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Nokia N80

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Nokia N80

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Best Phone yet but still has its problems-updated-

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5 Jun 11th, 2006  (Jun 24th, 2006)

16 Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful

Advantages:
very good screen, 1st WiFi phone, Good Camera, Mp3

Disadvantages:
Bad battery Life, random restarts, browser memory

Recommendable Yes:

Detailed rating:

Look & Feel

Durability & Robustness

Battery standby time

Value for money

Range of features

reviewer_chris

reviewer_chris

About me:

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize th...

Member since:05.04.2006

Reviews:4

Members who trust:1

Ok so I've had this phone for about a month now and i thought i would share with you what i like and dont like about the phone and its features.

The look:

You may have read in other reviews that the phone is too bulky, well I dont agree, considering that this is a symbian phone, with a very large high resolution display, and just about every feature you can think of , I'd say its just about the right size to feel comfortable in your hand and give easy access to all the buttons, although it may be a little thick. Also note that the phone is of very high quality and all buttons / mechanisms feel very sturdy and well made.

The camera:

For the camera quality i will compare it with my last phone the SE k750i, the pictures taken with the nokia usually look better than the k750 especially once they are on the computer and you can see the difference in the resolution. Although the nokia dose have its problems the shuuter speed being the biggest for me, meaning that you have to be very steady to avoide getting a blurry shot, this can be a right pain, also the lack of an auto focus is annoying although dosent make as much difference as you might think and in some situations i prefer it as you dont have to wait for the camera to focus for the picture to be taken.
The video quality on the other hand is very impressive and looks so much better than and video ive seen taken on a phone. It records at CIF quality which is 352x288 and i think the k750 and quite a few others record at QCIF which is a quarter of the quality.

Video playback:

You can convert all you dvds and video files from you pc and play them on the phone the quality is very good the only problem i have is theres no bookmarking option and no fastforward option either. looks like you will have to buy a 3rd party video player for you phone which has this built in

The sounds:

The sound quality of the phone is excellent, at least for a phone. The quality of phone calls is easily the best i have had with any othe phone always clear although i do wish the volume went a little louder for thoes times you in a busy place, this is sorted with the hands free but who ever has there hands free on them unless there in a car?
The mp3 player give very good clear sound and sounds to me just as good as any stand alone mp3 player, some pleople have complained about there not being enough bass but i think its more than adaquate.
The most impressive aspect i have found with reguards to sound is the phones loud speaker, when listening to mp3 tracks through it you will be suprised how loud and how clear the sound is, i usually have it around 30-40% volume on loud speaker and this is quite lound enough and sounds perfect, the sound also stays clear up to around 80-90% which is loud enough to drown out any conversation.
The only down side of using this phone as an mp3 player is there is no way to change the tracks using the supplied headset, meaning that you have to take the phone out of you pocket unlock it, go to the program and then change tracks, which is far too much effort for me so I have just ordered a HS-6 display headset which if its compatible should sort this out.- ****on receiving the hs-6 headset I have now found out that it is NOT compatible with the N80 although it is listed as compatible on the nokia site - I phoned up nokia and all they could say was sorry - and various retailers so DO NOT buy the HS-6 headset if u are planning to use it on your N80, but see if you can get hold of the headset which comes with the 3250 (HS-20, AD-41) as this dose work with it.****

The network:

Browsing the web over WLAN couldnt be easier or more frustrating. First things first setup up you WLAN connection. I dont use encryption just an access list, so connecting for me was as simple as searching for WLAN then setting my WLAN to the defult. Once thats sorted there are two ways of browsing the internet on this phone 1st is a simplified verson of the web and resembles WAP (which it might be im not sure), weve all seen WAP before and no one was impressed so to the next method. The other program loads full webpages with all the pictures and text set out like it should be, and you would be suprised and much you can zoom out and view the entire web page and still make out the tiny writing, of course its best to zoom in a bit and navigate around with the centre joystick. Sounds really good you say? well kind of, it dose load any page exactly as it should and its nice and easy to navigate and enter text click on buttons ect. but after youve been to a few pages 2-3 or a peticually large page the browser will run out of memory and thats your browsing up, how annoying, and theres not much you can do but close the program and start it up again. I've found if you dont save anything(pictures sounds videos applications) to your phone and only save them to the memory card you can browse for a little longer but its not really good enough.

Others uses:

Well as you know this is a symbian phone and therfore can load all sorts of programs on to it so your phone can, play all sorts of music/video files, use the phone as a gps system, lots of different organising functions, use the phone to control remote devices like tvs and your pc through infrared and bluetooth, also lots of detailed games can be installed for example DOOM. But this phone has the new 3rd generation of symbian OS, which means unfortunately there isnt much software out for the phone especially freeware, as symbian 3rd edition isnt back compatible (be carefull when purchasing software for this phone make sure it will work)
Although there will be so were just going to have to be patient. Saying that there is some out already for example I've been playing around with bemused which is free and allowes you to control playback of music files on your PC, most entertaining.

Things to note:
**If your are on the Orange network they bundle the phone with some photo software and basically what this dose is when you take a picture on the phone a message will come up saying "add to album", what's this you say? well no its not add to your phones memory like it may seem that's already been done what it means is that they want you to say yes so they can upload your phone over wap to an online photo album, I didn't realise this and I was charged £28 for the pictures I uploaded, I phoned up orange and said this isn't on and there going to give my £28 back next month, but to avoid this hassle go into My own-Photography (and in there turn off upload cameras pictures or something along those lines, and it should say that if u want this service again you will have to agree to the terms, my advice don't use it again.

*** A note on battery life although it is poor after you have had the phone for over a month you will notice the battery life will increase, to make the battery life as good as possible make sure you let the battery run almost completely out before charging the first few times. Also another thing you can do to increase battery life is if you don't use video calling go into settings then network and change your phone from dual mode to gsm mode then your phone will only be connected to your network.


The phone dose from time to time decide it needs a reboot and wll do so for no apparent reason, most annoying but dosent happen too often and it dosent harm anything.

The battery life is very poor and if your using its features e.g. mp3 camera, all day then you will have to charge it for then next day, and if your using the WLAN it wont last a full day this really seems to be a big drain on the battery. if you dont use the phone for anythign apart from 1 or 2 calls it will last 2 full days but i would suggest charging as you probably wont make the 3rd day.
As long as you can charge it each night this isnt a problem as i said you can use for example the mp3 player constantly and it wont run out on you.

some times the phone will forget it has a memory card inserted and you will have to remove it and put it back in to jog its memory although this dosent happen that often so not such a big deal.

Lastly although it has bugs I've been informed that theses bugs are known about and future firmware for the phone should hopefully fix/improve them (this includes the web borwser memory) so if you have theses problems see if your service centre has a firmware update for you.

Conclusion:

In my opinion this really is the best phone on the market at the moment it has just about everything you could want and the look and size of the phone is just right for me. And with the promise that all the problems apart from the battery life will be ironed out I see no reason not to get this phone apart from price but hey thats what contracts are for.

Also keep in mind that if you get this phone and want to use it as an mp3 player you will want to buy the HS-20, AD-41 headset which comes with the nokia 3250, which has a built in play/pause fast forward/rewind buttons.


 

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Comments about this review »

Crazykurst 11.06.2006 19:53

hiya, great review, well done, i love nokia phones but have changed to a sharp for a while, kirsty

vixsta14 11.06.2006 19:12

Great review, I quite like the look of these phones x

rickyshah 11.06.2006 17:16

what a great review, loads of detail, so E from me.



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