The Nokia N80
- Thread starter Minority
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alexuslakes said:
you do not get any wap/gprs time and the mms messages are seperate. 02 will give you the phone for 99.99 (on any contract price) and all is included in the txt allowance. you get 1mb gprs data too upto 500mins whichever is reached first. Out in june though so you'll have to wait.
GuruJockStrap said:
As far as I can tell it's virtually untouched (Unless they've hidden it so well that I wont notice until I see an unbranded N80). And believe me, I would be the first to moan if I thought they'd ruined yet another phone. From what I can tell, its quite a difficult phone to get to grips with but a very good phone in all. Just dont leave the wifi on (wifi on constantly = less than a days battery)
MrMoon said:
Ummm you do realise that if 3 catch you doing this then they will throw you off their network??. Funny how a lot of my mates who are with 3 dont know this, im guessing they dont make a habit of telling you...
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Spawn said:
well, if you are not using an 02 sim then how and what does it matter if they do?
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Right. Despite my better judgement I decided to order an N80 (SIM free) from CPW. My excuse is that I was borded waiting for the P990.
Arrived Monday, and has now gone back today, and here's why.
First I guess I should mention I have only had SE phone for about the last four years or so. In general I find them better made with better materials than equivalent Nokias, and of course I now have a large collection of matching SE accessories. Whether this makes me what some would consider a fanboy I don't know, but the N80 was the first Nokia to turn my head in some while.
Lets start with things I liked:
1. Wifi - was a pretty much a must have for me as I was looking for a do it all phone which could replace my Axim X50v too. Wifi works really well on the N80 and seems to be integrated pretty well with the OS. MS should really take note of how well it all integrates.
2. The web browser. Wow! Amazing stuff. The sort of thing I have longed for for years - a proper mobile web browser that can handle just about anything ouy throw at it. Seemingly handled Javascript and some Ajax type websites really well. Have to say this new browser is the benchmark for others to follow. Again MS - take note.
3. The screen. Nice and bright, and the resolution is fantastic. Hopefully more and more devices will have nice hires screens like this. The screen in combo with the web browser is unbeatable right now IMO.
4. Compact size and relatively nice looking. I like the use of the brushed ally on the front.
5. Contrary to what others have been saying I didn't think the battery life was too bad. In the two days I had it the wifi took a beating, and it was setup for GSM/UTMS dual mode network access. Battery seemed like it would last 2-3 days with normal use.
6. Never having had a S60 device before, I was quite impressed - I liked the OS it has some nice features.
Now the bad things, and what helped me decided to return it:
1. Build quality. Simply shocking for a £430 phone. The battery cover is thin and poor fitting, and the slide mechanism feels very fragile indeed in addition to having far to much play. Nokia would do well to learn from the likes of Samsung how to make a sturdy slider. I also couldn't get over the cheap and tacky look and feel of the direction pad. Clearly they devled into the left over N70 parts bin. I also wonder why the buttons on the top half of the slider have such large gaps around them - dust magnets IMO, just like the joystick on the SE K750i/W800i.
2. Under specced RAM. Bugs or not Nokia has clearly skimped on RAM and it was very easy to get memory full errors with only a couple of apps running.
3. Bugs galore. Did Nokia actually test the thing at all before putting into the market. Seemingly not with the frequency that the new web browser will bomb out of run out of memory of complex pages. I think they wasted a bit too much time coding the fancy animated history rather than keeping its memory requirements down. Never had any restarts with it though like others have reported.
4. Lack of readily available and user updateable firmware. I could forgive some of the OS bugs (afterall its the first S60v3 device) if Nokia woke up and provided a means for end users to update firmware easily at home.
Overall I was actually pleasantly suprised by it and generally quite impressed, but the good wasn't enough to get me to keep it over the upcoming P990 which I think is still my ideal device. For some reason which I can't put my finger on the N80 just didn't do it for me - especially when I compared the build quality to my K750i or (black) W900i.
You never know, if the P990i is delayed further I may pick up a cheap/free N80 on Orange (since they haven't ruined it with the homescreen for once) in a few weeks time (as an additional handset on my Business+ plan), but I certainly don't think it is worth the current (SIM free) asking price.
Arrived Monday, and has now gone back today, and here's why.
First I guess I should mention I have only had SE phone for about the last four years or so. In general I find them better made with better materials than equivalent Nokias, and of course I now have a large collection of matching SE accessories. Whether this makes me what some would consider a fanboy I don't know, but the N80 was the first Nokia to turn my head in some while.
Lets start with things I liked:
1. Wifi - was a pretty much a must have for me as I was looking for a do it all phone which could replace my Axim X50v too. Wifi works really well on the N80 and seems to be integrated pretty well with the OS. MS should really take note of how well it all integrates.
2. The web browser. Wow! Amazing stuff. The sort of thing I have longed for for years - a proper mobile web browser that can handle just about anything ouy throw at it. Seemingly handled Javascript and some Ajax type websites really well. Have to say this new browser is the benchmark for others to follow. Again MS - take note.
3. The screen. Nice and bright, and the resolution is fantastic. Hopefully more and more devices will have nice hires screens like this. The screen in combo with the web browser is unbeatable right now IMO.
