The Nokia N82 - Style over Function?

Great review. Spot on. I too am having a hard time trying to figure out where Nokia is going. Do they do any type of marketing research or do they actually listen to their customers?

I have the N81. I had the E90, and N95. Both were great but the N81 is pretty much what I need. Coupled with the LD-4W (GPS device) I am set to navigate. In fact I like this combo much more than my iPhone which is more iPod than phone. Regardless, the N81 has some issues that Nokia needs to address. The toggle gamer switch located in the ear piece speaker was and is stupid. Easy to break as I have had to have mine replaced. A slightly greater amount of pressure results in a broken device that is prone to let dust in. So my N81 sits in a plastic bag while I wait (8 days to date) for Nokia to get parts that do not currently exist as this is a new phone. I hate being forced to use the iPhone.

Nokia, listen to us for once and design what we need and want?

i like N82, but it is simply butt ugly...

This is spot on and something I've been frustrated with Nokia over the years. I've had mobile phones and sold them since the very first Nokia devices and have followed the S60 platform religiously.

Nokia implement great features in one device but then typically either remove them or ruin them in another by terrible ergonomics. Take the N73 for example - in the firmware of this great phone (ruined by cheap casing and build quality) I was able to view emails or text messages in a 'one line' view. Why then on every subsequent Nokia firmware in the N series has this option been removed? I can now only see emails via the space wasting 2 line version! aargh!

I have a Nokia N95 8GB, amazing phone. But no lens cover so my shots are blurry. Then the video centre function doesn't work so I'm reduced to watching video content only by the file browser. Then I also to my dismay find that the 'search' function (brilliant) has removed the local YELL search that was present in the firmware on my Nokia N73.

And I could go on.

When I heard that the N82 was coming out I thought this was going to be quite possibly the best Nokia mobile ever made. With all the amazing functionality of my N95 8GB but in a more useable candybar form factor....Not to be. The design looks appalling, the keypad absolutely unusuable and again the firmware will present the usual problems by the new versions offerred by Nokia.

A real shame. You know it almost seems that Nokia are reluctant to get the ideal phone built!!!!

Justin

It is kicking in an open door. At least they did improve the cameralens shutter after they did such a poor job in the N95 8GB. Worste to come the N96 pictures floating around (if real) really shows they are screwing that up again... I would have expected the N82 to have a candybar design version of the N81. It's far more attractive.

Still they can fix it with the N99? A phone with all the capabilities and size of the N95 8GB. But with a N82 camera shutter a 2AA battery operated high powered xenonflash accessory, 640x480 touchscreen - 2.8", qwerty slide keyboard, N81 gamebuttons, kick ass RAM, battery and stability. Flash 9 support and most important A HIGH QUALITY JPEG FILE FORMAT OR RAW IMAGE MODE. WiMax would be nice too. VideoCalling over wifi would be great too! Price? I'll drop a 1000 euros.

snoyt

Steve, the fact that you are not given to overly dramatic reviews and that you have done rather a lot of them, indicates that this beast touched a nerve! I thought that the keypad looked difficult to use, and wondered why the screen was smaller. I didn't think I'd like it much despite the improved flash and candybar form. You have confirmed my feelings.

Cheers,

s.

Just another annoying thing I forgot to mention. Love my N95 8GB's BIG screen but why still the same silly resolution?

So frustrating with Nokia - they are like Apple run by Microsoft of the mobile phone world.

i have been using the n82 for almost 1 month, and while i agree with what you are saying, i do think that the device is much easier to use than you are letting on. i agree that it would be nice to have a Nseries device that places function over style. i work for myself and am on the road all day and love using this device. the buttons and dpad are fine for me, and i am a heavy voice and messaging user, so i am using the phone all day. i was actually thinking today how the size of the screen does not bother me the way i expected it would. i think i can see past the shortcomings because the device is just so solid in its build quality, especially when compared to the n95 (all variants). i have owned every version of the n95 and have sold them all as the slider became more and more loose. while the n82 feels like a piece of plastic in your hand, it at least feels like one solid piece that wont fall apart after a few months.

almost every nokia i have owned has suffered from some kind of design flaw that has made me hate using the phone over time. n73 had small keypad buttons that were tough to use for me (plus massive lens cover), n95 loose slider plus it would make clicking sounds when top half would hit bottom half (n95, n95-3, n95 8gb all did this withing 2 weeks), n80 keypad sounded like i was popping bubble wrap when pressing buttons, etc. nseries have great feature set, but the design team should be fired as they keep using too much plastic and too many odd choices for button layout.

almost every nokia i have owned has suffered from some kind of design flaw that has made me hate using the phone over time.

