Nokia N8 Update Promised

Nokia is going to update the N8 smartphone early next year, bringing the much improved Symbian Belle operating system to this once flagship model.

Given that the Nokia N8 is becoming an increasingly affordable sim free handset, with prices dipping lower than £220 if you shop around, it could become a very popular option at the budget end of the market.

A three and a half inch OLED screen, 680MHz processor, Wi-Fi connectivity and a range of useful social networking features help to make the N8 an enduringly relevant handset.

Its 12 megapixel camera with HD video capture is still at the top of the tree when it comes to photographic quality in the mobile market, so as a sim free purchase, it will be good value if you value the picture taking capabilities of a handset above all else.

Symbian Belle is probably the last iteration of the Symbian platform that Nokia will add to the N8 because it has since chosen to use Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system for its high profile launches, such as the Lumia 800.

However, Symbian Belle was received with tentative preference by critics when compared to the older versions and, as such, it should be welcomed by existing N8 owners and those who want a sim free bargain.

Of course if you do have a sim free N8 then you will be one of the first people to get the update when it launches in 2012, because Nokia will distribute it as soon as it is made available. You will not have to hang around while a network provider tinkers with the software and prepares it for its own roll out much later than the official release date, so sim free is really the way to go for the impatient.