C|Net’s Matthew Miller on the Nokia N80i and S60′s VoIP support

Matt is in the Nokia Blogger Relations Program and recently reviewed the N80i. Here are a few things he didn’t like:

The N80ie also has an integrated 3 megapixel camera with a switch to go from standard mode to macro mode and it actually take good photos. I prefer the cameras on the N73 and N93 that let me press halfway on the camera action button to focus in on the shot prior to taking the photo.

I found the back battery cover is a bit loose and slides up and down about 1mm, the battery life is quite short (860 mAh capacity is a bit low for a device promoting its integrated WiFi radio) and I was not able to go a full day without charging it with occasional WiFi usage and lots of email action, when the screen is slid down over the keypad there is movement side-to-side in the top display part and this may continue to loosen up over time, the keypad is flat and there is not much differentiation between keys so I hit the wrong key several times.

I kept bouncing back to the Nokia N93 due to the longer battery life and better camera, but the RF reception on the N93 isn’t as good. I can also get most of the VoIP services on the N93 and the screen on that device also looks great. It is a tough choice between the N80ie and N93 if you want WiFi on your mobile phone and even I can’t stop myself from switching back and forth.

I hope Nokia sends you an E65 because the N80i has just been outclassed in the looks and build quality department. Wait a minute, I just realized that the blogger relations program only applies to N series devices.

Now on to the built in VoIP support S60 provides: Matt demos Gizmo, Fring, and Truphone and comes to this conclusion:

I learned quite a bit after testing out these VoIP solutions and actually found links to even more clients that work on the S60 platform. While Windows Mobile is catching up to Nokia and the S60 a bit throughout the smartphone world, the S60 platform is way ahead of Windows Mobile in the VoIP arena and now we just need to get battery technology advanced enough to support keeping your WiFi radio turned on and connected whenever you are in range of a wireless signal. If you want to make low cost or free calls from your mobile phone I highly recommend you try out some of these new VoIP clients and spread the word about this functionality.

Out of all of those I use Fring.