NOKIA N82: Plenty to Njoy for snappers

While this may be the successor to the N73, the end result is basically an N95 in a candybar shell, with the addition of a decent flash on a Nokia handset, a first for a Nokia device.

An extension to the Nseries line-up, the N82 is a Series 60 smartphone that is HSDPA and Wi-Fi enabled. It’s equipped with microSD expansion (that takes cards of up to 8GB capacity), GPS and the same media player used on the N81 and N95 8GB.

The 5-megapixel camera, with xenon flash and Carl Zeiss optics, mounted on the rear is mightily impressive. The 2.4-inch display rotates from portrait to landscape view at the flick of a wrist, and from first hand experience, the end result is nothing short of spectacular. Even in low light, the N82 maintains composure with a low noise level. Nor does the flash white everything out, but the metering adjusts well in most lighting conditions.

Finding the shortcut

One minor downside with the camera is there are no keypad shortcuts for it. However, when you take a picture via the easy-to-navigate menu, the N82 detects the orientation of the phone for portrait or landscape shots and is pretty quick when you’re viewing pictures at a later time, or watching a video and want to switch to widescreen.

There are no dedicated buttons for controlling music either, which can be frustrating when you’re doing something else and want to skip or pause the track. Also, if you want to use standard headphones, the 3.5mm socket is badly positioned at the top, giving water an invitation to come in and write-off the handset.

However, the GPS receiver retains the handset’s credibility. It can drain the battery a bit, but is still ideal for finding things a short distance away. You may need a spare battery, or resist from upgrading to the full turn-by-turn navigation mode until you’re in the car and plugged in. Despite that, you should get a couple of days usage from a single charge for everything else.

The N82 is initially only available on Vodafone, and it should be a fair bit cheaper than the N95 when other operators take it on. However, it could be a while yet before we see this price drop, as high demand could still keep its value high in the short-term.

Verdict

Nokia hasn’t quite got everything right, but it’s still one of the best handsets the manufacturer’s come up with and you’re likely to quickly accept the small niggles.

Although the music player isn’t on a par with Sony Ericsson’s Walkman handsets, it’s still not a bad effort and Nokia has bettered its rival on the imaging side. It’s ahead in quite a few other categories too, making it a tough handset to beat.