Nokia N82 Cell Phone Review
By Alfredo Padilla
Reviewed.com Editorial Staff
February 11, 2008
The Nokia N82 is a candybar all-in-one handset with an array of high-end features. The N82 has a 2.4-inch display and a small, fiddly keypad that is prone to errors, as is the directional pad. On the back is a 5-megapixel Carl Zeiss camera with a Xenon flash. The N82 is not currently available from Nokia USA, but is available from various importers for around $550. As a GSM handset, the N82 works on AT&T and T-Mobile networks in the United States.
Making calls on the N82 is simple and quick, but we found the error-prone keypad can slow you down until you get used to it. The keypad buttons look like old-style calculator buttons, and because they are so closely packed together and indistinguishable by feel it’s difficult to find your place on the keypad by touch. Running the Symbian Series 60 operating system, the N82 provides users with excellent call features and PDA-quality organizer applications. You can use the N82 to organize and synchronize your calendar, tasks, contacts, and notes.
We’re disappointed by the Nokia N82’s audio quality. Both the audio sent and received from the handset showed significant deviations from our standards. Those on the other end of the call may find your voice overly exaggerated. The audio received by the N82 shows some hiccups at the higher end of the frequency range, falling too low at first and then rising too high. Side tone, the small amount of your own voice piped into your ear so you can hear how loud you are speaking, is a little on the low side, so you may find yourself speaking too loudly to compensate.
The N82’s strength is in its multimedia capabilities. The 5-megapixel autofocus camera put up some of the best scores we’ve seen from a cell phone camera, although it’s still not as good as a dedicated point-and-shoot. Of note is the Xenon flash, which works well at a range of 4 feet in completely dark situations or up to 10 feet in dimly-lit scenes. Video capture is among the best we’ve seen from any cell phone. The N82 captures VGA video at 30 frames per second.
Music playback is solid, as we’ve come to expect from Nokia’s N-Series devices. The N82 supports MP3, AAC, and WMA music files, including support for copy-protected WMA files. Things aren’t quite as good on the video front, as the Realplayer software used doesn’t give you any organizational capabilities. We’re impressed by the N82’s music playback score in our battery test, as it lasted almost 10 hours.
Running a powerful smart phone operating system, the N82 provides users with a lot of flexibility. If the handset can’t do what you want out of the box you are likely to find a native third-party application that will add it. The web browser is among the best we’ve seen on a mobile device, allowing you to view websites as they appear on a desktop browser. Wi-Fi is available for high speed data access, but the N82 doesn’t support US 3G networks. This means you will need to use the slower EDGE network.
Messaging capabilities are solid, but the N82 won’t satisfy the BlackBerry users that are used to push e-mail and a full keyboard. In particular, the N82’s poor keypad will slow you down when trying to type out long messages. The N82 is one of a new generation of Nokia smart phones that have double the RAM of previous handsets. This upgrade makes the handset very responsive and solves the frequent “out of memory” errors we saw on previous devices.
The N82 did well in our battery tests. We already mentioned the impressive music playback time. The N82 lasted 5 hours and 40 minutes in our call time test, sufficient for even the gabbiest talker. Web browsing time was also solid, at just over 5 hours, although this was achieved using the slow and low-power EDGE network. If you browse using a high-speed Wi-Fi connection, your browsing time will be greatly reduced.
The N82 shines in the area of multimedia, as it can be your music player, point-and-shoot camera, and cell phone. You will have to pay for this functionality, however, as the N82 costs north of $500. Our biggest gripe with the handset is the keypad and controls, which are difficult to use and prone to errors. This is particularly important to those looking for strong messaging and e-mail capabilities, as you won’t be able to type as fast as you want. If you can get past these issues, however, the N82 is a compelling option for those who want a converged device.
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