Nokia N8 – Super Rugged. Super High Tech.

Nokia, the one-time undisputed king of smartphones, has felt the squeeze the past couple of years by new players in the game such as Apple, HTC and Windows. But the mobile company has done an incredible job of pushing back with the Nokia N8 that is perfect for the person looking for a high-end, super durable smartphone that won’t break when it is inevitably dropped… into a pile of rocks… from the roof of a car.
A metal body surrounds the 3.5 inch touchscreen and is coated in a highly scratch-resistant paint. How scratch resistant? A really sharp knife will scratch it. You will be hard-pressed to find something else that will damage that beautiful body.
But that is only the aesthetics. What about the inside? That’s where it counts, right?
Nokia developed a whole new operating system specifically for the unveiling of the N8 which allows you to customise your home screen with a plethora of widgets and applications to provide an incredible amount of data directly to your mobile phone, especially as the Ovi app store continues to expand. These are complimented by a 680 MHz processor which allows relatively seamless graphics and transitions from screen to screen and app to app.
The processor also aims to keep up with the unbelievably awesome 12 megapixel camera built into the phone. Or is the phone built into the camera? Because at 12 megapixels you are getting camera technology that many have to dish out hundreds of pounds for and it doesn’t even include a touch screen. Or apps. Or a phone. Just a boring old camera. But this one is built into the phone.
And what can you do after you take your professional-grade picture? Upload it to your website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Flickr, and any other online platform you use with impeccable 3G access on a pay monthly contract. And you can access anything else on the web that your heart desires, including localised searches and geo-tagging with the GPS function enabled.
Messaging offers great predictive text to help you when you are churning out emails at blazing fast speeds, and the contacts function is easily formatted to let you find all of your friends in the push of a button.
And the media options on the N8 are simply phenomenal. The music player is well done with simple navigation and bold images. Video looks great on the AMOLED screen and an HD 3.5 mm headphone jack provides quality sound, and even looking at pictures is just a lovely experience. Nokia really went above and beyond to turn the super rugged N8 into the super high tech N8 when they designed the media functions.
For a phone company that looked like it was falling further and further behind to the big name competitors, Nokia really made a step forward in innovation and usability with the N8.