Review: Nokia N8
Same as most modern smartphones, the N8 supports nearly every means of mobile communication there is. Email, MMS/SMS, video share and more are all on board.
There is a POP3/IMAP4 email client on board to handle Yahoo, Gmail and other consumer email systems. There is also an Exchange email program for business users. I was unable to get the Exchange app to work with Gmail, but the IMAP4 version of Gmail worked just fine once I entered my credentials.
The N8 was able to retrieve email consistently and easily. Messages arrived at the same time on the N8 as they did on the other half dozen devices sitting on my desk (you should hear them all chime at once, it's really something). However, the email app is very unattractive to my eyes. Emails can be sorted via date, sender, subject in the inbox via software tabs at the top. These same tabs let you jump between email folders. It just doesn't look as pretty as email does on other platforms. The N8 is capable of displaying HTML emails without trouble, and cleaning out your inbox isn't painful by any means. The only thing I really can't stand is the email composition screen. It looks awful, like email for 1st Graders who need to learn to compose emails in a framed environment. It's so ugly. But what do I know, you may think it is lovely.
The SMS/MMS has been improved with better inboxes and threaded messaging. It still isn't as good as some of the competition, but it's far better than it used to be. Text conversations appear in bubbles, and images appear in-line with the text. The one wacked-out thing is that if you want threaded messaging, you have to choose the "Conversations" inbox. The regular "Inbox" shows only in-line texts as they come. Every other smartphone platform does a better job of threaded text messaging.
Missing in action? Instant Messaging. I was unable to locate an IM app on board the N8. Nor was I able to find anything suitable in the Ovi Store.
The video share feature also doesn't work out of the box. It may work with AT&T after contacting them and spending hours on support calls, but my quick efforts at connecting video calls failed. (T-Mobile's network doesn't support this feature.)
As far as social networking goes, the N8 ships with a catch-all social networking app that bundles together updates for MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. I attempted to find S^3 apps in the Ovi store that could handle Facebook and Twitter, but there are no native ones. You'll have to settle with a third-party app, or fall back on Facebook.com and Twitter.com.
In portrait mode, the N8 only shows T9-style text entry tool. If you want to use the QWERTY, you have to rotate the phone sideways. In practice, though, the software QWERTY performed pretty well.
Messaging on the Nokia N8 continues to be sub-sub-par when compared to the competition.
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