We just met up with Nokia and T-Mobile to check out the Astound, also known as the C7, which is the first Symbian^3 device to launch in the United States (even though Symbian^3 is now just Symbian). The Astound sports a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen display, and the colors really popped off the screen during our time with the device — we watched a music video from Shakira, in case you were wondering. It’s also packed with some high-end specs, including an 8-megapixel camera that’s capable of recording 720p HD video, Bluetooth 3.0, and support for Wi-Fi b/g/n networks. Hit the jump to read on.

Overall we found the Astound to be extremely light in the hand. The phone has three different homescreens that can be customized with widgets, much like we’ve seen on the N8 and other Symbian powered phones. As we noted earlier, the display is gorgeous — especially for a phone that retails for under $100. The device felt fast while switching through applications, and as you may know, this iteration of Symbian supports multitasking — running Slacker in the background didn’t seem to slow the phone down much. Nokia also included Swype for easy text entry, but it currently only works in landscape mode; not in portrait. We tried to fire off a few snaps with the camera, and while we liked the dedicated camera key, were a little disappointed to find that the Astound lacks auto-focus. Overall, though, we thought the phone’s software and hardware worked well together. It’s being billed as a mid-tier smartphone focused on value.

The Astound lands in T-Mobile stores on April 6th for $79.99 with a new two-year contract.

Nokia delivers Astounding smartphone for T-Mobile USA customers

WHITE PLAINS, NY, and ORLANDO, Fla., March 22, 2011 – Inspired by U.S. consumers who want an affordable smartphone that offers a simplified user experience and on-the-go entertainment, Nokia today continues to broaden its Symbian smartphone portfolio with the introduction of the Nokia Astound. Offering value without compromise, the Nokia Astound will be available exclusively from T-Mobile USA beginning April 6.

The Nokia Astound’s sleek stainless-steel design features an 8-megapixel camera with dual-LED flash and 720p HD video capture, a brilliant 3.5-inch capacitive touch AMOLED display, free turn-by-turn navigation from Nokia and access to thousands of free and paid apps via Nokia’s Ovi Store. The Nokia Astound makes it easy for consumers to stay connected. The Astound has three fully customizable homescreens, giving quick access to email, and the ability to check the latest from Facebook and Twitter, or just surf the web. Consumers can kick back and enjoy the Astound’s entertainment features by playing pre-loaded games like Fruit Ninja, listening to the lastest music with the Slacker Radio app, or browsing their own music and video collection, right at their fingertips.

“As millions more consumers make the switch to smartphones, Nokia is proud to offer an alternative that is not only easy and fun to use, but is also very sexy and sleek, unlike anything in its price point,” said Mark Slater, vice president of sales, Nokia. “With a user experience rounded out by Nokia’s Ovi services, including Maps and Store, consumers will be delighted to discover Nokia’s premium design quality with no compromises on services and apps, made affordable with T-Mobile.”

“As T-Mobile continues to make owning a smartphone easy and affordable, we are thrilled to introduce the high-quality design and entertainment experience of the Nokia Astound,” said Andrew Morrison, vice president, product management, T-Mobile USA. “Offering the features of a high-end smartphone at a great price, the Nokia Astound is sure to appeal to a broad array of consumers.”

Uniquely crafted, the Nokia Astound is an example of the quality and impressive hardware that consumers associate with Nokia. Its AMOLED touchscreen is protected by ultrathin, damage-resistant glass and surrounded by stainless steel, which completes the attractive yet durable design.

Equipped with the latest commercial version of Ovi Maps1, the Nokia Astound provides free voice-guided, turn-by-turn navigation in almost 100 countries in 46 languages. The Nokia Astound comes pre-loaded with automotive grade maps for the entire U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean2. With more than 8,000 3D landmarks and free premium content like Lonely Planet guides and TripAdvisor, consumers can explore new places and experiences along the way. New features include improved search engines and WiFi positioning, a drive assistance mode for real-time traffic updates, maps of public transit lines, and the ability to check in to places and share great moments with friends on Facebook, Twitter and many local social networks.

With the Nokia Astound, consumers can visit Ovi Store to discover new apps, games and themes to customize their device. Each week, Ovi Store continues to grow and add more great content that supports 32 languages in more than 190 countries. Currently, Ovi Store sees more than 4 million downloads worldwide per day, including popular apps and games like Angry Birds, OpenTable, Shazam and Galaxy on Fire. As an added convenience, apps and services can be billed directly to a consumer’s monthly T-Mobile bill or credit card.

