The Difference Between the Nokia N8 and C7: Which One Wins?

The Difference Between the Nokia N8 and C7: Which One Wins?
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With the advent of smartphones from various smartphone manufacturing companies, Nokia, the leader among cell phone manufacturing companies, did not want to be left out. Although the N-series and the E-series from Nokia were good enough, they were not craved by customers; something that the iPhone and Android were successful in achieving. Eventually, Nokia came up with a range of smartphones to catch up in the race that it was losing.

Nokia released smartphones like the C7 and the N8 running on the new and upgraded Symbian operating system. The Nokia N8 caught so much attention in the smartphone market that it is, to this day, one of the best Nokia phones ever. The N8 boasts a really impressive 12 MP camera! Even many commercial cameras start from 10+ MP and so the N8’s camera is a bit special, you have to use it to see how good it really is.

Image Credit: press.nokia.com

Design and Features

Design: The Nokia N8 and the Nokia C7 are touch screen phones. The dimensions of the N8 are 113.5 x 59 x 12.9 mm and it weighs 135 grams. The dimensions of the C7 are 117.3 x 56.8 x 10.5 mm and it weighs 130 grams. The C7 is 1 mm slimmer than the N8, but with the features that the N8 offers the size difference hardly matters.

The C7 is curvy and its ergonomics are good and, with dedicated keys where they should be, it fits really well in your hand. The N8, however, takes a little getting used to, but the placement of the dedicated keys allows you to use its features with your eyes closed.

Features: Both the Nokia N8 and C7 are power packed with features. Accelerometer sensor, Ovi Music, Ovi Store, proximity sensor, themes, on demand web TV, Ovi Maps 3.0, Flight mode, 2 microphones, ambient light sensor, compass (magnetometer sensor), and Firmware Over the Internet (FOTI) are some of the common features offered by both the N8 and C7.

The N8 wins in the category of features because it offers TV out via HDMI while the C7 offers TV out with composite.

For people who are addicted to sending text messages back and forth, worry no more! Swype is available on the Ovi store (which is more or less like the App Store for iPhone and iPad). Swype lets you to glide your fingers over the touch screen of the phone and lets you type lengthy text messages with ease.

The difference between the Nokia N8 and C7 is discussed in more detail on the next page.

Camera, UI and Performance

Camera: The Nokia N8’s 12 MP camera is really impressive. I have used it personally and I was impressed by the results. I tested the camera by moving my hand really fast and then captured the image. The image was very good and there was so little blur that you would hardly notice. The images are crisp and the quality matches that of other cameras in its range. If you want to take close up images or take images of fast moving objects (please don’t have race cars in your mind) the N8 will not disappoint you.

The Nokia C7’s 8MP camera is good but doesn’t have the Carl Zeiss lens that is offered by the N8. Although you can capture good quality images of your favorite moments, you can’t carelessly snap an image and still expect it to be good (something that you can do with the N8).

Face detection, geo tagging, video recording at 25 FPS and 3x zoom, dual LED flash, auto exposure, etc. are some of the features common to the cameras of both cell phones.

Nokia C7

In the camera section, the clear winner is the Nokia N8’s camera and it will perform very nicely in the hands of an amateur photographer.

User Interface: Nokia has always been known for its easy to navigate user interface. The N8 and the C7 are no exceptions. Since both of them run on the Symbian^3 operating system, they sport similar user interfaces.

Performance: Both the N8 and C7 are armed with 680 MHZ ARM 11 single core processors, 2D/3D graphics HW accelerators with OpenVG1.1 and OpenGL ES 2.0 support. Although this doesn’t match the best configuration of the best smartphone out there, it is good enough to run many applications simultaneously without lagging in performance. In spite of running many applications simultaneously, the power management is really good.

Image Credit: press.nokia.com

Difference Between Nokia N8 and C7: Final Verdict

The Nokia N8 is the clear winner. With power packed features and an impressive camera, the N8 is the obvious winner against the C7. The price of the N8 is really high in Asian countries and in countries like the USA it will depend on what plan you prefer to use. The C7 is much cheaper than the N8 but if you want to settle for the C7, it is better to go for other options. The N8 is truly worth its money (given its features and the 12 MP camera) but the C7 is a little costly (depends on which country you live in) for what it has got to offer when there are better phones in its range.

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