The Outstanding Nokia E7 And N8 - A Comparison

By Author: Chris Westley
Total Articles: 168
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The Nokia N8 has proven to be a successful and popular handset since its release. Its stablemate, the Nokia E7 was also recently released. On paper, these Symbian^3 powered smartphones appear to be very similar in terms of both hardware and software. But what exactly are the similarities and differences between the two. This article will give an overview of this, and try to understand who each phone is suited to.

Nokia N8
The N8 has proven very popular since its release in October 2010. This is likely due to many people who were able to upgrade their phone at the time but did not want to follow the crowd and get an iPhone. The handset has a spec list which, on initial inspection would indicate that this is a phone with multimedia in mind. Sure, it is capable of handling the usual day to day tasks of making calls, messaging, web browsing and sending emails etc, but there are a number of features which sets this phone apart from the competition. It has the highest resolution camera available on a mobile phone; boasting 12 megapixels with Xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics, it really is the ultimate cameraphone. Additionally, ...
... the Nokia N8 has an HDMI port, meaning the content of the screen can be viewed on a compatible TV. The 3.5 touchscreen on the phone itself is perfect for viewing HD videos and photos with a pixel resolution of 360x 640. This provides perfect clarity and rendering of colours and graphics in conjunction with its 680 MHz processor. Other features which make the Nokia N8 perfect for multimedia enthusiasts are the memory and compatibility with media formats. 16 GB of onboard storage is provided as standard, meaning that there is plenty of potential to store videos, photos, apps and more. Numerous multimedia formats are supported by the N8; videos in DivX, XviD, MP4, H.264, H.363 and WMV are all supported along with the video file formats of MP3, WMA, WAV and eAAC+.

Nokia E7
There are many similarities between the Nokia E7 and the N8. For example the same Symbia^3 operating system runs alongside the same 680 MHz processor. However, the camera is reduced to a still impressive 8 megapixels, and although the same resolution screen is provided, that of the E7 is actually 0.5” larger at 4 inches. The biggest difference though, and the one which many will notice straight away is that the E7 has a slide out QWERTY keyboard. What is the significance of this? Generally, if a smartphone has a physical keyboard, it suggests that the phone is aimed at business users. It allows for much faster text entry for those who need to be able to send emails when out of the office. Of course, it also appeals to those who send a lot of SMS messages or spend a lot of time browsing the web. Other features which make the E7 stand out as a business phone include a document editor which is compatible with Microsoft Office documents in Word, Excel and PowerPoint formats, along with PDF files.

Whilst there are a few similarities, and indeed several differences between the Nokia N8 and the E7, the manufacturer is clearly offering its customers a choice; touchscreen or physical QWERTY keyboard, 12 megapixel camera or 8 etc. What is essentially the same phone in many respects has been tweaked to make two completely different handsets, which appeal to two completely different markets.

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