Nokia N8 - user opinions and reviews
- Wheez
- nS$
Duel, 13 Sep 2010"tried n8 nor iphone or galaxy. But after doing some research and watching some videos, i... moreI'm 95% sure the video and picture editor laggyness is the software, not the hardware or the OS. Everything else runs with like 60 FPS on the N8, but then when u open either picture or video editor before even doing anything, just being in the many is hell of a struggle. That can't be explained with the phone IMO, I'd say the edit software is badly optimized for the phone, cos there's nothing that requires good specs in the menu, yet it has like 10 FPS.
You are right, the GPU can't do everything and its true that when ur at the point where the GPU cant be utilized, the 1Ghz CPU will probably win in like loading times as you mentioned. The game itself should run as well/better with a dedicated GPU.
As said, it's about balance. Android phones don't know how to use the SoC integrated graphics to render the UI, iPhone 4 can and Symbian^3 can (although its not integrated but dedicated) so in everyday use and apart from some very heavy applications, I'd say the balance of the N8 is better. Most of the time I do not play games on my phone or edit videos, but just the every day use.
Flash heavy sites will lag on any current smartphone, the default web browser gives different opinions. Few sites have been praising it and saying that they downloaded Opera but never ended up using it cos the default was so good, some say its crappy and laggy (could be earlier versions?), nevertheless they are redoing the browser with Qt that should make it quite abit better, but that won't make it into the retail box, so maybe later this year.
- Peter
- iFr
Duel, 13 Sep 2010"tried n8 nor iphone or galaxy. But after doing some research and watching some videos, i... morewe don't care, in the future there will be N9
so, N8 is the best "full features" phone to have now.
- Duel
- niD
hayato, 13 Sep 2010You are a satisfied customer. But that's not an excuse to say negative things about n8's gamin... more"tried n8 nor iphone or galaxy. But after doing some research and watching some videos, i think gaming on n8 will be better"
what videos have you watching? i watched need for speed shift on n8 and galaxy s and it runs much better on galaxy s, and loading times are like other planet. N8 takes load nfs shift 33 sec and galaxy s takes 10 second
and thats because the low memory and low cpu
everyone here say but N8 dont need it because it has gpu, but hey guess what gpu is not doing everything :D
and N8 is goin to strucle badly in future, it has it's limitation because the memory and cpu, so it's getting older to run heavy stuffs before others. actually what iv seen on heavy task it's already strucle, like gaming, web browsing with flash on, maps app is laggy and slow, picture editor is laggy
- Wheez
- nS$
Wheez, 13 Sep 2010Nokia will most likely never use Android, cos then it becomes nothing but a bulk phone manufac... moreHowever I deeply hope that the new CEO wont mess in Microsoft in this now that we Meego looking very promising. I hope they keep putting effort into Symbian for lower end machines and Meego for the high end stuff.
Funny how people complain about Nokia having no innovation and complaining that Nokia should go Android at the same time...
- Wheez
- nS$
Mobile Buyer waiting, 13 Sep 2010Come on Nokia, catch up and use Android your OS really sucks I have used the N97 and E71.. you... moreNokia will most likely never use Android, cos then it becomes nothing but a bulk phone manufacturer like Samsung, HTC, SE, that have really nothing original and just race in who manages to squeeze the hardware in for the lowest price. Nokia has also invested so much in Symbian and Meego that it will most likely not ditch em.
Also, Symbian^3 is by far the best Symbian has ever been and it blows N97s 5th edition out of the table, they are different operating system even if they look the same.
Also, it depends abit, there's a reason why corporations use symbians in their work smartphones and not Androids.
Android will most likely never happen, but the Windows OS is possible, seeing that the new CEO is ex Microsoft..
- Wheez
- nS$
Anonymous, 13 Sep 2010Guys dont compare n8 vid galaxy s.bcoz galaxy s gonna b legend.n8 can only beat galaxy in came... moreYou really have to give us some reasons. It sure beats the iPhone in being a smartphone, cos iPhone is very barely one. But what in it makes it better than N8 with Symbian^3? It's hard to say for sure yet, cos N8 is not officially out yet, but theres plenty of footage and material and from what I've found, Android has maybe a few things better, but on the other hand, Symbian wins in other things.
They seem pretty even, but even so it seems that Symbian^3 still takes the slight lead cos its been so much longer in development.
Either way, Android is real amazing for seeing how new and short in development it is, it will be wonderful when it gets more time.
