Nokia N85 Review

The Nokia N85 is positioned as the successor to the Nokia's prized N95. The N95 introduced a number of firsts for Nokia such as the 5MP camera, built-in GPS, and dual slide. There is high expectations for the N85 to replace such an amazing phone. Nokia has chosen the safe route with only slightly improving the N95 formula with a spring loaded lens cover, adding dual LED flash, changing to an OLED display while keeping the camera at 5MP, GPS, and wifi. No significant new features were added. The firmware on my N85 is V 10.045 (the initial production firmware). The box contains the phone (N85-1), battery (BL-5K: Extended 850 mAh), charger (AC-10), Nokia 8GB microSD card (MU-43), Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U), USB cable (CA-101) and stereo headset with controls (HS-45, AD-54), and Nokia CD with utilities and programs.



Quick facts:
Name: Nokia N85-1
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100
Weight: 128 g
Dimensions: 103 x 50 x 16 mm
Battery life (stand by): 360 hours (GSM), 360 hours (WCDMA)
Battery life (talk): 414 minutes (GSM), 270 (WCDMA)
CPU: 32bit Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S + 220MHz StarCore SC140 DSP

My phone was manufactured in: (your phone's country of manufacture could vary) Finland

Aesthetics
The N85 continues with Nokia's Nseries design with a simple glossy exterior, square ring dpad, and minimal markings.

Front Closed

The D-pad carries the Nokia ring design with a center key and up/down/left/right all on a ring. The ring is fairly narrow so playing fast paced games is a little tricky with it. The call and end buttons include a little sliver of green/red respectively to easily feel out where the buttons are. The actual call and end buttons occupy a larger area and the ends of the phone but are flush with the rest of the phone.

Back Closed

A simplistic back with a textured look. I'm not keen on the mocha brown but it does bring up the texture better than if it were all black. The difference between the black front and rear brown isn't as noticable in person

In my hands

The N85 has a good weight giving it a solid high quality feel. The N85 doesn't creak while it's closed but does have a wobble on the slide mechanism when the phone is opened. It has a better slide than the N95 but not as stiff and solid as the E65.

The phone has a glossy finish on both the front and back so the N85 collects fingerprints and smudges easily. The side is a non-glossy metallic color so it doesn't smudge. Since the phone is so smooth, I found myself having to nudge the bottom of the top half to open the N85. Not really convenient but I'd probably get used to it.

N85 compared to the N82

The N85 is a tad thinner than my N82 which is a good feat for a feature packed slider.

The phone has slightly rounded sides so it's tricky to get standing up on it's own to take photos.

The SIM mechanism is similar to the E71, which I'm not a fan of. Taking the SIM out is very tricky and I end up using my nails to slowly pull it out.


Keypad
The N85 is a dual slider like the N95 and N96 before it so you can slide the top half up to reveal the number pad or slide the top half down to reveal the 4 media keys.

Dpad


The number pad:

A rubber separates horizonal keys from each other so you can feel the top keys from the lower keys. However there is no separator between keys vertically beside each other so it's hard to feel the difference between 1 and 2 keys.

The 4 media keys are unlit when the phone is off:


Clicking either the number pad or media keys gives the user a click feedback to confirm the key was pressed. The click is loud and feels a little sticky like the number pad of the Motorola Razr or the Nokia 6650.

The keypad light is strong, evenly lit, and no light leaking. This is one of the best lighted Nokia devices. The D-pad is not lighted however. As with most phones these days, lighting is controlled by a light sensor.


Display
The stand out feature of the N85 is the 2.6 inch OLED screen used. The screen resolution is 240 x 320 and can display up to 16.7M colors. The difference between an OLED display and a traditional LED display is the lighting where each pixel lights up on the OLED so black is when pixels don't light up while traditional LED is backlit so black is still lighted up. Thus blacks look very black on an OLED giving better vibrate colors.


