Nokia N85 Review-All in One phone

The Nokia N85 is the latest N-series phone that released recently. The specification of Nokia N85 is significantly looks like almost the exact copy of the Nokia N95. But that is all what the Nokia N85 got? Apparently it is not. So let’s see what lies beneath this phone.

Design
The Nokia N85 is a slide form factor phone. When the slide is closed, you will see a 2.6 inches QVGA screen on it and below it is the navigation d-pad with soft-keys around it. Mounted around the navigation pad is Nokia’s Navi Wheel, a touch-sensitive control allowing you to scroll through lists in most applications. The N85’s navigation cluster area appears to be a completely flat and lifeless surface without any trace of buttons while in standby. The 2.6-inch QVGA screen, with the key difference here is an OLED display, have better screen legibility while consuming less power. This is not the first handset that implementing OLED display, it has been used before on Nokia’s S40 models. So it is good for Nokia doing this.

On the left hand side, a micro-USB port, 3.5mm audio jack and power button on the N85 are along the top edge. And On the right, you’ll find the volume control, a dedicated keylock button and a pair of speakers flanking both ends. Note that you will not see the 2mm charging port like previous models. It is meaning you have to use the micro-USB for both charging and syncing with the PC. When the slider is open, you will see that the phone’s plastic numeric keypad utilizes a single-slab design. The buttons are pretty sizeable and texting with the N85 was a breeze.

The dimension of N85 is at 103×50x16 mm and 128 grams. Obviously it is not a slim handset. However, it is still pocket- and palm-friendly. Overall, the Nokia N85 appearance is similar to N96 or Nokia 6600 slide. The differences of these phones seem to be at the navigation pad.

Memory
The phone comes packaged with an 8 GB memory card and it is support microSD memory cards (hot-swappable) that theoretically has no restrictions as far as memory card’s size is concerned. For internal memory usages, Nokia N85 provides 72 Mb for storing personal data. Also notice that the device comes equipped with 128 Mb of RAM. Thus, memory isn’t really is the problem of N85.

Camera
As you would expect for such a high end handset, the Nokia N85 is come with a 5 megapixel CMOS camera that equipped with auto focus and also dual LED flash. The camera has the 20x digital zoom and the focus range is from 10 cm to infinity. Beside of that the Geotaging is also available with this camera, which let you tag your photos with a location ID.

In the video recording mode, you can set the maximum resolution of your video at 640×480 pixels for mpeg4 format. But you are not allowed to adjust the N85’s FPS, it is locked at 30. One thing you should remember is the handset allows recording videos until you run out of free memory. So be sure that the video won’t eat all your memory.

The picture quality of N85 is quite good but it is not as good as Samsung i8510 INNOV8 or Sony Ericsson C902. Maybe we should not compare N85 in this way because N85 is not a pure-blood camera phone. Anyway, I am stratified with the image quality of this phone.

Multimedia
Beside of listening music in standard music player, the N85 also benefits from the Internet-radio. If you still have not enough with that, you can still listening FM radio with the phone. All these won’t let you left out from the music if you are a music freak. Notice also there is a FM transmitter inside N85. But it is a bit disappointed because sometime transmitter can’t make a stable and strong signal, therefore allowing noise and static to slip into your broadcasts. It is not probably be the downside of the phone.

There is a video center in N85 to mange your video files. It enables the user to subscribe to various channels offering an assortment of video clips, including YouTube’s mobile version. To watch the video, you can expand clips to full screen in the landscape mode. The best way to upload the video files is with the WiFi connection and all videos get uploaded onto the device, so that you will be able to watch them whenever you want. You are also able to use the TV-out option to watch your video at your TV.

Gaming on N85 would be another enjoyable activity provided by the phone. There are over 10 Try And Buy games preloaded in the handset. However, you can only pick one of them and get a full version free of charge in the activation voucher for the N-Gage app where the handset ships with For the rest of them you will have to buy it by yourself.

Connectivity
The USB, Bluetooth, and WiFi are the easiest way in N85 to connect to other device. So transfer file by N85 is a breeze. The phone also supports 3G, GPRS, EDGE, HSCSD connections, thus connect to internet also is a easy task for N85.

Others
Multimedia Apart, the N85 is also able to manage your office work. There is a QuickOffice application preinstalled in the phone. You can use it to read your MS files only and won’t be able to edit office documents unless you pay extra money for it. Beside that, the ZIP and Adobe PDF application also preloaded in the phone. So .zip or .pdf files would be no problem to view in this handset.

If you are traveler, then the GPS-navigation system in this phone would probably give you a big help. The software that implemented in N85 is the latest Nokia Maps. It is speedier and does the job hands down.

Conclusion
Once again Nokia has made a great job. The features of the phone are quite comprehensive. The price of the Nokia N85 will go around 450-500 Euro at start. This price tag probably would be the market’s finest solution to date for the handset in the same level. For those who are looking for a feature rich and not too expensive handset, the N85 should in your consideration list.