Nokia N80ie Silver

Call Quality

Calls and Speakerphone: Call quality on the Nokia N80 is clear, even in places where it’s typically hard to hear callers. For example, in noisy, crowded restaurants, we could still hear callers just fine. Additionally, in well-known dead spots, we were able to get clear reception. We’re also happy to report we never had to adjust the volume on this cell phone. The speakerphone also works well, never cutting off when two people speak simultaneously. However, activating the feature is a different story. Additionally, we did appreciate that the cell phone had a Mute function.

Audio Playback: The Nokia N80 sports an MP3 player. We found playback of MP3s over the N80’s speakers to be loud and clear, though occasionally tinny. Additionally, when you use the included stereo headset, music is clear and loud, even at the softest settings.

Ease of Use

Menu/Phone Book: Since the Nokia N80 is essentially a mini computer with an included cell phone, you’ll likely need a little time to get acquainted with how the system works. If you’re willing to make that commitment, you shouldn’t have a lot of issues with this Nokia. Also, since it is more of a multifunction pocketable device than a basic cell phone, the Nokia N80 will freeze if you try to launch a couple of applications simultaneously or speed through the menu options; you’ll be forced to restart it by powering off/on. We are happy to report, however, that this doesn’t happen often, but it did occur enough to mention.

Overall, the menu interface is similar to that of a PC. The main screen has a taskbar across the top, which launches the most frequently used applications. You should also become uniquely acquainted with the diamond-shaped button, the one that has arrows pointing north, east, south and west. This is essentially a quick-launch menu. You should immediately program the 4 applications you will use most. For example, we found it imperative to dedicate one of the keys to launch the voicemail application; it’s too hard to locate otherwise. If you’re not a fan of the quick-launch keys and are more of a purist, we suggest becoming acquainted with the key that has an elliptical icon. Think of it as the equivalent of your program folder on the computer; all the applications are located there.

As for making calls, you can dial right away if you remember the numbers and are in the main screen. However, if you want to place a call to a phone number stored in Contacts, it can take a few steps. For each contact, you can store the first name, the last name (a nice organizational touch), the company, a job title, six numbers (including an Internet Telephone and Video Call), and an e-mail address. There’s also an e-mail application, so you can send and receive e-mails and even send attachments (mostly multimedia). Since the cell phone supports POP3 and IMAP4 accounts, you can set it up to receive work e-mail.

Camera: The Nokia N80 sports a 3-megapixel camera and a plethora of camera-centric features that we haven’t seen on many cell phones. For starters, there are a ton of shooting modes: Night Landscape (best for low light, sans flash); Night Portrait (use in low light with flash); Candlelight (good in naturally low-light situations); Automatic (overall shooting); User Mode (you can save your own settings); Portrait (you can snap images in vertical mode); Landscape (scenic photo ops); and Sports (good for fast-moving subjects). Additionally, the N80 has a flash, which we found actually aids in taking better pictures in low light. There’s also a Macro mode, which is good at rendering crisp detail in close-ups.

Overall, we found this camera to be pretty good. As expected, color accuracy is impressive when viewed on the cell phone, although when we transferred pics from the N80 to the computer, the colors shifted a bit, favoring more bluish hues. The pictures had only a small amount of noise. This is even true when looking at pics taken in low light, which we expected to have a lot of pixels. While we were not impressed with the camera's handling of shadows and highlights, we were overwhelmed at how well this camera phone captured details. Can you say crisp?

Additionally, we found video quality to be acceptable for both viewing and shooting. We particularly liked the way the screen flips automatically from vertical to horizontal viewing mode.

Music: The Nokia N80 includes a 1GB MicroSD card, which you’ll need for the music player. It also includes headphones, which is good because you won’t be able to add your own unless they are Bluetooth enabled. The cell phone supports MP3 and AAC (Apple iTunes format) files – no Microsoft WMA music files. Although podcasts aren't considered music files, we should mention that you can store and listen to them on this phone.

Getting music onto the cell phone via the included PC Suite software is fairly straightforward, but accessing it once it’s stored on a memory card isn’t the easiest thing in the world As for music player features, it has shuffle (called Random Play), repeat (called Loop) and an equalizer with predefined settings.

Connectivity /Bluetooth/WiFi/IR: Talk about connectivity; the Nokia N80 is fully loaded. If you can’t connect one way, there’s bound to be another option. For starters, this cell phone has IR so that you can use it to exchange info with other IR-enabled devices such as Palms or older notebooks. If that’s not enough or if you prefer old-school wired connections, there’s a USB cable in the box that you can use to sync the N80 with a computer. We should note, however, that making the initial connection takes a fair amount of time. So, again, have patience. Additionally, you can use Bluetooth to sync up contacts, photos, and even music stored on your computer. This is our preferred method as it went much faster (it took about 5 minutes to transfer 7 songs) than taking the time to set up the cable.

Perhaps our favorite connectivity feature in this cell phone is the inclusion of WiFi. Yes, WiFi. If you can’t get a wireless connection or don’t have a data plan, you can always use WiFi. Since there isn’t a lot of free WiFi floating around these days, be sure to consider a data plan of some sort if you get this cell phone: either a wireless or a WiFi plan.

Design

Look and Feel: If we can say one thing about this cell phone, it’s that it is a real head turner. Everywhere we went, people wanted to see it. If we pulled it out in a restaurant, someone would inevitably ask about it. The Nokia N80 appears compact in its black casing and vibrant, gorgeous screen, but take it in hand and you’ll quickly see it’s a bit heavy. Since the cell phone is a bit chunky, it feels a little odd when you put it up to your ear. On the plus side, however, you can rest it comfortably between ear and shoulder when making longer calls.

We really like that the Nokia N80 is a slider; we just wish it weren’t so slippery. One of the nice things about this design is that you can do just about anything on this cell phone without needing to slide it open. Unfortunately, when you close the cell phone, it doesn’t snap shut. This often meant that when we carried the Nokia N80 loose in a purse, it would jostle open and place accidental calls to the wrong people at decidedly wrong times. If you plan to keep the Nokia in a pocket, you shouldn’t have this problem.

Keypad: We particularly like the keypad on this cell phone. The blue inscribed keys are well spaced, and although they are flat, they are quite tactile. We rarely misdialed, although the rocker key is a bit sensitive and sometimes does what it wants, forcing us to try again.

Battery Life

Unfortunately, battery life on the Nokia N80 is just fair. Heavy texters, web surfers, message addicts, and constant callers will likely need to charge the cell phone every other day. But if you use the cell phone to send/receive a few text messages and e-mails or make a couple of calls, you’ll need to charge it every two to three days. But when we used the cell phone to check messages in a pinch or listen to a few songs, the Nokia N80 managed to last four days before needing more juice.