Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition review – the phone aristocracyNokia 8800 Sirocco Edition is not a smart phone. It isn’t supposed to connect to the PC via cable, only via Bluetooth. There is no wire stereo set, no memory card.It’s not a player phone and, you could say that it’s not a camera phone (although, it has a good quality camera). But I haven’t held a phone better than the Nokia 8800 SE. And I don’t think I will forget it very soon… Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition is a phone its purest form. A modern classic. An example of an ideal cellular connection device as it should be. That’s how it is; more or less. So, what is so unusual about it if the phone leaves a feeling of… depression or something like that? Or a sensation that you are touching a thing that you can own only in theory independent of your own desires. Why in theory only? Can’t you buy it on the market? Yes, you can. And its price, even though it’s a bit expensive – about 35 thousand rubles, is not beyond the limits as the price of Vertu phones (the same Nokia, but in an exclusive and a very expensive version). There is something else here… Any thing is just a continuation and a reflection of our essence. It has to fit us as well as we have to fit it. You can imagine a person that works hard all of his life, saves money in order to make his dream come true and at the end of his life buy an elite sports car that costs 300 thousand dollars. Any one of us can buy a Porsche 911th model even if at the cost of hard work and long-term deprivation. But how stupid does a regular person look next to this auto monster. Or a different story. A Breitling that costs four thousand dollars is lying on a shop window. It’s a good Swiss watch and not beyond the limits in price at that, to the contrary, they are quite democratic and accessible, as you might say. But can you wear them if you make five hundred dollars a month? If you wear old jeans and wore down sneakers? While listening to the constant whining about debts and frowns of your wife, who still cannot buy winter boots?.. Well, you get the point. You can buy the Nokia 8800 phone. But you need a good reason to do that. As you would when buying an expensive pen, a big ballpoint pen like the Parker Duofold. Or a diamond necklace that costs thirty thousand dollars. Or a new Harley. And so on. This phone is a symbol of success. And you buy it for a public demonstration of wealth (there are enough blockheads in this world) or out respect for yourself. It’s a midway bonus. A reward for toils. For perseverance and firmness of purpose. For exactly that luck that looms in the distance and is so hard to catch by the tail. But then – you get lucky. And you get the phone. And it doesn’t seem a stolen diamond in the hands of a marginal person. It’s yours. Earned and deserved. And you have a right to own it. The very you, who got tired of hoping and dreaming… Don’t be mad at me for this long and lyrical prologue. Trust me, the phone is worth it. Truly, the device is tremendous. Will I be able to describe this wonderful sensation in the text? I will try my best… Our golden… piece of metal When, at first, you look at the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition characteristics, you cannot understand what it is that you are paying so much money for. Well, yes, there is a lot of metal. Yes, the frame is varnished. Some kind of super glass covering the screen. But… is that it? Exactly that kind of feeling – perplexity – appeared momentarily when I opened the box with a new phone. The box itself looks like a case with a metal removable lock (a rectangular crampon that is put onto the edge of the casing), but is actually made from extruded black cardboard. Beautiful, looks excellent, although, essentially, it is the same paper. The set is very rich, even irrefragable. The phone itself, the wire mono (!) set, the wireless Bluetooth set (exclusive, not sold separately), a standard mobile charger (it also fits the set), a cradle (a desk stand for charging the phone) with a compartment for the reserve battery charger, the second battery itself, a leather case (real leather, not a vulgar leather-cloth) and a piece of real suede for wiping the phone. Two thick books – the instructions to the phone and to the wireless set. A disk with a demonstration and the program with the PC synch. A booklet that does not have any pictures or text (practically none at all), only a color of dark brown tints. A kind of high-tech advertising comic book for adults. I take the phone into my hands and take off the transparent protective screen sticker. I open the sliding phone with a heavy metal sound and close it with the same one. There is no buffer; the spring of the sliding phone is powerful and tight. Like in a gunlock… So what are we paying for? I insert one of the batteries into the phone (I do not even open the second one, they are absolutely identical). I also insert the SIM card. I switch on the phone. The dark tone of the start screen. No pictures. A regular (although, original, not animated) menu… The program constituent of the phone is the S40 system of the 3rd version. But… it does not look like any Nokia. It’s a thing in itself. I spent the first evening constantly clicking the slider and getting mad. A real fraud. Nothing special except for the metal and varnish. But in the morning… I could not let it out of my hands the next morning. I forgot about all the other phone that were lying (and are lying) on my table. I put in the card from my phone into it and recorded all the phone numbers. I took the case out of the box and placed the cradle near the computer… I put away the plebeian PC laptop and took out the old Macintosh as it fits the appearance of this Finnish fop… For the first time in my life I played around – with this very phone. I imitated business meetings (as if on purpose no one called me that day). I talked into the silent phone trying to make my tenor sound a little like booming bass. I tried to straighten my shoulders and keep my head as high as possible… My folks got nervous. But I calmed them down. No, I didn’t go crazy. I just… dreamed… On the third day I knew that I will never again hold a phone like this one. Never. If I don’t buy it, that is… So, the Nokia 8800 is a sliding phone that is manufactured mostly from metal, from stainless steel to be exact. The form of the frame is thought out to the outmost detail. A big cavity for the thumb of the right hand is located on the front panel’s lower part that has the sliding screen part of the sliding phone. At the same time the index finger is located on the same cavity in the back phone panel.       