The Nokia N8 is easily one of the most eagerly anticipated devices on the year. It has the new Symbian^3 OS, a 12-megapixel camera, an HDMI port, huge processing and graphical display power and a massively overhauled UI – basically, it’s meant to be pretty damn good.

We were lucky enough to get a pre-production handset to have a play with before the handset gets its official UK release in October. So we had to opportunity to see if the Nokia N8 was really worth all this fuss…

Obviously, there’s been a lot of hype surrounding this handset. It represents the regeneration of the Symbian platform, has oodles of features and technology packed into it and, most importantly, it is Nokia’s latest attempt to steal some of HTC’s and Apple’s thunder.

The Nokia N8, while being something of a departure from Nokia’s usual design, is still very much a ‘Nokia’ device in terms of aesthetics. The handset features a unibody design made from Anodised Aluminium, which gives it a solid, durable, feel in the hand.

Thankfully, though, this hasn’t brought any “weight issues” into play, and the Nokia N8 feels extremely light in the hand for a phone its size. For example, we compared the Nokia N8’s in-hand weight to that of the iPhone 4 and the BlackBerry Bold 9700 and really couldn’t notice any discernable difference.

The Nokia N8 also features a non-removable battery, like the iPhone, and two side slots for both your SIM and microSD cards, which are located on the device’s left side. On the right, there’s a volume rocker, lock switch and the camera activation button. The top of the device features a 3.5mm jack slot, HDMI port and the power button.

Prior to getting the N8 in, we were quite apprehensive about Symbian^3. Yes, we’d read lots of good things about it, but over the years, like many people, we’ve really fallen out of love with Symbian.

So when we booted the device up and saw what Symbian^3 looked like for the first time we were very impressed. Don’t get us wrong, it’s still very much a Symbian OS, both in terms of the way it looks and feels, it’s just received a massive overhaul and has been dragged kicking-and-screaming into the 21st Century with multiple homescreens, widgets and live tiles.

You’ve got three homescreens to play with on the Nokia N8 and these can be customised with apps, widgets, tiles, folders, shortcuts and contacts – practically anything. Doing this, thankfully, is both very simple and intuitive. You simply press down on the screen, then add or remove the widget, app or shortcut – simple.

Each Tile or Widget, take the news ones for example, displays all the information you’ll require at a glance and the animation is literally seamless, each headline melts into the next perfectly. And if that wasn't enough, there are even pictures present on some, which really does add a touch of class to an already impressive looking UI.

In terms of customisation, you can get up to 24 shortcuts on each of the homescreens – so, across the three you can potentially have 72. And with the help of the constantly improving Ovi Store, you really are spoilt for choice with apps, games, tools and widgets.

Unfortunately, adding shortcuts isn’t quite as straightforward as it is on Android. For instance, you have to first add a “Shortcuts” tile – these have four shortcut links in them – then, once the Shortcuts tile has loaded, you edit what shortcut icons appear inside it.

The built in stock Ovi applications, such as Social for example, are also worth a mention as both the Facebook and Twitter clients within it give both Android’s and RIM’s a serious run for their proverbial monies.

There’s also a video and photo editor, built-in user guides and Ovi Music among other things. And when you add the above to the constantly growing Ovi services, like Mail, Maps and Messenger, you’ve got more than enough stuff on board the N8 to keep you entertained for literally hours.

But it’s not just looks that have been improved, the email and text aspects of the Nokia N8 have been vastly rejigged as well, with the implementation of a conversational display for texts and support for multiple email clients (Windows Live, Hotmail, Yahoo, BT and Gmail etc) that you can switch between very easily. There is also a new set of filters such as dates, attachments, names etc, that can be used to search, view and sort through content in your inbox.

Nokia has also stepped up the performance on the Nokia N8 as well, bringing an ARM 11 680MHz processor and a 3D Graphics HW accelerator into the mix. Sure, everyone is banging on about 1GHz and 1.5GHz processors, but once you’ve has a go on the Nokia N8, you’ll see that it has more than enough power for even the most heavy user.

The N8’s onboard browser is also quite a treat as well, featuring both pinch-to-zoom and, that all-important, Flash support. It is also extremely quick and, while Opera Mini was one of the first apps we installed, we only opened it about twice after using the Nokia N8’s stock browser – it literally left Opera in the dirt, both in terms of quality and speed.

Typing, browsing and navigating on the Nokia N8 is superb and Nokia has really outdone itself in this department. There is no lag whatsoever, scrolling through menus and folders is smooth and typing is an absolute breeze. So much so, we’d probably say the Nokia N8 has the best touchscreen we’ve ever used, bar the iPhone, which is really saying something.

The touch keyboard can either be used in portrait, where it is alphanumeric, or in landscape, where it switches to landscape and a full Qwerty. Using both modes is easy enough, thanks to the responsiveness of Nokia’s infinitely improved touchscreen, but we generally found doing things in full Qwerty mode was a little nicer.

All in all though, the Nokia N8’s touchscreen keyboard is absolutely brilliant. We really can’t praise it enough – and our device was a pre-production one as well!

Then there’s the N8’s camera, which at 12-megapixels, is something of a beast – even by today’s high standards. In addition to this, there’s also a Carl Zeiss lens, auto-filter and a Xenon Flash. We took quite a few pictures during testing and we have to say, the Nokia N8’s camera is easily one of the best mobile cameras we’ve ever had the pleasure of using – only the most abhorrent of photography geeks will fail to be impressed by it.

But that’s not all, there’s also the Nokia N8’s ability to shoot video in 720p at 25fps (H.264), which is just about as good as it gets on a mobile device. Granted, the iPhone 4 shoots at 30fps, but can you export videos and pictures via a HDMI port on the iPhone 4 to your TV?

Unfortunately, you can’t. And, when there’s just five frames in it, the difference in quality is hardly noticeable, at least to most average Joes, anyway.

As we said, the N8 has a HDMI port, which means you can export content from the device to a TV. We downloaded a few film trailers during testing and hooked the N8 up to our 32-inch HD TV back home and the results were pretty impressive, especially with the N8’s built-in Dolby Digital Plus sound and the high-end 720p image quality.

Couple this with the fact that the Nokia N8 can potentially carry 48GB of data on board and you’ve got yourself a smartphone that doubles up as a nice external hard drive as well, so you can take your movies with you wherever you go. So long as the receiving TV has HDMI connectivity and you don’t forget the lead, that is.

What about the Nokia N8’s screen? Well, it crams 360x640 pixels into a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen and is probably one of the brightest and most detailed we’ve seen and while it might not have the same level of finesse as the Apple’s retina technology, the Nokia N8 is still certainly up there with the iPhone 4.

Overall, this is an absolutely fantastic smartphone. It has everything you could possibly wish for in bucket loads – camera, tech, features, storage, UI, looks, etc – and is a fine first – and only!? – outing for the new and vastly improved Symbian^3 OS. In short, if you don’t want an iPhone 4, but want a device that can match it in practically every department, the Nokia N8 should be your first port of call.

Nokia, it seems, is finally beginning to move in the right direction.

And, please also note: the device we tested was still a pre-production model. Needless to say, we can not wait to see the finished article.

Recycle your phone: Sell Nokia N8

You can find out more information about the Nokia N8 and other hansets online at www.dialaphone.co.uk