- Mobile Buyer waiting
- ii6
Come on Nokia, catch up and use Android your OS really sucks I have used the N97 and E71.. you have to select menu in menus just to do the simplest things and nothing is logically organised. OVI is great free I think thats the only good thing going for Nokia ATM, I think they know it too :) I'll by the phone as it is a cheap GPS :)
- hayato
- t7X
shahid, 13 Sep 2010I agree with u the people who never used android or ios they can really say that symbian is th... moreYou are a satisfied customer. But that's not an excuse to say negative things about n8's gaming when obviously you're just being completely biased. I never tried n8 nor iphone or galaxy. But after doing some research and watching some videos, i think gaming on n8 will be better. Don't worry, i'm not as biased like you and some other posters here. I put almost all of the best smartphones from different company in consideration before making a choice. My next phone will be N8. Wave comes 2nd choice if n8 will be priced beyond my allowance. XD That's 30% chance of happening.
- Anonymous
- up9
Guys dont compare n8 vid galaxy s.bcoz galaxy s gonna b legend.n8 can only beat galaxy in camera comparision.otherwise galaxy is the no 1 ph in the market.it can even beat iphone easily
- Wheez
- nS$
Anonymous, 13 Sep 2010Nice phone with old osSymbian^3 is not old, it's brand new :D
It looks mainly the same, but functions 10 times better than the previous ones.
Also, tell me, why should they make it different if the only real change is that ppl have to learn to use it again? It's the same template that like 40% of current smartphone users can use with previous experience.
- Wheez
- nS$
shahid, 13 Sep 2010I agree with u the people who never used android or ios they can really say that symbian is th... moreShort from maybe those games, how does actually Android actually beat Symbian?
Should probably wait till Symbian^3 before makign the comparison, cos that just wipes the floor with all previous Symbians at the same time.
- Thomas
- SvQ
adam, 12 Sep 2010only 680MHz CPU (brain of the phone) most phones these days have 1GHz that is because Symbian dont require soo much..
- Anonymous
- vGU
adam, 12 Sep 2010only 680MHz CPU (brain of the phone) most phones these days have 1GHz Yeah, but it has a separate graphics processor, so that load is taken of the main chip. The overall performance should be equivalent to or better than the comparable 1GHz units.
- hayato
- t7X
They're not ugly, they're just simple! XD s60 3rd apps like ms dict, screen snap, file lock, uninstall king etc. uses the default UI. But why would you look for an eyecandy for that apps? They perform what they suppose to do, i think that's more important.
- shahid
- mTZ
Anonymous, 13 Sep 2010nokia knows that symbian can not compete with other operating systems because the problems tha... moreI agree with u the people who never used android or ios they can really say that symbian is the best a year back my feeling and suggestion were the same if u use ur mobile to play the games please play games on these mobile iphone 4 and Samsung galaxy and than on n8 than see the difference u will fell like playing call of duty or crisis or gta 4 on s or 4g and on nakia it will be like playing sega games
I am not against n8 I am also in love with n8 with its built quality it is just like 80 years old lady(n8) wearing 500$ clothes and 20 years old lady (galaxy S) wearing 50$ clothes but now imagine which is better to see when there clothes are removed
Surely Galaxy s
Thumbs up
- venkat
- u1G
can you provide 1Ghz processor instead of 1mhz.because iphone & other phones are provided with 1GHz processor
- AMANITA
- s86
Anonymous, 13 Sep 2010nokia knows that symbian can not compete with other operating systems because the problems tha... moreCan u tell me the names of those ugly symbian applications ?
- Wheez
- nSS
Anonymous, 13 Sep 2010nokia knows that symbian can not compete with other operating systems because the problems tha... moreI already copy pasted this earlier from my-symbian forums, but I don't want you to spread false information about Symbian^3 (not sure if you were only referring to early symbians, but you do generalize the whole Symbian).
Well, what I can say for now is that overall quality, look&feel, build precision, materials, etc. are simply OUTSTANDING and in this regard the N8 is surely the best Nokia smartphone ever made. The all plastic N900 does not even come close in terms of build quality. It was cold outside when the courier delivered the package and when I was taking the N8 from the box when I touched it for the first time that cold metal casing was really a nice feeling. The screen is also just.... lovely and works just like what you'd expect from a capacitive multitouch display.
I must say I am also extremely (positively) surprised when it comes to performance. The device boots in less than 30 seconds (including the Nokia Hands animation) and everything works exceptionally fast. I am not exaggerating here, it is really a ROCKET.
For several days I've been also testing the Vivaz and Vivaz pro, which both have the fastest processor ever used in a Symbian phone (Cortex-A8 720 MHz), i.e. faster and more advanced than N8's ARM1176 @ 680 MHz, but compared to the N8 they feel like snails.