The varnish covering the phone frame has high level of endurance to mechanic abrasions. But like any varnished surface, the phone is instantly covered by handprints. That’s why the set includes a piece of suede – to wipe the phone and get rid of the owner’s handprints. By the way, fat stains on the dark (not black) background look very unpleasant. With some kind of cyanotic stains as if it really is dirt. But just one movement and the phone shines again like a black diamond. Yes, the color… It’s not black, but brown black, very deep, warm and depends on the lighting. In the twilight, the phone is absolutely black like anthracite. And in the bright lighting it becomes the color of bitter chocolate. The play of the color shades is so delicate that you cannot really determine the color of the phone. By the way, there is also a light version of the phone. But I haven’t seen it yet. The phone does not have any control buttons in the folded mode – all of them are hidden inside of the sliding phone. Actually, the two main buttons – the analogues of the dial and end buttons that are hidden in the phone base are accessible in any mode. They are manufactured as a thin figured lug under the phone screen and are hard to notice. They also function as the keyboard lock buttons and as soft buttons when the sliding phone is open. Why do you need the lock in a sliding phone, which keyboard is anyway hidden from accidental contact? To protect these two soft buttons. The keyboard is unlocked automatically when the sliding phone is opened and it is also locked when it is closed (if you pick the respective option in settings). You don’t have to neither open nor unlock the sliding phone when there is an incoming call; it’s enough to press the receiver key. The upper part of the upper panel is covered by glass that protects the phone screen from abrasions. It’s not a regular glass, but sapphire. It is scratch proof, very durable and does not dull. That’s the exact kind of glass that is used in expensive high-class watches. You can see a thin slit of the phone speaker on the end of the metal-varnished framing in the upper part of the cover glass… All in all, you can say that the phone is all-metal. Only the upper part of the back panel is plastic of all the exterior details – the built in antennae is located there – and a tiny inset in the lower frame edge – where the sockets for connecting the exterior devices are located. The sliding phone mechanism has a tight spring. The halves move in metal slides with precision bearings (the bearing quality is especially stressed by the manufacturer). Let’s add together metal, varnish, sapphire glass and these wonder- bearings… Now do you understand where these 35 thousand rubles of the device price came from? Also there are exclusive ring tones that were written specially for the 8800 SE by the popular composer Brian Eno (I think that Mozart and Salieri would agree as well for this kind of money) and 13 special design themes that is impossible to pick out of the phone memory (they will not fit anything else anyway). And etc… Some people will say that it’s just cheesy. Possibly so. But we’ll call it the “Sirocco style” – by the name of the hot African desert wind. There is nothing except for a pair of latches that hold the battery compartment cover on the phone side edges. The latches are tight. And you have to press them simultaneously from both sides pressing on their lower edges. Even in this case, the cover does move easily and we’ll talk later about that. Only the traditional Nokia device switch button (and fast profile control) takes up the upper plastic edge, also there is the slit of the second loud speaker. There are two different-sized holes and two copper contacts on the lower edge. A thin needle of the charger (it’s the same as in most of the other new Nokia smart phones) is connected to the smaller hole. A mono set is connected to the bigger socket… Why mono? Because the owner of this phone will not listen to music using it. It’s not a king’s business. There is an interesting story that concerns the contacts. A desk support is included in the phone set. It has two sockets – a bigger one and a smaller one. A regular charger is connected to the support. The phone is installed into the big socket and the second charger is installed into the smaller one. The base is lighted white if the cradle is connected to the network. The backlight is pulsating; it lights up and dims softly. A very beautiful gadget… No efforts are needed to put the phone into the support. The contacts are flat and constitute copper plates from the phone side and spring loaded lug from the cradle side. Now about the second battery. The regular BP-6X battery is quite small in size and volume (600 mAh, if I am not mistaken). It has enough energy to last for 2.75 hours in the conversation mode and for 240 hours in the waiting mode. It’s quite enough, nevertheless. But if you have to drive out somewhere, it’s better to be safe and take the second battery with you… It seems that everything is quite fine, but it’s not very comfortable to change the battery – because of the tight cover of the battery compartment and, again, the tight fastening of the battery itself in its socket. It will not call it a disadvantage, as a tight fastening is a trustworthy fastening. By the way, the SIM card is inserted into the socket slot and is supported by the battery edge. It looks as an example of beauty after the various folding fastenings. Indeed, you have to properly place the card in the socket; otherwise it will be stuck (as I said to myself – read the instructions)… I open the sliding phone. The white key backlight lights up simultaneously. It’s nice and not blinding, but a bit excessive. The thing is that the buttons are fitted with numbers and both the Cyrillic and Latin letters. And the button surface is not that large. So when the backlight is on, almost the whole surface of the button is lit and the keyboard reminds you of a white Christmas tree garland… The buttons themselves have a splayed lower part. And that’s very good as it’s more comfortable to press on the sharp edges than on the flat surfaces of microscopic buttons. Further on, there are big phone buttons (dial and end) made as a whole panel. A big rectangular joystick with a semitransparent mirror lens in the center. The joystick is uncomfortable in use – when you press on its frame, you constantly brush the neighboring buttons. The habit came on the third day. I won’t even talk about the design – it’s excellent.       