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Nokia N8 Symbian Re-Awakened With Passion
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- Published on Mar 16, 2026
- A rebirth of the Nokia N8, the final Symbian OS flagship model lives again in 2026.
Nokia N8 Reborn Custom Firmware
www.avalibeyaz...
MrMobile [Michael Fisher] - When Phones Were Fun - Nokia 808 PureView / Nokia Lumia 1020 (2013)
• When Phones Were Fun -...
Films:
Tron Legacy (2010)
Tron Ares (2025)
Demo:
Silent Demo by NPLI (2012)
Music:
delaythepickup - Tron Legacy - Son of Flynn (Remix)
• Tron Legacy - Son of F...
Dreamstate Logic - Synchronicity
• Dreamstate Logic - Syn...
aDifferentAngle - Aztec Gold
pixabay.com/mu...
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Thank you so much for this wonderful video and your lovely comments, Janus!
I will try my best to answer all questions regarding Reborn CFW.
I hope everyone who uses Reborn CFW likes it; user feedback is very important to me. Please feel free to provide feedback.
Thank you for leading a community to bring this custom firmware to the Nokia N8. Reborn is amazing work.
Elinize sağlık
It's always cool to see hobbyists keeping old tech relevant. Thank you for your hard work!
You are great my friend!
Make it for C7 pleaseee
Nokia N8 and Tron Legacy man i miss those days
I remember that Nokia created Angry Birds Championship in collaboration with Rovio in Baltics to promote this phone. They utilized the HDMI out to display participants game out to TVs in real time. Grand prize was a Nokia N8.
Nobody talks about the xenon flash?
I miss those...
Oh, but yes, me!
'Cos I had in an another tough Nokia's competitor at that time - SONY ERICSSON: Sony Ericsson K800(i) that tho' didn't have a touch screen at that time, it still was a SMART PHONE, ahead of the ones fully fledged came up quite soon in the closer years!
HE - K800 - was endowed with a Xenon Flash - kind of camera flash that none else in the future considered approachable, anymore!
@vla2uvYes sir, i had almost all the Sony K series...and still have them in my collection. It might make a short in the future. Great devices with amazing cameras!
@vla2uv Yes I agree, K800i was my favorite phone after which I went to Android. It's xenon flash was the best!
The camera on the N8 was easily a decade ahead of its time, and it's not an exaggeration.
We are talking about a giant 1/1.8" CMOS sensor with a fast (for the time) f/2.8 lens. That was actually comparable to high-end compact cameras of the time like the Sony DSC-W300 or the Canon Powershot G9. You just didn't get optical zoom with the N8.
It took Apple 12 years to match the N8’s camera sensor size with the iPhone 14.
And the xenon flash, which to this day, no phone has ever been able to lock motion like the N8 does.
True, unmatched photo quality.
And with the disgusting ai processing modern cameras have, it still looks better in good lighting conditions than modern phones.
@Mike-zx1yei really don't get this Symbian hate. Yeah it wasn't the best, especially in touchscreen form, but it was more than serviceable for it's time. A lot of the problems were from a lack of RAM, seen in the difference between n95 and n95 8GB in snappiness or horrible resistive touchscreens that were more suitable for stylus navigation, but were marketed towards finger navigation which mostly sucked.
@Mike-zx1yeare you comparing it to the smartphone ecosystem of today, or the ecosystem of 2008-10? PalmOS was extremely constrained and on life support. WinMo was actually kinda bad. iPhoneOS didn't have much going on. Android was nascent. Symbian had things going on.
Happy New Year everyone :) I'm two hours away from 2026 in my timezone.
When midnight hits, it's party on, all night long!
Happy new year janus. I wish you a great new year! I feeling this year going to be great for some reason
happy new year!
🍾🎆
Hell yeah
Happy new year Janus!
It's good the camera module didn't need encrypted keys to plug it in...
the amount of engineering needed to make thinks obsolet is just enormous..
you don't know that, maybe that was the problem LOL jk
apple, i see what you doing there 😏
Apple moment 💀
@olik136 For them, the cost of those engineering-hours is worth it since it means a new device or close enough is "sold" each time.
