Nokia N82 Review and Impressions...

[Richdog]

For me the N73 was easily the best phone I ever had, the camera was decent if not outstanding, but the fact that it had so much functionality (sat-nav, organiser etc) and that while occasionally slow it rarely ever keeled over won it a firm place in my heart. The N82 is the spiritual successor in every way and then some!

PICS HERE Richdog : photos : Nokia N82- powered by SmugMug

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External Looks/Feel:

It isn't going to win any awards here lets face it... it's standard Nokia N-series candybar format, a bit plain. Functional. Having said that, it isn't ugly by any means, and personally I can't abide sliders and clamshells. I like it neat and simple, just like my quim (I kid, I kid). With regards to feel... despite still being made all of plastic (Nokia, ffs sort it out) it feels solid, much more solid than the N73 did. Less plasticky, less fragile, no creakage.

While I loved my N73, I found the buttons a pain in the arse for texting, I've reasonably large hands and would constantly mis-press due to their overly flat design. Here the N82 excels. The buttons are small and protruding... there is plenty of space around each button making for easy and pressing, and I can write texts swiftly and comfortably. I'm very happy with them. The directional pad is also very flat to the phone, whioch is good in the respect that it isn't going to fall off like the old N73 joystick, but some may find it trickier to navigate.

The phone features a micro-US port for PC connectivity (thank God they got rid of the horrible proprietry thing) and is stable and steady. Memory card (Micro SD) slot is placed on the left side, as is the charger entry (which I personally think is a poor and rather odd choice, keep it on the bottom). All inputs seem to be on the left, naturally barring the 3.5mm headphone jack situated at the top of the device.

Dimension-wise, it's no deeper than the N73, indeed it appears more streamlined somehow due to the design, but it is slightly wider. However, I definately prefer it.

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Speed/Interface:

First thing I did when I got the phone was customise it to exactly how I had my N73, and install some apps. Then played around entering and exiting them and just generally trying to make it sweat a little. The N73 had only little memory... I believe it was roughly around 20-25MB, and when the phone had been in my hands a while it quickly ran out of free RAM, making gliding about the phone as pleasurable as swimming the River Humber in concrete shorts.

In comparison, the N82 has a whopping 120MB (or just over), and the difference is like night and day. The different menus and sections open snappily. Programs open and exit swiftly, tomtom is about 3x quicker when navigating in and out and through the options, and the phone just feels 10x better than the N73 did even on its best day. This for me is a huge relief, and i'm looking forward to experimenting further with more intensive programs and reporting back with some further feedback.

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Camera:

Ok be honest... you were really wondering about the camera, right? Is it as good as they say? How does the spangly new xenon flash fare? Well, my answer to that would be only to say that it is leagues ahead of any other camera phone I have ever used including the K800i. The flash is a proper flash, xenon as mentioned, and noticeably brighter than that of the K800i, which was the first phone to feature it.

The camera is opened by flipping the switch on the back of the phone, this way of opening the lens is much less intrusive than on the N73, and importantly, it isn't going to open/close by accident in your jeans pocket. It's how they should have designed it in the first place to be honest.

Stills image quality seems decent, the flash obviously helps massively in this department, but what really struck me was the video quality, it rocks! Full 640x480, 30fps, "DVD quality" (use the term loosely) video capture... and it really is smooth as a babys bum! Sound q2uality in the video was also very clear, and it's obvious they've improved the mic pickup and clarity on this model. What else I find awesome is the cable that comes with the phone that will plug into any modern TV, and connect it via the 3.5mm headphone jack. You can then run the phone through the TV, displaying any videos, photos you like... or even just randomly (if somewhat pointlessly) using the TV as you use the camera scree, for browsing the menus and texting etc etc. However, it's really only useful for the videos, and provides a fantastic and very speedy means of showing off what you've captured.

Lastly, and perhaps as important as the good picture quality is this... the speed of the camera, both which it loads up, shuts down, and also time between pics. With the N73 it was oftn a nightmare, the phones low memry made switching between camera and OS a royal pain, and it would frequently get confused or stuck when changing between video and stills etc. Not any more... it really is leagues ahead, and taking a row of still is now painless, with no confusion and a consistently low time between shots. Yay, at last!

