Nokia's N8 + Symbian 3 - a sign of better things to come?

Alongside the increasingly bizarre story of the left-in-a-bar prototype iPhone 4G it seems that another prototype has escaped into the wild; this time Nokia's N8 handset, just in time for a Russian website to steal its thunder on launch day, unfortunately.

The  first phone ever to use the new Symbian 3 OS, the N8 should be the start of better things to come for Nokia, which has found itself wallowing in the wake of the ever more market-dominating Apple and RIM. However, after a couple of years spent regrouping - and acquiring Symbian and then spinning it out again - the company is back.

Symbian 3 is expected to do all the things that previous versions did not do, including providing support for multitouch, fast multitasking and allowing customizable home screens. Meanwhile, the N8 itself is a good-looking handset, with a 12MP camera with Xenon flash, 16GB of memory and excellent battery life.  Priced at €370, it's not aimed right at the top of the market, but it has enough features to play with some of the big boys, all the same. The biggest challenge, then, will probably be the lack of popularity of earlier versions of the Symbian OS.

According to Nokia, the N8 will be the first of a suite of smartphones based on Symbian 3 which will be out in 2010; and while it won't drive iPhones off the streets, but it could see a turning point in Nokia's fortunes. It's expected to be released in the Autumn.