Nokia N8: Two Month Wonder

I purchased a Nokia N8 in Australia three days before it was released in Australia through eBay.

I have been heavily using the phone's capabilities ever since I got it. I have to say this device impresses me with its capabilities on a daily basis.

Despite assurances that the release firmware for the N8 was thoroughly tested (to prevent the backlash of the N97 launch firmware), you still have to expect some quirks. I'm used to the usual Nokia quirks such as occasional restarts.

Initially the restarts were relatively "normal".  The N8 shutdown, and then went straight back to the home screen after the Nokia logo displayed. This is common of Nokia handset restarts.

I also had cases where I was getting "SIM Card Errors", but I tracked that down to the age of my SIM.  Replacing that solved that issue.

Then things started to get worse.

When using applications such as Ovi Maps I had about 15 minutes of stability, then the application would stop responding and the phone turned off. My phone exhibited instability that started with occasional soft restarts. It then started to power down and stay off (with three bars of battery left).  Plugging it into the charger and waiting a few moments got it back a couple of times.

Now it is totally dead:

• It won't take any power from either the 2.5mm power jack or the MicroUSB charger. 
• The charging light next to the MicroUSB socket does not illuminate. 
• It won't turn on.  
• The Three Finger Salute does nothing.  
• 8-second Power Button reset does nothing.

I'm in Brisbane, Australia.  I contacted the Nokia Care hotline for Australia, and was assisted by a courteous and professional operator.  She logged information about the phone and the issues, and created a priority service form that was pre-filled with all relevant information.  This was sent to me by email, and all I needed to do was print it out and sign it.

The operator gave me the bad news that the Nokia Care Centre (NCC) for the entire Brisbane areas was not open until the 3rd January 2011.  That's a five day delay to just get the phone assessed.

Based on the feedback in this Nokia Conversations post the fault is known, and the NCCs should know how to fix the issue.  The "engine" (from what I understand, that is Nokia nomenclature for the motherboard) seems to be at fault.  The "isolated issue" seems to be affecting a fair few owners according to the comments on the entry.

When the fault was new, some owners were commenting that while Nokia was "aware of the situation", their phones were not being repaired for about 2 weeks. With a fault as major at this, I hope the course of action will be a direct swap with a new (not refurbished) handset. After two months, this issue has to be a clean-cut case.

If your N8 is still operational then do the following (sooner, rather than later):

* back up everything on your device regularly using Ovi Suite.
* sync your contacts to the Ovi cloud.
* install your apps on a small SDHC card (say 2GB - 4GB). It's removable, and transferable storage.

If your N8 has suffered the same fate as mine, and you have not followed the preceding points, then I'm sorry. :( You will lose all files, settings, contacts photos and music when your phone is either replaced with a new model, or the mainboard is replaced.  When you eventually get your device returned to you, implement the points to save a lot of messing around if the problem re-occurs.

Changing to a SDHC card for your apps will still mean you need to reinstall the app from the Ovi Store (I think the app puts tendrils out into the Mass Storage or phone memory).  The settings files should be reinstated as soon as you reinstall the apps. Note that installing Java games to SDHC doesn't seem to preserve user settings and game progress, so you will not have any luck with these types of apps.

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