Review: Nokia N8
Apps
The N8 has access to Nokia's Ovi Store. There are thousands of apps in there that are compatible with the N8. As with other mobile stores, the Ovi Store offers both free and for-pay apps. The prices ranged from dollars, to Euros, to Sterling, to Yen. I can't really say how an American is supposed to make a payment in Sterling. Still, the apps are there, as are widgets.
Bluetooth
The N8 is one of the few handsets on the market to ship with Bluetooth 3. The main benefit of Bluetooth 3 is faster data transfer speeds. Sure enough, once paired with my PCs, I was able to transfer data very, very quickly. Bluetooth 3 requires both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radios to be on. The Bluetooth radio handles the connection and pairing, but the data is actually sent via Wi-Fi. A 5MB song, for example, took about one minute over Bluetooth, but only 7 seconds over Wi-Fi.
The N8 also paired well with mono and stereo headphones. Sound quality through mono Bluetooth for phone calls was superb. Music playback was only slightly less awesome.
Clock
Need to tell the time? Easy. Press the Home screen button, the power button, or the lock switch. Any of these will light up the display in stand-by mode, which displays a large analog clock. (For the non-analog fan, it can be set to digital.) You can also set one of the screensavers to be the clock, though this eats into battery life.
GPS
The N8 comes with Nokia Maps on board. I don't care for the user interface of Nokia Maps at all, but the features are solid and work well. The N8's GPS system was able to pinpoint me easily, often to within 10 feet. Mapping directions from Point A to Point B was no problem. I really like how it supports rudimentary 3D maps, which provides a neat view of the surrounding landscape when in urban environments. Nokia Maps offers free turn-by-turn directions, and they worked perfectly each time, for driving, walking, and mass transit. I was also able download and use Google Maps, too. It worked fine, and didn't appear to be much different than for other platforms.
Hands-On: Nokia N8
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