Review: Nokia N81 8 GB, too much money for too little hardware
By Stefan Constantinescu on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 at 4:14 PM PST In Nokia
Here it is. The review you’ve been waiting for. 1500 words of gut wrenching, tear jerking, dark humor about a device that is too little too late. Enjoy, after the jump.
Let us begin with the top of this device. From left to right we have a lock switch, a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack and a power button. The lock switch doesn’t operate in the traditional manner of which you are accustomed to on your iPod or Creative product, that is the switch being in one position or the other, it is instead spring loaded. You flick it to lock the device, flick it again to unlock.
On the right side of the device, from top to bottom, is a speaker, volume up and down keys and a camera shutter button. Hitting and holding the camera button for a few seconds launches the camera application; this is super convenient since the S60 operating system limits you to only 6 shortcuts on the standby screen, 8 if you count the two soft keys.
The bottom of the device, from left to right, offers a loop for a phone charm or lanyard, the standard Nokia (NYSE: NOK) charging port and finally a microUSB port. The microUSB cable provided with the device locks into place very firmly and gives an extremely satisfying feel upon insertion and ejection.
On the left side of the device there is another speaker bringing the total to 2. The stereo effect is highly pronounced and you will be surprised at how loud this little sucker can get. The back of the device houses a pitiful 2 megapixel camera. Here is a sample:
The device as a whole feels like a cheap Chinese toy that kills small children due to excessive lead contamination. It creaks, it rattles and it is not the Nokia you grew up with. The sliding mechanism is spring loaded and quite powerful, but it doesn’t make up for the texture of the plastic. This phone is not for those who get sweaty hands, you will be dropping this thing, trust me.
The front of the Nokia N81, right under the screen, is where this multimedia computer goes to hell. There are a total of 16 possible commands you can summon. Don’t believe me? Let us step thru them one by one:
1. Green send key
2. Red end key
3. Left soft key
4. Right soft key
5. “C” key aka the backspace key
6. “Ying Yang,” otherwise known as the application key
7. “The Anssi Key,” pushing this brings you to the multimedia carousel. It is called the Anssi key since he is the head of Nokia’s Multimedia Unit that will disappear in less than 10 weeks after the reorganization. Rumor has it that the Multimedia Key was his idea, hence Nokia people internally naming the button after him.
8. Play/Pause key
9. Next track
10. Previous track
11. Stop
12. Up on the naviwheel
13. Down on the naviwheel
14. Left on the naviwheel
15. Right on the naviwheel
16. OK, the center button on the naviwheel
I may be cheating with the naviwheel, but when you consider the fact that the N95 has 3 less possible commands it makes you think what exactly these people were thinking. All of these buttons in such a tight space will most certainly yield plenty of accidental key presses. Look at something like the Nokia 5310 (below) that was also launched at the Nokia Go Play event in London and admire that the fact that someone was smart enough to stick the music controls on the side of the screen instead of creating a mess in the lower half of the device. The two keys on the top of the device by the ear piece that only light up when using N-Gage, I haven’t used them yet so I can’t comment.
Four of these sixteen buttons have given me more hell in the past week than I care for. The green/red keys are where the Ying Yang and C key should be, period. This may be the very first Nokia device that doesn’t have send and end keys at the very bottom of the device; I hope it is the only Nokia to deviate from the status quo.
Back to the headphone jack, someone asked me how the N81 compares to the N91. I can’t answer that question since I never owned that phone due to the fact that it looks like robotic fecal matter, but I will say this: the audio quality outputted by the N81 is a significant improvement compared to my N95 and it even sounds better than my standalone Creative Muvo.
The keypad is large and flat with very thin lines separating the rows. They keys have no texture at all, but surprisingly texting on this device is a very pleasant experience, my benchmark being the N95 which has been my workhorse for the past few months. The only negative aspect is the light bleeding (below) around the edges of the keypad. It makes a device which already feels cheap, look cheap.
The naviwheel will be the subject of many criticisms. The first obvious flaw is the fact that the “wheel” functionality of the naviwheel is turned off by default. You heard that right, the one feature that makes this device stand out compared with the rest of the Nseries devices is turned off by default. After you turn the wheel on you discover that it only works in the music player application and the Gallery. After playing with a BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Pearl I was highly intrigued by a new input method that wasn’t a standard directional pad. I was hoping that the naviwheel would give me this new experience for the S60 OS, but instead the wheel is limited to being used for only two applications. Disappointment.
