The recently announced Nokia N82 is an impressively specified device. With a 5 megapixel camera, integrated GPS, S60 software suite and WiFi, Bluetooth and 3.5G connectivity it boasts a feature set to match the flagship Nokia N95 8GB. However, the Nokia N82 has a greater focus on its camera, thanks to its Xenon flash.

The Nokia N82 represents a welcome N-series return to candybars, which remain, globally, the most popular device form factor. Typically, candybar phones are robust and can stand up to a lot of abuse and for many there’s a certain sense of comfort and familiarity. Thus the traditional form factor, the stand out camera performance and something of an emphasis on style over practicality in the design should attract interest from fashion seekers looking for a phone with a bit extra.

Physical aspects

The Nokia N82 is slightly smaller in volume at 90cc, measuring 112 x 50.2 x 17.3 mm. However, the form factor, with its smaller depth and longer height, means it subjectively feels smaller than both in the hand. At 114g it is impressively light and, together with its shape, means it disappears unnoticed into pockets much more easily.

The casing of the Nokia N82 is made up of hard plastics which make for a robust device. The Nokia N82 really feels built to last with excellent overall build quality, there are no untoward squeaks, flexes or rattles. The front of the device has a shiny faux metallic look which appears striking, but has tendency to attract finger prints. The rear of the device has a more conventional muted plastic, dominated by the 5 megapixel camera with its Xenon flash. The camera lens is reassuringly protected by a robust slider mechanism which, when operated, starts or closes the camera application on the phone. The up-down lens cover mechanism is much smoother and more natural than the ring slider found on the N95 classic and less bulky than the camera slide on the N73.

Under the battery cover you’ll find the 1050 mAh BP-6MT battery. Even with relatively heavy usage you should be easily able to get through a day, and with lighter usage a few days is within reach.

On the top of the device you’ll find the 3.5mm audio jack and the power button. This is the best position for the audio jack since it allows you to keep the phone in your pocket and avoid the headphone wire problems that are common on the N95 with its side-located audio jack.

On the lower left hand side of the Nokia N82 is the power port, moved from its traditional bottom left hand side location. Above this is the microSD card slot - SDHC cards are supported; 8GB cards are currently available and higher capacities on the way (a 2GB card is included in most sales packs). There is a generous 100MB of internal memory available and with this amount it makes sense to install applications here and use the memory card for data storage. Above the memory card slot is the microUSB port, which is used for PC connectivity.

At either end of the right hand side of the Nokia N82 are the stereo speakers. Having both speakers on the same side does allows you to direct the sound more easily and in some ways is a sensible design decision, given it matches with typical speaker usage. Typically you will either be playing games in landscape mode or have the phone sitting on a desk playing music. In between the two speakers are the volume up and down rocker key, the gallery key and the camera capture key.

The Nokia N82’s keypad is something of a mixed bag, but overall performance is generally good and I think the space is used intelligently given the space made available by the form factor choice. The send/answer and end call keys at first appear to be awkwardly placed on the side of device.

The central d-pad is in the ‘ring with central button style’ that is becoming increasingly common on Nokia phones. This style works well and is easy to use; allowing you to shift the thumb around the pad rather than having to lift it off for distinct key presses. The numeric pad is made up of small bars similar to those found on the N91 and reminiscent of the first calculators (hence the ‘retro’ label for styling). They look fiddly to use, but thanks to the generous spacing between the keys it is possible to achieve fast and accurate input.

The top of the front of the Nokia N82 has the usual light sensor (which automatically adjusts screen brightness), the call speaker and VGA video calling camera. Below is the high quality QVGA screen which is set behind hard plastic which is flush with the rest of the front face of the device. Performance outdoors is very good with the screen visible even in bright sun light.

Connectivity

With WiFI (b/g), HSDPA (WCDMA 2100), and quad band GSM, the Nokia N82 is well catered for in terms of data connectivity. With WiFi present, S60’s usual SIP client puts in an appearance allowing you to make VoIP calls from services such as Truphone or SIPhone.

The Nokia N82 has the familiar Bluetooth profiles, including A2DP and AVRCP for use in stereo audio headsets.Bluetooth keyboards do work, although you will need to download Nokia’s Wireless Keyboard application as, strangely, it is not included out of the box.

Camera

Imaging is clearly one of the Nokia N82’s core functions; it has the same 5 megapixel camera module as the N95, but the Nokia N82 has a few tricks up its sleeve that makes it stand out even more.

The first is the Nokia N82’s Xenon flash, a first for the N-series line. This is capable of producing a much brighter flash than is possible with an LED flash (as used on previous N-series models). Consequently the Nokia N82 is capable of producing much better pictures in low light conditions, even in near total darkness provided the subject is within about 3 metres.

