LG solar cell phone
Finally we got a glimpse of the LG solar cell phone. Equipped with a solar panel at the back, the handset is able to generate enough power for emergency phone calls where electricity is unavailable. There is hardly much information about the specs of the device but by the looks of it, it's an LG KF750 Secret minus the carbon fiber battery cover.

LG solar cell phone
We also took some shots of the entry-level LG KP108E which has a body made of bio plastic, produced from corn scratch. More a proof of concept than anything else this device might just be the first step towards a responsible and eco-friendly industry.

LG KP108E

Nokia N8

We’ve come to take Nokia for granted in the low end or the business class but it seems it has lost the knack for killer phones, run out of royal blood. It’s up to the Nseries to fix it all up. The Nokia N8 may just turn out to be the right cure. With that kind of hardware, it’s a smartphone you’d be mad to ignore. For a change we are not talking netbook-grade processing power or loads of RAM. Nokia have instead given their flagship an industry-leading camera and stuff like HDMI port and USB-On-the-Go.

Nokia N8 official photos

The Finnish engineers often like to make a point about Symbian being the most resource-effective OS. We’ve seen it run reasonably fast indeed on even slower CPUs. This time though it’s Symbian ^3, so we’ll have to see it again to believe it.

Key features

Quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE support
Penta-band 3G with 10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2 Mbps HSUPA support
Sleek anodized aluminum unibody
3.5" 16M-color AMOLED capacitive touchscreen of 640 x 360 pixel resolution
12 megapixel autofocus camera with xenon flash and 720p@25fps video recording
Camera features: large 1/1.83” camera sensor, mechanical shutter, ND filter, geo-tagging, face detection
Symbian^3 OS
680 MHz ARM 11 CPU and 256 MB RAM
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n
microHDMI port for 720p TV-out functionality
GPS receiver with A-GPS support and free lifetime voice-guided navigation
Digital compass
16GB on-board storage, expandable through the microSD card slot
Active noise cancellation with a dedicated mic
DivX and XviD video support
Built-in accelerometer and proximity sensor
Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
Stereo FM Radio with RDS, FM transmitter
microUSB port with USB On-the-go support
Flash and Java support for the web browser
Stereo Bluetooth 3.0
Nice audio reproduction quality
Smart and voice dialing
Scratch resistant Gorilla glass display

Main disadvantages

Symbian^3 is still behind Android and iOS usability standards
No video light
Camera interface is decidedly outdated
Relatively limited 3rd party software availability
No office document editing (without a paid upgrade)
Video player has some issues
Battery life is not on par with best in the business
Battery is not user-replaceable

There’s certainly a lot of pressure on the Nokia N8. People are probably expecting more from it than the very guys who designed it. But the N8 was never meant to compete with the iPhone 4 or the Galaxy S. At least, that’s what Nokia will gladly have you believe.

You see, with the Nokia N8 it’s not about who the competition is. Not about the business benefits of a smartphone, not about the available apps. It’s about the best camera in the business. Now, we’ll have to see about that. Again.

Nokia N8 at ours

The N8 already managed to put a dedicated digicam to shame in our recent blind test. But it will take more than that to get the thumbs up at the end of a full review. The camera is certainly impressive but it’s the overall balance and bang-for-buck that count most in our books here so the N8 better have more aces up its sleeve.

Symbian^3 user interface

The Nokia N8 is the pioneer of the new Symbian^3 OS, which according to Nokia should be the first step in the company’s fightback against Android and iOS. We wish it could somehow magically leapfrog the two currently leading platforms but those things just don’t happen overnight.

Of course they might have gone for a total overhaul by starting from scratch as Microsoft did but that would mean losing a lot of functionality and that’s probably the reason Nokia went for the evolutionary, rather than the revolutionary way.

The new OS is certainly not up with the best just yet but is certainly a step in the right direction. The Finnish software engineers finally realized that it’s a streamlined interface that people want and got rid of the whole tap-to-select-another-tap-to-activate non-sense approach that made Symbian^1 so inconsistent.

There are still some traces of that illogical interface in the camera interface, but we are hoping those will be gone soon too.

Here's a short video demo of the user interface in action.

