Reviews

Nokia N8 review: First look

We take a look at the eagerly-anticipated Nokia N8, the Finnish manufacturer’s first smartphone to run on the brand-spanking new Symbian^3 OS.

20 Aug 2010

As with the iPhone, the battery is sealed inside the N8's casing, so it's not user replaceable. This wouldn't be a problem, except we found the battery life to be disappointing. The specifications list a talktime of 5.5 hours on 3G and a standby time of 400 hours, but we'd cut this estimate in half based on our experiences with a pre-production sample.

The SIM card and microSD card slots are covered and located on the left side of the phone. However, as with the covered ports we've seen on other phones, they feel flimsy. You'll therefore have to be gentle when removing and installing your cards to prevent the plastic cover falling off.

Unfortunately, on paper, the 680MHz ARM 11 processor isn't as powerful as the processor found in rival high end smartphones. It does have a built-in 3D graphics hardware accelerator, but this doesn't make up for the very noticeable lag when carrying out common tasks such as opening applications.