 x 12.9 mm and weighing about 135g. Nokia also claims N8′s body as scratch resistant, The top and bottom of the N8 are made up of plastic matching the device color. Thus N8 together with anodized aluminium body & Gorilla screen glass becomes  the toughest smartphone available in the market.

Front :

The front side of N8 has gorgeous 3.5″ AMOLED screen with 16:9 nHD resolution, In top center we have earpiece, In the top right covered by Gorilla Glass we have first – Proximity Sensor (Which is not visible), then Ambient Light Sensor and in last  Secondary VGA camera for video calls. At bottom it has single menu Key ( Made up of plastic ) with back-light and regular call microphone.

Back :

At back side we have beautifully engraved Nokia Nseries sign- a dedicated projection on design housing – 12 MP camera Carl Zeiss 2.8/28 optics lens, Xenon Flash and just below it a powerful mono speaker. We also noticed secondary microphone just by side of this projection.

Right :

On the right side, there are volume / zoom keys, the lock switch or lock slider and a two step camera capture key.

Left:

On the left side, It has microSD card & SIM card slot hidden behind plastic tabs. Further their is an LED charging indicator, uncovered microUSB port used for charging, PC connectivity and USB-on-the-Go feature.

Top :

The top of the N8 has the power button, HDMI-out port for connection your digital TV using the supplied adapter and a 3.5mm Audio/Video out jack.

Bottom :

Finally at bottom, It has a traditional 2mm charging port and wrist strap hole.

Verdict

“The overall performance of N8 is mind blowing, a definitely Buy Product. Photographers are going to love this camera phone.”