Visitors at CTIA Wireless in Orlando, Fla., can visit the Nokia Lounge, booth #1626, to experience the Astound along with other Nokia solutions and meet developers who are creating compelling apps and content for consumers to enjoy on Nokia devices.

Availability
The Nokia Astound will be available nationwide starting April 6 through T-Mobile retail stores and online at http://www.t-mobile.com for $79.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate card with a two-year service agreement and qualifying voice and data plan.
The Nokia Astound will also be offered at select third-party dealers, and at leading national retailers including Costco, RadioShack, Sam’s Club, Target Mobile locations and Walmart. For more information, visit http://www.nokiausa.com/astound.

Nokia may flood T-Mobile shelves with four Symbian-powered smartphones this year, starting with the $79.99 Astound — known globally as the C7 — on April 6th. Nokia officially let the wraps off of the C7 back in September, and it rocks a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, an 8 megapixel camera with flash and 720p video recording, and an FM radio. If the Astound launches, it will be the first Symbian^3 powered device to be sold by a U.S. carrier. Sources speaking to TmoNews also suggested that Nokia may not launch a Windows Phone 7 device until next year. We’ll be at CTIA in Orlando next week, where T-Mobile is expected to announce the Nokia Astound, so stay tuned for more.

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We know, we know — how can we possibly get excited about an upcoming Symbian smartphone from Nokia when the OS is currently sitting on death row awaiting execution? The answer, unfortunately, is that we can’t. Typical consumers likely won’t share the same sentiment, however — especially those looking for entry-level smartphones on the cheap. For the budget-conscious crowd that isn’t at all OS-conscious, we offer up your first look at the Nokia C5-04. Little is known about the upcoming c5-04, but the listing on the Bluetooth SIG site notes that it is headed to the North American market. Add to that the unmistakable presence of a T-Mobile logo on the face of the phone and it’s pretty safe to say it’s destined for T-Mobile USA. Specs are expected to be in line with the C5-03, which is anything but impressive but very affordable.

Thanks, Rajat

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Canalys today becomes the first major firm to report a changing of the guard we all knew was coming. According to the industry watcher’s fourth-quarter 2010 data, Google’s Android platform outsold Nokia’s Symbian OS to become the best-selling smartphone platform in the world. Canalys’ figures show 32.9 million Android-powered smartphones having been shipped last quarter, while Symbian device shipments slid in at 31 million units. In terms of market share, Android reeled in 32.9% of the market in the fourth quarter while Symbian owned 30.6% of the market. This marks the first time in 10 years that another smartphone operating system has outsold Symbian — and as fast as Android is growing, it most definitely will not be the last. Other notable takeaways from the report: Apple shipped 16.2 million smartphones to take 16% of the market, down 0.1% from the same quarter in 2009, and RIM’s global market share slid from 20% in the fourth quarter of 2009 to 14.4% last quarter. Despite losing ground in market share, Apple and RIM both saw year-over-year growth in terms of device shipments — up 85.9% and 36%, respectively. Hit the break for Canalys’ full press release.

Google’s Android becomes the world’s leading smart phone platform

- Canalys reveals smart phone market exceeded 100 million units in Q4 2010

Palo Alto, Singapore and Reading (UK) – Monday, 31 January 2011
For immediate release

Canalys today published its final Q4 2010 global country-level smart phone market data, which revealed that Google’s Android has become the leading platform. Shipments of Android-based smart phones reached 32.9 million, while devices running Nokia’s Symbian platform trailed slightly at 31.0 million worldwide. But Nokia did retain its position as the leading global smart phone vendor, with a share of 28%. The fourth quarter also saw the worldwide smart phone market continue to soar, with shipments of 101.2 million units representing year-on-year growth of 89%. The final quarter took shipments for the year to fractionally below 300 million units, with an annual growth rate of 80% over 2009 (see table below).

In Q4 2010, volumes of Google OS-based smart phones (Android, OMS and Tapas) were again boosted by strong performances from a number of vendors, notably LG, Samsung, Acer and HTC, whose volumes across these platforms grew 4,127%, 1,474%, 709% and 371% respectively year-on-year. HTC and Samsung together accounted for nearly 45% of Google OS-based handset shipments.

