When asked why he wanted to turn off the auto-focus and auto-zoom features on the device when we’re sure many people can’t live without them in their daily lives otherwise, Khalili noted that “the camera thinks it knows what you want to focus on, but it doesn’t know.” When the rest of the film came to the bit where production had to be planned for, a more traditional set of means were used complete with location scouts, make-up artists, and a casting director. There’s even a big-time Hollywood actor, as they say, in two-time Oscar nominee Gena Rowlands – whom you may remember as the older version of the protagonist in the love film The Notebook.

The amount of money this film is going to cost to make is $500,000, and all of it has been supplied by former chief privacy officer of Facebook mister Chris Kelly. Good thing too, because without his help, the money that Khalili had been turned down for from Nokia might never have turned up. That’s what happens when you make a movie with a sponsor in mind and don’t contact them until you’ve filmed it!

This film will be shown first at the Laemmle Fallbrook 7 cinema in West Hills, Los Angeles, on the 16th of December, 2011. This date puts it in line for the Oscar race, of course, and with an odd factor such as the N8 behind the capture, they might just have a chance! Have a peek at the first five minutes of the film here:

Distribution is either OTA – using the software updater app loaded on the phones – or via Nokia’s Ovi Suite software for your computer. It’s reportedly a fairly sizable download, too, amounting to around 27MB, so it’s worth seeking out a WiFi connection if you plan to go the OTA route. User data and apps are reportedly left intact after the update, though some users may find a dual-stage process takes place if their current firmware isn’t quite up to date enough for Anna to be added straight on top.

AllAboutSymbian has a full changelog, including such niceties as device encryption support – offering optional hardware-accelerated encryption for the device, mass storage and microSD memory – along with better Mail and Calendar apps, a draggable homescreen and Ovi Maps 3.6 fresh out of Nokia’s Beta Labs. The C7 can now share contacts, photos, video and other content via tapping, using the new NFC support, as well as pair with NFC-enabled accessories like the upcoming Play 360 speaker. The N8, meanwhile, will also be prepped for an incoming camera update, which will include a modified UI, continuous auto-focus in video mode and higher frame rate support.

Spec-wise it’s business as usual, with a 3.5-inch 640 x 360 AMOLED display, 12-megapixel camera, Xenon flash and HDMI output. There’s also pentaband WCDMA/HSPA, USB-on-the-Go support, Bluetooth 3.0, an FM transmitter and 720p video recording.

“Following the fantastic response to the range of colors we launched for the Nokia N8, it seemed a natural step to extend this choice” Rachael Bell, senior designer at Nokia reckons. “The Nokia N8 in pink complements the original line up well with its expressive, intense hue.” We found the N8 to be the cameraphone to beat in 2011 in our review, though facing the usual Symbian hurdles to mainstream adoption.

[via Nokia Conversations]

[via Engadget]

In-between there are new widgets, no longer imprisoned by the traditional blocks fitting six to a screen. Instead it all looks more flexible and streamlined, taking a leaf out of Android’s book. The end result is a far more modern looking smartphone, with a UI that actually begins to live up to the N8′s slick aluminum chassis.

Now, it’s not 100-percent clear that this is the actual refreshed UI that will be going out to Symbian^3 devices in the coming months, but Harlow has previously committed to a significant attempt to improve “the visual feel of the graphics” and this would be a big step in the right direction. Still, despite the fact that Nokia envisions millions of new Symbian device sales before the platform is phased out in favor of Windows Phone, we can’t help thinking that all this is all a little too late.

[via My Nokia Blog]

As far as we can tell, the original Mazda pop-up display is used, with the N8 probably connecting to the auxiliary input that would normally be saved for a reversing camera. That gets its signal from the N8′s HDMI output, while a Bluetooth connection between the phone and the standard stereo takes care of music, calls and other audio.

The custom apps can show speed on the dashboard display, although you can also flick over to Ovi Maps and take advantage of the free turn-by-turn directions; the original in-car GPS system had outdated mapping data and lacked traffic updates and speed camera warnings, all of which Nokia takes care of at no extra cost. Actually controlling the phone seems a little unsafe – it looks like you actually have to swipe at the N8′s touchscreen while driving – but given the smartphone’s peripheral support you could probably rig up a reasonable remote input device instead.

[via Twitter]

The information is based on the number of N8 chips sold and search volumes rather than any official numbers from Nokia. Some of the charts in the release are in Finnish and the Google translation is sketchy at best, but the company shows how search volumes related to the iPhone and how many of the devices sold to prove a point for its methods. Inderes claims that in the same quarter Apple shipped 6.89 million iPhones.

The company also compared the N8 numbers to the shipments for the Samsung Galaxy S and the HTC Desire. The N8 and Desire sold in very similar numbers according to the research firm. One of the key areas for the N8 is India where the iPhone has not sold well. The big selling point of the N8 according to the firm is the 12MP camera.

Some background first. At a simplistic level, while Europe, Asia and other regions have generally standardized on the 2100MHz band for 3G access, in the US T-Mobile uses 1700MHz and AT&T uses 1900MHz. That means 3G cellphones bought on one European network will – carrier locks permitting – be able to access 3G data on another network. Conversely, a 3G device bought for use on AT&T is unlikely to work on T-Mobile USA; both carriers use the same sort of UMTS technology, but the different frequency bands they operate on means the handsets aren’t compatible.

Pick up a Nokia N8, however, and you can slot an AT&T or T-Mobile USA SIM inside and get UMTS/WCDMA speeds from either network. Now, this isn’t some magical technology the tricksy Finns are keeping all to themselves. The N8 – and the C7, C6-01 and soon-to-market E7 – all use generally available chipsets; it’s a matter of manufacturer choice to opt for a quad or triband UMTS radio, as you find in most other devices.

Why might they make that choice? Cost is likely one argument, since pentaband chipsets are more expensive than those with lesser frequency support. There’s also the issue of carrier control. The US mobile industry is notorious for the amount of heft the carriers wield, versus an arguably more symbiotic relationship between networks and device manufacturers elsewhere. The different UMTS bands therefore become a bargaining chip to keep subscribers locked into a particular operator: if you’ve completed a two year agreement with AT&T, you can’t take your existing handset and jump to a SIM-only T-Mobile deal unless you’re willing to do without 3G support. Instead, T-Mobile will happily sell you another device, this time one which will only work with their own 3G networks in the US.

It’s telling that the only real pentaband options in the US right now are from Nokia, a company you’ll struggle to find offered through carriers. Instead, the N8 and other handsets are sold direct, SIM-free and unlocked (though the Finns are doing a spectacularly bad job of advertizing their relatively unique, cross-network hardware advantage). Even Apple, credited for upending the nature of carrier control in the US with the launch of the iPhone, has shied away from pentaband. Rumors about the iPhone 4 suggested it would switch to a pentaband chip, but the end result still resolutely clung to AT&T’s network and ignored T-Mobile’s for anything more than EDGE data.

So why would Dell pick pentaband for the Streak 7, when its 5-inch sibling made do with AT&T 3G support only? The obvious reasons are flexibility and simplicity: it’s a single SKU that Dell can offer on both GSM US networks, offsetting extra cost from the radio against the ease of running a single production line. Perhaps it’s also easier to “sneak” pentaband support in with the carriers with a data-centric device; we don’t know yet whether the Streak 7 will support voice calls or, like the similarly-sized Samsung Galaxy Tab, be locked down to data-only.

Still, Dell is known for driving the PC industry with its standardization and production streamlining systems, and while it’s yet to make a similar dent in the mobile market, the Streak 7 could well ease the way for changing manufacturer attitudes toward wireless segmentation. Samsung’s Galaxy S was the best-selling Android device in the US last quarter, aided in no small part by availability (with different radios, among other things) on all of the key carriers – how much easier for Samsung would it be if the promised successor, due to make its debut at MWC 2011, adopted pentaband and thus a single core device could cater to both AT&T and T-Mobile?

Pentaband is in the customer’s best interest and the carrier’s worst. As we’ve seen in the past, situations where that dynamic is the case can often take a while to change. Nonetheless, change isn’t impossible, and conscious decisions to adopt broader radio support by companies like Dell will help pave the way. If subscribers can be better educated in the process as to why pentaband is beneficial, market forces should hopefully do the rest.

