The latest N Series phone a.ka. The Nokia N85 is in town.
Its one of the most feature packed N Series phones as on date.
The N85 is touted as the successor to the N95
We review the phone and take you through the highlights of this NSeries phone
With a strong lineup of multimedia features, the Nokia N85 is taking the world of mobile convergence to the next level. Gaming, photos, navigation and music blend together with the newest Ovi and third party services via 3.5G HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity to make discovering and sharing experiences quick and seamless.
The N85 reminds us very much of the N81 which was the first phone to support a new casing.
Slider:
One of the main drawbacks and the greatest strength of the device is the slider. It takes in a great effort to actually slide open the device to reveal the multimedia keys on the top of the phone hiding conveniently behind the screen. It’s really difficult to pull it open. It causes a great deal of pushing and easily scratches the device. Well the same is not the case when we have to reveal the keypad by sliding the screen upwards. It’s a breeze and slider mechanism is good. But this solution too causes several scratches on the lower part of the device, just below the keyboard. And this is a huge let down and also a huge finger print magnet. Being in a tropical country like India, devices so glossy really make you miss a beat when you see it get dirty with just a few minutes of usage. And when you use the d-pad or the highly unreliable navi pad, the entire top slider gives you a highly uncomfortable sense as it keeps dangling and I guess this is a serious design flaw. It is not very easy either to feel happy when such a device is designed so. Typing though is a breeze. It’s awesome to type with N 85 and it’s really reliable though its actually just a flat surface. Making a typo is highly unlikely. Of a month’s usage, I can strongly say, it’s impossible to type wrongly if at all, there are some issues with English.
Overall to conclude, slider is good, just to overcome some issues that can be forgiven considering the overall merit of the design.
This is one of the prowess Finnish phone maker has developed over the years and this is definitely one of the best sliders they has ever made. Though some initial glitches due to mine being an early model, this is definitely on the better side.
Camera:
Camera I would say is not the best 5 mp option you have on the market. It would take a real long time for someone to produce some 5 mp cameras as good as the N82. The usage options though are good thanks to the sliding mechanism. The design feature interfaces though are the same as all other N Series models. But what was the company doing when they were designing the camera lens cover. Gosh it collects helluva dust and can easily scratch the camera lens cover. The images are noisy and sometimes unpleasant. In proper lighting conditions the pictures are awesome. If you are not a party trooper or a real wild animal who prowls at night the N 85 camera with its decent looks is the way to go. It’s really a fashion stopper for what it can offer. Real cool looks and features for the power under its hood.
Hardware and built:
Lag, delay and hang up are words you would never utter when you use N 85. Its one of the perfect software’s on a mobile phone yet to be made. No glitches no processing, opening screens. The speed is just awesome and definitive of how much nokia is progressing. Application compatibility is also being resolved each day.
Build quality was never an issue. Just one word: “awesome, no faux paux”.
Just awesome awesome awesome.
Music, FM, and FM Transmitter:
Music player and music quality is too good. Though there is no dedicated sound processing engine, the quality is better though it is not up to the tune of INNOV 8 or MOTO ROKR E8. It’s definitely one of the best nokia has to offer. The in house head phones are good and they offer good quality of sound to listen.
FM is good and the reception quality is awesome.
FM transmitter is a great feature and it worked well with my cab whenever I travelled to my shift in the cab.
Email and messaging:
All email clients are supported and the routine header limit size of the mail you can download all are available as always in every other nokia mobile.
Sms works like a cake walk. An interesting feature is that as it use feature pack 2 when you try to send a sms 10 sms long it automatically converts to a MMS and tries to send it. It’s a new feature and quite nice though for people like me who love to send sms forwards it’s a pain though.
Battery life and Memory:
Battery life is awesome and the best on any phone. It easily surpasses the 3 day mark for me, and I had to rush for the charger only on the 3rd day or 4th day morning. Any mode any technique of usage gives this much of a battery life.
It comes in boxed with a 8 gb card and that’s good enough to store all the music, videos we want.
WIFI, connectivity:
I used wifi to connect my phone for emails and all other web based services and its really great to use.
Conclusion
“The Nokia N85 was created to be more than the sum of its parts, offering a complete mobile entertainment package designed for connecting, sharing and discovering,” said Juha-Pekka Sipponen, Director, Nokia Nseries. “The iconic Nokia Nseries dual slider design has evolved to become smaller and sleeker while integrating the newest features and services to deliver the best mobile experience to date.”
All in all N85 is the best phone available right now in the N SERIES clan.
Its priced at Rs.24000 and is available with most Nokia retailers , its cheaper than the N96 by almost Rs.10000