‘2010 has been a fantastic year for the smart phone market. After a difficult 2009, the speed with which the market has recovered has required real commitment and innovation from vendors and they have risen to the challenge,’ said Canalys VP and Principal Analyst Chris Jones. ‘But vendors cannot afford to be complacent. 2011 is set to be a highly competitive year with vendors looking to use new technology, such as dual-core processors, NFC and 3D displays, to differentiate their products and maintain value.’

At a regional level, Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) remained the largest market, with shipments totalling 38.8 million and a year-on-year growth rate of 90%. Nokia continued to lead in EMEA and Asia Pacific, but in 2010 it was overtaken by RIM in Latin America, which shipped over a million more units than Nokia in Q4 2010. The vendor was particularly helped by the popularity of its mid-range smart phones, such as its Curve family of devices.

The United States continued its reign as the largest country market in terms of shipments, at more than double the size of the Chinese smart phone market. RIM recaptured first place from Apple, as the latter experienced its usual US seasonal dip, and RIM benefited from the first full quarter of shipments for the BlackBerry Torch. HTC successfully maintained its third-place ranking in the US for the third consecutive quarter, driven by its speed to market with the latest Android updates and new Windows Phone 7 devices.

‘The US landscape will shift dramatically this coming year, as a result of the Verizon-Apple agreement,’ said Canalys Analyst Tim Shepherd. ‘Verizon will move its focus away from the Droid range, but the overall market impact will mean less carrier-exclusive deals, while increasing the AT&T opportunity for Android vendors, such as HTC, Motorola and Samsung.’ Android was by far the largest smart phone platform in the US market in Q4 2010, with shipments of 12.1 million units – nearly three times those of RIM’s BlackBerry devices. Windows Phone 7 devices appeared too late in the quarter to take full advantage of holiday season purchasing. As a result, Microsoft lost share in the United States, from 8% in Q4 2009 to 5% in Q4 2010.

Analysis of the published country-level data shows that, around the world, the strength of smart phone performances remained diverse. In South Korea, for example, shipments grew from under 700,000 units in Q4 2009 to just under 3.4 million units in Q4 2010, making the country a top 10 market. In Japan, Android shipments have taken off over the past year, with nearly 1.4 million units shipping from local as well as international vendors, such as HTC. More Japanese vendors have also announced plans to launch Android devices in 2011, such as NEC Casio and Panasonic. Under pressure from Huawei and Samsung in particular, Nokia’s share in China slipped to 56%, down from 76% a year ago, despite growing its volume in the country by over 70% in the same period. Albeit from a smaller base, the Chinese market grew 134% year-on-year, notably faster than the US market, which grew at 64% in the quarter.

Canalys analysts in Asia Pacific, the Americas and EMEA are available for press interviews on topics related to mobile devices and the growing ecosystem for mobile applications and services. There will also be a significant Canalys analyst presence at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona from 14 to 17 February. To arrange an interview, please send a request to press@canalys.com. Photos and bios of analysts are available from the Canalys web site.

Canalys Smart Phone Analysis, Quarterly Shipment Data

In a brief blog post, internet communication company Skype announced an updated client for newer Symbian smartphones (formerly known as Symbian^3). The updated app will run on Nokia’s N8, C7, and E5 handsets, bringing free Skype-to-Skype calls, Skype Out, and text-chats to the Finnish handset maker’s latest and greatest. The post highlights the Skype’s SILK codec, which will “make sure calls are crystal clear, even when on a low-bandwidth connections.” If you’re a Symbian user and are interested in picking up the new goodies, you can direct your phone’s browser to skype.com/m.

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This Thanksgiving weekend, Nokia fans are thankful for a first glimpse at an unannounced Nokia smartphone that appears poised to attack multimedia head on. The Nokia X7-00 has been captured on film showing off a sleek body and a set of not two, but four speakers. In light of Nokia’s new allegiance with Dolby, we assume this puppy also sports some pretty sweet surround sound capabilities. The device runs Symbian, albeit a bit slowly when cycling through home screens (calm down, it’s definitely not running a release build of the OS), and reportedly features specs in line with the Nokia N8. Nokia’s relatively new Xseries focuses on music, and it looks like the X7-00 will be the Finnish giant’s most intense music phone yet. Expect more soon, and hit the jump for a video of the X7-00 in action.