The second improvement is in overall camera speed. The Nokia N82 has a fast camera start up time (around 2.6 seconds in my tests) and a low shutter lag time (less than 0.2 of a second) which means it is more likely that you will be able to capture that magic moment. The shot to shot time is also quite impressive at around 4 seconds.

The Nokia N82’s camera software will be familiar to most N-series users. It allows access to a number of settings, including mode, flash, self timer, color tone, viewfinder grid, white balance, exposure, sharpness, contrast and ISO speed. Viewfinder grid is the only addition, it places gridlines on the screen horizontally and vertically, dividing the screen into thirds.

Video capture is also supported, with a VGA resolution at around 30 frames per second and offers very similar performance to the N95 models. The quality is easily watchable on a TV and with practice you can get some really good results.

The Gallery application, used for viewing and accessing multimedia, remains the same as on previous N-series. More impressive are the companion functions and services, including Slide show, Image editor and Printing.

There is no doubting that the Nokia N82’s camera functionality is very impressive and gives excellent all round results. It is easily capable of replacing mid range standalone cameras in almost all situations. The addition of the Xenon flash means decent images can be captured even in very low light conditions; this was a stumbling for all previous N-series devices. Overall start up and auto focus times have been improved, making it easier to capture that passing moment. The camera performance and user experience taken together mean that there is no question that the Nokia N82 is the best cameraphone that Nokia have ever produced.

GPS and Nokia Maps

The Nokia N82 is the second N-series model after the N95 to get a built in GPS. Nokia have also considerably improved the implementation since the N95 launch by adding assisted GPS. The Nokia N82 also benefits from moving the GPS aerial from the bottom of the device to the top. The end result is excellent performance with lock on times from a cold start around 30-40 seconds in most cases and just a handful of seconds to reacquire the signal from a soft start. The phone also holds onto GPS signals much more reliably, be it in urban canyons or heavily vegetated areas.

Nokia Maps has evolved considerably since its release early in 2007. It is now generally faster in operation and the user interface (information displayed on screen, menu layout) and feature set (more powerful search, bigger POI database) has been improved. Nokia Map Loader has also received similar updates and both applications feel a lot more polished that at their initial launch. The newer versions of Nokia Maps have definitely improved, more often then not they now get closer to giving the natural route.

Web and Multimedia software

The Nokia N82 has the excellent S60 Web application, which is now relatively mature. With its intelligent column sizing, visual history, overview mode and minimap, browsing sites intended for the PC is easy. The limitations of the browser are more about the screen resolution (e.g. drop down menus not fitting on the screen) and softkey controls (as opposed to touch) than any application problems. In due course the Nokia N82 is likely to receive a firmware update that adds Flash Lite 3 and Web Run Time (WRT) to the device (similar to the recent N95 8GB firmware update). This will represent a very major upgrade of Web’s capabilities. It will enable Flash video (e.g. YouTube) to be viewed in the browser and usher in a new type of application - WRT widgets.

The Nokia N82 has a dedicated Music folder, in which you’ll find the Music player, Radio, Podcasting and Music store applications. The Music player is little changed from its earlier versions with the hierarchical music library, support for album art, playlist management and integration into the Idle screen.

The Music store application is a link to the the Nokia Music Store from where you can browse and buy music on your phone. The store is currently only available in the UK, but other countries should get their own versions shortly. There’s also a PC version of the music store, although this can only be accessed through Internet Explorer, as an extra ActiveX add on is required to manage the music downloads.

Overall, Nokia Music Store is an impressively slick system and is easy to use. With the Nokia Music Store in place, N-series phones are in a realistic position to replace the complete iTunes experience. It may not be perfect, but for many it will be good enough and we can expect to see a lot of activity in this area in the next year.

Video is handled by the duo of Video Center and RealPlayer. The latter is the video playback application and supports both Real video and MP4 formats (including both H.263 and H.264). With the right formats and resolution, you can play video smoothly in full screen with excellent picture and audio quality.

As with other N-series devices, there is support for the UPnP standard for interacting with other media devices over a network (WiFi) via the Home network application. UPnP devices fall into three categories: servers (store media), renderers (play media) and control points (control a renderer by telling it to play something from a server). Earlier N-series devices were only UPnP severs and control points. The Nokia N82 (and N95 8GB and N95 with firmware v20+) can now also act as a UPnP renderer, which means you can send media to your phone from a UPnP server.

