CellPhoneBurn

Operating Frequency

• WCDMA 2100 + E850/900/1800/1900MHz
• Automatic switching between bands and modes

Dimensions

• Weight: 4.94 oz
• Dimensions: 4.05 x 1.97 x 0.70 in

Memory Functions

• Hot swappable microSD memory card slot

Power Management

• Battery: Nokia Battery (BT-6MT) 1050mAH
• Talk time: up to 4 hours GSM / 3 hours WCDMA
• Stand-by time: up to 17 days
• Video playback time: up to 4.5 hours (QVGA)
• Browsing time (packet data): up to 5 hours
• Music playback time: up to 11.5 hours
• Video recording time: up to 3.5 hours with (QVGA)
• Gaming time: up to 6 hours

Operation times may vary depending on radio access technology used operator network configuration and usage.

Display

• Active matrix 2.4” QVGA main color display (320 x 240 pixels), up to 16.7 million colors

User Interface

• Operating system: Symbian OS ver. 9.2
• User Interface: User interface: S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack (S60 3.1)
• Dedicated media keys for quick and easy access to music and video: play/pause, forward, rewind, stop
• Dedicated game & volume keys
• Device hold key
• Multimedia key & Navi™ wheel

Call Management

• Contacts: advanced contacts database with support for multiple phone and e-mail details per entry, also supports thumbnail pictures and groups
• Speed dialing
• Logs: keeps lists of your dialed, received, and missed calls
• Automatic redial
• Automatic answer (works with compatible headset or car kit only)
• Supports fixed dialing number, which allows calls only to predefined numbers
• Conference call
• Nokia push to talk (PoC)

Voice Features

• Speaker independent name dialing (SIND)
• Voice commands
• Voice recorder
• Talking ringtone
• Integrated hands-free speaker
• Internet calls (VoIP)

Messaging

• Text messaging: supports concatenated SMS, picture messaging, SMS distribution list
• Multimedia messaging: combine image, video, text, and audio clip and send as MMS to a compatible phone or PC; use MMS to tell your story with a multi-slide presentation
• Automatic resizing of your megapixel images to fit MMS (max 300 KB size depending on the network)
• Predictive text input: support for all major languages in Europe and Asia-Pacific

Connectivity

• WLAN IEEE802.11 b/g with UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) support
• Bluetooth Specification 2.0 (profiles supported: DUN, OPP, FTP, HFP, GOEP, GAP, SPP, HSP, BIP, A2DP)
• Micro USB 2.0 Full Speed (mass storage class)
• Nokia AV Connector 3.5mm

Additional Technical Specifications

• Protocols: MTP, UPnP, TCP/IP
• Java™ MIDP 2.0, CLDC 1.1
• Flash Lite 2.0

Imaging and video

• Up to 2 megapixel (1600x1200 pixels) camera, MPEG-4 VGA video capture of up to 15fps
• Zoom: digital up to 20x
• Front camera (CIF)
• Video call and video sharing support (WCDMA network services)
• Integrated flash (modes: on, off, automatic, redeye reduction)
• Rotating gallery with Navi wheel support
• Online album/blog: photo/video uploading from gallery
• Nokia Lifeblog support
• Video and still images editors
• Nokia XpressPrint solution direct printing via USB (PictBridge) or Bluetooth connectivity (BPP)

Music Features

• Nokia Nseries digital music player
  supports MP3 (VBR), AAC, eAAC+, AAC+, WMA/M4A, WAV
• OMA DRM 1.x, 2.0, Windows Media DRM (OTI/OTA with Nokia Music Store*)
• Hot swappable microSD memory card slot (2GB inbox = up to 1600 songs**)
• Play list management
• Synchronize music with Windows Media Player 11
• Media keys (play/pause, stop, forward, rewind)
• Integrated stereo speakers
• Dedicated volume keys (20 volume steps)
• 5-band equalizer
• Nokia AV Connector 3.5 mm (can also be used with standard 3.5mm headphones)
• Nokia Stereo Music Headset (HS-45 + AD-54) as inbox accessory
• Navi™ wheel support
• UPnP(Universal Plug and Play) music streaming
• Bluetooth wireless technology A2DP profile (Bluetooth stereo)

