Nokia N8 up for official €469 pre-order in Italy, available in September
Nokia's Symbian^3 flagship -- the 3.5-inch N8 with 12 megapixel camera -- just went up for pre-order on Espoo's Italian storefront showing an end of September availability. Now before you get up in arms about the €469 price tag (about $610), remember, the €370 estimated retail price announced was pre tax and pre carrier subsidy. That's just how Europe does things, deal with it. We're not seeing the preorder available elsewhere but we'll update you if that situation changes.
[Thanks, Faisal]
[Thanks, Faisal]

























@HKCally
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/07/22/nokia.q2.loses.ground.to.apple.and.others/
But let's not let "facts" and "information" get in the way of your opinion.
@Lord Grimthorpe
Yes, let's not. We are talking about Smartphones here:
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2010/07/midyear-point-for-nokia-next-in-bloodbath-update-and-they-did-grow-smartphone-market-share-again.html
They also sold more dumbphones, but at a lower clip than market growth, so for all phones together, you are right.
@Lord Grimthorpe
Loser.
People need to understand that this price 469 euros is for a factory unlocked phone. No carrier branding, no carrier lock, just pure freedom. Just the device, nothing else. You can take this phone to pretty much any country in the world (let me say that again, the world) and stick any full-sized SIM card in it and it will work beautifully.
Most phones in the US are not like this, they are locked to carriers and contracts, and you get a "subsidized" price, but you end up paying the full amount of the phone itself over the lifetime of the contract.
You cannot compare the two prices.
why would Nokia go for Android when is going to have Meego ?? Beside Meego sounds better solution anyway its free from google.
They use Symbian3/4 because its fast in 150euro phone and in 500euro phone. Linux need better HW and linux just wont work as over all OS for all smart-phones.
with symbian3 you will get same user experience and apps with 450euro N8 and with C? 200euro phone. Even most of the games will run smooth in half cheaper model.
in europe same thing for 5800...
recomended price was 350Euro I guess... the preorders was high... but I got it when it comes to romania in january 2009 @ about 350Euro
if it stays that high, I'll go with android and its develop some apps for its new flash-AIR :)
the hardware looks nice, but when I see it in video I can't help but feel they blew it
symbian's dead, When's the meego phone coming
If it were available here in our little USA, I would be very tempted. I'm a huge Mac fanboy although I'm soOoo sick of Apple and iPhones with problems.
@Saber
its only not going to be subsidized. it has both att and tmobile 3g bands. with tmobile at least you can buy it unlocked and save lots of money on a cheaper data plan by saying that you have some other non smartphone that you want to add a data plan to. not sure how that works on att with the new plans though.
@lockstockedd
that is not a done deal yet.
It's software ppl. BB and nokia aren't penetrating the consumer market because there is no wow factor to their OS's like android and iOS. The GUI for symbian isn't glossy enough for consumers. Put the N8 next to a droid x or iPhone 4 and ask a regular consumer which one he would like to buy base on looks. 9 out 10 times I bet they won't pick the N8.
@honjoe300
"BB and nokia aren't penetrating the consumer market"
Yeah, #1 and #2 best selling phone makers on earth have no market. Right. Got you. Thanks for that.
@HKCally they are both currently losing their market share to apple, htc and moto in consumer smartphone market. Go look it up...
@honjoe300
I did
"Smartphone Market share up to 41% (40% Q1, 39% Q4 09, 38% Q3 09)"
from their own Q2 report. Here's where you tell me they're lying I suppose.
@HKCally I'll give you that recently they haven't lost much ground but still not much change. Also they and BB are profiting from the growth of smartphone like apple, moto and htc. http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/37649/20100722/nokia-q2-profit-tumbles-40-percent-but-smartphone-market-share-unchanged-shares-up.htm
@honjoe300
No, that is not what Marketshare is. Unit sales are influenced by market size growth, marketshare does not come automagically when the market grows. Nokia has grown share for 4 quarters now.