The real hardship awaits in the lower row of the phone buttons. The sharp edge of the metal panel simply hinders the use of these buttons. So you have to lean over backwards. What else? The camera. A tiny eye of the lens covered with the sliding phone’s panel in the folded mode. The cover glass is hard – sapphire? I did not find any information about this… What are the first conclusions? Quite small – 107õ45õ17.5 mm, heavy – 136 grams, very beautiful phone, you never doubt its origin. The device that justifies its (honestly, monstrously big) price. System I purposefully did not say anything about the phone screen postponing that story for the chapter about the programming constituent of the phone. The thing is. That the screen characteristics will say a lot to those users, who have an experience using Nokia phones of the S40 family. So. The 8800 has a square 31x31 mm screen and a 208x208 pixels resolutions. That reminds you of something, doesn’t it? Yes, certainly. Even the new Nokia 5500 smart has the same kind of screen (and that’s almost the weakest part of this nice device – I am talking about the sports smart). But here, in 8800, the small screen (in fact, perfectly normal by specific phone standards) looks quite readable. No one is going to look at office documents on it (there is no such function) and the system menu and screen fonts are selected in a way that makes glasses unnecessary. The screen is bright and contrasting. It fades in the sun light (there is no mirror backing, like in smarts), but not fatally so. I’ll just note the exquisitely picked color palette in each of the 13 phone themes. I. e. the phone on the inside looks as representational and solid as it does on the outside. You can connect the phone to a computer via Bluetooth and sync contacts, calendar and MS Outlook notes (and other organizers, the Lotus Organizer, for example) via the Nokia PC Suite packet. But the half of the program’s functionality will be left behind. Concerning the phone functionality, there are no novices here. Very good mail system – all popular protocols are supported. EDGE support is used. There is a quite flexible address book that, although, does not leave any bright impressions. The calendar, the alarms, (very good, unlike the ones in the smarts – with ring settings composed by the weekdays). A few applications (just two of them – the converter and the world clock), a couple of games (respectable, not for teenagers as one might expect, of course). The equalizer (global that functions not only in the player). The ring volume perplexed me a bit (it seemed that the signal could have been louder) and as well as the lack of a volume control in the waiting mode. Changing the speaker volume in the conversation mode is not very comfortable. But all of that stays in the frame of the norm and does not bring forth sharp dislike. I hope that you will understand the rest from the screen shots below.                             Multimedia and the camera The phone can play MP3 files (and not only them), but isn’t made for listening to music. The thing is. That it’s impossible to connect a stereo set to it. And the wireless Bluetooth set won’t save the situation as the phone memory has only 128 MB and there is no memory card slot. But then the phone has a radio that you can listen to only in the mono version via a “single-ear” set. I will note the very good radio perceptibility – I could catch the stations (“Arsenal”, for instance) that are not caught by any other radio in my Moscow area, including the radio in the Nokia smart phone. The phone has a camera with a 2 mega pixel CMOS sensor. No LED flash or spherical mirror. The maximum shot resolution is 1600x1200 pixels. In a good lighting the shot quality is quite good – on the level of a 2 mega pixel smarts. But the video is not much. The maximum resolution is 176x144 pixels. This kind of video is good only for phone viewing or sending MMS messages. There are not many camera settings, but that’s not the point. Most importantly, the necessary settings are there and the camera itself, as I said, photographs quite well. I really like the possibility of turning off the shutter sound without activating the silent profile.       Video sample, 3gp, 100 KB >>> Conclusion This phone has one peculiarity. You can never describe it so as to exactly bring forth the sensations that it arouses. Simple? Yes, imagine that. But I would trade in all of the most modern “complexities” of the most advanced communicators for its simplicity. Just as an example… That classic 1959 “Rolls-Royce” that Her Highness the queens of Great Britain rides in lacks the inner handles on the back doors. To climb out you have to wait for the servant to come to his senses. But it does not make the “Rolls-Royce” into an old wreck. It still is one of the best cars in the world! A car outside of time and popular trends. The same is with the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition. It lacks the new technologies – in the way that they are presented in top smart phones of the Finnish company. But as a phone itself, it’s of the highest class, a real aristocrat of royal blood. Does it cost its money? Yes, without any doubt. Would I guy one for myself? Well, only if I would sell the Turkmen persimmon on a street market (in that specific environment the Nokia 8800 is very popular)… I don’t see any other possibility, so I’ll have to do without it for the time being. And then – who knows. © Nikolay Nadezhdin, Mobiset.ru reviews Translated by Olga Mexina (info@mobiset.ru) Published — 07 march 2007 |
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