Nokia N8 Goes Official: 12MP Camera, Symbian^3, Due Q3 2010

The Nokia N8 is go! Letting the pretenders to the megapixel throne like the Sony Ericsson Satio and Samsung Pixon12 slug it out for the best part of a year, the Finnish manufacturer has finally weighed in with their bid for smartphone supremacy...and it's looking good.

First things first, this phone is packed with new features from the ground up. The Nokia N8 is one of their first handsets to boast the the all-new Symbian^3 platform, introducing a host of features and functionality that Nokia's handsets have been sorely lacking for some time. Multi-touch and gesture support for pinch-to-zoom makes the N8 more finger friendly than ever before, with a 3.5-inch capacitive display proving the perfect home to prodding and poking.

Proving that the abbreviation 'HD' now has no meaning (thanks, iPad!), the N8 is touted to have a high definition display (despite it actually having one of with a resolution of 640 x 360 pixels), whilst the customisable homescreens smack of old Symbian, but Nokia promises tmore freedom to arrange apps and icons as well as improved responsiveness.
The camera is where the grunt of the Nokia N8 lies, boasting the manufacturer's first ever 12-megapixel lens, equipped with Carl Zeiss optics and a xenon flash for a world class photo-taking experience. The moving image is just as easily captured, with the ability to record in HD and edit on the fly thanks to an on-board editing suite. Whilst your mobile masterpiece might not be ready for Cannes, it's easy to show on the telly at home thanks to an HDMI port on the device.
An FM transmitter and Dolby Digital Plus surround sound support means that the N8 can act just as easily as an entertainment viewer, with a Web TV app giving access to streaming news and video content.
The angular edges and form factor of the N8 evokes E-series devices whilst remaining a slender 113.5 x 59.12 x 12.9mm, with the 135g weight due largely to the N8's sturdy aluminium frame. 5 colours are promised, with the accompanying press kit showing off a lime green N8 flanked by a silver and black model. Blue and orange variants are confirmed to round out the selection, making it perfect for those needing a phone to co-ordinate with their ensemble.

As a phone (yes, the N8 does still manage calls and messaging), the handset inherits the must-have du jour -namely Twitter and Facebook integration with alerts and updates appearing directly on the homescreen. Replies can be easily hashed out from the same place, with comments and replies handled with a simple and clean interface. Applications and fun distractions can still be obtained from the Ovi Store.

Nokia's latest bullet point to impress is free turn-by-turn navigation thanks to Ovi Maps, enabling the N8 to act as a satellite navigation device whether on foot or in the car, as well as pointing out places of interest.
One smaller point of note is that the Nokia N8 is intergrated with their new development environment Qt, enabling budding bedroom developers to get to grips with the new Symbian platform and develop their own applications for the operating system with relative ease.
Memory isn't much of an issue, with 16GB of on-board memory (and the opportunity to add as much as 32GB more thanks to an SD card slot) meaning that many a high resolution image can be stored on the N8.
As much as we'd love to believe this unveiling all was meticulously planned by the bods at Nokia, we can't help but feel that yesterday's leak by Eldar Murtazin slating the handset's new interface had something to do with it...

Either way, the N8 is due for a Q3 release at a price of €370. With regards to Nokia N8 deals on pay monthly, we're reckoning that this one will float around at that magical £35 per month price point. More details when we get them!

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Nokia C3: S40 Handset Due In June, Exclusive To Vodafone UK

Symbian cements its mid-range smartphone status with the new Nokia C3 - an S40-powered device with Blackberry leanings in design, feel and function - due to make an exclusive UK debut on Vodafone.
Arriving both in stores and online in June, the C3's price has not been divulged as yet, but it is firmly centred to appeal to the youth market, with a pair of appealing colours confirming its entry into the prepay market.
With a full QWERTY keyboard and minimal user interface, the Nokia C3 enables easy access to Nokia's suite of messaging features including Messenger and Ovi Mail, whilst the 2 megapixel camera and storage support means that the handset is a little more appealing to budding chatterboxes.
We predict that Nokia C3 deals will hover around the £90 mark in terms of handset cost, whilst 3G data offers will begin at £7.50 for 30 days, perfect for the social networking addicts amongst us.
The Nokia C3 will be available in hot pink or slate grey, with Vodafone already accepting registrations for interest in the sleek device.
More details nearer to launch!