Unforunately there is a drawback to the OLED that is its visibility under direct sunlight. As you can see in the following photo, there is too much glare to comfortably see what's on the screen.


Multimedia Features

Camera
The N85 features a 5 megapixel (MP) camera with a Carl Zeiss lens which has been featured in numerous Nseries phones since the N95. The camera user interface (UI) in the N85 resembles recent N-series phones and takes pictures in the portait orientation.

A small spring loaded cover protects the lens. I prefer the side switch found on the N82 over pushing down on the actual cover but both work.


For a list of all the different settings and modes, please refer to my Nokia N82 review.

Daylight with Automatic setting (N85 / N82)

The N85 produced a slightly more detailed photo as you can see in the bricks around the "For Sale" sign. But the N85 photo had a slight yellow tint to it.

Daylight with Automatic setting (N85 / N82)

The N85 photo shows a lot better detail on the branches and leaves of the tree. The N82 seems to have a very narrow focus area so most of the tree ends up being a blur.

Dimly lit night mode with no flash (N85 / N82)

The N85 produced a far noiser photo but was brighter than the N82.

Dimly lit night mode with flash (N85 / N82)

There is just no competition here. The N82's Xenon flash produced a much sharper photo as you can see from the box label and less noise in the photo.

Macromode with Automatic setting and no flash (N85/ N82)

The N85 produced a noiser photo but detail is comparable.

Macromode with Automatic setting with flash (N85 / N82)

The N85 produced a slightly yellowy photo. Detail is comparable on each. Flash doesn't make as much of a difference up close.


Video
The N85 also records video. You can record directly to the memory card and length of the movie is only bound by the amount of free space available. It's the same settings as the N95 and N82. Videos came out my fuzzy and desaturated than the N82.

GPS
As with most recent Nseries, the N85 packs an internal GPS that connects to GPS satellites and does not require data. I heavily rely on this functionality to help me get around so the GPS sensitivity is an important factor for me.

So I compared the lock on time after a cold boot of the phone:

E71 vs. N85

The N85 was faster to lock on than the E71.

N82 vs. N85

The N82 locked on a lot faster than the N85

GPS sensitivity is no where close to the performance of the older N82 but at least things have improved compared to the E71 which shares the same GPS chipset.

External Memory
The memory card is hot swappable so you can take it out while the phone is on. The N85 prompts or alerts you that the memory card is being removed when you open the rubber protector. The thin plastic cover is sturdy on my phone but I don't recommend playing with it as I think it will wear out quickly and become loose.



Battery
I found myself out of power after about 2 days of use. I would have GSM only, make around 30 minutes of calls, browse the web for 10 minutes, and launch GPS for about 15 minutes. Charging from 1 bar of battery to full took less than an hour. It's unfortunate that Nokia had to shrink the battery capacity to fit the slim profile of the N85.


Ratings:
Performance...........9
Build quality...........7
Keypad...................8
Connectivity...............9
Features for $.........9
Software................9
Camera..................8
Battery life.............8

Overall.....................8


Nokia has produced a worth successor to the uber popular N95 with a smaller phone, same sized but better quality screen, and impressive imagine quality. For me, what holds the N85 from replacing my N82 is the lack of Xenon flash, poor night photos, and slow GPS lock time. I definitely recommend new users to Nokia S60 check out the N85 as their first power phone.

PROS:
*attractive design
*WiFi
*Strong RF with triband 3G
*Fast high quality camera
*GPS
*Large, sharp, and brilliant OLED display
*impressive 5MP camera quality in daylight

CONS:
*Poor display visibility under direct sunlight
*Lack of Xenon flash
*Unimpressive dimly lit photos
*Slow GPS locking

Nokia N97 Preview

Nokia's most highly anticipated and important phone for this year is the N97. It features a touch screen just like the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic before it and a slide out keyboard too.



