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Well those nice people at WOMWorld/NOKIA sent me a Grey Nokia N8 to play with on Thursday and yesterday my very own Grey Nokia N8 was delivered, so I thought I’d start my series of reviews on the Nokia N8 by just focusing on the actual device looks and initial feel.

The Nokia N8 is about the same size as my HTC Desire, but when you hold each of them the HTC Desire just feels like cheap plastic, the Nokia N8 is a bit heavier, but that anodised metal just feels like its a bit more expensive and built better, i.e. it would last a few drops onto concrete

I wasn’t and still not a great fan of the extruding camera lens on the Nokia N8, plus the phones speakers actually surround the lens extrusion and if you place the N8 on any soft surface you end up muffling the sound. I even had it on the arm of my leather suite and was wondering why it was vibrating, only when I lifted the phone did I realise it was actually ringing. If I place the N8 on a hard surface its not a problem and the sound generated from those speakers is superb and easily bangingly loud enough for a large room.

All the buttons are nicely placed and feel solid, there is nothing about the Nokia N8 I would say would wear away or fall off or break? I’m not about to test the N8 to see if it breaks, but the build of the N8 is just superb and lifting my HTC Desire up after using the N8 just feels weird.

I’ve tested the 12MP Camera on the N8 over the weekend and have a few sample shots on my flickr account HERE, but I was really impressed with firstly the speed of the camera being ready to take shots and also the quality of the camera photos. The Nokia N8 is quicker than my Nikon camera to be ready to take photos from initial request and some of the photos I’ve taken without being an expert or a camera buff look the same or even better. I’ll not need a standalone camera again with the N8, put it that way!

GPS on the Nokia N8 seems very fast as well with a GPS Lock taking seconds once I open OVI Maps or Sports Tracker and I haven’t had it drop out yet, but I’ve only used a few times and really need to give it a good few weeks to say if its still like that in all situations, but I’ve managed to get a GPS Lock in my works office and I’ve not been able to do that with any other Nokia or HTC device!

I’ll review more of the menu layout, applications and usability of the Symbian^3 operating systems in another review, but I’d just like to say Nokia have stayed with the same Symbian S60 look with the Nokia N8, but have reduced the menu layout down a little bit with all settings being in settings and all application in applications. They have 3 homescreens with set sized widgets which are okay, but no where as customisable as the HTC Desire, maybe we need someone to create a LauncherPRO replacement UI for the Nokia N8? There is SPB Shell for the Nokia N8 which I’ll need to test out.

USB To GO on the Nokia N8 is fantastic, connect all your USB Drives, other phones or USB Keyboard/Mouse. Using a mouse with the N8 just makes me laugh, but in a good way, I’m using a mouse with a phone

Overall BUILD wise the Nokia N8 is just class, it feels a rock solid device and very very well built. I like it when you buy something and it looks and feels worth the money you actually paid for it, the N8 is just that. The Nokia N8 has made me feel the £400 I paid for the HTC Desire very much over priced and not worth the money when you look at what you get hardware wise for the money, no offline free maps & navigation, the HTC Desire’s 5MP Camera is actually crap compared with the N8′s and the plastic casing on the HTC Desire feels cheap now. The HTC Desire will win in other places which I’ll go into in my next reviews, but Nokia do build better phones