Nokia is finally debuting its new OS, Symbian^3, and the lucky handset to get it will be the long-rumored Nokia N8. That's just the start for this feature-heavy phone, which also owns the honor of being the manufacturer's first 12 megapixel phone and the first one to integrate the company's Qt development platform.

What changes can we expect from Symbian^3? According to Nokia, their new smartphone OS will introduce touch gestures, such as multi-touch, pinch-to-zoom and flick scrolling, as well as offer multiple, customizable homescreens. It will also have a new 2D and 3D graphics architecture, which has been designed to take advantage of built-in hardware-based acceleration bound to show up in their upcoming releases, starting with the N8, of course. Other notable OS features include better memory management and improved parallel processing.

Details of the Nokia N8 include a 3.5-inch capacitive OLED touchscreen (640 x 360 resolution), a powerful 12.0 megapixel camera (with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and 720p video recording), aGPS (with Ovi Maps Navigation), 16GB of onboard storage, Bluetooth 2.1, FM radio, microSD card support (up to 32GB) and a 1,200 mAh battery. Connectivity is well-supported, with both HSPA and WiFi. It will come running a full HTML browser, with Flash Lite 4.0 and Flash video. Nokia claims it can process 720p video, as well, along with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound processing, which you can watch on TV via the HDMI out.

As for Qt, it's supposed to be the company's new software platform, seeking to entice the army of mobile developers to finally take their expertise to Nokia's legions of users. The SDK is currently only in beta, though, so expect to wait a while before seeing what this turns up.

Quite possibly the most powerful Nokia phone to hit the market (well, so far), the Nokia N8 is slated for a third quarter release. It will be available in five colors (black, silver, blue, orange and lime), priced at €370 ($495) before taxes and subsidies.

[Nokia]

The Samsung M8910 Pixon12 is a high-end feature phone that, along with the Sony Ericsson Satio, is reputed to pack the best camera module among the current crop of handsets in the market.  Of course, high-resolution doesn't necessarily mean the best quality stills - I think we've seen enough badly-done camera phones to prove that.  How does the Pixon12 fare?

Samsung's high-end camera handset can take snaps with 4000 x 3000 resolution, along with both Xenon and LED flash.  While the company promised 28mm lens in their marketing material, the camera actually sports 30mm lens, which can be easily verified by the EXIF data recorded on the phone itself.  Way to go, Samsung.

Additionally, the Pixon12 packs dual apertures, though they don't provide any sort of manual control.  That means users can choose to take their photos between the two values, but don't get any sort of leeway with them.  Essentially, it blots out one feature that  photography enthusiasts would have loved to see on their camera phone.

Overall, photos taken with the Pixon12 are better than anything we've seen on a camera phone, handily edging out the best 8 megapixel snappers from Nokia and Sony Ericsson.  While more skilled hands might be able to tune out their lower-resolution devices into taking better scenes on occasion (especially those with wider angles), it's fair to assume that the 12-megapixel hardware will outdo them most of the time.  It also comes with a very impressive shot-to-shot time along with 30fps video.

In this day and age of smartphones, it's a bit disappointing to get a high-end unit that doesn't come with smart features.  Unfortunately, the Pixon12 happens to be that kind of handset.  To make up for it, though, it fits in a wide array of hardware talents that's pretty souped-up to go with the best phone camera module around.

Display is a 3.1-inch AMOLED touchscreen with 800 x 480 resolution.  Details and brightness are decidedly gorgeous, although quality swiftly degrades under direct sunlight - it remains usable, but isn't very good.  It uses Samsung's TouchWiz UI 2.0, which the handset runs in a pretty speedy manner.

Other details peg it as a truly high-end feature phone, including HTML browsing (on 7.2Mbps HSDPA speeds), full Flash support, aGPS (with preinstalled software), playback capability for a wide variety of media content (including office documents, DivX and Xvid), stereo Bluetooth and an FM tuner.  On the downside, its media talents are limited somewhat with the lack of a 3.5mm headset jack and onboard stereo speakers.

If you want a camera phone with output that can match up to a moderately decent camera, the Samsung M8910 Pixon12 is easily your best bet - at least, until we see what Sony Ericsson's 12 megapixel Satio has to offer.  Coupled with a good feature bundle and a nifty UI, it's a good purchase for those willing to pay the decidedly more expensive price.