Mandibela | # 31 | 2010-12-12, 17:45 | Report

In practice, such imaging device doesn't exist. No-one will create it. Newer devices will use different connection methods, and suitable converters will not be made. The device size will not match.
In theory we have world peace and can travel in time.

In short, impossible. If someone were to try the upgrading starting from zero, acquiring all the needed knowledge, tools and parts, we would have take those into consideration when talking about the total cost of the mod. The price will be too high to justify the needed time and work for a private person...
Maybe Nokia have such a device already - At least all the money and man-hours spent in development of N900 would have to be counted in tens of millions in dollars or euro.

No. No software change can get more light into the 5MP sensor N900 has or make more sensitive - which would make better pictures. There are many more physical limits that software will not be able to solve.
The software to control the new imaging device would have to be changed - this would mean the whole pipe from controlling the camera to the final image produced would have to be reprogrammed for 12mpix images. Not going to happen due closed parts of that pipe.
Also, why stop at 12mpix? 50MP digital imaging devices exist, they are available as well, just use those when you start the upgrade process.
You can use your N900 as long as it will stay operational. Just take your pictures with something else, maybe the N8 if you want a 12MP camera. Ask for someone to write a bluetooth daemon for the N8 to transfer the images straight to your N900 after they are shot. That way you could keep fantasizing that the images were actually taken with your modded N900.

tzsm98 | # 32 | 2010-12-12, 18:03 | Report

The N8 is my second phone. It is not a fail. Yes, it does take wonderful photos. It is also quite good at making phone calls, sending messages, e-mail and other smartphone tasks. How long did you use the N8 before you came to this conclusion?

slvr32 | # 33 | 2010-12-23, 22:53 | Report

Hmm, I bought a pair of N8's, intending to give one to my brother, and keep one for myself to play around with Qt/C++ development on Symbian^3.

(I'm also the owner of an n900 and an n810)

So... yikes :/ I unboxed one of the N8's and played around with it for ~ 1 hour this afternoon, and made up my mind that I definitely don't want one, and I'm pretty sure my brother wouldn't really like it either, even as a gift

I'd never used Symbian before, and I was vaguely aware of the love/hate people seem to feel for Symbian... but I'd have to say I'm officially in the 'hate Symbian' camp now -- IMHO, it's not even in the same league as the n900, and as much as I wanted to appreciate the N8 hardware, I'd have to say that Symbian just makes it feel cheap, solely because of the OS.

I really don't mean this as a flame or troll bait, but my honest take on the N8 is... OMG... haaaaaaate it, after being somewhat excited about it for the last couple of weeks, looking forward to unboxing it, etc...

slender | # 34 | 2010-12-23, 22:58 | Report

Sorry to say but I didn´t get _any_ usable information out of your post. How you managed to write that much and still managed to basically say nothing If this was movie review text I would give you one star.

I do not have N8 and have not yet tested it.

m4r0v3r | # 35 | 2010-12-23, 23:11 | Report

Symbian seems so limited I know its locked down but there doesn't seem much to do. Even on the IPhone it's locked down but if you Jail Break it there's quite a bit to do but on this if you hack it there's not much to do. The 12 mega pixel camera and wireless N is nice but that's all it has going for it I think, nothing else seems good about it, I had the Nokia 5530 and I put on the C6 firmware and it was fun I guess but nothing special, and I had a play about with a mates N8 and nothing seemed to stand out, the HDMI port sure looks nice. But I have other ways of playing stuff on my tv

ddiscodave | # 36 | 2010-12-23, 23:19 | Report

thanks so much for the review. on a side note though, which mods and overclocking did you do to "zippy" up your phone?

thanks

slvr32 | # 37 | 2010-12-24, 01:41 | Report

Ok, I wasn't trying to write a review, but I'll try to be more specific

Symbian^3 system tray...

Status messages and Icons seem to be pretty inconsistent, e.g. the wifi 'antenna'? icon is incredibly tiny, while the battery icon is a significantly larger 'outline' of a battery... and the actual battery life is indicated by (larger) bars next to the battery icon, instead of the battery icon being filled in to a particular level? Or maybe the bars on the right are the wifi signal strength... not sure.

Also, after using the N8 for ~ 30 minutes, the web browser and home screens seemed to be stuck in portrait mode, even though I don't recall adjusting any settings to lock the screen into portrait mode. Similar issue with the media player... I saw album art in portrait mode, but never saw landscape mode album art. On the other hand, the virtual keyboard behaved as expected, switching between portrait and landscape, depending on rotation of the screen.

Next, getting at various settings seemed a bit random, e.g. couldn't tell if some were settings controlled by the current phone 'profile' (normal, indoors, meeting, etc...) or if some settings were buried in some of the other global? 'settings' dialogs.

What else? Interesting use of 'back', 'done', 'cancel', and 'exit' in various dialogs... where coming from an N900, you get the urge to just click/touch outside of the active dialog to dismiss a prompt, rather than clicking cancel, back, done, etc... to get out of particular settings.

I also got multiple 'new voicemail' notifications in the hour I was using the N8 (on T-Mobile USA), but I didn't actually have any voicemail, after humoring the notification and actually checking for voicemail multiple times.

Let's see... I can appreciate that the 'conversations' idea and unified inbox on the N8 might be fancy compared to a very basic cell phone, but the N900 does conversations, contacts, and message notifications far better.

Finally, when I found the Settings -> Phone -> Delete and Restore option to wipe the settings and data and restore to factory defaults, there was a nag about dropping my connections before it would do the delete/restore... so I disconnected wifi, and it would keep reconnecting to wifi... and rather than searching for auto-connect options to reset the phone, I decided it was faster to filter the N8 wifi MAC on my wireless router

Again, I wasn't really attempting a thorough review, because my impression of the N8 was more about feelings of mourning and shock... and... can't believe they scrapped Maemo and kept... umm... this?!?!?! WTF?!?!

I suppose I could be persuaded to believe that Symbian^3 is a significant improvement on previous Symbian releases, and maybe people coming from very basic phones will appreciate the N8... but I think N900 owners will be burdened with knowing that Symbian^3 is still pretty weak compared to Maemo5 on the N900.

I also thought about waiting for the E7 to get a physical keyboard, but my feeling on that now is... a physical keyboard will hardly bridge the gap between Symbian^3 and Maemo5... and I'm more likely to get a spare N900 than buy a Symbian^3 device now.

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Last edited by slvr32; 2010-12-29 at 17:13.

BigBadGuber! | # 38 | 2010-12-24, 01:57 | Report

I bought Nokia N8 and it is a fine device, but UI is nowhere as good as Maemo. I just got me a spare N900. I just dont see anything in the near future that will rival it for my use.

leetut | # 39 | 2010-12-24, 02:18 | Report

guys, ive never seen or tried the n8 but i know symbian quite well, and it is awesome at what it does, and what it does is make nokia the biggest mobile manufacturer on the planet,
i went on hoilday to morocco recently and no one had even heard of the n900, but they all had symbian phones, i was quite shocked actually, point is not everyone wants, needs, or has even heard of a smart phone

superhero | # 40 | 2010-12-24, 02:35 | Report

One question... how loud are the phone speakers? is it audible in the streets with busy traffic? if it is, i will buy it now