Thanks, Daniel!

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Nokia and the Symbian Foundation announced Monday some major changes surrounding the open source Symbian OS. First and foremost, the Symbian Foundation will no longer be responsible for OS development as of March 2011. Instead, Nokia will take on the task, leaving the Foundation responsible for licensing the software to manufacturers and other partners. Nokia says the move will allow it to issue updates more efficiently. As other manufacturers continue to look elsewhere, Nokia says it is still committed to the Symbian OS, which is currently the most popular smartphone operating system in the world by a wide margin. Hit the break for the full press release.

AMSTERDAM, SYMBIAN EXCHANGE & EXPOSITION (SEE), NOVEMBER 8, 2010 – Following a strategy review, the board of the Symbian Foundation has today decided to transition the role of the non-profit organisation. The foundation will become a legal entity responsible for licensing software and other intellectual property, such as the Symbian trademark. Nokia has committed to make the future development of the Symbian platform available to the ecosystem via an alternative direct and open model.

“The founding board members took a bold strategic step in setting up the foundation, which was absolutely the right decision at the time,” says Tim Holbrow, executive director, Symbian Foundation. “There has since been a seismic change in the mobile market but also more generally in the economy, which has led to a change in focus for some of our funding board members. The result of this is that the current governance structure for the Symbian platform – the foundation – is no longer appropriate.

“However, the platform enjoys strong support from some of the largest and most innovative device creators in the world. And we continue to see solid momentum behind the platform, with 25 percent of all Symbian-based devices shipping in the last 12 months.*

“I’m immensely proud of the work we’ve done at the Symbian Foundation. Perhaps most notably, in the last year we’ve delivered the biggest open source project ever in releasing the entire Symbian codebase under an open source license, and we did it four months ahead of schedule.”

The first phase of the foundation’s transition will involve a reduction in operations and staff numbers. By April 2011, the Symbian Foundation will be governed by a group of non-executive directors tasked with overseeing the organisation’s licensing function.

“Nokia remains committed to Symbian as the most used smartphone platform around the world,” said Jo Harlow, senior vice president, Smartphones, Nokia. “The Nokia N8 generated the highest online pre-orders we’ve ever experienced and we have a family of Symbian^3 smartphones including the Nokia N8, Nokia C7, and Nokia C6-01 which are available now, as well as the Nokia E7 which is expected to ship before the end of 2010. Nokia expects to sell more than 50 million Symbian^3 smartphones.”

The Symbian Foundation leadership team will work together with Nokia to ensure that the reduction in operations of the foundation will bring as little disruption to the ecosystem as possible. Further details of this process will be shared at a later date.

Today’s announcement does not affect the Symbian Exchange & Exposition (SEE 2010), which will commence on November 9th in Amsterdam. SEE 2010 will bring together attendees from over 55 countries to engage, exchange and explore opportunities offered by the Symbian platform. For more information about the event, visit www.see2010.org.

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Here it is ladies and gentlemen, Nokia’s latest and greatest Symbian handset, the N8. The N8 got a bit of a late start in life, with production and shipping delays a plenty, but the handset is now starting to propagate itself the world over. Available in five different colors, the full-touchscreen device — which is powered by the Symbian^3 operating system — is a sleek, compact handset that packs plenty of hardware features. Capacitive AMOLED display? Check. 12-megapixel camera? Check. HDMI interface? Check. Now the only question becomes: how does this hardware synergize with the device’s software and, ultimately, your work flow? Hit the jump to read our full review.

Specifications

There really isn’t a single negative thing to say about the Nokia N8’s hardware. Seriously. The device packs the aforementioned  3.5-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with a 16:9 (640 x 360 pixels) aspect ratio and supports up to 16.7 million colors (or colours if you’re buying the European version). The handset has a penta-band UMTS radio supporting 850, 900, 1700, 1900, and 2100 MHz frequencies as well as a quad-band GSM radio supporting 850, 900, 1800, and 1900 MHz frequencies. Bottom line: in whatever corner of the globe you happen to find yourself, this phone will, in all likelihood, be picking up some sort of radio signal.

Other notable specs: Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, FM Radio receiver, FM Transmitter, Micro-USB port, Nokia 2mm charging connector, 256MB RAM, GPS, aGPS, HDMI-out port, 3.5mm audio video connector, front-facing QVGA camera (640 x 480), 16GB of built-in storage, microSD card slot with support for up to a 32GB card, and a 1200mAh battery.