I was in Monte Carlo last week attending the Nokia Hackathon 2009 to put together my widget idea and test it on the Nokia N97, so I got the chance to play around with one for a few days...

The N97 features almost the same specs as most other recent Nseries phones such as HSDPA, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, built-in WiFi, USB charging, dual LED flash and GPS. But it stands out from the crowd with its large touchscreen, use of S60 5th edition, and the slide out full QWERTY keyboard. As of this writing, the N97 sales package should include the phone (N97), Extended Li-Ion Battery (BP-4L), Compact Travel Charger (AC-10), Stereo Headset (HS-45), Data Connectivity Cable (CA-101), and Audio Controller (AD-54)

The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (left) compared to the Nokia N97 (right)

The N97 has a slighter wider and longer screen than the 5800 but maintains the widescreen ratio.

The N97 closed:


Most people complained that the phone was too long and thick for their taste. It took me a while to get used to the thin silver diagonal button being the home key. For most previous N-series phones, the thin silver button was the multimedia key, which I always avoided.

Front:


Back:


Side:


5 Megapixel Camera with Carl Zeiss lens and dual LED flash:


The N97 opened up:


Close up of the keyboard:


The keys are spaced well apart making them easy to distinguish from each other but makes the keyboard too wide to use with one hand. The Q, A, Z keys are no longer aligned above each other as on other Nokia phones (i.e. the Nokia E71, E61) and the space bar is placed at the far right. These keyboard quirks made me initially annoyed with the keyboard but you quickly get use to it by the second day.

N97 opened and behind the screen:

You can spot the display ribbon in there. I hope it doesn't come loose on production models.

Hands on:


First impressions were very good with a large high quality screen. Build quality is exceptional with a solid spring loaded slide mechanism that had little to no rattle. There was little to no creaking while the phone was closed. The OS was responsive in most cases but still faces a number of lags such as switching the screen between portrait and landscape. Browsing web pages on the N97 was amazing with smooth initiative gestures and a screen able to display full readable pages Unfortunately the rest of the UI suffers from issues found on the 5800 such as a single finger swipe doesn't scroll the length of the swipe but just simulates a single push of the D-pad. I didn't find tapping and double tapping on the screen an issue on the N97. The keyboard buttons were the right size for easy typing and provided just the right feedback. The lack of Xenon flash keeps it from replacing my N82 but my E71 is in danger of being replaced.

Look out for a full review once I can get my hands on a retail unit!

Nokia N85 Preview

More than a year has passed and the N95 has reigned as Nokia's top high volume feature-packed phone. The overpriced and slower N96 didn't do well in the market but the N86 was unveiled to serve as the N95's successor with a lower price point for the masses.



Opening it up:


Packed with almost everything you'll need such as the phone (N85-1), battery (BL-5K: Extended 850 mAh), charger (AC-10), Nokia 8GB microSD card (MU-43), Nokia Video Connectivity Cable (CA-75U), USB cable (CA-101) and stereo headset with controls (HS-45, AD-54):


First impressions are very good with a large vibrant high quality screen. Build quality is much improved over the N95 with a spring loaded side mechanism but still not as solid as the older Nokia E65. There was little to no creaking while the phone is closed.



The N85 isn't groundbreaking as the phone it replaces. It features almost the same specs as its predecessor such as HSDPA, 5MP Carl Zeiss camera, built-in WiFi and GPS, and the dual sliding mechanism. But its stand out feature is the use of an OLED screen that uses less power than a traditional LCD and makes black very black as the individual pixels are not lighted. A few other little upgrades is the addition of a FM transmitter for broadcasting music from the N85 and use of 2 LEDs for the camera flash.



Stay tuned for the upcoming review as I take the Nokia N85 around the block.

