Today I spent some time with the folks from Nokia South Africa and got to play with the N8. This is the second time I’ve checked out the device, but I’m not allowed to talk about the first.

The N8 is a make-or-break play for Nokia. The Finnish cellphone manufacturer is the dominant mobile device vendor in the world but has been lagging behind in the smartphone market where it has had its ass handed to it by the likes of Apple and BlackBerry. The Nokia N97 was a bit a of a fail, but Nokia has astutely focused on services such as Ovi Maps and its Music Store – and services are key to winning in the smartphone space. That doesn’t mean you can get away with having crappy hardware, however.

The N8 is Nokia’s answer to the iPhone and the plethora of Android devices that are flooding the market. After playing with this device and seeing it in action these are the most important things I think you need to know:

• It’s cheap. And I mean that in a good way. The N8 will go to market in South Africa with a retail price of R5500. That’s almost half what you’ll pay for an iPhone. I can’t actually believe a phone this awesome will be so cheap. Win.
• It’s a little underpowered. The N8 runs a 680MHz ARM processor which is a little slow compared to the 1GHz Qualcomm and Apple A4 processors  in use by its competitors. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing as it provides better battery life, for example. That said, the phone is a little sluggish when using multitouch and doing other more demanding tasks and I think the processor is to blame.
• The battery life rocks (apparently). Real life users of the device claim they can easily get two days of battery life out of the N8. I obviously couldn’t test this in the short time I had with the phone but I have good reason to believe them. Hey, they smiled while they were talking. And the hardware setup of the N8 definitely lends itself to improved battery life.
• It’s open. The best thing about the N8 is how it doesn’t hold back on features. It comes with an adapter that gives it a standard USB port and you can attach cameras and external drives to the N8. Rocking. Another adapter enables it for full HDMI output which will take video and sound from the N8 to a television monitor or projector. I watched a 720p video being played from the N8 on a 42″ LCD monitor and it looked amazing. Imagine using this in a hotel room…
• The camera pwns. The N8 has a 12 megapixel camera that will knock your balls flat (if you have a pair). The only downside is that the camera lens protrudes from the casing a bit. But the xenon flash and radical results are worth it. It also shoots video in 720p. More win.
• Built like a brick shithouse. The scratch-resistent, carved aluminium casing of the N8 is awesome. I like the way it feels and can be used as a weapon. Pity about the camera protrusion.
• It’s a media monster. With support for just about every video and audio codec that matter, the N8 is a media powerhouse. Plus you can plug in an external hard drive and access media from that. Win, win, win.
• Symbian^3 is not fail. Besides for the user interface that could use more intuitiveness, the Symbian^3 operating system is surprisingly good. I’d need longer with the device to fully rate it, but there are vast improvements in responsiveness over S60 and there are less annoying prompts.
• You can touch it. The screen on the N8 finally brings Nokia on par with Apple and Samsung in the touchscreen space. Resolution isn’t quite as good as the iPhone 4 and touch isn’t quite as slick as Samsung’s Super AMOLED displays, but the N8′s screen is good enough. The only feature that doesn’t keep up with the competition is multi-touch. It just isn’t as responsive when pinching in on photos.
• Browser needs work. The N8 has a new browser complete with Flash support. It does a great job with rendering web pages closely to how they would look on a desktop or laptop monitor, but it was pretty slow and chunky at scrolling around this website. What I did like was having full support for Flash containers and players, allowing for web media access on par with full-blown browsers. But performance comes first and I hope Nokia sorts out the sluggishness of the browser before launching the device.
• You can use your old charger(s). The N8 has support for the new standard micro-USB chargers in use by the entire industry apart from Apple, but also has a port for the older Nokia chargers. It’s worth mentioning, I guess.
• And, most importantly: It should be available in SA by end October.

Those are the key takeaways I have after my session with the N8. It’s good to finally see Nokia getting with the programme and the company has a services stack that rocks. I’ll need more time with the N8 to draw conclusions as to how it stacks up against the competition but first impressions are good. I’ll be at Nokia World in London next month and look forward to spending more time around this sexy newcomer.

Check out the official promo video:

Nokia says that their Messaging service is easy to set-up and use with push e-mail services that support up to ten personal e-mail accounts on one device.

Nokia Messaging supports all leading consumer e-mail solutions including Gmail, Windows Live, Hotmail and Yahoo! mail as well as local email services from MWEB, MTN Play and Webmail.

Says Sarah Crowe, head of marketing at Nokia South Africa, “The Nokia Messaging Service is the consumer pillar in Nokia’s overall messaging strategy … also includes Ovi Mail for free emerging e-mail services and Mail for Exchange and IBM Lotus Traveler for corporate e-mail mobilisation. This three-pronged approach positions Nokia well to provide quality messaging solutions to all of our consumers”.

Sounds good – but I don’t see how it plans to compete with other mobile platforms that offer much of the same for free, or as part of a service agreement, ala BlackBerry. There also isn’t much incentive to upgrade from the free beta to the paid-for service. And if you’re on another network, say Vodacom or Cell C, then you can continue to use the beta.

As for ease-of-use and partnering with local email providers – setting up email on a BlackBerry, iPhone or Android device is already a simply process of inserting your username and password. It doesn’t get simpler than that, surely?

As part of its agreement with MTN, Nokia will be offering the Messenger service as a bundle on the Nokia E63 combined with a 10MB data plan. The E63 is pretty sweet, although its S60 operating system is getting seriously long in the tooth. And 10MB? In 2010? Seriously?

The Nokia E63 Messaging bundle will be available at participating MTN stores from the end of April 2010 at an approximate retail price of R119 per month on MTN AnyTime 100.

Nokia has shown strong prospects in the smartphone market with the N900 and the move to make Ovi Maps an entirely free service. I also think the agreement with Intel to co-develope the MeeGo platform is a step in the right direction.

But the Nokia Messenger announcement is underwhelming.

For, like, R20 more than the MTN deal you could get the BlackBerry 8520 on contract, with unlimited connectivity (which is quite a bit more than 10MB), including messaging and simple set-up.

Even at the low-end of the market this service and, more so, the contract from MTN makes no sense. Unless I’m missing something?

Nokia Maps was an early play from the Finnish mobile giant that has put it ahead of the pack when it comes to affordable mapping and navigation on your phone.

The service has been mostly free for some time, offering maps of the world and their updates to Nokia users for gratis. Voice navigation and a few other bits and pieces were levied via subscription, however – but these are now free as part of the re-branded Ovi Maps product announced by Nokia this week.

Lonely Planet and Michelin guides, which are solid gold to travelers, are part of the deal.

It’s an unbeatable proposition, especially for someone who travels perpetually like I do. For one you get the navigation, which includes walking and driving, plus the guides and other features. But, and perhaps more importantly for international travelers, the Nokia map data is actually stored on your mobile, whereas Google Maps streams map data to your device which can be really expensive if you’re roaming.

The zero-rating of the entire service is going to be an expensive step for Nokia, but it won’t be the last drastic move we see from the company as it fights to stay ahead in an increasingly competitive smartphone market.

Nokia knows that battles in the war for mobile domination are fought and won on services; having solid devices is one thing, but it’s services that convert users. Ovi Lifecasting is another project Nokia will soon launch as part of a group of new services that are going to add weight to the company’s proposition.

Ovi Maps is available in the Ovi Store for a number of Nokia models, but isn’t available for all GPS-fitted Nokias yet. The N900, for example, is not yet supported.