The very exterior design of Nokia N82 is a direct reference to its highly successful predecessor, the overall proportions and image have a lot in common. That's quite a logical marketing decision to continue exploiting the image of an already existing bestseller in further models in the line, there are a lot of other examples of this policy like the N70 and N95 models. On the other hand, the new N82 ranks significantly higher in the corresponding product line than N73 used to, the functionality of the latter wasn't as high (save for the camera feats, of course). Nokia N82 enters the market as an all-in-one product with an accent on the camera part. St the same time N95 and N95 8GB tend to concentrate on ideal balance and versatility, and by the way they're positioned as premium-class designer products with correspondingly high prices.

N82 isn't a revelation in terms of overall functionality and hardly makes a leader in the Nseries product line since it offers no new features save for the xenon flash. But when it comes to taking photos, the model proves its leading status, which is also strongly backed up by the well-orchestrated advertising campaign aimed at underlining all the virtues of the imaging aspect of this model. While ads promoting Nokia N95 mainly dwelt on the vast range of features available in N95, the approach to N82 is slightly different. It's advertised primarily as the ultimate camera phone beating even the top all-in-one solution.

	Nokia N82 Main Specifications
Communications:	EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, UMTS 850/2100, HSDPA 3,6 mbps
Storage:	100 Mb of user memory, a 2 GB microSD card bundled
Screen:	2,4" , QVGA (240х320), 16M colors
Communications:	USB 2.0, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, A2DP support
Camera:	5 MP, 2592 x 1944 pixels, Carl Zeiss optics, autofocus, video(VGA 30fps), xenon flash
Battery:	BP-6MT 3.7V 1050 mAh up to 258 minutes of talk time up to 223 hours of standby
Dimensions:	112х50.2х17.3 mm
Weight:	114 г
Guiding price:	€450

The candy bar form factor is still the most widely used one and often seen as a characteristic feature of mass products, so a top class phone utilizing the candy bar design is a rare find now. N82 is a great expansion of the hi-end model line for the admirers of the classic design, so its significance for the portfolio is a bit higher than that of an alleged N95 clone with a boosted camera - in fact, N82 isn't a clone by all means. Of course there will be some crossing between the target audiences of the two models, yet the unique coverage area of both greatly exceeds the common sector. Unlike N95, which isn't even expected to match N82 in sales volume, the latter is planned to win the status of a top-class mass product. Though such a phrase might sound wierd, Nokia are doing everything to get large audiences involved with all the variety of features that N82 offers, making them close their eyes at the moderately high price. The neutral and most common form factor, a price lower than that of the premium models and a rich bundling also help the cause. The package deal also includes a free three-month license for downloading GPS maps and a 2 Gb memory card ships in the box as well. All these bonuses will be discussed further.

Design & Ergonomics

Nokia N82 keeps with the style of its precursor N73; the overall dimensions are mostly the same, save for less thickness and more length (neither change is perceptible enough to spot it accidentally prior to being told the difference by a picky expert) counting 112x50.2x17.3 millimeters. The size and build are comfortable enough and don't give the handset and awkward field and are looking quite justified for a candy bar with such a lot of advanced features all stuffed inside (especially in comparison with N95). The phone gives the hand a solid and friendly feel, but it doesn't feel bulky. We can hardly recall a model that would contain so many advanced modules within a casing as moderately sized as N82 has.

The main competitor to Nokia N82 most likely is the current flagship of the Sony Ericsson portfolio - K850i. Of course, talking of competitiveness we mainly focus the comparison on the imaging aspect of the two devices, it's difficult to draw any serious comparisons about the overall efficiency since the S60 is far ahead of A200 in most (if not all) parameters. Speaking of sizes, the SonyEricsson offering looks more compact - sporting roughly equal thickness, it's significantly shorter and slightly narrower. The difference is justified by the presence of the Wi-Fi and GPS modules in N82.