I like the idea of giving old tech a second chance in life
I'm one of the developers of Quickoffice and the last version of Adobe Reader (that were usually preinstalled on flagships). Loved the OS, the devices and the times. N8 with Belle was absolutely great.
Thank you for the video ❤
That's awesome. Thank you for your work! Could you tell us how it was coding for sich platforms at the time?
Wow, so good to know 😊
I still have many Symbian apps and cracks saved which I used in around 2006-2010. And still have Quick Office 😊
Thank you for your work! I have quickoffice on my Nokia N73
do you have a github or twitter we can sub ?
I know kids these days say this a lot, but the n8 was "peak".
I still love the Lumias though.
d1 unc, d1🥹
Nah n95 was peak Nokia. Proper smartphone back in 2007. Memories
I still use my 950XL as my offline 'authenticator phone'
@zachhanson6575 I have to disagree on that one. The N8 was the first Symbian device I used that actually felt fast. It looked like they had finally caught up to the competition in terms of software, not just industrial design. Even though I think they were ahead already on that front. Stuff like fit, finish, materials and ergonomics.
In comparison the same year of the n95 the iPhone simply changed the whole industry, even with all the shortcomings of the first generation it looked like sci-fi. The n95 looked like, a phone.
I still remember the experience I had with my N8, and also remembered how N9 held such great potential but was then abandoned in favor for Win 7 Phone. It would be rather interesting to see Meego continued with enough budget of R&D to polish out all the quirks.
I worked on the Tron tie-in app for that phone. It was a huge deal to license the soundtrack for ringtones. But since nobody arranged to actually produce them, guess who cut some loops from the trailer video in Audacity, using cheap office computer speakers…
this is so funny thanks for sharing
Thank you for your service bro
Watching this on my N8 after installing the CFW.
How
@fellow_chiptunerjtube
@ultimate_wormwasn't jtube discontinued?
cfw 😭😭this takes me back to old memories, such nostalgic.
how good youtube on it ?
Great video! Nice to see a OG GPD Win still in use in the wild. Just finishing up a video on it!
right? i had one for a while but sold it shortly after cause i got scared when i heard about the battery issues
my brother had one of those when i grew up, the FM transmitter and HDMI out were used shockingly often to share movies or music he "found somewhere"
I still have my n8 - I did 2 euro trips in 2011 and 2012 with it as the offline GPS, music player and camera. the best phone I ever owned.
what is a 2 euro trip?
@Flajukas went to europe two times
Fantastic video, it's great to see that people are keeping Symbian alive and well. I have a lot of happy memories from the early 2000's, so it's great to see people still enjoying it today.
Just upgraded my N8. There is an icon called “Video review” which points to this video. Congrats!
N8 is invention, first handheld computer. I still have it.
Guess not working anymore with 4G, have a bunch of older phones and nothing works anymore since there shut down 3G
Any symbian users remember the ipmart forum also known as the iphone forum before the Iphone even became a thing?
I do, even though I mostly used eastern-European forums back in the day.. and locally I saved most of the downloaded software on my external drive, cause I still keep my dozens of symbian phones with me.
Nokia N9 was a masterpiece, ahead of its time with meego system
100%!!
Thank You, keep going with such great content.
Cant wait to see more
Thank you, I can't wait to show more videos.
Great video! Good to see there is still support for Symbian! The mobile OS I grew up with!
super thanks i just found my new favorite track! dreamstate logic sounds awesome!
Their music is amazing.
Hora de desempolvar mi amado n8 con Symbian y darle nueva vida. gracias por estos videos
It's a therapy session brother, ur videos are calm & nostalgic.
thank you :)
I love your videos. Thanks for that ! Happy new year !
