Review of Nokia N8

If you've been a Nokia fan for years, then you'll have noticed that the Finnish firm hasn't been competing at the sharp end of the game for a while now. The likes of the N97 and X6 have both been trumpeted by Nokia over the last year or so, but neither has particularly won critical acclaim, mostly due to a sub-par OS when compared to the whizz-bang-iness of the iPhone and Android set, as well as taking a veritable age to start using the latest technology, like capacitive screens and slimmer lines.

Now the N8 is here, bringing all manner of high end features to a Nokia phone: 12MP camera, HD video recording, reams of internal storage and a high end media player, as well as the new Symbian^3 OS.

But is it a case of all spec and no trousers? Or is this a phone that truly sees Nokia combining the best of the tech with a great UI to properly challenge the smartphone frontrunners? The Nokia N8 is a fairly large device - but that's not to say that it's chunky. It's merely large due to having a large 3.5-inch OLED screen, and it comes in at just 12.9mm thick.

Admittedly it's not the thinnest on the market, but when it's down to a matter of a few millimetres, it doesn't really matter in the pocket right? The Nokia N8 is ridiculously packed with all manner of technology, and for once you can see it when picking up the phone for the first time.

Although, before we get into all the great things the Nokia N8 does, it does rankle that the phone doesn't have a removable battery, with the case being screwed down tightly. As you can see this means the only way to get the SIM card and microSD memory is through some side doors - fiddly to use but do add to the overall slick feel of the phone.

Not letting you remove the battery is a pretty big statement from Nokia, as it's saying that it won't be plagued by the freezing bugs of before - battery pulls used to be a necessity in those situations. However, the phone sites nicely in the hand despite the larger size, and you can't help but feel that the overall impression is increased by the sleeker look from no removable battery cover.

The frame is covered in anodised aluminium, which Nokia was keen to show us was resistant to scratches. However, as you can see by the side unlock switch, this isn't always the case - some colour has been lost.

Motorola Milestone Review

The Milestone has been hyped up as the best Android phone since the HTC Hero. Seeing as the Hero has been around since July last year - a lifetime for a smartphone - it’s about time that someone came up with a serious challenger. The good news is that despite some drawbacks, the Milestone really does live up to the hype and betters the Hero in a number of areas. 

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. When it comes to design, Motorola recently seems to have wandered off in the wrong direction. This was very much evident in the bulky and ugly Dext, and unfortunately with the Milestone its design team still seems to be lost in the wilderness. To put it mildly this is a strange looking phone. Like the Dext the handset has a slide out QWERTY keyboard, but unlike that model the screen here doesn’t fully cover the bottom half of the phone when it’s closed. Instead it leaves a lip jutting out at the bottom. This lip feels quite odd when you’re using the keyboard, is a magnet for dust and, well, just looks plain wrong. Even without this odd lip, the phone wouldn’t exactly be a looker as the overall design has a very boxy and industrial feel to it. However, at least the sturdy build quality and smooth sliding mechanism for the keyboard do give you the impression that the phone will stand up to a fair number of knocks and scrapes over its lifetime.

The keyboard is also far from the best we’ve seen on a phone. There’s no space between individual keys and, as they are also completely flat and have very little travel, it’s quite difficult to get up a decent typing speed. To the right of the keyboard there’s a rather large four way D-pad controller. Presumably this has been added to make text editing that bit easier, but we found we didn’t use it all that much and couldn’t help feeling it would have been better if Motorola had dropped it completely and just increased the size and space between the keys. 

Thankfully, things improve dramatically when you get to the screen, as it’s one of the best displays we’ve ever used on any mobile. It really is that good. At 3.7inches it’s very large, but unlike the display on HTC HD2 it doesn’t make for an overly chunky phone. It’s bright too and colours look beautifully vivid, with the result that pictures and videos practically leap off the screen. And the pin sharp 854 x 480 resolution means that even when you’re zoomed out on a webpage, the tiny text is still crisp enough to read in landscape mode.

Furthermore, because the screen uses capacitance technology Motorola has been able to support the multi-touch pinch to zoom gesture. When the handset first arrived pinch to zoom only worked in the web browser, but during our review period Google released a new version of Google Maps which added pinch to zoom support too and the Media Gallery was also updated to support it. The zooming isn’t quite as smooth as on the iPhone, but it still works well and is especially useful in the browser where it makes it easier to navigate pages and position columns of texts on the screen for better readability.