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I’ve been sent an N81 from the chaps and chapesses at WOMworld so I can have a play about with the Ngage gaming platform, but while I’m researching that review (translation; I’m playing lots of games and don’t have time to do it) I thought I’d pass on my thoughts of the N81.

There’s no interesting goodies in the box, just the standard equipment. Charger, handsfree kit, manuals that you never read and CD for installing PC Suite.

Taking the handset out the box I straight away thought how good looking the phone was. Everything about it appeals to be. I like slider style phones a lot since I had the N95, I always like black glossy colours and the screen takes up a good chunk of the space on the front. The sides are a grey/silver colour which gives the phone a definite sense of style. The rear of the handset is the same glossy black as the front and is very minimalist, with just the words Nokia Nseries and the camera there.

The top of the handset has the 3.5mm jack for your headphones and also has a funky little keylock slider. I’m liking this a lot for such a simple little thing. Just seems a very convenient way to lock the handset. When locked, sliding open unlocks all the keys and it auto-locks when you close it up again.

The sides, as previously mentioned, are a nice silvery finish and on right hand side have the camera key, a volume rocker keys and one of the stereo speakers. The left is bare apart from the the other speaker. No gallery key on this handset, which is really no great loss as it’s possibly the most underused key on the Nseries range.

So far so good!

And then we start using it and it all goes a bit Pete Tong.

The first problem is apparent the second you turn it on. The light leak that comes off the handset is shocking. Light streams from the sides of the front key area when closed and the keypad area underneath. It looks horrible and totally cheapens the look of the handset. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of my pet hates on a handset. That said, the lighting on the handset is very bright and makes usage in the dark very easy. The screen is lovely and bright too, but that’s something really that should be default in this day and age.

The keys have another issue though, and one that’s not easily ignored. I think it was Stefan over at Intomobile who described it best; there’s quite simply a ‘clusterfuck’ of buttons. When the slider is closed, so I’m just counting the keys you use to navigate menus etc, there is 16 buttons, all of which are screaming to have you catch them and do exactly the thing you don’t want to happen. Any idea how many times I’ve wanted to press the red end call key but hit the ‘C’ key and nearly deleted an app? Or caught a music key randomly? Lots, let me tell you.

And mentioning apps brings me onto my next problem. I’m pretty insistent on installing apps to my phone memory. I know this is a debatable point, and people will disagree, but I find that the NSeries handsets are a tonne more stable when you put every app on the phone memory. With the 8gb only being flash memory, and in essence a memory card, I would have liked to have done the same on the N81. But can I? No. Because the damn thing is crippled with a near criminal lack of phone memory. I think there’s about 25mb in there. Now on my N81 I have the Ngage system preinstalled and a bunch of games, which seems to take up a fairly whopping chunk of the 25mb. I have only installed the gmail app and Handy Taskman, and I’m left with a completely pathetic 2mb of free phone memory. Seriously, I can’t even install the Jaiku app because whenever it tries to run, I’m plagued with low memory warnings. It made me so angry, I had to take a picture just to show you how angry I was.

Wow, that pictures crap. Oh yes, that’s another problem. Why Nokia deemed this handset worthy of only being given a 2 megapixel camera is beyond me. Lets look at me angry again, but this time taken with an N95.

Wow, I’m shiny today. But seriously, do people even buy 2 megapixel camera phones anymore? Weren’t they about… 3 years ago? Is the video any better?

Back to the buttons for one second, there’s a big problem with the location and design of the music keys that surround the Navi key (and more on that monstrosity in a second). Thery’re just too close to everything else so half the time you’re pressing the wrong thing, especially if you’re trying to do it blind. I’m slightly worried that this design is returning with the N96 which seems to have a smaller form factor in that area but we’ll see in time if the same issues return.

Now onto the Navi key… This is possibly the most useless thing I’ve come across on a phone in a long time. It’s very rarely active, in fact it only seems to click into use when you’re using the music player. It’s an obvious attempt to copy the style of the wheel on an iPod, but it fails on nearly every level. When it’s responsive it’s too responsive. When it’s unresponsive it just seems to do nothing. I hate it with a passion that I normally reserve for Chelsea FC and Samsung. I could quite happily never see this on a Nokia handset ever again.

I’m not going to mention too much about this as it could be a fault on this handset, but the signal seems to be awful. I can sit there with signal but the second I pick up the phone, it drops to literally nothing. I’ve tried and N95 and the N81 next to each other, both with sims in from the same operator and there is a huge difference in the strength of the signal recieved by the N95.

Anything else I can moan about… let me think…. Oh yes, the slider is wobblier than me after 10 pints. On the other hand, anyone who’s used a Nokia slider recently won’t be suprised by this. How come companies like Samsung can make rock solid sliders, yet Nokia seem totally incapable of this. Confuses the hell out of me.

Still, I’m ignoring one big point here, and it’s the reason this handset exists. Music. I didn’t want to give this a headstart over any other handset, so I used the same Bose earphones I use normally. Could I tell the difference between this and, say, the N82? Well a little, but nowhere near enough to make me think that this is a worthy addition to the Nseries portfolio. I mean think about it, what would you rather do, carry around an N82 with it’s 5 megapixel camera which an 8gb memory card in it (which you can pick up for around £30 now) or carry around a phone with a separate camera because it’s so frigging useless. C’mon, it’s a no-brainer. Even if you’re not a massive camera user, surely there is going to be some point when you’re going to want to use one and lets face it, you’d rather that picture came out good, rather than looking decidedly fuzzy.

On a plus point regarding music, the speakers are really loud and quite good. My car stereo has recently broken and I’ve been using it in my car and it’s performed quite admirably really.

Syncing music to the handset is a painfree process but slow. I use the option of syncing via Windows Media Player and it works without any problems and also syncs any playlists I have. No problems there at all.

So can I recommend this handset? Not really. I can’t find anything seriously redeeming that overlooks it’s obvious problems. I certainly couldn’t tell anyone to go buy it on contract and at just under £300 on Pay As You Go, it’s a price that’s far too steep to comprehend. I know it’s aimed as a music handset, but there’s just not enough of a jump in sound quality to justify the shocking camera. As if you didn’t realise from what I’ve already said, I plainly don’t like this phone. I’ll go as far as to say it’s the most badly thought out handsets I’ve come across.

Nokia, no more like this. Ever.