A photography magazine called PiX has announced that the cover photo for the December/January edition was shot with a Nokia N8 smartphone. The pic looks really, really good. I have seen photographers take some shots with the iPhone that are really good too. I guess the problem with crap pictures that I take isn’t the camera phone it’s the camera user.

You can check out the video below to see the cover shoot and the N8 in action. The vid is ok if you are at work so watch and enjoy. This is so much cooler than that N8 fridge stunt we talked about earlier today.

Via PhoneArena

Video demo after the cut

To be fair, this isn’t so much a victory for the N8 as it is for the awesome power of gears, but we’ll give the Nokia credit for not burning out its vibration motor in the process. Although this is unlikely to spawn an app in the Ovi Store, it’s useful to know that, should you crash land on a desert island and find yourself pinned under a chunk of broken-up airplane, all you need to extract yourself is Nokia’s finest, a small team of engineers and a shed full of spare parts.

[via MIC Gadget]

In fact, the site reckons that Symbian devices outsold Windows Phone 7 handsets by 3:1, with the Nokia N8 predominantly responsible for those numbers – that’s one device outselling a range of multiple WP7 devices from a variety of manufacturers. They also sourced some anecdotal feedback from other UK retailers, who reported that WP7 phones “are not selling” while demand for HTC, BlackBerry and iPhone remains strong.

Even more concerning, one Carphone Retailer store questioned apparently had no Windows Phone 7 devices on the sales floor, only conceding that they “might have one in the back.” While the figures aren’t at all scientific, they join a generally pessimistic response to the Microsoft launch.

[via Electronista]

Video interview after the cut

Anyone experiencing the issue should contact Nokia Care and look to getting the faulty handset repaired under warranty. We’ve also been seeing suggestions from SlashGear readers that the Nokia C7 – which we reviewed yesterday – has been experiencing similar problems, but according to Savander the production problem has been corrected and should not be impacting any other devices in the company’s range.

While the delay most obviously means that the browsing experience on the N8 and E7 will still fall short of rival devices for a little longer, it also has an impact on applications. Many Symbian apps take advantage of elements of the browser engine, and the new version was expected to bring with it a speed and stability boost across the board. We’re waiting to hear back from Nokia with a comment, but having been told that Symbian was morphing into one “constantly evolving” platform we were hoping that evolution would be somewhat faster.

It joins a select bunch of devices that already have HD Voice compatibility, most recently the Samsung Omnia 7 Windows Phone 7 smartphone.  So far only Nokia and Samsung have produced compliant devices (the Nokia 5230, Nokia X6, Nokia E5 and Samsung Omnia Pro all support the technology) but Orange is hoping that not only will more manufacturers get on board, but other carriers as well.

According to iSuppli, the cost to build the Nokia N8 is $187. The most expensive of those components is the screen according to iSuppli with an estimated cost of $39.25 for that part alone. To compare iSuppli has estimated that it costs Apple $187.51 to build the iPhone 4.

The two smartphones have significantly different prices for unlocked versions despite the similar cost to build. The N8 sells for $549 sans contract from Nokia. The iPhone 4 on the other hand sells for $748.99 via Amazon with no contract. The N8 screen is a 3.5-inch AMOLED and is built by Samsung with a touch controller from Synaptics. The chipset for the OS costs $22, the 16GB of flash storage is $37.12, and the camera element costs $31.08.

Via Bloomberg

If you want the blue one, you’ll have to wait until late in November 2010 unfortunately.  Nokia is offering it both as a SIM-free, unlocked device for £429 ($680) and with a new agreement, with the N8 handset free on new, two-year £30 per month agreements.

Curiously, the T-Mobile pricing on Nokia’s site is actually cheaper than the carrier’s own webpage: on their freshly updated tariffs there, you’ll need to spend £35 per month over that two-year agreement in order to get a free N8.  Online contract orders will apparently reach their buyers on Friday October 15th.

[via World of Nokia]

Unlike the N8′s well-stocked box, the C7 makes do with a somewhat sparser selection of accessories. There’s a compact 2.5mm charger (rather than a microUSB charger, though you can rejuice the C7 via its microUSB port) and a basic wired stereo headset with an in-line call answer button and microphone, together with a very short – as in only a couple of inches – USB cable, getting-started guide and the phone itself. Unlike the N8 there’s no HDMI output, but the C7 does support USB On The Go; you’ll have to buy the required cable yourself, though, since Nokia don’t bundle one.

Nokia C7 unboxing & hands-on:

The C7 itself feels sturdy and expensive, with lashings of metal around the bezel and the battery cover, and a glass front panel covering the 3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen. As on the N8 that runs at 640 x 360 resolution, and in fact our first impression is that both devices run pretty much identically. Nokia’s usual suite of apps – Ovi Maps, a shortcut to the Ovi Store, the video editing software – are all loaded, and you have three homescreens to customize, each with up to six widgets.

On the back there’s an 8-megapixel camera with autofocus and a dual-LED flash; no Xenon or 12-megapixels as on the N8, but it does make the C7 slimmer and less likely to catch on a pocket or bag. It’ll record 720p HD 25fps video clips, too. The C7 also shares the N8′s superlative connectivity: as well as WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 there’s quadband GSM/EDGE and five-band WCDMA, making the handset suitable for both AT&T and T-Mobile in the US, and use across Europe.

At a casual glance, then, the C7 arguably offers the best of the N8 at a considerable saving: it’s €335 pre-tax and subsidies, but we’d imagine carrier deals will bring that down to a free device and a relatively cheap monthly agreement. Whether it’s worth the money is still to be seen, however; we’ll be working that out for the full SlashGear review.

We’ve liked the look of the N8 and – with a couple of exceptions – Nokia’s hardware decisions since we first caught sight of the smartphone, and in the hand it’s certainly a solid, reassuring device. Measuring in at 113.5 x 59 x 12.9 mm and weighing 135g with the non-user-removeable battery in place, it’s a reasonably slim, tactile candybar with plenty of anodized aluminum used in the chassis. Nokia offer the N8 in five different colors – silver, black, red, blue and green – and the metal has been treated in such a way that minor scratches simply rub off. It’s not going to protect your N8 from a significant wrestle with your keys, but it’s certainly sufficient to avoid demanding a case.

Nokia N8 unboxing and demo:

Up front is a 3.5-inch 640 x 360 OLED capacitive touchscreen, which is bright and vivid with great colors and suitably inky blacks. The nHD resolution is one of our few hardware complaints, and while we understand it preserves compatibility with the back-catalog of Ovi Store apps, when rivals are using WVGA and higher panels (the iPhone 4′s Retina Display packs 960 x 640 pixels into the same size panel, remember) the N8 does feel a little left behind.

Underneath is a single button – which opens the main menu or takes you back to the homescreen – while on the bottom is a standard 2mm Nokia charging connector. The company supplies an AC adapter to suit, but you can also use a microUSB charger with the port on the lower left-hand side. Alternatively, the microUSB port will work for synchronizing the N8 with your computer, or – using the included adapter – act as a USB On-the-Go port for plugging in an external hard-drive or other peripherals. Above the microUSB are the SIM and microSD card slots, each covered with a separate flap; the N8 will take up to a 32GB card, augmenting its standard 16GB of internal storage.

On the top edge there’s a 3.5mm headphones socket – Nokia supply a decent wired stereo headset with in-line call and media controls, and earbuds that actually stay in your ears – together with the power/standby button and, under another flap, a mini HDMI port. This requires an (included) adapter to turn it into a full-sized HDMI port.

Running down the right-hand side there’s the volume rocker, a lock switch and the two-stage camera shortcut button. The camera itself is a 12-megapixel unit with Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus and a Xenon flash, and is in a protruding metal panel on the back of the handset. Up front, just above the display, is a VGA resolution camera for video calls.

