Nokia N8 Gets Second Preview: Far More Positive

After the Nokia N8's first – pretty appalling – preview we've been hoping for a second opinion on whether the eye-catching megapixel-toting smartphone really does spectacularly miss the mark.  Happily Tweakers have filled that niche; the Netherlands site have put together a multi-page preview of the N8, and their conclusion is a more positive one than we've heard before.

They're not 100-percent convinced by Symbian^3 – to be honest, we'd be suspicious if they were – but they give it kudos for being open-source.  It's still described as feeling "old fashioned", though an improvement on what you'd find on the Nokia N97, but the hardware gets two thumbs-up.

Build quality – on what we're presuming is another pre-production prototype – is very high, and sound quality better than what other smartphones manage, particularly when it comes to bass.  Screen responsiveness is another area of improvement over early Nokia devices, and though they reckon it's not quite on a par with the iPhone or HTC Desire, it's apparently better than the touchscreen on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10.

Tweakers aren't sure that the market is crying out for a high-resolution camera-phone, but based on the response we're seeing on Twitter we'd disagree on that front.  In fact, going by the photo samples and video samples, imaging looks to be the N8's key strength.

[via MyNokiaBlog]