Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Nokia swings for fences with N8 smartphone, revamped Symbian OS

READ Yahoo! News: "So, what do Nokia and RIM have in common? The two smartphone titans are both saddled with operating systems that look painfully behind the times compared with competitors such as the iPhone and the new Android-powered HTC Incredible, and both are looking to turn their respective tides this year: RIM with its just-unveiled BlackBerry 6.0 operating system, and Nokia with its new N8 handset, complete with a 12-megapixel camera and the redesigned Symbian^3 OS.

Long rumored but officially unveiled only Tuesday (the same day that RIM previewed its next-generation OS), the N8 (set for release next quarter for 370 euros, about $500) boasts a series of impressive hardware features, not the least of which being its Carl Zeiss optics-enhanced 12MP camera with auto-focus, Xenon flash, and 720p video capture.



The N8's 3.5-inch, 640-by-360-pixel display also represents a much-needed step up for Nokia in that it's a capacitive, rather than resistive, screen. Earlier Nokia touchscreen phones used resistive technology, which registers a tap when the user presses layers of plastic together — perfect for a stylus, not so great when it comes to fingers. Capacitive displays (like those used by the iPhone, WebOS, and Android phones) detect taps via the electrical charge from bare skin, like a fingertip, making for a much more responsive (and far less mushy) touch display.

The half-inch-thick, 4.8-ounce N8 also packs in features such as an FM transmitter (for broadcasting tunes over an FM car stereo) and tuner, HDMI video output, support for Dolby Digital Plus sound, and 16GB of onboard storage (plus a microSD memory slot), but the phone's main claim to fame also represents Nokia's shot at launching itself back into the touchscreen game: Symbian^3, the all-new version of Nokia's aging Symbian OS."

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