Update: I've posted my N85 review

Sony Ericsson W580i Review

It has been a while since I've had a new phone to review but this one is a special one. Unlike my most recently reviews, this isn't a Nokia - it's a Sony Ericsson. When my mom was ready to replace her aging Motorola V3 RAZR which was having a difficult time holding a charge, I looked at the best cheap phone she could get. Since she was on Rogers and her contract had been up for a while, the best place was to get a phone on contract. My mom isn't big on e-mail or browsing the web so a smartphone would overcomplicate things for her. There were a few Motorola flips and Nokia flips that didn't even look as nice as the RAZR - as you can tell, she's big on asthetics. But she spotted a pink thin slider that sparked her interest - namely the W580i.

The firmware on my W580i is R8BE001 (the initial Rogers production firmware). The box contains the phone, Sony Ericsson Battery BST-38 900 mAh, travel charger CST-60, USB data cable, Sony Ericsson Stereo Headset HPM-70, 512MB Memory Stick Micro card, and Sony Ericsson CD with utilities and programs


The W580i is a very sleek thin slider running Sony Ericsson's proprietary OS.

The Nokia N97 Widget Competition

*updated*

A while ago, Nokia was accepting idea submissions for small mini-applications that run on a phone's home screen, called widgets, in their Nokia N97 Widget Competition. One winner will receive a N97 with their winning widget entry developed and running on the N97.

Since the submission deadline and preliminary voting had ended, Nokia has shorten the list to 50 widgets for everyone to vote. The widget receiving the most votes will continue along with 9 other widgets selected by the Forum Nokia panel to the grand prize.

I had submitted a few widget ideas for this competition and two out of nine of them made it to the short list:

Location based sightseeing/events


Wouldn't it be great to be somewhere and be able to find out that there's a free concert at the local park just 10 minutes? Using the GPS/AGPS of the user's Nokia device, the widget will transmit the user's location to a central server. The central will then return events happening close to the user's location and time


Ovi Local Notes


Leave your friends or everyone a note that will appear when they visit the same spot. So you can let everyone know that the pub just around the corner has great beer! Each note you create can be limited to your friends/contacts on Ovi or everyone + includes your location based on AGPS. Notes that appear are automatically updated based on AGPS.


There were a lot of quality submissions so I'm pretty happy to make it to the top 50. I hope I move on to the next round too.

You can go take a short list and vote for your favorite at: http://2009.nseries.com/competition/shortlist.aspx

There's a little quirk to the voting process: You choose one widget as your favorite, scroll to the bottom and click "Ready to Vote", then scroll to the bottom again to click "Submit Vote". You can only vote for 1 so make it count :)

*Update*
I found out this week that one of my designs made it to the top 10!


Location based sightseeing/events


Thanks to everyone who voted for me. Mine was picked by NSeries and Forum Nokia as one of the nine strongest ideas. So now my widget will be programmed by a team of talented developers from Forum Nokia on April 28, 2009 in Monte Carlo during the Nokia Developer Summit. The team will have 24 hours in what's called a Hackathon to code my widget then it'll go before a panel of judges to select a winner.

I'm really glad to see one of my ideas make it this far. I'm definitely eager to see my idea implemented into a real widget. Hope I go all the way!

*Originally posted 3/10/09

N86 Announced

After Samsung had released a 8MP S60 camera phone called the INNOV8 and Sony Ericsson announced their Idou 12MP Symbian phone, Nokia announces their 8MP phone the N86:

For those holding a N82 or N79 and hoping for an upgrade, the N86 only features dual LED and no Xenon flash.

