The Apple iPhone will always be credited for revolutionizing (as Apple like to say) the touchscreen smartphone industry. But that’s really all it can be credited for. Non touch smartphones were already making great strides as the likes of the Nokia N95 and Nokia N82 (released a few months later) proves. Even after the first generation iPhone, touch screen devices continued to be a miss rather than a hit but in 2010 things changed. The Samsung Galaxy S set the tone for what a smartphone should be like albeit with a lot of controversy. However, the smartphone that made manufacturers question their limits was a smartphone released during the same period as the Galaxy S and that is of course the Nokia N8.
The Nokia N8 had it all. This was the period that we didn’t know or care about what was ticking inside but rather what the phone could do. The screen was a Gorgeous AMOLED panel even though there was no Clear Black Display yet. There was 16GB of internal storage which is mediocre in today’s standards but felt like a terabyte back then. USB on the Go was a big deal and still remains a big deal. FM transmitter was there in case you needed it. There was HDMI out for screen mirroring on a television and there was a lot to share on the big screen due to the “crazy” camera.
The camera unit on the N8 was the main selling point despite all the other great features. There was a massive 12 MP on board with the trusted Carl Zeiss optics and Xenon flash. Low light photography became a reality while daylight photography was extraordinary.
The OS was the major problem for Nokia but at the time they still had developer support and great gaming titles made their way to the phone. The OS, however, still had so much to offer with features such as true multitasking.
The N8 helped manufacturers realize that they could always pack everything into one device and most of the features we enjoy today are just improvements on the Nokia N8 with only a few new features. Actually, there are no new features.
254tech 