Customer Reviews

Nokia N80 Internet Edition Unlocked Cell Phone with 3.2 MP Camera, 3G, Wi-Fi, MP3/Video Player, MiniSD Slot--U.S. Version with Warranty (Silver)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This phone is stunning. I had a Sony Ericsson K790a when I got this phone in, and i promptly returned the Sony for this phone. The screen is the single best screen I've ever seen on a portable device. I have great vision and I can't see pixels, the resolution is so tight that images and the interface looks amazingly smooth and stunning, even. The screen is easily readable outdoors, and doesn't have a serious reflective problem like Sony's K780a. This phone is actually smaller than the K790a, and feels smaller in the pocket. The K790 has a big bulge where the camera is, while this one is more flat on the back, which makes it far more comfortable in the hand.

The controls take some getting used to, but once you get them down, it is pretty easy to navigate. Some might complain that it is slow, but the only place I really notice it is when viewing text messages, but it's not THAT slow, it's still rather zippy. Texting on the N80's keypad is a dream come true, the keys are responsive, and they feel well made. They are far enough apart to make texting and dialing very easy.

I have had the phone slightly slide up while in my pocket, but not enough so that the screen was turned on, it needs to latch in the closed position a little more securely, but the sliding mechanism feels very sturdy and well built, and it is balanced when holding it to your ear or texting.

The N80 won't give you fantastic battery life if you use it a lot for phone calls, but it should last a day or two without charging if you just mess with the interface, text, or make brief phone calls. After 2-4 hours of phone calls, the battery life will drop a few bars, but I've never had it die on me.

It's not the best looking phone on the market, but the silver version (which I got) looks fashionable and not chunky or bloated like other smart phones. The camera on this phone is OK, but nothing special. Every picture I've taken so far has been relatively fuzzy, and out of focus, but the colors are accurate and the photos are still far better than most phones. The camera on the front of the N80 is nifty, but I never have a use for it. It's nice to have it there anyway.

The expandable memory on this phone is important, because it can play tons of Flash games, music, and videos. Music sounds good on the speaker, and it is plenty loud. Callers sound crystal clear through the N80, and they say they can hear me much clearer than on my old mpx220 or my K790a. I had a terrible time hearing people on the K790a, the device just wasn't loud enough. It could have just been my phone though, I'll never know. It is more comfortable to talk to people with the device slid open, so you can hold it closer to your mouth and ear at the same time, but it works just fine without it open, and callers can hear me just as well.

If you like options, this is the phone for you. You can adjust just about anything on it, and it makes it so customizable that you can set it up exactly how you like it. I'm new to Symbian, but so far I love it. It looks better than Windows Mobile, and, again, it's very configurable. I suggest downloading some themes from the net (on your PC, then transfer to N80). There are some really cool ones out there, and I found one I really love.

The N80 doesn't sit flat on a surface, because of the switch on the back that switches the camera to macro mode. The top part of the phone rests on this tiny switch, which makes it kinda unstable and wobbly, but it doesn't bug me, I just wished it sat flat on a surface. The N80 has no volume rocker, which I am not used to being without. Instead, you use the directional pad to raise/lower volume. This works okay, but you have to take the phone from your face in order to change the volume, and this could have been easily solved with a simple volume rocker. In fact, only 2 buttons are on the sides of the unit, the power (on top) and the camera button (on the right). This can be a good thing, as you can pick the N80 up without pushing any buttons. On the K790a, there are so many buttons crammed onto the sides that every time i picked it up I pushed one, and it got annoying.

I wish I got the black version, but the silver is nice too. Fingerprints show on the silver version rather easily, though the screen generally stays clean, as it is recessed. The shiny area around the buttons shows prints, but it cleans off easily, and Nokia includes a very soft cloth for just this. I wish the N80 came with a case, but they do include the headphones, USB cable, and a 128 MB memory card.

In conclusion, buy this phone. It blows many other smartphones out of the water with integrated wifi, music over bluetooth, IR, and it's amazing screen. It may be pricey, but it's well worth it. I got mine from Nokia directly. Avoid TigerDirect, they sent me 2 Russian versions of the K790a in a row, and allow NO returns on cell phones.

The Nokia N80 is a 5-band phone with WLAN that boasts a 3.0MP camera. Sounds great? maybe. But is it really worth upgrading from your N90 or N70? not so much.