In case you're still interested, here are more quick details:


N86 DatasheetName: Nokia N86
CPU: Freescale MXC300, 434 MHz ARM1136JF-S RISC + StarCore SC140 DSP
RAM: 128 MB (user accessible: 71 MB)
Network: EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 900/1900/2100 or WCDMA 850,1900,2100
Weight: 149 g
Dimensions: 103.4 x 51.4 x 16.5 mm
Battery life (stand by): up to 11.5 hours (WCDMA), 13h (GSM) (these values seem too low so the datasheet might have a typo)
Battery life (talk): up to 234 minutes (WCDMA), 378 minutes (GSM)

As in all Nseries, the N86 will include 802.11b/g WiFi connectivity, support video capture at 640x480 up to 30fps, feature a Carl Zeiss Tessar lens, and support Nokia's ngage gaming service. Luckily the N86 features the amazing 2.6 inch OLED display that got high praises on the N85 and it also integrates a FM transmitter that was a strong selling point of the N79. The N86 includes 8GB of internal memory and supports microSDHC up to 16GB.

Spec-wise it's a strong phone but something I would've liked to have seen last year. For all those Nokia users that have been asking for better materials on the Nseries, you'll be happy to know that Nokia's added a chrome trim on the sides of the top half. The design looks a bit like the N97 but the number pad reminds me of the older Motorola T720 from almost a decade ago.

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic Preview

I was in Manhattan this past weekend and dropped by the New York City Nokia Flagship Store just to see what was new. Inside they had the stylish 7610 Supernova powered by S40 on display. Nokia was also showcasing one of their key products to compete in the touch screen cell phone market, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic:



My initial impressions of the 5800 XpressMusic were "this is a really nice screen and I really like the simplistic icons". The phone fits my hand comfortably.

Quick facts:
Name: Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
CPU: Freescale MXC300, 369 MHz ARM1136JF-S RISC + StarCore SC140 DSP
RAM: 256 MB (user accessible: 81 MB)
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 WCDMA 850/1900
Weight: 109 g
Dimensions: 51.7 x 111 x 15.5 mm

Follow the jump to find out if the 5800 XpressMusic is worth buying.

Navigation & Touchscreen
Scrolling throw lists and menus works like any other S60 phone so you have to scroll with the scroll bar and you can't just flick your finger as you do on the iPhone. As most people have mentioned, it's annoying that some buttons require a single click while others require a double tap. This was my thought process when the menu didn't respond: the phone wasn't responsive, didn't catch my click, or I needed to double tap. That left me with an overall impression that the UI was very slow and needed a lot of work. It also incorrectly determined where my finger hit the screen a few times. To be fair, the 5800 on display was still running on initial firmware. Nokia has better get it's phones updated as first impressions are very important and firmware upgrades make a big difference.

Performance
The 5800's CPU is either not up to the task or its firmware needs a lot of work. Rotating photos took more than a second to perform, opening up the Batman Darknight trailer took a few seconds to load, and scrolling through Nokia Maps was horrendously slow. I felt like I was using a S60 phone from 3 years ago. Nokia Maps annoyed me so much with it's slow response times and incorrect gesture sensing that I turned it off after a few minutes of use. Clicking on the top right Media Bar button took a while to pull up the media bar. I came away feeling this phone wasn't ready for prime time.

Display
The 5800 sports a 3.2 inch TFT display. It's narrow and wide. A little more narrow than the 16:9 widescreen format used by most movies so playing the Batman Darknight looks really small on the screen. To me it wasn't much better than watching movies on my E71. Although it's a resistive screen (requiring you to push the screen as opposed to just touching like the iPhone), it's fairly strong so it doesn't distort too much when you push on it.

Camera
The 5800's 3.2 MP camera produces better photos than the E71 but doesn't compare to the N82 I used to take the photo above. It's a decent camera but it's not going to win any awards. One of its strength is its video capture capability that records up to 640 x 480 pixels at 30 fps.

Overall
I was fairly disappointed by the performance of the 5800 XpressMusic. Using the touch screen was frustrating as it was either slow or unresponsive. Rotating a photo required more than a second and playing a video required a fairly annoying loading time. I would never consider this phone a replacement for either of my N82 or E71. After trying out the 5800 XpressMusic, I would never consider recommending this phone to anyone and would likely recommend people to avoid this phone. I just hope the N97 improves a lot over this first S60 5th edition phone.