Nokia N8 review: The 12 MP Xenon-flash cameraphone that set the imaging bar in 2010.
The cameraphone king of 2010.
Nokia N8 had the best phone camera of its day — a 12 MP sensor with a true Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics, in an anodised aluminium body. Symbian^3 was already losing the platform war, but as an imaging device the N8 was untouchable.
01Display
56/10056/100 trails the 62-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2010.
02Camera
70/100At 70/100 this is one of the strongest camera showings among flagship phones of 2010 — 16 points above the cohort average.
03Performance
46/10046/100 trails the 49-point cohort average for flagship phones of 2010.
04Battery
54/10054/100 — right at the average for flagship phones of 2010.
05Build
70/100At 70/100 this is one of the strongest build showings among flagship phones of 2010 — 12 points above the cohort average.
06Value
54/100At 54/100 this is one of the strongest value showings among flagship phones of 2010 — 9 points above the cohort average.
- 12 MP Xenon camera with a huge 1/1.83" sensor — best of its era.
- Anodised aluminium unibody.
- HDMI-out for TV.
- AMOLED + microSD.
- Symbian^3 felt dated against iOS/Android.
- nHD resolution.
- 680 MHz single-core was slow.
- Mono speaker.
How this review is built: every section score, spec row and comparison on this page comes from SpecEagle's tracked catalogue — scores weight measured specs against the 50-phone cohort of flagship devices released around the same time. We don't publish invented lab anecdotes. Spot an error? .