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 (Black)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've had this phone for a week. I'm using it with T-Mobile, so your mileage may vary. In my opinion, it's a feature-packed phone at a reasonable price (for an unlocked smart phone, at least).

The Symbian 9 OS runs pretty well, although I did experience some lags and software freezes (with third-party apps). Fixing it was a matter of rebooting. I think the menu organization could be smarter, but you can customize much of it.

I do love that the default screen displays your day's calendar agenda. But that screen hides the main menu. Not a huge drawback, but it confused me at first.

Photos with the 3-megapixel camera are grainy (it also has a VGA camera). Since this is a phone first, and not a camera, there is also no stabilization control. It does, however, come with a flash.

Sound quality of phone calls is okay. Your friends, family and colleagues will hear you clearly. On your end, however, it will sound like you're talking on a cell phone. It's not bad, but I've had conversations on better sounding phones.

I disagree slightly with another commenter about wireless internet (WLAN) access. It's possible to set a default access point. The problem is that if you aren't at that location regularly, you will have to search for a new network. One way around it is to pony up the cash for a data plan through your wireless provider. I agree, however that some kind of one-button auto-detect would be ideal.

I don't like the SIM card slot. The metal cover pops off fairly easily -- as I found out while trying to insert my SIM card without reading the manual first.

The phone's slider form factor moves smoothly, perhaps too much so. By default, sliding the phone completely open -- something that's hard, but not impossible to do accidentally -- unlocks the keypad.

The N-80 is also bit awkward. It feels thick for lack of a better word. Its 5-way controller button also looks and feels a bit cheaper than you'd probably expect.

Another drawback: no QWERTY keyboard. You can connect to a wireless one via Bluetooth. But that assumes you want to carry a keyboard. The upshot is that the predictive text feature is solid and sensible. When enabled, it works contextually: on automatically for SMS and email messages and off when typing URLs.

Overall, I give this phone high marks for features, but a few annoyances mean it's far from The Perfect Phone.

I got this phone 2 weeks back although I have seen this with my cousin in Singapore quite sometime back. Just right off the box, the phone is quite impressive. Many complain about the response time - yes, this phone is slow but doesn't bother me - far better than my windows machine  Overall, very good phone for what it offers.

Pros:

* This phone tops in ergonomics, ease of use, presentation, features, Bluetooth, speakerphone and call quality.
* Wi-fi is worth mentioning separately. It is simply superb.
* Nokia's connection manager is far superior than anyone else in the market. It handles very efficiently that one can easily choose between several access points and save lots of money. I accidentally downloaded a big chunk of data and going to pay through my nose next month!
* All the apps that come with this phone are quite good.
* BT sync with my apple is just fine with iSync. Also I transfer music/themes/ringtones using data cable from my Wintel. The phone automatically toggles to "Mass storage" mode when it is connected to PC, which is pretty neat.
* I haven't faced any such problem as I charge my gadgets daily. I also tried leaving it uncharged and it comes for 2-3 days, good enough for my call volumes.
* Symbian browser is fast and stunning. Bookmarks feature is neat. Having the wi-fi feature helps you to set all the bookmarks while you're at home and then use it wisely while you are away.
* Camera quality is good. Dual camera is just a great idea. Camera settings are similar to professional cameras - very very impressive!
* Tried the video mode and came fine.
* Battery life, as many claim, seems short - but I charge my gadgets daily - so not a big issue
* The headset that comes with the phone is really good.
* Tonnes of themes, apps etc available for this phone.....

Cons

* My first biggest problem is that the main navigation key is badly designed. It is made of cheap plastic and almost 8 out of 10 times I "selected" an option when I was actually trying to navigate to left. It is SO frustrating.
* My second biggest problem with this phone is when the slider is on, the screen light does not come up. So you won't know - even in the day - which button to press to answer the question "Unlock phone?" - you will get that by practice but it is truly a pain.
* The process of taking a picture sucks. The picture what you see on the screen when you hear the shutter sound is NOT what you get. There is a serious lag between the shutter click and the final image. I sincerely hope if there would be some s/w patch for this. I am anyway not a big fan of phone cameras - with an exception of Sony Ericsson W810i. That is one far superior camera quality I saw so far.
* Slider lock and unlock feature is good and bad. I am putting this on the bad section as even if the slider opens in your pocket, the phone could turn on and end up with accidental redialing. So you would need a small app to do the locking properly.