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Sound:

One area I found the N73 very weak was sound... if you had music playing through the speakers (for whatever reason) it would sound tiny and distorted at higher levels. Not so with the N82. While it's obviously never going to rival a speaker system, the stereo sound quality is noticeably improved with the N82. Overall I think it is a tad quieter, but this is compensated for with much richer sound quality. Music through the speakers doesn't sound bad at all for what it is. However most impressive to me was the sound quality through a pair of good Sennheiser headphones... rich and warm with good (surprisingly good) bass.

Also just found that I can send an "audio text". Basically you create the message and it then prompts you to record an audio clip. You record the clip and voila, it sends it. Quite cool really, adds a personal touch to a message and is something a bit different. The mic is very clear on this phone.

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Battery/GPS:

I always feel these two go hand in hand for obvious reasons. One problem with the original N95 was that it ran out of juice VERY quickly qith the GPS enabled. The N82 will also be under duress, however with it's higher capacity battery it shouldn't be TOO bad when using the features, should it? Read on.

i've been using the GPS for the last couple of days and wow... I am seriously impressed. I turned off A-GPS as I don't like the idea of it constantly using data charges and the GPS still locks onto a signal from cold literally within 10 seconds. Not only that... but after the first fix the bloody thing has a good signal inside my house, in my bedroom! I never got that even with Sirfstar III... to say i'm pleasantly surprised is a complete understatement... over the moon is more like it! I have Garmin Mobile XT installed and it's not skipping a beat... detected the internal GPS with only minor modification (basically you need to add a single file to the memory card) and as I said, once you get a GPS lock by holding it out of a window for 10 secs you can then take it inside the house and it has 3 to 4 bars constant. Unbelievable.

With regards to battery life, I gave it a full charge in the morning after I bought it and hammered it until empty during the day. Bear in mind the usage I gave it was not considered "normal", more like "extreme"... I was using the flash a lot, taking videos, making calls, installing programs, testing the GPS for a short while, playing MP3's etc, and basically the LCD was backlit for most of the day. It lasted from around 8:30am until 11:00pm before it started moaning at me and I turned it off as I was at a mates and wanted some charge left in the morning. Over 14 hours is NOT bad for all that usage! I've ordered a spare genuine battery off of Ebay too, so that if I ever do get caught short then I have a backup on me. In the subsequent 2 days following this I have found that the battery stays at full for most of the day under "regular" usage, very similar to my old N73.

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Initial Conclusion:

This is the phone I have been looking for... same and greater functionality then the N73 with none of the horrible speed issues due to the vastly superior memory. It supports the new SDHC Micro SD cards for capacities up to and in excess of 8GB (which cost roughly £40), so space should never really be an issue, whether it be for mobile pr0n (looks good by the way) or MP3's.

I can't wait to put this phone through it's paces over the next few days, and as I do os i'll put on some pics and if people have any spare web space i'll send them a video to upload for me. This is what the N73 always wanted to be, and with its built-in GPS, decent capacity batter and of course the magnificant camera with xenon flash I can't see me getting tired of it over the next 12 months.

Good things:

*Streamlined candy-bar format (no sucky slider)
*Speedy and responsive interface (due to a plentiful 128MB of RAM)
*Awesome photo and powerful xenon flash
*Awesome video capabilities 640x480 @ 30fps
*VERY strong GPS receiver (even non-assisted), locks-on in seconds and doesn't skip a beat
*Good sound, 3.5mm jack

Bad things:

*Not the best-looking phone ever created
*Charging point is on the side (why?), would prefer the more common mini-USB

I'll update this as I find new things...

[Richdog]

Huge review of the N82 here! Nokia N82 review: Comes with xenon - GSMArena.com

Disagree with his GPS comments though... I think it locks on very quickly. Also I find the buttons extremely comfortable.

Surprised there's been no interest in this phone?

[Spud1]

Pleased you like it

I personally have completely gone off nokias now - I have been a nokia owner for almost every phone I have had..until I got an N73 with a couple of years ago. It was the single worst nokia I had ever had - and it made me switch to my lubly HTC-Touch and WM6..can't see any reason to go back

The N82 looks interesting, good review thanks - my dad is looking at getting this one so will let him have a read. Going to have to get him to have a play with one in the shop too I think as those buttons look like a love/hate type thing.

[vrykyl]

nice review

Spud1 - what was up with your n73? i still have mine and love it - it was the first phone I found that was imo worthy of replacing my mighty nokia 6600 - the orange firmware it came with was nasty, but after a quick hack and firmware flash to transform it into the unbranded n73 music edition its been the best phone iv ever had

[joshwa]

If you don't mind me asking - Where did you get it from? I'm very interested - the flash on the N95 is rubbish!

