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Nokia N82 smartphone

Don't judge this book by its cover

Review Nokia has boosted its N series with its most heavily-featured candybar yet. With a five-megapixel Carl Zeiss-lensed, xenon flash equipped camera and GPS, it’s comparable to the N95 and one of the best cameraphones around. Even if it’s not the prettiest.

Working on the principle that you shouldn’t judge a book by the cover, anyone serious about getting a high-quality cameraphone should take a long hard look at the N82.

Nokia N82

Nokia's N82: packs the capabilities of the N95

With Wi-Fi and HSDPA 3G connectivity, it has versatile options for high-speed web surfing and content downloading. It doesn’t have the 8GB built-in storage capacity of the recently upgraded N95 8GB - reviewed here - just 100MB of internal dynamic memory. But the N82 does have the same media player plus a Micro SD card slot. The N82 comes with a 2GB card, but can take Micro SDs of up to 8GB. These are widely available for around £40, giving you an affordable route to upgrade to iPhone-like music player capacity.

Other plus points include unusually high video recording quality for a cameraphone, and the facility to upload pics and clips online to content sharing sites. The N82 is also one of the new breed of N-series phones to support the Nokia Music Store and revamped N-Gage gaming platform.

Nokia N82 menu

The screen is a decently-sized 2.4in, 240 x 320 display

The N82 doesn’t quite have it all though. Head-turning good looks are, unfortunately, a stranger to this device. To be kind, with a bit of eye-squinting you could describe its face as 1980s-inspired future retro. A less generous interpretation would be 'a bit plasticky'.

While the footprint of the phone - 112 x 50.2 x 17.3mm - is slightly larger than the Nokia N73’s, its weight has been kept down to 114g. The plastic casing used to achieve this gives it a lightweight feel, but unfortunately also a cheap look and feel to the silvered-up keypad and patterned rear panel.

Latest Comments

Snooze

But like all Nokia "Smart" phones (like my current 6120) can you change the default alarm snooze time from 5 mins, to a setting of your choice !!!!!

Hehee - sounds simple, but really annoying that you can't (yet on the old nokia OS's this is a default feature!)

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@James

Rinse it through again. Pure water is an insulator; it's impurities which cause it to become a conductor. Let it dry afterwards and it might be ok.

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soft-buttons

what is it with the space between the soft-buttons and the screen? Why can't Nokia put the brand above the screen?

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Good looking phone

I'm getting it because I like the looks, don't want a slider and because the N95 8gig doesn't have a removable memory card which I want. As my network doesn't have it I will buy it and threaten to leave unless they give me a nice discount on my current contract. Worked for my missus who now pays a tenner a month for a tariff which used to cost her 25. Anyone know where I can get one cheap? Got the N73 which is ok but has been dropped too many times now and is a bit f&£@ed now.

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Anyone dropped this in saltwater yet?

I was collecting oysters and my Nokia 6110 Navigator (newly purchased at full retail ) fell out of my pocket - splash. I dried it as I have done sucessfully in the past with Nokia phones but the screen is now a pixellated rainbow and it is stuffed.

I'm back using a Nokia brick which can be washed and dried and used again... perhaps a Nokia rep will take pity on me and demo me the N82? I can torture test 'em and write a review :)

pilotNOSPAMfever@gmail.com

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