Try using some non-Nseries S60 models, you'd be surprised by how good they are now.

Do they do any type of marketing research or do they actually listen to their customers?

It sounds simple, but in practice this kind of research is notoriously difficult to rely on, especially in something as varied as the phone industry.

If it was as simple as that, every phone made by every manufacturer would be a hit. The problem is that there is no amorphous mass of "customers", there's millions of different people who all have slightly different priorities. On average the readers of AAS probably have a totally different set of priorities to the majority of people who buy these devices.

Which of these priorities you pick, who you listen to and who you don't listen to, is very difficult to judge. You can try making a compromise, but compromises are equally notorious for pleasing no one. It's probably the case that to make a successful product you have to annoy at least some of your potential customers.

I agree the N73 feels very tacky, yet it's sold incredibly well, whereas other similar models with much better build quality have been left in its shadow. Personally, as I keep saying, I think the numbered S60s are much better phones than the Nseries S60 models, yet the numbered S60s receive virtually no attention compared to Nseries. It's as if the success of a phone depends a great deal on factors other than the phone itself.

There's a famous saying about Hollywood, which comes from the fact that no matter how good the director, actors or scriptwriter, no matter how much research they do with test audiences, no matter how much money they pour into a production, no one has ever come up with a guaranteed hit film. The saying is: "Nobody knows nothing".

Going back to phones, the example that always sticks in my mind is when they revamped the original N-Gage into the N-Gage QD, mostly to answer the critics of the original. Amongst other things, gone was the sidetalking, and you held the QD right up to your face like any other phone. You'd think this would receive universal praise, but at least one reviewer slammed this change because he didn't like the way his beard got the screen greasy. Should Nokia have listened to him?

With regards to the free 3 months sat nav. In the manual its states to just hit purchase and any free usage period will automatically be used before it then requests you to buy. I did this and no payment options etc.. came up it just started working, so I guess thats how they are implementing it rather than with a voucher. The gps is great aswell, it gets a lock in under 10 seconds which is great compared to my MDA Compact 3 which can take several minutes some times. I would also like to add I think the screen is fine for multimedia use and is crisp and clear, if you tried to stick a 2.8" screen on a candybar phone the phone would be huge, thats the trade of for having a monoblock style of phone I suppose. On the whole I'm not a huge fan of the styling and prefer black devices if I was being honest but I am finding its growing on me.

Its interesting how Nokia E-series and their numbered phones (given relative price point) are so well made and the N-series is hit and miss - at best.

They can do it but not on their flagship models.

Wierd.

Krisse,

another great comment from you! I agree.

Look, Nokia does more market research than arguably any other cell/mobile phone company. They are using a fairly sophisticated segmenting/target user approach. The product manager of N82 said that the N82 is targeted at the "Technology Stylist" (or something like that) segment. This means that, krhm, even most of the AAS readers are not the target audience. So in N82 case, I guess, style (whether you like it or not) has equal importance to function - and the style has to work for 2-3 years without starting to look horribly old. The Technology Stylists (?? Bang Olufsen buyers??) may well think the N82 looks fantastic, and will not care too much about small usability inconveniences.. 😊

For many an AAS reader N95 may therofore remain the phone of choise - they/we have to wait for a faster camera and a xenon flash in the next model. Or the one after that.. or... well, when the next phone targeting their/our segment hits the streets! 😊

I know where all of the above comments are coming from, but for me, this is the N73 done right, and it wasn't as bad as many of you make out. I still look at the N73 and think if it had a 3.5mm jack and a d-pad instead of a nipple, I'd take it back in an instant. The fact is, the tacky plastic casing was one of the reasons mine lasted so long. Metal casings are heavy and transfer damage to delicate insides, whereas plastic makes it light and resilient and keeps the screen and circuitry safe.
I just wish you could hold it like a phone to take pictures. When did it become such a problem to let us press the centre button to take a snap?!

Its all personal opinion there isn't actually anything wrong with the phone and this phone is cool unlike the Idiotphone.

Its obvious why Nokia is releasing apparent "half-baked" mobiles all to do with money.