[Spud1]

Originally Posted by vrykyl

Spud1 - what was up with your n73? i still have mine and love it - it was the first phone I found that was imo worthy of replacing my mighty nokia 6600 - the orange firmware it came with was nasty, but after a quick hack and firmware flash to transform it into the unbranded n73 music edition its been the best phone iv ever had

From new it was great - for about 3 months. Since then its been back for repair 4 times to no avail..
Biggest problems though were that

a) Its slow, just so slow..I store no photos or music on the thing and only a few hundred texts (which is NOT excessive) and you could count the seconds it took to load messaging or the browser.usually 5-10 seconds.

b) It would crash and automatically reboot at least once or twice a week

c) Sometimes (most of the time actually) It would crash when you tried to turn it off - just going to a white screen that wouldnt go away until you took out the battery, or it ran out of power

d) The audio quality appeared to get worse over time..I still have mine now and the sound quality is just rubbish compared to my HTC, or even my old 6230.

e) The camera slider on the back opens by itself in my pocket, loading the camera and taking photos of the inside of my pocket far too often.

f) Speaking of the camera, it crashed roughly 30% of the time when trying to open it..and had that annoying error message complainign that I didn't have a memory card. The camera was also one of the slowest applications on the phone.

I could go on but I won't, as i'm sure its tiresome to read and the post is about the N82 I've tried multiple firmwares with the phone - stock firmware, Music Edition (which is bad for memory having the media player permanently loaded), Internet Edition, and then various versions of the nokia firmware...It would always get better after a reflash but then quickly went back to its old state. 2 of my friends also have an N73 and we're all on different networks (three, voda and T-mobile) and all have the same problem. So definitely the worst nokia I have owned - if not the worst phone (That was a sony erricsson )

[arbitor]

Very hit and miss the n73.

Mine was a GREAT phone, my flatmates has had 3 or 4 and they have all been awful in one way or another.. mostly speed

[Richdog]

Originally Posted by Spud1

Pleased you like it

I personally have completely gone off nokias now - I have been a nokia owner for almost every phone I have had..until I got an N73 with a couple of years ago. It was the single worst nokia I had ever had - and it made me switch to my lubly HTC-Touch and WM6..can't see any reason to go back

The N82 looks interesting, good review thanks - my dad is looking at getting this one so will let him have a read. Going to have to get him to have a play with one in the shop too I think as those buttons look like a love/hate type thing.

Shame... my N73 was legendary and I lov it, sniffle. Nokia are good though, I think now especially the software is up to scratch that they are the best you can get overall.

Originally Posted by joshwa

If you don't mind me asking - Where did you get it from? I'm very interested - the flash on the N95 is rubbish!

Ebay mate, I paid full whack for it. Worthg it imo, i'm just going to take a contract out early next month and sell whatever phone I get (most expensive I can find) on Ebay to recoup 2/3 of the cost or so.

Huge review of the N82 here! Nokia N82 review: Comes with xenon - GSMArena.com

Disagree with his GPS comments though... I think it locks on very quickly. Also I find the buttons extremely comfortable.

[Vini]

How much is full whack? In the process of selling my iPhone to fund one. This has the little things the k850i lacks - and even though I'm Sony Ericsson through and through, I'ma have to bite the bullet and get the N82. It looks the daddy.

Edit/ gandering ebay now and at ~£350 it's not actually that bad.

[Richdog]

I paid £350, can get it for £335 now though. 1yr warranty and a good seller though so was worth the extra at the time imo. Amazing phone, the audio texts feature is so cool.

[Vini]

I'll get one, I'm just not that desperate yet. Contract runs out in Feb, i'll get one then

[Jay]

how does this stand up to the n95?

[Richdog]

Originally Posted by jay_oasis

how does this stand up to the n95?

There's some reviews comparing them if you do a bit of googling.

[=TcQi=]

Any views on the N82 battery life a few weeks in? My N95 lasts barely three days with moderate camera/music player usage. Also hows the clarity of music output via headphones? N95v1 tended to emit a constant hiss, which as far as I know is still present in firmware v20.x.x.x.x.

TIA


=TcQi=

[behappier]

How does the GPS compare with the N95, on mine I can hardly ever have a lock - outside with a full sky view - my N95 could be faulty!

[Richdog]

My GPS is awesome, locks on with almost full strength almost every time and that's not even always running assisted, very happy with it.