Nokia N8 Release Date Pushed Back To October

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A lot of people are excited about the Nokia N8. It’s got that great Nokia hardware, and it’s got the new Symbian^3 that (hopefully) will be a big improvement over older versions. But, those people will have to wait. Nokia has confirmed earlier rumors, and their next flagship smartphone is delayed until October.

Last week, rumors spurred by analyst comments pinned the Nokia N8 as being delayed by one month. Nokia’s announcement of the device back at the CTIA 2010 trade show had it pinned for a worldwide September release. With some mobile carriers and retailers listing the device early, it looked like it may actually come out early, but we knew better to expect that, right?

Nokia says they’re delaying the phone to make “some final amends”. That doesn’t instill confidence (but remember the old Nintendo adage - a late video game is late once. A bad video game is bad forever). Last week at their Nokia World conference/press summit in London, Nokia said that the pre-order demand for the the Nokia N8 is the highest they’ve seen ever.

Remember that Nokia’s smartphone chief Anssi Vanjoki is leaving the company. He’s given notice, thought he won’t be standing down for another six months. Speculation has Vanjoki leaving because he doesn’t agree with the CEO changes at the top of the company, but the father of the N8 leaving just before the N8 comes out isn’t a good sign, it is?

Still, there’s a lot to be excited about the N8. Symbian^3 certainly looks a lot better than previous versions of the mobile operating system, and in past interviews, Vanjoki said that they’ll have better “software quality testing” for this device. Also, Nokia is promising it’ll have the best camera in a mobile phone ever (which is quite a challenge, if you’ve seen the iPhone 4′s camera in action).

Still, Nokia hasn’t had an exciting smartphone product in some time (apologizes to the N900, which was a fine device but didn’t get the tech blog pundits excited). Maybe a one-month delay is just what the N8 needed.