Nokia N8 Symbian ^3 Anna hands on

Andrea Amey  Friday 09 September 2011

Lots of you have no doubt played with a Nokia N8 since it was launched last year, but it’s easy to dismiss due to the uninspiring operating system. Nokia have since updated Symbian ^3 in the form of Anna, but is it any good? Read on to find out what a difference it’s made.

Once Anna has installed on the Nokia N8, the first thing you’ll notice is just how different it looks. It’s still definitely Nokia and Symbian, and it still feels like an operating system from five years ago in comparison to Android, but it’s a definite step forward.

The screens now move at the same time as your finger – with Nokia removing the built-in lag that saw home screens only switch after you’d removed your finger. Start swiping, and the screen moves instantly – as with rivals.

It’s not a revolution, but it makes the Nokia N8 a lot nicer to use. Open the menus, and you’ll be met with all new icons. Again, the option buttons at the bottom of the display give away the Symbian lineage, but the icons are a lot nicer to look at, and the design is more contemporary.

One of the biggest updates that Anna brings with it – and in a bid to solve one of the largest complaints about the OS – is a proper QWERTY keypad when used in portrait mode.

In theory, you’ll no longer have to stick to the alpha-numeric keypad found on other touchscreen Nokias, or switch it to landscape to get the full keyboard. Unfortunately, it’s not the result we were hoping for, and it lags a long way behind rivals or even other Nokia keyboards such as Swype.

The problem lies in the size of the onscreen buttons – they’re absolutely tiny, and it seems like Nokia wasted lots of space making sure the buttons aren’t too close to each other. We’d have preferred to get larger buttons – even if there’s no gap between them, as with other keyboards, as the current setup makes typing mistakes all too easy.

This wouldn’t be too bad if Nokia had implemented text correction that could compete with Apple or Android smartphones, but we found far too many inconsistencies, and we actually prefer using the original alpha-numeric keypad. At least Nokia has now changed the layout slightly, so you’ll also be able to see the box you’re typing in – and not just the keypad.

We’ll be looking at more updates that Anna has to offer in the next week or two, and at how it stacks up against Android and iOS. In the meantime, it’s a definite step forward for the Nokia N8 – and even though it’s far from perfect – the stunning camera and excellent build quality on the N8 will still win over plenty of fans.