Nokia N80 review – smart sliderNokia N80, the smart phone that already became famous with the experts of this kind of technology, reminds you of a small thick brick. That is in the closed mode.When you open it, it turns into a big and… elegant smart. I.e. visually it does not get any bigger. Of course, it’s all about the quite thin slider halves that protrude in the beginning and the end. Yes – a big and at the same time a small phone. The one that everyone dreams of… The smart belongs to the new series of “smart” phones of the S60 family that work under Symbian 9.1 OS 3rd version. That’s where the enlarged screen resolution and the presence of Wi-Fi module (Bluetooth, of course, is also there), and a quite pitiful incompatibility with the old programs for S60 comes from. But give it some time – and the programs will appear. They are appearing right now, although not as fast as you would like. Mobile connections users have a lot of devices with the old OS anyway. There are millions of those smart phones. Soon there will be millions of these ones, too. Because they are – the frontier of the technological development. And Nokia N93 is one of the private soldiers of the most vanguard. First impressions This slider wasn’t born yesterday or the day after. It’s been on the market for a couple of years, so it is quite famous to the smart phone lovers. Specialized forums repeatedly discussed the “uncomfortable” frame form (that seems very comfortable to lots of people, including me), low-capacity battery (well, yes), multiple imaginary and real disadvantages of the model. No one discussing the model disputes the fact that the smart turned out to be very original. Fresh, attractive model that is being sold for a good amount of money, but you do not regret buying N80. You pay as much as you get. Not more, but not less. So, the appearance… It reminds you of a Nokia N70. And all the last N-series devices, except, maybe, for the scandalous N93. There is a lot of metal in the design, but there is enough of plastic as well. A bright screen with juicy colors, but the keyboard isn’t indisputable. A slider, but you need a bit of an effort to open it, but it altogether lacks the automatic finish mechanism… Finally, 3 mega pixel sensor, but CMOS, fix – focus optic and the absence of a “real” (not digital, that is not very rational to use) zoom… A child of compromise again? No, this smart completely fits into the intended niche. If, say Nokia N91 is the best today musical smart phone, N93 – photo smart phone, then Nokia N80 is the best compact smart phone. And N80 is also multifunctional at that. You will not see any simplifications in favor of compactness. Except, maybe, for not the biggest capacity battery (that is quite standard for Nokia smarts).    The upper panel of the smart phone is made from the silver plastic covered by the massive polished metal cover plate. It adds a feeling of durability – metal is metal. But you cannot rely on its hardness as when used inaccurately, it is rapidly covered with a netting of scratches. Suffers exactly the metal cover plate that frames the screen and the under-the-screen button set. So this smart phone definitely needs a holster (you cannot get a case on – it’s a slider, after all). Three windows are located in the upper part of the upper panel. The left one anxiously flashes in the on-duty mode – in synch with the base station signal recognition. (Do you remember the good old “Ericssons”? There is the same thing here.) An unexpected gadget that was, nevertheless, liked. Further on – the hole of the main “phone” speaker (in the metal cover plate) and the window of the second camera lens on the right. This camera has a VGA sensor (640õ480 pixels), supports video connection (where the service is supported) and works quite well. You can make sure of that by starting “Camera” applet and choosing to switch to the internal camera. You will see yourself. And you evaluate the quality of the self-portrait. The screen… A good active matrix with a mirror mount. The size is 2.1 inches diagonally, the resolution is 352õ416 pixels, and it shows 262144 color shades. I don’t have to tell you that the screen does not fade in the bright sun – all of the new Nokia smarts act this way. The under-the-screen button set is brought out on the upper half of the slider and set into the same metal cover plate of the front panel. The joystick is five sided – the central button is not detailed, but is made together with a big rectangular button. By the way, joystick is made from metal and the rest of the buttons are made from plastic. The under-the-screen buttons are located intricately – soft and phone buttons are big and the auxiliary smart phone buttons are small. They (smart phone buttons) are located on the very bottom of the front (upper) panel. On the left – editing button, further on, one big button that is pressed to the left and to the right. Its left part calls the system menu, the right – multimedia button that can be chosen to start a specific application. “C” is on the very right of the row. There is nothing on the side and lower edges of the upper half of the slider frame. The IR window is located on the upper edge. It is interesting that Nokia installs this archaic port not to every new model, but, to the next nearest one. One model has an IR port and the other one does not. This one has it. And this is not a bad thing as you can always get a phone without Bluetooth that you need to exchange an image or a melody with.        