The new OS also brings some nice UI layout and functionality changes. The homescreen is the most evident of those, its size now expanded to three panes worth of space. You are then free to fill them up with widgets and then rearrange them as you see fit. If three panels are too much for you, you can also delete some of them.

Symbian^3 comes with a new homescreen

You might notice that the homescreen starts scrolling only after you have completed your swipe across the screen but that’s how it was designed and not some lag. Because of the fact that some widgets are side-scrollable the handset waits to see if you want to browse them or skip to the next screen.

The widget catalogue

Still if you want to see immediate response you can scroll through them by clicking the three dot symbol at the bottom of the screen.

The main menu structure is unchanged, retaining the folders format. This comes in contrast to Android, and mostly iOS, where you get a flat menu structure with all icons located on side-scrollable panes. Now you are free to rearrange icons as you see fit so you might go for placing them all in the main folder and get a flat-ish menu system from Symbian^3 too. A list view mode is also available but that involves much more scrolling and that’s why we preferred to leave things in grid.

Not much has changed in the main menu

The task manager has also been changed and now shows screenshots of the running apps, instead of just icons. You also need only a single click to kill them this time.

The refreshed Task manager

The performance of the Symbian has also been taken up a notch with the ^3 version. The Nokia N8 feels snappy most of the time, with lags noticeable only when dealing with heavy apps or when there are a lot of apps running in the background.

And even though heavy multi-taskers will frown at the 256MB of RAM we didn’t get any “Out of memory” errors even when playing the rather demanding NFS Shift game with the camera and the web browser with two tabs open running in background.

Unfortunately the poor text input solution of Symbian^1 has been left unchanged by Symbian^3 and that’s probably our biggest grudge against the new OS (along with the web browser but we’ll come to that later).

We are talking about the virtual QWERTY, which takes you to a new screen to do your text input and gets you back when you’re done typing. That adds an extra step each time you need to do some typing. Not quite the simplicity we all want, is it?

Finally, we have point out that Symbian^3 has introduced quite some eye-candy as opposed to its predecessors. There are icons bumping and revolving, menus being opened with a zoom in and out effects and the occasional fading in and out.

That’s again not quite up with the best, but considering that after some time too much effects become a nuisance we won’t be taking too many points away here.

So generally Symbian^3 is to Android and iOS what the N8 is to their best representatives – a step closer but not quite there. Once again though, considering the pricing we would call it adequate and certainly not a deal breaker.

12 megapixel monster of a camera

We've now came to the one of the most important parts of the review. The 12 megapixel snapper at the back of the Nokia N8 is one of the main reasons for it to be the most popular handset in our database for the past few months.

Nokia created a lot of hype about the great shots the N8 produces but it also did their homework and packed the device with the largest sensor a mobile phone has seen (stretching to 1/1.83" inches). The larger sensor surface should benefit its low-light capabilities and dynamic range greatly.

But it doesn't end there - the Nokia N8 also comes with a mechanical shutter, a powerful xenon flash, a 28mm wide-angle lens and a front glass element made out of hardened glass. The built-in ND filter will compensate for the lack of variable aperture in those extremely bright conditions when you just cannot increase the shooting speed any more.

Unfortunately, this promising cameraphone has a rather uncomfortable and not user-friendly camera interface.

There are only three shortcuts available next to the viewfinder. Those allow you to change between camcorder and still camera, toggle the flash and reveal the rest of the customizable settings.

The user interface is the worst part of the N8 camera

It would have made much more sense if some of those settings were brought on the sides of the viewfinder too as it would have saved us a few clicks, but Nokia engineers didn't think so. Not to mention that those settings are the only part of the interface where you can still experience the two-taps-to-select nuisance that plagued the previous version of the Symbian touch interface.

On the other hand, the basic functionality is mostly there with the N8 allowing you to adjust white balance, color tone, exposure, ISO, contrast and sharpness. You can also go for one of the preset scene modes and there is an option for creating a custom scene.

Face detection is also available on the Nokia N8, helping you keep the faces in your photos in perfect focus.

Geo-tagging lets you record your current location in the EXIF information of the photos, using the built-in GPS.

