So it’s that time of year again.
After close to 1.5 years on my trusty Nokia N73(review here-
https://mouthshut.com/review/Nokia_N73-114571-1.html)- I decided to give in
and get hold of the phone I’ve been lusting for since it was unveiled in Dec.
’07.
Here’s the rap sheet - https://developer.nokia.com/devices/N82
For the full flash demo with all the bling, go here
https://nseries.com/index.html#l=products, n82
So here we go!
First looks: To describe it in very concise terms, N82= N95 - slider+
candybar+ Xenon flash+ light meter+ auto tilt+ user data protection. Let me
elaborate further.
The N82 has the same candybar form factor as the N73, but with the added
powerful features of the N95. Speakers are located along the right side,
instead of the top and bottom, and the data cable/charger socket have moved to
the left side. The phone uses microUSB and 3.5" audio jacks, instead of
the old proprietary PopPort interface, so this means you can connect any
headphones to it.
Headphone jack is moved to the top, so it can be easily slipped into your shirt
pocket while listening to music. **The handsfree supplied unfortunately
is the typical basic one with no music controls.** Why couldn’t they supply
the same kind as is given with the music edition phones?
Aesthetics/ergonomics: What’s not to like! Beautiful polished steel look
(not actual steel, like the N91 was). It attracts fingerprints, sure, but I
love the silver gleam. And yeah, there’s a black N82 coming out soon for those
who are interested. Contrary to appearances,
the thin keys are actually fine to type on. The last time such keys were seen
were on the N91-and they were hard to press. These ones have the right balance
of not being too spongy(like the N73 original) or too hard. They ‘click’ just
right, and are easy to type on. **However, the pencil key( a staple on s60
devices) has been removed**. The+ key now has the options for dictionary etc., and can be used to multiselect, and this may take some getting used to.
There’s also a dedicated ‘multimedia’ key that works
differently than the older ones. It displays a rolling set of tiles; each tile
showing in order-recent music, videos, quick access to contacts, last photo
taken and so on.
Firmware: As the complexity of Nseries starts to rival computers, bugs
do come out and Nokia has started offering firmware updates that can be
performed at home without having to take the phone to a shop. My base firmware
was 10.0.0.46. After reading up on the net, I found that a newer version of the
firmware fixes several bugs and makes performance improvements, so I upgraded
and now I have 30.0.0.19. Chances are if you buy this phone later, it may
already be updated; you can use Nokia Software Updater(google it) to check the
latest version. One nice feature is ‘user data protection’-this means that
firmware updates will not wipe the phone memory as they did with earlier
phones; your applications, contacts, messages etc remain intact after flashing
the firmware.
Responsiveness: This has to be the Core 2 Duo of
mobile phones. It uses a dual core ARM processor and a dedicated OpenGL
graphics chip. The result? Stunningly fast performance and responsiveness.
Despite all the features, it boots up in less than 15 seconds, and the camera
instantly starts when you open the shutter. The last word- you can play a Symbian port of the old 3D game Quake 1 on this with full graphics and effects!
Operating system/look and feel: The phone, like the N95, uses S60 3rd
edition Feature Pack 1. As before-I’ll just highlight the new features here
over the base S60 3rd edition OS.
Reorganized menus- Earlier one had to go to separate
places to change the theme, ringtone, wallpaper etc. Now they’re all grouped
together under a ‘personalization’ menu in settings(though you can use the old
way also). A few other menus have also been grouped together/reorganized.
Animated icons- Icons in the menu animate(if you can
call sliding towards you, that)
Running app indicator-The N82 has 120 MB of RAM,
which is huge for a mobile device. You can have several apps running, and now a
small blue swirl is shown in the menu to indicate that an app is already
running in the background.
Timed Bluetooth visibility- You can specify for how
long your phone should appear visible via Bluetooth, after which it reverts to
‘hidden’ mode.
Gallery- You can save images directly to contacts as
their thumbnails from the gallery now.
Unified browser: In the previous OS, there were 2
browsers ‘Web’ and ‘Services’ for full web and wap, respectively. These have
been merged into a single one that recognizes both types of content. It now can
store form passwords for websites as well, saving you the hassle of typing it
out. Also, since it has wifi support, you can surf the net using wifi instead
of your GPRS connection.
Keypad autolock, and repeating alarms!- Finally,
finally they ported over these features from lower end S40 phones! Why Nokia
chose not to have this ability before, I wonder! Caveat: The autolock only
works when the phone is in the standby screen, not otherwise. The alarm clock
lets you specify working days, and can be set to ring only on those days if
needed. Also you can set multiple alarms.
Search: Imagine having the equivalent of Google
Desktop Search on your phone. This is the most awesome application on the phone
that I’ve found. It can be invoked from the Active Standby screen, and you can
search anything on your phone-be it contacts, messages, emails, calendar
entries, by just typing it. No more hunting through menus. You can also search
the web-Google, MSN and Yahoo! are the default search providers.
Autotilt: Like the N95 and the iPhone, this phone
also has an accelerometer that detects its orientation. Unlike the N95, it does
support auto tilt. Tilting the phone to the left in any mode other than the
standby screen causes the display to switch to horizontal/landscape mode.
However you need to hold it exactly perpendicular to the ground to work
correctly, and it only works if you flip it to the left. You can turn off this
behavior too, if you like.
Camera: According to a web review, the N82 wins hands
down over other 5mp class camera phones in terms of image quality. I totally
agree. The phone also has a lightmeter that vastly improves photo quality under
low light conditions. As I mentioned before, the camera starts up immediately
on opening the shutter(there’s a small switch for the lens cover on the back).
The camera now has a viewfinder grid and extra setting for sharpness, in
addition to everything else. Image quality lives upto the hype; pity I don’t
have examples. Geotagging support via
GPS for photos means you can embed position information into the photo,
so that the location can be indicated on google maps.
Continued in comments