Some of the design traits expose certain similarities not only to N73, but to N81 as well - some of the smaller details look exactly like in N81. The body is made of plastic with varying texture. The plastic parts are tough, durable and difficult to damage. The face panel is covered with a chrome coating (the keypad area included), it's prone to greasing. Fingerprints and dirt between the buttons are less noticeable than with SonyEricsson K850i, the bright color does its job here. The side surfaces are made from matte light gray plastic, the back panel is even lighter with a characteristic texture. The article devoted to Nokia E51 featured a statement that the company would be going on with their new product differentiation policy providing for corresponding differences in design between products from differently positioned series. The trademark plastic texture will be different for Nseries and Eseries products and over time it will make a rule.

The build quality of N82 deserves highest appraisals, even though the body lacks any metal. The handset has a plasticky feel lacking the least trace of the heavy cold metal, but for the rest everything is more than just okay - all the parts are tightly fitting each other, there's no such thing as wobbliness or play between the parts when it comes to N82, and you can hardly expect it to produce any sounds no matter how hard you squeeze it in the hand.

The slots and controls are quite standard for the latest generation of multimedia devices by the company. The left side features the microUSB slot, the memory card slot designed after the microSD standard and protected with a plastic gag, and the charger slot. The right side hosts the volume controls, the gallery application launch button, the camera controls and the large stereo speakers. Placing both on the same sade of the body is a decision a bit outside of the common logics and the quality isn't as high as one would expect from a top class solution, so N82 can't beat the audio part of N95 or at least be equal to it, alas.

The top end features a standard 3.5 mm headset jack which is also suitable for common headphones. Its location is smart enough to eliminate any possible discomfort when you're walking with headset plugged and the phone in your pocket. The back panel, in addition to the unusual texture of the plastic, is also remarkable as the hosting site of the massive 5 Mpix camera. A metal framing comprises the lens, the xenon flash and the lens guard slider. Such a construction is very optimal - the lens guard doesn't stick out so it can't be possibly damaged by scratching agains the resting surface of the phone (unlike N95)

On the whole, the design is mostly following a neutral theme, the colors and shapes don't annoy or challenge the eye, but at the same time it has a bit of subtle charisma all around, probably due to the small parts covered in chrome and the unique texture of the back panel. The product is aimed at wide audiences so experiments about design are critically undesired to prevent possible negative feedback of the mass opinion.

Keypad

N82 is remarkable for the small size of the numerical buttons, there's some likeness to those of Nokia N91 and some phones by SonyEricsson. A certain percentage of customers tend to keep a negative attitude to such small keys, but in practive those pose no real discomfort. The buttons are very prodtruding, and the distance between them is enough to prevent stray keystrokes. The lower row of buttons is located at the very botton of the body, which is a bit unusual and might make you feel awkward during the first days of use. Comparing the keypad to Nokia N73, K859i we'd remark that the bigger buttons of N73 are rather flat and provide less perceptible tactile feedback as compared to the rest of discussed handsets. The ergonomics of the numerical keypad of N82 is comparable to K850i, which is quite sufficient for most customers. The keypad backlighting is white, you can clearly see everything in the dark. The letters and numbers are put above the corresponding buttons and are a bit hard to spot in broad daylight due to the glossy surface of the keypad backing and the dull white color of the symbols themselves.

The navigation controls are rather clumsy, the buttons are small and crowded. The multimedia menu button is located between the function button and the C button and is the easiest to handle of htem all. The rest of navigation keys are much harder to control. The navigation button is small and rather soft, providing rather precise feedback to each press of the finger. All the buttons are made from silvery plastic, the coating is strong enough to endure prolonged periods of usage.

All in all, the keypad displays average ergonomics which is neither a serious problem nor a matter to get happy about. The traditional, standard placement of controls is a plus and provides more comfort e.g. compared to K850i, yet the ideal is still far above.

Screen

The screen size is standard for the latest Nokia models (2,4'' or 36x48 mm) and is able to display up to 16M colors. There's no perceptible difference from phones like N73 or N81. The protective glass is thick and in general very similar to the same element in N81, though it's unlikely to influence the brightness levels or color rendition much. The low brightness is an intended measure of extending the battery life up to 2-3 days of moderately extensive usage. A screen size comparison between this model and N95/N95 8GB clearly reveals the difference. For some potential buyers, the screen size will be the key factor pushing them towards N95 8Gb.