Overall - good phone. At this point, Nokia has better phones like N95 etc - of course very expensive.

I have been using this for about a week, this is my first smartphone. I wanted a N95 but I am not prepared to spend $700 on a cellphone...yet. here are the pros and cons.

Pros: Does almost everything
- wifi, bluetooth, infrared, 3g (no US)
- Series 60 Symbian blows Windows out of the water.
- Nice, high resolution screen.

Cons:
- Navigation key is horrible, feels really cheap. it's easy to select the wrong item.

- "serious" shutter lag. Press the shutter, then wait about 1.5 seconds for the shutter to go off. No real problems with the pictures, pretty good for a camera phone, but grainy at night. Could have used a real Xenon flash like the SEK790.

- Horrible battery life. With the default settings i didn't even get a day of standby. I found some tweaks at a forum, today fully charged it at 11am, now it is 1:30am the next day with half the battery left. Today I took several pictures, made a couple of calls, sent a few emails.

- You should be able to answer and hangup calls with the slider, or I haven't figured it out yet. Also the annoying "Lock keypad?" dialog. It should automatically lock when the slider is closed.

- Haven't had it open in my pocket yet, but a spring on the slider would have been nice.

- Unless you have a cellular data package, wireless is clunky. Like others have said, each app has its own wireless settings, if you expect to roam about and use public hotspots, be prepared to "search for Wlan everytime" or hope everyone you get is labeled "linksys" I have a prepaid T-mobile account and just use Wifi for any data that I need, sometimes a hassle.
- annoying blue flashing LED when phone is in standby mode.

Overall I really think the only serious niggle is the battery life. I will play with it for a couple more weeks, if I can't get used to the battery i will resell it to somebody else, I am sure I can get most of my money back.

Call quality and reception are good, though I sometimes wish that the volume could be increased just a bit more. The speakerphone is excellent. Sometimes if I'm having trouble hearing a caller, I'll switch to speaker and put the phone down. (This is not always an option in some environments, of course.)

Nokia's Mac support is great, a nice change from my experience with two different Motorola models. iSync works well for transferring calendar and contact info. The Nokia Media Transfer software (in beta) makes the phone work almost seamlessly with iTunes and iPhoto. Speaking of iPhoto, this software makes the Mac recognize the phone as a camera when you connect, so new camera shots can be automatically downloaded to the Mac with no fuss.

I just took this phone with me on a 5-day trip to Quebec. Roaming worked well-- as it should on any modern GSM phone. WiFi works well with Nokia's "WLAN Wizard." When visiting a new coffee shop or airport lounge, it's comparable to connecting with a Windows PC. If you won't need to get much work done, you can travel without your notebook computer, which is great for short trips. (If you'll be doing much more than checking email or basic web tasks, you'll probably still need your computer.)

The software expandability of the Symbian OS is great, as well. While I like the built-in Web browser, I've also installed Opera's mini-browser and a few other apps that have really increased my enjoyment of the phone.

The annoyances:
- The blue LED that flashes to let me know that the phone is sleeping keeps me from sleeping. I have to put the phone face-down on the nightstand. Otherwise, I feel like I'm in a discount hotel across from a casino.
- The battery life could be better. WiFi drains the battery quickly. If you don't use the WiFi capability often, the battery is fine, but if you connect at HotSpots for more than 30 minutes a day, prepare to charge the phone at least once every two days.
- No 3.5mm headphone jack. With the media capabilities of this phone, I sometimes leave my iPod at home, especially if I'm just going to listen to a few podcasts while walking. Having to use Nokia's supplied headset (a nice, if expected, touch) and the lack of ability to plug into my car's audio-in jack is a bit annoying.
- The keypad is very small. This is to be expected on a relatively small phone with so many features, but the tiny keys make surfing the web and entering user names and passwords more difficult than I'd expected. If you have thick fingers (mine are about average), don't get this phone.
- The five-way controller (looks like chrome in the picture) is tiny. I've accidentally closed applications when trying to move to the right. A slightly larger controller pad or more separation between the pad and the nearby selection buttons would probably make it much easier to do exactly what you're trying to do.

