Many of you reading this review will be thinking, “why are you reviewing a two year old phone.” So just to reassure you…yes I know the Nokia N8 first came out in September 2010. I originally contacted Nokia with the intent of getting a N9 to review. But I accidentally, through some strange mental breakdown, asked for the N8. And thus here I am reviewing a two year old phone. Yet at the same time we can use this as a learning experience to show how fast the electronics industry is evolving. So lets take a look at a phone that only two years ago was Nokia’s pride and joy.

Just from the pictures alone one can tell instantly that Nokia did not skimp on the hardware. The phone’s body is crafted out of a rugged aluminum construction. It feels very well balanced and sturdy in hand. The back has a rather large bump that houses the phone’s Carl Zeiss lens and a Xenon flash. The one downside of this protrusion on the back is when you slide the phone across a surface it makes a screeching noise. But this is not a deal breaker especially because the housing holds a pretty great camera.

One other complaint with the hardware is the location of the menu button. It is located low in the left bottom corner. Going from the touch screen to the button feels very unnatural. Also there were a few times I forgot how to access the menu because the button is so low down on the phone. One may get used to this after much use, but it still seems unnatural.

Inside the N8 has a 680MHz ARM 11 processing core, a Broadcom GPU and 256 MB. This is a pretty weak showing by today’s standards but it once again goes to show how fast the phone market is evolving. The phone also has the standard selection of Wifi, Bluetooth, GPS, a 1200mAh battery, accelerometer, magnetometer, light/proximity sensors, HDMI out, 16GB of built-in storage, and a MicroSD slot for adding up to 32GB more.

For a display the phone has a 3.5-inch AMOLED screen with a 640 x 360 resolution. This is not the best pixel density and doesn’t even come close to the screens we have today. But at the time of the phone’s release it was average.

One of the more interesting inclusions in the N8 is its built in FM transmitter. At first thought this made me feel very nostalgic of those times in the car trying to find a station with no static. But after I tried to use the N8 for this purpose, I was quite disappointed. Setting the station was painless, but the sound quality was seriously lacking.

The N8 never seemed to lack in anyway when it came to performance. It was able to play HD content with no problem and never slowed down when things got graphically intense. One of the reasons for this is Nokia’s inclusion of a separate Broadcom GPU alongside its ARM processor. The GPU takes over for most video playback and running of apps.

Considering the specs in the phone it performs surprisingly well. The N8 can accomplish the tasks it was designed for with no problem.

The N8 was the first phone on the market to run Symbian^3. This is a Symbian skin running on top of MeeGo. All I can say about the software is its dreadful. The menus are often confusing and difficult to navigate. At times I had trouble getting where I wanted to go. Even considering the phone’s age this software experience is still abysmal.

At the time of this phone’s release the iPhone was out as was Android. This phone shows just how unprepared Nokia was to compete with modern smart phones. It also shows how much Nokia has done to turn themselves around with Windows Phone devices such as the Lumia 800. The software on this phone is so bad that it is surprising people even bought this phone. The good news is that the future looks bright for Nokia…now they have put things like Symbian to sleep.

When it comes to this phone’s camera it is the complete opposite of the software. The N8′s 1/1.83-inch (12 megapixel) sensor, Carl Zeiss autofocus lens, mechanical shutter, and Xenon flash are good even by today’s standards. The shutter button is really good and makes it almost feel like you are using a real point and shoot. The auto focus and exposure setting are really advanced for a smartphone and help one to take the best picture possible.

The camera also performs very well in low light situations. The three sample pictures below were taken in rooms with the lights off. So thus they were only lit by the camera’s flash. That is impressive for any camera.

The N8 uses the Ovi Store for apps. The app selection in the Ovi Store is very primitive. Its lacking any big names and the overall selection is very limited. It does have a few apps you would recognize like Angry Birds, Google Maps, and Foursquare. But it is lacking many important apps like Twitter, Facebook, Ect.  At the time of this phone’s release the Apple App store had hundreds of thousands on apps. This is another example of why it was good for Nokia to leave Symbian and go to the Windows Phone OS.