N82 / N95 / N95 8Gb Display

An important point is that the screen of N82 isn't only inferior in size, it also features a lower brightness and less realistic color rendition, e.g. the K850i model displays a more vivid image. In this sense N82 differs from N73 in a big way.

Battery

The standard battery that ships with N82 has a capacity of 1050 mAh (BP-6MT, Li-Ion) which is just enough. As claimed by the vendor, the device is able to stand at least for 3,16 (WCDMA) and up to 4,3 (GSM) hours of talk time which equals to 8,7-9,3 days of standby.

The battery is of the same type with Nokia N81 which naturally leads to a guess of equal battery life about two days. The xenon flash significantly drains the charge while in use, this is the only aspect challenging the battery life characteristics - as for the rest of the modules, they have the regular power consumption rate characteristic of most Nokia products.

Communications

The model displays a wide variety of telecom features. The following interface slots are available: microUSB for the data cable, 3.5 mm jack for the headset and the slim charger slot. The USB version is 2.0, Mass Storage mode is supported. You can select from a few modes: Mass Storage, PC Suite, Image Print and Media Player. While used in the Mass Storaeg mode, the device doesn't engage the offline profile, the full functionality is retained.

Nokia N82 is designer to operate in EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 network environments as well as WCDMA 2100 - quite expected specs. The HSDPA support is fully present, just like in N95. On the whole the device sports a very rich range of telecom features - almost everything one might want.

As stated by the manufacturer, the Bluetooth version is 2.0 + EDR, all the general profiles are supported:

The A2DP support allows for a wireless stereo headset to be used with the device, this feature works just as it's expected to.

The Bluetooth data transition rate is about 130 Kb/sec. The Bluetooth visibility interval is now a customizable option that you can set between a minute and an hour.

The TV-out is still in (along with a cable that's part of the bundling), the device can be conntected to a TV set, a stereo system which is an avantage for N-Gage gamers, the N82 could make a decent gaming console. Unfortunately nothing of the kind is included in N81. Also you can use the TV screen to watch films uploaded to the smartphone.

Similar to the rest of the multimedia phones, a Wi-Fi b/g module is included. The WLAN Wizard is a simple application that helps you configure your wireless network connection. The available security profiles are WEP, WPA and WPA 2.

The Home Media application allows for interaction between the phone and various devices supporting the UnPNP technology. It has seen some serious improvements from earlier versions used in N95 and N93. If the only option available in the initial version was the one allowing to share content stored on the device, now the smartphone can play content opened from remote source. We tested this functionality both on a phone-to-PC bundle and between two different phones as well (N82-to-N95), and found no problems at all. After adjusting all the necessary settings in the Gallery, the 'broadcast over home network' option became available, letting browse and play the content stored on remote devices.

Performance and RAM

The performance of Nokia N82 is analogous to the rest of models from the same series (e.g. N95), there arent' any percpetible changes and the tasks are carried out with the same speed. Similar to Nokia N95 8Gb, the functioning of the camera and the gallery is optimized, a noticeable boost in speed can be seen. Thanks to the hardware 2D/3D graphics accelerator, the device is the winner in all the relevant tests. In comparison with N81 the N82 model is slightly faster in standard applications like the MP3 player, but the difference is hardly perceptible and has no practical significance.

Model	Nokia N81 8GB	Nokia N82	Nokia N95
Jbenchmark 1.0.1 Score	5618	4909	5311
Text	1583	1399	1419
2D Shapes	1451	1254	1303
3D Shapes	697	598	640
Fill Rate	373	321	336
Animation	1514	1500	1613
Jbenchmark 2.0.1 Score	595	522	568
Image Manipulations	379	397	410
Text	718	655	710
Sprites	535	512	520
3D Transform	906	821	817
User Interface	594	488	476
Jbenchmark 3D HQ	203	889	973
Jbenchmark 3D LQ	376	967	1018
Triangles ps	52067	46270	48330
KTexels ps	3452	6111	6393
Jbenchmark HD Gaming Score	162 (5.4 fps)	625 (20.9 fps)	649 (21.6 fps)
Smooth triangles	104296	309698	319569
Textured triangles	83570	283732	288952
Fill rate, KTexels	2189	12996	13322

he model is operating under control of one of the latest revisions of the Symbian OS, namely v9.2, S60v3 FP1. There's no support for the Fast Boot feature, though the device takes only about 20 seconds to boot up.