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Nokia N8 In The Flesh: Live Photos Galore

After an unexpected leak and and a few renders of the device to keep us happy, finally we get a real look at the Nokia N8 as Pocket Lint release exclusive snaps of the latest hardware to come out of Espoo.
Nokia weren’t letting anyone turn the handset on, so there was no peek at the user interface or the inner workings of the new Symbian^3, so for now at least, the star of the show is still that 12MP camera with the Carl Zeiss optics.
Design wise it’s looking fairly Mac-like and we’re told that the N8 has a weight and heft to it that suggests a great build quality.
Also borrowed from the Mac however, is no way to open up the unit, which means there is no user replaceable battery - possibly the most surprising thing that Nokia could have borrowed from Apple's iPhone.
Nevertheless, there’s still the option to boost memory with an SD card slot accessible from the outside.
We think the Nokia N8 is a real looker, although there really is no excuse for that lime-green colourway.
With the exciting new bada interface and a typhoon of Samsung Wave deals around the corner, competition will be fierce for the next big smartphone and mobile platform.
Will Samsung’s Bada be the new Symbian, or the new webOS?

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Samsung Omnia HD2 i8920: Symbian^3 Handset Gets Leaked Photo and Specs

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Nokia C3: S40 Messaging Handset Available For £80 From Vodafone

Nokia’s latest mass-market messaging handset – the C3 – is now available to buy from Vodafone for the extremely reasonable prepay price of just £80.
Not only does the C3 gives you access to a plethora of instant messaging services from Yahoo Messenger and Windows Live Messenger to Google Talk, as well as Nokia’s own Ovi Chat, the Nokia have been very clever and combined them all in a single application called Multi IM.
Social networking is equally simple as updates, tweets and alerts all pop up clearly on the C3’s broad home screen.
Thanks to the full keyboard hammering out messages is as easy as 1-2-QWERTY and similarly e-mails are a cinch, with easy connections to your mail client.
With a 2-megapixel camera, 3G and Bluetooth (unfortunately no Wi-Fi), the C3 is a decent messaging handset and at only £80, is a brilliantly cheap challenge to the BlackBerry Curve.
Available in slate grey and hot pink colour variants, Nokia C3 deals are available now.
If the C3 doesn't seem "smart" enough for you however, and you're hankering after a more touch-friendly, app-centric device, then don't fret...cheap Nokia N8 deals aren't far away!

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Murtazin Defends Nokia N8 Review

 

Last night, Eldar Murtazin defended his review of the as yet unreleased Nokia N8 as journalism, whilst bashing Nokia's claims that he has been in league with one of Nokia's competitors as "puerile slander".
In his post earlier this year, Murtazin described as possibly the "disappointment of the year" and the post contained photos of the phone, which Nokia cite as evidence that he had the phone in his possession.
Subsequently Nokia solicited the help of the Russian police to help recover the phone.
Murtazin claims that he never had the phone, but merely has "access" to it, for a few hours a day at best. Furthermore he has defended his right as a journalist to maintain the confidentiality of his source and has presented photographs of membership to the Professional Union of Journalists of Russia and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).
The case resembles the saga when Gizmodo came into possession of the iPhone 4 32GB. Initially it was claimed that the device was left in a bar, but subsequent investigations found that Gizmodo has bought it.
However, in this instance Murtazin never claimed to having bought the phone and Nokia havent explicitly accused him of theft, yet. In both cases the manufacturer has been left extremely red-faced and Nokia have been particularly displeased with the negative impact the review will have on sales of the N8.
Nokia had not responded to Murtazin's post at time of press.