In our blind test against Samsung Pixon 12 and Sony Cyber-shot HX5v Nokia N8 won your votes and quite convincingly at that. Unfortunately, we had a streak of really bad weather back then and all the photos were shot in overcast conditions.

This time however we got a few sunny days and decided to make another Nokia N8 vs Samsung Pixon12 shootout.

Nokia N8 • Samsung M8910 Pixon12 • 100% crops

The first thing that impressed us about the Nokia N8 is its optical quality. This is not the first time we see a Carl Zeiss-certified lens on a mobile phone, but this one delivered an absolutely stellar performance. None of the dozens of camera samples we shot had any purple fringing, or any barrel distortion (which is quite badly pronounced on the Pixon12) or any other flaw whatsoever.

The amount of resolved detail is also very impressive with no noticable degradation towards the frame borders. If we had to be extremely picky we'd point the slight softness in the extreme corners but that's stretching it really.

The Nokia N8 levels of resolved detail are impressive even for a 12 megapixel camera and we are not talking cameraphones only.

What we especially like about the images produced the N8 camera is the laidback approach to the processing - the bigger sensor simply doesn't need excessive sharpening, edge enhancement or aggressive noise suppression to produce pleasing images. And that's why the N8 lets you enjoy the natural look of the images.

The sensor size has also blessed the Nokia N8 images with much better dynamic range than its competitors. You can see that on several occasions in the shootout the Nokia N8 managed to retain all the detail in the highlight areas, where one or more of the color channels of its competitor have clipped.

Low-light photography

The other area where the big sensor counts big time is low light performance. The Nokia N8 lived up to our high expectations here and produced some really impressive shots at ISO 400 and ISO 800. Sure, there is some noise, but the sparing noise suppression has left most of the details intact. In contrast, on the Pixon 12 samples almost all the fine detail is lost because of the aggressive noise suppressing routines

Nokia N8 • Samsung M8910 Pixon12

Mind you, in low light conditions with the flash disabled the Nokia N8 tends to chose quite low shutter speeds (as low as 1/8sec). At that kind of speed it's almost impossible to make a photo without camera shake unless you use a tripod or other support for the handset. If you don't have those at hand we'd suggest that you crank the ISO setting higher.

Flash photography

Or you could just turn the on-board xenon flash on if your subjects are close enough. Let's see how that turns out.

Nokia N8 • Samsung M8910 Pixon12 • Sony DSC-HX5v

The Nokia N8 comes with a 30% smaller flash module than the Nokia N82, but Nokia engineers claim that the flash output is the same. Still, the Samsung Pixon12 has an obviously more capable unit - calculations suggest it's up to 30% more powerful.

However the Nokia N8 excellent high ISO performance compensates for the lower flash range. The Nokia N8 goes for a higher ISO setting so that it achieves the same exposure as the Pixon12 with less light coming from the flash.

The flash samples above prove our point. In this flash scene the Nokia N8 selected ISO 383, while the Pixon12 chose ISO 160, while the Sony HX5 went for ISO 200.

Despite the large ISO difference the Nokia N8 produces a slightly inferior image but it loses by a very small margin and that says a lot on its own.

What bothers us slightly more is the bluish cast that most N8 flash shots get, meaning there's something wrong with the automatic white balance setup.

According to Nokia engineers, one way to get a slightly greater flash range out of the N8 is to use the red-eye reduction mode. Reportedly, this provides around 10-20% more flash power. The team back at Nokia is hard at work on tweaking some settings so that a future software update can bring the improved flash performance to all flash modes, not just the red-eye removal mode.

Macro photography

The Macro mode on the Nokia N8 is accessible from the Scenes menu. It's called Close-up but the truth is you can't go as close to your subject as with some other handsets. Best case scenario your frame will cover about 13 cm horizontally. The quality of the shots remains great as usual.

Nokia N8 macro sample

Final verdict

It's obviously time for the Samsung Pixon12 to give up its cameraphone crown. The little fella managed to hold onto it for more than a year by using a lot smaller 1/2.5" sensor, which is an impressive achievement on its own. Now however it should make way for the new cameraphone king.

