Nokia N81 GSM

The Nokia N80 is part of Nokia's new Nseries of Symbian OS smartphones running S60. These are strong business phones (if you can forgo a QWERTY keyboard) with a multimedia bent. And let's face it: there are plenty of us who need a smartphone but also want a super camera, multimedia features and even an FM radio. Competitors have left us out in the cold and 2006 may be the year that Nokia wins us over.



The one problem is Nseries phones aren't offered by any US Carrier as of this writing. So you'll need to buy one from nokiausa.com or otherwise from an importer. They're sold by Nokia and importers unlocked for use with any GSM carrier, which generally means T-Mobile and Cingular in the US.It is packed with features and looks set to become one of the most desirable phones of 2006. It also perhaps represents the coming of the age of the smartphone.With a slide form factor the Nokia N80 is reminiscent of the first S60 smartphone, the 7650. However, appearances are deceptive because three years of development have resulted in a phone several generations more advanced.

Design:

The N80 is pleasing to the eye and is finished in a mixture of chrome and metal, similar in feel and looks to the N70, which gives the whole device a substantial feel. The N80 will be available in two versions – silver and black, both are constructed of similar materials, but the black version has the advantage of hiding smudges and fingerprints more than the silver version.In the hand, in slide closed mode, the phone at 95.4 x 50 x 23.4 mm is essentially the smallest Nokia S60 phone yet. As a slider it is a few mm thicker than a monoblock such as the 6680, but this is hardly noticeable. It is bigger and heavier (134g) that the other modern S60 Slider, the Samsung D720, but that is a reflection of the extra functionality found in the N80.The slide mechanism itself is a soft slide, similar to the camera slide on the N70, which because it lacks the snap feel of spring-assisted slides, may not be to everyones taste. With all the major control keys accessible in slide closed mode (a notable improvement over the 7650) there is very little need to open the slide except when writing messages or inputting other data.

The result of this is that the N80 looks and feels much more like a regular phone.The tactile feedback and ease of use of the control keys are excellent, although the proximity of the softkeys, control pad and calls keys may cause trouble for those with large fingers. The number keypad is not as good, the demo models having a slightly spongy feel, and (as with other sliders) the first row of keys is a little obscured by the top of the phone. On the plus side, the keys are large and well distributed, which should provide for some fast input speeds. Furthermore the usual issue with slide down key pads giving an unbalanced feel when in use is countered by the major portion of the weight of the phone being in the slide down portion.The screen resolution, at 352 x 416 pixels and with 262,144 colours, is crisp and bright. This is the best screen I have seen on a mobile device, and it outdoes the impressive QVGA screens found on the N92 and N71.

Feature :

The N80 uses S60 3rd Edition on top of Symbian OS 9.1, and in the N92 preview we briefly touched on the changes that S60 3rd Edition brings: high resolution screen support, landscape orientation, improved general user interface and improved standard applications. The N80 takes advantage of these too, although landscape support is only used in camera mode (in contrast with the E60, there is no screen re-orientation option).N80 Web BrowserHigh resolution screen support makes a real difference – physically the screen has not changed in size, but the increased density of the pixels results in a much crisper display. More importantly, many applications are able to take advantage of this, and thanks to the use of vector graphics and fonts throughout the user interface, readability is improved throughout. Phone screens often suffer from the pixelation effect because they tend to be held quite close to the eye, but with the increased pixel density here, graphics and text on screen look less blocky. This is down to the hardware, but the software changes that allow and take advantage of this are considerable.The new S60 browser, based on Safari's WebCore and JavascriptCore components, is also found on the N80.

The N80 boasts a 3 megapixel camera which, despite the lack of an auto-focus, should produce some excellent results. There are two focus modes supported: close up mode (17.5 cm to 23.4 cm) and normal mode (68 cm to infinity) which does mean macro shots should be improved over previous S60 phones. The camera software is increasingly sophisticated, with self timer, advanced sequence mode, 10 scene modes and brightness, contrast, sharpness, colour saturation, white balance, exposure compensation and colour tones adjustments, image quality settings and video stabilisation. Pictures can be printed via Bluetooth (via the BPP Bluetooth profile), infrared, Wi-Fi or USB.


The camera and the music abilities on this phone mean that even 40MB of internal memory is relatively paltry and should be reserved for application installs. Further memory can be provided through the miniSD card slot. MiniSD cards can currently be found up to the 2GB mark and this is likely to increase in the future. While more internal memory would have been welcomed, adding memory via removable cards is both cheaper and, because of the hot swap support, more flexible and expandable.A stereo FM radio has also been packed in and support for Nokia's Visual Radio is also included. As with the other N series devices there is a multimedia key, which can be used as a shortcut key to access up to 5 different applicationsDisplay, Sound and Multimedia.Hands down, the Nokia N80 has one of the best displays we've seen on a mobile phone. It's sharp, colorful and really crisp. After all, high resolution crammed into a 2.1" diagonal display has got to look sharp, and it does. The Nokia has a 352 x 416 pixel display capable of displaying 262K colors. That beats Pocket PC's standard QVGA offerings and the Palm OS Treo. Though it crams a lot of pixels into a small space, the screen is easily readable, even when viewing web sites with small type. If you don't have good eyes, you might still prefer something with a lower resolution and a larger display but for most, the N80 is just fine. Though images and video look great on the N80's display, we do find that they look better on the N73.

One of the criticisms of existing media players is that they are unconnected and isolationist. You only need to look at popularity of external speakers for the iPod and similar devices to realise that there is a demand to play digital music through more than just headphones.The advantage on UPnP is that it makes using and sharing your media much easier. The elegance of the solution is that media can be played back on any compatible device, be it your own system, the system at your friend's house or the system in your hotel room (though do not expect hotels to catch on to UPnP too quickly, it threatens their lucrative entertainment revenue streams). It is not hard to envisage a house that has multiple UPnP devices scattered throughout the house. How about music from your phone in your UPnP shower? In a sense the UPnP compatible phone becomes the universal media playback remote control and with memory capacities going up and prices coming down it makes sense to store more of your music on your phone. It is, after all, a device that is nearly always with you.

Conclusion:
The N80 is a very powerful device which outclasses all of its competitors. In providing a well integrated, user friendly and feature rich convergence device which maintains the phone origins it comes from, the strengths of Symbian OS 9 and Series 60 3rd Edition are on show in the N80. This is a device with acronyms, specifications and technology aplenty, plus a stylish design. But it also represents something more.