Entertainment Powerhouse: My Second Half Take on the Nokia N8 Software ~ SCRATCH e-PAD!

Music and Audio

First Class, the device Audio player plays top of the line music with crisp, clear and dip sound using the supplied earbud headphone. Loudness and Stereo Widening works surprisingly well with the Bass Booster rolling intensely. I would say it has the best of the best audio sound I have ever tried so far on a mobilephone. Stereo Speakers was loud but it’s not the best among the phones that I tried. Let say my old Nokia 6233 is even loader and bass dipper. Music Player supports MP3, WMA, WAV and AAC+ files.

Music library enjoyed one of the most valuable improvements overall, it gained a very smooth and fast album cover side swipe cover flow mechanism flagged with very cool effect, a breath of fresh air giving a new music experience to users. Huge album cover strikes the music player panel with regular size music controls. It fully utilizes the screen size making it very pleasing to look at. The music player’s options menu though was not change much, it still offers the same settings from equalizer to shuffle play, repeat among others except the FM transmitter.

FM transmitter is a welcome addition to the audio entertainment package. It’s cool, a new experience like when you’re in a car and you want to share your playlist with the rest of your peers. Transmitter area coverage is not that far though.

The Radio player was a typical among Nokia phones, lively and interactive. It has RDS which is capable of getting information via internet including time, station identification and programme information and Visual radio making the experience enjoyable and as a norm, can only be played with a headset inserted. Still, I cannot get the point why Nokia cannot find a way to play Radio without the headset when Loudspeaker is freely accessible.

Video Playback

The Video player is a huge step forward for the phone and Symbian^3 as a whole, it is now very much DivX and Xvid compatible playing the files flawlessly in automatic full screen mode. The huge AMOLED screen paired with the supplied earbud headphone that can deliver Dolby Surround like sound makes the experience more stunning and entertaining. I would even prefer watching on it than on a TV/DVD player set up having to hear a more defined audio via earphone.

Unlike the music menu, there were no big improvements seen on the video menu, no side swipe mechanism, 3D effects whatsoever, only additional shortcut widgets for Ovi Stores video clips and youTube. It would be best if Symbian could import the music menu mechanism in this area. The last video watch was also a welcome addition except that it won’t continue on the last clip you’ve watched but instead play the video from the start. Thought video forward and playback is a breeze handling skips in an instant, thanks to the fast processor on board, I still prefer the automatic playback. The Web TV is something new in the platform, it features links and personalized page to famous video sites such as CNN and National Geographic. There is no such thing as boring times with the phone, it just gives you unlimited video entertainment.

Video player works perfectly well on WMV, H.264, H.263, RV, 3GPP, MP4 files, an entertainment powerhouse.

Camera, Photo and Video

One of the biggest asset of the phone is its Camera capability, it has a 12MP Carl Ziess optics with 4000 by 3000 pixel, autofocus and Xenon flash, the best flash in dark areas, 1/1.83” sensor size, the biggest in the market so far, Neutral Density Filter, meaning it can reduce or modify intensity of all wavelengths or color of light equally, giving no changes in hue of color rendition, geo-tagging and face detection, mostly first in the N-Series line up. It is no less than the best camera specs to have ever been incorporated in a mobilephone.

The result, it produces color-balanced and pleasing photographs in all possible conditions. Its large sensor eliminates image noise, less distortion and color dispersion. Wide angle lens adds more view to the images and the Xenon flash illuminates dark areas immensely. Impressive results just add up one more to another inspiring user to take more and more shoots with it. It’s like giving an impression of expertise and all you can do is love it. As I have been mentioning, I haven’t encountered anyone who was not impressed with the phones camera capability as soon as I showed its camera prowess.

Editing feature of the phone was improved, added feature such as effects and tuning can be readily access as well as red eye removal, one of my most used editing features on the phone so far. Some of night images I took gets red eye effect, pretty usual to hurdle among Xenon Flashes. Other add-on includes the Ovi’s Panorama Mode and an option to add tags on the photo. Direct link to Share Online is still visible as well as an option to print directly to a kiosk.

Video capability of the phone is the front runner among mobile phones. It supports 720p HD quality video with 25 frames per second unlike any other phone in the market to date. The video has a fast frame rate with auto adjust focus depending on the subjects distance. I also love the way it rendered color saturation and auto tuning of contrast and brightness depending on areas condition.

The video editing feature of the phone is perfectly timely especially now that video sharing sites such as youTube is very popular. Users will now be able to make mini movies on the go and will encourage creativity in coming up with the best impromptu videos to show to their friends and to the world. For bloggers like me, this is a perfect application of use since interesting stories and video features cannot sometimes wait to be shared or showed. Though the options of the video are limited at the moment but it’s a good start and must be further develop.

Photo and Video Browser have now been reconfigured; photos and videos have now finally been separated in the gallery menu. Photo viewing in the gallery has now been added with a smooth image transition and pinch to zoom. Missing are the 3D effects which can easily be achieve with updates.

Sample Images

Broad Daylight

Night Shoots

Video Sample

Gaming

Nokia brought back the 3D Graphics HW Accelerator which made Nokia N82 and Nokia N95 a powerful gaming device. This is the very reason why Ovi download free games such as Need for Speed Shift and Galaxy in Fire both 3D graphic-rich premium games was handled easily and impressively by the phone. No lags, no broken graphics, initial fast response time, whatsoever, just smooth sailing fun. This is about taking back the reason of success for Nokia, gaming features at its best. The trial phone that I got have no games pre-installed, Galaxy on Fire was part of a firmware update I did with the phone and Need for Shift and Angry Birds Lite can be downloaded for free on Ovi Store.

Angry Birds Lite on Nokia N8

Need for Speed Shift

Galaxy on Fire

Concluding Thoughts

Was the second revamped of the world’s most popular and well loved mobile OS and the first attempt to matched and outdo the frontliners successful? A big YES because the Operating System and the phone implementation has never been this good ever. For one thing or another, Nokia and Symbian were able to show to the world how the market leader fights back effectively in a swift and intelligent manner. The company at the moment cannot surpass OS of the competition but for them to take a stride on the situation faster makes them a very potent contender to gaining the frontliner as the best touch OS position fast. By also recognizing this weakness and bringing up a great hardware to compensate makes it a winning device for the company.

Looking at the picture, Nokia N8 has the best hardware, a very capable software and a formidable support system. What could ever go wrong with the phone?