Nokia's N86 8MP now shipping worldwide

by Darren Murph posted Jun 10th 2009 at 9:02AM

Just under two months. That's how long it took Nokia's N86 8MP to go from FCC to store shelves here in America, as the cats in Espoo have just announced to the world that the aforementioned cellphone is now shipping globally. In case you've forgotten, this 8 megapixel slider touts variable aperture, a mechanical shutter and automatic motion blur reduction, not to mention 8GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot. There's no official mention of price, and as of right now, the phone's not even listed on Nokia's American e-store; still, based on early estimates, we'd say you best break out the bank just in case.

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia, Symbian, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA

Tags: n86, N86 8MP, N868mp, nokia, nokia n86, NokiaN86, now shipping, NowShipping, ovi, ovi share, ovi store, OviShare, OviStore, ship, shipping, ships, smartphone, symbian, symbian s60, SymbianS60

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Lowest Ranked

mark palmos @ Jun 10th 2009 10:12AM

SYMBIAN?? My god, when are Nokia going to give that up as a bit of old history!
whew.
Nice looking phone, but the OS is soooo yesterday.

Highly Ranked

ALBGunner04 @ Jun 10th 2009 12:39PM

Please enlighten me on how the most open mobile operating system with so many possibilities that competitor operating systems can't accomplish is "so yesterday".

You got no argument, Symbian is the biggest OS, and one of the most versatile for developing.

Highly Ranked

wako @ Jun 10th 2009 2:26PM

fail

Highest Ranked

KO @ Jun 10th 2009 9:51AM

Based on what, Mark?

Admitted, Symbian has been running for long, and has some legacy issues. But if you're comparing it to e.g. iPhone OS, Symbian is more feature-rich and has less limitations at the moment. How about running apps in the background, for example?

It's not just Nokia who still rely on Symbian - Samsung have put out some great looking Symbian phones as well as Sony Ericsson and LG, and there are more to come. But if you're looking for an alternative to Symbian, Nokia's also building its own Linux-based Maemo OS, which is currently in use in its Internet Tablet line.

it would be silly to put down a great phone just because personally you have the idea that Symbian somehow sucks. It's the most popular smartphone OS in the world. iPhone OS and Palm's new webOS, as great as they are in their own ways, still matter quite little outside the US, and there are a LOT of smartphone users outside the US.

Neutral

Jon @ Jun 11th 2009 8:59AM

Being able to multi-task does not by itself make the OS any good. Most people don't seem to understand that the iphone does support multitasking, just not of third party apps. I can run my ipod app for music in the background, surf the web, and check email etc with no problem on the iphone. I can browse just about any feature on the iphone while I talk on the phone, with no interruption to the phone call of course. For the most part, that's all the multitasking I need.

True multitasking would be nice on the iphone, but most of the time it's not a necessity for me. Symbian is obviously huge in Europe, but it's slowly but surely becoming irrelevant in the US. Blackberry, Palm (hopefully), Apple, Google, and Microsoft are the OS players over here

Highest Ranked

smith @ Jun 10th 2009 10:39AM

what u talking about SYMBIAN ROCKS!!

Highly Ranked

jhon @ Jun 10th 2009 9:27PM

symbian is the best......

Highly Ranked

rigg419 @ Jun 11th 2009 1:09AM

both are true. S60 kicks ass, is straightforward and easy to use. It also has a pretty antiquated look and feel. It's like running Windows 2000 in a Windows 7 world; It's fine, but the newer stuff is a lot slicker.

Instead of releasing 8MP camera phones (sorry, "mobile computers") Nokia should instead focus on trying to make premium Android devices and/or maybe develop a proprietary/open source modern platform like WebOS/Android/iPhone.

Their hardware adapted for a modern mobile OS would be awesome.

Highly Ranked

Tor Slettnes @ Jun 11th 2009 4:48AM

I am guessing you have not used a very recent Symbian phone (e.g. S60 v3, feature pack 2, as found in the N85, N96..) IMO there is nothing "antiquated" about it (bar from the fact that this particular version of the OS does not cater to the "touch screen" fad - though S60v5 does).

As far as switching OS: First, there is the issue of the thousands of third party applications that have been written for Symbian/S60 - spanning a much wider variety in terms of capabilities and utility than what's available for e.g. the iPhone (iFart, anyone?). Why give up on this ecosystem, unless it serves a purpose?

