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Nokia N81 8GB Review – Part V – Podcasting

By The Guru on October 30, 2007

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I wanted to cover podcasting separate from the music part because I think that podcasting is one area where S60 really stands out. Their podcasting application, with the ability to easily import your OPML file, as well as download new podcasts over WiFi or a cellular connection is something that’s not nearly as easy to do even on other smartphone platforms.

With the N81 8GB came the new version of Nokia’s Podcasting application, v1.10.1. This new version, when accessed from the Music folder on the main menu, looks exactly the same as the previous versions. I did not notice any new settings, though it seemed as though the podcast search function was improved or updated.

This is the 5th part of the review. You can read the other parts here:

Part I – Q&A

Part II – Music

Part III – Gaming

Part IV- Camera

The biggest change comes when you access the podcasts through the Multimedia menu. To do this, you press the horizontal silver bar by the d-pad. This brings up the paned Multimedia menu and activates the touch naviwheel. When you arrow down to highlight "Podcasts", it will tell you how many new ones you have. Obviously, this system is designed to be used as your only Podcasting application.

Once you select the Podcasts, you’re taken to a Podcast Library screen that looks really similar to the Music Library menu. Options here include All Episodes, By Title, By Publish Date, Recently Added and Never Played. With these selections, it’s apparent that the N81 8GB is designed to be setup to automatically download new podcasts. This is really easy to setup through the Settings menu in the Podcasting application, and you can set it to use a WiFi access point so as not to incur any data charges. I have mine setup to download new tracks at midnight, when I’m sure to be home.

Bookmarking is one thing that Al has asked about, and it’s present in this new Podcasting application, somewhat. To use it, you *must* access your podcasts through the multimedia menu, and use the new Podcast Library screen. If you go to the Music folder and open the Podcasting application like you used to, the bookmarking feature will not work. At first this was really annoying, as it provides an inconsistent experience, but it also encourages you to use their new multimedia menu, which isn’t all that bad.

The bookmarking does not work in the music player, only when listening to podcasts. You can press stop and exit the application and then navigate back to the same podcast episode and pick up where you left off. Really convenient for shows such as Chatting with the Guru that are half an hour long. Part of this, also, is that podcasts are now separated from music tracks in the music library.

The Nokia N81 8GB gives you plenty of options to enjoy your music, either on your favorite headphones with the 3.5mm audio jack, through the loud stereo speakers, or via A2DP stereo bluetooth. Nokia’s Podcasting application makes it extremely easy to import an OPML file (such as the one on the right sidebar over there) and start enjoying your music with little hassle. I would say in the area of podcasts, the N81 8GB excels.

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Nokia N81 8GB Review – Part IV – Camera

By The Guru on October 27, 2007

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This is Part IV of my Nokia N81 8GB Review. You can view Parts I, II, and III by clicking on the numbers. In my opinion, the camera is one of the most important features of an Nseries device. However, I can admit that might be a bit excessive, as I came from the 6682 to the N73 to the N95, I’m somewhat spoiled with the quality of camera in my phones. However, I also know that with Nseries, there’s either a focus on music or on optics, or, in the flagship devices, both (such as the N95, obviously).

However, let it still be known that personally, I think anything less than a 3.2MP CZ lens on an Nseries is embarassing. I have a hard time being OK with Nseries (which are supposed to be relatively high-end) handsets coming with a 2MP camera that lacks autofocus. That being said, for the sake of this review, I will be comparing the Nokia N81 8GB’s 2MP camera with that on the Nokia N75. They are both 2MP, but the N81 benefits from having Feature Pack 1, as well as (hopefully) some advances in quality, given that the N75 came out quite some time ago. There’s no point in comparing the N81′s camera to the N95, so I won’t be doing that. It’s quite obvious which would win, in terms of both still pictures and video quality.

The camera on the Nokia N81 8GB is unprotected, and sits in the back of the handset, flanked by a rather large and bright LED flash. There is a camera button on the side of the handset that, when held down for a few seconds, activates the camera application. The N81 is designed, like all of the Nseries, to be held horizontally, giving the user the experience of holding a normal digital camera. Personally I like this alot better than the typical camera phone experience, as it gives me more stability.

Once activated, the entire screen becomes the viewfinder, with a floating menu on the right side of the screen. There is an indicator in the top left of the screen that tells whether you’re in photo or video mode. In the bottom right corner, the selected photo quality, as well as the number of pictures available to take, based on memory space. The right (top) softkey exits the camera app, while the left (bottom) softkey takes you to the menu option for more settings.

On this floating menu, however, is nearly anything you’d want to change while taking a picture. The first selection allows you to switch easily between photo and video mode. My N81 8GB took 3 seconds to switch between the two formats. The second selection is the Scene Mode, and allows the user to choose between several preset settings, optimized for different situations. The default is auto, followed by a User-Defined, portrait, landscape, night, and night portrait. In the night modes, the lens is opened to allow more light, but this greatly increases the amount of “noise” in the photo.