Nokia has impressively selected a five-band WCDMA radio for the N8, meaning not only does the smartphone support quadband GSM/EDGE but 3G networks on the 850/900/1700/1900/2100 bands. It’s a rare chipset, and it means the same N8 handset is comfortable not only on European 3G networks but on both AT&T and T-Mobile in the US. Why Nokia isn’t shouting about this flexibility – as you can be certain Apple, HTC or any other company would be in the same situation – is a mystery. Sadly there’s no mobile WiFi hotspot app preloaded (though JoikuSpot in the Ovi Store is a $12.49 option) but you can use the N8 as a tethered USB modem with the Ovi Suite.

Other wireless options include WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0, together with an FM radio and FM transmitter, plus there’s GPS and A-GPS with support for Nokia’s new WiFi positioning system that promises quicker and more accurate location fixes while indoors. Finally there’s an accelerometer, digital compass, proximity sensor (for turning the display off while you’re holding the phone to your face) and an ambient light sensor (for automatically adjusting the backlight).

Overally, it’s distinctive, sturdy and – perhaps most importantly in the current saturated market of touchscreen-centric handsets – doesn’t look like anything else. The upcoming Nokia E7, which has a bigger display and a slide-out QWERTY keyboard – shares the same design aesthetic, and it’s a direction we far prefer to the smartphones’ overly-plastic and sometimes clunky predecessors.

Turn the N8 on, and what will arguably be the handset’s biggest hurdle becomes clear. This is Nokia’s first device to run Symbian^3, the latest iteration of S60 5th Edition as on the N97, N97 mini and various other touchscreen phones. Now released as open-source and managed by the Symbian Foundation, the OS has its fair share of fans – predominantly in Europe – but is yet to make significant in-roads into the North American market.

That lack of familiarity, and the marketing strength of rival platforms such as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android, has left the N8 launching into everything from apathy through outright dismissal. Like all mobile OSes, Symbian^3 has its strengths and weaknesses, but it’s fair to say that this is the most polished example to date.

Fresh to Symbian^3 is a three-pane homescreen navigated by side-swipes and which automatically flips between portrait and landscape orientation. Each can be filled with up to six widgets – either in a column of six or two columns of three – which are fixed in their dimension. The N8 has a variety preloaded – for instance a time/date bar, an app shortcut bar with space for up to four icons, a search bar (with both online and local search options), favorite contacts, media and calendar, together with various news feed widgets from National Geographic, CNN and others – and you can download more through the Ovi store. Altogether there’s room for eighteen across the three panes.

It’s a reasonably flexible system, but can be overly restrictive depending on which widget you’re looking at. For example, the email widget shows the name of the account and excerpts of sender, subject and date from the two most recent messages. Unfortunately there’s no way to extend the widget to see more; you can add a second email widget for the same account, but you’ll still only see the two latest messages. Each pane can have its own wallpaper, meanwhile, and there’s a simple three-dot navigation block at the bottom of the screen – in-between the Options and Call buttons – to remind you which panel you’re looking at; unlike in iOS you can flick through continuously rather than bumping up against the last pane.

The main menu is familiar from a long line of Nokia devices, being made up of three columns of four icons by default, or with an optional list view. As standard it puts the Calendar, Contacts, Music, Web, Messaging, Photos, Ovi Store, Maps, Videos, Settings, Web TV and Applications on the first panel, relegating other apps to the Applications submenu, but you can reorganize them, add new folders and generally mix things up as you see fit. Unlike on earlier Symbian devices, there’s no frustrating double-tap involved in first selecting and then activating an app: instead – and as it should be – you tap a single time to select and launch. It’s a small change, but it leaves the whole OS feeling faster.

Open apps – or folders with running apps in them – have a wheel icon in their top left hand corner, which is a neat way of showing activity, but you can also hold down the menu button and call up the new multitasking bar. That shows previews, webOS style, of each running application or menu, and allows you to close them with a single tap. It’s significantly better than either Android or iOS, which only show the running app’s icon.

When the N8′s hardware specifications were made public, there was some discussion about how the 680MHz ARM11 processor would hold up to devices toting 1GHz Cortex A8 chips. Of course, the CPU is only half the story – it’s what the OS does with all those cycles that counts – and the N8 has proved to be a mixed bag. Many tasks, such as menu navigation, the multitasking bar, browsing media in the CoverFlow-style music app, and shooting/saving photos are snappy and lag-free; however, we’ve also noticed some significant pauses at times, particularly when working with our Gmail inbox. Refreshing email or opening up a message could take a few seconds as the system churned, whereas rival devices experienced no such delays.

We can’t blame background processes, either, or at least not entirely; the same inbox delays would happen no matter if the email app was the only program running, or if there were a half dozen other things going in the background. Despite the final firmware, too, we’ve experienced a few crashes where the system has restarted; these too can happen without apparent reason. Most times, after a power cycle, the N8 was back to normal, but on one occasion it reset the homescreen entirely to its out-of-the-box state.

Most frustrating, though, is the on-screen keyboard. The N8 has both portrait and landscape ‘boards, but only the latter gets a full QWERTY layout. In portrait mode you’re stuck with a numeric keyboard and either multitap or T9 prediction. Having used QVGA (i.e. 320 x 240) touchscreen devices which nonetheless manage to offer full QWERTY in both orientations, it’s a painful omission. T9 works best when you have a physical keypad – since you can type without looking – which is obviously missing from the N8.

We’re also not keen on Nokia’s auto-prediction and auto-correction, which puts its suggestions above the word itself rather than just above the keyboard – meaning a further finger stretch – and defaults to your original spelling rather than the suggestion. In landscape orientation things get somewhat better, but we’re looking forward to when the Swype third-party keyboard – which we’re familiar with from Android – arrives for the N8.

A modern smartphone lives and dies by the standard of its browser, and Nokia’s promised next-gen update can’t come quickly enough. As it stands, the Webkit based browser preloaded onto the N8 supports pinch-zooming and Flash, but can be sluggish in comparison to other platforms. We like the page size indicator – which shows how much data is being transferred – and the fact that the browser automatically switches to full-screen view after a few seconds, but double-tapping a block of text zooms in but doesn’t trigger paragraph reflowing as in, say, the Android browser.

Without a hardware back button (or, indeed, a persistent on-screen control) there’s no choice but to use the thumbnail history, which although useful for skipping back a number of pages, is also unnecessarily long-winded. Having both options would be preferable. There’s also no option to open links in a new tab or window, unlike most other platforms. Large pages can be slow to render and, until that’s complete, jerky to pan around. Still, the ability to watch Flash video in the browser is neat, though controls intended for a full-sized screen and mouse can be tricky to hit with your fingertip.

Some salvation is at hand in the shape of Opera Mobile 10 and Opera Mini, each available as free downloads through the Ovi Store. They bring with them a QWERTY keyboard in portrait orientation, together with windowed browsing and – optionally – the company’s compression technology that speeds up page loading times. No pinch zooming, mind, nor Flash video support.

Messaging in Symbian^3 is another area which has been polished, and there’s now support for threaded SMS/MMS conversations which are visually a lot more pleasing. Alternatively there’s the standard inbox view which can be sorted by sender, date, message type or subject. As for email, the N8 supports POP and IMAP accounts together with Exchange, can support more than one active inbox simultaneously, and comes with a useful setup wizard for Ovi Mail, Yahoo! Mail, Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, Exchange, BT Internet and manual accounts.

Exchange will, as on other platforms, pull in contacts and calendar entries as well, but unfortunately the same can’t be said for Google’s address book or calendar. There’s no native Gmail push messaging, but if you haven’t already set a Mail for Exchange account you can use Google’s Sync instead; non-push inboxes can be polled every 5 minutes at their most frequent. Most of the time we had no issues with messages updating, but occasionally the inbox would seemingly hang and not refresh until manually synchronized. Once you’re set up, though, there’s support for plain text and HTML email – with optional image download – and plenty of flexibility over how much of the message is initially retrieved.

What you don’t get is any sort of preloaded instant messaging app, though there is a rudimentary Facebook and Twitter social networking app that can be linked to a homescreen widget. Neither option is especially slick, they require you create an Ovi Account before you can log in, and while the UI is similar to what you’d find on other smartphones, it’s generally slow to update. From the widget you can scroll through a combined feed of Twitter and Facebook statuses, or tap-scroll back to the very top of the list to update one or both networks yourself. There’s also no integration with the N8′s contacts, as you get with HTC Sense: both Facebook and Twitter are treated as completely separate information sources in the phonebook. A far better experience is had with popular Twitter app Gravity, though that’s a $10 download.

