Nokia N81 Review

The Nokia N81 is a music and gaming focussed 3G slider phone. It's a feature-packed mobile phone. To summarize, the N81 is a good phone (Nokia like to call their high-end Nseries phone "multimedia computers").

Comparatively heavy - 140 g. The N81 is 20 grams heavier than the Nokia N95, 5 g heavier than the Apple iPhone.

The N81 has a glossy plastic casing. Nokia call it a "...sleek, polished surface". I call it a "cheap glossy plastic surface". Put the N81 alongside a Nokia 6500 Slide and see the difference.

The N81 is optimised for music, entertainment and games. The front panel keys reflect this - media keys, multimedia menu key, touch-sensitive scroll key and 2 game keys.

Cramped front panel keys: Navigation and media control keys sit beneath the 2.4-inch screen. The central navigation key is big, with a big confirmation key in the centre.

Navi Wheel: Slide your finger around the silver touch-sensitive rim to scroll through:

1) Songs in the music player
2) The gallery
3) Multimedia menu

The Navi wheel is turned off by default - turn it on in the settings menu. Surrounding this wheel are the 4 media keys - next, play/pause, stop and previous keys. An oblong multimedia menu key sits to the right of the Navi wheel (this take you to the multimedia carousel menu).

The end and call keys are pushed to the side, to make way for all the other keys. They're a little thin. The selection keys, menu and cancel keys complete the line-up.

Those with chunky sausage fingers might well find everything to be a little cramped. There is always the risk of accidentally hitting the wrong key - there's little separation between the media keys and the surrounding keys.

Flat glossy keypad: Slide the front panel up to reveal the keypad. Thin lines separate the rows. The keys are a decent size and easy to use. The keypad is flat.

Slider: OK. When open, there was a bit of a gap between the front panel and keypad.

Memory card slot: On the left side. There's an N81 8 GB version - the 8 GB version has 8 GB internal flash memory, but no memory card slot. A 2 GB microSD memory card is included in the box (supports up to 4 GB).

Game keys: Located above the display, each to the side of the earpiece. The game keys light up in game mode. The game keys can also be used in several other applications.

2.4-inch screen: Good.

Connectors: 3.5 mm audio jack and a micro USB port.

2 MP camera

Just a 2 MP camera with LED flash and no autofocus. Image quality is OK (very subjective), providing you take the photo in good light and the lens has focus. Press the camera button on the right side of the phone. Photos are taken in landscape mode.

Options include: scene mode, sequence mode, colour effects, digital zoom, editor, white balance, capture tone, image quality, extended digital zoom and self-timer. Images are saved in .jpeg format.

Video capture: 640 x 480 (VGA) at 15 fps. Better than most other mobile phones on the market. Especially the feeble Sony Ericsson video capture capabilities. Video files are saved in mpeg or 3gp.

The N81 comes with "Discover N-Gage" - a preview N-Gage application with 3 demo N-Gage games - Space Impact Light, Asphalt, Fifa soccer 2007.

You can download the full N-Gage application, for free, from the N-Gage Web site (from late December 2007).

N-gage was a mobile phone and gaming combination device launched in 2003. The N-Gage didn't sell well - no surprises there given its design. Nokia decided to instead offer its N-Gage games on its NSeries smartphones.

N-Gage is compatible with just a few NSeries mobile phones at launch (Dec 2007) - N73, N81, N82, N93 and N95. It's free.

N-Gage Games: Are N-Gage games good? Maybe. View the list of available games at the N-Gage Web site. Games include:

Hooked on - Creatures of the deep
Asphalt 3 - Street rules
Snakes subsonic
FIFA 08
Mile High Pinball
Brothers in Arms
The Sims 2 Pets
World Series of Poker
One
Midnight Pool 3D
Pro Series Golf
Space Impact Kappa Base
Dogz
Block Breaker Deluxe
Brain Challenge
System Rush: Evolution
Bounce Boing Voyage



With N-Gage, you can find new games, try and buy, find other players, access scores, events and chat. For the full N-Gage experience, you need a data connection - check your mobile data price plan.

Nokia Maps:
The N81 has Nokia Maps. There's no integrated GPS. If you want GPS, you need to buy an external GPS receiver. Example: Nokia wireless GPS module LD-3W (£59.95).
Nokia Music Store:
Try and buy music from the Nokia Music Store. At the time of writing, singles cost 80p, albums cost £8. Also take into account data transfer costs. The N81 has Wi-Fi - downloading over your home broadband WLAN would be a good move. See NSeries Music, Nokia Music Store.
Symbian 9.2 OS:
Download applications, browser, PIM tools, document reader and more.
Music Player:
Good. Supports aac, aac+, eaac+, mp3, wav, wma. View songs by albums, artists, playlists, genres, composers. Album art, visualizations, shuffle, repeat, equalizer, audio settings.

The Nokia N81 has a 3.5 mm audio jack - plug in your own high-quality earphones. The supplied earphones are OK. The N81 speaker is quite loud and a little tinny.
Connectivity:
EDGE, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3.5 mm connector and micro USB. There's no HSDPA.

Decent phone. Only a little cheaper than a discounted N95. You can get the N95 or N81 free on a mobile phone contract, or choose to buy SIM free or PAYG.

In the Box:
Nokia N81, music headset, USB cable, battery, charger, 2 GB microSD card, user guide, software CD, remote control, get started guide.

102 mm (h) x 50 mm (w) x 17.9 mm (d)
Weight: 140 g
Talk time (4 hours), 3G Talk time (3 hours), Standby time (408 hours)
Quad-band (850, 900, 1800 and 1900 Mhz)
2.4 inch, 240 x 320 pixel screen
128 MB phone memory, microSD memory card slot (up to 4 GB)
EDGE, 3G, Micro USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0, WLAN (Wi-Fi), PictBridge, 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack
RealPlayer media player: MPEG-4, H.264, H.263/3GPP, RealVideo 8/9/10
2 MP camera, 640 x 480 (VGA) video capture (15 fps), 20x digital zoom, flash
Front camera (CIF)
Video and image editors
Nokia Nseries digital music player: MP3 (VBR), AAC, eAAC+, AAC+, WMA/M4A, WAV
Nokia music store
Nokia Maps
SMS, MMS, Email
FM radio (Visual radio support)
Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map
Video call and video sharing support
S60 v3.1 software on Symbian OS 9.2
Push-to-talk
User Interface: S60 3rd edition, Feature Pack 1
Gaming: Dedicated game keys
Play games in landscape or portrait view
Discover N-Gage application (preview)
N-Gage application (free download Dec 2007)
Games demos: Space Impact Light, Asphalt, Fifa soccer 2007
Voice commands, voice dialling, voice recorder