Absolutely classic. Design master. I want to fix mine again. I really want a new edition of it. Miss metal as well on phones
Exactly! Stupid plasticphones,
4:33 I had a mini heart attack when that blue screen showed up and my phones looked dead! My heart sank for a second. So glad it worked out once you switched to Windows 7
I’ve been waiting for this video! I don’t have this specific phone in my collection yet, but I do have the Nokia 700 and the 808 PureView. I really hope they get a RebornOS port eventually too!
don't think he used Windows 7 the reason for the BSoD was cause he's using Windows 10, though I think Windows 7 would have been the better choice.
@Symbian-Yousef-BDapnr kache ki nokia 808ta ache?
Dude... your voice... I relaxed while watching my favorite mobile phones being talked with so much love and care... Thank you for calmming me down...
I'm glad you chilled out to this video. I like making videos for late night relaxing :)
The sensor in the n8s camera is massive compared to modern phone cameras so even though it is old, it is still incredibly good provided adequate lighting. The sensors used in newer phones are more sensitive though...
I think i might have the worlds biggest stockpile of nokia OLED displays; i have approximately 90 nokia e7-00 oled displays; they're beautiful, i bought them for an electronics project a long time ago.
I really did enjoy watching. Thanks :)
you are welcome :)
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic was the first Nokia phone with no keyboard. It was released in 2008 and was in the Batman film.
I don't think it was a flagship model, still a nice phone though,
Had that phone back than, it was amazing
@doktordok7517 Still have one. I took it out and the battery was a spicy pillow. So I will need to buy a new one.
N900 was also a cool thing. For example, it had a software-controlled radio transmitter.
This has absolutely inspired me to grab a used N8. I really enjoy using old phone cameras to take photos of events, this firmware looks fantastic!
My N8 is actually running in front of me at the moment! 38 hours on the life times, nearly mint condition and running Symbian Anna!
Impact of nokia is sooo huge that even after 16 years we still enjoining the mobile
Another great video. Thank you so much for your work 👏👏👏
you are very welcome :)
All Nokia's are like an alien technology.
Community thank you very much for this
great video,
great phone
great old nokia
R.I.P.
Your videos are just awesome, thank you!
You are very welcome :)
The version of that with the slide out keyboard was my dream phone!
The E7
I have the E7 in my collection of old phones. It's a great phone, but the keypad let it down due to the small size of the buttons, and with large fingers you can easily press two at the same time. I got mine second hand, but it really needs a new housing as it's quite beat up, and needs a new battery.
@simonlathwell It was great when I got my dad's old E7 when I was young, but now with manly man hands it's way too small to operate
I used the E7 until there was just no way to viably use it anymore. I still own it.
i used the e7 throughout 2021 as my phone! it was sweet. then 3g towers shut down. having a modernized symbian os onto it would be awesome
the big problem of the e7 is the charger connector, i have two, buying new and both have the same issue with that square non sense micro usb. the otg adapter have an square tip who not let we use in Other phones but i ended sanding the edges and use until today.
From the very first moments of the video, we knew it was worth the wait.
(Happy New Year)
If Nokia went Android after that, they would have survived the smartphone war.
Instead of that they could have orchestrated the scene since they had the infrastructure and the power to create it. But no they were too arrogant and too scared to try sth new.
They had Maemo (soon to evolve into MeeGo) for 5 years at that point.
Nokia N8 originally was rumored to be actual first flagship to use MeeGo, but instead they stuck to Symbian, probably due to: a still significant userbase, MeeGo still not being completely finished - N9 was after all a bit delayed as well - also it was a way leaner system than a full-fledged Linux like MeeGo was.
Who knows, maybe that was the real "point of no return" - Elop the Undertaker was just only appointed a Nokia CEO at the time of N8's release, but the development took time.
In fact, N8-like prototype (from late 2009) with an early build of MeeGo has surfaced not too long after, in 2012 - the Nokia Colombus RM-581
Meego would already be enough, but if it adopted a scheme similar to HyperOS (Xiaomi) and Oxyenos (OnePlus), installing Android apps and being able to use the Play Store, it would be a sales champion. Meego is incredible, the Nokia N9 is incredible and beautiful even today (HMD inspired the Skyline).😊
Absolutely I loved every second of it 😍
Tron legacy was the first movie I watched on my phone - one of the last that nokias - lumia 920.