The third selection in the floating menu is the flash menu. Again on automatic by default, but with on, red-eye, and off settings, depending on the situation and user. Following the flash is the timer menu. You can set the shutter to automatically trigger immediately or after 2, 10, or 20 seconds. The fifth selection on the menu is the Sequence Mode. By default, the camera will take a single shot, and then wait for the user. You can also set this on burst mode, in which the user can hold the camera button down to continuously take photos until the memory runs out, or it will snap 6 photos. You can also instruct the phone to snap a picture every 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 30 minutes, until the available memory runs out. This is useful for time-delay photography.

The next option is the Colour Tone, in which you can select normal, Sepia, Black & white, or Negative. A new option in this menu is the viewfinder grid. Enabling this places a grid of 9 boxes on the screen, assisting the user in setting up their shots. White balance is next, with automatic, sunny, incandescent, and flourescent settings available to the user. Exposure Compensation is the next setting, and ranges from 2.0 to -2.0. The last setting in this floating menu bar is the ISO Light Sensitivity setting, with auto, low, medium, or high.

Unfortunately, exiting the camera application and then re-opening it will reset all of these settings back to their defaults, a problem that has been brought up continuously by the S60 community. You can, however, use the User Defined scene mode to combat this. There are 4 user-selectable shutter sounds, and the only way to disable the shutter sound (at least on my firmware) is to disable the warning sounds in the N81′s Profile menu.

As soon as you take a photo, you’re presented with an image preview (you can disable this function if you like). Immediately, the picture shows up, but it’s VERY blurry, and after a second or so, it sharpens. I found this extremely disconcerting, and something that, in my opinion, shouldn’t happen on a 2MP camera.

Fortunately, there is no Gallery shortcut key as there has been on every Nseries device since the N80. At first, I found this button to be useful, but after the past few devices, found it to be nothing short of annoying, as it was often accidentally pressed by the Nokia DT-22 Tripod or by my car mount. I much prefer to use one of the shortcuts on the Active Standby screen to pull up the gallery.

Another button inconsistency that I found is that when taking a picture/video, you use the volume rocker on the side of the phone to zoom in and out. However, when viewing the resulting picture, the gaming keys light up to remind you that they can also be used to zoom. It would have been much more convenient if they were also able to zoom in while framing the picture or video, in my opinion.

Below are a few sample pictures from the Nokia N81 8GB, as well as a sample video next to the same pics/vid taken with the N75.

N81:N81_media_1_2

N75:N75_media_1

N81:N81_media_2

N75:N75_media_2

N81:N81_media_3

N75:N75_media_3

N81:

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

N75:

Video thumbnail. Click to play
Click To Play

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Nokia N81 8GB Review – Part III – Gaming

By The Guru on October 24, 2007

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This is Part III of my review of the Nokia N81 8GB. You can access Parts I, II, by clicking on the number. In my ongoing review of the Nokia N81 8GB, the next thing I want to cover is the gaming. Obviously, as one of the launch phones for Nokia’s new Ngage platform, as well as having the dedicated gaming keys, the N81 8GB is designed for gaming. How well does it hold up? Is the experience any good? I’ve done some extensive testing with several games, and will hopefully answer all of your questions regarding the gaming experience.

Keep in mind, however, that unfortunately, the Ngage platform has not yet launched, and therefore, this is not a 100% accurate or complete evaluation of the gaming experience. The Nokia N81 8GB ships with three games pre-installed: Space Impact Light, FIFA 07, and Asphalt 3: Street Style. These games are all currently available on MOSH to download to your S60v3 device, and are thus not "Ngage" games, so to speak. I do want to point out that my N81 8GB did *NOT* ship with Snakes preinstalled, nor is it available through the Download! app (as the other three are). Nokia, quit pretending. Nokia is Snakes, Snakes is Nokia. Give it up and quit shipping phones without the game installed. There’s several versions of the game for different Nokias, and that’s fine. But please, don’t ever ship another Nokia device without Snakes installed. Thanks.

On with the review…..

So what are these games? Well, Space Impact Light is an overhead shooter game in which you are a spaceship and you have to shoot stuff. The screen scrolls beneath you, and different opponents come flying across your path. Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to destroy as many of them as you can. Along the way you can get powerups which will give you different abilities and weapons, but that’s about it. It’s a tough game, as I have yet to beat the first level. Asphalt 3 is a racing game. You can get Nitrous powerups for speed boosts, and that’s about it. You turn alot. The game is pretty fun, easy to get through, and you can unlock different tracks and cars along the way. Good music, and good sound effects. FIFA 07 is a Soccer game (football to everyone not in the States) and has really killer graphics, even on the N81 which lacks 3D accelleration. Personally, I hate sports games (other than golf) because I suck at them. I have trouble keeping track of all the players, and knowing which one I’m controlling at the moment.

