You should know the drill by now.

We’ve already had showdowns between the two big players in the pre iPhone 4 smartphone market; the HTC Desire and the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Now it’s the turn of the soon to be latest entrant into this highly competitive market. Nokia are pinning a lot of their future on the success of the N8, having already fallen behind Apple, HTC and Sony Ericsson in fans favour for smartphones.

So can the Nokia N8 relaunch Nokia into the forefront of the mobile phone market? Lets see…

Dimensions

Winner: iPhone 4
115.2 x 58.6 x 9.3mm, 137g

Loser: Nokia N8
113.5 x 59.1 x 12.9 mm, 135g

Those 3mm or so difference in these two phones’ thickness does not sound like much, but it makes a real difference. Their heights and widths are pretty much the same, but the slimmer iPhone 4 feels a lot more compact in the hand as a result of its smaller profile. The N8 actually feels quite fat due to the camera and screen protruding slightly from the body.

Display

Winner: iPhone 4
3.5″, 960 x 640, TFT-LCD

Loser: Nokia N8
3.5″, 360 x 640, AMOLED

Even though Steve Jobs’ claim that the iPhone 4 resolution is equal to that of the human eye has proven to be false, the iPhone 4 display is still light years ahead of most other displays. Although AMOLED’s will one day rule the world of phone screens and the N8 display is bright and vivid, it doesn’t even come close to matching the iPhone 4.

Engine Room

Winner: iPhone 4
Apple A4 CPU, 512MB RAM

Loser: Nokia N8
680MHz Processor, 256MB RAM

If you only use a Nokia N8, you probably won’t have too many complaints over it running slowly, but if you use one of the other smartphones boasting a 1Ghz processor you will see what you are missing out on. The extra power of the 1Ghz chips just makes everything run that bit smoother and makes your whole experience feel more fluid and enjoyable than you’ll get on the Nokia N8.

Battery

Winner: iPhone 4
7 hours 3G calling, 300 hours standby

Loser: Nokia N8
5.5 hours 3G calling, 400 hours standby

At the moment both of these figures are somewhat speculatory, as batter life in practice always pans out to the figures quoted from manufacturers. However, I have had to give this to the iPhone over the Nokia purely on the worrying disparity between standby and 3g battery times. While the N8 has an advantage of 100 hours on standby, your smartphone probably won’t get lots of standby time, so Nokia’s worrying 3G fall off makes the N8 the loser again.

Imaging

Winner: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
12 MP, 4000×3000 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, Xenon flash, 720p video capture

Loser: iPhone 4
5MP, Flash, AF, 720p video capture

The Nokia N8 camera will provide stiff competition to dedicated digital cameras, let alone other smartphones. With 12 megapixels and a Carl Zeiss lens backing them up, you will have to be a pretty bad photographer to not produce brilliant images with the Nokia N8. With an HDMi out slot you can make the most of the N8′s HD video recording capabilities. The iPhone camera is pretty damn good, but the N8 is nothing short of stunning.

Storage

Winner: Nokia N8
16 GB + expandable by further 32GB

Loser: iPhone 4
32GB

The iPhone 4′s closed-off nature lets it down here. While it can offer double the amount of internal storage than the Nokia N8, the option of expanding the N8 by a further 32 GB by an SD card makes it the clear winner. Having 16GB of internal storage is impressive for an expandable phone and ensures that you can make the most of the great imaging features.

Software

Winner: iPhone 4
iOS 4

Loser: Nokia N8
Symbian ^3 OS

Aside from some bewildering design choices in recent phones, the Symbian OS has been the major factor in holding back Nokia’s progress in the smartphone market. Sluggish, unitutive, clunky, choose your pejorative adjective and it’s probably true about Symbian. The N8 is the first with the new ^3 version, but whatever improvements are made, it could be too late as reports suggest developers are just not making apps for Symbian any more. The new iPhone OS brings a raft of improvements, and sees it win by a mile.

Mapping

Winner: Nokia N8
Ovi Maps 3.0

Loser: iPhone 4
Nav apps, but nothing on board

Nokia’s Ovi Maps are the most established of all the dedicated phone GPS services. While you can probably find a better turn-by-turn navigation app somewhere in the app stores, you’ll probably have to pay through the nose to get it.

Price

No Contest: iPhone 4

No Contest: Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

As we don’t yet know full price plans for the iPhone 4, and no concrete details have yet emerged on the Nokia N8, we’ll score this one No Contest.

Conclusions

The word that seems to crop up in most discussions of the future of Nokia is ‘bleak’. Judging by the performance of the Nokia N8 here, that seems about right. While the N8 has probably got the best camera seen to date on a mobile, it falls short just about everywhere else. The only areas where the iPhone 4 has lost out is to that brilliant camera, and due to its lack of expandable storage. The iPhone 4 has a decent enough camera itself and we all know that the closed off storage is a necessary evil with iPhones.

So the Nokia N8 is one less iPhone killer for Apple to worry about.