Nokia N8

• ?
• Anonymous
• t7U
• 07 Aug 2010

Cellphones
Nokia's VP talks N8, MeeGo 'milestone product,' tablets, Android and more!
By Joanna Stern posted Aug 6th 2010 6:27PM
Feature
Interview
Nokia's prepping for a fourth quarter launch of its MeeGo smartphone. The N8 will hit before the end of Q3. The company's absolutely not planning to use Android and a tablet isn't happening anytime soon. And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the stuff we learned this morning during our captivating chat with Niklas Savander, Espoo's executive vice president and general manager of the Markets unit. With its quarterly profits dropping and losing daily (in mindshare, at least) to the Apples, HTCs and Motorolas of the world, we were certainly not lacking questions when we headed into the meeting, and Savander took on our questions about Nokia's short and long term plans with stride. We've got the key points of the interview bulleted out after the break -- and the full transcript after that.

On the N8: The N8 is more of a high to mid-range smartphone. It will be launched before the end of Q3. It will be available in the US, and carrier partnerships will be announced at a later date.
On MeeGo: The first MeeGo phone will be announced before the end of the year and will be a "milestone product" for the company. Nokia's done a lot of work on the interface and done away with a lot of the "legacy" of Symbian.
On Android: Nokia has no plans to use Android on its smartphones. End of story.
On tablets / larger phones: The company's made "no decisions" on entering the market. Savander seems to think larger screened smartphones are awkward.
On netbooks: The Booklet 3G was priced a bit high, but they are still in the market.
On 4G: Nokia has no plans to produce WiMax devices, but LTE will be a big focus.

We promise there's more where that came from, so sit back and read the full transcript.

Engadget: With the N8 becoming Nokia's new flagship phone – and presumably launching in Q3 -- how do you give it credibility with MeeGo around the corner? Do you see room for both Symbian and MeeGo in the high end?

Niklas Savander: In Q3 what we have coming out is the N8, it's the first in a family of products. It will definitely be a very attractive, high volume, successful product – no doubt about that one. We are pricing and positioning the N8 not at the very high end, but at the high mid-range. I don't think you should view the N8 as an answer to the high end, you should view it as the answer to an extremely well-functioning high-to-mid-range smartphone, which is a very large consumer segment. We have said that conservatively estimating, we're going to ship in excess of 50 million Symbian devices based on this platform. On scale, that's going to be a very meaningful product family for us going forward.

Yes, we are also working on MeeGo products at the same time. MeeGo for us is where we need to address the very high end of the portfolio. As for our first MeeGo product -- we have said that during this year we will have a major product milestone, and so now we are gearing up to have a major MeeGo offering in the high end. Even there, it's not a product, but a portfolio product. We feel very comfortable in saying that in order to address the pushing down smartphones to as broad of a mass as possible -- which is a function of price -- we need to have one team making sure that they are totally focused on that one, and that we plan to do with our Symbian portfolio. On the other hand, experience has told us that in order for us to drive speed and innovation, having MeeGo there as that is a good combination.

Now, the downside that we need to deal with as a consequence of targeting such a broad range of consumer is the developer. There, our acquisition of Trolltech has already given us the tools of Qt. The tools of Qt will be used as the tools of developers -- both our own, and external -- to diminish the difference from a programming standpoint between the two platforms.

That's a question we've had -- with the push for Qt, that cross-platform development is obviously a priority for the company, but are you hoping that the average developer spread his or her efforts effectively across all the platforms, or do you see many (if not most) specializing on one?

This, of course, is something we've put a lot of thought into to make sure we are comfortable with the scope of each of the teams. I think one important step there is that we ourselves use Qt, and somebody said "oh, you eat your own dog food." I say, "no, we drink our own champagne." The tools are not so bad that you should qualify them as dog food. But, on the other hand, one has to be a realist about when you have different form factors and different products, there's work that needs to be done between Product A and a Product B -- even in the same operating system. Take a HTC Android and a Droid from Motorola, you have to do some modifications even though you're working with the same OS.

The question is more, let's build the tools in such a way that it is predictable and known how you can manage your application in such a way that there is a piece that you don't have to change and then there is the rim around it -- the plugins that you need to modify -- and we give you the tools to do so.

