The Nokia Nseries has become the mobile phone early adopter’s Holy Grail. But the latest N80 smartphone looks to have upped the ante and raised the multimedia fervour to new heights. 3G.co.uk takes this multimedia dream machine for a spin.

N80Series

The Nokia N80 is a multimedia-rich phone with a 3-megapixel camera, a second VGA camera, and an integrated music player. It also has a sharp screen, PIM functionality, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi.With no carrier backing, the Nokia N80 is expensive. Performance is also a bit sluggish when switching between apps.The Nokia N80 is part of Nokia’s new Nseries of Symbian OS smartphones running S60. These are strong business phones (if you can forgo a QWERTY keyboard) with a multimedia bent. And let’s face it: there are plenty of us who need a smartphone but also want a super camera, multimedia features and even an FM radio. Competitors have left us out in the cold and 2006 may be the year that Nokia wins us over. The one problem is Nseries phones aren’t offered by any US Carrier as of this writing.

At 9.5 x 5 x 2.6cm closed, the N80 is a rather chubby slider. It weighs in at 134g, which is rather a lot compared to other smart phones without large touch screens, which tend to weigh in around the 100g mark. It doesn’t feel that great in the hand either, mainly due to the fact that it’s quite wide and thick. There’s no thumb grip for opening the N80 either, and with the stainless steel fascia being quite slippery – especially if you have sweaty fingers – it can be difficult to open at times.

The Nokia N80 makes video recording very simple & provides the user with some very easy to use features to ensure that their recording has the high quality results that the phone can offer. The built in 3 megapixel camera turns into a video recorder with a simple switch from camera mode to video mode. The video provides quality video capture in MP4 & 3GP formats with up to 5 x digital zoom. The Nokia N80 comes with an image & video editor software that is very simple to use.

Key features:

* Brilliant display
* Symbian OS
* Incredible web browser
* miniSD card slot (128MB miniSD card included in the package)
* Very good 3 megapixel camera with flash
* Excellent audio quality
* FM radio
* 40 MB internal memory
* All connectivity options - Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, IR, USB
* UMTS and EDGE support

Nokia N80 Review from pcmag “Another hardware difference over preceding models is the inclusion of Wi-Fi, or 802.11g. Now, hear me, I’m not knocking Wi-Fi and of course I’d rather have it than not, but with such a small physical screen (even with the extra pixels), web browsing is still a chore. When I think of Wi-Fi on a handheld or smartphone, I think of free, high-speed web browsing,

Nokia N80 Review from hardwarereviews “The Nokia N80 ($799 list) is the ultimate bleeding-edge convergence phone and the first 3-megapixel camera phone in the U.S., packed with connectivity and multimedia features. Though it can be a bit sluggish to use and lacks push e-mail, the N80’s sheer audacity warrants our Editors’ Choice.

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