The N81 uses the BP-6MT battery which has 1050 mAh. Good luck killing this thing in one day, I’ve managed heavy data use and audio playback using the built in stereo speakers over 2 days before the device even bothered asking me to feed it some power. Very impressive.
Browsing over 3G is a mediocre experience; this device does not have HSDPA. Browsing over WiFi proved to be problematic. Sites took forever to start loading, once they did however they came down quite fast. Browse over WiFi for more than 3 minutes and you start having time out errors, gateway errors and the device even looses the connection. Highly problematic.
The N-Gage application and the Music Store, these two things are supposed to be a major part of this device; sadly they have yet to launch so I cannot comment on the experience. There are 3 trial games that come installed by default: racing, FIFA and a top down shooter. With the exception of the top down shooter, I was not impressed. N-Gage has yet to launch and the games I did play in London were of much higher quality than this. We will have to wait for those to be released.
The operating system is standard S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. On first boot you have a hair over 43 MB of RAM free. This device does not have any problems at all running a large number of applications. As of this moment I have Screenshot, Gmail, Calendar, Recorder, About, Converter, Clock, Calculator, Notes, Bluetooth, Handy Calendar, Web, Search, Maps, Gallery, Camera, Log, Profiles, Contacts, Music Player and Messaging running with 9.5 MB of RAM free. Ridiculously impressed, especially compared with my N95.
The most impressive application is Search 4.0. If you’ve ever used Windows Vista or Mac OS X then you know how nice instant search can be. Launch the application and type the letter “A,” at this point you see anything on your device, whether it be contacts, music files, documents or bookmarks that start with the letter “A.” Absolutely brilliant and as far as I’ve understood this will be built into all new Nseries device. Here is hoping they just make this application built into the S60 platform itself.
Yesterday I shortchanged a lot of you guys when I simply said “don’t buy it.” That is a mistake I will never make again. I’ll post a full review like this one instead of liberally throwing sprinkles of hate around the internets. What I meant to say, and a fantastic way to conclude this review, is that I would never purchase a device like this and I would never recommend it to any of my friends. You’re capped at 8 GB since there is no removable microSD slot, the camera is horrible and the phone itself feels miserable in your hand.
When the iPhone came out I read a very interesting quote that said “the iPhone is perfect for consuming content, the N95 is perfect for creating it.” The N81 may be perfect for consuming content with the 369 MHz processor giving this baby some oomph when browsing thru your gallery or S60 in general. You can play until your thumbs fall off when N-Gage comes out and the audio quality from the blissful 3.5 mm headphone jack is fantastic. That being said, this device just doesn’t feel like something I would spend 430 Euros on, that is $615 thanks to the slump that is facing the American economy right now. Spend that money and get yourself a brand new North American N95 and 8 GB microSD card. You will be a lot happier, trust me.
Full specifications of the device can be found here.
One more thing, file transfer is horribly slow:
Hmm. Actually, and surprisingly, there do not seem to be that many things you dislike, and the “price point vs. features” seems to be your major gripe. It is Euro 130 below that of N95 8GB so at least there is a difference. And, I suspect, its price will drop fairly quickly after Xmas.
IF the music keys (I was surpised you did not comment on their usability at all) and gaming keys work decently, I still think this will be a fairly good seller for Nokia.
the music keys are way too close to each other. i’m often turning on music when i don’t want to or changing track when i just wanted to hit a soft key.
my main gripes are the phone just doesn’t feel like a nokia. it is poorly built.
for the price i would recommend people check out the 6110 navigator. same specs except it has hsdpa and gps. no 8gb of memory and no 3.5 mm headphone jack, but accessories can fix those issues.
