You may have already seen some European variants on this phone, but this is the first time that the phone is going to be offered in Canada with a complete carrier subsidy. Much like the iPhone, it boasts a high-resolution touchscreen, but it goes with AMOLED tech instead. The “industrial” design is a nice touch too.

A quick refresher shows us a 680MHz processor, Symbian^3, 16GB memory, WiFi, 12MP camera with Carl Zeiss lens, and 720p video recording capability. On paper, it outshines a lot of phones, particularly when it comes to that camera.

There’s no word on a release date or proposed pricing, but it is selling for 370 Euro on that other continent, which would convert to an outright price of $530. If that’s the case, a contract price of under $200 could be very possible.

SOURCE: Mobile Syrup

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You could say that the Nokia N8 is the new flagship smartphone for the Finnish phonemaker, trying to recapture some of the market share that it has lost to iDevices and Android handhelds. We already know about the specs, but what do the guts look like?

Well, you can always rely on the crazy kooks at ifixit to break out the screwdrivers and crowbars to rip our favorite electronics apart and, well, the Nokia N8 isn’t exactly immune to these exploits. Perhaps one of the more noteworthy findings in the teardown is that while the battery isn’t user-accessible in the traditional sense, it’s actually pretty easy to get at if you want to. I’ve always said that the lack of a user-replaceable battery is a sore spot for the iPhone, so I found it strange that Nokia would take that route. What’s curious is that, upon tearing the N8 apart, you find that they’re using a pretty standard-issue Nokia battery for the N8. Why couldn’t they just use a regular old battery cover, then?

You’ll also notice that the AMOLED display and the cover glass can be separated, so you can replace those independently. Overall, ifixit gives the phone an 8 out of 10 for overall “repairability”… assuming you’re brave enough to tear the thing apart in the first place.

[iFixiT]

The post Dismantling the Nokia N8 Symbian^3 smartphone appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The three new features for Ovi Maps are, in case you skipped the title are: live traffic updates, public transportation maps, and check-in functionality.

The first two functions are straightforward enough to understand and should help to get you to your destination in a more expedient manner, both by car and by public transit. The third, however, requires a little more explanation. Nokia isn’t launching its own version of Foursquare, as far as I can tell. Instead, the “check-in” feature integrates with your social network of choice. Alternatively, you can blast out your current location via SMS.

Peep the video below for a demo.

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Sampling the future of mobile technology at IFA Berlin has made me kaleidescopically dizzy, so by the time I get to fiddling with the touchscreen of the much talked about Nokia N8, it still feels, for all its graphic snazziness, a tad like a trip into, well, the present (hello, Symbian!). To be sure, its anodized aluminum case in silver-white, gray, orange, blue and, my favorite, a kind of retro sci-fi green, is a treat to hold and behold, but where you really find the wow is on the entertainment side of things. Turn it over and etched around the wide-angle lens are the words “Carl Zeiss” and behind that are 12 megapixels to capture what goes through it. That, and the suite of HD video editing functions and WebTV capacity, seems a bit like the tail wagging the mobile dog (will Nikon now add SIM cards to cameras?), so I’m wondering what could they possibly be thinking here. When I pan in camera mode across the convention hall, I gaze at the 16:9 nHD (640 x 360) AMOLED screen and the picture becomes a lot clearer.

The post Nokia N8 hands-on, loads of pics at IFA appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

The most notable difference between the N9 and the N8, of course, is that slide-out QWERTY keyboard. The specs are spotty at best, but we fully expect this upcoming smartphone to be powered by the same Meego OS as its N8 predecessor. It’s shown here in silver, but a black version should also be available at time of launch too.

And what is the source of the this leak? Well, it turns out that it’s Eldar Murtazin again. Remember that this is the same guy that reviewed the N8 before it was released, getting raided by Russian police in a similar fashion as Gizmodo’s Jason Chen over so-called the bar-dropped iPhone 4.

We don’t know if Eldar happened to pick this phone up in an expat bar — the Nokia N9 shown here was spotted over in China — but he fully believes this is totally legit and the Nokia N9 will hit retail channels in the first week of December. As always, take rumors and leaks with a grain of salt.

QWERTY totin’ Nokia N9 appears in China [MobileCrunch]

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Nokia N8 smartphone with Symbian S^3 platform

As a quick refresher, the Nokia N8 comes powered by Symbian ^3 and an ARM 11 680MHz processor. The spec sheet is certainly drool-worthy with the 3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen, 16GB internal storage, 12MP camera with 720p HD video, secondary VGA videocall camera, microSD expansion slot, HSDPA 10.2Mbps, HSUPA 2.0Mbps, WiFi, Bluetooth 3.0 with A2DP, stereo FM radio with RDS, HDMI-out, Dolby Digital Plus, digital compass, video/photo editor, and Flash Lite 4.0.

As an added bonus, you get free turn-by-turn navigation using Ovi Maps, the same free service you can get with something like the Nokia N97 mini.

Delivery of the device won’t happen until the end of September, but you can hit up the official page on the Nokia website to place your preorder. It will set you back $549, with either standard ($3.99) or express ($9.99) shipping options.

What do you think? The Nokia N8 beats a lot of devices on paper, but is it good enough to stand up in a marketplace populated by high-end Droids and retina displays?

Nokia N8 [Nokia]

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