Overall this phone has an excellent camera and beautiful hardware. But these good things do not outweigh the bad. The phone’s OS is very confusing and enraging to use. Its Ovi App Store’s selection is pitiful. So thus I can not recommend this phone. Those seeking Nokia’s sleek design and great cameras should instead get the Lumia 900 or Lumia 800. Both of these phone’s run Windows Phone yet still have many of the hardware elements on this phone.

Review Score
Hardware and Design
Durable build quality with matte aluminum construction.
Performance
Zippy in running Symbian OS. Can play 720 video with no problem.
Cameras
Great camera. Works amazing in low light.
Software
Horrible software. Almost impossible to use.
Eco System
Horrible app selection

Overall
Good camera. Good hardware. Horrible OS. Horrible app selection.

It seems like 2011 was the year of the “Android Tablet”, not by sales, but by the vast amount of Android tablets that were released. All these tablets had one goal to be better than the iPad. This goal may not have been accomplished yet, but the Kindle Fire 7” Android Tablet from Amazon has come the closest to doing this was without a doubt. The Fire has been off to a strong start from the beginning.  After the holiday season Amazon said in a statement, “2011 was the best holiday ever for the Kindle family as customers purchased millions of Kindle Fires…” So could this be the one, the tablet to beat the all too powerful and successful iPad? Read on to find out!

Remember the BlackBerry PlayBook? Well the Amazon Kindle Fire uses essentially the exact same hardware as the PlayBook. If you aren’t familiar with the BlackBerry PlayBook then let me describe it to you. It has a very nice glass front measuring 7.5X4.7” featuring a 7” IPS screen with a 1024X600 resolution display. The back has a rubbery feeling like on previous E-Ink Kindles. The bottom of the device features a power button, micro USB connector and a 3.5mm headphone jack. While the top simply has two speakers. All this weighs in at 14.6 oz. Which is lighter than the iPad and much easier to hold in one hand. This device looks nice and has a pretty classy, expensive feel even though this device is relatively cheap. For the price the tablet’s hardware is defenantly nice.

What is it missing? Well funny you should ask. In fact is is missing a camera, a SD Card slot, and a microphone, but for only $200 the lack of these features is acceptable. Overall I like the look of this tablet. It had a sturdy feel to it and an expensive looking design. The back and front seemed to be prone to smudges, but what would you expect? In the end, for $200 the hardware is no slouch.

Inside the Fire’s got a T.I. OMAP 4 Dual Core 1GHz processor. In my Quadrant benchmark tests the Fire scored 1588. In using it for the past few weeks the Fire has proven to be zippy, though Amazon’s custom software sometimes feels slow. I had no issues with downloads, or doing what all you guys want a tablet for anyway BIG ANGRY BIRDS!

In terms of battery life I tested at just about what Amazon promises 7.5-7.7 hours of battery life. Which isn’t bad for a 7” tablet, but it still is no iPad.

One of the great things about the Kindle Fire is that like the iPad, just about anyone can pick it up and use it without having to be very tech savvy. The custom interface made by Amazon that runs on top of Android Gingerbread has almost no similarities to Android whatsoever. The home screen allows you to place favorites and also shows you a carousel for all of your recently used apps and what not. On the top of the home page you will notice 7 tabs: Newsstand, Books, Music, Video, Docs, Apps, and Web (Amazon’s new Silk Browser). These tabs give you quick access to all of your content and make it easy to navigate to whereever you want to go. On the top there is a pretty stock Android task bar and settings options. On the bottom of almost every app are Amazon’s software buttons for home, back, menu, and search.

The best part about Amazon’s custom UI is unlike Gingerbread and Honeycomb there is no learning curve, so you can just pick up and go making it a win for younger and older people. So you can be confident in giving the Fire as a gift to those age groups.

Although the hardware and software support multi-tasking there is no simple or easy way to do it. Sure you can play music while you read email, but switching between them is no simple task.

The UI is simple, powerful, yet it can also be a bit slow and buggy sometimes. Amazon has fixed this somewhat with a recent software update, though I am still experiencing some sluggishness. The custom Amazon skin works well and makes it a simple yet powerful UI experience.