But still i would rather have a half-baked nokia than a microwaved apple.

What about the quality of the plastic? If I'm not mistaken, in the first picture of the review, looks like the upper part near the earpiece, the paint already faded away. The quality of the paint in Nokia recent handset is quite concerning.

Slightly off topic, but

Does the N82 Xenon flash mean you don't have any light at all during video recording.

I ask because I assume you can have the LED on for video recording with an N95.

Don't own either yet, but looking to get one to compliment my N810 (excellent hardware, browser etc. but no pim "yet"😉.

Thanks,

Zuber

I agree that somethings are unbelievable, not only in the N82 in particular but across the new nokias.

- Why 2 lines for the messages again? Why not give the user to choose??
- why there's no posibility to choose what you want in the active stand-by screen. right now i have to have search, calnedar entries and WLAN search. It's getting over crowded. afterall it's just a QVGA resolution here. I can't see all my appointments because of that. couldn't we choose in some Active Screen settings what to show and not to?
- The new music player interface. Looks good, the names of the songs are bigger etc, but why did you remove the name of the next song from it?

And this are just a few points.

Couldn't agree more! n82 and n95 8gb could have been killer mobiles but they blew it. Personaly I think that Apple will take over high end market with the next iphone

I had N82 yesterday and I see that most of the comments from Steve has too much right!!!!!
Today I will try my chance to return it, let's see what will come out 😊

I will not mention about the superior features of the phoen that you can already find everywhere!
I will mention annoying parts of the phone; which are 3 main as I see:

1--> loose&spongier side cover which has light leakage and also lets you to see interior connection points from the tiny space which gives you very cheap and unsettled design image -- THIS IS SOMETHING THAT YOU CAN ONLY GET AFTER BUYING 😞(( unfortunately! i want to cry!

2--> nearly impossible to place it on any surface during shooting in TIMER MODE!!!!!!!!! VERY BIG DESIGN FAILURE FOR SUCH 5MP CAMERA-PHONE!!!! - what? shall I carry tripod with me...hahahaaha, keeping myself not to swear to designers!

3--> picture is relatively quite good within its range HOWEVER there is a big problem in dimensional structuring of the taken photos. sometimes you feel like picture is taken from a very narrow lens which changes the dimensions of the objects inside!!!!!!!!! -- BELEIVE ME ITS TRUE! on other words it does not give true sizes in some areas in the picture (squeezing)

--> stereo speaker quality is below my expectations - strong but not clear sound as it is in sony-erc. or samsung

HOWEVER, some points are above expectations; like:
--> these tiny keypad gives quite comfort and accuracy during typing!
--> screen size is suffucient unlike comments since it has very clear resolution!

last words ---- NOKIA CONTINUES TO DISAPPOINTING ME SINCE LAST FEW YEARS!!!!!! which makes me question to its position in market!!!!!!

murat mutlu - dubai

This is critical bull. This phone is cool to look at and cool to use and has crazy features. This reviewer is on crack. What's so cool about the IPhone anyways? The freaking thing has the same features that a phone from 2001 had. Oh but wait, only the Americans think it's "so cool". Since, in America, GSM technology and phones are in the stone age compared to Europe.

So frustrated !!!!!!!!!!

After reading all these positive reviews I had so much expectations (I loved the N73 so I was an easy target!).

I bought the N82 2 days ago and am extremely frustrated, and the customer hotline did not give a .....!

Feeling hopeless I registered to My Nokia to send a feedback as a last attempt to get someone care about my issue.

I still hope they live by the standard that every customer would expect from a global leader, and give them one week to provide satisfactory support (I also work in a global company that would not let a customer that dissatisfied).

If they do (or they don't), I will keep you posted so that you have the exact idea of how great this company is. Or is not.

Stay tuned !

I prefer my N82 over my N95.....thats all i'm saying :tongue:

I still think the N82 is by far the best phone featurewise out currently.

Its made up all the short comings of the N95s, card slot, lens cover, bigger battery etc, and had I not known about the upcoming phones, is a model Id next go for.

Quick note about the screen size - you have to take a reduction for candybar phones. Otherwise you simply cannot fit a keypad AND large screen on. Unless of course, you make it very long.

I think the upcoming black version will improve things vastly, although the cheap looking buttons will still remain.

i have been using n82 for a month and love every single thing about it.
except for the looks 😊
i wish it was slimer!
i still give it 5 stars!!!