The only lackluster vital on the N8 is the unit’s 680MHz ARM 11 processor; although, to be completely honest, this isn’t really an issue for the handset. The statistically-challenged processor ushers Symbian around with relative ease and, aside from a few isolated instances, we did not feel that the device was underpowered… in terms of the hardware, at least. 680MHz might not look impressive when compared to 1GHz on paper, but it suits the N8 just fine.

It seems like we’re forgetting something… oh, yes… the Finnish engineers who built this little fella also found room inside the chassis to stuff a 12-megapixel camera with a two-stage shutter, Xenon flash, and Carl Zeiss lens; the 12-megapixel shooter is capable of capturing video in sweet, sweet 720p HD at 25 fps. We’ll cover the camera more later, but here’s the teaser: it’s ridiculously good.

Hardware

The first thing you’re going to notice when you pick up the N8 is that it is light. Eerily light. As we said, the handset has a 1200mAh battery — which is on the smaller side for smartphones these days — and we’re assuming some weight was saved there. After you get over the weight you’ll immediately notice the sheer amount of things present on the outside of the phone. On the front of the device is a precariously placed “home” button, a small mic opening, a front-facing camera, and a proximity sensor (which is oddly visible). On the right of the device is the volume up-down rocker, a spring loaded screen-lock switch, and the dedicated two-stage camera button. On the left of the device — again from top to bottom — is a two-piece plastic flap that covers the microSD card and SIM slots, and just below that is a micro-USB charging port. The bottom of the device contains a centered, 2mm Nokia charging connector. The top of the device has a 3.5mm headphone jack, an HMDI-out port (which is covered by a plastic flap), and the power button. The rear of the N8 has a protrusion to house the 12-megapixel shooter, xenon flash, and Carl Zeiss lens; there is also a small hole at the bottom to attach one of those wrist-strap thingies (which we will never understand or support).

The front and rear housing of the N8 are constructed of metal and the rounded top and bottom sections of the device are constructed from plastic; the device’s radio antennas are located at both the top and bottom.

The device is available in five colors: silver white, dark gray (or grey), orange, blue, and green. If you are one of those people with a discerning eye, you’ll notice that the top and bottom portions of the phone (the rounded parts constructed of plastic) have a slightly different color than the main housing (made of metal). It doesn’t really bother us all that much (re: at all) and we’re glad to see Nokia didn’t go all white iPhone 4 and hold the handset back to perfect the paint.

Battery

The battery life on the N8 is what you’ve come to expect from Nokia — very good. By default, when you power-on the handset, the screen saver is set to display the time. This means that after that 3.5-inch AMOLED screen times out it doesn’t actually shut off; rather it goes dark and displays a nice analog or digital clock. The way the device is shipped you’ll be lucky to get 12 hours from the battery. If you go ahead and disable the screen saver, however, you can nearly triple that. Bottom line: buy a Timex and disable the screen saver.

As we alluded to: with two push email accounts set up on the device and the screen saver off we easily could get 36-hours of battery life out of the device. Obviously, your mileage will vary depending on usage.

Calling

As a long-time iPhone user, I know a thing or two about dropped calls. With all of the empirical knowledge I’ve accumulated over the years, I would go as far as to say I am an expert on dropped calls, especially when on AT&T’s network in the Boston area. Taking into account my past experiences — combined with the fact that I have little to no faith in AT&T’s network — I was shocked to find that I did not once drop a call while testing the N8 with my AT&T SIM. This little, Finnish, herring-loving handset was covalently bonded to Ma’ Bell’s network. It was, to say the least, very impressive. Call quality coming from the set is great — no buzzing or white noise in the background — and the speakerphone is both loud and clear. Say what you will about Nokia handsets, the folks from Finland know how to build a smartphone that earns the latter half of that name.

The handset is also capable of making video calls, a feature that is fairly useless in the U.S., but since Nokia was kind enough to build it in we thought it was worth a mention. You can use the front facing camera to make VoIP video calls using services like Fring in both the U.S. and abroad.

Camera/Video

The camera is by far our favorite part of this device. Is it as simple to use as the shooter on the iPhone or DROID X? No. Does it take amazing pictures? Yes.

