What Mobile

IT'S the one we've all been waiting for. JONATHAN MORRIS from WHAT MOBILE magazine checks out NOKIA's super-charged, three megapixel powerhouse... the N80.

The N80 promises just about everything to everyone. There's a three megapixel camera, the latest version of Series 60, support for Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), Voice over IP and a screen to die for.


However, these aren't the main reasons for so many people wanting to get their hands on it. There's a more straightforward reason, which comes down to the form factor of the phone itself.
The N80 is the first sliding smartphone from Nokia since it released the very first Series 60 smartphone at the start of 2002.
Four years ago, the 7650 had just 4MB of memory (which was non-expandable) but it was its ability to run new applications that made it a success.


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Series 60 went on to become so successful that other companies licensed it for their own smartphones, which in turn encouraged developers to produce more software.
The rest, as they say, is history.

The N80 runs the third edition of Series 60, which supports the use of bigger screens and new technology such as Wi-Fi.


Nokia has taken advantage of this by not only including 802.11b/g support (11 and 54mbit respectively), but UPnP too.


Suitably equipped devices tell other devices about what they are, and what they can do, rather like Bluetooth.


Because the phone can identify what it is communicating with, there's no need to set anything up.


Connect to a TV, and the phone knows it can send pictures or video to it. Find a wireless Hi-Fi and the N80 can send music to it.


Very quickly, you see the potential to use the phone as a remote control for a variety of objects, although the choice of UPnP devices is very limited right now.


Like Bluetooth, everything has to start somewhere, and the N80 will hopefully get the ball rolling quickly.




On the camera side, you can't ask for much more than what you get.
The three megapixel camera lacks autofocus (with a switch to enable macro mode) but the pictures are fantastic, outdoors at least.


The only real problem you'll have is finding sufficient storage space for images that regularly exceed 1.5MB in size, filling up a memory card in no time. Luckily miniSD cards are cheap and plentiful.


Venture indoors and the photos suffer from noise and banding, with the LED flash doing little to help, but with so many pixels to play with you can make adjustments on a computer with picture editing software.


The buttons on the phone are a nice size, meaning you won't accidentally press the wrong key (a common problem on older Nokia smartphones).


It's unfortunate that Nokia has, as usual, let the side down with the processor speed. The N80 can be seen 'drawing' the menu dialog boxes and windows at times, but it's nothing like as bad as the 9300i or 9500.


You won't get the instant response that you would from a Series 40 phone, such as the similarly shaped 6280, but you can't even compare the two in terms of functionality.

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The N80 has a completely new web browser, but I'm not convinced that it's better than the one it replaced. Last year, Nokia made a big deal of the fact that their new browser would work like a desktop browser, showing pages as the original designer intended.


Even with the high-resolution display, it is still only 2.25 inches in size, so you're never going to fit a whole web page on one screen. Instead, the browser renders the full page and then gives you a postage-stamp sized preview in the corner, to show the section you are looking at.


You then scroll a box around the thumbnail image to get to the part you want to read. Clever as it is, the system doesn't make surfing the net easier than it was before. It goes completely against the likes of Opera and NetFront, that each strip out unnecessary content and reformat the site for a small display.


Given the choice of viewing a whole site, or one that scrolls vertically only, the latter wins every time.


At least you won't complain about the browsing speed though. With most wireless routers being in the home, not the office, you can now connect to the Internet via a broadband connection.


Connecting to Wi-Fi is easy, with a connection dialogue that scans for nearby access points and hotspots. You can then tell the phone which order to connect in, like looking for Wi-Fi first and using 3G or GPRS if you're out and about.


The phone also supports SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) for Voice over IP. For consumers, Skype is by far the biggest VoIP service, which isn't SIP compliant. Fortunately Skype is working on a client for Series 60.


The N80 feels a bit bulky compared to the N70, but it has to be taken in context. Compared to the original 7650, the N80 is petite and it certainly isn't unmanageable



The N80 feels a bit bulky compared to the N70, but it has to be taken in context. Compared to the original 7650, the N80 is petite and it certainly isn't unmanageable or uncomfortable inside a pocket.


The battery inside is rather small, and on our review model (which wasn't completely finished), it was nearly impossible to get more than a day out of it.


I was using it heavily, as you will when you see how good the pictures are, so I'd expect things to improve when the novelty wears off. Mind you, with a rather decent media player, you're sure to find another way of draining the battery.


There's so much going on inside the N80 that you can excuse its size, although it's worth noting that the Nseries range is about to expand even further.


New models will include features like optical zoom lenses and auto focus, but in smaller shells.


Before you panic that you're buying something that's already obsolete, bear in mind that the new models won't arrive until late summer at the earliest, meaning the power-crazy gadget freak has only one choice to make, 'do I get it in black or silver'?

RATING: Five Stars (Editor's Choice)


Thanks to THE SUN for this review...


Cheers,

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