Nokia’s N series have excited most people, but they’ve been largely conspicuous by their absence

But now some of these 3G multimedia starlets are starting to appear on the distributors’ shelves – including the N80. This slider is likely to be as near a mass-market machine as the N series gets; it’s pretty beefy but not a brick, and it has enough connectivity options to appeal just about anywhere – quad-band GSM, EDGE, 3G, WiFi. It’s a good phone for web work and email because of the fast-access options. Other big pluses include the superb screen: it incorporates 90% more pixels than the QVGA displays commonly found on smartphones, and it shows. It’s a multimedia all-rounder, with a good 3mp camera, excellent music player and FM radio – with USB 2.0 to move media files speedily to and from a PC, and 40MB memory plus a miniSD memory card to store them. And it’s a good phone, too, with excellent call quality and reasonable reception. Problems? Not many. The slider mechanism is a bit notchy. And all those goodies really hammer the battery, especially web browsing. Otherwise this is a very desirable phone.• Try it – you’ll like it.

SPECIFICATION

Size
Length 95mm
Width 50mm
Depth 26mm
Weight
134g
Main display
TFT, 256K colours
352x416 pixels,
35x41mm
Camera
3mp, 2048x1536
pixels, video, flash;
secondary VGA
videocall camera
Connectivity
Bluetooth, USB,
IR, EDGE, 3G, WiFi
Battery
Standby 192h
Talk time 3h
Features
Stereo FM radio
music player