The amount of free memory accessible to the user is about 86 Mb, the total RAM size equals to 128 Mb. The same numbers are observed with Nokia E90, the increase in RAM size is among the most improvements of the N82 model, similar to N95 8GB. We experienced no lags or stuttering during such an intensive multitasking job, about 50 Mb of RAM was kept free during the process. We can't say that such an amount of RAM is redundant in the very essense of this word, but most users will probably find it to be such. Nokia E51 supplied with about 48 Mb of RAM doesn't experience any problems during intensive multitasking either. The memory dedicated to a particular running process (Heap size) and the maximum size of a Java executive (Jar size) are unlimited.

The integrated memory module has a capacity of 100 Mb, a 2 Gb memory expansion card comes in the sales package.

N-Gage

Nokia N82 comes with a preinstalled N-Gage application - actually one of the very first devices with full integrated support for the new gaming platform. All of the gaming functionalities of the N82 model fully coincide with the same functionality found in Nokia N81, so to avoid annoying repetition, we better advise you to look for the N81 review to find out more detail on this feature, for that article features an extremely thorough analysis of the N-Gage service and its capabilities.

Nokia N81 review: N-Gage reborn

The only thing that we'll mention here in particular is the unfortunate lack of the dedicated gaming controls in the model we're currently talking about, so the gaming ergonomics is by all means higher in Nokia N81. Both landscape and portrait orientations are available to game applications on Nokia N82. However the multimedia buttons can't be used as game controls, so the landscape orientation is something too clumsy to be used for playing on this phone. There are a number of possible explanations to such limitations: first of all, the N-Gage platform is a universal one and isn't designed to meet every model's specific features like the presence or absence of multimedia buttons and so on. So you could hardly expect the dedicated multimedia buttons of N95 8GB to become operative in N-gage games.

User Interface

The peculiarities of software interface of Nokia N82 consist in the slight change in functionality of a few applications only, but on the whole everything stays the same way with Nokia N81. So we won't be describing all the basic features, shifting the focus more on the innovative side of the product.

Let's note that the applications are now operating a bit faster, this is especially true about the Gallery - all the small stutters and lags are now gone, even if you're browsing through a thousand of files, the images and text is rendered quickly enough not to trouble the user. Photos and videos can be also browsed through with the quick browse feature. The screen orientation has its impact upon the mode in which all the conent is viewed, in the landscape orientation all the photos are automatically shown full-sized.

Similar to numerous other smartphones based off TI OMAP 2420, Nokia N95 8Gb lack the opportunity to display the menus using 3D profiles (Horsehoe and V-Shaped), however the menus can be animated by introducing SVGT icons (vector graphics). In devices built on the Freescale platform (e.g. N81, N76) the things are quite on the contrary - the 3D profiles are in and animated icons are out. These nuances also greatly depend on the device's posittioning, for example Nokia E51 has its multimedia funcitons implemented on a level more typical for the previous generation of such devices.

The multimedia looks as if it were taken right from a Nokia N81. The menu is rather ascetic, there's no support for custom background images, but at the same time it's significantly more comfortable and informative. Seven items are listed:

The list can't be customized, there's no way to add user items - the only option is to change the order in which the follow. Every item lists a few subitems, i.e. quick shorcuts. The Contacts tab lists the frequently called persons and acts as the speed dial list - you no longer have to look those up in the contacts book. The rest of tabs contain the corresponding submenus, each item comes with a specific assoicated icon (the thumbnail of the last gallery image or the cover of the currently selected album in the music player and so on). In general, the new multimedia meny is considerably more comfortable now as offers more information. To a certain extent, it substitutes the main menu.

