Elite Bastards talks up the Nokia N93i and N800

Some memorable snippets:

As the N93i is a bit smaller, the battery needed to change as well – Because of this, the standby and talk times are lower than in the N93. It’s not the first time Nokia have made standby times lower in the i model, so it’s not surprising, but it’s still a bit of a let down, especially with regard to talk time. The N93 had up to 5h and the N93i has 3.1h – 3.9h (all GSM times, 3G takes more battery power and doesn’t even last that long). If you’re going to take the N93i with you in the morning, and you have to use it the whole day without recharging, having just over three hours of talk time isn’t really that good. If you’re going to be filming a bit, taking pictures and using the photo flash, then of course talk time is going to suffer further, so the battery power isn’t impressive. If you’re using 3G and not GSM, the situation is looking downright horrible. It is important to have the phone running the whole day from dawn till dusk with only a single charge.

I do have to say that after living a while with the N93i, it starts to feel like an essential part of your normal life. It’s difficult to let go of it, because you so easily grow to like it. And after you’ve used the N93i and you go back to using N93, the N93 just looks boring and old. It even feels old. The N93i is a refreshing update and it is really difficult to get back to using the older N93 model. The most annoying thing in the N93 is the old style joypad or keypad or whatever you call it – Instead of just tilting the joystick to move around, you have to press buttons, and they’re so small.

One of the rare bad things about the N800 is battery life. If you don’t use it, it will stay operational for days, but you can only surf for about 3h before the battery starts running low. You can extend the time by making the display less bright and shutting off stuff you don’t need like Bluetooth (although turning off Bluetooth when you don’t need it is a good idea anyway, because some viruses use Bluetooth as a gateway to the device) and minimising WiFi signal strength (although if you do this, you have to stay much closer to a WiFi hotspot). But as long as you don’t wander too far from the nearest mains outlet, it shouldn’t be a very big problem. The N800 hasn’t been designed to be used as a phone (that you recharge it in the morning and the next time you put it in the charger is the evening) anyway, but the battery should still last an hour or two longer.

Source: Elite Bastards