Veli, I don’t know you, and I also don’t know Stefan, but what’s the point of posting personal information about Stefan here? That’s of no-one’s business but Stefans. The only thing I care for, is whether the review of a device I read is of value to me, and if it covers the points, that are important to me as a potential customer, or not. And this certainly is covered by the article of Stefan – and very well so! In general, I like Nokia devices, but they are BY FAR not flawless! I own a N95-1, and you know exactly what I’m talking about (at least I hope so for you!). It’s exactly reviews like this that make the difference in the “oh, Nokia is soooo perfect” world, if you know what i mean. Stefan’s personal status has nothing to do with this, for me as a critical potential customer. Rather than complaining about a critical review, at bleast try to correct the major flaws of your devices in your next generation, please (N80 vs. N95 anyone?!) And while we’re at it, why are there NEVER change logs for the firmware updates you give out for your devices? Cheers
N95: I don’t think that is the real Veli Sundbäck. I get IP addresses and a little bit of information about what ISP a person might have when they post a comment to this blog. This comment doesn’t have any of the typical flags I would associate with Nokia employees. What throws me off is the phrase in the beginning. No clue what language that is.
Stefan: you’re right – if you translate his first line in an online translator for finnish, it’s probably not the “real” Veli… *LOL* (i didn’t know the finnish know ’such’ words…?!? ;-o) cheers
Hey “Veli,” I went to 2 Nokia events that I didn’t talk about in public because they were internal only. Can you shoot me an email of the name of either of those 2 events? I’m having trouble believing your authentic because you are not behind a Nokia IP address like the rest of the employees who drop in once in a while to comment on this blog.
stefan (at) intomobile (dot) com
LOL,
Wow an imposter criticising someone’s opinion on a device that Nokia did a shoddy job on?
The imposter needs to get a life.
Out of all the Nokia Devices made thus far, this has got to be one of the most ugly, cheap looking devices. There are just too many things not right about it to pruchase it.
I’d like to try it out myself and make a final judgement, but perhaps I haven’t sent enough e-mails with the resume in to Nokia to review! it!! LOL
Good job Stefan, we like honest opinions and if it’s bad news for Nokia, they just have to take it on the chin and improve it.
Well, you can donate it to me:p Everything is better than my old n70… And it seems like you are getting more and more of nokia devices these days. Do some competition, i will be happy to try to win this phone:)
BTW, I love your dream, its seems like you are getting closes and closer, and when i have been thinking about doing something like this it seemed to be impossible:P yet i am only 17 living in Poland…:)
that’s a string of vulgar finnish words. I sincerely hope that’s not the real Veli. there is a time a place for cussing but this is not it, not professional at all.
That´s a string of vulgar and not so vulgar finnish words in without proper bending on those words. That tells us he/she is not a Finn. Just some a**hole that uses babelfish.
thanks for the reassurance guys. i knew that guy didn’t sound legit.
All the comments from this “Veli” character have been removed. Imitating a Nokia employee is something I take serious offense to. I don’t mind the personal insults, feel free to hurl those at me in whatever medium you see fit, but don’t pretend to be someone else or hide behind a veil of anonymity.
So its mostly just the hardware you don’t like then. The key cluster and the wireless connections.
Honestly i wasn’t too convinced with the placement of the music keys so tightly around the navi key/wheel, but after trying the demo unit at the Symbian show, i didn’t really feel it as a downside.
I have big hands and thus big digits and on my N95 i always press the wrong key when in a frenetic gaming session on the Navi key, but surprisingly the N81 didn’t give me any of that hassle.
Hopefully, you got a bum unit and there will be better batches out there. There have been quite a few near glowing (p)reviews of this handset already that kinda make it hard to swallow all your experiences as final.
That said, its all good that you are pointing out these issues and i only hope that your Finish friends are reading and taking steps to improve.
(btw… i don’t mind taking it off your hands
)
Really good review
Hands up…
Cheers, very good review. One correction would be about navi wheel, it works also in the Multimedia menu (but not on S60 grid as you would expect).
I’m a bit confused though about the 3G and Wifi comments. What is your becnhmark there? Does HSDPA really make such a big difference? With Wifi again what is the benchmark? Your experiences sound the same than mine with a FON WLAN box at home, almost no devices can cope with that (including laptops), maybe it’s not always the fault of the device if Wifi is not working?
Same goes for file transfer, what is the benchmark there?
Btw, there is of course the N81 (i.e. the one without 8GB internal) which is a lot cheaper.