The Go-To active standby mode is standard, very few changes can be observed in comparison with the classic version of N95. The number of application shortcuts displayed in standby mode is now seven regardless of the screen orientation. The rest of the options work as they used to. One of the lines shown during standby is the Search function comprising local search and web search srvices. The application interface was slightly revamped as compared to the rest of latest Nokias, but the essence is virtually the same. Searching by a number of categories is possible, for instance in web / in local content / in messages / in calendar events and so on, to a certain degree the application is analogous to the Smart Search service implemented in Samsung phones. This is a rather useful feature which is now integrated into the active standby mode and is always at hand.

The GPS navigator interface was slightly improved and now sports better looks, the maps are now displayed in a more convenient fashion. The finalized navigation software is used in this model, A-GPS support is fully present, coordinates acquisition takes only about 10 or 15 seconds while using A-GPS with this one. The integrated GPS module is present as well, the higher ranking Nokia products tend to have a GPS module as a stock feature by the beginning of 2008. N82 is becoming the mass market solution of a multimedia phone and is to keep the newly achieved statuss all trhough 2008. Similar to N95 8GB it utilizes maps by TeleAtlas.

All the standard functionality provided by the Nokia Maps (Smart2Go) service is fully preserved in Nokia N82, the only change being a slightly improved interface.

Multimedia

The multimedia features of Nokia N82 went through no changes as compared to the predecessor, and this is perfectly true about the player interface, the sound quality and so on. The standard 3.5 mm socket allows for any standard headset to be used with the phone, but the bundled brand adaptor fully supports the original Nokia headset. The adaptor features an AD-54 remote control which is also found in the sales package of Nokia N81. The control has glossy smooth buttons with rounded corners - but here it comes clear that this is a sacrifice of ergonomics in favour of design. The remote control that ships with Nokia N91 or 3250 sports better ergonomics due to larger, traditionally positioned buttons, and the non-standard button layout of AD-54 is a bit annoying, making you glance at the buttons every time you want to press something. The headset included into the sales package is of a rather mediocre quality, it's the same one that ships with Nokia N81.

The interface is just the same with Nokia N81, such an arrangement of elements can be seen in all the recent devices based off the S60v3 platform Feature Pack 1 (e.g. Nokia N95, 6290), the only difference being the order in which the elements are shown on the screen. The controls are quite comfortable, the dedicated multimedia buttons are used for rewinding/play/pause and the navigation button also duplicates some of these functions. The name of the performer and track title are shown on the screen during standby, the side buttons are used for setting the sound volume.

Player settings include five presets of the eight-band equalizer and an opportunity to create as many user presets as you like. The rest of options are: balance adjustments, enhanced stereo playback, bass boost, reverberation, sorting tracks by performer, album, genre and so on, track repeat and random playback. The Album Arts feature allows you to associate an image file with any music album, so each track from that album will be accompanied by the album cover shown on the screen during playback. Similar to Nokia N95, the visualisation enjoys an excellent implementation, the visuals look great yet drain some extra battery charge while playing. Either the phone itself or the Home Media Server can be selected as the source for audio files.

The Music menu subitem now has a new subitem - Nokia Music Store, granting access to a database of more than million music tracks by all sorts of performers. The price of one track is 1 euro, an album costs 10 euros, a montly subscription for synchronizing the downloaded content with yout PC - 10 euro. The price is standard for this kind of offers by European operators, and time will tell how successful this project is. The 'Go to the Music Store' option was added to the playback screen, which upon activation redirects you to www.music.nokia.com. The Music Store offers a wide range of possibilities inlcuding full-fledged music track searching, access to top charts, statistics, the list of planned downloads, introductory listening, phone-to-PC synchronization via Windows Media Player. The service is already functioning now, though is temporarily limited to the territory of Great Britain only. All the tracks are downloaded in the .wma format. A track lost but already paid for can be downloaded again for any number of times free of charge.