Amazon has taken the Apple approach when it comes to apps. They have made their own closed garden App Store where you can get apps and games. The Fire does not allow direct access to Google’s standard App Market. Though there are some ways around this (need I say more?). Still Amazon has a pretty good selection of a couple thousand apps, but it is still nothing like the hundreds of thousands available in the Android Market.

That being said the Fire makes up for the lack of apps with a whole ecosystem of content. It is no surprise that a tablet released by Amazon also comes with Kindle books, Amazon MP3/Cloud player, and Amazon Video on Demand. The Fire has been positioned by Amazon to be a device for consumption. In fact Amazon is so confident you will buy tons of content from the Fire that they are selling the device below cost.

So lets just say that the Fire does not disappoint when it comes to content. The Fire lets you stream thousands of movies with a subscription to Amazon Prime. Also you can buy or rent new releases and TV shows. Reading on the Fire is also enjoyable. Full access to the Kindle book store as well as color magazines and newspapers are only a click away from the home screen.

The inclusion of Amazon’s content in the Kindle Fire only help to further bolster its position against the iPad. Some would even argue that the Amazon content makes the Fire the best Android tablet hands down.

To wrap up, The Kindle Fire is a great full-featured tablet for a low price point of only $199. It can do whatever most people want a tablet to do and if you are in the market for a 7” tablet this is definitely the way to go. Also the inclusion of Amazon’s ecosystem (Books, Movies, TV Shows) makes it quite competitive.

Review Score
Hardware and Design
Nice build, feels expensive, but is missing some features and the power button placement on the bottom can be annoying.
Performance
Fast and responsive. Good battery life.
Software
Could be better if Amazon fixed bugs. Freezes sometimes. Simple to use. No learning curve.
Ecosystem
Great selection of ebooks, movies, tvshows, music, and some apps.

Overall
Best Android tablet at this price. Great value for what you get.

There has been a lot of talk lately of what is the perfect screen size for a tablet.  Companies have released 5 inch tablets (Galaxy Note), 10 inch tablets (iPad), and almost every size in between. The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is yet another screen size to add to the pile. Samsung’s new 8.9 inch tablet sells for $449 and packs all the tablet features we have come to know and love. Is it the perfect size tablet? Read on to find out.

If you are familiar with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 then you will notice that the 8.9 uses the same design language. Apart from a few small tweaks the 8.9 is essentially its larger brother shrunk down. The 8.9 has a smooth plastic backing with a faux brushed metal texture. It feels very sturdy and pleasing in the hand. Despite the plastic construction this tablet is anything but flimsy. Storage capacity is either 16 or 32GB depending on the model and is not expandable due to the lack of a microSD slot. The tablet also sports a front facing 2 megapixel camera with a rear facing 3 megapixel camera complete with LED flash. For your audio enjoyment that tablet features two stereo speakers on either side of Samsung’s proprietary dock connector.

The 8.9 weighs in at a light 0.99 pounds and is only 0.34 inches thick. The hardware feels a lot more balanced than a larger 10 inch tablet and thus sits in the hand very comfortably. The display is a 16:9 PLS TFT LCD screen and has a resolution of 1,280 x 800 pixels. The screen may be smaller than the  Galaxy Tab 10.1′s but the  pixel density is slightly greater. Overall the screen does not disappoint. The panel is bright and reproduces colors spectacularly. Viewing angles are very impressive also. So to sum things up Samsung has not skimped on the display.

For internals the 8.9 has a Nvidia Tegra 2 dual-core 1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM. Quadrant benchmark software gave it a score of 2,289 (see graphic below for comparison of score to other devices). In my real world use the 8.9 has proven its self to be zippy and responsive. Apps open quickly and screen transitions never lag or slow down.

This smaller tablet does pretty well when it comes to battery life. Its 6,100mAh battery, managed a 9 hours and 15 minutes in the Technolon battery test (which consists of playing a video on loop at medium screen brightness). This may be less than a larger 10 inch tablet, but also only so much battery can fit into a smaller form factor.

The cameras are not fantastic, but they get the job done. The front facing camera is very useful for video chatting in the gTalk app. As for the rear facing camera. Look at the photos below to see the quality for yourself.