More Nokia N8 camera samples

With great dynamic range and excellent low-light performance, lots of resolved detail, geometrically perfect lens and, pleasant, but not overdone colors, the Finnish flagship leaves no doubt as to whether it is worthy of the crown. The only issues we can point out with the camera are the inconvenient user interface and the uninspiring flash photography results.

720p Video recording

With the still camera champion title already in the bag, the Nokia N8 is going to give a try and claim the camcorder cup too. It can capture 720p (1280x720 pixels) videos at 25 frames per second, which sounds like good base for success.

Sure, you have every right to argue that 720p@30 fps is better, but you should also remember that big-screen movies are shot at 24 fps and no one complains about that. Plus it’s quite important to note that Nokia N8 is able to maintain its framerate even in very dynamic situations so you won’t see much jerkiness here.

The camcorder UI

Yet if we had to pick one feature that sets the Nokia N8 videos apart and gives it quite an edge against the competition it’d be the 3x digital zoom. Unlike its competitors the N8 uses the full resolution of the 12MP sensor and retains the HD quality even at full zoom. Digital zoom might make no sense in still imaging, but it works great on video and it’s great someone has finally made good use of it.

We tested the Nokia N8 digital zoom extensively and we can safely conclude that it works exactly as promised, except in really low light environments, where zooming results in increased noise levels.

With the optical zoom modules too thick for the modern cameraphones this looks like the way to go. The only bad thing we can say about the feature is that it doesn’t work as good in the range of 1x-2x, because of the limitations of the Nokia N8 12MP sensor. You can check our Nokia N8 preview for a demonstration and detailed explanation of the issue.

Another quite unique feature of the video recorder in Nokia N8 is the stereo audio recording. It uses the second, noise cancellation microphone and records excellent stereo sound to go with the sweet footage.

To give you a proper idea of the quality of the videos recorded with the Nokia N8 we prepared two brief shootout videos. The first one puts the N8 head-to-head with the Samsung S8500 Wave, which sports one of the best HD camcorders among cameraphones.

Update 19 Oct: The framerate of the Wave videos is 29.97 fps, while the Nokia N8 records at 25 fps. When we originally published the review we had the N8 recording converted to 29.97fps but since that put it in somewhat disadvantageous position, we decided to go the opposite way.

We converted the Wave videos down to 25fps. That makes those slightly jerky, but again don't compare framerates and try to focus on the image quality and the exposure shifts instead. Also bear in mind that the YouTube compression has added some additional artifacts, which don’t exist in the original videos.

Nokia N8 has a wider field of view, so it fits more in the frame and of course the objects look smaller. Regardless, you can easily tell that it offers better resolution and a lot better dynamic range. The colors are a matter of personal preference, but we tend to like the N8 approach a tad better.

Here is the second comparison, this time with Apple iPhone 4. Again, we've converted the iPhone4 videos to 25fps so hence the jerkiness. IT IS NOT the iPhone's real-life performance. Make sure you focus your attention on image quality, dynamic range and exposure shifts instead.

The difference in the field of view is even bigger this time, so the objects in the iPhone 4 half are a lot bigger and the resolution comparison is harder. Fortunately, we have already tested the video resolution in our preview and concluded that iPhone 4 has the upper hand there.

However, there is a lot more than resolution when we talk about video. The colors in Nokia N8 are a lot more natural, while the oversaturated output of Apple iPhone 4 might look good in a dull weather, but creates all kinds of problems with subjects, which are already colorful. The effect puts an unnatural yellow cast over all subjects and the objects that are already yellow to begin with are often overexposed. The sky suffers as well – with the blues coming out rather unnatural.

Next up, the Nokia N8 has a much better dynamic range – there are almost no overexposed areas in the above movie. In the iPhone 4 samples on the other hand, overexposure is a common issue.

There is one more thing we want to point out in this sample. Look at how the two cameraphones react to the rapidly changing scene in the beginning (sorry for the mad panning, but we had to make a point there). You can clearly see the iPhone 4 reacts a bit slower than the N8 followed by a jerky exposure changes that don’t look so good. The Nokia N8 on the other hand does the exposure compensation so smoothly that you can hardly see it move.