Benchmark for the file transfer is something like an iPod.
Benchmark for the WiFi is the N95 web browsing experience on the same router I used the N81. The first 20 minutes of my day are usually started with an N95 over wifi in the bathroom. Having the N81 disconnect after loading 2-3 websites is a pain.
I agree with the build quality problem. Eldar of monile-review was also complaining of the same. I hope this is an early batch problem like the n95 and not a permanent thing. the navi wheel should be fixed in new firmware updates(hope..tht they are).
Why can’t Nokia learn from their mistakes. it’s like they come out with a promising product which is badly implemented and then they start doing damage control (firmware fixes) and bring on a V2 of the product. maybe tht’s why they are re-organising.
good job stefan good review, if u are finding mistakes and bad things about a product then u r a good reviewer. keep it up
lastly we all know tht the real music flagship from nokia after n91 will be anounced in Q1-08.
Congratulations for this wonderful review
yet I have a comment: who needs HSDPA while the phone has WiFi? or 3G? HSDPA is still costly…(at least here in my country)…
I have some questions to ask:
-How much does the MicroSD version cost?
-What about the phone external speakers? you havent talked much about them…and what about phone calls? does it sound any better/clearer/OMG/anything?
-Can you tell us more about the navi wheel…is it problematic or smooth going?
-Can you try the Wifi somwhere else? – Jukka here told us that this FON WLAN is really problematic
can anybody help me regarding the camera & video recording quality of n81 is it good as compare to n72?
dude n81 rox. using accecories to fix the prob of 3.5 mm jack can be quite irritating. id rather do a direct pluck and i love the 8 gig memory and the size of the phone and im enjjoying it now
Would anyone dare to comment on why Nokia have released both the 2Gb and 8GB versions?
The price difference is minimal, our thoughts are that it was supposed to be competition to the iPhone.
There are is no “2GB” version, there are 8GB version and plain N81 which has microSD slot (could be anything upto 8GB).
By 2GB I think he meant the fact that the one with a microSD slot comes with a 2GB memory card in the box.
I want to how much it is because i might want it for christmas could you please tell me as soon as possible?
@Kerry Smith
The 8GB is available now on Vodafone, O2 and Virgin Mobile as well as being available on Pay As You Go.
The 2GB version or ’standard model’ is only available on Vodafone at the moment.
It is so cool and the music sequence is too good and the quality of music is fine .
Apart from the nokia mobile models it is good
oh wht a review u lil sucker. i’m using tht phone on contract n its amazing got 2 of them infact one is normal nokia N81 + now also got N81 with 8GB jus ordered.
plus u talk about camera i knw it 2pixel but cum on ppl need mobile to talk n yea click pics wen they on nite out or in case of emergency or jus for fun coz nowdays every phone’s got one but still people buy digital camera’s. y dont u brain strom mate and do a review or a report next time sayin “Y DO PEOPLE STILL BUY DIGITAL CAMERA WHEN THEY GOT PHONE”
I quite disagree with u really comparing N95 to N81 i would prefer goin 4 N81 coz the wieght of N95 is so lite tht it feels like u liftin a product made in china market n feels like a pound shop toy plus i quite disagree on this (wht u said in the end)
“One more thing, file transfer is horribly slow”
First of all you’re pc must be frm in 1967
secondly u transferin 100 songs tht is around 604MB and it jus says there 14mins. oh god u seriously need help mate.
I think u need to build a pc 4 ureself tht transfers 100 song in 1 second. lol
go on vodafone and u will find the price plan listed below (12 month contract)
Phone cost Monthly Cost Minutes Texts
FREE Phone £35.00 Per month
500 anytime mins
250 inclusive texts
Select
FREE Phone £40.00 Per month
500 anytime mins
500 inclusive texts
Select
FREE Phone
£50.00 Per month
800 anytime mins
500 inclusive texts
Select
FREE Phone
£75.00 Per month
1200 anytime mins
500 inclusive texts
from O2 (12 months contract)
Online 40 600mins 1000texts Phone £19.99
£40 a month
Online 45 800mins 1000texts Phone FREE
£45 a month
Online 55 1200mins 1000texts Phone FREE
£55 a month
Online 80 – view details 1800mins 1000texts Phone FREE
£80 a month
go get ureself a life. nob
oh God… its a damm goood mobile, all plz go 4 it
how much cost Nokia n81 ? answer in my email adress arbeni-aa@hotmail.com
Hey everyone, I have just realized that my Nokia N81 comes without smileys, and if someone smses me with a smiley included, it doesn’t show up.
