N82 Review Part 5 – Overall Experience
I’ve taken a look at how the N82 performs in the imaging, build quality, and music departments. However, equally important is how well the device performs day-to-day, in regular usage. With plenty of RAM, GPS, TV-Out, a rock solid battery life, and other nice little features, how well does the Nokia N82 hold up as a daily use handset?
For starters, the Achilles’ Heel of any mobile handset is the battery. It doesn’t matter what features the handset has, how great the UI is, or anything else. If the battery won’t last through a day or so, you won’t be able to enjoy the handset at all. The Nokia N82 is equipped with a 1050mAh battery, the same as the N81 8GB, actually. When I first found out the size of the battery, I was a bit worried. Afterall, the N95-1 came to market with a measly 950mAh, and well know how well that worked out. A measly 100mAh surely can’t make the difference it needs to.
I’m pleased to say that the N82’s battery is rock solid. I’m going to make an assumption that the N82 team talked to the N95 people, and worked ALOT on maximizing how the handset’s various features actually use the battery. It seems as though the N82 was optimized for this battery. The N95-3 has a 1200mAh battery, and it seems to do nearly equal, so there’s still some optimization that needs to take place there.
Plenty of RAM is present on the N82, and you shouldn’t ever see an application closing down or the dreaded Memory Full message. I’m able to easily listen to music and snap a picture, or leave Maps running in the background and read/respond to an SMS. The RAM also keeps the phone’s UI snappy, with little delay when navigating the menu or opening applications. Applications such as ShoZu that typically slow a phone down have zero issues on the Nokia N82, which was awesome, as you know I love to love ShoZu when it works correctly.
Overall, I’d say that the Nokia N82 is a killer handset, with a killer price and feature set. There’s absolutely no outstanding reasons to not pick one up if you’re in the market for a new imaging handset. It really seems as though the N82 team pored over feedback from the previous few Nseries handsets and took it all to heart while they were designing this one.
What a sexy device. Unfortunately, there is one huge reason not to buy one – it doesn’t have any North American HSDPA frequencies.
I agree with Jeremy…but I am still keeping my fingers crossed.
Soon, in the future, battery life won’t be a problem! Check this out: http://www.gsmarena.com/new_liion_batteries_get_10x_boost-news-389.php
[...] The N82 runs 399 GBP at the Nokia UK Online shop, and is part of the ‘N82 Adventure Pack’, bundled with the Nokia Sport Tracker Application and a Salomon backpack. Reports also say that 3 months of free voice-guided GPS navigation (an 18 GBP value) is included as well. Symbian-Guru has a multi-part review of the N82 here. [...]
Hi Ricky,
I’m not sure if this is the right place to ask, but do you notice that the N82 inbox doesn’t show the message date and time? This thing is really annoying me about the N82 and am wondering if you’ve found a fixaround for it.
Thanks!
[...] Guru Ricky Cadden has completed his look over the N82 by giving his overall thoughts on the [...]
Hi,
Most N series handsets dont show the time and date in the inbox. But u need to open the message and go into options and u ll find the date and time under ‘message details’. Same with my n80. I found this very annoying in the beginning but had to manage with the n80 as I had paid about $500 for the n80 then. I still will buy the n82 knowing the same holds good for the n82.
But the most imp query that I have about the n82 is about the camera. Can someone tell me if the n82 camera has a time lag like the n80 and the n73 or does it snap pictures without a time lag. usually the older n series phones take pictures about a half to one second after the shutter button is pressed and not of the moment that the shutter button being pressed like a normal digital camera. So is the n82 camera ‘pro’ digital camera like or still mobile phone like, like n80,n73?
Can someone also clarify what is the dynamic memory that nokia is talking about in their n82. If I have my phonebook, log and message functions open in the n82 like I do most other times, what is the amount of free RAM in MB available for use ?
I hope this is the right place for these questions if it is not please excuse me.
Hi kash,
Thanks for the advice on the lack of date/time info on the N series handsets. I guess I was lucky my N73 used to show date/time and had the option to choose 1 or 2 line inbox views! It’s still irritating not having the date/time view on my N82, but I’m hoping that this MIGHT be fixed in a later firmware update!
Regarding the N82 camera, I can say for sure that the camera speed is much better than in the N73. While I had to hold the camera still for a second after pressing the shutter buton on the N73, I don’t have to do that anymore with the N82. I’m no professional photographer, but the N82 camera seems to work much more similar to my seperate stand-alone camera in terms of speed. I feel that there is a time lag still, but this is very minute, and I feel very little difference compared to my camera in practical use.
Regarding your RAM question – I’ve installed quite a few programs on my N82 and have Mail for Exchange running so this probably affects my phone RAM, but I’ve currently got my contacts, log, messaging and gallery open, and I’ve got 85.6MB of RAM free. I’ve opened many many more applications at 1 go to test out the phone, and haven’t gotten any memory issues thus far.
Hope the above helps!
[...] reviewed the white/titanium version a while back, breaking it down into in five parts, covering the overall experience, build quality, imaging features, music playback, and a little Q&A with you guys. I also [...]