Saturday 12 November 2011

Nokia N8 Review

My Nokia N8 review.

Ok so I've had the N8 now for a few months and I think I've given it a good trial.  Now this is not going to be a very technical review, only my own personal observations:

Pros

  • Fantastic camera - love it as it takes brilliant photos
  • Camera button makes it easy to switch on the camera especially in bright sunshine
  • Great video camera - like the still camera it takes pretty good videos too
  • Nice looking phone
  • Good memory capacity with memory card slot taking a 16GB card easily (not tried a 32GB as these normally don't work too well in phones)
  • Battery life is excellent
  • Front and rear camera (front is only really suitable when chatting to someone face to face)
  • drag and drop capabilities makes accessing items while hooked up to your computer a doddle
Cons
  • Awful on the internet (so slow)
  • Ovi Store does not have the same variety of apps in comparison to the Android or iTune market
  • have to search around a bit to find where different items are stored behind all the menus
  • 3 home screens only
  • smaller screen than most touch screens
Now looking at the above I can only say that recently while commuting and being stuck in traffic queues I found it enormously frustrating when I was unable to get onto traffic news.  (Don't worry I'm not driving, I'm a passenger).

It hooked up to the internet easily enough but loading pages just took forever!  While I was waiting for the page to load my friend who had a Samsung had already opened, loaded, flicked through several pages and logged off!  I have to admit that I just gave up.

I tried both Safari browser and Opera Mini but both seemed to take just as long.

On another long journey home I got bored and tried to click on the iPlayer icon and see if there was anything I could watch on there.  Ok so I gave up again and resigned myself to the fact that internet browsing is not what this phone is about.

Digging out my HTC Desire that night I nearly thought about ditching the N8 and returning to the Desire but then I remembered the problem with that phone and how I had given up on that because of the rapid demise of battery life which necessitated carrying around a spare battery with you at all times.

Now at home if I log on using wi-fi and my broadband connection the N8 whizzes along quite happily so maybe I am just not using the right connection.  That is something I will have to look into a bit more.  

Facebook app is not all that brilliant and although I have tried several apps there doesn't seem to be one that is as good as the traditional layout that you get with Facebook.

Twitter is ok and posting tweets is easy enough.

I do find though that you have to log into Twitter and Google quite a bit as it doesn't seem to remember your log in details.

Also the lack of size of the screen, although I thought the tiny difference would not make a difference, it does. You find yourself having to zoom into pages a hell of a lot more as the writing is just too small to read.

Maybe size does matter!

Complaints about the keypad I found did not worry me.  To start with the novelty of using the old Nokia keypad brought back memories but when I got fed up with that I just added the Swype app which I find great.  Trouble is I find myself trying to 'swype' anything touchscreen.

Overall summary I would say that this phone is a good phone; nice looking; good sound; great memory capabilities (although could do with more internal memory); good signal strength and battery life.  On the down side it is frustrating sometimes trying to find where things are hidden and the surfing experience leaves a lot to be desired.

If you want fast internet searching and loading and a clear big screen with plenty of apps, then I would recommend looking elsewhere.

I would also say that the touch screen is good although not quite as good as the iPhone but then I am not restricted to all things Apple.

Will I keep on using it?

Well for now, yes.  It all depends on what you use your phone for.  Mine is mainly taking quick photos, texting, tweeting and checking FB status.

Note:

Oh dear just seen an advert for the iPhone S - can't wait to see how that goes down - talking phone hey :)



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