Sorry for bumping up an old thread.
Finally, i picked up a dark grey color Nokia N8!
I managed to procure an October 2011 manufactured (in Korea) phone locally. It costed me 21.7k, got a free Sennheiser HD218 headphone with it. I could have gone the online shopping way and saved a few bucks, but i haven't had a pleasant experience with yebhi.com and have heard of the callous attitude of Letsbuy.com. Flipkart doesn't sell the N8 anymore, so i decided to shell out a little more and buy the phone locally.
I've been using this phone for about 3-4 days now, so here goes my first impressions.
Symbian Anna OS: Coming from the S60v5, i had no difficulty with the Anna. It feels like an updated version of the S60v5. I have found all the apps i was looking for. I've not yet encountered any lags/freeze/crashes.
The one thing i don't like in the Anna is the keyboard. It is cramped in the normal alpha keypad mode. I haven't gotten used to it yet. The portrait keyboard is no joy either. I keep hitting the keyboard menu button a lot. It makes texting a chore. The 5800XM is much much better here.
Battery life: Although i haven't thoroughly tested the battery life, it has enough juice to last for 2 days atleast with my kind of usage (20-30 texts, 20-25 mins calls, 30-35 mins of music in loudspeaker mode, ~1 hour browsing everyday). Happy with the battery life so far.
Build quality and looks: The phone is gorgeous to look at. My whole family is a fan of its looks. And the build quality is top notch. No complaints whatsoever in this department.
Display and the purple tint problem?: The display is gorgeous. I haven't noticed any purple tint issue. I'm not sure if this is still a problem that Nokia has to fix, but my phone does not appear to have the purple tint problem.
The "Cool" features:
USB OTG: Haven't used this feature yet. But i'm sure it'll come handy some day.
FM Transmitter: I'm mighty impressed with this feature. The transmitted sound is pretty good and surprisingly, it doesn't drain too much of the battery as i had expected it to do so.
I haven't yet tested the mighty camera nor the music over the earphone. The loudspeaker sounds meek compared to the 5800XM. But, the quality of the audio is excellent.
Overall, am i happy with the phone? Yes. It doesn't have a 1GHz processor. It doesn't run Android OS. It doesn't have access to a billion apps. But the thing is, it doesn't NEED a 1GHz processor. The Symbian maybe a dead platform, but it has got the basics right. The UI is not an eye-candy when compared to what some of the Androids have to offer, but it does what it is supposed to do, without any frills. And i have managed to get all the apps which i need.
The biggest reason for me to go for the N8 over the likes of the Desire S and Galaxy S Plus is the overall build quality. The N8 feels solid, performance-wise, it is no slouch, multimedia is topped off with excellent audio quality, great camera. The battery life is good. It has innovative features like USB OTG, FM transmitter etc. I don't think i was looking for anything more in a mobile phone.