Well there's a question. And one that I find myself asking having seen a preview video on YouTube that actually shows the device and OS in a rather appealing light http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrRr_p6Au4s

Although published in June 2010 the video does have my interest sparked. If for no other reason that it could represent a fairly important response from Nokia to Apple and Google's partners in crime. For a few years now, these two new upstarts have had the smartphone field mostly to themselves as the notion of smartphone ownership was turned from niche to commodity.

The N8 is visually interesting and appealing with its metallic body, minimal glass (are you listening, Apple?) and adorned with the typical quantity of Nokia buttons. Interesting also the external doorways into the device in which to insert SIM and Flash memory. Little reason to have to pop the covers off, which is good.

Technical specs for the N8 are nothing extraordinary save for, perhaps, the 12 megapixel camera, the largest in a smartphone yet, and the xenon flash. A fast GPU seems to help the pre-production Symbian 3 work quite swiftly on the demo unit in the video.

So, with interest triggered, am I in the market for an N8? The answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is no, not at all. With the new device and even newer OS my strategy would be to wait and see, let the early adopters go through the muck and bullets. For this could very easily turn out to be a latter day Nokia N97, that abortion of a device that Nokia brought out when they saw how very well Apple were doing with their device. Good Lord what a pile of poop the N97 was. I do not know anyone who had one at the time who still does today - they've all taken the jump across to Apple and Google OS devices, and not one looks back.

The N8 and Symbian 3 have yet to prove themselves in the commercial environment, out in the street. Watching the video I was sufficiently impressed to pen this short article. But I have been bitten by Nokia's OS software before and didn't enjoy it then. I have seen nothing originate out of Nokia in the past three years that encourages and enthuses, until perhaps now.

In short, I am looking for the N8 and Symbian 3 to prove themselves - if not at commercial availability then within a few months of that with prompt and effective point releases of the OS to remove any snagging.

I have to wish Nokia well with this new device. But they are coming from a back foot and so the expectations are high.