The Nokia N80 is shorter yet thicker than the N70 and generally smaller than the N90, but aside from the higher resolution screen and camera and a more intelligent S60 software, it doesn't appear to be much of a worthy upgrade over its two predecessors.

The 3MP camera lacks auto focus, and the flimsy manual macro switch next to the camera lens has not much use because the macro mode has an extremely narrow depth of field, making it very difficult for the camera to focus on the subject when taking close up photographs. The resulting picture quality however is better than the N70 (it is a 3.0 MP camera after all), but cannot quite match the quality of the N90. The N90 offers better contrast and definition even at a lower resolution of 2MP.

The N80's screen resolution is amazing for surfing the net and taking photos, but because most S60 softwares like Adobe Acrobat LE 1.0, Quickword (for viewing microsoft word docs) (both usable on N70 and N90) run under a 208 x 176 pixel screen environment, they are actually incompatible with the N80. So, upgrading to N80 means you'll lose all these features and most games that are designed to work on N70 and N90 cannot be installed on your N80 as well.

The WLAN feature is however a blessing, as you can walk into a wifi hotspot and start surfing away for free. The N80 also has a slightly better response time than the N70. The built-in music player has a 5 band equalizer, and the supplied headset comes with a remote volume control and skip button for your MP3s. The N80 uses MiniSDs, which the last time i check has just had its highest capacity increased to 4GB. However, Nokia did not guarantee that any MiniSD cards over 1GB will work on the N80.

An interesting call feature of the N80 to note is that the phone can actually say the caller's name (assuming it can be pronounced) when the person is calling you. I find this very useful as i do not have to run to check the phone screen to know who's calling.

The bundled battery is BL-5B, which has a smaller capacity than the N70 and N90. Therefore, with all the added features, the N80 cannot last long on its bundled battery. If you are going to buy this puppy, be prepared to have a portable charger with you at all times or carry a charged spare battery with you.

I must say that I'm impressed with this phone. I bought it mainly for its WLAN functionality, and can tell you that works best than expected. Actually I'm writing this review using the phone, connected to my Home WLAN (with WPA2 Security activated).

I like to be online everywhere I go, but don't wanna pay expensive cellular data plans (using GPRS). So WLAN is for me and I can use dedicated apps for this phone like gmail, google maps, Yahoo Go! and Windows Live Messenger where I'm in a café or another free hotspots.

Preinstalled software for this phone includes: Quickoffice (for viewing Microsoft Office documents), Adobe Acrobat Lite, Music Player, Flash Player, Real Player, Voice Recorder, an excellent Web browser, Movie Director (for edit your videos), Kodak Mobile (so you can share your photos on Kodak web site o order online prints) and other useful utilities like a file manager and an application manager.

Need more apps, wanna change the phone look or carry with you your favorite mp3 songs? Ok, although the phone comes with a 128 MB miniSD card, you will notice that this is not enough. So buy a miniSD Card (at least 1GB) and then you can surf the web and download hundreds of free apps including the ones I mentioned earlier (Be careful!! some apps can harm your phone, download only from trusted sources) or buy specific apps from handango or other online buyers.

You can take some breath-taking photos with the 3 megapixel camera included with this phone. You can choose from 8 different shooting modes and manually adjust some features (shooting frequency, white balance, exposure, color tone, sharpness, brightness, contrast and color saturation) or use its self timer so you could be included on your pics. Video quality is very nice also. But if you want to have digital camera performance then you'd better buy a digital camera.

Battery life could be an issue, especially if you use all its features intensively (FM radio, Music player, Internet Browsing, or play games on it) so you should better have an additional charger with you. A tip that could help save some battery: go to Menu - Tools - Settings - Network and set the Network Mode on "GSM", so the phone won't look for UMTS networks.

Worried about your specific carrier MMS, SMS, E-mail or GPRS settings? Nokia has a Setting Wizard (installed on the phone) that will do the work for you, just choose your country and carrier and voilá! All settings will be configured.

A last comment... I prefer the Stainless Steel than the black one.