The software on this device splits into two different categories. The first is Honeycomb 3.1, which is Google’s tablet OS. The seconds is Samsung’s added enhancements called Touchwiz. Read below as both are detailed.

Android Honeycomb was Google’s first try at making a tablet OS. It is not the most recent edition as Google has since released Android Ice Cream Sandwich. Ice Cream Sandwich fixes many of the issues that exist in Honeycomb and should greatly improve the software experience. Samsung has released statements saying that its whole Galaxy Tab line will be receiving updates to the newer version. But for now we can only review what is on the device, Honeycomb.

Overall Honeycomb can have a bit of a learning curve. Those unfamiliar with Android can often have trouble learning how to use it. Its hard edges and neon light makes it feel very different from competing tablet operating systems like Apple’s iOS.

But there are some positives to Honeycomb. Multitasking in Honeycomb is very easy with the slide out app list that can be accessed anywhere in the OS. Honeycomb also makes it easy to add and re-size widgets on the home screen. Compared with cheaper tablets running Android Gingerbread, Honeycomb is much more powerful. Also the new additions that will be coming when the tablet is updated to Ice Cream Sandwich will only help to further improve the software.

Samsung has added a few enhancements in their Touchwiz layer that bring features that Google did not include in Honeycomb. All of these features can be assessed by swiping up from the bottom. This reveals a small app panel with a task killer, calendar, world clock, pen memo sheet, and calculator. The most useful of all of these is the task killer. Honeycomb makes stopping running tasks difficult. So Samsung was right in adding a simpler way to accomplish this. Google has acknowledged this problem and made it easier to kill running tasks in Ice Cream Sandwich. Overall Touchwiz in no way detracts from the tablet experience and even adds to it.

In conclusion the 8.9 is a very good Android tablet. It has great build quality, is very thin, and has a beautiful display. If you are looking for something a little more portable than a 10 inch tablet, this tablet will fit your needs. I personally enjoyed this smaller form factor, due to its increased portability. I feel that 8.9 could be the perfect size for a tablet. But if you do prefer a 10 inch tablet, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is only $50 more. So thus the decision lies with you.

Review Score
Hardware and Design
Sturdy build quality with metal brushed plastic. Thin and light design. Bright screen with great viewing angles.
Performance
Fast and responsive when navigating Android. Streams video flawlessly. Good battery life.
Cameras
Average cameras. Front facing useful for video chatting.
Software
Honeycomb has a few issues. Most will be fixed when tablet gets updated to Android 4.0. Samsung's addition of Touchwiz does not detract from the experience.

Overall
A great Android tablet if you want a smaller more portable form factor.

Hey guys, as you know iOS 5 was released to the public today, but the gold master has been out for about a week. I have had the gold master since in was released and have had a week to play around with it on an iPad 2 and iPod Touch. Here’s Whats New:

One of the big features of iOS 5 is the notification center. This is where all your notifications are stored and can easily be accessed by swiping down on the screen (something familiar to Android Users). Any notifications that you chose can be showed here. On an iPhone or iPod Touch you will see a live weather and stocks widget included in the notification center.

One of the other big features in iOS5 is the ability to do simple photo editing right in the native photo app on your iOS device. You can also now push the volume up button as a shutter button to take a photo. In addition, if you double tap the home button on the lock screen a camera button appears giving you quick access to the camera in iOS5.

Newsstand gives you a place to store all of your newspapers and magazines in one easy place the automatically updates the new issues. It also includes a store to quickly buy magazines and newspapers. So far the magazine selections are pretty good, but it is pretty lacking when it comes to newspapers. Hopefully, Apple will be able to make some killer deals to make this app great!

While Apple claims Safari is faster, I wasn’t really able to see a difference in speed, but one thing you will notice on the iPad is the new interface. Safari for iPad is now just like Safari on a computer: You get tabbed browsing, along with reader. Reader for all iOS5 users allows you to read an article in a pop-up window that removes all of the ads and clutter. This makes reading articles great and you can easily adjust the font size. Reading list allows you to add an article to a list on your iPad and easily find it on your iPhone or the other way around.