From the home screen you can fully-depress the N8’s dedicated shutter button to activate the camera, and the camera UI gives you the pertinent information you need without being too crowded. You have “options”, an on-screen capture button, and the “exit” key along the bottom of the screen when holding the device horizontally; this might be a good time to mention that all the camera’s on screen menus stay in the landscape orientation even when you hold the phone vertically (portrait).

Along the top of the screen you are presented with the current shooting mode — your shooting options are automatic, manual, close-up, portrait, landscape, sport, night, and night portrait — along with how many images the device can store with the memory available, what resolution the camera is set to (the camera can shoot in 12, 9, 3, 1.3, or 0.3 megapixel modes), and a battery meter. The right side of the screen presents you with the option to switch to video-capture mode, flash settings (on, off, automatic, and red-eye reduction), and settings. The settings key, which is a picture of a little wrench, is used to select scene mode, face detect, self timer, color tone, white balance, exposure, ISO, contrast, sharpness and has a shortcut to the photo gallery.

The camera is set to shoot in 9-megapixel mode by default but if we know you, and we think we do, you’re going to go ahead and ratchet that resolution right on up to a full 12 megapixels. With the built-in 16GB of memory in the N8, you can store well over 6,000 12MP images (obviously this will depend on how much else you load onto your N8 in the way of music and programs).

To get the very best images out of your N8 you really do have to utilize the preset modes – again: automatic, manual, close-up, portrait, landscape, sport, night, and night portrait. Leaving the camera in automatic can result in grainy photos when inside or shooting close up, however adjusting the mode to portrait or macro respectively did yield clearly better results. As with most cell phone cameras, and point-and-shoot cameras for that matter, shooting outside is never really an issue due to the abundance of natural light.

When you flip the switch on the camera in order to capture 720p video, you are presented with a similar on-screen setup, though your options are much more toned down. Available video modes are automatic, low light, and night; you can also manually adjust the white balance and color-tone if you so choose. You can record in three video qualities as well: high, TV high quality, or sharing quality. High is a full 720p in the 16:9 aspect ratio, TV high is in the 4:3 aspect ratio, and sharing is setup with a limited time and bitrate for MMS. Both the high and TV high aspect ratios record in MP4 format and the sharing settings records in 3GP.

Software

All right, here is where things start to get a little dicey: Symbian^3. Don’t get us wrong, we like Symbian and we understand its function and utility in the marketplace. But when you bring a full-touchscreen device to the U.S., you’re instantly going to be matched up against the iPhones, EVOs, and Incredibles that already exist in the marketplace. And to be frank, those are fair comparisons to make. The N8 was not birthed into a market absent of other devices, and for that reason it can’t be treated as such. We’re not going to go as far as Gizmodo and declare the device “irrelevant before it launched,” but, to put it mildly, Symbian^3 is a huge disappointment.

Let’s start with some of the things Symbian does right. The device allows for multiple home screens (a la Android), utilizes functional widgets to display pertinent information, and makes accessing phone controls very easy. Just as in Android, swiping left and right on the home screen will take you to a second or third home screen; you can only have three. From there you can add up to six widgets to each screen. Unfortunately, the widgets can’t be resized to display more information and the default size only allows for two or three lines for information to display (e.g. the email widget can only display the first two messages in your inbox). In the upper right and left of the device’s screen are the battery meter and profile selector, respectively. Tapping on the device’s signal meter instantly gives you access to the device’s available connectivity options (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM, Video sharing, etc.), exact battery percentage, alarms and world time, and available WLAN networks. We’ve got a short video demo of this below. We like the quick access to some of the controls that you often have to go diving through the phone to get to.

The HDMI-out on the device (big props to Nokia for including the adapter with the phone) also works really well. When you hook up your N8 to your television via a HDMI cable you actually see the phone’s entire OS right on your screen. Home screen, emails, widgets, whatever… it’s all there. When you play a properly encoded video through the N8, the quality is ridiculously good. We did our viewing on a 42-inch 1080p LG set and the experience was awesome. You will not be disappointed.