Gravity is just one of the apps available through Nokia’s Ovi Store, the company’s equivalent of the Apple App Store or the Android Market. It uses the same Ovi Account you may have created in order to use the native Twitter and Facebook integration, and according to Nokia’s own figures comprises over 15,000 titles (including ringtones and wallpapers). There are four broad categories – Applications, Games, Audio & Video and Personalisation – which are then individually sub-divided again. You can view free and paid apps separately, search, as well as see those newest to the store, though the lists can be slow to update.

What’s bizarre is that the Ovi Store isn’t actually preloaded onto the N8; there’s a shortcut to the download page, but you have to manually load it before you can start browsing. That seems an unnecessary step to put in the way of potential customers. When you’re finally in, there’s a range of free and paid applications, though it’s unsurprisingly not as broad as what’s on offer for iOS users. Nokia also has a companion Ovi.com site, from which you can browse apps and send links to your phone (they’re delivered as a shortcut via SMS, rather than triggering the download automatically).

Ovi Maps has matured into a strong GPS/navigation package, complete with free turn-by-turn spoken directions and integration with a number of online POI review sites. Best of all it’s free, using Nokia acquisition NAVTEQ’s mapping content. If you’re used to Google Maps then the Ovi Maps UI takes a little acclimatising to, but it’s worth doing. The N8 features the company’s latest WiFi positioning system that helps find a faster, more accurate lock when indoors, and indeed it proved surprisingly accurate even when tested in a basement. It’s also possible to download mapping data to the N8′s own memory, rather than loading it across the network as necessary; while you sacrifice storage space that way, it also means no data charges while roaming and faster map navigation.

Both driving and walking directions are supported, and you can optionally have Ovi Maps automatically update Facebook with your position as well. There are also weather reports and location-based events that are broken down into various arts, sports, nightlife and other categories. As for review information, that’s courtesy of Michelin, Qype and TripAdvisor (in the UK; other regions may have different services). Unfortunately there’s no car cradle bundled with the N8, although you can pick one up (the Nokia CR-122) as an optional extra.

While we’ve certainly seen larger smartphones of late, billed as perfect for mobile entertainment, the N8 is no slouch when it comes to video and audio support. The smartphone can handle H.264, MPEG-4, VC-1, Sorenson Spark and Real Video 10 video content, together with MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, AMR-NB and AMR-WB audio (up to 320kbps) and has an FM radio and support for streaming Flash video. We transferred on a range of clips – including some we had edited and exported with Apple’s iMovie – and had no problems playing them.

We prefer Symbian^3′s music app UI, which has a Cover Flow style carousel of album art when the N8 is held in landscape orientation. The ARM11 processor had no problems keeping up with a large number of images as we flipped through. In the video app, you get a simple list of clips instead, broken down into those recently watched, recently captured and the rest. There’s also access to video content on the Ovi Store and on YouTube, the latter opening up the video site’s mobile page in the N8′s browser.

While the N8′s OLED display is great, there’s also the HDMI output if you have access to a TV or suitable monitor. We’re in two minds about HDMI connectivity on smartphones, especially when you need to remember to carry an adapter around with you, but there’s no question that the N8 does what it promises to. Rather than just video playback, the full screen from the N8 is duplicated via the HDMI output, with both portrait and landscape orientations supported. The only exception is video, which is only played on the HDMI screen rather than simultaneously on both; we’re guessing that’s a processing power issue, since in-page Flash video on websites, which the phone attempts to play on both the N8 and the HDMI screen, had trouble loading at times.

Browsing generally, though, is good, though it’s worth noting that although up to 720p HD resolutions for video playback are supported via the TV-out, everything else is at the regular N8 resolution. That means, although webpages are certainly bigger, you’re not actually getting any more pixels than you would on the N8′s display – they’re just enlarged.

HDMI connectivity makes more sense if you think of Nokia users showcasing the N8′s optics, and indeed it’s the 12-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and Xenon flash that helps the smartphone stand out in the crowded market. Much of the functionality from a regular point-and-shoot has been carried over, including face recognition and various scene modes including portrait, macro, night and sport, and there’s a decent amount of manual control over ISO, exposure, contrast, white balance and sharpness. Unlike most standalone cameras, however, you can also opt for automatic GPS geotagging and easy sharing to online galleries.

As for video, the N8 will record at up to 720p HD resolution (with control over white balance and color tone) at 25fps in MPEG-4 format, though there’s also a low resolution 3GP option for MMS use. The internal storage is enough for around an hour of highest-resolution video. Digital image stabilization is optional, as is geotagging and audio recording, though it’s worth noting that, while pre-recorded clips can output Dolby Digital Plus surround sound via the HDMI, the N8 can’t actually record surround sound itself.

Nokia N8 720p HD video sample:

We’re already seeing hacks for the N8′s camera skills that promise to make the experience even stronger, however. The default 25fps frame-rate for video recording has been increased to 30fps, for smoother footage, while the native image compression has been tweaked to make for even more detailed stills (at roughly five times the file size).

Even without those modifications, the content produced by the N8 is surprisingly good. Still images show a high degree of balance and colors are accurate, and after spending some time playing with the settings the results can be mightily impressive. Alternatively, it works well in auto-mode, the camera app generally loading up in a few seconds and taking around three seconds to process shots at maximum resolution. There are sample shots in the gallery below. Video, meanwhile, is also strong, though as with other cameraphones can suffer from judders if panned too quickly. Still, it’s crisp and bright, and certainly in the top tier of smartphone camera experiences. Thanks to the overdose of megapixels on offer, even using the digital zoom – which is a conservative 2x for stills and 3x for video – doesn’t introduce much in the way of fuzz, unless you’re zooming in by extreme amounts.

Could it be better? Touch focus would be top of our list for inclusion, but we wouldn’t say no to a tripod screw mount on the N8, and we’d like more control over how much JPEG compression is applied to each shot. The downside of having a Xenon flash, meanwhile, is that you can’t use it as a video light as you can with an LED. Still, they’re relatively minor complaints about a photography experience that is streets ahead of most smartphones out there.

Nokia also preload photo and video editing apps onto the N8, and each is flexible enough to keep you from needing to raid third-party alternatives from the Ovi Store. In fact, considering Apple charge for their iMovie for iPhone app – albeit just $4.99 – having it up and running on the N8 out-of-the-box is something of a bargain. Editing clips or still images on a smartphone-sized display is never going to be quite as straightforward as on a desktop, though of course you can plug in an HDMI cable on the N8.

Still, the UI for both apps is sensible and you can have decent results after just a few minutes work. The video app offers either a photo slideshow wizard, with various themes and transitions, while the full video editor allows you to splice together clips and stills with titles, transitions and other effects. We expected the ARM11 CPU to struggle a little with some of the more complex rendering involved, but while there’s unsurprisingly a pause while the N8 churns, it’s not as lengthy as we feared it might be.

Nokia handsets have a track record of strong phone and audio performance, and the N8 is no different. It proved tenacious with a signal and in-call quality was high both using the earpiece and the speakerphone. Music playback via the speaker was less impressive, being predictably tinny, but when we plugged in a set of headphones the N8 made a far better job of things. It’s worth noting – for European users, anyway – that Spotify offer a mobile app for Symbian in the Ovi Store, for streaming content rather than loading it directly to the phone. Even Nokia’s own wired headset, as bundled with the N8, proved capable, and of course there’s Bluetooth A2DP for using wireless stereo headsets. The VGA front-facing camera can be used for 3G video calls, though the feature remains rarely used.

