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Author Nokia N82 Review
Adi23
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Joined: Dec 29, 2004
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Posted: 2008-06-16 07:18
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Nokia N82 Review: One of Nokia’s latest Smartphones- N95 in a candy bar form factor

Introduction
The N82 is relatively new entrant on the mobile phone market and is the latest smartphone from Finnish mobile manufacturers Nokia. Released in November 2007 and picking up steam in 2008, the phone is currently available in silver with a light titanium back, silver with a warm titanium back and black. Heavily marketed as a replacement for a digital camera and as a standalone GPS device; the N82 is geared towards capturing users who have not yet purchased a N95 or N95 8gb. The N82 seeks to tip the scale and get some customers who have been indecisive regarding purchasing one of Nokia’s current smartphones. The N82 targets young-middle aged users who have smartphone needs and who travel a lot in day to day life. Released in November 2007, advertisements largely encourage potential users to carry their N82s with them on lives’ journeys. The N82 has enjoyed moderate success on the market to date and this review seeks to detail comprehensively the features of the Nokia N82.

Box Contents:
One Nokia N82 Mobile Smart Phone
One Charger
One double earpiece stereo headset
One usb data cable
One TV out cable
One N series DVD
One user manual
One 1050 mah battery

Specifications:
General 2G Network
GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
3G Network
HSDPA 2100
Announced
2007, November
Status
Available. Released 2007, November
Size Dimensions
112 x 50.2 x 17.3 mm, 90 cc
Weight
114 g
Display Type
TFT, 16M colors
Size
240 x 320 pixels, 2.4 inches
Ringtones Type
Polyphonic, Monophonic, True Tones, MP3
Customization
Download
Vibration
Yes
Memory Phonebook
Practically unlimited entries and fields, Photocall
Call records
Detailed, max 30 days
Card slot
microSD (TransFlash), up to 8GB, hot swap, 2 GB card included, buy memory

- 100 MB internal memory
- 128 MB SDRAM Memory
- ARM 11 332 MHz processor
Data GPRS
Class 32, 107 kbps
HSCSD
Yes
EDGE
Class 32, 296 kbps; DTM Class 11, 177 kbps
3G
HSDPA
WLAN
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology
Bluetooth
Yes, v2.0 with A2DP
Infrared port
No
USB
Yes, v2.0 microUSB
Features OS
Symbian OS 9.2, S60 rel. 3.1
Messaging
SMS, MMS, Email, Instant Messaging

Browser
WAP 2.0/xHTML, HTML
Games
Downloadable, order now

Colors
Silver, Black
Camera
5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, video(VGA 30fps), xenon flash; secondary CIF videocall camera
- Built-in GPS receiver
- A-GPS function
- Motion sensor (with UI auto-rotate)
- Installed Maps application covering over 100 countries
- Java MIDP 2.0
- MP3/AAC/AAC+/eAAC+/WMA player
- Video player
- 3.5 mm audio output jack
- TV out
- Stereo FM Radio
- Organizer
- Office document viewer
- T9
- Push to talk
- Voice dial/memo
- Built-in handsfree
Battery Standard battery, Li-Ion 1050 mAh (BP-6MT)
Stand-by
Up to 225 h
Talk time
Up to 4 h 20 min







Aesthetics:

Body:-
The N82 is approximately 112x50.2x17.3 mm, 114 grams, its measurements are well balanced and appropriate. However, the phone is not very pocket friendly as it is too long for most pockets. It is important to note that I have been using the N82 from the second week in February and by April the top of the phone began to peel.

D-pad:-
The N82 features a 5 way navigational d-pad, the d-pad is fairly responsive and its design is effective. However, depressing the d-pad on the right side exposes a cable and other mechanisms underneath the d-pad which are mildly unsightly. The d-pad also has its fair share of creaks which can be annoying though creaking does not affect the functionality of the d-pad. It is interesting to note that the new black version of the N82 has a slightly raised d-pad resulting in a more responsive keypad. The question is why didn’t Nokia realize the d-pad was not 100% adequate before shipping the initial titanium version of the phone.

Keypad:-
The numerical and alphabetical keypad layout of the N82 is reminiscent of the N91, keys are relatively small and rectangular, though more than adequately spaced. The keypad is comfortable to use and one cannot image many users having a problem with the keys. However, being a heavy texter I experienced slight discomfort after periods of heavy texting. The keys of the N82 are raised and firm unlike the keypad in models such as the N95 or N80 and as such texting can become a mildly painful exercise if engaged in too long.
The send and end keys are large and positively placed on the side of the device. These keys greatly contribute to the elegance of the device.
Other buttons include the menu key, left and right selection keys as well as the clear button and the gallery button. All keys except for the gallery key are well placed and appropriate. Since using this device since February the gallery key is my least used key on the device. In fact, the only time this key has been selected has been in err. Since the gallery key has been placed too closely to the right selection key and the clear key and further is bigger in size than its two neighboring keys.

