It's been a while since a mobile phone came along and really blew one's socks off. The original iPhone was one, simply because of its groundbreaking interface and features. It showed the others how to do smartphones right.
Since then, there have been a few other full touch-screen smartphones. Most notably, a couple of the Android phones with silly fast processors powering their touch-screen interfaces. Even BlackBerry got in on the touchy-feely business, with the Storm 1 and 2.
Sadly, for many, the iPhone remained the dominating force in this category. Only recently has Apple's death grip loosened, with the arrival of HTC's fantastic Desire and Legend Android-based phones. There's also the matter of the question mark hanging over the iPhone 4 and its purported reception problems, which some have experienced and others not.
These things will only make it easier for Nokia to make its new, all-touch screen N8 a bigger success when it's released in October this year. I managed to spend some time with one, just recently, and Nokia's product manager pulled out all the stops in order to impress.
The first demo started off with the N8 connected to an HDTV via HDMI - a standard feature made possible through a built-in mini-HDMI port. A converter cable is included in the box, for use with regular HDMI cables. The N8 is touted as a full media phone, with 12-megapixel camera, xenon flash, HD video and Zeiss autofocus lens.
Video footage is only in 720p - more than enough for mobile use, really - and despite video zooming being digital, quality is still excellent. There's even a video editing application for your award-winning shot-on-my-phone productions.
Navigating the user interface is a breeze. The capacitive touch-screen translates input fluidly and swiping left or right, to select any of the three customisable home screens, is very intuitive.
Nokia has also implemented haptic feedback: button-presses are accompanied by a short vibration - just that extra little peace of mind to involve the user a bit more and let them know something is happening.
Everything looks good, too, with bright colours and bold text. This is helped along by the 3.5-inch screen, which has a native resolution of 640 x 360 - slightly better than the competing phones from Apple, HTC or BlackBerry. In addition to all these features, Nokia is hoping for a retail price of around R5 500 - way below anything else that competes with it.
So far, things are looking very promising for Nokia's multimedia mogul. I'm looking forward to getting my hands on one, in a few weeks, to see what it's like to live with and possibly even crown a new king of media smartphones.
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