Battery life proved a mixed bag. Nokia quote up to 720 minutes of GSM talktime or 390 hours of GSM standby (350 minutes/400 hours of WCDMA respectively), or alternatively 6 hours of HDMI video playback or 50 hours of audio playback (the latter with all wireless turned off) from the screwed-in 1,200mAh battery. Real-world use, though, is a mixture of calls, media playback, photography and messaging, and we found our email settings made the biggest difference to overall runtime. With POP/IMAP accounts regularly checking (as in sub-30 minute check intervals), we drained the N8′s battery in under a day. Relying on push-email instead, however, and with some browsing and media use, and we managed to get through around a day and a half of use. That could probably be coaxed out to two days if you were less ambitious.

The N8′s other connectivity – the ability to plug in a USB device such as a memory stick – also requires an adapter, included in the box. Here the dual charging methods come into their own; if Nokia had only supplied a microUSB AC adapter, users wouldn’t have been able to simultaneously power the smartphone and plug in external peripherals. A small consideration, but we’re pleased Nokia thought of it.

There are limits to what exactly you can do with the port, however. We had mixed results with different USB memory sticks – some would be recognized instantly, and load content with no issues, while the system refused to accept others – while portable hard-drives proved even more temperamental. It seems to be a limit of power and what the N8′s port can provide; an externally-powered desktop hard-drive would be recognized, but portable drives (which would normally get their juice from the USB port itself) were not.

With the right peripheral, however, you can turn the N8 into a decent mobile workstation, especially if you have the HDMI adapter and a suitable display. We paired a Bluetooth keyboard, hooked up our TV and a thumb-drive full of video clips, and were able to use the N8′s video editing app to comfortably put together footage before then browsing the internet and composing emails on the big screen. The performance felt on a par with a basic netbook – though, ironically, with a bigger display and keyboard – and while we wouldn’t leave our regular laptop at home, if you knew your hotel room TV was going to have an accessible HDMI port we could well see the N8 being a decent travel alternative for everyday users.

The lingering question is not only whether this is the Nokia device the fans want it to be, but whether it’s the handset to take the North American market. For existing owners of S60 5th Edition touchscreen devices, the N8 takes that experience and polishes it hugely. It bests the camera performance of old favorites like the N86, tightens the touchscreen integration to the point where – in most places – it actually feels like its been designed for finger control, and the preloaded media editing apps (together with the HDMI output and support for external storage) mean the N8 is strongest as a multimedia device.

Despite Symbian^3′s improvements, however, there are still plenty of places where it feels old and tired in comparison to Android or iOS. The homescreen widgets feel prescriptive in comparison to Android’s, while an iPhone 4 is more stable and visually-pleasing. That’s not to say it’s universally left behind: the multitasking is more intuitively controlled on the N8, and despite the processor being slower than most flagship Android handsets and that in the iPhone 4, much of the time the new Nokia could happily keep up.

We did experience more crashes than we’d have liked, however, or simply glitches in the system that undermined the smooth experience. On more than a few occasions the N8 froze and restarted, or would refuse to recognize any network connections and require a manual restart. The Ovi Store could also be temperamental, sometimes freezing while downloading apps and forcing us to end it using the task manager. It’s certainly not unusual for a new device to be buggy in places; what remains to be seen is how quickly Nokia roll out a firmware update to address that bugginess.

Our initial question still stands: can Symbian^3 hold up to rival platforms like Android and iOS? In terms of sheer functionality, the answer is a general yes – push email, connection sharing, Flash and the high-res camera are all staples of the modern smartphone – but we still fear users may have trouble seeing past the “old” UI, and in places, if you’re not accustomed to Symbian’s way of doing things, general ease-of-use pales in comparison. It’s a flexible and capable OS, certainly, but it doesn’t encourage the same casual play that a recent Android device or iPhone 4 might.

That shortfall will be the N8′s biggest hurdle, not functionality, and Nokia’s challenge is to better educate would-be users to the strengths of the handset: the superlative connectivity, the excellent camera and the offline flexibility of Ovi Maps. The N8 is certainly the best Symbian device to-date (though we’re keenly awaiting the hardware QWERTY ‘board of the bigger E7 later in the year) but it’s not all-round perfection. No smartphone is, of course, but Nokia’s rivals generally do a better job of highlighting their strengths. With MeeGo (or, indeed, Android) the N8 could’ve been a clear winner; with Symbian^3, Nokia has to persuade users that the N8′s undoubtable abilities outweigh its particular compromises.

It’s made easier by the fact that the N8′s industrial design leaves the key Torx screws visible, and even the battery is attached via a clip rather than being soldered into place.  That should mean user replacements are actually pretty straightforward, as long as you have the necessary screwdriver.

Meanwhile, once the battery and a few more screws are out, the N8 clamshells open and some of Nokia’s design choices become apparent.  iFixit has plenty of praise for the “pretty genius” steel mid-plane with its integrated thermal pads and EMI shielding, and the Xenon flash unit is supposedly around the same size as you’d get in a regular digital camera.  In fact, they rate it 8 out of 10 for repairability.

Video demo after the cut

Interestingly, he’s also confirmed that the mods so far don’t actually require flashing a new firmware to the N8, which suggests installing them might be a little more user-friendly than we thought.  Here’s hoping we see some sort of general release coming soon; after all, availability of the N8 is set to explode midway through this month.

As of October 22nd, the N8 will arrive in Carphone Warehouse, O2, Orange, Phones4u, T-Mobile, Tesco Phone Shops, Three Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone stores, where it’s expected to be priced from free on new, £30 per month agreements.  That gets you a 12-megapixel camera with autofocus and a Xenon flash, a 3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, WiFi and five-band UMTS/HSPA.

More on the Nokia N8 in our hands-on unboxing and video demo.  We’ll have our full review of the smartphone up soon.

Press Release:

NOKIA N8 GOES ON SALE!

London, October 6th – The much-anticipated Nokia N8, the must-have smartphone for the latest Ovi Store apps, will be available to purchase on the 22nd October from the Carphone Warehouse, O2, Orange, Phones4u, T-Mobile, Tesco Phone Shops, Three Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone .

The Nokia N8 smartphone will also be available online for immediate delivery at http://shop.nokia.co.uk/ from the 15th October, for £429 SIM free or on contract from £30 per month.

The Nokia N8 will come packed with a range of brand new, exclusive content from the Ovi Store including BBC iPlayer, enabling catch up on the last seven days of BBC radio and television. Specifically designed for the Nokia N8 to make the most of the device’s features, the app has the same functionality as the online version of BBC iPlayer.

The Nokia N8 offers amazing functionality and usability:

· New and exclusive Ovi apps including X Factor and LoveFilm
· 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash
· Record HD quality videos; edit using a unique, built-in editing suite and play-back with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound
· Connect to your social networks and view live feeds from Facebook and Twitter in a single app directly, via up to three personalised home screens
· Flick scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, plus a faster and more responsive user interface.

Sami Lehtinen, Group Manager, Nokia UK, says, “The Nokia N8 is one of the most innovative phones of 2010, packed with market leading features, including the best picture and video capability available on a smartphone.

“The reaction to the Nokia N8 continues to be phenomenal and, after all the build up, it is great to be getting it into the hands of customers.”

By tweaking the compression routines, which normally produce a 12-megapixel image around 2MB in size, hyperX has managed to get the N8 to output 11MB stills.  So far the results of the mod aren’t entirely clear – he needs to shoot some more pictures so that we can compare and contrast – but you can certainly zoom in on details with minimal blurriness.

You can download the 11MB sample photo and the 30fps HD video file from hyperX’s site, and hopefully he’ll be releasing some public ROMs or at least instructions on how to tweak the N8 to replicate his results.  We’ll have our own Nokia N8 review very soon.

[via The Handheld Blog]

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Video demo after the cut

It’s obviously far too soon for anything like a full review, but with eager Symbian addicts waiting for their N8 to drop, we wanted to run through some of the smartphone’s more impressive functionality and give an overall impression of performance.  In the video below you’ll see the browser, media player, video editing tool and more; plenty of it is familiar from previous iterations of Symbian, but there’s a fair amount of improvement in this new ^3 guise.

Whether there’s enough new to make users of other platforms take note and even consider jumping ship to the N8 remains to be seen, of course.  We’re finding it a mixed bag right now, with some obvious strengths (it’s generally speedy and the overall UI is far more suited to finger control) and some lingering disappointments (such as the on-screen keyboard and a few unexpected hangs and hiccups in the messaging apps).  More details in the video, and don’t be shy with your questions about the Nokia N8 – leave them in the comments!

