Nokia N8 Vs E7 – Battle Of The Nokia Smartphones
Nokia have struggled in recent times, and it’s easy to isolate the precise moment things started to go wrong. The date was 9th of January, 2007. Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, stood up at the Macworld Apple convention – and in his hand was a prototype of Apple’s newest piece of tech. A phone without a keyboard; a phone that will instead depend completely on a virtual touch screen keyboard. The Apple iPhone shook the phone business to it’s (Apple-)core, and nowhere was this quake felt more seismically than in Finland, at the HQ of the undeniable top dog of hand-held phoning. Nokia would strive for three years to react to the iPhone. Their attempted iPhone killer was christened the N8. Was it a flop, or a worthy challenger?
Every year Nokia have a flagship cell phone, intended to display their most up-to-date R & D. This year that flagship is the N8. My first reaction to the N8 is that the handset’s really sleek – the rounded finish is appealing, and the metallic casing provides it with a premium appearance. What’s instantly clear is how many external buttons and ports are dotted around it. The right-hand side features a screen-lock switch and camera key, the left features a micro-USB port and SIM/microSD slots, while on top is an HDMI port.
A vital factor of all smartphones is the touchscreen. The N8’s touchscreen is 3.5-inches, with 640 x 360 resolution, and made from ‘Gorilla Glass’. Gorilla Glass, according to Nokia, is 100% scratch resistant. And when Nokia say scratch resistant, they certainly mean it. I rubbed keys and a fork against it, and I must admit it didn’t leave even a hairline mark. You can put the N8 in a pocket or bag and it’ll remains undamaged.
The operating system used by the N8 is the Symbian 3 – and it’s really the fundamental flaw of the N8. Symbian’s OS is ponderous, has pitifully few built-in applications and seems outmoded, antiquated even, when compared with Android and iOS. It’s foolish that after working so hard building a phone that is good-looking and effective, Nokia then opted for a deficient OS that leaves the user with a bad taste in his mouth.
A few months after introducing the N8, Nokia unveiled the E7. It was genuinely surprising how many differences there were between the two phones. The E7 is quite a bit bigger and more heavy than the N8 (135 grams to 176 grams). It has a bigger display screen which features a ‘ClearBlack Display’ – what this implies, in lay terms, is that it alters the brightness automatically depending on the light conditions. In contrast to the N8, the E7’s camera will not stick out from the back. That gives the case a more smooth feel and allows it to sit flat on a table with the slider open. However, while the camera is more stylishly added to the E7 than the N8, the picture and video quality is dull, and not close to as impressive as the N8. Notably the E7 additionally offers a QWERTY keyboard that glides out from the bottom of the device – this explains the bulk of the additional weight of the E7. Unfortunately one element Nokia have kept between the N8 and E7 is the lousy Symbian 3 operating system, which means you’re subjected to that unresponsive and dated interface.
However, which of these phones do I consider better? For me it’s definitely the N8. The E7 is way too big to grip properly in your hand – a problem which is exaggerated by the slippery metal covering, which meant I dropped the E7 more than once while playing with it. The QWERTY keyboard is a nice addition, but brings up the weight of the phone to an unreasonable amount. Exactly why Nokia decided to go with a less high quality camera for the E7 than they did with the N8 is puzzling, but it’s not up to scratch for such an expensive phone.
Each of them have failings – mostly as a result of the outdated OS, but where as the N8 is superb except for that, the E7 is unwieldy, too big, weighs too much and – strangely for a cell phone – too big to hold in your hand with any comfort.
While the N8 is not the equal of Apple’s iPhone or the Samsung Galaxy S2, it is however a big improvement over previous generation Nokia smartphones. It’s clear evidence that the Finnish phone behemoths are certainly not done.
How to get a Free Nokia N8 or How to get a Free 3DS
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