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Nokia 5250: Attractive, Affordable Symbian Handset Leaks

As Symbian edges ever closer to mid-range mobile mainstay, we're seeing the platform pop up in ever more enticing handsets. The latest to break cover was from the hallowed halls of Nokia themselves, with the Nokia 5250 proudly (yet briefly) posing as a competition prize, quickly snapped for later perusal.
Seemingly running Symbian S60, the Nokia 5250 will be another addition to the selection of handsets currently on offer for the lucrative market, where price is a major determining factor.
A little postulation by GSMArena views the 5250's screen as leaning towards the 2.9-inch display of the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, albeit with an nHD sheen.
A paucity of fancy smartphone features is predicted - a given at a lower price point - but its appealing looks and touchscreen functionality still seem poised to give some of the feature phone incumbents a run for their money...the curved frame echoing the recent Sony Ericsson Vivaz - another S60 device.
With word that the Finnish manufacturer were planning to release a smartphone for only €100, the Nokia 5250 seems a likely, and potentially lucrative, candidate.
More concrete details as we get them.

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Nokia X3 Touch and Type: S40 Device Combines Full Keypad And Touch Display

Nokia seems set to try and please everyone with their latest handset reveal: the X3 Touch and Type. Incorporating both touch and a full suite of physical buttons for the first time in a Nokia device, the Touch and Type reboots the original music-loving X3 with a more appealing form factor, five colourways and a brushed aluminium finish.
Weighing in at a spritely 78g and measuring a svelte 9.6mm, the Nokia X3 Touch and Type also brings the specs with a 2.4" touch display, 3G connectivity, and a 5-megapixel
camera with 4x digital zoom. Battery life is impressive with 17 hours standby and 5 hours 2G talktime, whilst mail, messaging and apps are ably catered for with the Ovi service.
The S40 Touch operating system gives the X3 Touch and Type a user interface filled with large icons familiar to Nokia fans, whilst dedicated mail and media keys give that fast finger access that textaholics are so fond of.

Nokia's mobile boss Mary McDowell chimed in on the reason for combining touch and text in the new X3:
“Our research tells us consumers who have invested years in becoming fast one-handed, one-thumb texters want to maintain their speedy edge for SMS, chat and instant messaging – yet enjoy the benefits of touch as well.”
With the promise of free tunes via Ovi Music Unlimited in certain markets and an  projected price tag of just €125, could this finally be the Nokia phone that appeals equally to prodders and physical form fans alike? We'll see later on this quarter.

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Nokia 5250: Symbian^1 Handset Aims At Music Fans On A Budget

Today Nokia launches another effort in their bid to reclaim the lucrative mid-range sector with the 5250, an affordable touchscreen handset with music on its mind.
The Nokia 5250 fits the standard form factor from the Finnish manufacturer, looking much like the stylish X6 albeit stripped of smartphone frills including 3G, GPS, and Wi-Fi. The handset is built for touch with a 2.8-inch TFT widescreen display, with a 640 x 360 pixels resolution. Snapper-wise, a 2-megapixel camera rests on the rear of the 5250, with robust Ovi gubbins inside for all manner of uploading to YouTube.

The lack of fast data access sounds like a huge loss for such a socially-savvy phone, but the 5250 still rocks out with the Guitar Hero 5 Mobile game, a range of cute colours and a decidedly non-smartphone price tag of just €115.
Nokia's Music Unlimited service (née Comes With Music) will also ship with the device, but with just 51MB of internal memory you'll have to supply your own storage space. Running on the Symbian^1 (previously known as S60) platform, the 5250 is all about connectivity as well as sporting a generous 7 hours talktime, 24 hours of tunes time and a whopping 17 days on standby.
With a Q4 launch, the Nokia 5250 might be the phone to keep younger music fans chatting this winter.