FEATURES: In addition to the basics of a high-end unit, the N80 comes equipped w/ uPnP, WiFi, video calling & recording & streaming & editing, Adobe pdf, flash player, powepoint, Excel, Quickoffice, VoIP capability, 3 megapixel camera w/flash & zoom, 2nd front video & camera, 256mb removable memory card (NOT 128) can handle 2gb of removable memory which will hold about 500 songs, FM radio, 2 browsers - 1 robust 1 WAP & can download Opera or NetFront as well to make 3, equalizer, Symbian operating system allows you to endlessly customize unit w/ programs, USB cable, stereo bluetooth & headphones. You can download podcasts as well as Google maps. You can store an entire movie on the memory card w/ space left over & play it 'wirelessly' on another uPNP device (computer, tv). You can bluetooth your tunes to an auto w/ bluetooth like an iPod. Quad band 3G-WCDMA, bar code reader. Exceptionally bright, large, vivid screen. A ringer w/ an option to announce the name of the caller. Insanely loud ringer & speakerphone.

PERFORMANCE & USE: The 3rd edition of Symbian is MUCH faster than 2nd or UIQ. Lag time is greatly reduced. If you're used to smartphones, you'll 'get it'. If not, the N80 can be frustrating. This is not for the casual caller. It takes a lot of codes from Nokia to update the firmware. It takes a knowledge of access points relative to your carrier. It takes a lot of configuring, reading & a little trial & error. These are not flaws, but somewhat par for the course when you have a camera-quality phone w/ 2 browsers, full media player & WiFi. For simple callers, don't pay for something you won't use and will confuse you.

RELIABILITY: It's a fairly new phone & I've had it for a short time. However, my previous phone was a Nokia 6600 smartphone which I had for 3+ years. It was a workhorse. I've used the net in airports for hours at a time. I've downloaded tons of programs. To this date, she runs like a beauty. If that's any indication of Nokia's smartphones in general, I should be a happy camper. I've had ZERO problems w/ Nokia smartphones. The N80 is a solid, small, thick phone.

AESTHETICS: Well, that's subjective, but I find the silver is better looking, less typical, less safe and not as cheap-looking as the black unit. Sliders don't take to well to cases as the leather case must be adjusted to operate the unit and the crystal case will crack before the month is up.

CONS: Sending items via bluetooth isn't as reliable as w/ 6600. It receives files reliable, but sends files to my computer every other try. Not a big deal. Battery life, but what can you expect w/ a unit that does so much? Let's not be unreasonable. ...but it could be a little longer. Takes a while to configure all of the connections & download all of the updates which, again, should be expected for a packed media & business smartphone. The cursor makes navigation easy to misfire for those with large fingers.

COMPETITION: Then there's the iPhone and N95. The iPhone is the RAZR of high-end phones. It's stylish and has a great marketing campaign. For those who want more function, take note that the iPhone has one less megapixel, no video calling, no removable memory card, no MMS, no uPNP, no FM radio, etc... but costs more because of marketing. It's more showy but simply not in the same league. The N95 is not exactly competition due to the difference in price (+$200-300). For that extra, you get a couple more megapixels, GPS and a few more enhancements. I can't justify paying the amount of a 2nd laptop when the upgrades from the N80 aren't very significant. No other unit comes close and yet the sheer size of the N80 is quite small. As for the PDAs (Curve), none of them have the features of the N80, but they do have QWERTY keyboards which, with the N80s features, doesn't quite tip the scale in their favor, especially as PDAs will run you an addtl $20-30/mo for net access & none of them offer as much.

BEST PART: If you're an American using this phone on AT&T, you must pay by the kb for net usage. WiFi, however, can make this less of an issue. As you may use VoIP sevices, you needn't eat up your minutes, if that's an issue for you. I suggest, however, using this phone w/ T-Mobile. T-Mobile charges a flat fee for web usage so even w/o WiFi, you won't break the bank. T-Mobile also offers more minutes for the dollar than any other carrier. Notice no American carriers offer smartphones w/ service plans. They only offer QWERTY PDAs. They found that Americans are willing to pay an addtl $25 for a QWERTY keyboard. We 'smart'phone users know we needn't pay that extra to hop on the net.

Sorry for being so long-winded, but it's a testament to the exhaustive features of this small, flies-under-the-radar unit. If you want a Cadillac, get an iPhone, it's very blingy & less reliable. If you want a Benz, get an N80. That's really what it comes down to.

I have had this phone for almost 11 months, and can truly tell you that this is certainly not worth the money. Having received it as a free upgrade on my network after being on a waiting list for a while, I found it very difficult to recommend it anyone.

