Nokia's S60 smartphones, on average, are pretty good. By no means perfect, but pretty good. You really would have thought that after so many years and so many models that Nokia's designers would have enough experience that they didn't make major mistakes, and yet over and over again I see the Nseries brand coming up with designs that contain basic problems that any sane phone user would be able to point out in seconds,

Now look, Nokia, you know I love some of your smartphones. The 6630, the N70, the N93, the N95, the E90, the 6120 Classic and the E51 are all great devices and (for their time) well thought out. But which portion of your staff came up with designs like the N93i, the N76, the N81 and now the N82? Each, in its own way, has at least one (and often several) major flaws.

My critisms of the N93i and N76 are well known, while the N81's flaws are the horribly weak camera and the complete inability to be used outdoors, since the display blacks out. So what of the N82? Is there any evidence that lessons learned from earlier models have been learned and that the design teams do talk to each other? Well, possibly. But, while the camera's superb (of course, this being Xenon flash and 5 megapixels), and while the display's crisp and visible in bright light, a different malaise has hit the N82. Style.

And it's an odd sort of style too. The ultra-reflective mirror front is certainly eye catching, but that's the good bit about the front of the N82. The rest is all a little bit of a letdown. In my opinion, at least - but then as an owner or triallist of just about every other smartphone from every other manufacturer for the last umpteen years, I hope I know what I'm talking about.

Now don't get me wrong, what's under the Nokia N82's hood is very powerful and equivalent to the functionality in the N95 - from GPS to Wi-Fi to media codecs to VGA video recording, the works - but in this case the front of the device, the bit that you and I use in day to day life, really puts me off. 

• The N82's QVGA display is 2.4" diagonal (c.f. 2.6" on the N95 and 2.8" on the N95 8GB) - on a media-heavy device like the N82, a bigger screen is just about essential and the N82 team should have squeezed at least a 2.6" unit in.

• The d-pad, at least on my review unit, is much looser and spongier than that on the N95, with backlight leaking through on each side of the pad whenever it's manipulated. Left/right keypresses aren't as easy as they should be, with insufficient height between the d-pad sides and the surrounding control surface.

• Speaking of which, the left/right function key/menu key/C block are all represented within surfaces rather than keys, with illuminated icons to show where to press down. Although it's easy enough to learn where to press without looking, its unsatisfactory to not have any 'feel' to each 'key' and the arrangement ends up seeming somewhat cheap.

• Having a protruding 'multimedia key' doesn't help matters either, as it's sharp to the touch and unfriendly. And it brings up the S60 multimedia carousel in its 'Gallery' pane, quite inexplicable since there's already a dedicated Gallery button on the side of the N82.

• Finally, the keypad itself, controversially, eschews the usual 'key with decals' approach (e.g. on every other Nseries phone) for retro-calculator-style pin keys (as used in cheap toys) with their labels above. Although this key style doesn't harm text input or dialling accuracy, the keypad is uncomfortable to use for long periods and, as with the main function key block, gives a feel that this is a much lower cost device than is the case.

As you'll have gathered, the N82's styling isn't for me, which is a shame as I was really looking forward to experiencing the N95's functions in candy bar (read super reliable and robust) form. Your mileage may, as they say, vary...

Interestingly, as previously reported, the N82 boxed package promised '3 months navigation and local maps on a 2GB memory card'. Both of which it failed to deliver. Now, this is probably a result of me getting the trial device through PR channels rather than via retail, but on the N82 I had, only Dutch maps were installed and the UK ones had to be dragged kicking and screaming over the air. Worse, asking for voice navigation results in the standard purchase options, with no sign of a special license code anywhere on or in the box. Again, I'm presuming that a voucher of some kind would be included in a real retail box. So, a nice idea and let's hope it works out in the UK market for which this packaging was intended.

You may be wondering why All About Symbian hasn't done a formal review on the N82 yet. The answer is two fold: 1) our original review device went astray in the post and took the best part of a month to arrive(!) and 2) we were waiting for a boxed, production version rather than a Far East version or prototype. AAS now has a couple of N82s and you can expect a formal and full review in the very near future.

My verdict though? Like the ill-fated N76, the N82 suffers far too much from the designer's attempts to look 'different' and 'cool'. Nokia, we want devices which work efficiently and help us live the smartphone lifestyle. If we wanted ultra-cool, we'd all be buying iPhones, after all.

Give me an N82 in the E51's casing and I'd be very, very happy. With Nokia's reorganisation, maybe this is what we'll get? Here's hoping!

Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 22 Dec 2007