Nokia's highly anticipated N8 smartphone will be arriving imminently according to Mobilefun.co.uk and Play.com, which have put it up for pre-order.

The N8 will be released at the end of this month, if the sites are to be believed, with Mobilefun citing a shipping date of 26 August and Play.com pencilling in a 31 August launch.

Price-wise, the Nokia has been marked at £420, SIM free with 16GB of internal storage, the same price as V3.co.uk's office favourite, the HTC Desire.

Meanwhile a 16GB iPhone 4 starts at £499, and the Samsung Galaxy S also retails at £499 but can be picked up for £429 from Play.com.

V3.co.uk had a chance to get our hands on the N8 back in June and we were generally impressed with the device.

With the N8 packing some heavy duty specs including a 12-megapixel camera, HD video recording and 3.5in Amoled touchscreen, the biggest surprise is that Nokia hasn't been shouting a release date from the rooftops.

Nokia is already late to the smartphone party and while it appears to have finally realised this, warnings bells will certainly be ringing at Nokia HQ, if the N8 is a commercial flop.

Judging by the cost, the success of the device is far from guaranteed. The N8 is going to have to compete on specs with the Samsung and HTC Desire to attract users because of the similarities in price. This is where the dated Symbian^3 OS could prove to be the N8's Achilles heel.

V3.co.uk contacted the Finnish manufacturer for confirmation of the release date, but it had not responded at the time of writing. We remain optimistic that the handset will hit the shelves at the end of the month, maybe.

Specifications