Anyway,

Things that I find interesting as I continued using N8:-

1) I started to like taking pics and video... of just about anything
2) The browser seem to behave better now... although still have the scrolling problem when zoom in
3) The HD playback + better GPU really amaze me although I hardly uses them but maybe due to my Legend mediocre GPU, it somehow feel its great to have it
4) It has much worse battery life than my Legend even when running lesser widgets

S-PVA instead of S-AMOLED?

Samsung shot themselves in their leg?

Only homescreen different, but a nice touch... but once enter menu etc, remains the same... LOL
Given SE previous experience with Symbian, I would have though they would layer their own UI over Symbian like they did with P series as well as M series but NOOOOOOO...

Funny thing is the usual S60V5 lag is still there which means the hardware probably should shoulder half of the blame for 5800 lag. Even A8 lags with Symbian...

Click on the battery icon in homescreen and click once more in the popup, it will show the percentage... the bars are not accurate...

My Nokia N8 Review

Just a humble review

Homescreen

The new home screen is very nicely put together with some very nice features. The default all-in-one reminder for calls, smses etc is a really helpful one. Each page allows a maximum of 6 rows of widgets and you can either select a full row widget or 4 shortcuts. There's even an option to turn off the data usage for these widgets.

Multi-tasking preview looks good rite? Not all the time. I would say 2 out of 5 times when I actually get into multi-tasking preview, it will show just MENU, WEB ETC with no preview at all. There's more work needed in this app.

Complaint : I really not fancy of those webtv stuffs, therefore those widgets is pretty close to useless to me, ontop of being a battery eater for always looking for data to update itself. With the exception of Facebook widget which is scrollable, others were pretty much useless and only show a few words. Perhaps there is a need for more flexibility to the widgets like half/full page mode and the ability to insert empty space into the 4shortcuts widget instead of the mandatory four when you just want an extra only.

User Interface

Once you get into the menu, nothing much changed except the side bar has been relocated down to the bottom in landscape mode. You probably feel a little disappointed. However, they do make it up with slight changes with user interaction to the touch screen. I really like that they implement this HOLD-and-SELECT thing, which really minimise the overall movement you need to do, in comparison with S60V5. They also fix the annoying problem with the MENU ORGANIZER whenever you start moving apps from folder to folder. It no longer jump to the destination folder like it did in S60V5.

Contacts, SMS

Contacts remains the same but with the added Facebook connection to each contact. The best tweak is the inclusion of alphabetical scroll when you scroll with the scrollbar. You can even get to Contact from Keypad now, awesome.

With the SMSes, you get the usual SMS app plus a conversation mode SMS app. I still prefer the usual one as I usually delete spam messages quite frequently and only saves those that are relevant BUT is a pretty nice app nonetheless.

Complaints : The kinetic scrolling really sucks here... It was like a turtle crawling. It was saved by the alphabetical scrolling but what a mess. Even so, the default mode which shows the contact's number is lagging to show up.

Browser

The loading time is pretty good and it even plays GIF animation which is a plus. It now support Flash Lite and works better than the stock Flash Lite on my Legend too. It seem pretty faultless until you zoom it with pinch and zoom or double tap as usual. There appear to be simple rendering error or just simply the font is too big to accomodate itself suddenly.

But I do really encounter a strange thing with it. What happen was if I didnt close the web, and lock the phone the by side-lock, the 3G connection still goes on and my phone went from full bar (maybe not 100%, 90% or so) to just 30% when I realised it 1hr+ later.

Complaints : KS sucks again here when in ZOOM mode. The browser was not very good at picking up CLICKS, which is perhaps a different variation of programming. On a normal webpage with huge button for SELECTION, this was not a problem. However, it was most apparent in forum like LYN. Moreover, there is a keyboard bug with the browser. Double space when you press space once which inturn also make auto-cap after fullstop non-existent. Still no fit-text-to-width implemented.

Sometimes the 3G connection will hang and not responding. How to fix? Need to disconnect the 3G and let it reconnect again.

The downloads stop when you switching to other app like MENU... What was that for?

Multimedia

I think I do not need to say much here. Classy GPU providing acceleration for both games and HD video (yeah, HD is possible, I learned something new). The camera even more so classy with its BIG sensor producing breath-taking photos and videos. There's an option to upload them to Fb as well which is nice (although FB compress pic so much).

Coverflow animation is nice too, but I had to say not my cup of tea. I really dont organise my mp3 much. But the headphone is slightly underpower perhaps? It plays quite awfully with mylar1b and I had to use a headamp to compensate for it. 5800 had much better output if my mind serve me well.

Complaints : Just one, FAT32 limitation. Not your fault but Im hoping that you could possibly design/code your own 64bit file system to satisfy us? Or at least include movie splitter in your Ovi Suite?

