Nokia N81 review

Nokia's N-Gage was a brave attempt to combine a mobile phone with a portable gaming device.

Sadly, it wasn't much good at either function, due to its odd design and limited graphics power. Now the N-Gage name lives on as a gaming portal similar to Microsoft's Xbox LIVE, and the N81 is built around the service.

It's a fairly thick handset, but the slide-out keypad keeps it as compact as possible. The screen has a large 2.4in diagonal, while short cut buttons around the directional keypad control music playback even when you're not in the music program. The numeric keys are large, but are made of creaky plastic and feel unpleasant. The whole handset is made of the same plastic, which makes it feel cheap compared with other recent Nokias such as the N95.

Like all current Nokia smartphones, the N81 runs the 3rd Edition of the Symbian Series 60 operating system. The interface operates smoothly even with several applications open, and any running programs are marked in the menu. Plenty of useful applications are installed, including a POP3 and IMAP email client and a powerful calendar that can synchronise your contacts and calendar with Outlook or Outlook Express. The built-in web browser can display most full-size web pages and is the best browser available this side of the iPhone. It has integrated WiFi and 3G, and pages load quickly over both. The wireless networking wizard also makes it easy to search for and connect to wireless hotspots. Unlike many smartphones, the N81 can't view Microsoft Word or Excel documents, so you'll have to buy a third-party application; see Mobile Expert on page 146 for details on the packages available. There's also no stopwatch or countdown timer, which are annoying omissions.

The N-Gage gaming portal is well integrated into the handset. You choose a nickname to connect to the service, which lets you download games, upload your scores or join other gamers for a match. Unfortunately, the handset comes with only game demos rather than full titles; there are limited versions of FIFA 2008, Brain Challenge and the Asphalt 3 racing game. Downloading and installing new games is easy, and much simpler than the traditional way of sending text messages to a premium number.

The N81 is also pitched as an MP3 player, and has an excellent integrated music player that lets you sort your tracks by artist, album or genre. You can copy music straight to the internal storage in Windows, synchronise the N81 with Windows Media Player or use Nokia's Music Manager to encode audio straight from CD. The supplied headphones sound reasonable, and you can plug your own into the supplied adaptor, which doubles as a remote control. Nokia's N81 is a fast, powerful smartphone with an easy-to-use gaming portal and music program and a responsive operating system. If you can put up with the cheap-feeling keypad, it's a good buy.