@honjoe300
I don;t know where you get your numbers from, but worlwide in the last 3 quarters I phone market share has gone from 17% to 14% and Nokia has gone from 38% to 41%. Of course this is for ALL smart phones not just phones over $600. You should be a little more specific in your comments. :)
@Lord Grimthorpe
Thats not true. Again. They gained marketshare in Smartphones, and Ovi is doing 3/4 of a Billion downloads a year, while none of the new devices like the N8, C7, X7, E7 are out yet. Ovi is the 3rd app store in the world, After the Apple one, after GetJar, but before the Market.
Ovi also reports the numbers of apps differently. Their popular models have around 13k items available, total number is larger because of the disparate handsets & OS's & screensizes in their portfolio.
Apple App Store games are better, I will give you that though.
Denmark/Norway the Nokia N8 have been up for preorder for more then 4 weeks now.
At http://www.komplett.dk/k/ki.aspx?sku=598414
The price of 3.695 DKK is 396 Euro or 518 USD without the danish sales tax.
another OVERPRICED P.O.S from NO-HOPE-KIA
@lamester
No hope of ever being less than the world's most popular mobile phone manufacturer by a country mile. No drop at all in sales lately, unlike the fruit company.
expensive
Hope it isn't that much in the U.S. If they can get it under $500 at launch I will be seriously tempted, just for it being an unlocked phone I can use on any GSM carrier. I would use a prepaid T-Mobile SIM and use it as a backup
@TheAmazingWJV
Thanks for the answer, I like it when people back up their opinion, here are my comments:
- Overall, the look is very minimal, the home screen looks cluttered.
I don't agree there. The look is minimal, and you are restricted to use widgets that are a fixed size, but in my mind that makes it look very clean, not cluttered.
- No transition effects
You are wrong there. Check out later video's. There are effects between screens, etc.
- Music shortcut is called Go to Music in the home screen, but it's called Music Player in the applications folder.
Well yes, one is a shortcut, the other is the app. No point in calling the app itself "go to music player". Its that way when you first start it up, after that the widget has music controls.
- The folder structure is completely gone when scrolling through apps to put on the home screen.
I think a list works better than folders here, but I understand your criticism.
- The music app looks very outdated: black background, some thumbnails and white text. Android is getting criticism for a music player that is much better looking.
I think you watched the wrong vid then. The ones I have seen has great looking scrolling in a cover flow manner. Looks way better than anything I have seen on android.
- The context menu is inconsistent, it randomly appears in apps. Or it doesn't. So the Music App doesn't seem to have a back button.
It appears when you long press and gives you the options that a relevant for that screen, if there are any. I would call that smart rather than inconsistent.
- At 1:44 the user opens the clock app, goes back to the home screen and somehow the clock app is running twice: in the background and as a widget on the home screen. Makes no sense to me.
Why does that not make sense. The widget always runs, that's why its a widget, you open up the clock app, then dont exit but leave it running. That is what multitasking does, it lets you choose to let it run or close it.
The first image in the article you mention and the image above both show the music player widget as it is used normally.
It's a Nokia. The phone looks good. The hardware is dependable and you can drop it a thousand time on the floor and it will still work.
I like this n8 phone and it's pretty cool.
This just Shows how bad things are at Nokia,we saw the N8 in April an October to release it,is way to slow at Nokia,we will get loads of Up to Date mobiles from the others, when the N8 will be made available, an will that be good news for Nokia,No, the Sales there were Expecting with the N8 will get lowered an the handset price decline faster,Hope we do Get a Big Shake Up at Nokia because they have lost it Nowdays,an on the Road to Ruin
@LoubieLou
You are, of course, aware that N8 was leaked by someone with close ties to the industry itself, and then Nokia was essentially forced to admit the existence of N8 to public...?
@KeiZka
Don't bother, they wouldn't understand
So much power and so little software to use it. The problem with nokia smartphone is in the ovi store - numbers of devolpers on the Os. Os4 and Android are years haeds...
About the price-power: have you seen this comparision table? N8 is a powerfull monster....
http://www.glbenchmark.com/compare.jsp?benchmark=glpro11&showhide=true&D1=Apple%20iPhone%204&D2=Nokia%20N8&D3=Samsung%20i9000%20Galaxy%20S&D4=Google%20Nexus%20One
@gfxman
The problem has always been with ease of development and app submission for new developers and a specific device/ class of devices to target.
Qt changes that