We showed you what we consider to be the ultimate accessories for the N900 in part 1 and 2. Now it’s the N8’s turn, just in time for the holidays.

Case

Nokia Carrying Case CP-500

Here at The Nokia Guide we usually tend to prefer Nokia cases and it just happens that the N8 is probably the devices for which Nokia made the most amount of cases for. That’s 13 different types of products or 34 unique products in the Cases & Styling category! So there’s plenty to choose from here. But for the Ultimate Accessories for the N8, we will have to go with the CP-500. It’s available in a regular leather or snake leather print. The N8 rests in a plastic shell where all side ports and buttons are accessible, there’s even an opening for the camera. This does mean that camera module and lens are exposed.

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Here’s an extremely great deal just in time for Cyber Monday: Both the Dark Grey and Silver White versions are now available for an extremely of $429 at Amazon. Considering that the N8 is a fairly new device and the great camera, this is one great deal. No coupon codes, just press the buy button! The Lime Green is still stuck at the original $549, but perhaps this is because at the time of writing it appear to be “Temporarily out of stock.”

Question remains, where are those other two colors?

Via: The Mobile Fanatics

Still can’t decide between the N8, C7 or E7? Take a look at our handy comparison, which might make the decision making process a bit easier.

If you’ve looked at that chart closely, you’d notice that the C7 has one feature that both the N8 and E7 lack: Enhanced haptic. What’s strange about this is that it isn’t mentioned in the C7’s specs and the Product Manager didn’t really talk about. It wasn’t until I used the C7, did I notice that there was something different about it compared to the N8. While typing with the virtual QWERTY keyboard I noticed that the haptic feedback was much better.

When I asked the Product Manager, he confirmed that indeed the C7 was using a newer generation of haptic feedback. It’s a bit hard to describe, but it’s as if each single key vibrated separately, instead of just the entire device vibrating to simulate a single key press. It’s as if they placed individual tiny motors beneath each key on screen, which of course is impossible. The general idea behind this on previous devices was to give you some tactile feedback, the sensation that you actually pressed a physical button. On all previous devices like N900, 5800, N97 and even the N8, it did give you feedback, but it wasn’t really like pressing a single, isolated button, it was more like: Oh, the entire phone vibrated.

On the C7 they’ve done an amazing job, creating a very effective and elegant effect that actually feels like pressing a key. The way each key vibrates separately without affecting other areas needs to be felt to be appreciated.  It’s a very sophisticated process with subtleties that takes this to another level and that works beautifully on the C7. What makes this even more surreal is when you realize that your touching a piece of glass and that this is coming from a device that seems impossibly thin. This time Nokia got that just right.

Did you like or noticed the Nokia C7’s enhanced haptic?

You can read up on all the best features of all the newest phones at the Phones 4u website. Check it out for yourself and read up on the latest tech.

The X7 isn’t unknown to us here at The Nokia Guide. We speculated that the device might be launching soon and now we have images showing us what to expect. A clue as to how close it is to launching is the fact that it’s showing up on the OVI Store database, including some apps to go along.

The device is reported to have a 4” screen, 450MB of onboard memory, 245MB of RAM, 8 megapixel camera and speakers on each corner. The device is also reportedly “very loud,” something we’ve come to expect from Xseries (like the X6) and formerly XpressMusic (Like the 5800) devices. The X7 seems to be taking this to another level with not 2, but 4 speakers on each corner! This should give some good competition to devices like the HTC 7 Surround. Nokia has been working with Dolby Laboratories lately, so it wouldn’t surprise us that they’re using some interesting virtual surround sound technology from Dolby.

The specs shouldn’t vary much from the existing C7 and E7 as the products manager reminded us that: “They’re all exactly the same. Same hardware, same chipset, same everything, same clock speed, processor, absolutely everything. In terms of performance, there’s no compromise, they’re all running the same engines.” One area where the X7 might take a different path is in the storage department.We haven’t received any confirmation about this, but we’re hearing that it might be the first 64GB-equipped Nokia device.

Nokia X7-00 with Symbian^3
Uploaded by superchilko. – Discover more science and tech videos.