Nokia N8 unboxing & demo:

In the box, meanwhile, Nokia bundle the charger, an AC adapter – one of the low-profile European models in this case – and a wired stereo headset with in-line media controls.  There’s also a USB to microUSB cable, a short miniHDMI to HDMI adapter cable and a short microUSB to USB Host adapter.  No case, but Nokia has previously said that mild scratches on the N8′s casing should rub straight off.

Interestingly, it looks as though there have been some minor changes in production since we last saw the blue N8.  Whereas the original color was more like the dark, rich blue of Nokia’s packaging, the production N8 is a lighter, more powdery blue.  It’s not unpleasant, but it’s noticeably different to what the company were showing before; you can see some clearer shots in the gallery below.

We’ll be putting the N8 through its paces over the next week or so before our full review, to see if our opinion of the first Symbian^3 smartphone matches up with Michael Gartenberg’s cautious optimism.  We’ll also have some hands-on video very shortly.

Update: You can see the hands-on video demo of the Nokia N8 here

Your money – $549 in the US – gets you a 3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, WiFi and five-band UMTS/HSPA, HDMI connectivity and Symbian^3.  However the smartphone’s crowning glory is likely to be its 12-megapixel camera, with Carl Zeiss optics and a Xenon flash, and which even in prototype form was capable of incredible photos.

What remains to be seen is how well Symbian^3 holds up to other smartphone platforms.  Analyst Michael Gartenberg said it’s certainly the best Symbian device he’s used, and predicts a “modest success” if Nokia and the US carriers can work out a decent subsidized price.

Press Release:

Nokia N8 shipments have started
September 30, 2010

Espoo, Finland -Nokia’s latest entertainment smartphone, the highly anticipated Nokia N8 with Ovi services, has started shipping. Customers who have placed a pre-order for the Nokia N8 in Nokia Online Shops and Nokia retail stores will be the first to receive their Nokia N8. Market availability will vary by country and by operator, with broad availability in the coming weeks.

“With the N8, and the new Symbian software, we are bringing a familiar, faster and more intuitive user experience to the world’s most popular smartphone platform. The Nokia N8 has received the highest amount of consumer pre-orders in Nokia history and we are thrilled to start shipments of the N8, the first of Nokia’s new Symbian smartphone range,” says Jo Harlow, Senior Vice President, Smartphones, Nokia.

“To appeal to today’s high-end buyers, smartphones have to be enjoyable, useful and beautiful. Ease of use, excellent multimedia performance and elegant design are all essential elements of the package,” says John Delaney, Research Director, IDC.

The first of a series of smartphones based on the new Symbian, the Nokia N8 is fast and easy to use and supports true multitasking, allowing users to run multiple apps simultaneously and switch between them easily. Dubbed the world’s best camera phone, the Nokia N8 lets you take the highest quality photos and shoot HD-quality videos in supreme clarity with the 12MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics. You can edit photos and videos on-screen and choose from multiple ways to share them; transfer large files to an external hard-drive with USB-on-the-go, or upload photos to social networks like Facebook, Twitter or RenRen straight from the homescreen. All this is delivered in a robust aluminum body in a range of vibrant colors with a real-glass 3.5″ AMOLED display.

The Nokia N8 has a black belt in entertainment. Its WebTV apps from channels like E! Entertainment, National Geographic and CNN and the intuitive music player inject an element of fun into idle moments. Plug the device to the home entertainment center to watch HD-quality videos from the big screen with full Dolby Digital Plus Surround Sound. The latest version of Ovi Store, available first on the Nokia N8, gives easy access to more apps – from social networking services like Foursquare to games like Need for Speed Shift or productivity apps like Tesco in the UK.

Like other Nokia smartphones, the Nokia N8 comes with free Ovi Maps walk & drive navigation in more than 70 countries worldwide, with no hidden costs. The latest beta release of Ovi Maps is also available for download from Nokia Beta Labs for the Nokia N8. It features visibility to public transport in 85 cities around the world, as well as real-time traffic, safety camera alerts, visibility to parking and petrol stations, and speed limit warnings.

About Nokia
At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services through Ovi (www.ovi.com), including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia’s NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.

While AT&T may be an interesting choice for the team-up, they are indeed the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, so it makes sense. Interestingly enough, AT&T is only offering the Vivas and some refurbished E71x units right now, so it doesn’t seem like they’re giving any kind of priority to Nokia on the phone front, at least not right now. Nor have they said they would be carrying the N8, which is the device in focus for the development contest.

The rules are pretty straight forward: design an application for the Nokia N8 by January 28th, 2011. If yours reaches the top of the heap in Nokia’s eyes, then you’ll be rewarded with a cool quarter of a million dollars. If you happen to not get first place, no worries, because you still have a chance at hitting that runners-up column. Nokia is going to choose 17 lucky developers to still get their hands on $150,000. If this contest works out for Nokia, and the company can push forward some outstanding third party applications, then it may indeed attract the attention of some customers who may never have given Nokia a second look before in the past. Will AT&T announce something on their own part soon? Perhaps. Considering the team-up here, it could be very possible.

[via Nokia]

As for why the price was so low, we can only assume few people found the N8 listing – according to Nokia, the handset has been setting records for the number of preorders placed.  We’re not sure where it came from, either; it’s not one of the 1,000 Nokia gave out to developers on day one of Nokia World 2010, since the auction started earlier than that.

[via Twitter]

Update: We’ve heard back from Nokia with some clarification – more details after the cut.

“As we have previously said, we still expect to start the shipments by the end of the third quarter. As with every global launch, when the device reaches the hand of the customer will vary by market and operator.

We have received a record number of online pre-orders for the Nokia N8. We had targeted our online pre-order customers to receive their N8s by the end of September. As it can take time from the beginning of shipment to arriving at their doorstep, in full transparency, we have advised our pre-order customers that they should expect their new Nokia N8 in October.” Nokia statement

The difference appears to be that Nokia is now suggesting shipping delays and carrier/operator launches might be the hiccup in the N8′s delivery, rather than their nebulous “final amends.”  Whether that means we were wrong in assuming said-amends were software related, or that Nokia has changed its mind about the final fettling, remains to be seen; we’re waiting to hear from the company with some clarification.

Either way, it seems that shipments of the N8 will be going out at the end of this month, as originally suggested.  That’s still what’s listed on the US official preorder page, but the UK preorder page now says the N8 won’t be shipping until the end of October.

Update: Nokia tells us the confusion has arisen because the their statement yesterday related only to pre-orders.  ”In some markets,” the company explains, individuals who placed a pre-order had been told they would receive their N8 in September.  Now, those people should expect to receive their N8 in October “because of the logistics involved in getting them to the users.”

However, “taken out of the pre-order context,” Nokia still expect to begin shipping the N8 by the end of the quarter.  We’re still unclear on what that means regarding the “final amends” Nokia claimed to be making.

Update 2: Our source at Nokia says that to the best of their knowledge there’s no “final amends” software being prepared.  It seems yesterday’s statement was simply poorly phrased.

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Nokia is saying that the pre-orders for the N8 blew their expectations, but that they have been forced to hold back the shipments of the device. In some markets, and that includes the United States, Nokia does confirm that by the end of September they had intended to deliver the N8, but that’s just not going to happen now. Nokia is currently in the processes of making sure that the user experience is the best it can be, and therefore making some final amends to make sure that happens.

In the end of the statement, Nokia stays that they expect those who pre-ordered the N8 to get the handset by October, but they are careful to leave out a specific date. So it looks like they will be missing that third quarter window, but at least they aren’t canceling the smartphone completely. Check out the full statement from Nokia below.

[via PhoneScoop]

Official Statement

“The amount of preorders has exceeded our expectations and we are working hard to deliver the Nokia N8 to the market. In some markets [including the U.S.], we had planned to start delivering the Nokia N8s to our pre-order customers by the end of September. To ensure a great user experience, we have decided to hold the shipments for a few weeks to do some final amends. We’re thrilled with the response that we’ve had to the Nokia N8 and assure everyone who’ve pre-ordered it already that it’ll be worth the wait! We expect consumers to get their Nokia N8s during October.