• Reply

• T
• TP
• f4E
• 07 Aug 2010

QT doesnt guarantee lots of apps, theres hardly any developer interest in Symbian, NOKIA simply cant figure it out it seems.
SPB is awful,clunky and is a resource hog, Android looks and functions far better than SPB. What you dont understand loney cent is that Android is built around the freedom to customize, NOT JUST themes and fonts but also default apps. In Android you can set any browser to be the default e.g. Opera Mini or Skyfire,if i tap a link in an Email my Android will open that link with Opera Mini without me having to copy and paste,i can do this with any app.
You can quote all the specs over and over again,but what counts is consistency and user experience,and at this point Android rules.
The CPU/GPU of N8 arent that great and YES theres a lag in all previews,when comparing with my Android to those new N8 previews,the N8 lags,its running on an old ARM11 CPU and even though the GPU is great,it can only do so much,and so the phone isnt as fast as an Android using a Snapdragon CPU. NOKIA should have installed a TI OMAP3630 ARM A8-Cortex with PowerVR SGX535 GPU in N8,it would have been A LOT snappier, more power effecient and more powerful,but this is Nokia,so N8 got old hardware. shame.

• Reply

• l
• lonely cent
• w7i
• 07 Aug 2010

not at all. you can use SPB shell that is much more beautiful than android and iphone . for your information nokia will use meego harmattan which more beautiful than meego on other handsets. N8 is symbian 3 therefore QT written applications can support and millions of high end apps and games will be available in a near future . who the hell did say N8 is laggy, no it is not. experiance from hands on preview we see there is no laggy running 15 apps at the same time. that makes not comparable to other OS. thanks to N8 GPU and 680 mhz processor.
Definitely N8 .For sure i will buy it ,cause it is cheap,it has bluetooth 3,first n-standard Wi-Fi(it's the fastest in a smartphone), nHD screen size which is perfect for HDMI support, 12mp Xenon flesh wide angle and largest image sensor in a smartphone,first Dolby Digital plus sound in a smart phone, first multi touch in Nokia, first AMOLED capacitive touch screen in Nokia, first wireless mouse support in a smartphone, QT written applications supported.full flash 4.0 supported in the web browser,first USB on the go Wow now i can connect it to my 250GB hard disk and copy and paste the files easily with out a pc and ofcourse it will save time.. That's smartphone. Nokia N8- lifes make easy. And coming FX studio,Asphalt 5 , sims3 and need for speed etc.. yay... So it has high end hardware specs too.

• Reply

• l
• lonely cent
• w7i
• 07 Aug 2010

aero, 06 Aug 2010Depend on what u need mate. N8 is a media centric phone. Th... morenot at all. you can use SPB shell that is much more beautiful than android and iphone shits. for your information nokia will use meego harmattan which more beautiful than meego on other handsets. N8 is symbian 3 therefore QT written applications can support thus millions of high end apps and games. who the hell did say N8 is laggy, no it is not. experiance from hands on preview we see there is no laggy running 15 apps at the same time. that makes shit to other OS. thanks to N8 GPU and 680 mhz processor.

• Reply

• E
• Engineer Man
• n5Q
• 07 Aug 2010

I'm looking forward Threaded Messaging on the N8. Since my ever increasing inpatience using my 5800. But what feature benefits they are. This is nice.

It would be nice if Nokia wre allowed to enter into patent agreement for Samsung/Android Swipe text, that would be super in S^3. Since webkit & Qt should be accessible across platform. Let's see if we can get swype to text.

Nokia's Slogon "What will you do with it" My answer, things that are neither seen or heard of on the Iphone. HA HA HA.

What say you?

• Reply

• C
• Crunk
• fu$
• 07 Aug 2010

To that dude who said n97, n97 mini, c6, x6, 5800, 5230 are the same. Dude everyones doing the same thing:
Sony ericsson : vivaz, vivaz pro, x10 mini, x10 mini pro
Samsung: i9000 galaxy s, vibrant, captivate, wave pro, wave pro 2

They are all doing the same thing, not only nokia! Putting in a couple of keyboards on similar devices is giving the customer choices, not everyones uses every facility in a phone and those who do pay extra for the features that they want.

• Reply

• ?
• Anonymous
• 39D
• 07 Aug 2010

please when is this phone n8 going to be in market,i have try several stores in Nigeria and even in UK i could not get it,all they keep saying is they have not heard about it.all what is the price now i need to buy one.thanks.

• Reply

• r
• r 3 b 3 l
• QHL
• 06 Aug 2010

Anonymous, 06 Aug 2010I was checking some of the older nokias and I was wondering... moreMost definitely because those are the optimum hardware requirements for symbian^1.

• Reply

• ?
• Anonymous
• w4A
• 06 Aug 2010

I was checking some of the older nokias and I was wondering why nokia was always using the same processor with the same ram and basically the same hardware but just kept rebadging it into a different package and then sell it.

Is this a strategy or did all those phones really had something different between them? Why are they doing this?