The Ngage application is not available, but there is a small preview loaded on the phone that provides links to the games as well as a link to see if the full version is available yet. Hopefully it will be available while I still have the N81, but it probably won’t be. When the games begin, the screen is automatically rotated to landscape mode for the best playing orientation. However, there is only one landscape mode – with the d-pad in your left hand. There’s no option to rotate so that the d-pad is in your right hand, unfortunately.

There’s also no way to rotate games installed without Ngage. Even after downloading Snake from MOSH, I was forced to play in portrait mode. A shortcut to rotate the screen to landscape would be a nice addition for playing games outside of Ngage. It would also appear as though you’re at Ngage’s discretion as to which games you can play in landscape and which play in portrait. Again, a poor choice, as that’s usually personal preference. I was able to game using the SU-8W Bluetooth keyboard, but again, without being able to rotate the screen, the experience is not as good as the N95.

The sound experience while playing the built-in games is the same as playing them on any other handset. Very good sound, as I mentioned in Part 2, the N81 8GB has extremely good speakers, but there is nothing especially compelling about the music or sound effects. Other games that I have played that will be a part of the Ngage platform DO use sound as a medium to add to the gaming experience, so don’t discount that immediately. We will have to wait till Ngage is launched before passing judgement.

The dedicated gaming buttons are obviously active during gameplay, though I was unable to map them using other games such as Snake. Again, you’re stuck in portrait mode anyways, so they wouldn’t really be all that convenient. I would think that any of the popular emulators from companies such as Vampent should be able to play in landscape mode, though I’m unsure as to whether they would be able to utilize the dedicated hardware buttons.

As a gaming device, honestly, I would say that the N81 8GB falls short. Without an option as to which landscape orientation is available or a way to play non-Ngage games in landscape mode, the gaming abilities are limited. The sounds in the pre-installed games did not offer any additional experience, though as mentioned, this will likely change once Ngage is officially launched and available. My suggestion for a good gaming device? A dual-slider such as the N95, though with gaming keys on the slide as opposed to music playback.

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The Guru

The Guru, aka Ricky Cadden, started Symbian-Guru.com in November 2006, out of his excitement for the S60 3rd Edition version of Symella. The Guru has used Symbian devices since the Nokia 6620, and is known for his perspective as a power user. You can follow The Guru on Twitter at @Rcadden

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  • Viipottaja

    Wouldn’t the ability to play in landscape require some graphics “scaling” to be possible? I.e. it has to be built into the game separately? If e.g. the current Snakes were to be rotated to landscape without such trickery, either the snake would gain weight (being strectched to a wide screen) or lose its head or tail (being cropped to fit the screen)? :)

  • Viipottaja

    Wouldn’t the ability to play in landscape require some graphics “scaling” to be possible? I.e. it has to be built into the game separately? If e.g. the current Snakes were to be rotated to landscape without such trickery, either the snake would gain weight (being strectched to a wide screen) or lose its head or tail (being cropped to fit the screen)? :)

  • http://alan.lin.name/ ArchBoss

    Thanks for the review, I will wait for the next gaming-focused handset.

    Btw, you mentioned that the pre-installed games can be downloaded from MOSH, but I searched for them and couldn’t find them :(

  • http://alan.lin.name ArchBoss

    Thanks for the review, I will wait for the next gaming-focused handset.

    Btw, you mentioned that the pre-installed games can be downloaded from MOSH, but I searched for them and couldn’t find them :(

  • touzeen

    found only space impact on MOSH and it worked fine on my N95…cant wait to try Asphalt,post link if possible….thanks,and great review

  • touzeen

    found only space impact on MOSH and it worked fine on my N95…cant wait to try Asphalt,post link if possible….thanks,and great review

  • Sandy

    Could not find the games in MOSH. Anyway, nice review. I think, they had gone wrong about the N81 Gaming when they excluded the hardware acceleration.

  • Sandy

    Could not find the games in MOSH. Anyway, nice review. I think, they had gone wrong about the N81 Gaming when they excluded the hardware acceleration.

  • Sandy

    By the way, what were the gaming keys like. Were they responsive or sturdy? And what about the other keys? And please tell us something about the screen. Is its illumination good enough for gaming outside the house?

  • Sandy

    By the way, what were the gaming keys like. Were they responsive or sturdy? And what about the other keys? And please tell us something about the screen. Is its illumination good enough for gaming outside the house?

  • Viipottaja

    Sandy, well, hardware acceleration costs money… I think they wanted to keep the cost of the handset down and their margins up (yes, they are in a business :)).

  • Viipottaja

    Sandy, well, hardware acceleration costs money… I think they wanted to keep the cost of the handset down and their margins up (yes, they are in a business :)).

  • erkan

    thank you

  • erkan

    thank you

  • conorsulli

    your images were not found, please update as they are crucial for the pic review!!! thanks

  • conorsulli

    your images were not found, please update as they are crucial for the pic review!!! thanks

  • Eli

    A few things aren’t true. There is a gallery shortcut in the front, and there is an landscape orientation’ option for games.

  • Eli

    A few things aren’t true. There is a gallery shortcut in the front, and there is an landscape orientation’ option for games.

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