Power Problem Plaguing Nokia N8Power Problem Plaguing Nokia N8

The Nokia N8 went on sale earlier this fall, and so far as been a successful launch for the beleaguered maker of phones. That doesn't mean it hasn't met with its own share of glitches. After users reported problems powering their devices on, Nokia investigated and found a fault had occurred during production of the first batch of N8s.

The issue is preventing N8s that have been powered down to power back up, rendering the devices useless. Nokia's Niklas Savander told Reuters, "a limited number of N8 users" were experiencing the power problem.

"Hardware problems can be tricky to find and solve," he said, but the company managed to discover the root of the problem and correct it.

Getting a handle on the number of devices affected has proven elusive. "If you look at the total number it is a small number," Savander said. He provided no guidance if we're looking at hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands of devices.

Nordea analyst Sami Sarkamies believes the number is only going to go up. "Probably not all consumers have informed Nokia about the problems, so the final number of faulty products is likely to increase."

The N8 is Nokia's current flagship device, and is an important phone for the company. It is widely seen as the first real response to Apple's iPhone and Google's Android platforms.

The N8 runs Symbian^3, the latest version of Nokia's smartphone software. It has a 12 megapixel camera with HD video capture and playback via HDMI, a touch screen, and support for worldwide 3G bands.