Nokia N82 is able to endure up to 11 hours of continuous music playback, but the standard battery capacity won't allow to go any further. That's a bit more than the original Nokia N95 could afford, on par with Nokia N81. Let's say a few words about the audio quality. The device, regardless of such an additional as the universal 3.5 mm headset jack, isn't meant to be a music player. The audio quality is only average, outreached by the music-oriented Nokia phones. Everything is just the same with Nokia N95 / N95 8GB, that's decent yet modest. Nokia N81 or Samsung i450/i550 offer a notably higher quality of sound, the maximum volume is comparable though.

Accelerometer

As you know, the latest Nokia models such as N95, N95 8GB, N82 are supplied with an accelerometer but until recently all of its functionality was nothing but the automatical screen aspect adjustment in the camera mode, it just rotated the image when necessary. Presently Nokia published a plugin allowing to include full functionality provided by the accelerometer in third-party applications and a set of documents describing how to implement different functions of that feature. So a large number of applications utilizing that functionality are expected to appear soon. This is especially important because the deal isn't only about such applications as the Passometer or the trivial screen orientation switch, but a full-scale support advanced control options. In other words, by declining the device at different angles, you will be able to navigate in menus, browse through the image gallery, play various games. The video clip below is a good illustration of this expanded functionality. The Nokmote software offering such possibilities is totally free and will be released in December.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

Camera

Nokia N82 has a camera module extremely similar to Nokia N95, N95 8Gb - almost the same piece, save for a few changes in the software part. This is clearly seen from the shots. The photos look almost the same, sometimes N82 displays a better picture allegedly due to the improved image processing algorithm, but the difference is of little practical use. The real difference comes with the dusk, when N82 beats all the competitors due to a much stronger flashlight. For the first time in history a Nokia phone uses a xenon flashlight (the first phone ever to feature one was SE K800i), it's very powerful and works quite all right. The flashlight of K850i is significantly weaker and tends to be activated automatically just when it's necessary while in poorly lit scenes it often fails to turn on - the K850i hardware clearly exposes a bit of its bizarre logics. As a matter of fact, the flashlight and the lens guard are placed in a manner that allows for better ergonomics. For instance, K850i isn't too smart about that, you can easily block the lens with the tip of your finger because the flashlight is placed just below the button. The lens guard of K850i is located beneath the glass which is, frankly speaking, a bit strange, so you have to rub away grease from the lens prior to every shooting session with K850i while N82 is deprived of such necessity.

The auto-focus backlighting feature allow for auto-focusing even in poorly lit environments. The distance at which the flashlight and this backlighting work is about four meters which is quite a good result.

The performance of N82 camera is quite high - outreaching N95 and comparable to N95 8Gb. It only takes about two seconds after the lens guard moves aside for the camera to get prepared for shooting, the same time is taken for precise focusing. The camera speed is more than just satisfactory. Maybe not ideal, but definitely worthy of a HD camera like that. The lens guard slider is rather tight, you can't slide it aside accidentally. Also, it doesn't stick out from the surface too much. Even if Nokia N82 isn't ideal in terms of camera ergonomics, it's at least somewhere close to being such.

The camera interface and settings are the same as in Nokia N95 8Gb:

The number of settings is quite enough for a photo phone. The secondary camera for video calls placed on the front panel only supports the 320x240 resolution but that's quite enough for video call. Also the frontal camera can be used as an improvised self-portrait mirror. The whole aspect is in keeping with Nokia N95 and N95 8Gb phones, so we won't be repeating the same things twice here.

How the xenon flashlight in Nokia N82 works at different distances: 1m, 2m, 3m

Poorly lit environment. Flashlight on/off

The positioning policy of the company places N95 and N95 8Gb in the priciest part of the chart, they are rather premium phones than mass market solutions (which is in perfect accordance with the points of view of Nokia management) while most camera phones produced by other brands belong to a lower price segment - sure, we're hinting at SonyEricsson K850i. These two photo leaders share a certain number of common features including positioning and some other aspects, but N82 has an incomparably higher functionality. Getting back to the camera, the most interesting evidence are the actual photo samples taken with the competing phones in different environments. The camera module is the same both in N82 and N95, but the xenon flash of N82 makes a really huge difference when it comes to shooting in the dark. In the broad daylight N82 can only boast a very subtle advantage in image quality over the N95 model.

