Nokia N81 - Review Gist

The Contacts application on the Nokia N81 8GB is robust and allows you to store names, addresses, phone numbers, and emails addresses for your contacts. The Nokia N81 8GB is capable of EDGE data speeds on any of the four GSM bands it supports, as well as UMTS on the 2100MHz frequency. The speakerphone is also typical of Nokia handsets, with a very full and clear sound, and is a pleasure to use. I was able to use the headphones with the N81 in my pocket with no noticeable loss in quality or s... *

For such a device that feels so great in the hand, to take a bad picture is just a big knock. I was mad that it wasn't a touchscreen. Voice quality, whether using a Bluetooth headset, the handset itself, or the speaker phone was excellent. Located on the right and left sides of the device, you get a full sound from them when you sit the phone in a central place in a room. The music player included is suitable for most playing tasks. *

The phone's connectivity is also great. The supplied headphones are pretty decent, but if you don't like them, the phone has a standard 3.5mm mini-jack so you can swap them for any pair you like, which is handy. *

We had high hopes for the gaming- and music-centric Nokia N81, but it ultimately disappoints with a bad design and buggy performance.

Call performance was excellent. Video calling is present and correct, and there's a RealPlayer multimedia player for viewing downloaded or PC-transfered video content. The camera on the Nokia N81 is, however, a pretty average affair. *

Nokia unveiled the N81 8GB mobile phone specifically optimized for entertainment, music and games. The new Nokia N81 8GB device offers dedicated music or gaming keys, expanded memory, large LCD screen and extended battery performance to provide quick and easy access to entertainment content.

The functionality is standard, you can look up addresses or an exact location, as well as points of interest, including places for shopping, accommodation, eating, as well as different sights of interest. *

The problem is the placement of these keys is absolutely ridiculous. For enhanced sound quality, compatible high-quality headphones or speakers can be used with the standard 3.5mm headphone connector. Poor battery. *

The backlighting is strong and even, which greatly helps operating the phone in dark environments. This is a nice layout of the stereo speakers, as it prevents them from being muffled when the phone is laid on a table or when held in hand. Offering stunning picture quality, the display ranks among the best even by Nokia's standards. *

The Nokia N81 scored 511 lw/ph horizontal and 534 lw/ph vertical, which is a pretty poor score. Realplayer on the Nokia N81, and all S60 devices for that matter, is one of the poorest excuses for video software we've seen on any smart phone. The Nokia N81 was able to handle all of our test 3GP videos, vanilla Mpeg-4 files, H264 encoded files and Real video. The images are very noisy and the photos you take don't look very much like what you had framed on the camera. You can also always tap o... *

The central navigation key is big, with a big confirmation key in the centre. *

Video capture, however, is much better, which was a nice surprise. *