Is it something the N81 is missing, or is it just my phone?
Thank you!
They know more i belive http://n81street.com/
Hey everyone, I have just realized that my Nokia N81 comes without smileys, and if someone smses me with a smiley included, it doesn’t show up.
Is it something the N81 is missing, or is it just my phone?
Thank you
hi all, please can anyone be of help, i just got my Nokia N81, 8gb,i have so far downloaded some songs (30) n it keeps telling me memory low n that i need to delete some data. please how do i go abt this, i need help!!!
pls select memory card in the messages menu , there is an option called options , in it there is an option of memory to use , make it card , thanks ashwaniindia@gmail.com
I have a quick question for everyone. Would someone who has the song “Let it go” be willing to send it to me? Or video tape the phone playing the song?
If anyone would be nice enough to send that to me, I would be so unbelievably happy. my AIM screen name is evifnooramekili
Thank you everyone.
Stefan,
N81 8GB is retailing at less than INR 16,000 (USD 400) in India. Do you feel it is the right price at which I should buy this device? I like its 8GB memory, good quality audio and battery life (common in all reviews I read) which is what I am looking for in a music phone. WiFi and 3G is still a distant dream in India. I am not really bothered about 2MP camera.
If it’s still not worth buying, can you suggest me a better alternative at the similar price?
Hi,
i just got my N81 and I am so sory I got it. I should have stay with my old phone.
The usebilety of this phone is just bad. I jsut can not find anything there.
Usually, I love Nokia phones but this one is just not my cup of tea.
Dave
THIS IS THE BEST DEVICE IVE EVER BOUGHT,.. SO TO HELL TO WHO EVER SAYS ITS THE WORST EVER…. ITS JUST TOO COOL NIGGAS.. all u have to do if u are using an old firmware is to UPDATE IT,,.. AND FEEL LTHE DIFF.. GABRONS!
GUEROS!
sam,
Please check your inbox, is there any files in the folder. I had this problems earlier, and I realizes there is a certains file which I receives files from my friends through bluetooth. Normally when you receive the the from bluetooth, it will save the file in Inbox and it take phone memory, which is not the 8gb flash memory.
I found the phone nice to use. Previously I don’t think as good as it now. Recently I have found a few softwares for the N81 such as the DivX player. Now I can play *.avi in my N81 8GB. Before this, I have to convert the file either to 3gp files or mpeg4 files, which is not as good quality video as the original file before. I can watch my video in clear vision with the N81 8GB.
after saving them u dont have to still keep them in the fone memory.. and if u think it takes much of memory on the fone.. GO TO MENU MESSAGES, OPTIONS SETTIGS AND GENERAL.. there u can switch the memory! lemme know if this helped
N81 8GB is the best!
hey, you guys almost forgot that the ying yang and the erase key of some nokias are similar to this one. example, 5700, 6630.
could somebody say to me finally the possibilities of wi-fi. If I buy this mobile I might connect in internet or not?
Well, the n81 has better music sound then n95. but i really liked the N81, s0o a YES to n81 8gb
I want to buy N81 but I’m not sure for that
does anybody can help me !??!?!
please say something about that !
I don’t know what to do
N81 or something else !?
Well,i got the N81 8GB and it hasnt done badly.I was so addicted to my Ngage QD that i found it hard changing my phone.Eventually when i wanted to change, i considered another gaming deck.But there was none.The NGAGE 2 was released and i thought which N series had the best gaming features.
In my opinion,it was N81 8GB.Its so much fun gaming on it.those who have done so can attest to it.Im not a camera freak and so the picture quality from the camera doesnt bother me.Its Ok for the rated mega pixel.
For me,its eat,live and breathe NGAGE!
am the one am using n81 8gb right now so how to add the video and soung inside? am in thailande but i buy it in singapore this is my mobil number +66846982866