Nokia Podcasting

• Find, subscribe to and download podcasts over the air direct to your device
• Listen to or watch the podcast
• Browse and search the feed directory to find the podcasts you want
• Subscribe and get new podcast episodes downloaded automatically
• Choose whether the Podcasting application uses wireless LAN (requires WLAN network access) or GPRS/WCDMA packet data (requires a packet data plan) to download podcasts to your Nokia Nseries device.

FM Radio with Visual Radio support

• Stereo FM radio (87.5-108MHz /76-90MHz)***
• Get instant access to your favorite stations.
• Connect to the FM radio and find the music, sports and news broadcasts in the station list for your region
• Choose your favorites from a regularly updated directory and save them as a preset
• Listen to music and interact with your favorite radio stations
• Find out what song is playing, who sings it, and other artist information
• Enter contests and answer surveys, vote for your favorite songs

Nokia Music Store

• Purchase music online in Nokia Music Store*
• Connect to your account from your compatible PC and mobile device
• Search by artist name or title
• Explore more music with genre searches and recommendations
• Buy, download and listen to tracks on your PC
• Connect to Nokia Music Store on your mobile device through WiFi or 3G networks
• Use the wishlist to tag tracks on your mobile device to download later on your PC
• Listen to 30 second clips before choosing to download
• Buy and use pre-paid and bonus credit
• Use Microsoft’s Windows Media Player 11 installed on your compatible PC to synchronize

Let us begin with the top of this device. From left to right we have a lock switch, a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack and a power button. The lock switch doesn’t operate in the traditional manner of which you are accustomed to on your iPod or Creative product, that is the switch being in one position or the other, it is instead spring loaded. You flick it to lock the device, flick it again to unlock.

On the right side of the device, from top to bottom, is a speaker, volume up and down keys and a camera shutter button. Hitting and holding the camera button for a few seconds launches the camera application; this is super convenient since the S60 operating system limits you to only 6 shortcuts on the standby screen, 8 if you count the two soft keys.

The bottom of the device, from left to right, offers a loop for a phone charm or lanyard, the standard Nokia charging port and finally a microUSB port. The microUSB cable provided with the device locks into place very firmly and gives an extremely satisfying feel upon insertion and ejection.

On the left side of the device there is another speaker bringing the total to 2. The stereo effect is highly pronounced and you will be surprised at how loud this little sucker can get. The back of the device houses a pitiful 2 megapixel camera. Here is a sample:

The device as a whole feels like a cheap Chinese toy that kills small children due to excessive lead contamination. It creaks, it rattles and it is not the Nokia you grew up with. The sliding mechanism is spring loaded and quite powerful, but it doesn’t make up for the texture of the plastic. This phone is not for those who get sweaty hands, you will be dropping this thing, trust me.

The front of the Nokia N81, right under the screen, is where this multimedia computer goes to hell. There are a total of 16 possible commands you can summon.

I may be cheating with the naviwheel, but when you consider the fact that the N95 has 3 less possible commands it makes you think what exactly these people were thinking. All of these buttons in such a tight space will most certainly yield plenty of accidental key presses. Look at something like the Nokia 5310 (below) that was also launched at the Nokia Go Play event in London and admire that the fact that someone was smart enough to stick the music controls on the side of the screen instead of creating a mess in the lower half of the device. The two keys on the top of the device by the ear piece that only light up when using N-Gage, I haven’t used them yet so I can’t comment.

Four of these sixteen buttons have given me more hell in the past week than I care for. The green/red keys are where the Ying Yang and C key should be, period. This may be the very first Nokia device that doesn’t have send and end keys at the very bottom of the device; I hope it is the only Nokia to deviate from the status quo.