The N8 video recording is not withot its flaws too. As you may already know, the Nokia N8 doesn’t use autofocus in video recording. Instead, the Finns chose to use something they call Active Hyper Focal Distance system. In theory, it should allow for videos that have everything in focus from front to back – as long as the subject you’re shooting is more than 60 cm away from the camera.

Our tests however showed that perfect focus ranges from 1m to infinity and this does make a difference, especially with a wide-angle lens like this one. To see the downsides of this approach, we’ve prepared another video sample.

In the beginning, the performer is not really tack sharp. We can easily prove this with a quick jump to the maximum digital magnification the camera offers. Towards the end of the video we take a step back and presto, the performer gets really sharp.

Of course that same top-notch digital zooming method is the workaround for the longer minimum focus distance. You should simply zoom in on your subject instead of going closer. It sounds quite logical, but it needs getting used to. We would have liked it better if Nokia gave us some way of autofocusing. It doesn’t have to be continuous autofocus for the entire video – it can just as well auto focus before you start recording.

Generally we are very pleased with the Nokia N8 video recording capabilities. The clever, HD quality retaining digital zoom alone was enough to impress us but the N8 didn’t stop there. The resolution it offers is high and the dynamic range is just great. The dynamic adjustment to drastic scene changes is fast, but unobtrusive - simply the best we’ve seen on a mobile. If there were an option for auto or touch focus it could have been perfect.

All round connectivity

Excellent all-around connectivity is the norm with even mid-range smartphones these days so Nokia N8 would have no excuses if it failed to provide in this department. Fortunately, this is not the case as the Finnish flagship offers every data transfer option you would need and then some more.

For starters, all kinds of network connectivity options are at your disposal - GPRS, EDGE and 3G with HSPA (10.2 Mbps HSDPA and 2.0 Mbps HSUPA). The GSM/EDGE networking comes in quad-band flavor and the 3G covers all the five bands available worldwide – 850/900/1700/1900/2100 MHz. We don’t think we’ve reviewed a penta-band phone before.

The USB is version 2.0, with the standard microUSB port capable of charging the phones besides transferring data. We already covered the USB on-the-go functionality, but just for the record, we had almost 100% success of attaching USB flash drives and other Nokia phones as slave storages, but that’s about it. The Nokia N8 didn’t connect to card readers and phones by other brands.

Bluetooth connectivity is version 3.0 and naturally there’s A2DP stereo Bluetooth support.

The Wi-Fi antenna has support for WirelessN.

Then there’s the microSD card slot which can be used for transferring data to and from your N8. However both the memory card and the internal memory are accessible when you connect the handset to a computer in Mass storage mode and we managed to get speeds north of 10 MB/s when transferring data this way. That means you’d hardly ever need to use an external card reader .

Finally, there’s the microHDMI port that can output up to 720p video with multi-channel audio (as long as the video source has that). There’s even the right type of cable adapter supplied in the retail package.

All you need is a regular HDMI cable that plugs in the adapter on one side and in the HDTV on the other side.

Your handset will immediately start streaming a copy of its display to your TV. You do the controlling from the N8 itself, except for the volume, which is now for the TV to manage.

If you plan on showing your friends some of those 12 megapixel photos you took with the N8 camera on the HDTV, you should know that zooming in isn’t possible in that mode. You get a downsized version of the image (about 1MP) and that’s that – you can’t even zoom in to show more details.

Web browser is rather disappointing

Unfortunately, Symbian^3 didn’t deliver the browser overhaul that the platform needs desperately. Despite the added multi-touch and FlashLite 4.0 support the N8 can just watch helplessly as the Android Froyo speeds away.

The Symbian^3 web browser is functional but its UI needs polishing

Starting with the good things, the Nokia N8 browser has a good rendering algorithm and offers some nice functionality such as different font sizes (5 options), auto fill-in of web forms and a password manager.

The Flash Lite 4.0 support is even enough for playing flash videos, but it’s not quite as impressive a performer as the desktop-grade Adobe Flash 10.1 for Android Froyo. You can also choose to switch Flash off to cut down on loading times and save some data traffic.

Going landscape • the context menu

The Find on page feature allows you search for keywords. The visual history is a nice bonus that can help you find a page you've visited more easily. There's also a popup blocker.

