First impression of the N81 gaming mobile
November 01, 2007

Games, music and entertainment is what names the new N81 8GB different. The memory capacity adds to the music mobile profile. The gaming experience and the media menu take care of the rest.

Gaming is unusually good on the N81, with the special buttons to the right of the screen.
Gaming, music and entertainment are packed into the N81 8GB. The camera is simple with two megapixels.

The phone is actually a rare combination of simplicity and complexity. It has many features. For instance 13 different buttons occupy space on the front side of the phone, and that does not include the keypad that is only visible when extracted. The buttons are used for menu selections, quick access buttons for the music player and some buttons mainly for gaming. Many buttons, but still it does not result in a cluttered feel. The gaming buttons are only lit when they are needed, and the same goes for the music player buttons. It is handled surprisingly smooth.

N81 is the first phone supporting Nokia's new N-gage mobile phone gaming investment. And even if the gaming store has not yet opened, three games are included, so we have been able to try it out already today. The fact is that the N81 and the other games do feel considerably better than the Java games accessible today. The two major advantages is the graphics and the gaming buttons, both contributing to the entertainment value.

The difference to regular Java games is actually quite big and I notice that the games, especially the car game included, really do take advantage of the differences. After having downloaded a couple of ordinary Java games, it is obvious that the included games do have a much better shot at killing some time at the bus stand or metro station.

With 8 gigabyte memory for music, the chances are even better of spending some more time. In addition to the memory capacity, the player displays record sleeves if they are available, and is easily controlled using the buttons. There is an equalizer with a couple of predefined settings as well as the possibility to save personal settings. You can also plug in your favourite earphones to the N81, if you feel like it.

As a media mobile, it is perhaps the poorly equipped 2-megapixel camera and the format that brings down the impression a bit. The images, however, can easily be uploaded to the internet by using a new function transferring images to Flickr, which is much leaner solution than earlier available attempts.

Apart from all said above, the N81 is basically a smartphone. It uses the Symbian operating system with Series 60, which means that there are quite a few programs to download and use.

By: Erik Mörner, Jonas Kämpe