Thats 10/10 repairability ifixit score. This is stupid that we ended up with phones glued together
It was always the plan though
not only glued but bs like encrypted parts too
It’s like that because r374rds wanted waterproofing.
Blame tech influencers parroting crap brands wanted them to tell. That's why it's difficult to buy repairable phone with SD card slot and headphone jack in today's market. They took away repairability so you need to buy new phone more often, they took away SD cards so they can sell you cloud storage that's billed monthly, they took away headphone jack so they can sell you either cheap quick to break/quick to get lost adapter or wireless headphones.
When we had the option to reject those practices we embarrassed them with our buying choices.
Amazing! Happy New Year to you Janus! And thank you for sharing your videos with us.
It's crazy how many videos you're making recently, keep going Janus and happy new year!
With occasional shorter videos I can sometimes make more :)
Great video! Very nostalgic experience watching this.
The Wii modding community was really something else. You should have a bit of a dive into that if you're interested.
Happy new year! Your channel is a safe place ❤
Wishing you a Happy New Year!😊❤
*Thanks brother for bringing back nostalgia Tron Legacy and Nokia N8*
This camera is still very nice and decent. 808 Pureview is still very OG 😂
Hi JC - I've been quietly watching your video for some time. Thank you for this. I grew up watching cell phones evolve - and my father being a computer hardware engineer not only had access to new phones of every brand, but also introduced me to cell phone modification at a young age. A reminder of the freedom that technology and its endless possiblities represented in my life. Nokia really should have stayed on top.
What a time to be alive - it really seemed like we were living in a cyberpunk reality. Please don't ever stop what you are doing!!
Happy new year
thanks for your videos! they take me back to my better times of my early 20s. would love you making a video about the Palm Pre and the homebrew community. One of my most favorite phones of all times with its unique quirks when it comes to build quality and OS.
Palm Pre is something I would like to look at. I don't have one yet though.
Oh man, this brings back memories!
My first job ever was at Nokia MEA, we tested the N8 before it was announced, it was impressive at the time.
Unfortunately it was late to market and the iPhone was already out, the smooth iOS interface rendered Symbian obsolete.
Brilliant video as always, Happy New Year!
Symbian was outdated way before that. It had a hard limit on memory which became more and more of a problem. Variants like UIQ barely worked and touch/pen was a shitshow on Symbian. We did projects with Nokia back in the early 2000s, and they were aware at the time, just couldn't fix it.
Nokia made beautiful hardware, also into the Windows days, but unfortunately, Meego/Maemo was too little too late (despite it having great features I'm still missing today, like a unified messenger app that could be extended with other IM protocols; I had Skype, MSN, and text messages in a single app).
@klafbang Oh I know, however iOS was the last nail in the coffin.
I still remember how delusional the marketing team in Nokia was, they were confident the N8 will beat the iPhone by having more features while dismissing the sleek & futuristic iOS.
Oh well, that's in the past now.
thanks dev community and Janus
I stand on the shoulders of giants when making these videos. Thanks to the Reborn dev community for all their work.
And the EXCELLENT Nokia N95/N95 8Gb could ALSO do TV/Big connectivity... I LOVED both the N95 8Gb and the N8! BOTH were great powerhouses at the time! 😏👌🇬🇧
Still have a N95 8Gb but no calles anymore cause of the 3G shutdown
The kind of content that welcomes me on new year ❤️
It's truly a beautiful phone
Thanks for this new year gift!
happy new years from new zealand
we are already in 2026.
always a pleasure to enjoy your content janus
Hey it's us from last year. Happy new year.
@stoff3r cheers brother!
Midnight in Queensland now. Happy new year NZ.
So how is it there? What do you see?
@pupi-pupiit is dark. Except for the fireworks down at the pub.
