Nokia N8 review

Although it’s no longer the brand de jour, you have to give Nokia credit; its smartphones are always jam-packed with goodies, and its new flagship device is no different.

The Nokia N8 comes with a 12-megapixel camera, complete with Xenon flash, image stabilisation and 720p video mode. It includes 16GB of storage as standard, and there’s an HDMI output so you can play your home movies instantly on an HDTV. It boasts Nokia’s free turn-by-turn satnav software, there’s an FM tuner and transmitter, plus it’s preloaded with a whole raft of apps, from BBC iPlayer to a handful of games (including a limited version of the incredibly addictive Angry Birds).

It’s no mere tickbox chicanery, either. The camera, for one, is responsive and produces crisp, colourful shots that beat those taken from an iPhone 4 for detail. The Xenon flash is excellent, illuminating subjects evenly and naturally. The video camera, shooting 720p footage at 25fps, is as good in both low light and outdoors as the iPhone, too, and adds stabilisation to the mix.

Another thing you can rely on the Finnish phone giant to produce is phones with great battery life. After our standard usage 24-hour tests, the N8 still had 70% on the gauge – a notch above the iPhone, which managed 60%, and most other high-end smartphones we’ve tested.

An all-aluminium body means the N8 feels luxurious to the touch, plus it’s scratch-resistant and the perfect, pocketable size. Those tapering ends might look weird, but they help when slipping the phone in and out of a pocket. Completing the design is a Gorilla Glass panel covering the screen. Both scratch and fingerprint resistant, this sets the luminous 360 x 640 3.5in OLED panel in its very best light.

And it works superbly well as a phone too. Call quality is top notch and, once you’ve imported your contacts, dialling is a doddle – tap out numbers and names on the keypad and a list of matches is generated on-the-fly.