Second, Nokia ARE actually coming out with some Linux-based touch screen phones in 2010 - starting with the the N900 for T-Mobile. It builds on their Maemo platform (as seen in their internet tablets, 770, N800, N810) - and so there are already quite a set of third party applications available. In fact, since Maemo is based on Debian GNU/Linux, there are plenty of folks that have replaced various aspects of the OS (incl. the UI) with "standard" Linux equivalents (e.g. Gnome).

Android is not really a Smartphone platform, since it does not have a native application platform. As a matter of fact, it does not do multitasking (certainly not to the degree that Symbian does) -- but then again, that's also true for the iPhone (which for some reason is also called a "smartphone" - go figure).

Neutral

Eric @ Jun 11th 2009 1:25AM

Why does this phone look more interesting to me than the N97?

Low Ranked

Jon @ Jun 11th 2009 9:03AM

Wow, who knew Symbian had fanboys! Just look at the high ranks above, the 7 of you must really stick together as a team!!

Seriously though, the Symbian OS in the US is on death row. It's completely irrelevant in this country, which is obviously a huge market. Nokia should be fine, they make great products, but they need a new OS and I'm sure they are very well aware of that fact. The iphone is not perfect, nor any other OS, but they are light years ahead of symbian as far as UI goes.

Highest Ranked

KO @ Jun 11th 2009 11:11AM

Jon,
the mobile market in the US is definitely big and has a lot of significance. With overall mobile penetration still lower in the US than in Europe and many markets in Asia, there is room to grow in the US, and that's a good thing for manufactures and operators alike of course. However, China and India both have over three times the population of the US and hold even more significance than the US, as well as the European Union still - even though it's a mature market, its size exceeds the US 1.5 times.

Keep in mind that it's not only Nokia that makes Symbian devices. Samsung (e.g. Omnia HD), LG and SonyEricsson all make Symbian devices, incl. touch devices. From the sound of your comments it really seems to me like you're actually talking about Symbian S40, and probably the earlier versions of it, not S60 which is the "bigger", higher end/smartphone OS version of Symbian, and its most recent versions. Why don't you actually test a recent Symbian device - doesn't have to be Nokia's - before you comment on it?

It may well be that Symbian has lost a lot of its relevance in the US, but likewise, iPhone failed in India, where Nokia has a 68% market share, and is still not available in China. Nokia has made a lot of mistakes in the North American market, and probably also made a choice of not concentrating so much on the US, up until very recently, and instead grabbing bigger and bigger market share everywhere else. The faith of Symbian in the US is definitely not simply due to the OS's own abilities, but rather the American consumers' limited perception of it, and the overexcitement around the iPhone, Pre, and Android, to some extent - they're all American companies, btw. If you've placed Symbian in "the death row" in the US in your mind, fine, but I doesn't necessarily mean that it should be there. And the wireless market in the US definitely can't be seen as the most advanced in the world, although not the worst either.

The legacy issues Symbian may have aside, S60 is a much more open, versatile OS than Apple's carefully limited iPhone OS at the moment. I like the iPhone for a lot of reasons, I'm excited about the Pre, and even WinMo is doing better and better these days - and that's all great - but I wouldn't dismiss Symbian, as it's got a lot of things going for it and Nokia devices in particular are of solid quality. Too bad the American market has been so neglected by them.

I don't how it should automatically make me, or anybody else, a "Symbian fanboy", if I say something in its defense? Likewise, I don't know why it would automatically make someone else an "iPhone fanboy" everytime they say something good about the iPhone? I'm known for saying good things, and bad things, about both.

Neutral

Derrick @ Jun 15th 2009 3:18PM

Eric,

The N86 8MP has a better camera and an OLED screen which for now makes it a slightly better feature set than the N96 IMO. I still like the N96 better and am waiting for the lower priced, no tax, free shipping release, which unfortunately has been pushed back from June 25 to June 30th... =/

If you want the traditional "tried and true", non-touchscreen Symbian, this is probably the way to go. My only complaint would be the QVGA resolution screen, which despite the brilliance of the OLED, is on its way to being obsolete, especially for top-of-the-line multimedia/smartphones...