The phone itself is sleek and has superb sound quality. The clarity of vocals is second to none, as Nokia really sets the benchmark. The music capabilities is also outstanding. However this doesn't really balance out the sorts of shortcomings this phone has.

The ABSOLUTELY worst 'fault' with this phone is the battery life, please do not be fooled in to thinking that the battery will not become an issue, because it certainly will be. Do not expect to exceed past 1-2 days without a charge, even with minimum usage. Also, a design fault with the fragile charger unit means, they are very vulnerable to breaking, even for the most careful of owners.

However, the battery life can be prolonged by switching off the '3G' functions, something many network providers make impossible through custom software.

The second problem is the unreliability of the phone. It 'WILL' crash, during calls, after calls, this can become very exhausting and annoying.

The slide function is also prone to opening itself in pockets which is also very annoying.

If you are a patient person, then this phone might be for you, but at this price I certainly expected more from the handset.

the feature that really got me to buy this product is the wifi feature as well as the 3 mpixel with flash camera... both met my expectations and I was not disappointed.

Connecting to my home WAN is such a breeze and now i can continue to browse, chat using my phone while my wife does her own browsing on her laptop (although I have my own laptop, nothing beats browsing while lying down on a sofa or bed).

The camera is wonderful and I now started to regret buying a digital camera... the flash is good but not great.. but, I dont take pictures in total darkness, so this is fine for me too... Flash + night feature of the nokia phone is enough to get a good picture at night with night light is acceptable (though if you want a professional looking picture, go buy an SLR or something).

So many has complained about the battery life, but if you, like me, has used the Panasonic X700 before, this Nokia Phone is heaven sent. The Pana Phone lasts only about 12 hours on standby mode. This Nokia Phone lasts about 4 days straight in standby mode. Just do the initial 16 hours charging and you should be fine... You will be able to browse for about 1 hr, take about 30 mins worth of call, play games for about 1 hour and your phone could still last about 2 days.

so over-all, i am satisfied with this phone... you have to look for apps though coz the Symbian S60 v3 is not backwards compatible...

...then this is probably your best buy. I looked at the N93 - and the size put me off. By picking the N80, you miss the 30fps video recording (you get 15fps instead) - but you get one of the best phones out there in an appealing form factor. I upgraded from an overused 6600 to the N80 - and the improvements in the OS, form factor, performance and quality were all impressive.

Pluses:
- Wifi works great.
- The web browser shipped with the phone is one of the best Ive seen on mobile devices.
- Very intuitive user interface, what you'd expect from Nokia.
- Good camera, with fairly extensive settings (including white balance)
- Ships with a virus scanner.
- Supports TLS/SSL on IMAP email accounts. The 6600 didn't, and was a major issue for me.

Minuses:
- Lifeblog is proprietary and doesnt work out-of-the-box with blogger or wordpress.
- Battery life is anything but impressive. I use both voice and data pretty extensively (1500+ mins/month) and need to charge the phone everyday.[...]

With a program call SimpleCenter, I can take a picture with this phone and show the image on my PC monitor wirelessly. There are few glitches here and there, but overall the phone is pretty good. Size is good, screen is nice. If you want a Nokia, this is the one I would buy.

Well to start with .... ITS A NOKIA. For all the people who complain about the battery, if you keep using your phone you will use up the battery. For 5-10 minute calls 4-5 a day wont use up that much battery. Plus if you use too much of the 3G functions then you must charge this phone eveyday. Otherwise the battery is much much better than the Moto RAZR V3i I had.

Usability of the phone is average, navigation button is very flimsy and if you have thick fingers this is not the phone for you.

Camera is good. 3M makes good pictures.

Wish the LCD screen was a little bigger. But the clarity and contrast is amazing. High resolution too. Heard that N95 is better in many ways.

Wi-fi at first is confusing but once when you get used to it, its a breeze. Google maps works great on this but again a bigger screen would be nice.

There is a limit on the size of mini-SD card you can use and its 2GB which is a bummer.

Overall its a good phone if you want to keep it within budget and if you dont care about moolah then go for N95.

Nokia has a well-deserved reputation for quality hardware (radios, mics, camera and the slider mechanism) and a stable OS and that reputation is evident in this particular handheld unit. This is called the "Internet Edition" but ... there's no internet browser on board to allow the user to surf the internet despite the presence of a WiFi radio. The entire "internet" experience is the use of VoIP. The N80's three major features (VoIP, camera and music) that come in addition to the excellent GSM cell phone, are mixed. I find the VoIP service a potential treasure but the *softwares* for photography and music are, for me, a disappointment.

