Nokia are renowned for firing out sturdy, reliable, feature fuelled handsets. However, it has been a while since they took their A-Game to the top of the field. This year, however it’s about to change. The Nokia N8 is taking one for the team and taking Symbian OS, at its finest to the top table for what might be the very last time.

The Nokia N8 is a big fella, but not what you’d call bulky, its size might have something to do with the 3.5” capacitive OLED screen that it’s packing but if you want top end navigation, you’ve got to make a sacrifice or two. We’re also more than happy to overlook the N8’s chunky monkey status as we know that it comes fully loaded with the latest tech. But, before we delve into software stats, we need to take some time with the bodywork. Bold anodised aluminium casing screams sex appeal, it also does a great job of keeping your N8 scratch free. The sleek framework is complemented by the unusual battery cover, the unusual part being that it doesn’t exist, or rather it’s non-removable. The battery is housed within the casing, safely tucked behind a tightly screwed cover. To be honest, we’re happier with it like this – at least there’s no chance of loosing your battery, or coming back from the bar to find your so called mates have hidden your phones life line. The only thing we ask is that the N8 stays freeze free or we’ll be in trouble.

The Nokia N8 boasts all manner of technological goodies. The most important, being new Symbian^3 OS. The entire Symbian interface has been given the once over. It’s still got the same easy to use icon based gridded menu system and widgets galore. It’s easy on the eye with three customisable home screens, each one web-connected, meaning all your social network feeds and RSS widgets get automatically updated, providing you’ve got a working data connection. The task manager has been revised and is a treat to use, far more practical too. Press and hold the home button to pull up large panels holding snapshots of all your open apps, showing exactly what’s going on in each area. Hit the X in the corner and bam, said application is shutdown. Messaging has had a touch-up, texts now appear as a conversation thread – sighs of relief all round yes? Email functionality has also been given a boost, allowing you to switch between multiple mail accounts and apply filters from within the application – bringing it inline with the likes of Outlook and Gmail.

Although there’s a brand new UI to swoon over, we mustn’t forget that the rest of the N8 is pretty darn tasty too. When we’re talking hardware, there’s only one feature we could possibly begin with, the camera. With a whopping 12megapixels, Carl Zeiss lens, autofocus and Zenon Flash, this is one heck of a beast! And that’s before we size up video capability, it can shoot 25 frames per second 720p videos – that’s HD… impressive stuff! The Nokia N8 can also pump videos out via a mini HDMI port. There’s an adaptor in the box too so you can hook your phone up to the TV. Graphic and sound quality are outstanding, a little something to do with the 680MHz processor the N8’s packing which lends itself solely to regular phone features, while graphic and image functions get their very own chip to power them. Whether you get the technical jargon or not, it really doesn’t matter. One quick play with the N8 and you’ll understand exactly what we mean. The Music player has been spruced up to include cover-flow esq imagery when you turn the N8 to landscape mode. Track skipping and menu flicking is some of the quickest action you’ll get on a media player. If it’s music on demand you’re after this one’s for you!

The Nokia N8 is slick, savvy and undeniably sexy. Nokia have finally set Symbian free and unleashed a multimedia monster with it, the only question left now is, are you man enough to tame it?