Okay, now it’s time to take the gloves off. The real beef we have with the device is how utterly complicated it makes simple tasks. Let’s start out with an easy one: typing. There is no full-QWERTY soft-keyboard layout on the N8 when you hold the phone in portrait mode. Let me repeat that, no QWERTY in portrait. Your options are to use a T9 style predictive text keypad or the real old-school method of just hitting the number key as many times as you need to in order to get your desired result. When we began using the phone, T9 was like a fun trip down memory lane. After about 90 minutes, when we just wanted to get stuff done, it became a huge bottleneck. At 3.5 inches, the phone’s screen might be a bit small for an on-screen keyboard, but we would have at least liked the option to try it. We prefer to use our phones in portrait mode so flipping the phone 90-degrees every time we had some serious typing to do became a nuisance.

We’ve have never really appreciated the whole addressing system in Symbian. Open an email or text message, start typing someone’s name… nothing. You can either hit the “To:” button and be presented with your contacts; try to search and you’re presented with a keyboard that is, for whatever reason, in alphabetical order A-Z. After you finally get your contact in the “To:” line (you better hope you only need to send your message to one persons) you’re presented with the message body. Flip the phone horizontally for a full keyboard. It just seems like work and doesn’t flow.

The one thing the email application does seem to do right is attachments. There is a clearly visible button for it and the options of what you can attach are pretty much wide open… if you ever manage to finish typing your email.

Another huge annoyance is the limited selection of applications for the device. Want a decent — not good, just decent — Twitter client? You better be ready to fork out $10 for Gravity. The only applications we found moderately acceptable were WhatsApp, Google Maps, and Foursquare. Most of the device’s applications don’t utilize notifications in any way, you have to either turn on email notifications (for service like Twitter and Facebook) or just manically open the program to see if you have new data. This isn’t the most efficient way to use a smartphone.

After a week and a half with the device it finally hit us: the overall flow of the device is just very primitive. There isn’t anything really integrated or sexy about how Symbian gets things done. Can you get the device to do what you want? With enough time and effort, yes. Is it attractive when there are other options in the market place? No.

Summary

The N8 really does sadden us. I mean, come on… read that hardware stat sheet again. Slap Maemo or MeeGo on this puppy, call it a work-in-progress, promise frequent updates, and you might — repeat might — have a winner. As is, with Symbian^3 as its OS, the N8 is unacceptable when compared to other available handsets in the States.

We are fairly sure that outside the U.S. this device will be the best-selling Symbian set Nokia’s ever made. Those who are used to (or actually like) the ebb and flow of Symbian will see the device as a true high-end handset and a successor to their current phone. However, as we said before, we’re a U.S.-based blog and our reviews compare like devices, at like price points, that are available in the U.S. market. Taking all that into account, the N8, at $549, is a disappointment. It pains us to see Nokia spend time, money, and talent on a device that we can guarantee will have no appeal to U.S. consumers.

Click on over to our Nokia N8 Gallery!

You can go ahead and pity / envy UK mobile subscribers. If it wasn’t hard enough already, Vodafone has just thrown two more premium handsets into the fray to choose from. If you hit up Vodafone’s official UK website, you can now start placing orders for the gargantuan HTC Desire HD or the solidly-built Nokia N8. The HTC Desire HD is the European equivalent of the Sprint HTC EVO 4G (minus the 4G) found state-side. The phone sports a 4.3-inch WVGA display, runs Froyo out of the box and is powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU. If this handset tickles your fancy, you can pick it up at most Vodafone retail outlets, or optionally online. According to Tech Radar, Vodafone have confirmed the following pricing and plan details:

The HTC Desire HD is available free on £35, 24 month price plans and customers buying the device online will get 900 minutes (compared to 600 offline) unlimited texts and 750MB (500MB offline) of mobile data,” the company added. Buying online will also give you 5MB of European roaming data in your bundle

If HTC is not your cup of tea, the Nokia N8, might be of interest. The N8 is the first Symbian^3 handset to hit the market. The phone has garnered mixed reviews (ours is coming soon), but has gone down well with the Nokia purists. The phone is free when signing up for a £30-a-month two year service agreement. The Nokia N8 is available in lime green exclusively to Vodafone subscribers; we’re still not sure if that’s a good thing.

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Symbian Foundation head Lee Williams has stepped down from his role effective Tuesday, the company said in an official statement. Williams, whose title was Executive Director, has been replaced by former Chief Financial Officer Tim Holbrow. Symbian is majority-owned by Nokia, a company that is no stranger to shakeups at the top — the Finnish manufacturer recently named a new CEO and shuffled several executive roles. Nokia also lost its head of mobile solutions last month when Anssi Vanjoki resigned. Despite all this turmoil and a constant stream of criticism from media, blogs and even users, Nokia’s Symbian OS remains the most popular smartphone operating system in the world by a significant margin. Hit the jump for the Symbian Foundation’s full statement.

