Nokia N81 Review:

The Nokia N81 mobile phone is a true mobile entertainment powerhouse. With Nokia N81’s sleek, polished surface and keys, accessing content on the 3D multimedia menu is fast and intuitive. This cocoa brown version of the Nokia N81 comes with 8 GB of flash memory storage.

This quad-band Nokia N81 GSM phone is great for global voice roaming, and it also provides compatibility with 3G networks in Europe and Asia (WCDMA 2100 MHz). Nokia N81 based on S60 software operating on the Symbian OS, enabling you to personalize the Nokia N81 by choosing from a wide choice of compatible applications that can be downloaded–including games, navigation, entertainment, and productivity titles. Other features include wireless Bluetooth connectivity with stereo music streaming, a standard 3.5 mm headphone connector, 2-megapixel camera with video capture, FM radio, and integrated stereo speakers.

When paired with a compatible 3G network that uses WCDMA 2100 MHz connectivity (found in Europe and Asia), you’ll enjoy a variety of feature-rich wireless services with speeds up to 384 Kbps–from data connectivity to your office to multimedia streaming, and take advantage of simultaneous voice and data services. In the United States and foreign territories where 2100 MHz 3G networks are not available, you’ll continue to receive data service via EDGE network (depending on network compatibility).

The Nokia N81 features a crisply colorful 2.4-inch QVGA LCD screen (240 x 320 pixels) with support for up to 16 million colors. Designed with a sleek, polished exterior and buttons that illuminates when activated, the Nokia N81 offers dedicated music/gaming keys and a smooth slider design. The phone has an 8 GB internal memory for storing hundreds of songs and extra-long video files. (Note, however, that this model does not include a memory expansion slot.)

The Nokia N81’s 2-megapixel camera can also capture video at up to VGA quality (640 x 480 pixels) at up to 15 frames per second (fps). The still camera features a digital zoom up to 20x and integrated flash, and both still images and video can be edited directly within the Nokia N81. The digital audio player is compatible with a wide variety of formats (MP3, AAC, eAAC+, AAC+, WMA/M4A, Windows Media DRM). You can synchronize music with Windows Media Player 11 on your PC, and it’s compatible with Nokia’s Ovi Internet portal, where you can download songs from the Nokia Music Store and games from the N-Gage service. Other music features include a 5-band equalizer and playlist management. An FM radio with Visual Radio client complements the Nokia N81’s complete music package.

Nokia N81 smartphone has an integrated Wi-Fi LAN (802.11b/g), enabling seamless connectivity with wireless networks at work, at home, and on the roam via Wi-Fi hotspots at airports and coffee shops. Because the Nokia N81 is Bluetooth enabled, wireless communication headsets can be configured with the phone for total hands-free operation. Nokia N81 also offers Bluetooth stereo audio support (A2DP), enabling you to enjoy your music without any wires. If your laptop is Bluetooth enabled, you can connect wirelessly and enjoy dial-up networking (DUN)–surf the Internet, send email, and access files from a server.

The Nokia N81 has all the bases covered when it comes to messaging. Support is built in for sending and receiving text, video, graphics and sound via messages. It also enables you to check your email on the go (supporting POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP protocols). T9 text entry, which is a technology that makes it easier for people to enter words and text on handsets, is built into the unit–a plus for mobile text messaging users.

Nokia N81 Features
There are, in fact, two N81 models being released, an 8GB model, and a model with smaller internal memory and a micro SD card slot for greater flexibility. The 8GB of memory is the stand-out feature, likening the Nokia N81 to a lot of dedicated portable music and media players, but without memory card expansion media junkies will have to swap their files when they have filled the available storage.

While the Nokia N81 may not look like the device of rock stars the music player is definitely up to scratch, featuring most of the functionality you’d hope for; including equaliser presets and album cover art display. The laborious task of sifting through the music menus with the directional pad can be sped up using the nifty “navi-wheel” option tucked away in the settings menu. The “navi-wheel” converts the square click pad into a touch sensitive control similar to the click-wheels on iPods. Why this option is not set on by default is beyond us, even if controlling the wheel is a bit finicky, it’s still a much faster way of scanning through the dozens of artists and albums you’re bound to have stored on the device.

The Nokia N81, like all new N-Series devices, comes pre-loaded with Nokia’s N-Gage gaming application, and if we were doubters before, let us tell you, we are now converted. Two of the three demo games we saw are by far the best mobile phone games to date. Game juggernaut Electronic Arts (EA) has developed a mobile version of FIFA 07 soccer and it is outright addictive. Let’s cross our fingers for a Nokia phone with a decent joystick, because if these games are indicative of what to expect from N-Gage, we’ll be seeing some very cool mobile games in the near future.

Nokia N81 Performance
As a mobile phone the Nokia N81 provides a predictably excellent experience. Running the latest Nokia S60 Symbian operating system provides the user with a powerful platform for multi-tasking, fast access to the menus, and any tools or features you can’t find pre-loaded you can almost certainly download. While we do tend to think the S60 user interface could do with a facelift — it’s boring to look at and not as easy to use as it could be — there’s no doubting its stability.

The Nokia N81’s 2.4-inch screen is ideal for watching videos, especially when holding the Nokia N81 on its side. A pre-loaded music video we watched looked great but beyond this we had no luck loading our own videos onto the phone. Nokia says the Nokia N81 will support 3GPP, MPEG4 and H.264 video files played through Realplayer, and while the files we loaded were MP4s, all we saw were black screens. The inclusion of DivX playback in other recent release phones, such as LG’s Viewty, leave the Nokia N81 far behind as a video player.

The music player continues to play lag-free in the background while the phone continues with other functions, such as SMS messaging or Web browsing. One of the few features that failed to impress was the 2-megapixel camera; the photos we took outdoors looked washed out with flaring on some of the brighter sections of the image.

The Nokia N81’s 1,050mAh lithium-ion battery is rated for four hours of continuous talk time and up to 17 days of standby time. In our battery drain tests, we were able to get 7 hours of talk time on a single charge. According to FCC radiation tests, the Nokia N81 has a digital SAR rating of 0.81 watt per kilogram.

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