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Nokia C7 Reviewed: Symbian ^3 Handset Gets Early Airing

Whilst we eagerly anticipate the debut of Symbian^3 in the flagship form of the Nokia N8, ever intrepid reviewer Eldar Murtazin has managed to get his hands on another handset powered by the new interface - this time it's the Nokia C7.
Swapping out some of the N8's more flighty specs for mid-range alternatives - the C7's camera takes a dip to a still impressive 8-megapixels with LED flash (as opposed to the 12MP, Xenon packing N8), whilst gets 8GB of memory whilst the N8 rocks 16GB on board as standard.
That being said, the C7 can boast a similar 3.5-inch capacitive AMOLED display complete with pinch-to-zoom support - a relative rarity on Nokia touch phones - as well as an abundance of connectivity with Wi-Fi, 3G and Bluetooth 3.0 support.
Despite the review being largely positive as he calls the C7 Nokia's most balanced flagship Symbian^3 phone and also the best value for money (around €360 - 390), Eldar still deems the handset as 'hardly a market leader'.
The double-edged sword that is Nokia's incumbent Symbian interface is that it has bred a cosy familiarity with existing users willing to trade up, but at the same time does little to court new consumers swayed by current smartphone competition.
With the iPhone attracting the fashion conscious flock and the latest Android devices managing to be appealing and affordable in equal measure, the jury is out on whether Nokia's transition from S60 to Symbian^3 is too late - or drastically different enough - to turn heads away from strong opposition.
The Nokia C7 still has not been officially announced as yet, but is rumoured to be slated for a Winter release. What do you think, enough to keep the Symbian home fires burning?

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Swype Beta Arrives For Nokia Symbian^1 Phones

Not content with helping a humble Manchester lass break the world record for fastest texter ever and appearing on the new Samsung Galaxy Tab, typing app Swype is winging its way over from Android to Symbian handsets. Now available in beta form for loads of Nokia's Symbian^1 devices including the Nokia N97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia X6, 5800 XpressMusic and the 5230, Swype provides swift text entry to touchscreen phones by allowing users to deftly drag fingers (or a stylus) between letters on the keyboard, rather than pecking away at . Whilst still a Beta Labs product, the ease of switching to the Swype input method is a little strange at first, but proves second nature after sending a few messages thanks to generous and loose predictive analysis that can second guess plenty of common words and spellings. Also great is the extent to which Swype integrates with a host of existing applications, adding the new funtionality to them almost seamlessly. Grab it from here for free, be sure to submit constructive feedback as it is still a work-in-progress, and stay tuned as Swype glides over to more handsets in the future!

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Nokia E7 To Be Revealed At Nokia World 2010

Sounds like the Nokia E7 will finally be getting an official unveiling at this year's annual Nokia World shindig, held this year in foggy London.
Reuters reports that the manufacturer will be introducing expectant phone fans to the Nokia N8 - the first handset to debut running the new Symbian ^3 software - as well as the E7 with MacBook Pro-inspired looks and confirmed to be sporting 'a large touchscreen and full keyboard'.
Despite losing ground in the smartphone market to Samsung and Apple, financial firm Morgan Stanley have recently double-upgraded their valuation of the Finnish phone maker due to a higher-than-expected consumer interest in the N8, as well as a competitive yet profitable price point for the device.
Whilst I'm not going to bet the farm on the N8 and E7, it could be a sign of both a change in Nokia's fortunes and a renewed vigour for Symbian as an appealing and intuitive platform for luxury handsets.
"As the N8 starts shipping and other devices are unveiled, Nokia will be hoping that it can lay the foundation stones for its recovery given the onslaught of competitive products currently hitting the market," said Ben Wood, director of research at CCS Insight.
"It has made some big commitments on fixing Symbian and its first flagship product using the refreshed Symbian operating system. Failure is not an option," Wood continued.
Those looking for a closer look at the Nokia N8's features and functions ahead of next week's Nokia World can take a look at the final manual, available for download here as a PDF file.

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