So bearing that in mind, the Internet is full of material on the Nokia N8, one of Nokia's major launches for this year. We wish them all the best in doing their final touches until its release later this year, third quarter to be exact, but we do hope that this does not turn into another N97 fiasco.

Last year, many of us were hyped up and full of excitement about the Nokia N97 which had been officially announced in November 2008, even though information and images about it had been leaked before. In Lebanon, like in most parts of the world, there was a pre-ordering campaign whereby people started placing their orders for the N97 ahead of its release date. And yet when the phone started shipping, despite the great anticipation for it, it received the worst reviews and publicity in a very long time.

The Nokia N97 was expensive to start with. Release price: USD 699. Users shrugged that because the phone was expected to deliver. It did not. With the phone’s initial firmware, memory was always low and applications could not load. People reported the phone freezing continuously and bugs were occurring all over the place. There was a physical error with the design of the camera cover that was scratching the lens and also causing some of the flash to reflect in the picture. The users had all seen the Nokia N97 videos on YouTube and elsewhere, and were expecting the same speed in menu transitions and application performances; none of that happened, as the phone was tediously slow. User experience was very unfriendly as people could not scroll kinetically highlighting this issue.  And then came the first software update, followed by update v2.0 which was released months after the phone was released. Almost the whole blogosphere agreed that v2.0 of the N97 should have been the firmware installed when the phone was released.

This all comes while the phone’s launch was actually delayed months after months. So one was left to wonder what went wrong. Worse yet, many of the issues were fixed in what was adopted later as a replacement to the N97, the N97 mini. The mini performed better, had a much larger phone memory, had a much more responsive touch screen and was less bulkier in design.

Not too many people know the answer yet, and more importantly is the fact that we do not want to linger over the negative. In interviews made with bloggers, managers from Nokia acknowledged that the N97’s release was a disaster and they promised to have learned from their mistakes. And here comes the objective of this article.

The Nokia N8 is looking good. Physically it looks very much like an iPhone or a Nexus One, but with different colors. We are told the material from which this phone is built is different, but still the phone in the pictures really looks a lot like a lot of the phones out there. Nokia is already at a disadvantage.

To make up for that the phone’s performance has to be spectacular. A bitter sweet issue here is that the N8 will be the first phone running the Symbian^3 operating system. Is that a good thing? Only time will tell. If Symbian^3 would have been poorly tested and will be full of bugs at the N8’s release, then most likely Nokia are going to be losing a large fan base with another major disappointment. If Symbian^3 performs as people expect and as demos are showing, then that would restore some of the lost credibility back. Also, the phone as a whole both hardware and software cannot fail to deliver. Speed and accuracy are pivotal for Nokia’s success. The phone’s release is moving slightly from the music world, and in true N-series fashion, this phone is being loaded with high multimedia features such as HD playing and recording and Dolby surround, in addition to HDMI support. These features are awesome, but Nokia has to remember that when people buy phones they do not buy them for their 12MP cameras or their sound playing. These are the cream on top of the cake. These will make the people favor this phone over others. But if the phone is slow or it freezes a lot and crashes, then the HD playback will not mean much as the user will start seeing the phone as a source of annoyance. Therefore, the way the internal memory of the phone and how the processes are going to be running in it along with the information architecture are critical. One of the advantages of the Symbian^3 operating system is that it was built from scratch, and thus it should run in a better way than let’s say Symbian 60 V5!

In all cases, NokiaLB has already discussed the N8 and we will continue to do so, until we officially get our hands on one and review it properly. We hope it will be a positive review, as we are confident that Nokia are doing their best to exceed our expectations with its release. In the meanwhile, we will be bringing you any other information we may get until that date.