Nokia N80 – could have been great
Written: Dec 08 '06 (Updated Dec 20 '06)
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Pros: Features, and loads of them!
Cons: Size, battery life, BAD, BAD software.
The Bottom Line: This phone is a great step forwards in combining functions, and will definitely bury the PDA forever; but has been poorly finished and flaws abound. Get the Nokia N73 instead!
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| Raf_K's Full Review: Nokia N80 Cellular Phone |
Having resisted the urge for the last 2 years to upgrade my mobile phone, I finally fell victim to a sudden offer by UK mobile operator 3 with loads of minutes and extras including the Nokia N80.
I have kept this phone for about 2 months, before I had it stolen from my gym locker, and I subsequently bought the Nokia N73 instead. At $600 a pop, you’d better watch this type of phone carefully!
These days it seems there is one main crux with which mobile phone buyers are faced: “should I opt for a compact design or sacrifice that in exchange of a multitude of extras?”.
-Is a powerful camera a must-have on your phone? The jury’s out on that one, but the current consensus is: if you’re going to carry a phone around, it might as well serve as a camera.
-Does anyone really need to have TV or web browsing on their mobile? Probably not, but it’s still nice if you’re very bored or stranded somewhere.
THE BASICS
The first impression is of a “chunky” phone – while the length at 3.76 in and width of 1.97 in are comparable to those of many phones around, what makes it appear larger than average is its thickness at 1.02 in. If your absolute priority is size, then you might as well stop reading here, as a phone such as Samsung’s X820 is countless times smaller and slimmer, with a mind-boggling 0.27 in thickness. The Nokia N80’s weight, at 4.73 oz is also not too far from the current average. Despite this shortcoming, it still fits alright in a jeans or suit pocket, not to mention a handbag.
The main keyboard is revealed by sliding the bottom layer of the phone; this sliding action is quite fluid, although on several occasions it has opened while putting it and taking it out of my jeans’ pocket, which then unlocks the keyboard: not good! There are some keys on the top part of the phone, which means that to make and receive calls, as well as navigate through the menus, you do not need to open the keyboard. The main keyboard only becomes an absolute necessity when you dial a number or want to input information.
When you slide the phone open the keyboard is automatically unlocked, and when you slide it closed, you have the option to do so.
The screen is very large at 352 x 416 pixels, which I guess arises from the fact that it is a videophone. This is nicely complemented by the fact that the menus are displayed by icons (this can be changed to a list) – I’ll comment on other functionalities later.
THE FEATURES
This phone is absolutely packed with features, some of which I will expand on:
- 3 Megapixel camera, with flash and macro mode.
- Internet browsing
- Videophone
- mp3 player
- E-mail
- Calendar, contacts and notes, synchronizable with MS Outlook
- MS Office light and Adobe Reader
- The usual features (bluetooth, alarm, predictive text input, real music ringtones, etc).
The camera is definitely a selling point; there are currently only a few models with 3 megapixels on the market, and Nokia secured an early-entry position with the N80. Having such a high-definition camera on the phone means you can do away with having a camera with you when you go out with friends, and it’s always nice for impromptu situations where a camera could be very useful. It can also store 30 second film snippets.
On the downside, the image quality does not really seem to match that of a traditional 3 megapixel camera, and the display quality on screen is much inferior to the Nokia N73.
Internet browsing is a great functionality to have; if you have some time to kill and would like to quickly check the news, weather, e-mail or even bid on an ebay item, you can do that from your mobile! Some websites have dedicated mobile versions, which have few or no graphics, but you can view any websites (although the connection speed is probably comparable to something like 33.6 kbps).
I have tried the videophone function once, and to be frank, the quality leaves a lot to be desired; on the other hand, I don’t know if this was caused by poor network reception, as it seemed to only have a few frames per second (ie 4 – 5). Frankly, I’m still a bit sceptical of the whole videophone idea – does your boss really need to see you sick in bed?. One downside of having videophone is that, when selecting a contact and pressing the “call” button, you now have to specify whether this is a voice call or video call, which seems like a step backwards in terms of keeping things simple.
The mp3 player, again, is a nice little extra, but if you have such a gadget-filled phone, you probably already own an iPod, which has more storage capacity and is easier to navigate/synchronise with your computer.
My favourite feature so far is the calendar and contacs, which is fully synchronizable with Outlook. This means that I do one synch in the morning when I arrive in the office, and one before I leave, so that all my meetings are on the phone and I can have access to my calendar anywhere, without the need to have a PDA.
NOW… THE BAD, AND DOWNRIGHT FREAKY
Size issues aside, this phone has an immense flaw: the software simply does not seem to cope with the workload. Flicking through screens is time consuming as there is a constant lag, while the phone processes the instruction. Turning the phone on is a time-onerous process, which can take almost 1 minute until you can place your first call.
The Nokia N73 has been released only about 2 months later, and many of the software issues seem to have been fixed, or at least significantly improved.
To make matters worse, this phone is prone to crashing, and within only about two weeks, I was getting bugs such as the display going weird when someone was calling me. I’ve since read many reports from people with similar problems… On one occasion, I placed the phone on my bed, and went to get dressed – about one minute later, I was hearing faint voices coming from it: the phone misteriously rang one contact from my list on its own! Note, the keyboard was facing upwards and I didn’t touch the phone at all! This is a prime example of the randomness with which the software seems to operate.
The keyboard unlocking/locking mode is very counter-intuitive: when you flick it open/close, it asks you whether to lock/unlock the keyboard. On the other hand, if the phone is closed and keyboard unlocked, there is no way to lock it: you must open it and close it back again so that the locking option comes up.
CONCLUSIONS
This phone is packed with interesting features, but due to its size and software problems, does not quite deliver. It is puzzling that only a couple of months later Nokia has managed to come up with a much superior phone in the form of the N73.
My advice: wait until the N73 comes out!
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 600
Recommended for: Professionals On-the-Go - Internet and Email is a Must!
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Epinions.com ID:
Raf_K
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Member: Rafael K
Location: London, UK
Reviews written: 101
Trusted by: 49 members
About Me:
Back after a long work-inflicted absence.
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