4. Compact size and relatively nice looking. I like the use of the brushed ally on the front.
5. Contrary to what others have been saying I didn't think the battery life was too bad. In the two days I had it the wifi took a beating, and it was setup for GSM/UTMS dual mode network access. Battery seemed like it would last 2-3 days with normal use.
6. Never having had a S60 device before, I was quite impressed - I liked the OS it has some nice features.
Now the bad things, and what helped me decided to return it:
1. Build quality. Simply shocking for a £430 phone. The battery cover is thin and poor fitting, and the slide mechanism feels very fragile indeed in addition to having far to much play. Nokia would do well to learn from the likes of Samsung how to make a sturdy slider. I also couldn't get over the cheap and tacky look and feel of the direction pad. Clearly they devled into the left over N70 parts bin. I also wonder why the buttons on the top half of the slider have such large gaps around them - dust magnets IMO, just like the joystick on the SE K750i/W800i.
2. Under specced RAM. Bugs or not Nokia has clearly skimped on RAM and it was very easy to get memory full errors with only a couple of apps running.
3. Bugs galore. Did Nokia actually test the thing at all before putting into the market. Seemingly not with the frequency that the new web browser will bomb out of run out of memory of complex pages. I think they wasted a bit too much time coding the fancy animated history rather than keeping its memory requirements down. Never had any restarts with it though like others have reported.
4. Lack of readily available and user updateable firmware. I could forgive some of the OS bugs (afterall its the first S60v3 device) if Nokia woke up and provided a means for end users to update firmware easily at home.
Overall I was actually pleasantly suprised by it and generally quite impressed, but the good wasn't enough to get me to keep it over the upcoming P990 which I think is still my ideal device. For some reason which I can't put my finger on the N80 just didn't do it for me - especially when I compared the build quality to my K750i or (black) W900i.
You never know, if the P990i is delayed further I may pick up a cheap/free N80 on Orange (since they haven't ruined it with the homescreen for once) in a few weeks time (as an additional handset on my Business+ plan), but I certainly don't think it is worth the current (SIM free) asking price.
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I would agree with you on the fact that its not worth the sim free asking price - because in its current state it definately ain't! However after a few firmware updates *hopefully* the full memory errors will go away and other such niggles.
I ain't that bothered with the things you've mentioned personally because i am coming from a much older phone and haven't ever owned a SE or other make of mobile. I will agree that the slider does move a bit but i don't have any problems with the battery cover - mines sturdy as can be - no loose feelings
I have to say i was dissappointed with the quality of the camera and the lack of auto focus is a big negative but i can live with it - just having a camera that can do negatives an the like is fun - missed that on my old 7600
( silly be hey! ). Even the video calling camera is better quality than my 7600's identical 0.3mp spec one 
I ain't that bothered with the things you've mentioned personally because i am coming from a much older phone and haven't ever owned a SE or other make of mobile. I will agree that the slider does move a bit but i don't have any problems with the battery cover - mines sturdy as can be - no loose feelings
I have to say i was dissappointed with the quality of the camera and the lack of auto focus is a big negative but i can live with it - just having a camera that can do negatives an the like is fun - missed that on my old 7600
( silly be hey! ). Even the video calling camera is better quality than my 7600's identical 0.3mp spec one 
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TheOtherOption said:I would agree with you on the fact that its not worth the sim free asking price - because in its current state it definately ain't! However after a few firmware updates *hopefully* the full memory errors will go away and other such niggles.
I ain't that bothered with the things you've mentioned personally because i am coming from a much older phone and haven't ever owned a SE or other make of mobile. I will agree that the slider does move a bit but i don't have any problems with the battery cover - mines sturdy as can be - no loose feelings
I have to say i was dissappointed with the quality of the camera and the lack of auto focus is a big negative but i can live with it - just having a camera that can do negatives an the like is fun - missed that on my old 7600
Is it easy to flash your phone to a newer firmware. As I would be interested in updating my N80 when its available.
Also where do you download the new firmware's from?
TheOtherOption said:
Do lack of memory errors go away if you patch windows on a 128meg machine? No, they don't...
Nokia have, yet again, still not given their S60 phones anywhere enough proper ram and relied on memory cards...
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Apparently the latest N80 firmware, which is on it's way into service centres, dedicates an additional 2mb over to the RAM. You have to bare in mind that the 40mb of phone memory is the total amount of onboard memory. The amount of memory available to running applications is actually smaller than this (and hence the new firmware is increasing this).
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Have heard about this .6 version firmware and whilst it may be a short term fix by freeing up and extra 2MB through some software optimisation, I still think RAM wise the N80 is woefully under spec'ed - afterall Nokia don't even say how much RAM there is (the 40MB they talk about is purely for internal storage and not useable RAM) - at least SE tell you how much RAM there is on their P-series devices - and an area in which I have never really found the P-series lacking. I don't understand why they can't use an additional storage card as virtual memory. Would solve a lot of problems.mrochester said:
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mrochester said:
So how do I get my firmware updated then?
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Scoobie Dave said:
You take your phone to your nearest Nokia service centre, leave it with them for a couple of hours and then collect it again.
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mrochester said:
Do you reckon they would charge you for this?