Of course, iOS5 has some big iCloud features. Wifi Sync, where you can sync your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch without needing to plug in. A free .me account: now if you own an iOS5 machine you get a free .me account with 5GB of storage. PC Free: No need to set-up this device without needing to connect to a computer. Music and Apps: All of your music and apps are stored in the cloud, so you can dowload in all onto your device.

Overall, this software update is a great addition to the already advanced iOS platform. I think these new features will be well received with the Apple faithful and may even draw in some new customers.

One of the first things you notice with the new layout is that (just like advertised) Facebook makes your life into a digital timeline. This timeline is supposed to feel a lot like a scrapbook of one’s life.

Once the new layout is activated Facebook tells you to set your cover photo. Keeping with Facebook’s scrapbook analogy this is basically the cover of your scrapbook. But at the same time it is not your profile picture. This seems kind of strange to me as I don’t see the reason for having two main photos that define my existence on Facebook. I would rather have the cover photo just be my profile picture shown in a larger area. But anyway back to the review.

There are a few downsides to this new layout in my opinion. The first is that suddenly everything you ever have done on Facebook shows up on your profile. Before one would have to click ‘older posts’ at the bottom continuously to get to this same content. It seems to me that this makes it a lot easier for people to ‘Facebook stalk’ someone. There were a lot of posts that I had long forgot about that suddenly were on my main profile.

Another downside is that there are many blank spots in this timeline. This is because Facebook has only been around for about a decade now and we have not chronicled our whole lives there. But Facebook seems to be expecting that we are going to upload things like baby pictures and those third grade field trips to fill our digital ‘scrapbook’. The scary thought is that for all those younger Facebookers it would be quite easy for them to have their whole lives chronicled on Facebook. That is if Facebook is still around in 20 years.

Overall though I like the new redesign it feels very natural and personal. It’s just that I don’t know if I want to share my personal scrapbook with the world. But I bet that the Facebook addicts that love sharing their thoughts and pictures will fall in love with Facebook again. Every time Facebook changes something there is an outcry from the user base but it always quiets down. It seems that people are not willing to give up Facebook just because of redesigns. In a few months we will all just except the timeline to be what Facebook is.

The first thing you’ll notice if your a Windows faithful is the totally new UI. This UI is known as “metro” and is very similar to the interface you would find on Windows Phone 7. At first this UI is going to seem totally foreign and weird, but after playing with it for a while you will notice it is not that different from the Windows you know and love. On the bottom left of the picture that is added you will notice there is an icon that looks like a Windows 7 desktop. This is because, while it is a Windows 7 desktop.

This Windows 7 like interface feels just the same as running Windows 7, but the main difference is once you click the start button you are taken back to the metro interface. This interface includes live tile images for things like weather, news, and twitter. This metro interface is the big change in the Windows 8 UI.

Windows 8 is trying to take the Apple style approach of adding apps into an app store so you can conveniently access them. So far, in the developers preview the app store is not available, but Microsoft does include some preinstalled apps to play around with in this build. There are some games installed and essential apps like weather, news, twitter, a Facebook client, and stocks. All these apps from the metro interface run in full screen including the new build of Internet Explorer which is tested to be as fast as Google’s Chrome Browser.

The full screen apps add to the experience of this new OS and really allows you to immerse yourself in the content. The apps seem to run well and are very snappy. (Apps Above)

I have been running the developers build of Windows 8 on an HP Mini 210-1000. To this point it doesn’t seem like a beta at all! I have encountered no issues running it and it seems like a final release. Having said that, the performance on an Intel Atom processor is incredible! It is smooth and very snappy. It makes it feel like an Intel Core i7 processor. This just might be able to save the slowly fading netbook market.

Having used this OS for about two weeks or so, its no secrete it is very tablet optimized. Windows 8 seems almost made from the ground up specifically for tablets. This makes the performance seem a little odd at first, but I think most will be able to adjust to the interface on a PC.

Microsoft has taken an interesting approach with Windows 8 trying to make an OS for all devices; tablets, smartphones, and PC’s. It will be interesting to see how people respond to this one operating system approach.

Overall my experience has been very good with this OS. I think it is defiantly a big improvement for which Microsoft desperately needed to respond to the involving Apple market. This is a great contender to take on Mac OSX Lion and I think most people will be satisfied with this upgrade.