The lower part of the slider is wholly made from the coaly black plastic. The smart switch and fast profile switch button is located on the upper edge. The button is round, big set into the metal frame. By the way – the keyboard block of the slider takes place automatically when it is folded. You turn it off in the settings and the floating menu; turn it on in the switch menu button. So the choice is large. “Loud” speaker slot (by the way, it is, really, quite loud) is located on the right edge of the lower frame part. The shiny “shutter” release button (CMOS sensor so there is no shutter) is located on the lower edge. And that’s very comfortable as when you turn on the camera; the screen turns 90 degrees and looks like a regular digital camera display. You can turn on the camera in the system menu or you can press that button. You do not need to open the slider (the keyboard should be unlocked or you’ll need to press another button). The neck lace loop, system port for connecting stuff like the set, PC synch cable and etc., charger nest (thin pin), microphone hole is located on the lower frame edge. Slider is not very big – 95.4õ50õ23.4 mm (when folded, when it is open it enlarges up to 124 mm), but it is heavy – 134 grams. Whether you will or won’t hang it on you neck – it’s your own choice. But there are no principal obstacles for that. A plastic cork for the memory card slot is located on the left edge of the lower frame half. N80 supports miniSD cards. 128 MB card is included. Considering the 3 mega pixel sensor (i.e. the shots will obviously be “heavy” – up to one and a half and even a bit more MB each), the capacity is, obviously, too low. But it will last you some time. You can remove the card and exchange when the smart is working (during the hot exchange, the smart might ask you to close the started application). Besides the card, the phone has 40 MB of system memory. The back panel. The battery compartment cover has a lock with a button. The SIM-card holder is located under the battery and has a very uncomfortable structure (the same as in N93, N91 and etc. – folding and weak). BL-5B battery itself has 860 mAh capacity and “holds” up to 3 hours of conversation time. Note that in reality it is less. I did away with the battery in two hours of active work. At that I photographed without the LED flash and never listened to music. The optical set is located above the battery compartment. The protective lens window (focal distance in 35 mm film sense – medium wide-angle) is set into the plastic disc-like cover plate. The window of LED “flash” is located nearby. Distance switch is located below the lens – for shooting in macro mode (definition zone from 17.5 to 23.4 cm) and for shooting in normal mode (definition zone from 68 cm to “infinity”). That’s it for the time being. A fine device that fits well in your hand.          N80 multimedia talents The smart quite well utilizes the music player and FM radio. I won’t tell you a lot about them. I’ll just note that there is no artificial sound range narrowing here like in E series smart phones (when you can evidently feel the lack of lower frequencies in the playing mode). The program player itself is the same as in Nokia N71 and N93. It’s quite a good thing, but N91 player seemed more comfortable (that is not surprising – N91 is a musical smart, the older brother of the most popular Nokia 3250). I would list small size – in comparison to other Nokia smart phones, as an advantage of N80 as a multimedia device. It’s not much bigger than the popular HDD players. The main and, unfortunately, hard to overcome disadvantage is the small working time. You can get used to the player control buttons. Or buy a good set like Nokia Music HS-20 that is also a player remote control (you can also connect any earphones with a 3.5 mm mini jack). System stuff There are no differences from other N series smart here. Symbian 9.1 OS 3rd version. All common programs are in place, no surprises. I’ll note the presence of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and IR port adapters as a nice surprise… You can see the rest from the enclosed illustrations.                               Nokia N80 as a camera Despite of the fact that the smart phone has CMOS sensor, it is, after all, a whole 3 mega pixels. And the camera shoots well – in the photo mode as well as in the video mode. I’ll be straight with you – the camera is quite good, especially considering the thought out ergonomics. In any case, I was more enjoying while shooting with N80 than with N93. There I had to think about being careful not to cover the optics with a finger, about my shaking hands and about reaching the needed buttons. Here I just shot. The camera utilizes two modes of macro shot. One is for shooting objects on an expanded scale and the other one is for shooting documents. The quality of the shot is such that you can easily work with the document in a recognition program and convert the text into digital format. So Nokia N80 is not only a camera, but a small office scanner (in a certain sense, of course – you can call a web camera a scanner as well). The macro here is, of course, relative. Distance of 17 something centimeters is not a centimeter or five or, even, ten. You have to hold well the object distance in this mode anyway. I made a mistake and, here you are, the shot came out not very in focus (it is included as an illustration of possible mistakes. I won’t say anything about the camera settings as there is nothing special about them. Resolution choice (relative, there are no exact definitions in the settings, so I’ll define them in numbers – 2048õ1536, 1600õ1200, 1280õ960, 800õ600 and 640õ480 pixels), automatic exposure mode, flash modes, white balance and color refinement (negative, sepia and etc.). How does N80 shoot video? A bit worse than photo. Video resolution – 352õ288 or 176õ144 pixels. Video is recorded with sound… The rest you can see from the included photographs.
 Video sample 1, mp4, 928 KB >>> Video sample 2, mp4, 954 KB >>> Conclusion Having tried out an abundance of smart phones, I suddenly though – may I dislike any Nokia? I am talking about smart phones, specifically, about the most modern, most complex devices of cellular connection. I really liked Nokia N80. Not the easiest sliding halves, relatively large weight, not a very high-capacity battery… What else from the negative side? Nothing. And is this really negative? If I would be picking out a new phone, I would freeze in front of the shop-window with Nokia smarts. And if I had such a chance, I would get about five of the. And I wouldn’t leave the store without a Nokia N80. © Nikolay Nadezhdin, Mobiset.ru reviews Translated by Olga Mexina (info@mobiset.ru) Published — 07 march 2007 |
 |