Daylight shooting. Nokia N82 / N95 / SE K850i

The quality is comparable. Some of the shots expose the better color rendition of N82

K850 activated the flashlight though the Nokias didn't.

Despite a pretty good illumination, all the three phones activated the flashlight.

Flashlight in action - N82 leading, N95 lagging behind.

Another flashlight test: we took pictures of a glossy packet from distances between 1 and 3 meters. The photos are rather stupid yet give a pretty clear picture of how powerful the flashlights of different models are in comparison. Shorter distances stand for even results, but at 3 meters the LED flash N95 is pretty week, which is seen from the picture.

Nokia N82 / SE K850i

K850 failed at using the flashlight. The focusing was all screwed up. A rare yet occuring case

Poorly lit environment. K850 turned the flashlight off

The difference between N82 and N95 is hardly perceptible, in most cases there's virtually none save for a slight change in color rendition - the enhanced image processing algorithms do their job. The improved flashlight makes Nokia N82 a better solution for shooting indoors, the difference from N81 and of course K850i becomes quite evident in such cases. Both N82 and N95 display superior image quality as compared to K850i, as well. An important improvement is that N82 handles macro shooting at ranges closer than 10 cm much better than N95, the photos turn out quite crisp and focusing is no trouble. Regardless of the fact that we used a pre-sale prototype in our test, it's just as good as it should be and the overall photo quality is a bit above N95.

The gallery application is the standard means for browsing user data, the application interface coincides with that of Nokia N95, the circular item browsing is supported. The rendering of graphical elements and animations has been significantly sped up, even the minor lags found with the old N95 are now gone for good. Unlike Nokia N81, the gallery utilizes the portrait orientation of the screen; once you press the navigation button up or down, fast browsing of gallery pages goes in the specified direction. The visual effects accompanying gallery actions are remarkable for their excellent graphics and animations. The gallery options include sorting by date, name, size and file format. An unlimited number of custom folders can be created by user in the phone memory or on the flash disk. The printing settings are also specified in this menu.

Any number of custom albums can be created by the user, each used for placing any number of image files inside. You can display a selected number of images or the whole lot of them in a configurable slide show with user-set background music selected from available audio files.

The Nokia Video centre application has the same functionality as in the classic model - it's a search engine coupled with access / download / playback manager for video files. So far up to fifteen different services dealing with video content are available through this feature, including a number of news sources like Reuters, official video feeds by organizations (e.g. Unicef), a Stupid Video channel and so on. In the foreseeable future an opportunity to download clips from the YouTube portal will be added (as of today the service is available in a beta stage). The Wi-Fi connection makes this service truly comfortable, also you can use that through GPRS or EDGE, all the videofiles are optimized for the device's screen resolution. Continued downloading of partially downloaded files is supported.

Quite a number of options are available here, including file protection from accidental deletion, parental control lock, enabling thumbnails for video clips and so on. The service turned out to be an efficient feature and easy to use. A lot of attention was paid to details, for example if you close the video player while watching a video, upon the next launch the player will prompt you either to start the same clip from the place where you stopped last time or to play it from the beginning again. The list of services is going to expand, almost any video feed site compatible with RSS video 2.0 has a chance of joining this mobile network.

Conclusion

Nokia N82 is a smart sequal to the popular Nokia N73. It turned out just the way it was expected to, so no one will be disappointed. The style, dimensions are the same, the keypad is a bit improved, the camera makes some of the best photos around regardless of the lighting conditions, the camera position and the lens guard only add to the overall ergonomics of the imaging aspect. Saying nothing of the high performance...

