Gimme An 'N'...80

It's not everyday we get excited over the arrival of a new mobile phone, but the Nokia N80 certainly is a delightful exception. Sporting the same attractive metallic fascia as the N70, the N80 instantly gives a sense of quality, this despite its thick plastic body. Right below the screen is a conventional 5-way directional pad and a cluster of primary control buttons that include a couple of softkeys and call keys. These allow quick menu access without having to slide up the screen unit. At the back is a 3.0-megapixel camera with flash and this is paired with a front-mounted camera for 3G video calls. In camera mode, the N80 supports red-eye reduction and can be toggled between taking stills in either landscape or macro mode. An automatic white balance option and a vast array of settings of snapping options means the N80 is as good as it gets for mobile photography on an N-series. Finally, the power button and infrared port are located at the crown of the phone, while the mini power jack and pop-port connector are located at the base. The N80 screen has a resolution of 352 x 416 pixels, which is four times sharper than what most series 60 handsets have had to offer. Text display is sharp and the images are displayed brightly and clearly. Sliding up the display reveals the numberpad but unlike other slide phones, there is no spring to assist the sliding process; you'd have to manually slide up screen unit fully reveal the numberpad. Disappointingly, the numberpad is too flat and too stiff, making it difficult for people with large hands to input data. This is due largely to dead zones in all four corners of each key where unless each strike is done dead center, user inputs will not be registered at all. Another downer is the lack of automatic keypad lock. Users must always remember to select

---

Orignal From: Gimme An 'N'...80