Microphone Speakers:
The top earpiece is nicely placed in the centre of the top of the handset and delivers good sound. No experiences of muffled sounds, distorted sounds or noise could be attributed to the top earpiece. The second microphone mouthpiece is a small hole at the bottom of the device and serves its purpose of relaying speech in an excellent manner.
Right side of the device:
The right side of the device from the top when placed in a regular position features a speaker, volume up and down keys, a quick access gallery button, a camera snap button and another speaker. All buttons are well spaced and are of an appropriate size.
The speakers however, are of slightly poor quality not equal to the N80, N73, N95 or N95 8gb in sound delivery. Sound coming from the speakers often sounds muffled and the maximum sound output of the speakers is much lower than the older N series devices mentioned above. In addition, one has to wonder about the logics of the design team when placing both speakers on one side of the device. I cannot see any advantages to be gained when either watching a movie or listening to music. When one is watching a movie and the phone is being held in a horizontal position inadvertently your fingers may block the speakers. The device should have had one speaker on each side as is the case with the soon to be announced younger sibling of the N82 the N78. Or they should have placed two speakers on both sides.

Left Side of the Device:
When held in a normal vertical position, from the top the N82 features a usb port, memory card slot and charger port. All ports on the left side are well spaced and Nokia must be applauded for segmenting the sides of the device i.e all ports are on one side of the device. This is very convenient especially in situations of poor lighting and the fact that less ports and no buttons are on the left side makes it easier for users to access these ports which require inserting and disconnection of other paraphernalia.

The top of the device:
The power button which also features a quick way of changing profiles, locking the keypad, preparing the device for the removal of a memory card and locking the phone is placed beside a 3.5 mm headphone jack and two holes facilitating the attachment of a lanyard or other similar attachment. All items at the top of the phone are well placed.

The rear of the device:
A camera activation sliding switch is at the rear of the device above the lens of the camera which is beside a rather large flash. The camera activation switch can be a little stiff at times which may be a good indication that it may last a great deal of time. However, time will tell in regards to the longevity of the button.
A button is also at the bottom of the back faceplate which when held down releases the back faceplate so that is can be slid down.

Display:
The N82 has a 240 x 320 pixel 2.4 inch, TFT 16 million colour screen which pales in comparison to most modern phones on the market. Sure a 16 million colour screen which is 2.4 inches sounds good on paper but due to the dimness of the N82’s screen is not that great. When calls come in or an alarm goes off the screen gets brighter as bright as a N95 for example. However, as soon as the call or alarm ends the screen’s brightness just drops to a dim and dull level. Also some applications increase the brightness while in use leading to speculation that an application may be able to increase the brightness permanently. In fact the maximum brightness of the N82’s screen by my estimation is just about half of the N95’s brightness level. This is totally unacceptable as is Nokia’s ridiculous response that this was done to conserve the battery. Nokia should not have made that decision on behalf of all its customers and many N82 users seem peeved about the maximum brightness level of the screen. I am disturbed that one of Nokia’s flagships has a dimmer screen hence a worse screen than a three year old Sony Ericsson W810i and Nokia N73. Something must be done by virtue of a firmware update or through the release of an application to increase the brightness of the N82’s screen. Repeated calls from bloggers, forum members etc. for Nokia to do this have been so far ignored. In addition, the screen is EXTREMELY scratch prone and mine is now marred with scratches. I take VERY good care of all my mobile phones and daily in and out pocket friction has caused the screen to be littered with scratches.



Battery Life:
The N82’s battery life is far from impressive, with regular use i.e. about 10 incoming calls which total 15 minutes and 10 outgoing calls totaling around 12 minutes and a few text messages sent. My N82 is prompting me with low battery messages by 7:30 pm, this after its last charge was at around 10:00 pm the previous night. If you intend to use WIFI a lot or listen to a number of songs daily its recommended that you walk with your charger or a usb charges which is cheap. Note the phone CANNOT charge from the provided usb cable. The retractable usb cable charger uses only a one way usb connection from the computer to the phone’s charging port and NOT the phone’s usb port.




Assessment of Individual Menu Items:



Camera:
The N82’s 5 megapixel camera is a joy to use and outshines many dedicated digital cameras. Its camera is also better than N95 in daylight conditions as well as night time conditions even more so at night due to the N82’s Xenon flash. A wealth of camera options which are not present in many cameras are available on the N82.
















Phonebook:-
The phonebook is capable of holding an almost unlimited numbers of entries. For example I currently have 820 contacts and from the contact information it says 263 kb used out of 18484… free space remaining. The phonebook allows you to create groups and put contacts in these groups for easy access. In addition, through the feature of marking multiple contacts can be selected and added to the groups in a short period of time.
Just about every contact detail is facilitated on the N82. Details such as Title, Middle name, Last name, Suffix, Nickname, Mobile, Mobile (home), Mobile (work), Telephone, Telephone (home), Telephone (work), email, car phone, video call, fax, pager, internet telephone, company, department, job title, assistant’s name, assistant’s number, spouse, children, web address, address, birthday, anniversary, note, push to talk, SIP and share view as all available. It is hard to imagine a mobile phone with as comprehensive a list of phonebook details as N series devices.
From the phonebook voice calls, video calls as well as the composition of a text message is facilitated. In addition, the assigning of a one touch number as well as setting a specific ring tone for contacts, sending a business card and editing contacts are facilitated. Multiple contacts can also be saved to the memory card and sim card from the phone memory.