N97
N97mini
C6
X6
5800
5230

They are basically all the same phones. Changing dimensions or adding a qwerty keyboard isn't groundbreaking or innovate. Its just a variation of the same phone. I just wanted to know why they are doing that.

• Reply

• r
• r 3 b 3 l
• QHL
• 06 Aug 2010

Anonymous, 06 Aug 2010nokia 5230 & 5233 has 1320 mah battery.they have less r... moreHave you considered that this phone user an amoled display?

• Reply

• ?
• Anonymous
• s8h
• 06 Aug 2010

nokia 5230 & 5233 has 1320 mah battery.they have less ram n less processor power.then y this phone has only 1200 mah?i wanna buy a good mobile.bt confused between n8 n galaxy s.if this phone had 1500 mah battery..better os n processor then i think this would b a great phone..n galaxy has everything exept usb otg,flash support,n camera quality is also not good as n8.so what should i do?

• Reply

• S
• SidewindeR
• PB7
• 06 Aug 2010

Symbian is really for the smarter users. The development possibilities of symbian are practically endless. You have to be a symbian user to truly appreciate it's power. No other OS has so much flexibility and customisability than symbian. Those who don't see this ignore it and start bashing it as dated and laggy OS. But in smater hands, symbian can be every bit as powerful as any other OS today.
And to all samsung users here, Bada is a joke. Just think for yourself. What good is a smartphone if you cant even download a zip or rar file or any other files that is not recognised by the OS. Wave is only as good as it's display...

• Reply

• A
• AMANITA
• up6
• 06 Aug 2010

N8 is a very well balanced than any other phone,not like otherz ,they didnt put (may b forgot idk,lolz)
simple parts like flash,equilizer or phones which
doesnt support zip,rar files :D Cheerz :)

• Reply

• ?
• Anonymous
• vIb
• 06 Aug 2010

Ryan, 06 Aug 2010look you dont no what your talking about all sonys are the ... moreOkay, so he shouldnt compare Galaxy S to N8 because N8 is not out yet. But you can easily compare N8 with Wave ?

Smart !

• Reply

• R
• Ryan
• MVg
• 06 Aug 2010

criselda, 06 Aug 2010this forum is n8 vs jet2,wave,galaxy beam. guys i advice yo... morelook you dont no what your talking about all sonys are the same with a different camera or case and the galaxy is a good phone but u cant compare with a phone that isnt out yet. your obviously a nokia hater. so i suggest u take you head for a wobble cos if you think for a second that a wave is better than n8 then you need to take your face for shite

• Reply

• A
• AMANITA
• up6
• 06 Aug 2010

[deleted post]Hey man ! Whatz wrong wid u ? I love this phone and I want it ? Whatz d matter with u ? :D

• Reply

• c
• criselda
• t7P
• 06 Aug 2010

this forum is n8 vs jet2,wave,galaxy beam. guys i advice you if you want good resolution,camera,music lover go to samsung mobile phone and sonyericsson, if you want slow,hangup go to nokia. i ask u all? n8 touchscreen responsive or not? x6,n97,n900 very poor unresponsive touchscreen freeze. the best smartphone touchscreen samsung,htc,iphone,sonyericsson. i suggest nokia need to improve speaker phone,processor,LCD,camera not good at night like x6,n97, change OS.

• Reply

• a
• aero
• utk
• 06 Aug 2010

Anonymous, 06 Aug 2010470 euros is the price for a mid range phone ?? you shou... moreDepend on what u need mate. N8 is a media centric phone. There are a lotta ppl who want a camera like that on their cellphone.

But if u look for fluid OS animations and eyecandy, look somewhere else or wait for MeeGo

• Reply

• Z
• Zac
• j{k
• 06 Aug 2010

I hope nokia will remake n-gage classic game like pathway to glory for N8.

• Reply

• a
• aero
• utk
• 06 Aug 2010

Anonymous, 06 Aug 2010You are right ! Symbian is AweFreakingSome !! That was p... morelol.. =))

I am looking forward to MeeGo.. coz i am a nokia person from ma very 1st phone which was nokia n70.

Symbian is already being pushed back to the midsection coz nokia realised that flagships are not gonna shine anymore on symbian.. (read nokia n97.. Lol)

By the time nokia releases n9, this would be another camera phone with a big sensor. But i am still with nokia, just dont approve the symbian treatment they gave Nokia n8. Else its one awesome device. Should have gone symbian 3 for something more budget oriented like c6 and left something so beautiful to MeeGo..

Or maybe it aint ready yet.. I dont think nokia would release official update for MeeGo in n8. But i do pray that custom ROMs surface soon enuff..

Cheers Nokia.. I still believe u got game.. :)

• Reply