Got An N81? Part 4 - Give It To A Girl
It’s a darn difficult truth to admit for most tech addicts and gaming lovers out there, but still, it is the truth: the N81 is a girl’s device. I know many readers out there are starting to bang their head against the wall, or probably closing this window as we speak, but hear me out. I am not saying that the N81 can’t be owned by a guy, but a girl / woman will be more comfortable than a guy with it. Why? Let’s go over the 3 reasons that make me assume this statement.
1 - The Pretty: When the N81 was first announced, I was impressed by the looks of the device, but I had to touch it to be sure. The first thing I noticed when I opened the N81 8GB’s box was how sexy it really is. Everything about it smells glamor and chic. The glossy black front, the smooth surfaces, the small attention to pattern details, the shiny bronze dots on the brown back cover, the mirror-like screen, the uniformity of the device, everything about it makes it eye-candy. Every one of my girl friends who saw both the N95 8GB and N81 8GB told me how good looking the N81 was. “Oh, this one is prettier” I kept hearing all day (and week). That’s one goal for the girls!
2 - The Jammed: The most common rant I read about the N81 was the jammed front keys. Totaling 16 keys in no more than 12 square centimeters, it means that you have much less than 1 square centimeter for each key, which is the usual average for comfortable tapping. Not for a girl’s fingers though. So far, I have had no problem, none what-so-freaking-ever, with the front keys. I average one mistaken key per day which, considering my extremely high usage of device music and functions, is more than an excellent result. That’s Girls 2 - Guys 0.
3 - The Sharp: The power button on the N81 is really hard to press. I wonder why. Every other button on the sides of the device is extremely well built and a little protruding making it very easy to press. Not the power button: it’s small and even lying a little too much inside the cover. I have found that pressing it with my finger didn’t get me any result, 90% of the time. The best way to access it is with my nails. Yup, nails, you read that right. And who has sharper nails than girls?
That’s 3 goals for the girls and still a blank sheet for the guys. Not to mention that the lack of the better camera, the accelerometer and the 3d hardware won’t annoy them as much as it will annoy the guys. I am not a gender discriminator, I have suffered from it a lot myself, but the facts speak for themselves. Give an N81 to a girl near you and see what she will say about it and if she will have problems with any of the keys. Point made. Now let’s applaud Nokia for making a good device for the girly girl in me.
[Picture courtesy of taiwan.cnet.com/digilife]
when i had the phone, my female friends told me it was a pretty phone >.<
dang she’s a hotty, where did ya get her ricky? i definitely agree with you, it’s a girls design. they would sell if they made it white or pink, and dropped the price a few hundred bucks. my girlfriend just got a sony w850i in pink and absolutely loves it. i was playing with the software last night, it’s way better than s40 and i think is the best software out for non smartphones. she finds s60 complicated until i show her how to use it.
oops i meant sony w580i^^^
haha I already gave mine to my girl - and she really seem to like it =D
Another crass article about what us women want. I have the n95 8gb prior to which i had the n95. I dont buy phones based on how pretty they look but on functionality.
dani2xll,
I don’t know if you know it, but I am a girl myself and yes I do agree that the n95 packs more (or different) functionality: I have already spoken about it in part 3 of my “Got an N81?” post series. You should read that and see what I had to say about it. Also I got to test the N95 8gb and I believe I said that it was a dead sexy device too, it’s not “dead” sexy when it comes to looks, but when you know what’s inside, you can’t help but fall in love and it becomes “dead” sexy.
What I am saying here is that for most girls, esp the ones around me _ i am a pharmacy student so my current friends are neither tech enthusiasts nor very hip when it comes to mobiles, just your ordinary 20-yearers) _ the N81 “looks” nicer than the N95. For them, choosing a phone is based probably 50% on looks and 50% on functionality and that’s where Nokia have excelled: making a device that women wouldn’t run away from, that also packs a lot of power.
Other than that, my main point behind this article wasn’t to convince girls to go buy the n81 but to convince guys not to :p lol no i am just trying to say that a girl wouldn’t have a problem with the jammed keys in the front, and that’s probably THE main reason I think the N81 is more suitable for a girl than a guy.
Say what? I admit even looking at the title outraged me a little, but I opened the whole article to read it. I do have N81 and my friend has N95, so I can compare each other. I’ve also asked several girls about their opinions on design of N81, and I havent heard “pretty” from single of them - they’d all want RAZR instead =/ At the Jammed point, Id say that its question of concept and overall design, and while you see it girly, I see it more useful than N95’s down-slide music buttons. At the Sharp, good point, the on/off switch is really hard to activate. To finish the comment - I cant imagine majority of girls going for N81 for its looks, and moreover, most of girls are still too (forgive me the word) technically-wise uneducated to control a Symbian device properly.
Feb 1st, 2008 at 11:06 am
[…] There are three reasons why Dotsisx thinks the N81 will sit more comfortably in female hands than those of a man. For one, it is pretty. More ‘chic’ than say, the N95 8GB, it draws adoring looks from females eyes. Secondly, the close-knit keys are perfect for slender female fingers. And three? You need long nails to access the power but with ease… […]