Knowing when the Nokia N8 is going to land is only half the story – most consumers need to know how much it will be and where they can get their hands on it.

Sadly, the flagship Finnish phone is taking a while to turn up, so we round up the information so you can see if the Nokia N8 is going to be the new phone that you cherish close to your bosom for the next two years.

Nokia N8 release date

The Nokia N8 release date was initially rumoured to be July – or at least that’s when pre-orders will go live, but as you can see, we’re still waiting for that.

Other sources have tipped the Nokia N8 release date to happen sometime in August, with some retail staff claiming that the phone should be delivered then.

This tallies with the Amazon page for the device in Germany, which says the N8 will be delivered in 2-3 weeks.

Or is it October?

But given the phone has only just appeared on the coming soon sections of some networks, as well as the fact O2 has yet to announce it will be stocking the phone, it seems the Nokia N8 release date will be later than planned, with October now looking more likely.

We’ve still got Nokia World to come in mid-September too, so an announcement on when you’ll be able to get your hands on the phone would makes sense there, and a couple of weeks later would be an ideal time, especially as it would be a step ahead of the Windows Phone 7 devices launching.

But even if the phone went on sale today, it’s still a long way from the April announcement, when you consider Apple and HTC often unveil a phone and have it in stores within the month.

We’re hoping the Nokia N8 release date will come a little sooner, but given we waited nearly 10 months for the Nokia N97, we’re not holding our breath.

Where can I buy it?

So far, there are three confirmed places you can buy the Nokia N8.

Nokia direct is the first port of call, with the online product page to offer the phone for €370 (around £310) – which is a pretty impressive sum for a phone packing this much technology.

However, it’s still currently at the ‘subscribe for notifications’ stage, so you’ll have to wait to actually fork out your hard-earned for the new phone.

T-Mobile now has the phone listed under the coming soon area of its website, and Vodafone has had the N8 available for pre-registration for a while now.

O2 could be joining the mix, according to certain sites, but of more interest is when the phone is actually going to land.

Why should I buy it?

If you’re still not convinced by the release date and price of the Nokia N8, then take a look at our hands on: Nokia N8 review and see why there’s a lot to like in this new phone.

The highlights include: a 12MP camera with HD video recording, and HDMI-out slot with Dolby Digital technology, and 16GB of internal storage.

It comes in five metallic colours, is slim to hold and features Symbian^3, Nokia’s most advanced operating system yet for consumer phones.

Of course, until we get our hands on a full review model, the jury is still out on whether this could be Nokia’s rennaissance in the smartphone market, but it’s certainly got the specs to manage it – fingers crossed the software is as good.