N81 -COOL

In this age of high-end mobile phones (or should I say handheld computers and communication-cum-entertainment devices?) Nokia is a household name. Its latest addition to the stable is the N81, whose USP is a whopping 8GB of internal memory. Here’s my take on the 'Next Episode' in mobile technology.

Form Factor
I’ve decided to call this model 'Li'l Fatty' – its dimensions of 102 x 50 x 17.9 mm will explain why. At first sight (or second), this plain rectangular slider doesn't look impressive at all. On the top is a slider switch to lock the keypad, a 3.5mm earphone socket (good placement) and the power/profile switcher button. It has a set of stereo speakers on either side, and on the right are the volume/zoom keys and a dedicated camera key as well. At the bottom you’ll find the charging port and the new standardized microUSB port.

I do like the brilliant 2.4 inch display and the fact that in landscape mode, if you’re playing games, two buttons on either side of the earpiece become active. NICE! Since it’s 3G enabled there’s also a secondary VGA camera in front in addition to the 2 megapixel (WHAT?) camera with an LED flash in the rear.

The five way nav-pad under the display also doubles as a navigation touch-sensitive navi-wheel, which is a disappointment if you’re an iPod fan… or not. It only works with when the new shortcut menu (activated by a little gray button near the nav-pad) is on or when you’re scrolling through your music. Not the gallery, just the music files. There are four keys around the nav-pad that are dedicated to the music player. The top two are the track skip keys and the the bottom pair are the stop and play/pause keys.

The problem is the placement of these keys is absolutely ridiculous. You’ll more often than not end up activating the music player rather than deleting a word while typing and it won't activate the music player menu, just the last song that was playing. Trust me, you too will be startled when a song blares out really loud when you least expect it. The buttons are overly sensitive.

On the plus side, the slider is extremely smooth and responsive, and the large keypad is great. But I must admit I was quite disappointed by the overall design.