"Normally, reviews of hardware on All About Symbian are very matter of fact, and we make a point of trying out each corner of the performance envelope on a new device, hoping that we can answer all your questions and make sure you are well informed so you can decide yourself if the device is for you.

And many of you are waiting on our view of the latest Nseries device, the Nokia N85. We've already taken a detailed look at the Nokia N85 in a recent hands-on preview, albeit this was with pre-release hardware and firmware, and that answers a lot of the initial technical questions, but a more in-depth discussion is warranted.

It is with that in mind that a production hardware N85 arrived on my doorstep. The Nokia N85 occupies an interesting space in the Nseries line-up, with almost identical specs to the new N96 flagship, but positioning itself just behind its multimedia partner. I'm moving up to this device from a Nokia N95 8GB, and over the next wek or so I'll be looking at different areas of the device, with a liitle bit more of a personal touch than normal. But before that, I want to talk about moving my data and applications over to the new device, because that moving process has not been without problems. We normally would skip over this in reviews to a certain extent, but allow me just to bring up the fun and games that I've been through.

It's impossible (for security and DRM reasons) to simply move all your applications over from one device to another, so I have to dive into my personally maintained archive of SISx and JAR installation files to put back on the applications that I use a lot. Any progress in applications like Car Jack Streets or Astraware Soltiaire has to be left behind (unless you are a really serious hacking power user), which in some cases can mean you might not return to the application, or be hesitant to move over.

The situation gets even more intriguing when you consider the N-Gage Client. To move over the games you've already bought, you need to speak to Nokia Customer Services to reset your activation codes (this is an issue our sister site All About N-Gage is covering in more depth here). As the N85 is a loan device, I've not actually done this step yet, so the N95 will continue to be the review unit for N-Gage titles.

Some applications are easier to move over. The two Google applications I use (Google Mail and Google Maps) can be reinstalled via the web browser (http://m.google.com/ and follow the links). With the data for these applications in 'the cloud' of data on the internet, there's no need to move over anything more than my login details.

Mobipocket is another application that I use frequently. This ebook reader also has an online downloader (http://m.mobipocket.com/) where you can choose your smartphone and download the correct version. Now of course, it's time to move my library of Ebooks. Did you know you can connect two S60 phones through Nokia's PC Suite at the same time? Well you can, so it was a simple matter to make one drag and drop copy of around 150 ebooks from the old N95 to the new N85.

Then there's Sports Tracker. There's currently no official version for the N85 of this (admittedly beta) product. A bit of knowledge (and guesswork) and I go for the latest S60 v3.2 version for the Nokia N96, which loads up nicely. With a huge number of phones across Nokia's range, it is possible that some of the newer devices are missed out of the smaller projects, but given there are one or two (beta related?) issues using Sports Tracker on the N85, I suspect I'll still be popping the N95 in my pocket on the daily cycle until an update arrives.

I'm not going to cut the main Ovi site any slack though. And I'm specifically looking at you, Ovi Sync (of Contacts, Calendar, Notes and Tasks). Previously when transferring PIM information I've always done this using PC Suite, syncing the old device into Outlook and back out again to the new device. I thought that time I would use Ovi, and the handy 'restore information [to device]' option. Which hit me with another stumbling block and an opportunity to pretend to be another device.

When adding a new device to the service, you are presented a list of compatible devices to choose from. Guess what isn't there? Bingo! There's no N85. Now I know that I can get away with using another model, but is that common knowledge? For a flagship product (by that I mean Ovi) to not be up to date with released models doesn't seem right. But that hoop vaulted, and all my data is now easily residing on the N85.

But what's concerning me (and by concern I mean sitting down and re-evaluating) is the lack of Lifeblog. I'm a big user of Lifeblog, alas Nokia has decided that Lifeblog is no more, and everyone will use Nokia Photos from this moment on. This is actually a little bit distressing to me, made doubly so by Nokia's complete deletion of Lifeblog from their web site. Heading to the old Lifeblog URL and you get shunted straight to Nokia Photos, with little explanation. This is enough to scare me and wonder what's going on. A quick search around the net about Nokia Photos reveals some real horror stories, and very little news to comfort me.

The problem is two-fold - the first is that there's no option for me to stay with Lifeblog on the handset, so I have to move up to Nokia Photos to continue the sync and backup solution that I've been using for a number of years. And secondly, having no clear information on Nokia's site just makes the jump a little bit more emotional - I've got a lot of memories in these photos, texts and videos. Not everyone has a Rafe to reassure them.

Transferring over to another handset is something that admimttedly happens only the once to the regular user, but I don't think that the applications that I was moving over are that far removed from the normal user's (a few games, PIM data and one or two serious applications) and it's not at all clear what you need to do. It's a far cry from other manufacturers that can do a full device restore, and on a second, brand new device at that, all with one click.

And now that's all out the way and I'm comfortable with the application set on the N85, it's time to take a serious look at the handset and start working on a full review, which should be along shortly."

-- Ewan Spence, Nov 2008