Nokia N82 is the ultimate photo phone by Nokia aimed at the maximally wide audience which is backed by the neutral design, classicla form factor, no unusual solutions in terms of ergonomics and quite an affordable price completely justified by the richness of funcitonality you get with a N82. The guiding price of Nokia N82 (VAT excluded) will count as much as 450, the European retail price will be slightly higher. The main competitor to this model is the K850i model by SonyEricsson, as seen by many. But in real life, the competition is a ghostly one due to the fact that the only comparable feature between the two is the camera. Also K850i entered the market much earlier and its price settled down around 400 euro so the price are also haedly comparable. The integrated GPS module of N82 is one of the most serious advantages of the model, automatically placing the model in a different market segment than K850i. If we add to it the Wi-Fi support, a much more powerful flashlight and a higher photo quality in most environments (let alone the VGA video shooting at 30 fps) everything becomes clear without words. In our days, GPS and Wi-Fi are no longer complementary features but rather essential ones, so all this stuff taken together speaks only in favor of N82. The only apparent advantage of K850i over N82 is the brighter and more colorful screen, but the rest yields to what N82 has to offer. Even if we close the eyes at the functionality, the question of ergonomics still persists: the pseudo soft-buttons and the navigation button stuck crowded by the numerical keys do little justice to the SE brainchild while N82 has only a few flaws on this front. The contains of the sales package are also richer in the case of N82 (2 Gb flash card, free map downloading license valid for 3 months). The N-Gage functionality is a serious advantage of Nokia phones and naturally something that SE phone do not possess. So the conclusion is quite clear: N82 has the upper hand in the competition and the only way for SonyEricsson to keep the sales of K850i sufficient is to lower its price to the point where it meets a slightly different target audience who wouldn't be thinking to afford a N82.

	Nokia N82	Nokia N95	SonyEricsson K850i
Dimensions:	112x50.2x17.3 mm	95x53x21 mm	102x48x17 mm
Supported frequency bands:	EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 2100, HSDPA 3,6 mb/s	EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 2100, HSDPA 3,6 mb/s	EGSM 850/900/1800/1900, WCDMA 850/2100, HSDPA 3,6 mb/s
Screen:	2,4” QVGA 16M colors	2,6” QVGA 16M colors	2,2” QVGA 262K colors
Camera:	5MP (up to 2536x1944), AF, Xenon Flash	5MP (up to 2536x1944), AF	5MP (up to 2536x1944), AF, Xenon Flash
Video:	VGA (640x480), 30 fps	VGA (640x480), 30 fps	QVGA (320x240), 30 fps
ТВ-out:	+	+	-
GPS:	+	+	-
Wi-Fi:	+	+	-
Mechanical lens guard:	+	+	-
Market Entry Date:	December 2007	April 2007	November 2006
Guiding price:	450 euros	500 euros	430 euros

As for Nokia N82, the flaws inherent to this one are: the low brightness of the screen, the mediocre ergonomics, the dirt-collecting face panel. It seems there are no other sad points about this model, the device offers great functionality while retaining very reasonable dimensions and price, such a combination is one of the keys to the market success. Nokia N82 will be available in a very short period of time after the official announcement, no mass shipments are expected as of now; the model will hit the shelves of all the shops in December, just by the time the sales will peak before Christmas. The release of a key product falling in this time period means that the price will stay far above the guiding value defined as 450 euros, it's quite predictable that the price will only settle down to this value somewhere in the final weeks of January or even later.

The next replacement for the photo flagman can be hardly expected before the second half of 2008, the high demand for the current models from this series and the massive production rates of N82 make it unreasonable to hurry with further developments on this front, the device will be the only solution of this kind among the ranks of Nokia cameraphones for quite a long period. Considering comparable demand rates both for N73 and N82, the life cycle of the tallter will span further than 12 months. A simplified version of this solution is not destined to see the daylight (e.g. something with the same camera but lacking Wi-Fi or GPS), going contrary to the current mass market policy of the Nokia company.

SMAPE's opinion

Nokia N82 is the most functional solution within its price segment found on the market today. Anybody upset with Nokia N95 because of the short battery life or the double slider form factor should find this a perfect replacement. An all-in-one product with maximal focus put on the imaging aspect - the most powerful camera in the corresponding class of devices.

+ Affordable price
+ High quality of shots and clips, powerful flashlight
+ High build quality
+ Enhanced ergonomics in shooting mode, the lens guard
+ High performance
+ Large amount of memory
- Low brightness
- The face panel prone to greasing
- Mediocre ergonomics

Author: Spiridonov Anton, editor@smape.com

SMAPE.com

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