Is this the last phone you will ever need?. Review on Nokia N80

I have always liked the Nokia Symbian based phones due to their reliability and availability of 3rd party apps. I got hooked onto symbian when I got me a Nokia 6600 2 years back, then switched to a 6680, then 6681 and now I bought a N80.

I got this phone on June 1st from https://plemix.com and I am using it with Cingular service in US. My initial thoughts as I held the phone in my hand for the first time were "wow, this is not as bulky/heavy as it looked on the web." The phone is roughly the same size as my 6681, just a tad bit thicker. After charging it I put in my sim card and it booted up faster than my 6681 did, so there is an improvement there. Once back online I made a test call to my friend in Dallas and the call quality was quite good and the signal was strong. This is important to me because I live on the bottom most floor of the apartment which is almost the basement and my roommates samsung gets no signal here. So the signal quality and volume are good and clear.

Now to see what apps they have included with the phone: messaging, gallery, mp3 player, browser, call log, alarm clock and all the usual suspects from the 6681 are included. There is a ptt (push-to-talk) application also but this technology is used in US only at this point, I think. One gripe I always had with Nokia phones is not allowing repeatable alarms and sure enough they have skipped that from this phone too. Moving on to camera, I took a few pictures at the highest setting around my room. The picture quality was good, but it is still far behind SE K750/850 cybershot phones. The phone has a better mp3 player included this time and the sound quality from the phone speaker is ok. Using the headphones will provide better listening pleasure though.

I had a 1GB RS-MMC card for my 6681 which I am using for this phone also. Most of my 3rd party applications didn't work cuz N80 is a S60 3rd edition phone and 6681 is a S60 2nd edition. This is one reason tat I am still switching back and forth between the 6681 and N80. The N80 is faster compared to the 6681 but my favorite apps don't run on N80. I guess I'll just have to wait till they are ported to S60 3rd edition.

I am still trying to figure out the wifi capabilities of this phone, but with little or no success so far. I heard that skype has a symbian version in works and once that gets out I will try it out. I guess they crippled the wifi functionality here in the US to keep the cell companies happy. That is a big turn off for me and I am working with a few people at nokia forums to get it working somehow, someday...

The battery life on this phone sucks! My 6681 battery lasts almost twice as much as N80 and that is with bluetooth on all the time on 6681. I recommend keeping a car charger and extra battery handy if you intend on using the phone a lot like I do.

All said and done, I would recommend people to wait before they jump up to get this phone and evaluate what they want to use it for and if it is capable of doing that. My main objective was to get it for the wifi, camera, and "cool " design. Other than those three things I did not find obvious differences between this and my 6681.

updateupdate

I have finally got the WLAN to work on this phone. Here is what I did:

For unsecured WLAN networks:

Go to Connections -> Connection Manager -> Avail. WLAN -> seea list of WLAN networks -> Options -> Define access point. Choose your access point and you are done.

For secure WLAN networks:

Tools -> Settings -> Connections -> Access points ->Options -> New -> Use default settings -> Define the name;Data bearer should be set to Wireless LAN; Access Point name ->search for it or add it manually; configure your WEP or WPAcredentials.

Just bring up the browser (i use opera) and you are surfing the web using you wireless connection with no data charges. I have a local bar here that provides free wifi and I got this to work over there also. Now if they only release skype for s60 soon..............

update Sep-05-2006

I have sold this phone because of too many issues I faced with this model. Specifically the Wi-fi was way too unreliable and would drop for no apparent reason. May be it had to do with my cell service provider interfering with wi-fi. Second issue I had was with the slider which became harder with only a few months of use. It was smooth sliding in the beginning but later on became hard and rough.

I have just acquired a N73 to replace this, so watch for that review soon.....