Hi there

I bought this phone from Amazon 6 months ago. In all this time I had the chance to test, install, uninstall software, let the battery drain, test Wi-Fi and the WAP-GPRS connection as well. The phone works fine, it came with 4.0623.0.38 firmware. This firmware was a little bit glitchy, some lags with the phone startup and third party software, I guess is normal for a smartphone. I recently made a firmware update, to version 5.0719.0.2, and I can tell you..... ohhh boy........ this phone ROCKS. Is very fast in almost every aspect, connectivity, boot up, software execution, etcetera. I got Windows Live Messenger, and works very well. The camera works very very very well with this update, more zoom, more stable, great shots, etc.

Take this new update for this phone, you'll notice the improvements and you will see how good this cell phone is. Even the battery lasts longer with this update.

Many Thanks and Best Regards

Roberto Alpizar

I've had this phone since April 2006 (basically, as early as one could get it in the US). Initially, it certainly had some issues, but a few flash updates and ultimately updating it to the IE version made for a much more stable and useful phone. I've tried several of the VOIP services on it (Gizmo, Truphone, Fring) all with good success, although dialing in with DTMF tones for conference calls has usually been challenging. Pictures, as others have said, require a steady hand and don't plan on capturing anything in a timely manner (ie: forget action shots) but those pictures that aren't blurred can be printed on photo paper and would pass for photos from a "real" digital camera. Video mode has image stablization which makes for capturing movies at a moments notice quite easy and with good results. Having a "video camera" in my pocket has allowed me to capture many a moment of my daughter that I would have otherwise missed or been dissappointed with had I not chosen this over another lesser phone. The best software for syncing your calendar (with Outlook anyway) has been the "SEVEN" beta - realtime updates over your data plan, no need to leave bluetooth on, or manually syncing - calendar is always up to date! The web browser rocks, but having limited input (T-9) I find it mostly useful for checking the weather or a quick lookup of some tidbit of information. The superior screen resolution really allows you to cram in a good part of a web page onto the screen. I've considered upgrading to the N95, but from what I've heard the GPS doesn't work all that well and that's the only reason I might make the move to it. I honestly haven't used the MP3 player that much, but it has come in handy when traveling and for throwing some lullaby's on it for helping my daughter sleep while on trips. I've tried the mapping application that Nokia is giving away (sort of), and it worked quite well (I have an old Holux bluetooth device that I used with an IPaq a couple years ago). It would be nice if Google maps did turn by turn guidance on Symbian... maybe soon. It has been quite durable and is showing little signs of wear despite being in my pocket every day for a year and a half. At work, I've had several impromptu conference calls using the phone and everyone comments on the clarity of the speaker phone, my boss says it's better than his blackberry's speaker. It is also quite simple to make a second call and create a conference of two or more other callers... simply amazing! There are certainly some shortcomings, most of which I knew going in (ie: no qwerty, and it's a little thicker than most phones) but I have to say there isn't much I'd change. If you are good about turning off bluetooth and wifi and data when not needed, the battery does just fine, given the capabilities of this device. All in all, I'm please and will likely stick with this phone for a while longer. A lot of phones have come out since I bought this (including the iPhone) but I've yet so see one that has convinced me to trade up.

This would have been a fantastic phone save for 2 defects:

1. The battery only last a day or less.
2. You make unintentional calls when the phone slides open in the case or in your bag (which also helps drain the weak battery). I finally found how to lock the key pad which requires a 5 digit code to open.

Im sorry I never received the product though I paid and have been waiting for over a Year. Becareful with this seller. What he advertise is not he sell.

This phone is very good. The camera with 3.2Mp is butifull. i have excelent photo. Only one bad thing I can tell about this product - battery. I have to charge my phone every second day, but still - this is a best cell phone I ever had (all my previous phones were also Nokia).

Working at a Cellular store in NY, I see a great deal of new phones come and go. I purchased this phone because I wanted more than what I'm seeing in the new (basic) phones coming out today. This isn't an IPhone, and shouldn't be compared to one. The device has a perfect screen. Great call quality, and excellent battrey life. The camera is sufficiant for those moments when I want to take a picture, but haven't brought my real camera.Not to say that pictures are bad. They are surprisingly good.
The mp3 player, radio, and video are incredible. I have seen no downside to this phone. If you need a Pocket Pc, Iphone, or some other great internet device, look away. This is a phone first and foremost. Having said that, the internet is great, yet very small on the screen, as to be expected. All in All this device is my favorite "Phone" yet, and believe me, I've tried tons of them. Highly recomend!