The web browser supports tabs but there is no other way of opening a new tab but to click on a pop-up link. We'd have really preferred to see an option to open links in new window.

Double tapping any text zooms it in on screen, but again, the text doesn't auto fit to the smaller viewport and you still need to scroll sideways.

Digging deeper into the settings menu

One of the worst parts of the N8 web browser is entering a web address, which can take up to four steps, while most competing platforms do it with one – hell, some even do it with voice commands.

So, generally speaking, the Symbian^3 browser is hardly a better copy of its S60 predecessor and that should certainly cost the N8 some points. Internet browsing has never been more popular and until Nokia did something about the usability of their browser, their smartphones will be getting quite a lot of stick for it.

If we could give you an advice here, we’d say get the latest Opera Mobile up and running on you N8 and use the default browser only when you need to access Flash content. The hassle of using two apps for the same purpose is still better than having to deal with the S^3 web browser shortcomings.

Final words

The Nokia N8 is the best Nokia has to offer. A few years back thousands of people would take this to mean the best on the market. Things are not that simple today and Nokia has been learning it the hard way. But the company has been learning.

It’s been a long losing streak for Nokia in the game of touch phones. You can’t expect it to suddenly turn the game around and start beating the snot out of the competition. It makes much more sense to try and be better one step at a time. The best camera in business is one such step.

We’ve given up looking for the ultimate smartphone, haven’t we? The Nokia N8 most certainly isn’t in contention there. And Symbian ^3 is not the best touchscreen experience you can get – although what’s fair is fair – it’s an improvement over S60 5th. And the Ovi store isn’t the best app market, but the guys behind it try really hard.

Symbian sucks on touchscreen – yeah, but there are some nice multimedia features. The web browser is not that good – yeah, but you get USB-on-the-go. There are better screens out there – but no better cameras. Not necessarily in this order.

The Nokia N8 seems capable of sustaining balance. In one particular area, it’s the unquestioned winner. Elsewhere, it’s just fair – there are ups and downs all along its spec sheet. As always, it boils down to picking your priorities.

Now let’s take a look at the competition to put things in perspective.

The Samsung S8500 Wave wins a few points against the N8 on pricing and comes with a much better (though slightly smaller) display. The Bada OS offers better touch experience than Symbian^3. Again, it’s the camera that helps the N8 strike back and this time it even has the apps count in its favor. Not to mention that unlike Samsung’s Bada phone, the Symbian smartphone has a very decent and free SatNav solution in the face of Nokia maps.

Samsung S8500 Wave

The Motorola MILESTONE XT720 is the best full-touch cameraphone that the American company has to offer and the N8 won’t avoid comparisons to that one either. The Milestone matches the HDMI capabilities of the Nokia and offers a superior screen (though no AMOLED). Unfortunately, the MILESTONE XT720 is not as impressive as the N8 in terms of image and mostly video quality. Not to mention the rather limited system storage for installing third-party apps. This is a really serious drawback for any Android smartphone that doesn’t use the latest Android OS ver 2.2.

Motorola MILESTONE XT720

You might also want to consider the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 as a potential alternative to the Nokia N8. With a larger and higher res-screen it also packs a very decent camera (though no HD video, at least for now) so it’s a viable option if you’re shopping for a smart cameraphone. It’s still Android 1.6 though and the XPERIA X10 is more expensive and there’s no HDMI or DivX/Xvid support on that one either.

Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10

So with free lifetime navigation, some great multimedia features, impressive build quality and little (but important) perks like USB-on-the-go and HDMI, the Nokia N8 can stand its ground against the competition. It’s also only just about starting and Nokia has a reputation for delivering major software updates to its smartphones on a regular basis.

The combination of all the things above is a unique selling point on its own, but it’s the camera that puts the Nokia N8 in a class of its own and changes the nature of the competition altogether. The ultimate cameraphone will always be compared to the best in business.

The N8 puts the Nseries back to the top where it belongs. Nokia can be proud but they must know it’s just the beginning. Right now they have a winning cameraphone set in pole position. It will be a while before they have one phone to rule them all, if ever.

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Saturday, October 30, 2010