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Tesco Mobile is offering the Nokia N8 SIM-free for £330, a good £100 less than the official Nokia store.
On the Tesco Direct website, the black version of the N8 is on sale at £329.97, much cheaper than the online Nokia store, where it’ll set you back £429. The catch seems to be that it’ll be locked to the Tesco Mobile network.
The mobile arm of the mega supermarket chain is making a name for pushing budget deals. Last month Tesco Mobile offered a SIM-free rolling contract deal for just £6 a month.
The N8 should finally reach the shops in the first week of October, or earlier if you decide to buy it straight from the online Nokia store — some could be ready for dispatch by 23 September. You can get the device free if you sign up to an 18-month contract with T-Mobile, O2 and Vodafone.
It will be running on the Symbian 3 operating system, pack a 3.5-inch AMOLED touchscreen and carry a 12-megapixel camera. Nokia is pushing its multimedia capabilities, which include the ability to play 720p video on your TV over an HDMI connection.
At Nokia World this week, the company is set to show off the N8, as well as another phone we haven’t seen before, the E7. This looks like it will carry a 4-inch AMOLED touchscreen, a Qwerty keyboard and an 8-megapixel camera, as well as Symbian 3.
Later this year — perhaps before Christmas — we also hope to see the debut of the N9, which could run MeeGo. This would be an exciting step-up for Nokia, as this is a new mobile platform it’s been working on for some time in partnership with Intel.
It’s not been easy for Nokia in recent years. Rivals such as Apple, RIM and HTC have taken the lead when it comes to high-end smart phones. Nokia boss Olli-Pekka Kellasvuo was dumped for a new chief exec last week, while the head of the mobile solutions business Anssi Venjoki has also resigned.
But here and now, that Tesco deal seems good if you’re hankering after the N8 SIM-free, but a free handset on an 18-month deal doesn’t sound bad either. Let us know in the comments what you think.