5:26 Dreamstate Logic ❤
Awesome video Janus! 🙌🙏
There is so much good music from Dreamstate Logic
@JanusCycleI can't agree more! 🥰🥰🥰
6:10 Wow. If those are the icons Nokia designed for the Bell Symbian, they were far ahead of their time in terms of design.
Yup that's the default Nokia Belle icons.
Thank you, very interesting.
I wonder if what happened to the internals of that black N8 was that the original owner mistakenly inserted the micro SD card into the sim slot, it got stuck, and then they proceeded to take it out by force with some sort of improvised tool which damaged the slot AND the camera module simply because it was right behind it. It would explain how the internals got damaged without any obvious impact on the outside, they literally stuck something inside it through the opening. I say this because I've heard of similar f*ck ups from people back before the modern removable trays were the norm.
Also, it's a neat detail how you often use relatively obscure computers to flash devices, nice seeing an original GPD Win being used as a proper PC instead of being treated as nothing more than a gaming device :)
Happy new year!
Happy new year man! I love your contents! Cheers from Italy
What a device! Don't have N8 in my collection yet, but have the E7 which is somewhat similar in spirit, tho more business oriented than multimedia. Also got X7 and Oro which are from this period. Been eyeing it for a long time, but never knew N8 was in Tron Legacy! Now it's next in line to get for sure!
What an awesome video, i especially loved the outro sequence, stunning!
we need this for the E7
yes please I'll try it out for sure if so
You just bought me so many memories. I just love your style. Keep it up. You gained a fan.
thanks for making content for the real nerds. happy new year
1:45 I still have this N95 😂
Oh, I didn't even think I would have so much nostalgia about this phone. The best conversations were done, and the best music was heard using that one.
Gotta buy one now and definitely spend some time tinkering with it.
Thanks for the good memories!
now i want an N8
Wow, wow. Thanks for a nostalgic reminder man.
I still have an old Nokia N9
Nokia’s best phone hands down IMO. MeeGo was an amazing OS
What can you do with it in 2026?
You can't use it for much in 2026 as most services got shut down ages ago. The Internet Browser also barely works anymore. But maybe you could install a custom Firmware on it
@fab555trainspottingandmoregotcha. Probably still works as a nice offline mp3 player or a ”retro” photography device?
Wonderful machine, still good now. Still works perfectly
Perfect video i was looking for 😊 , i have my dads nokia N8 which im gonna restore 🎉
Hope to see next video on Nokia N91. ;) As always nice retro video on N8.
Nokia...just awesome
This is now one of my favorite of your videos. Thank you again for making my day.
i have nokia e7-00 it's looking fantastic
Thanks for the video. Nice work as always!
Mine is C7! I miss those phones even if the camera is fixed-focused 😭 I really miss small phones indeed.
My current phone is SE 2 and I don’t think I’m gonna change new phone soon - all is too big
Magnificent work thank you so much ,and one more thing you have now a very very private phone not the junky ones we have now .
Love the light, love the voice, love the narrative, love the atmosphere the videos on this channel have. Very high quality content.
thank you :)
Great guys! You did a great job and made us really happy. Keep going!
That's so cool. Now if the N8 would somehow be able to connect to the 4G/5G network.
Happy new year! This phone is amazing and the quality of this video really matches it. The ending was superb, cinematic and emotional! Impressed as always!
Happy New Year! I'm pleased you enjoyed this one :)
wish they cme back on market again
OMG! I love this 😍 Brings back so many memories. I had so much fun and a little frustration with Symbian phones in the past. So nice to see the N8 with a newer modern rom.
Just imagine another ambitious company would have obtained Nokia back then.
What an amazing video, thank you so much. When I was a teenager, I always dreamed of having this phone. Maybe I’ll buy one this year
After Anna and Belle, they were also going to release Carla and Donna, but those eventually turned out to be just decimal upgrades for Belle. Sucks.
Thank you so much for the video, I shall try to install this Reborn mod in my N8 (which has Delight mod installed years ago).
Will this work for other phone versions? I am very interested for E7-00 and E6
I am planning to release Reborn for E7 when I get a real device...