The Symbian Foundation is today announcing that Lee M. Williams has stepped down from his position as Executive Director for personal reasons. We thank Lee for his work over the past two years and wish him all the best in his future ventures.

The Board of Directors has appointed Tim Holbrow, formerly the Symbian Foundation’s CFO, to the position of Executive Director with immediate effect. We congratulate Tim and welcome him to his new role.

The gang over at Mobile Review have gotten there grubby little mitts on another unreleased Nokia handset. Back in April, MR gave us the first preview of the Nokia N8, and now, the blog has managed to acquire a phone they are calling the Nokia C7-00. The C7-00 is being described as the “Nokia N8 in a different body with a lower price” by the reviewer. The device has 8 GB of internal memory, 256 MB of RAM, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 3.0, 3.5-inch 640 x 360 AMOLED display, 8 megapixel autofocus camera, 1200 mAh battery, and will be running Symbian^3. The report predicts that the device will be announced in the first quarter of 2011 and will have a price point of €350. We’ve got the C7 and N8 comparison chart ready for you after the break. Looks like a pretty tight little phone, no?

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Yesterday, we saw some high-roller images of the Nokia C7 surface on a Chinese blog, and now today we get to see the C7 on video with some images of the N9 slider phone as an added bonus. The C7 video is in Mandarin, but you get a pretty good glimpse at the handsets size and physical layout. We’ve got the three minute clip ready for your scrutiny after the break. Next on deck is the Nokia N9. The device is seen running an unidentifiable operating system (it could be MeeGo though!), and has that Macbook unibody look and feel thanks to its black-over-silver keyboard. For whatever reason, the device’s software was not detailed, but Chinese website tieba.baidu.com did do the honors of dismantling the handset. Hit the jump, have a look, and let us know what you think.

Read [C7 Video] Read 1, 2 [N9 Images]

Although Nokia hasn’t officially announced the C7 handset, we know it exists. We know it is going to run Symbian^3 and we know it is a full touch-screen device. Now, thanks to Chinese blog zol.com.cn we have some high-quality pictures of the device that reveal a few extra details. The images, which include a nip of Chivas Regal and a Las Vegas keychain, depict the GSM Nokia C7 with a 8 megapixel camera with dual-LED flash, 1200 mAh battery, front-facing camera, 3.5 mm headphone jack, and micro-SD card slot. Hit the read link to check out the full gallery.

[Via Engadget]

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Anssi Vanjoki, the head of Nokia’s new Mobile Solutions unit, sat down with the Wall Street Journal on Thursday to discuss the future of Nokia’s struggling mobile phone business. In the brief but pointed interview, Vanjoki re-confirmed Nokia’s commitment to Symbian and MeeGo, a Linux-based mobile OS  jointly created Nokia and Intel. For the time being, Symbian will remain an integral part of the mobile giant’s handset lineup while MeeGo will form the base for a growing number of upcoming handheld gadgets, including its flagship N-series lineup. Nokia continues to push out handsets, with the Symbian^3-powered N8 slated for launch in Q3, while the first MeeGo devices are expected to land by the end of the year. Nokia shot down any possibility of an Android handset by claiming that it can best create value by focusing on its own hardware and software. Speaking of hardware, Vanjoki assures US consumers that Nokia has not forgotten about the US market and expects to bring additional handsets like the T-Mobile 5230 Neuron stateside. The interview sets the stage for the future of Nokia and addresses many of the weak points singled out by Ricky Cadden in his Farewell to Symbian-Guru post which announced the closing of his popular Symbian blog. Wonder if there is any correlation?

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No real surprise here, but at least it’s now official. Nokia confirmed on Thursday that it will no longer offer Symbian-based handsets its Nseries line-up after the N8 is released. In its place, Nokia will be looking to MeeGo, an open source mash-up of Nokia’s Maemo and Intel’s Moblin. This is a pretty smart move for Nokia’s flagship line, especially considering the horrible tongue lashing dealt to Symbian^3-powered N8 by Russian mobile guru Eldar Murtazin, no?

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