Messaging:
The messaging application layout has the labels: new message, inbox, my folders, my folders, mailbox, drafts, sent, outbox and reports. From the new message feature a user is able to compose a text message, multimedia message, audio message and an email. A user can easily select a recipient or multiple recipients from the phonebook or insert one of many default or custom templates in the body of a text message. If you are on a call and another call is waiting then you can easily send one of the templates to the waiting caller which is another excellent feature. It literally takes two key presses to send the message to the waiting caller.
Incoming Bluetooth objects from other devices are beamed to the inbox of the messages after the object Is opened the phone hen prompts you to save it. This is rather annoying and it would be less time consuming if received objects were automatically saved to sounds or pictures.




The option to create folders for the saving of text messages is another useful feature and has been a feature of most Nokia handsets for some time. This facilitates the saving of important messages in a variety of folders created by a user.

Music:
The music application folder features a music player which compiles all the music files of wav, mp3, mp4 and amr formats and lists them under the blanket heading of music. Below this is a podcast heading for the organization of podcasts.
Fundamental weaknesses of the music player include the inability to facilitate user defined folders for the more efficient organization of songs. In addition, information regarding songs recently added and songs recently played are inaccurate on the N82 used for this review.
The music player should have the ability to import or recognize defined music folders present in the file manager so that these folders would also appear in the music player. In addition, creating folders within the music player is not facilitated.






GPS
The accuracy of the built-in GPS is a great achievement of the N82 which accurately locks positions. I utilize the GPS mainly through google maps and have found it to be immensely accurate. More accurate in fact than the N95 and N95 8gb.

WIFI: The N82 has Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, UPnP technology the security standards WEP , WPA , WPA 2, are supported with other advanced settings present. The WIFI is another accomplishment of the N82, it picks of all networks in range as a laptop would and connects accordingly.





Bluetooth:
Bluetooth here facilitates the pairing of all Bluetooth enabled devices and also features the remote sim feature. Allowing your phone to control another device such a pc’s mouse function thorough Bluetooth is also possible here.


Applications and Application Manager
Both java and .sis applications and games load quickly on the N82 regardless of whether or not they are stored on the memory card or the phone’s internal memory. Indeed, a user can switch amongst several applications with ease and with no lag. This contrasts with the N82’s slightly slower big brother the N95 8gb. Themes, applications and games can be removed with ease from the application manager.




Ebook application: Tequila Cat Book Reader




Sync:
Syncing using pc suite and Microsoft Office is usually a breeze though errors have been encountered by many users myself included at one point or the next.


Log:
The call log is comprehensive and allows for the recording of call records for up to thirty days. However, one problem is that the icons for numbers such as telephone (home) in the log all show up as the mobile phone icon which is annoying and may be confusing. Also incoming calls on the N82 fail to show the number of the caller just the caller’s name. So after the call has ended you have to go to the log>use number then edit to see the number. Interestingly though on the N95 8gb both a caller’s name and number are displayed.
N82:
N95 8gb:


Overall Evaluation:
Design/Style: 8/10
Durability: 7.5/10
Functionality: 9/10
Battery Life: 7.5/10
Music Centeredness: 8/10
Display Quality: 5.5/10
Overall Grade: 7.5/10
deepu
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Joined: Jan 24, 2007
Posts: 87
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Posted: 2008-06-16 07:37
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detailed review, good job ;D
Guto_ViP
T200
Joined: Sep 24, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: |Brazil|
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Posted: 2008-06-16 15:03
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Good Review...


I'm loving my N82.... Always i got cool pictures...
Love or hate me...

Nokia 5120 -> Nokia 6120 -> SE T200 -> Motorola V800 -> SE W800 (stay with my wife) - > SE K800 (stay with my mom) -> Nokia N82 Silver -> Nokia N82 Black Edition - Firmware v30.0.019 -> What is the next??.
erazer007
X1 Black
Joined: Feb 07, 2008
Posts: 331
From: Bahrain
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Posted: 2008-06-16 20:13
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Nice review!I read it before at HoFo.
Samsung Galaxy S II
Blackberry 9100 Pearl, 9300 Curve
Nokia-N8,N95 8GB, N91, N90, E90
Sony Ericsson-W580, W800, S700, T303, C702
Guto_ViP
T200
Joined: Sep 24, 2007
Posts: > 500
From: |Brazil|
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Posted: 2008-06-16 20:43
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Im happy with the brightness level of N82... i not blind to use a high bright light display

Love or hate me...

Nokia 5120 -> Nokia 6120 -> SE T200 -> Motorola V800 -> SE W800 (stay with my wife) - > SE K800 (stay with my mom) -> Nokia N82 Silver -> Nokia N82 Black Edition - Firmware v30.0.019 -> What is the next??.
nikolat
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Joined: Apr 08, 2008
Posts: 187
From: Serbia
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Posted: 2008-06-16 21:34
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Nice review, but is the battery life really that bad? o.o
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