Back to the headphone jack, someone asked me how the N81 compares to the N91. I can’t answer that question since I never owned that phone due to the fact that it looks like robotic fecal matter, but I will say this: the audio quality outputted by the N81 is a significant improvement compared to my N95 and it even sounds better than my standalone Creative Muvo.

The keypad is large and flat with very thin lines separating the rows. They keys have no texture at all, but surprisingly texting on this device is a very pleasant experience, my benchmark being the N95 which has been my workhorse for the past few months. The only negative aspect is the light bleeding (below) around the edges of the keypad. It makes a device which already feels cheap, look cheap.

The naviwheel will be the subject of many criticisms. The first obvious flaw is the fact that the “wheel” functionality of the naviwheel is turned off by default. You heard that right, the one feature that makes this device stand out compared with the rest of the Nseries devices is turned off by default. After you turn the wheel on you discover that it only works in the music player application and the Gallery. After playing with a BlackBerry Pearl I was highly intrigued by a new input method that wasn’t a standard directional pad. I was hoping that the naviwheel would give me this new experience for the S60 OS, but instead the wheel is limited to being used for only two applications.

The N81 uses the BP-6MT battery which has 1050 mAh. Good luck killing this thing in one day, I’ve managed heavy data use and audio playback using the built in stereo speakers over 2 days before the device even bothered asking me to feed it some power.

Browsing over 3G is a mediocre experience; this device does not have HSDPA. Browsing over WiFi proved to be problematic. Sites took forever to start loading, once they did however they came down quite fast. Browse over WiFi for more than 3 minutes and you start having time out errors, gateway errors and the device even looses the connection.

The N-Gage application and the Music Store, these two things are supposed to be a major part of this device; sadly they have yet to launch so I cannot comment on the experience. There are 3 trial games that come installed by default: racing, FIFA and a top down shooter. With the exception of the top down shooter, I was not impressed. N-Gage has yet to launch and the games I did play in London were of much higher quality than this. We will have to wait for those to be released.

The operating system is standard S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. On first boot you have a hair over 43 MB of RAM free. This device does not have any problems at all running a large number of applications. As of this moment I have Screenshot, Gmail, Calendar, Recorder, About, Converter, Clock, Calculator, Notes, Bluetooth, Handy Calendar, Web, Search, Maps, Gallery, Camera, Log, Profiles, Contacts, Music Player and Messaging running with 9.5 MB of RAM free. Ridiculously impressed, especially compared with my N95.

The most impressive application is Search 4.0. If you’ve ever used Windows Vista or Mac OS X then you know how nice instant search can be. Launch the application and type the letter “A,” at this point you see anything on your device, whether it be contacts, music files, documents or bookmarks that start with the letter “A.” Absolutely brilliant and as far as I’ve understood this will be built into all new Nseries device. Here is hoping they just make this application built into the S60 platform itself.

Yesterday I shortchanged a lot of you guys when I simply said “don’t buy it.” That is a mistake I will never make again. I’ll post a full review like this one instead of liberally throwing sprinkles of hate around the internets. What I meant to say, and a fantastic way to conclude this review, is that I would never purchase a device like this and I would never recommend it to any of my friends. You’re capped at 8 GB since there is no removable microSD slot, the camera is horrible and the phone itself feels miserable in your hand.

When the iPhone came out I read a very interesting quote that said “the iPhone is perfect for consuming content, the N95 is perfect for creating it.” The N81 may be perfect for consuming content with the 369 MHz processor giving this baby some oomph when browsing thru your gallery or S60 in general. You can play until your thumbs fall off when N-Gage comes out and the audio quality from the blissful 3.5 mm headphone jack is fantastic. That being said, this device just doesn’t feel like something I would spend 430 Euros on, that is $615 thanks to the slump that is facing the American economy right now. Spend that money and get yourself a brand new North American N95 and 8 GB microSD card. You will be a lot happier, trust me.