Nokia N81 Review
A good alternative to the N95, the N81 comes with a fantastic
8 Gbytes of memory, outstandingly good music and games playing
features, a superb high-res screen, 3G video calling and fast
downloads, Wireless LAN, and an optional GPS module. Its camera
can't match the best, but that's its only real weakness.
The first thing that strikes you about the N81 is the huge
number of keys and buttons! In addition to the usual number keys
and Navi Wheel, there are dedicated keys for playing games and
accessing music & video: play/pause, rewind, forward & stop.
You'll either love this or hate it. We found that the whole user
interface is built on the idea of complexity, as the menus and
settings can be quite overwhelming, but offer full control over
every aspect of the device. The N81 is a very powerful multi
media device that is in some ways like the N95's little
brother.The N81 is very much a hard-core Smart Phone, and if
this sound like your kind of phone, then you'll love it to bits.
Available in a choice of Cobalt Blue or Graphite Grey, it's a
really nicely designed slide phone that's chunky and heavier
than the N95, but slightly slimmer.
There are a few areas where the N81 can't keep up with the N95.
The screen is the first thing that you notice: although it's a
high quality display with 16.7 million colours and 320 x 240
pixel resolution (the same as the N95), the screen is physically
about 15% smaller. SatNav is missing too, although the Nokia
Wireless GPS module is available as an optional extra. The Nokia
Maps application is included as standard. So really the
shortcomings of the N81 compared with the N95 aren't too great.
More seriously, the camera is a poor cousin of the N95's 5
megapixel camera: the N81's camera has just 2 megapixels and
lacks autofocus. So, if camera quality is important to you,
you'd definitely be better off with the .
Music lovers have everything that they could want from the N81..
The first feature that really differentiates the N81 from the
competition is the whopping 8 Gbytes of internal memory. This is
enough to store 2,000 music tracks. The N81 has a fantastic
music player that can give the iPhone a run for its money. The
music player supports all common music formats including MP3,
AAC and WMA, as well as Windows Media DRM. Managing playlists is
a breeze, and the device can synchronise music with Windows
Media Player. There's a 5-band equaliser, support for and a
3.5mm headphone jack. In addition, the RealPlayer media player
supports full-screen video playback. There's also a built-in FM
radio with Visual Radio support that tells you what song is
playing, and other info.
The N81's other focus is gaming. We've already mentioned the
dedicated games keys on the front. Games can be played in
portrait or landscape mode, making full use of the fantastic
16.7 million colour display. The choice of games is excellent
and the quality of the 3D graphics is exceptional. If you're
serious about games, then this is seriously highly recommended.
The N81's secret is that it includes support for Nokia's NGage
series of games.
It's a quadband 3G phone that supports video calls with a second
front-facing video camera. It's fully equipped for wirefree use
with Bluetooth and Wireless LAN support, voice-independent
speech recognition and voice commands, automatic answering with
a compatible headset or car kit, internet calls using VoIP.
Really there isn't much that the N81 doesn't do, and being a
Symbian phone the wealth of 3rd party applications that are
available for download is huge.
If you don't like high-tech then keep well away, but if the
music and games features appeal, then you'll do well with the
N81. It's an excellent alternative to the N95 and a great phone.
As always with Symbian devices there's a tendency for the N81 to
be slow or to freeze if pushed too hard, although the 8 Gbytes
of memory certainly helps here. To really get the most out of
the N81 you'll have to have used a SmartPhone before, or be
prepared to invest time learning how to use it properly.
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