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Well this was leaked by Ricky at Symbian-Guru back in May (that boy either seriously knows his stuff or he’s psychic. I’m going for the latter) and we’ve all known it’s been coming, so it comes as not great suprise to see the N82 has been finally officially announced by the chaps at Nokia.

There’s been a tonne of discussion regarding this latest launch, so I’m going to try and round up a few things here.

First all off, I’ve got a nice round up of the spec from Rafe at All About Symbian.

• The N82 features a 5 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics. This is the same camera module as that found in the N95. Instead of an LED based flash the N82 has a Xenon based flash. This is more powerful and should give better picture in low light situations. The camera is also reportedly much faster to start and to capture pictures.Nokia describe it as the ‘best cameraphone on the market’ and a ‘creditable alternative to stand alone cameras’. The camera also supports shooting video (at VGA resolution at up to 30 fps). There is an on device editor for both still images and video (video editing more basic than N95). Camera specifications are:
  • CMOS sensor, 5 megapixel (2592 x 1944), Carl Zeiss Tessar lens
  • F number/Aperture: F2.8
  • Focal length: 5.6 mm
  • Focus range 10cm - infinity
  • Macro focus distance: 10-50 cm
• Nokia highlight the sharing capabilities of the phone. The N82 will ship with Share Online pre-installed. This allows for one click upload to Flickr and other web services. There’s also the usual XpressPrint support which allows you to print photos via Bluetooth (to supported printers) or via USB (PictBridge compatible printers). You can also order prints online directly from your phone.
• There’s an on board accelerometer to enable automatic rotation of the user interface. When you turn the phone from portrait to landscape orientation the UI will automatically change (user configurable). This is also used to automatically rotate photos to the correct orientation when you capture them.
• The screen is a 2.4 inch QVGA screen with support for 16 million colours. (This is smaller than the N95 (2.6 inches) and the N95 8GB (2.8 inches), but the phone is smaller overall than both of these devices.
• The phone weighs in at 114g and has dimensions of 112 x 50.2 x 17.3 mm (90cc in volume). This phone is similar in size and shape to the Nokia N73 (110 x 49 x 19 mm).
• The phone includes a built in GPS (with support for assisted-GPS to give fast satellite / location lock on times). Nokia Maps is pre-installed and the phone comes with a free trial of the voice guidance portion of Nokia Maps.
• The phone has a 3.55mm audio jack for listening to music. This is also used for the TV-Out function. The phone ships with a wired headset (HS-43). There are integrated stereo speakers, along with an FM radio, support for both Windows Media DRM and OMA DRM 1.0/2.0 specifications
• There is 100MB of dynamic internal memory and a microSD (SDHC is supported) card slot for memory expansions. A 2GB microSD card card is included in the sales package (this may vary by market).
• The phone’s connectivity options include quad-band GSM, WCDMA at 2100 MHz (European / Asian bands), and WiFi (802.11 b/g) inlcuding support for UPnP connectivity.
• The usual Bluetooth support is on board including support for the AVRCP and A2DP profiles. There is no IrDA port.
• PC connectivity is provided by a micro USB port. The phone supports USB Mass Storage and Windows Media Transfer protocol.
• The phone uses the Nokia BP-6MT with a capacity of 1050 mAh.
• The N82 is available immediately in key markets (Europe, Middle East and Asia). The unsubsidised prices in 450 Euros before tax (around £315). You can therefore expect a high street price of around £370-£400 initially (based on 17.5% tax).

Some interesting things of note here. First of all, the Xenon flash. LED flashes are nigh on useless so having a proper Xenon flash on the handset is a massive boon. As soon as the handset lands in my mitts the first thing I’ll do will be a camera comparison between the 5mpx phones. Staying with the camera, it’s now much quicker to start up and actually take a picture. I’ve seen a rather bold staement of the quickest on the market. A bold thing to say, I’ll be interested to see how this stands up. Moving on, the accelerometer that was in the N95 is back, and the N82 has an auto-rotate feature out the box. Now, I’m not too fussed about the accelerometer. There’s not really a really useful app for the N95 that uses it. Rotating the screen at all times didn’t float my boat, to the point I found it a bit annoying really. Now if you can limit it to work on certain things only (Gallery only for example) then I’m all in but having it do it all the time puts my nuts in a twist. No IrDA. Well… When was the last time you used it? For me… probably about two years ago. Not stated in that list is that there is about 90mb RAM free on a boot. Nice Nokia, keep that up.

The styling of it… well I’m kind of 50/50 on it. 30 minutes ago, I was really keen. Now, not so much. It’s going to be one of them that I need in my hand to decide on my feelings. When I saw the N95 (and then the N95 8gb) I felt a stirring in my loins. With the N82, it’s just not there. There’s no lust.

Next up, I’ve got the questions that Ricky from Symbian-Guru (him again) asked one of the product managers.

1. Are other colors planned?

Yes, in Q1 2008

2. Stefan, how is the build quality?

Best Nseries device thus far

3. Can you confirm the Naviwheel?

The N82 does not have the naviwheel

4. The N82 uses an accelerometer to auto-rotate the screen, but can the user disable this?

Yes, there is a menu option to turn it off. However, there is not currently an option to assign the function to a hotkey

5. Tell us about the microUSB port?

Charging is not supported, though Nokia has accessories that allow it. Also, the data transfer speed is still slow.

6. How fast to get a GPS lock?

Under 3 seconds thanks to A-GPS

7. Does the video recording have autofocus?

At the start of the recording, it will autofocus, but once you begin recording, it’s fixed.

8. Does the N82 have Infrared?

Nope. (That means no Psiloc IrRemote!)

9. Is Geotagging photos directly supported?

Geotagging for the N82 will be available in Q1 2008 through Software Updater but available through 3rd party apps like ShoZu or LocR.

As before, lets re-cap a few of those points. No Naviwheel. No biggy, I would have never have used it. 3 second AGPS locks. Hello momma! I’m rocking some 10 second locks at the mo, so 3 seconds will be great. hell that’s quicker than any SatNav I’ve ever used. I’ll be straight into trying that out, because that figure both amazes and confuses me all at the same time. Video recording auto-focus. Glad that’s in there. Geotagging available Q1 2008. Sweet! How long have we all wanted this natively?

Lastly, I’m putting a couple of videos on here for your enjoyment.

Firstly we’ve got the promo video for the N82. As Ricky says, that’s a damn good tagline isn’t it? Nokia N82: Storytelling Rediscovered. That’s a good choice there Nokia. Explains what S60 should be all about.

Now we’ve got a video showing the thought process behind designing the handset. Well done Nokia for following through on the whole ’storytelling’ aspect.

Well that’s all for now. Over the next couple of days I should be getting one through so then we’re talking hands on stuff and some videos up.

[Thanks to Rafe at AllAboutSymbian and Ricky at Symbian-Guru