When we consider what we want from a business class mobile our demands are a little different, long battery life and talk time tend to climb up the list while style and size slide down (but not that far). We also want to at least believe that we can email and stay "connected" wherever we are even if only 10% of the phones users actually use these connectivity features.

So how does the N80 score? It's bulky size and not inconsiderable weight need to be offset by real useable features to make it a worthy daily use phone. As a mobile it works well, the slide design is a more grown up version of that used on the Nokia 6280 we tested a few weeks back, it feels more positive and rugged but becomes more of a 2 handed operation to open. The screen looks great and the 262k colour effort glows with a great intensity making it easy to read no matter what the light conditions. The 352x416 pixel screen also boasts auto light sensing which works well and should help preserve battery life a little but it's unlikely that the screen will be the element of this phone that eats all the battery.

The Nokia N80 is a 3G mobile and is in fact a Quad band EDGE/GSM 850/900/1800/1900 unit with WCDMA 1900 or 2100 MHz, it can also support those all important data connections at up to 384kbps on 3G and 236kbps on EGPRS. Our tests showed a high call quality and connection rate in in variable coverage and the use of the N80 in day to day business proved reliable. The data connections behave as advertised and when paired with the onboard email client and PIM style applications we were able to read email and some attachments including a word document and also an excel grid, although it's never easy on a small screen!

We were also able to use the N80 as a modem when connected over Bluetooth to our space saver Sony laptop, paired with a decent data allowance from a service provider the Nokia can clearly keep you connected.

The Series 60 3rd generation operating system presents a good set of clear and useable menus which need little reference to the user manual, all the standard features are there and you can easily customise all the screen layouts, colours and sounds. The slider keyboard certainly looks the part and there is a reasonable amount of spacing between keys to enable data input, however on a business phone with this level of PIM applications you do really want something a bit bigger and the N80's keyboard size is clearly a compromise. We found ourselves getting fed up trying to respond to emails or edit documents, the keypad is only a touch above sending SMS messages. We were surprised to find that the large screen can only be switched to landscape mode when using the camera, which is a shame as this could really help with some applications.

Connectivity is the strong point of the Nokia N80, with built in WLAN support (802.11g), Bluetooth, USB pop port and all the data standards already described. However it is the standard WLAN that set our excitement running and we quickly had the N80 hooked up to our office network. The process was fairly simple with the Nokia menus accepting all the usual wireless set-up including WEP, making this connection enabled us to browse the web and pick up emails, plus we should be able to use Skype when the new Smartphone edition hits the streets in the coming months.

The 3.0 mega pixel camera sounds the business in terms of mega pixels but then how big your mega pixel is isn't everything, in fact when you start to use the N80's camera you notice a complete lack of feedback on what mode you are in or the shooting conditions. This seems strange as these features are available on phones such as the SE K750i, but Nokia seem to have missed the boat in making the most of a camera that can deliver images of up to 2048 x 1536 pixels. Instead with the slider open the camera is reduced to a simple snapper which may be useful for the average user but estate agents will still need that digital snapper.

As a music phone the N80 again tries to play in the same team as the N91 but fails to live up to expectations, the audio player is basic and the tiny 40mb of standard internal memory has to be added to via external storage in order to store the MP3, AAC, m4a, eAAC+ and WMA files supported by the phone. With the Nokia headset attached the audio quality is at best passable but this is not an MP3 player and there is some electrical noise and hiss clearly audible on quiet tracks. The headset doubles as a very useable hands free kit should you decide to opt for this rather than use the inbuilt Bluetooth.

Perhaps the one other headline from the N80 is the wireless support of UPnP the protocol which allows devices to discover network available services and stream media. rather cruelly called Un Plug and Pray it's come on a long way in the past year and is now almost ready to take mobile devices to the next level. Connecting our N80 to a Twonky server running on the office network was possible and the media player on the Nokia should be able to then control and stream media over the network connection. The idea is that this is the way that media can be used when on the phone without needing to improved the mobiles speakers or screen. imagine being able to hook up to a sound system in your home and playback music wirelessly from your phone? a pipe dream? maybe not the N80 has all the technology to make this happen.

Back to real life with a bump and we look at the last 2 key areas in this review, first up battery life. Anyone who is anyone in business relies on their mobile more than any other office gadget, battery life is the key measure of if you can depend on your mobile. The N80 will sit on standby for around 8 days should you not use it, but then how likely is that? Instead make use of your phone and you will be lucky to see 3 hours of talk time before needing to head back for a top up and that's with the wireless switched off, with it on we managed just 2 hours talk time and 2 days standby! This really isn't enough for a business user and we don't know what Nokia were thing of shipping a workhorse phone with an 850mAh battery.

Our last area to look at is storage, the N80 has only 40mb free on the internal memory so we'll just forget about that as being useful for anything more than the odd ringtones. Instead you'll need to use the mini SD card option, Nokia ship the phone with a 128mb version which again is a bit tight, we'd recommend at least a 512mb card and sizes do go right the way up to 2gb if you have around £100.

In conclusion we have to look at what Nokia set out to achieve and how useable the result actually is. Living with the N80 for a week we can see what Nokia wanted, the all in one business class phone without the bulk of the communicator range. In most respects Nokia have done well, the phone is compact, reliable and packed with features that are actually of use, especially the WLAN which opens the way to developers to add so much more than the N80. However we do worry that even after adding a sensible amount of storage (at our cost) the battery life is just not enough, does this mean we buy a new phone and have to buy the extended battery, at what price? and what additional weight!

On sale SIM free for a whopping £480 the Nokia N80 is a serious phone with a serious price tag and a rather bad drink habit!

Published - 21/05/2006

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