Important

The first thing you need to have read is probably my initial N82 'style over function' editorial, written after unboxing the original (silver) N82 and using it for a couple of days only. It's fair to say that I was somewhat underwhelmed.

Then there's Rafe's comprehensive Nokia N82 reviews: 'the physical, the camera' and 'GPS, applications and performance'. Rafe had had quite a bit longer with the N82 and was much more positive in all areas.

As has been widely generalised, the Nokia N82 is effectively an N95 in a candy-bar form factor, with Xenon flash, four times the free RAM and auto-rotating display. All the basics are otherwise the same - the 5 megapixel camera, the GPS, the VGA video recording, the software package, TV out. I'd known all that, but the keypad styling, function buttons and smaller 2.4" screen were enough to put me off, at least initially.

Now, it's worth mentioning at this point that I'm a fairly active smartphone user, in the physical sense. My device of the moment gets handled, manhandled and mishandled more times a day than I can count. And there's the extra danger of what happens when my daughter gets her hands on it to play games, fiddle with settings that I don't want fiddled with, and generally put dirty fingerprints all over it.

My N95 8GB had stood up remarkably well to daily use, including several drops onto the pavement, and my worries over its slider mechanism had been unfounded. However, the same could not be said for the clear glass over the camera aperture - despite my best efforts to protect it, I could see a lot of tiny micro-scratches, enough to affect the quality of the still photos and videos that I tend to shoot. The scratches got me wondering, not for the first time, about the benefits of the original N95 design over and above its successor, with a proper camera lens protector being one of them, of course.

But back to the N82, which has the aforementioned camera glass protector, plus:

• a better GPS receiver (at the top of the device rather than hidden away at the bottom of the slide [on the N95 range], where your hand blocks half the signal)
  
• built-in location tagging of photos (at least in the latest firmware)
  
• automatic screen rotation (with no need for sourcing or signing third party utilities)
  
• the Xenon flash (which makes a lot of difference when shooting stills in dim light conditions)
  
• it's nigh on indestructible (see below)
  

A few weeks before the arrival of the black model shown, I borrowed another of WOM World's N82s - the one that arrived had been through the review mill over the last four months, travelling the globe (the previous reviewer was in South Africa) and had clearly been dropped, scraped, bashed, stabbed and generally used to within an inch of its life (ok, I was kidding about the 'stabbed' bit). And yet it was still working as well as the day it was produced. Impressive.

Compared to clamshells and sliders, candy bars are notoriously robust, of course. No wobbles to develop and no hinges or ribbons to break. After well over three months of abuse, this N82's biggest defect is that the titanium effect top surface wasn't quite as perectly bonded to the body of the phone as when it was made. A minor point though. Some dust had made its way into the camera cavity, probably where a previous reviewer had forgotten to close the shutter, but a few sharp blows (of breath) and a tissue later and the lens was clear again.

The list of 'pros' above should have made pretty convincing reading, it certainly won me over enough to transfer over all my data and install my usual application set. But what about the design defects that I'd picked out initially? Are they as much of an issue in real life as I first thought they would be, and how does the release of the black N82 affect them?

• The screen's undeniably dimmer and smaller on the N82 than that on either N95. Harumph. On the plus side, less lumens shining out means longer battery life, though, Nokia, it would have been nice to have had the choice.
  

  
  In the photo shown above, in direct sunlight, you can see that the screen remains very visible, despite what some reviewers have said. The trick in sunlight, with any smartphone like the N82 or N95 or E61, is to angle the screen into the sun, effectively abandoning the backlight and using sunlight to reflect directly off the pixels.

  
  
• The function key block is something you gradually get used to. The fact that the N82 has particular clean 'lines' here and looks a million dollars perhaps compensates for some loss in usability.
   
  
• The d-pad's generally not quite as good as that on the N95 either, with left and right on the titanium version needing a reasonable amount of fingernail in order to avoid pressing on the neighbouring key surfaces instead. The black version here (and possibly newer titanium models?) has a slightly raised d-pad rim, making left/right operations more positive, thankfully.
  

  

  
  
• The protruding multimedia key is avoidable, i.e. I don't hit it by mistake very often. I still think it's pointless though. Maybe I'm just old school S60 and there are legions of new users for whom the multimedia key is the most used feature?
   
• The slim keypad keys are useable, just as Rafe found. They're not as pleasant to use as those on the E51 or N93, for example, but they're more friendly than I thought they'd be. You certainly can't complain about grip, since the keys dig into the fingers and texting even without looking is surprisingly easy.
   
• Although visibility is still irritating in some light conditions, the white on silver key legends on the titanium variant aren't a huge problem once you get used to the key placements, as evidenced by me still being able to use the keypad with the black Silicone case on in my recent N82 case test - with no legend visibility whatsoever. However, the arrival of the black N82 solves the legend problem completely, of course, with all labels and markings supremely visible in all light conditions.
  

  
  Again in direct bright sunlight - and all legends are 100.00% legible, of course. This is the main practical advantage of the black colour scheme

  
  

The arrival of the black variant seems to have been causing a stir around the online world (e.g. Stefan's comments). Although there are still some concerns over the design/screen/usability issues, back in day to day life, an awful lot of people (even N95 fans) will opt for the N82's one-piece, robust design, the more protected camera, the better flash, the better GPS and the slightly more advanced software package.

Ownership of smartphones continues to be something of a compromise, of course. Will Nokia, or Sony Ericsson, or Motorola, or HTC, or Apple ever 'nail it'? Somehow I doubt it.

Steve Litchfield, AllAboutSymbian, 6 May 2008