By TIMOTHY MAKOKHA
Nokia has upped the stakes in the smartphone market in the country.
Recently launched in Nairobi, the N8 is powered by Symbian^3, the latest edition of the world’s most used smartphone software, which introduces major advances, including support for gestures such as multi-touch, flick scrolling and pinch-zoom.
Symbian^3 also raises the bar in performance by delivering greater memory management allowing more applications to run in parallel for a faster multi-tasking experience.
Available in Nokia distributor and retail outlets as well as Safaricom retail centres, the Nokia N8 is retailing Sh42,000.
"With the N8, we bring a familiar, faster and more intuitive user-experience to the world’s most popular smartphone platform," says Ken Oyolla, General Manager for Nokia East and Southern Africa.
The Nokia N8 introduces a 12-megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and a large sensor that rivals those found in compact digital cameras.
The Nokia N8 offers the ability to make HD-quality videos and edit them with an intuitive built-in editing suite.
Doubling as a portable entertainment centre, people can enjoy HD quality video with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound by plugging into their home theatre system.
It enables access to Web TV services that deliver programmes, news and entertainment from channels like CNN, E! Entertainment, Paramount and National Geographic.
On N8, one can update their status, share location and photos, and view live feeds from Facebook and Twitter in a single app directly on the home screen.
Like other Nokia smartphones, the Nokia N8 comes with Ovi Maps walk and drive navigation.
Nokia N8 is the firm’s first device to be integrated with Qt, a software development that simplifies the development and makes it possible to build applications once and deploy across Symbian and other software platforms.
