Many moons ago, I had a wonderful mobile phone, the Nokia 7650. I loved that phone. But one day I stepped on it. I’ve been through two other phones since then, but I’ve always had fond memories of my 7650. Then, late last year, I read details of a new phone from Nokia which was highly reminiscent of my beloved 7650.

Nokia N80

The Nokia N80 is a third generation Series 60 product, with all of the common mobile phone extras, plus a thre megapixel camera and wi-fi.

The positives

• The phone’s screen is absolutely to die for. It is the same physical size as most phones, but at twice the resolution. Vector graphics are used in many places and the anti-aliased fonts are clear and easy to read.
• A common complaint levelled at phones such as the N70 is their slowness. When using the N80 however, the OS feels fast and more than responsive enough to not be frustrating.
• The new ‘active standby’ feature which uses the home screen to display upcoming calendar events and todos is lovely, as is being able to define your six most frequently used apps for quick access.

The negatives

• With a smaller that normal battery, rated at only 750mAh the device lasts less than two days on standby. However, this may be due to the fact I leave Bluetooth on all the time.
• Nokia have also changed the power charger’s plug on this phone. So the eight other chargers I have are now redundant. And it’s not like there’s not enough room in the base for a physically bigger plug. Smacks of change for change’s sake to me.
• Whilst the camera is going to be fine for quick snaps, (some reference pictures) it’ll not be replacing my Casio Exilim. It’ll mainly be used where I don’t have my camera or I can’t be bothered digging into my bag for it.
• So far, setting up the wi-fi correctly has confounded me. The manual refers to an application I can’t find — this may be my incompetence, or it could be because Orange like changing things around on their phone setups. Apparently, however, wi-fi drains the already-too-short battery life.
• Older Series 60 software cannot be installed, so the library of mobile software I’d built up is now useless to me.

Summary

Despite the number of negatives points there are about this phone, on the whole I love it. Most negatives are niggles to me rather than a cause to smash the phone into tiny pieces from frustration. Thoroughly recommended.

• ★★★★☆
• July 4th, 2006

Other useful reviews

• Mobileburn N80 review
• About Nokia blog review
• All About Symbian N80 review