Hands on with the N8: Live
This morning, Nokia's been showing the N8 to an invited audience...
It's the first time the device has been handed over to bloggers and
journalists unsupervised. We got some background and took some snaps. Esa Alonen, the product manager, filled us in a little on the device.
Here's some of the key points live from the event: * It's Made of coloured aluminium, not painted. When scratched with
keys the scuff marks just wiped away. * There are two processors in the chip - one handling data and one for
work with images. When asked why they had based the chipsets on an
older platform we were told it helped keep the cost down and that the
performance of the device didn't suffer for it due to the
optimisations in Symbian ^3. Symbian^3 is faster, more refined UI, has
less dialogue check-points and faster in operation we were told. It
also adds single-click operation throughout the interface. Nokia
stressed how established and robust Symbian is now as a platform. * Picture quality from the camera is as impressive as promised - the
Carl Zeiss optics have paid off and the xenon flash recharges quickly
(within half a second). The camera offers face tracking too which
worked well with multiple faces simultaneously. Image file sizes are
smaller due to the better quality and lower noise images the device
creates. Damian Dinning, the team's camera guru, stressed that there
is no artificial enhancement of the images and that the camera's
wide-angle lens is ideal for the closer shots most people take with
camera phones. * For video recording, stereo microphones are used to give better
sound quality. This was demonstrated with a video of a child on a
swing. Using only the internal her speech was clear and the dual
microphone reduces wind noise. It looked and sound impressive on an HD
television. * Visual multi-tasking shows open applications as cards in a similar
style to the Palm Pre. * The mail client shows HTML email and extends the push and hold menu approach. * In the Maps application the device can now position itself by WiFi
positioning. * The browser includes Flash and offers pinch-zoom, although the demo
device was laggy and not smooth. * The media player supports Dolby Digital playback, which sounded
great through a surround sound system. HD video playback is also
impressive and indistinguishable from any other HD source. * Asked about WebTV features, we were told that Nokia had created a
template that allowed existing broadcasters (and even bloggers) to
create TV stations. These can then be placed in the Ovi store... there
are a number of big broadcasters signed-up. In most cases rights
issues mean media is available as streaming only, but for people who
own the correct rights they can distribute a downloadable versions
too.
It's the first time the device has been handed over to bloggers and
journalists unsupervised. We got some background and took some snaps. Esa Alonen, the product manager, filled us in a little on the device.
Here's some of the key points live from the event: * It's Made of coloured aluminium, not painted. When scratched with
keys the scuff marks just wiped away. * There are two processors in the chip - one handling data and one for
work with images. When asked why they had based the chipsets on an
older platform we were told it helped keep the cost down and that the
performance of the device didn't suffer for it due to the
optimisations in Symbian ^3. Symbian^3 is faster, more refined UI, has
less dialogue check-points and faster in operation we were told. It
also adds single-click operation throughout the interface. Nokia
stressed how established and robust Symbian is now as a platform. * Picture quality from the camera is as impressive as promised - the
Carl Zeiss optics have paid off and the xenon flash recharges quickly
(within half a second). The camera offers face tracking too which
worked well with multiple faces simultaneously. Image file sizes are
smaller due to the better quality and lower noise images the device
creates. Damian Dinning, the team's camera guru, stressed that there
is no artificial enhancement of the images and that the camera's
wide-angle lens is ideal for the closer shots most people take with
camera phones. * For video recording, stereo microphones are used to give better
sound quality. This was demonstrated with a video of a child on a
swing. Using only the internal her speech was clear and the dual
microphone reduces wind noise. It looked and sound impressive on an HD
television. * Visual multi-tasking shows open applications as cards in a similar
style to the Palm Pre. * The mail client shows HTML email and extends the push and hold menu approach. * In the Maps application the device can now position itself by WiFi
positioning. * The browser includes Flash and offers pinch-zoom, although the demo
device was laggy and not smooth. * The media player supports Dolby Digital playback, which sounded
great through a surround sound system. HD video playback is also
impressive and indistinguishable from any other HD source. * Asked about WebTV features, we were told that Nokia had created a
template that allowed existing broadcasters (and even bloggers) to
create TV stations. These can then be placed in the Ovi store... there
are a number of big broadcasters signed-up. In most cases rights
issues mean media is available as streaming only, but for people who
own the correct rights they can distribute a downloadable versions
too.