I've also ran some benchmarks (e.g. GLBenchmark 1.1) and while Vivaz's get results considerably better (often even twice) than e.g. the Samsung Omnia i8910 HD, the N8 in turn outperforms the Vivaz/Vivaz Pro twins in graphic performance almost TWICE. It looks that even though its processor is slower, the GPU (hardware accelerator) of the N8 is considerably faster. Vivaz has PowerVR SGX530 GPU while the N8 has Broadcom VideoCore III.
http://www.broadcom.com/press/release.php?id=1106424
If it's that much faster than SGX530, then I wouldn't be surprised if it was offering performance similar to the SGX535 like in the iPhone 4.
As much as I am not a huge fan of S60, I must say that N8's Symbian^3 is a really huge step forward in terms of user experience. Even though everything looks almost the same, it's all the small tweaks and improvements that make it a wholly different story. Even just getting rid of that annoying and inconsistent double-tap on some items makes it much more pleasant to use, and along with the overall great performance it really works as it should have been from the beginning.
Oh, and they FINALLY changed the landscape mode to ALWAYS show the virtual buttons at the BOTTOM of the screen and not on the right side (on S60 5th Edition phones it works this way only on the home screen while on all other screens the buttons are on the right, eating some 20% of screen area) so now the landscape mode offers considerably more usable screen area, i.e. full width, with only a small button bar at the bottom. Again, just as it should have been from the beginning.
The camera (both video and stills) are indeed of exceptional quality and there are also some really nice small things about it like e.g. tiny internal "cover" over the lens that opens and closes automatically as you launch or close the camera app.
Would I switch from the N900 to the N8? Most probably no. I still prefer Maemo's UI, its higher resolution screen and its openness. So as much as I am really excited about the N8, my upgrade path from the N900 will be the N9.
I'd say eye candy is very well balanced against performance and usability. Transitions and effects are very subtle, yet still noticeable. And they're REALLY fast, well, at least on a "fresh" device that's not stuffed too much. I got the device three days later than promised and had to send it back today, so I only had three days to play with it, way too little to draw any final conclusions on how it will behave with lots of software installed, or how battery will perform in normal daily use, etc. I didn't have enough time to even just test how the Power Saving Mode improves battery life. But such a 'fresh' device performed EXCEPTIONALLY well. I'm still wondering how the N8 with a 680 MHz ARM11 can be that much faster than e.g. Vivaz with 720 MHz OMAP3...
I was promised that I will get another, almost final unit in a week or so, and for longer testing, so based on it I will be able to talk about all the details.
Back to eye candy, the UI looks much more elegant. All the changes are actually quite small and subtle, but maybe that's why I like them. Users don't have to learn the UI from the scratch, it's just that certain annoying things have been fixed and the UI got a face lifting. Transitions, fades etc. were 100% smooth and - as I wrote - very subtle, which means short/quick. This way, while making the UI look nicer, they do not slow it down unnecessarily.
Kinetic scrolling is supported everywhere, in all applications, system screens, image viewer, web browser, etc. And it is 100% smooth, too. Scrolling between pictures in the gallery is simply superb, just what you'd expect. Definitely not worse than on the iPhone.
Kinetic scrolling in the web browser is also nice, however some 'heavy' pages with large flash content tend to lag a bit, i.e. they start scrolling with some slight delay, but the actual scrolling is smooth, too. Lightweight pages scroll instantly. So I guess it's flash that affects the performance.
Pinch-to-zoom also works really nicely, both for images and web pages. There's really nothing to complain about in this regard.
Quote:
Does the audio player contain the 'cover flow' type display of album covers that was demonstrated in the s^3 preview video?
Yes. Please see the screenshot below. It looks and works really great and smooth, too.
http://download.my-symbian.com/Forum_pics/n8media.jpg
The impression I got regarding the eyecandy is that Nokia finally hired someone with GOOD TASTE to tune it. Subtle and quick transitions, really nice scrolling, and even the vibrator tuned for very nice and gentle feeback when you touch the screen. It is still the S60 platform and it couldn't magically turn into something completely different, so e.g. the built-in applications like Calendar or email client are still the same and may be too simple for more demanding users, but the overall user experience has really improved A LOT.
If Maemo/Meego didn't exist and I had to choose a new smartphone, I'd happily get the N8. I just wish it had a WVGA screen. nHD on 3.5" looks a little bit too pixelized, and the icons could be a bit smaller, too.
- Wheez
- nSS
Anonymous, 13 Sep 2010nokia knows that symbian can not compete with other operating systems because the problems tha... moreJudging Symbian^3 to earlier Symbians is like saying Windows 7 is a pure failure just cos Vista was.
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