TV Out, also built into the Nokia N82 (the included cable plugs into the 3.5 mm audio jack), is likely to get more usage. This is ideal for watching videos or showing photos captured on the phone.
The Nokia N82’s multimedia software suite is undoubtedly comprehensive. However, it sometimes feels like too many of the features have been left for users to find and take advantage of themselves; the Nokia N82 has a lot of untapped potential.

N-Gage

The Nokia N82 is an N-Gage compatible handset, of course, and there are two demo games preloaded (Fifa and Asphalt). The spongy D-pad may not offer the best experience for gamers nor are there any extra keys, such as on the N81, to optimise it for landscape usage. However, many N-Gage games do not require extensive button bashing. Thus the gaming experience will likely depend on the sort of games you play on the device.

Multimedia Menu and UI Complexity

The Nokia N82 has the newest version of the multimedia menu (first seen in the Nokia N95 8GB and N81). This menu, accessible via the multimedia key, offers a series of tiles in a carousel fashion (navigated via the left and right directional controls). Each tile represents a certain application (experience) and offers a vertical menu of shortcuts to specific functions. For example the music tile offers shortcuts to the Now playing screen, the Music menu (the list of available music), the Podcast menu, the Playlist menu and a Shuffle all songs option. There are other tiles for Contacts (list of user selectable contacts), Internet (first five Web bookmarks), Maps (last five Maps locations), Games (N-Gage links), Gallery (last captured image, slide show and albums) and Videos (last captured). The tiles can be rearranged in any order, but beyond this there is little scope for customisation. No doubt the multimedia menu will continue to evolve as additional N-series devices are released this year.

Other Softwares and Performance

Outside of its multimedia prowess, the Nokia N82 has the same S60 application suite as other phones. Contacts, Messaging and Calendar reassure with their familiarity, as do the usual companion applications. At one time, such applications were the main stay of smartphones and PDAs, but today a reasonable address book, calendar and messaging suite are a near universal constant in mobile phones (generally). S60 provides a good experience in this area and while some power users may clamour for more, the average consumer will find that what is on offer is more than good enough.

A UI refinement which gets its debut on the Nokia N82 is automatic screen rotation. This allows a switch from portrait to landscape mode when you physically turn the device anticlockwise. This uses the Nokia N82’s accelerometer to measure the current orientation of the device relative to the ground. The accelerometer is also used to automatically rotate pictures from the camera at capture time (as on the N95). Switching the UI from portrait to landscape is near instantaneous in almost all situations. At first it may seem like something of a gimmick, but after a while its benefits become apparent. Some applications are more suited to use in landscape mode. Web and the viewing of landscape photos in Gallery are obvious examples, but this also applies more generally when viewing larger amounts of text on screen.

For longer term S60 users, what will really impress about the Nokia N82 is the speed of the UI and general performance. Navigating around the device is quick, with little or no lag time between screens. Most applications open in the blink of an eye and even the more demanding applications only take a few seconds. If an application is already open then switching is instant, and there are real benefits to be had from multi tasking by leaving applications running in the background. The Nokia N82 remains nippy even with the heavyweights of Web, Gallery and Maps running simultaneously - a real testament to the architecture in the underlying software platform (including Symbian OS itself). This performance is also noticeable elsewhere, thumbnail creation and image browsing in Gallery is much improved over first generation S60 3rd Edition devices and ‘out of memory’ errors in Web have gone.

Conclusion

Outside its N-series stablemates, the Nokia N82 has little competition. Nowhere else do you find the marriage of an outstanding camera, good multimedia playback features, integrated GPS and a flexible open software platform. The Nokia N82 justifiably faces some criticism for its keypad, but many would agree it improves on the N73’s cramped keypad and joystick. The feature set and software is a generation beyond the N73. In this light it is easier to see the Nokia N82 for what it truly is - an outstanding handset.

Inevitably, the Nokia N82 is directly compared to the N95 8GB and, among power users, the N95 8GB usually comes off best. If the N95 family did not exist, the Nokia N82 would be held up as the ultimate handset. However this rather misses the point, the Nokia N82 has complementary market positioning to the N95 8GB and it appeals to a more style-conscious market segment. While some consumers are only concerned about getting the best possible mobile experience, others marry this requirement to a desire to have their phones represent part of the style they project to the world.

[Reviewed by Rafe Blandford from All About Symbian (allaboutsymbian.com)]

Here’s a video review from phonescoop.com.

Store & Price Comparison

Store	Offer Details	Price
	NOKIA N82 White Unlocked CellPhone In Stock	Price: $460.99
	Brand New Unlocked Nokia N82 In Stock	Price: $619.99
	Nokia N82 Unlocked GSM Cell Phone In Stock	Price: $469.99