Via: SlashGear

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A quick search on various online stores reveals something interesting about the Nokia N8’s availability: both Blue and Orange are either not in stock, backordered or not even shown. Everything from Amazon, to JR, Plemix, MobileCityOnline don’t seem to have the Blue or Orange N8. Only regional sites of Nokia.com like NokiaUSA.com are showing these color, although we’re not sure that they actually have these colors in stock.

Is Nokia making these colors an exclusive for Nokia.com? Are these two colors more popular? We doubt it. A poll on Nokia Conversations, indicated that Dark Grey and Silver White are the most popular color, so we’re not sure what’s going on.

Where did you buy your Orange or Blue N8?

When you dial a contact on the N900, it will only display and give you the option to call that number in the Call Log (Dialer). Even if the contact has several other numbers, you can only dial that last number.

You could always exit the Phone dialer (Call Log) and go to Contacts, but there’s a much easier way. In the Phone dialer, select your contact’s last dialed number and a menu will open giving you the option to call only that number and to send an SMS. Now select the contact’s picture to reveal more numbers and details.

The N900 has a single ARM Cortex A8 CPU running at 600Mhz, a stark contrast to today’s modern Android devices running at a whopping 1Ghz. Most Android users will probably take a look at the N900 ‘s spec and dismiss it as running at “just” 600 MHz, but is this really the case?

It’s no secret that the N900 can multi-tasks like no other, capable of showing a live view of all open applications in the Dashboard, Nokia’s multitasking interface for the Maemo OS: that YouTube video playing in the browser will continue playing, showing a live view, even when accessing this so called Dashboard. Something that those newer 1GHZ Android devices simply can’t accomplish.

From the PR1.2 and earlier, the N900 could be considered  moderately fast when it comes to speed, slowing down after some heavy multitasking. With the release of the PR1.3 Update, the N900 received several improvements and features, among them also quite a performance boost. Now it’s not only capable of handling several application at a time, including plenty of eye candy, but it’s now really fast, too. When I thought about it, I realized that it was also running at that same 600MHz clock speed. Even some user that had overclocked their N900 in the range of 800 to 900MHz all the sudden realized that it was speedy at the stock 600MHz!

All of this brings us to the following question: Is a 1 GHz CPU in a mobile device a good idea? Perhaps, mobile handset makers like HTC clearly seems to think so. Is it necessary to run a modern mobile device? Definitely not, with the N900 being the best example of this, running at “just” 600 Mhz. This also clearly shows that it was never about the clock speed, but efficiency. Symbian is famously known for running running quite smooth on lower clocked hardware, now it seems that Maemo and hopefully MeeGo will soon join this group.

When Nokia announced the E7 at Nokia World, they mentioned a “last quarter of 2010”  availability. Today they revealed that the E7 will ship December 2010 and not December 10th 2010 as previously mentioned on the official Nokia Twitter account.

We would have preferred the earlier parts of Q4, but now knowing that it will ship “in December” doesn’t help much, it could ship on the 28th of December! Also add the fact that Nokia devices usually take at least 2 weeks to reach stores from the date they ship, some regions could actually see the E7 in 2011.

The E7 is Nokia’s top-of-the-line business devices replacing models such as the E75, E71 and E72. If you can’t wait for the E7, you could always go for the N8, basically an E7 without QWERTY keyboard, smaller screen and arguably the best camera in the mobile world.

Are you waiting for the E7 or is the N8 the better smartphone?

Nokia creates several  version of a device for specific regions like Asia-Pacific (APAC), USA,  EURO and Middle East and North Africa.  Many times the differences are limited to product codes with slightly different firmware versions and language support.

When it comes to devices for specific region, one thing has persisted and stood out for a long time: APAC devices are known to get many extras. Take the N95 as an example. Not only did it come with a screen protector, but also a case.

While it isn’t as dramatic with the N8, a device which already comes loaded with goodies, there is one small difference. The APAC version of the N8 comes with the Nokia’s SU-36, one of very few stylus that’s designed for capacitive screen.

Nokia does say that the accessory comes in “selected markets only” and the APAC region seems to be only region so far that comes with this.

You could always buy the SU-36 separately, or even the SU-39, but it sure its nice to get these extras in the packages.