Video demo after the cut

The app takes advantage of the N8′s HDMI port, putting the Symbian^3 smartphone’s display up on your big-screen TV.  Then the handset’s 12-megapixel camera is used to keep track of where your finger is, basically working as an impromptu optical touchscreen.

Right now, it’s apparently not entirely accurate or polished, and Nokia’s people are working on the speed of responsiveness.  At some point they’re hoping that the phone itself won’t need to be clamped into place and the physical connection cut, perhaps using WiFi streaming with DLNA instead.  With more of Nokia’s high-end handsets packing HDMI connections, we’re hoping this is something that graduates from the labs and appears on shipping devices – it’s just the sort of thing Symbian needs to show people it’s still a relevant OS.

However, we’ve been talking to Nokia UK and they maintain that the N8 is still on track for a Q3 2010 release.  We’re looking for further clarification and will update as soon as we have it; Hasabnis says the reason for the delay is not being made public, though we’re guessing it would have more to do with finalizing software than anything else.

Nokia’s UK presales for the N8 continue to state the late-September ship date, as do the US presales.  The handset is priced at £429 and $549 SIM-free, respectively.

According to Rivas, the key differences between the N8 and the E7 is the software suite.  The E7 is the first device from the company to show the fruits of their collaboration with Microsoft, including preloaded business apps and much stronger integration with enterprise services like Exchange.  However, Nokia also envisages the E7′s huge screen and strong connectivity to appeal to multimedia producers and consumers, as well as mobile bloggers.

Nokia E7 browser & multimedia demo:

We can’t really argue with that.  The E7′s 4-inch 640 x 360 AMOLED – using Nokia’s new ClearBlack Display tech – is clear, beautifully color saturated and looks great showing off photos and video (including those taken by the phone’s own 8-megapixel autofocus camera).  Symbian^3′s media browser is as close to CoverFlow as you imagine Apple’s lawyers would allow, and the handset’s processor proved easily capable of keeping up with fast-flicking navigation.

As on the N8, the E7 gets Nokia’s preloaded video editing app (which can also be used to create photo slideshows), complete with transition effects, titling, optional soundtracks and even basic editing.  Unlike iMovie for iPhone, it’s not a cost-download either.

The browser is solid, meanwhile, but not the best on the market.  Although it supports multitouch for pinch-zooming, the animation is jerky and there’s a pause while the page renders.  Pinch-zooming in the photo viewer was stronger.  Double-tapping a block of text, which for instance on Android will automatically reflow it to suit the zoomed-in screen, only zooms, meaning there’s still plenty of side-scrolling to be done.

That’ll all improve, however, when Nokia’s new Webkit-based browser is launched.  According to Rivas, that will put them on the cutting edge of mobile browsing technology, and is evidence of Nokia’s stance that the browser is the single most important application on a device today.  The new version will prioritize efficiency and compatibility with web standards, and see the underlying rendering engine made available to other applications (whether Nokia’s own or from third-parties).  That should have the effect of boosting app speed, since a sluggish browser engine has often been a stumbling block for developers.

Rivas also confirmed that E7 owners can expect regular firmware updates, moving away from the historic pattern of a few OTA changes but generally “big” sideloaded upgrades, and instead transitioning to more regular, incremental OTA packages.  However there’ll also be more significant PR updates, which Nokia expect to be much more timely in their release.

There’s plenty to like about the Nokia E7.  The display is brilliant, easily better than the Nexus One we compare it with in the gallery below, while the QWERTY keyboard is useful and tactile.  Truth be told, if it were running Android we’d have no qualms at all about its mainstream success; with Symbian^3, as with the N8, there’s a sense that the hardware is a few steps ahead of the software it runs.  The company is still bullish about their smartphone sales, and still enthusiastic about Symbian and its future, but while the OS is certainly well polished (as Michael Gartenberg says, it’s the best implementation of the platform to-date) it simply doesn’t feel as fresh as its Android, iOS and webOS rivals.

Among the plethora of news, one of the highlights is Nokia officially unveiling the N8, their flagship device for the Symbian^3 platform. I’ve been using one for the last week or so and I can safely say it’s the best Symbian phone I’ve ever used. The question remains, though: is that good enough in today’s competitive market?

The hardware is first rate. The N8 packs a 3.5-inch OLED display, anodized aluminum body (my test unit is a great shade of orange) and 16GB of storage with a microSD slot for added expansion. In addition to the standard Nokia charger port there’s a micro USB port that also charges the phone (at last) along with HDMI-out. Like other vendors, Nokia’s gone with a non-removable battery that got me through a hard day with no trouble.

The star of the show is the latest version of the OS which is now fully touch enabled. Unlike the N97, the N8 OS is designed for touch and touch only. In practice it works well. The portrait keyboard is a standard phone layout but a quick turn brings up a full QWERTY that’s about as good as anything I’ve used. Performance is fast and fluid and the OLED display shines bright.

There are three customizable home screens that can be customized with a variety of widgets. The OVI store offers a decent selection of others. Overall, they work well and update quickly. Nokia’s mail system supports a variety of email services including Exchange (but doesn’t work well with Gmail configured as an Exchange client, my inbox would never sync correctly) although there’s support for only one Exchange account, something that feels dated these days.

The UI is cleaner then prior iterations and shows the Symbian heritage which is both good and bad. There are still too many settings buried in too many places for easy configuration, but once configured things work well. Current Symbian users will feel right at home, new users might struggle a bit. The built in 12-megapixel camera works well and could easily replace most dedicated digital cameras for most tasks.

What the platform lacks is apps. While there’s a decent selection of “table stakes” apps in the OVI store, the selection pales relative to the competition. If app selection is important, you might need to look elsewhere.

Overall the N8 is an impressive device. Two years ago, it would have blown everything else in the market away. Today’s competitive landscape is a different story. From a hardware perspective, the N8 can hold up against most of the today’s devices. The software is a different story and while this version of the platform makes great strides in usability and functionality, there’s still much Nokia needs to do to drive the software platform forward.

Current Nokia users will likely love the N8. If Nokia can get the N8 to the US at an attractive price with a carrier, it might be a modest success with users looking for something different. In Nokia’s strong European markets, it will likely sell well. The N8 shows Nokia can keep pace with today’s fast moving market but not as the leader of the pack, and the platform needs to further evolve if Nokia wants to maintain both relevance and leadership going forward.

The C6 also has an 8-megapixel camera and WebTV support, along with Nokia Navigation with turn-by-turn directions.  It shares the CBD display with the C7, which Vanjoki describes as having “the sleekest, smoothest device in the world, no doubt about that”.

Both phones have Ovi Store access, pedestrian access features in Ovi Maps – including public transportation information – and broad social networking integration.  Both will begin shipping in Q4 2010; no word on pricing as yet.

Update: Nokia says the C6 will be priced at €260 and the C7 at €335.

Press Release:

Nokia announces powerful family of smartphones and Ovi services at Nokia World showcase; vision of location-based future brought to life
September 14, 2010

London, UK – At Nokia World, the destination for people passionate about mobility, Nokia today announced a family of smartphones powered by the all new Symbian platform which brings significant enhancements in speed and ease of use. The new devices, which are tightly integrated with enhanced Ovi services and apps, reinforce Nokia’s vision of a mobile industry that is increasingly being defined by socially connected, location-based devices and experiences.

Highlights include:

- Three new smartphones, Nokia E7, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6, which join the previously announced Nokia N8 to form a family of Symbian products. – The latest version of the Symbian platform brings more than 250 new features and improvements and retains the familiarity enjoyed by millions of smartphone users worldwide;
- Showcase of the Nokia N8, the ultimate entertainment smartphone and world’s best cameraphone;
- Availability of a richer Ovi Store experience – starting with the Nokia N8 – that includes a friendlier look and feel, and more popular and unique apps and games;
- The latest beta release of free Ovi Maps with new pedestrian and motorist features.