Two VoIP carriers, Gizmo and Truphone, have service and softwares for the N80ie. Since the Gizmo software was already onboard, I chose Gizmo. And, unlike Truphone, Gizmo has a very attractive CallIn service. Imagine a US or European expat living in Latin America with WiFi in their home and being able to receive calls, 24/7, for a flat rate of $36/yr from friends and relatives in the US/Europe dialing a US/European number. The international use of VoIP could easily pay for a N80ie (or for Nokia's N95 which also comes with Gizmo) over a modest time period.

Will carriers be able to fully respond to this competitive threat with their 4th generation technology which is itself VoIP? I doubt it because home and business WiFi networks have mostly been fully paid for and subscriptions to newly installed 4G cell signals that extend for miles will have to cover costs -- just look at Sprint's massive WiMax (known as "WiFi on steroids") losses to see the costs of implementing (what they call) 4G over large urban areas. VoIP over a WiFi-enabled handheld is incredibly cheap compared to future subscriptions to 4G WiMax networks in which carriers are investing heavily. So ... there is every reason for carriers to put pressure on handheld manufacturers to stop mobile VoIP across already-paid-for WiFi.

The only other N-series Nokia for which Gizmo's VoIP service is available is the N95. That very popular/expensive handheld overcomes several of my issues: the unit is slightly wider such that the screen is larger, a 3.5mm audio jack is present and its bluetooth includes the remote control protocol. Both, however, have imposed software limits of one measly minute on their voice recorder just in case someone has the idea that podcast files can be developed on either of these VoIP enabled handhelds.

The only potential drawback to investing in the use of mobile-Voip from Gizmo is that online help is so poor that I, at least, worry about Gizmo's long term survival unless they are bought out by a company with a serious commitment to customer service.

The photography and music softwares on this handheld were disappointing. On the posiive side I admit to being impressed with the onboard photo-editing software. And I'm attracted to the idea of a resident software that allows one to directly upload photos through WiFi to an online service. But for those who are not already paying subscribers to Yahoo's Flickr, just know that, once you upload your photos to Flickr, you can not retrieve the originals unless you pay Flickr $25/yr. If you want to avoid that charge, then it's attractive to keep one's originals on a computer and, if one is going to store the originals on a computer, why not do the editing on a computer since the need to see-to-edit 2048x1536 pixels (= 3.2Mp) is severely limited on a screen 1 3/8" wide.

There are other features of the N80ie that undermine its value as a camera phone, viz., the absence of autofocus and significant shutter-speed delay. The best part of the camera phone was the ease with which I could transfer photos to my MacBook via bluetooth. I've decided to keepmy photo albums on my computer and online with Google's WebPicasa service. But I would occasionally like for friends to see some of the photos on my handheld but the small screen of the N80 largely undercuts that wish.

But it does not take a large screen to store and play music and, to help matters, Nokia's loudspeaker has excellent sound quality. But you might like to use a headphone or headset: The first problem is Nokia's proprietary "pop-port" that elminates usage of any of your headphones with a standard 3.5mm audio jack. But Nokia's bluetooth is easy to use and it supports the A2DP stereo protocol, so why not use a wireless bluetooth headset, especially since it allows for hands free driving. But alas, there is no support for remote control, the AVRCP protocol. Once you've gone cordless for sound, it's surprisingly natural to want to reach for stop/go and fast-forward buttons on the earphones (where the sound is emerging) rather than fumbling for the phone-in-your-pocket, but the latter is where you've got to go w/o AVRCP.

There are no pretensions that this is a high-end camera and, consequently, I wasn't disappointed with the photos I've conveniently taken with this handheld. But ... one would like the ability to easily organize an ample number of photos and pieces of music. But the onboard softwares for organizing one's photos and music were, for someone accustomed to iPod, iPhoto and iTunes softwares, a major disappointment for me. Had I not spent so many hours dinking with my hoped-for emerging photo library and trying get the unit to work well as a music device, I would gladly allocate 10 stars to this outstanding dual mode VoIP/GSM phone with Gizmo on board. But I've subtracted a half-dozen points for the time I squandered on false hopes.