Keyboard

HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY DONT GIVE US A POTRAIT KEYBOARD???? WHY~~~~???? (Oh yeah, Glen reminded me there will be Swype, thanks you... but I never like them even with Android)

OK, I have to admit I really cant shake this off in a matter of days. I never really like them at all, those keypad. Why? If I type wrong spelling with the keyboard, and still continue typing, it will offer a suggestion. But if Im with the keypad, straight away it will come up with a ? and ask me what I want and cant goes any further (I will just be honest here and what I was trying to spell was satellite and I was going satte, which the both keyboard and keypad dont understand but if I continue with 'lite' on the keyboard, it will suggest satellite). Ultimately I have to force myself to rotate the phone especially when Im using the browser. And I have to be content with the double space bug. And I had to be content with the even worse scrolling in landscape mode.

Anyway, there's credit where its due. There is an option to make the word suggestion become default and your wrong spelling become suggestion.. which means you can just continue with your space instead of having to move your hand over to choose the suggestion.

Battery

I usually dont comment on this but I start my phone at 8am and even with little usage, it gets to about 30-40% by noon. I mean, I thought Android is worse and I had even more widgets which rely on internet connection but its not even this bad.

Overall Impression

In this, I had to include some comparison with my current phone. I wished I could had Desire and it play the 720P just fine, it had full flash, much better gaming, but no, all I got is a Legend.

So, the gaming and video playback is not really comparable to N8, and with the N8 taking such beautiful pics/videos, it would be stupid to say Im not tempted.

However, there is just too much to take for me right now. It will be much easier to read in point form.

1) Battery life is nowhere as poor as N8 even with 3G always on.
2) N8 widgets is really not much of use except FB.. Legend has much better widgets.
3) Browser, I dont even want to compare them... just annoying on N8
4) Keyboard, in landscape and portrait, but what makes it fun to use is the automatic word completion. Type a few characters and if the suggestion is correct, just type space and viola... With N8, you had to move your hand over to choose the word or continue typing till it finish.
5) Contact and Call (Keypad) integration... type a few number or character using the keypad and it will offer suggestion on the keypad based on your contact, no such option in N8. The scrolling bug in N8 on top of that.

P.S. Will you let N8 keyboard designer know that he sucks... the BACKSPACE key is in the position of ENTER key in QWERTY and without color to better distinguish them... it sucks.


Hard to choose... but for me, I had to say Legend...

It feels really cool showing the pic/video quality to others, it feels really cool showing the HD video, and the good looking games.

But thats not what I do daily, what I cant live without is Internet for even a day. Do let me know if Nokia released an updated firmware to address some of these problems. I will re-evaluate them of course.

This post has been edited by andrekua: Oct 20 2010, 08:59 PM

Two years.

Er, I think other phone also treat keyboard as app also. Otherwise they would not be able to install additional keyboard. I don't think the input is the worst, in fact it had improved. The position of some of the keys are rather strange like the backspace key but that can be a norm once you get used to.

I would rate the touch reaction for certain apps and area of the OS as the main culprit. They probably want to create some effect but fail miserably. I don't understand why they find KS is so hard to implement well in contact and browser.

Terminate how much need to pay? Just sell your sgs lor.

If someone can port Android manga app to S3, you will drool even more.

What do you mean can't? Look at the variety of keyboard for Android, ranging from stock, HTC IME mod, swype, keyboard with keys that grew and shrink, and latest would be Blindtype since Google just wrote the owner a big paycheck.

Impossible la.. indicator hang liao. Try restart your phone see.

I seriously dont get what you wanna say at all.

3G data on or off?

They can't? I don't buy it lor.
LOL

The keyboard is just an app. SlideIT already a prove that's its replaceable. With Swype later on, double confirmation.

Even so, what's wrong with the keyboard?

It's really to catch what you wanna point out. With the exception of pinch 2 zoom, what are the restriction to having a full touch capable device. Multi touch or not, most of the time, the input will still be one at a time.

I did said that but it was quite close to what I really wanted with the N8... I actually hate it much much lesser now except for the BROWSER!!!

I wont call it a disappointment... actually its a lot better than I think it would be liao.
Just one small placement with the backspace which spoilt the mood + keyboard bug in Browser.

See my N8 conclusion and you will see where I hate it... mostly is browser, and for others that I mention, hoping to see improvements...

Nonetheless, I think a good step forward and maybe Symbian will live on for few years...

How did you all get past 1 day while Im still wondering why my battery fall from 100% to 30% in 4hrs each day... remove FB and Hotmail widgets?

Why do you need desktop browser on phone?

Thats what I like about Android... I want the desktop feel, but I dont want it to work like a desktop...