Nokia N85 is a new all-multimedia mobile phone with very good performance in all most important areas.
Introduction:
The new Nokia N85 has plenty of features for all occasions: it has a 5 megapixel camera, good video recording performance, built-in GPS receiver and FM transmitter. On the top of that, it comes with an 8 gigabyte memory card in package so you are instantly ready to go. As with all Nokia phones the connectivity is also outstanding and thanks to the use of OLED display the 2.6-inch screen looks really awesome.
Nokia N85 pros:
+ 2.6″ 16M-color OLED display of QVGA resolution
+ 5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and AF assist light
+ Camera lens cover
+ Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3.2 UI
+ Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality
+ ARM 11 369 MHz CPU
+ 3G with HSDPA, Quad-band GSM and Wi-Fi with UPnP technology
+ FM receiver and transmitter
+ 8GB memory card included in the retail package
+ microSD card slot, microSDHC support
+ Standard 3.5 mm audio
+ Built-in accelerometer for UI auto-rotation
+ Good battery life
Nokia N85 cons:
- No office document editing out of the box
- Zooming in on a picture takes ages. Literally.
- Not the best camera performance
- Poor Navi wheel performance
- Not the best sunlight legibility
The design:
Nokia N85 measures 103 x 50 x 16 mm and weighs 128 grams which considering what is packed inside it is quite a good achievement. The cell phone is well balanced and feels very good in hand. It is made of very high quality materials and its main design flow is poor fingerprint resistance. On the front of Nokia N85 you will find mainly the 2.6-inch OLED screen. Above the screen is ambient light sensor together with video-call camera, whereas below the display you will find the comfortable keypad with Navi-wheel-enabled D-pad. On the right side of Nokia N85 you will find stereo loudspeaker, dedicated camera key, keypad lock and the volume rocker. It might seem that since the right side is so crammed with keys it will be difficult to use, yet it is quite easy and comfy. The left side of Nokia N85 houses the micro SD memory card slot with a plastic cap that prevents dust from getting into the slot. The only other thing on the left side is the lanyard eyelet. The top of the phone hosts the standard 3.5mm audio jack, power key and microUSB port, whereas the bottom features only the battery cover. At the back of Nokia N85 you will find the 5 megapixel camera lens with a cover and the dual-LED flash. The overall build quality of Nokia N85 is very good and it shows that the phone is high class.
Performance:
As always with Nokia phones there are not problems with reception or in call voice quality in Nokia N85. The phone runs on the latest Symbian so it is responsive and fast, but more on that later. Nokia N85 is a very good multimedia device: the music player supports virtually all most common file formats and comes with a few equalizer presets. Yet, if you want to add any equalizer settings you can easily do that. The music player can, of course, be minimized and play in the background and in facts its only drawback is the fact that you cannot change its skin. The video player also works very well in both portrait and landscape modes, as well as fullscreen. The audio quality in Nokia N85 has improved immensely when compared to older Nokia phones and the video on the large and vivid screen is a real pleasure. The phone supports all most common message types and editing them is as always very easy.
The 5 megapixel camera in Nokia N85 is also of decent quality, altough it is not the best performer in the 5 megapixel cameraphones group. The maximum image resolution is 2592×1994 and with the dual-LED flash, autofocus and geotagging the phone offers a lot of features. Moreover, you can manually adjust white balance, sharpness contrast, ISO sensitivity and make use of different effects. The photos takes with Nokia N85 are often too noisy and sometimes oversharpened. To make them more appealing they also tend to be slightly oversaturated, but despite all that the overall image quality is quite good and the photos are most certainly useable. The Nokia N85 can also record movies in VGA resolution @ 30fps. The video quality seems to be even better than that of the photos.
Ease of use:
Since the Nokia N85 runs on Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3.2 UI the phone works fast and allows customization. The phone comes with four pre-installed themes and built-in accelerometer which automatically rotates the user interface. The version of Symbian that you will find in Nokia N85 has also nice transition effects, a few menu view modes and active standby screen where you can place your shortcuts. The handset has an ARM 11 369 MHz CPU which is more than enough for a Symbian-running mobile phone, so all actions (except for zooming pictures) are performed instantly. The phonebook is limitless and also allows customization so you can add a ringtone, or a video to your contacts, several phone numbers, emails and notes. The built-in voice recognition system works really well with most commands.
The Nokia N85 comes with a very good organizer which includes alarm clock, calendar, notes application, unit converter and calculator. Additionally, the phone can browse Microsoft Word documents as well as Excel and PowerPoint files. On the top of that the phone easily handles zip files.
All in all, the Nokia N85 is not only a powerful multimedia and office tool but also fun to use and availible at a reasonable price.
Selected Nokia N85 features and specifications:
* Network
o Type
+ GSM Quad-band phone capable of global roaming (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
UMTS tri-band global 3G (850/1900/2100 MHz)
Other version supports UMTS 900/1900/2100 MHz
o Data
GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA 1.8 Mbit/s/HSDPA 3.6 Mbit/s
o 3G Capable
+ Yes
* Battery
o Type
+ Li – Ion, 1200 mAh
o Talk
+ 6.83 hours (410 mins) of Talk time
o Standby
+ 360 hours (15 days) of Stand-by time
* Main Display
o Resolution
+ 240 x 320 pixels
o Type
+ 16 777 216 colors, OLED
o Features
+ Light sensor
* Camera
o Resolution
+ 5 megapixels Resolution
o Video
+ VGA (640×480), 30fps
o Features
+ Auto focus, Video Stabilizer, Flash: Dual LED, Digital zoom, Geo tagging, Additional camera for video calls
* Multimedia
o Video Playback
+ MPEG4, RealVideo, WMV, H.263, H.264, Flash Video , Media Player
o Music Player
+ MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA, WAV, RA
o FM Radio
+ Stereo FM Radio with RDS, Visual Radio
* Memory
o Memory Slot
+ microSD/microSDHC
o Built-in
+ 74 MB
* Smartphone
o OS
+ S60 over Symbian; Symbian 9.3, S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2
o Processor
+ ARM 11, 369 MHz
* Input
o Predictive Text Input
+ Yes
* Connectivity
o Internet
+ WAP, S60 OSS Browser
o USB
+ microUSB
o WiFi
+ 802.11b/802.11g
o Bluetooth
+ 2.0, Stereo Bluetooth
o Connectors
+ HeadPhone Jack (3.5mm)
* Other Features
o PhoneBook
+ Capacity depends on system memory, Multiple Numbers Per Contact, Picture ID, Ring ID
o PIM
+ Alarm, Calendar, Calculator, TO-DO, Notes, Converter
o Voice
+ Dialing, Commands, Recording, Speaker Phone, Push-to-Talk
o Email
+ IMAP/POP3/SMTP
o GPS
+ A-GPS
o FCC Approved
+ Yes
Other recently reviewed mobile phones:
Nokia N96, Nokia E66, Nokia 5320 XpressMusic, Nokia 6210 Navigator, Nokia E71, , Sony Ericsson XPERIA X1, Sony Ericsson G705.