N82: Initial Impressions

 

The N82 was launched yesterday after much anticipation, rumors and spy shots. Full Techical Specifications are available here. The virtual event and the product manager chit chat has been widely appreciated the world over and I myself love the idea thoroughly. It a great concept and I do hope continues with it, but what I really want is the idea being extended and given a new dimension.

Generally companies launch products with much fanfare and then their commitment dips to an extent. What I would love to see is such programs even after the device is shipped. We’d have way better Firmware upgrades this way and better overall consumer satisfaction and what not.

General Impressions

Now for some thoughts on the device, the N82 is an N95 in a candybar form minus the large screen and infrared (This means no irRemote) but with oodles of more RAM and the mighty xenon flash! As expected the N82 being an N8x device doesn’t do anything ground breaking which we’ve not been earlier however it will as a jack of all trades and even the master of photography turn out to be a very hand device indeed. With the build quality expected to be better I have high hopes from this ‘multimedia computer’.

Keypad

The N82 borrows its keypad from the N91, something which might be pleasing to some doesn’t impress me much. The N73, whose very able successor the N82 is, also has a not so appeasing keypad which was quite a bane for people with large hands and one of the reasons apart from wifi for me not getting the phone! The Ngage platform is expected soon and N82 will definitely play a key role and the keypad might not be as comfortable for games as most people would like.

Build

The N82 gives me the impression that it will be a far better device to hold, than what it looks in the pictures and videos we’ve seen so far. The back and sides of the phone are almost perfect and don’t seem to leave room for light to leak out like the N95. The size of the screen is 2.4” with the same N95 resolution (240 x 320 with 16.7 million colours) and for me is something of a step back. More than high resolution I like large physical screens and if I had to switch back to a smaller screen I’d find it difficult. I would have also liked some metal on the device though, have had a bad experience with chromed plastic.

Music

The 3.5 mm jack hopefully has become a standard on the Nseries range, finds itself on the top of the N82 making music listening via headphones with the phone in the pocket much more convenient. The audio quality IMO will be similar to the N95 as the N91 quality seems to have been reserved for the so called music phones (N81) which the N82 is not. The jack also doubles up as the TV out port. I do hope that the TV out resolution has been pumped to a 640 x 480 all over and not just in the Gallery, however I have my doubts. Will try and get some info on this soon.

Imaging

As far as Imaging is concerned, the N82 is the new king! The xenon flash will make all the difference in those horrible low light shots that usually turned out horrible with the LED. Indoor photography and shots in absolute dark should from now be comparable to standalone digital cameras. The video shot at a max of 640 x 480 with 30 frames per second same is the N93/N93i/N95/N95 8GB. (read very good) The next higher level is expected to come out in the N9x range, again speculation on my part.
I quite liked was the camera cover, almost perfect. Now if Nokia can just decrease the time it takes to get ready to shoot a picture it’ll be great. On the N95 it takes me almost 13 seconds from sliding the cover and finish taking a shot. That’s far too long, something I don’t know for how long I will be able to live with.

Update: The N82 has a much faster camera than the N95. Well done Nokia!

Performance

The N82 gets auto screen orientation thanks to the inbuilt accelerometer and unlike the iPhone it’ll be available to all applications and not just the web browser and Gallery. Great move Nokia. (This is not the place to say it, but Nokia please add this to the N95 via a firmware upgrade). The N82 RAM and demand paging makes it clear that you will not have out of memory issues and that’s a big plus on a S60 handset. Muisc playing while you surf on the Safari browser is not a problem at all.

Battery

The N73 has great battery life. The N82 supports a smaller 1050 mAh battery. It will perform better than the N95 classic but lesser than the N73. The software tweaks might also improve performance. All in all it shouldn’t have a problem in lasting 24 hrs with medium to heavy usage.

N82 v. N95 8GB

– This is a tough one. But one very important factor for me is the 2.8″ screen on the N95 8GB. A .4″ difference in the screen size for a phone in phenomenal. However the resolution of both is the same and the smaller screen benefits from this. 

– The memory also isn’t much of an issue as 8GB cards are out and are expected to rise to a whopping 32GB. This puts the N95 8GB at a disadvantage because of the lack of a card slot.

– In the Imaging department everything is the same but for the xenon flash and this round therefore goes to the N82.

– In the style quotient I prefer sliders over a candybar so this one for me goes to the more stylish N95 8GB. I know a lot of you will disagree. This is also because of the keypad to a certain degree.

At the end of the day, its more of  personal liking that will determine the winner as on specs alone none is the ‘better’ phone. What do you people think?

Update: The N82 User Guide Is Available Here (PDF).

Trackback URL is here.