“Today our fight back to smartphone leadership shifts into high gear,” said Niklas Savander, Executive Vice President, Markets, Nokia. “Despite new competition, Symbian remains the most widely used smartphone platform in the world. Our new family of smartphones introduced today feature the all-new Symbian OS, rewritten to be faster, easier to use, more efficient and more developer friendly.” Savander also commented on the high level of anticipation for the Nokia N8. “Based on the level of consumer interest and the highest online pre-orders in Nokia history, we expect big things from the Nokia N8.”

A smartphone for everyone.
In addition to the Nokia N8, the new family of faster, more intuitive Symbian smartphones includes:

- Nokia E7 – the ultimate business smartphone. With Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync on board, the Nokia E7 provides direct, real-time and secure access to corporate email inboxes and other personal applications. Equipped with a 4-inch touchscreen display featuring Nokia ClearBlack technology for improved outdoor visibility and a full keyboard, business users will find the Nokia E7 is the perfect shape and size to work on documents, review spreadsheets, or read and edit slides. For corporate peace of mind, a combination of business grade security solutions is available. Estimated retail price is EUR 495, excluding taxes and subsidies.

Nokia E7 image

- Nokia C7 – beautifully crafted, sleek social networking smartphone. Get live updates from social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and keep track of new email from your Yahoo! or Gmail accounts directly on the homescreen. The Nokia C7 features a 3.5-inch AMOLED display and a stunning combination of stainless steel, glass and soft edges. Estimated retail price is EUR 335, excluding taxes and subsidies.

Nokia C7 image

- Nokia C6 – the small and stylish smartphone. Sporting a 3.2-inch AMOLED display with full touch capabilities and Nokia ClearBlack technology for improved outdoor visibility, the latest Nokia C6 (C6-01) features the best of social networking and mobile entertainment in a stainless steel and glass design. Stay connected to email, access millions of tracks through Ovi Music, and download apps and games from the Ovi Store. Estimated retail price is EUR 260, excluding taxes and subsidies.

Nokia C6 image

As a smartphone family, the Nokia N8, Nokia E7, Nokia C7, Nokia C6 share several similarities. All are built on the new version of Symbian, the world’s most popular smartphone platform. It strikes a balance of innovation and intuition offering a variety of improvements and features such as support for multiple homescreens, visual multitasking, gesture-based interactions and a noticeable reduction in prompts — all while presenting a familiarity that means millions of people can pick up one of Nokia’s new smartphones and instantly know how to use it. People will also discover free Ovi Maps, access to Ovi Store, messaging, social networking and other experiences that come standard across all of these smartphones.

The Nokia E7, Nokia C7 and Nokia C6 are all expected to begin shipping before the end of the year.

…with content for everyone
The new family of Symbian smartphones will include a completely updated Ovi Store experience. The new store experience is driven by a friendlier user interface and a new collections feature to quickly access popular apps and games available now, or soon, such as foursquare, Angry Birds, Need for Speed Shift and Real Golf 2011. Additionally, Ovi Store will continue to offer exclusive apps including Audiotube, Tesco and others along with favorites such as Fring, Shazam, and Asphalt 5.

For developers, the uniform Symbian platform together with the Qt development environment enables easy smartphone application creation and extensive reach.

A mobile world centered on where you are
Free access to Ovi Maps, the world’s most comprehensive walk and drive navigation, to Nokia smartphones was only the start. With the latest beta release of Ovi Maps, available for download today, people will benefit from new features and even greater map detail. Ovi Maps beta adds visibility to subways, trams and trains in 85 cities around the world, real-time traffic, safety alerts in or out of navigation mode, visibility to parking and petrol stations, and speed limit warnings. In addition, people can use the improved search capabilities and share their location immediately via text messages or email to other browser-enabled phones.

New gear for on-the-go
Nokia also showcased the Nokia Bluetooth Stereo Headset BH-905i offering an improved audio experience with active noise cancellation and a collection of five unique new Bluetooth headsets designed for a variety of needs, including hands-free multitasking, talking and navigating in the car with voice guidance.

Please visit www.nokia.com/press for press materials, including photos and product information. For more information on Nokia World 2010, please visit: http://events.nokia.com/nokiaworld.

About Nokia
At Nokia, we are committed to connecting people. We combine advanced technology with personalized services that enable people to stay close to what matters to them. Every day, more than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia device – from mobile phones to advanced smartphones and high-performance mobile computers. Today, Nokia is integrating its devices with innovative services through Ovi (www.ovi.com), including music, maps, apps, email and more. Nokia’s NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping and navigation services, while Nokia Siemens Networks provides equipment, services and solutions for communications networks globally.

“It still makes me smile – of course, we couldn’t agree more. For Nokia, “Connecting People” is more than just a feedgood tagline, it’s our mission, our passion.” Niklas Savander, EVP, Nokia

In fact, Nokia has been selling 260,000 smartphones every day, and Savander defends the Finnish company’s broad portfolio of devices.  ”Offering people just one model will inevitably lead to compromises,” he explained, “whether it’s the camera, the browser or the phone itself.”

Of course, Savander couldn’t resist one final dig at Apple.  In discussing the new N8, he described it as following in the footsteps of previous Nokia smartphones: “They perform, day-in, day-out… no matter how you hold them.”

Whether Nokia will be able to truly grab headlines depends on how well they leverage MeeGo, the collaborative platform with Intel that the Finns have already earmarked for future high-end NSeries devices.  Twelve months ago, at Nokia World 2009, it was the N900 that surprised us all by being a sleeper-hit of sorts; now Nokia needs another distinctive flagship to pull them through the mire of Android and iOS they find themselves in.

That’s the challenge, and we hope Nokia can rise to it.

According to the group consensus, the Nokia U would have a 4-inch capacitive touchscreen, WiFi b/g/n, USB 3.0 and HDMI connectivity, all in a waifish 60 x 110 x 6-10mm monoblock form-factor crafted from soft-touch aluminum.  They also want an 8-megapixel camera with both Xenon and LED flash options, a 4x optical zoom and HD video recording: oh, and they’d like to be able to upgrade the image sensor at a later date too.

Unsurprisingly Nokia has no plans to actually produce the Nokia U, which is likely to be a relief to the company’s engineers since there’s no way you could actually fit all of that tech into such a slim body.  If you can take away anything from the exercise, it’s that the Nokia faithful are calling out for a big-screen, high-resolution device to take on the EVO 4Gs, DROID Xs and Galaxy S’ of this world.

As of October 1st, meanwhile, the N8 will drop into Carphone Warehouse, O2, Orange, Phones4u, T-Mobile, Tesco Phone Shops, Three Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone (Vodafone have the exclusive on the green version).  You can preorder now at nokia.co.uk/N8 or alternatively wait for Nokia World 2010 next week to see what new goodness the company has in the pipeline.

Press Release:

GET YOUR NOKIA N8 THIS MONTH!

London, September 8th – The much-anticipated Nokia N8 will be on-sale at the Nokia Online Shop for £429 SIM free or on contract from £35 per month.

Pre-order now at www.nokia.co.uk/N8 to make sure you’re one of the first to get a Nokia N8 when it goes on sale exclusively at the Nokia Online Shop during the last week of September.

The Nokia N8 will also be available from Carphone Warehouse, O2, Orange, Phones4u, T-Mobile, Tesco Phone Shops, Three Mobile, Virgin Mobile and Vodafone from Friday 1st October.

The Nokia N8 offers amazing functionality and usability:
It will come bursting with new and exclusive Ovi apps
12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash
Record HD quality videos; edit using a unique, built-in editing suite and play-back with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound
Connect to your social networks and view live feeds from Facebook and
Twitter in a single app directly via up to three personalised home screens
Flick scrolling and pinch-to-zoom, plus a faster and more responsive user interface.

Mark Loughran, General Manager, Nokia UK, says, “The Nokia N8 is a great multitasker, packed with market leading innovations, which include the best picture and video capability available on a smartphone.

“The Nokia N8 is perfect for creating and sharing great content in high-definition, using HDMI out to connect to your TV as well as hot-USB swap. We’re making it fun and easy to capture and share memorable moments on the go.”