Review: Nokia N86 8MP Review - Part 3 - Other features and Wrap-up
See also:
Nokia N86 8MP Review - Part 1 - Overview - and - Nokia N86 8MP Review - Part 2 - The Camera/Camcorder
Other features and wrap-up
(note that some small portions of this text are necessarily duplicated from part 1 where necessary)
See the above two links for the story so far. We've got some exemplary hardware, including one of the best cameras ever fitted to a mobile phone. But is all this enough to make the Nokia N86 a sales success? Maybe. But it'll be a niche, we suspect.
The N86 runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 on Symbian OS 9.3, very mature, as we said in the first part of this review. The UI feels a little unexciting compared to S60 5th Edition or other touch UIs, but for others this familiarity will be welcome and it's still ideally suited to one-handed use. Overall performance is excellent and almost no operation is accompanied by a wait while something loads. If a user is moving up from S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 (e.g. the N95) they'll notice a definite performance boost, both in overall speed and battery life. The addition of the central softkey, easier multitasking and other usability tweaks all make life easier in day to day usage; while technologies such as firmware-over-the-air updates and improved support for multimedia and Internet standards add significant functionality.
The standard S60 software applications, such as Contacts, Calendar, Messaging and Notes are all present, plus the multifarious utilities and media applications such as Search, Share online, Zip manager, Internet Radio and Podcasting. As usual for an Nseries, 'Quickoffice' is here but in viewing form only. Web is unchanged from previous FP2 smartphones but does benefit here from more silent operation for S60's 'Access points', since the phone just goes ahead and connects silently (about time!).
As with other QVGA-screened S60 phones, mobile web sites work a treat, desk-aimed sites require a lot of scrolling
Ovi Maps 3.0 (previously Nokia Maps) is installed out of the box (the first phone thus equipped) and includes a 'sync to the web' feature that's a particular highlight, you can plan a route on the Web on your desktop and then sync it down to the phone. Nokia include a six month drive license for the whole of Europe, plus a lifetime pedestrian navigation license (worldwide) - if you were planning on subscribing anyway then this adds to up to a significant saving. Once the drive license has expired, you'll have to pay to renew it if needed, of course, in the usual way.
Of particular note is the digital compass, mimicking the one in the N97. It's mainly used to enhance the map display when you're zoomed on your current position and not currently driving or walking a route, wherein the map swings round so that the display matches the way the phone is pointing. Should be handy when starting out in unfamiliar towns.
With the camera being such a big part of the Nokia N86's raison d'être, it should follow that handling photos and videos is top notch and also placed uppermost in the menus. Although the functionality is all here, the way it's been implemented is a kludge at best and a nightmare at worst. The Nseries (FP2) Photos application has been seen for a year or two and presents a nice carousel view of thumbnails - but, utterly bizarrely, videos continue to be included as well. Thankfully it's fairly obvious which items are photos and which are videos, but the latter shouldn't really be showing up here at all!
We then come to Video centre, somewhat hidden in the 'Applications' folder, which then lists the same videos again - in each case, they're played by the continually revamped RealPlayer. And right next door is the old 'Gallery' application which thankfully lists 'Images' and 'Videos' separately but then goes on to hotlink across to Photos and Video centre. So, again, you click on 'Images' and get 'Photos', which shows photos and videos.
A further complication is introduced by the BBC's iPlayer for the N86, which (ostensibly) works superbly well here and which allows the download of programmes 'to Gallery' but then the downloads are seemingly lost forever. They don't currently (as at v10 firmware) show up in any of these media applications and you have to know how to find the right folder in File manager and play them that way. In short, media handling in the Nseries version of S60 3.2 is a confusing mess and can't honestly be recommended.
In terms of the viewing experience, photos zoom in and out fairly smoothly (via the external up/down keys), at least as smoothly as you'd expect for a first release firmware. There's plenty of RAM to facilitate this, too, with roughly 75MB free after booting. Editing facilities are standard Nseries and Share online is nicely integrated, although there's the usual frustration of only Share on Ovi and Flickr offered for photo upload - I can't believe that after three years of Share online, noone's bothered to add extra services.
Video playback is adequate, provided you take care to stay away from the very latest MP4 and WMV codecs (all the trailers I grabbed from the Internet failed). As with all of Nokia's smartphones in the last two years, there's no graphics acceleration, and this slows playback of FLV files, either standalone, inside Web or inside the Google YouTube client. Frame rate in the BBC's iPlayer, rather crucially is fine, so a qualified thumbs up in this department.
The built-in kickstand offers the N86 8MP up at a good angle for watching and the OLED screen is a delight, as you'd expect. The only disappointments are the stereo speakers, which, despite using the same physical parts (apparently) as the Nokia N82, are somewhat more cramped for internal 'cabinet' space and the result is rather weedy and tinny.
Also part of the Nseries package, the N86 has UPnP support (via the Home network application), although I can't believe this is widely used - it's perhaps an example of technology included for its own sake - UPnP just hasn't taken off in the mass-market of consumer electronics.
A nice touch is the updated welcome application that helps you set up your phone. As before, it links into the Settings wizard (set up operator settings and email) and Switch (copy contacts and other content from another phone) applications, but it now also includes a few extra stages. These include the ability to set the phone's name (for Bluetooth), customise ringtones, and set wallpaper and themes. Not only does it allow an extra degree of customisation from the outset, it also introduces users to fact they can customise their phone.
N-Gage gaming is, of course, pre-installed and one nice touch is that you get a voucher for a free game, any game, in the box, getting you off to a flying start. Admittedly there are some lemons in the N-Gage catalogue, but there are some decent titles too and getting one of them for free just adds more value to the N86. The central two keys, on the top multimedia slide, act as 'a' and 'b' buttons in games when the phone is held in landscape mode, and around 15 trial N-Gage games are installed by default (into the 8GB of 'mass memory').
Nokia Music Store is also here. This isn't a Comes with Music device, but it's still handy to be able to grab odd tunes on an ad-hoc basis while out and about. The store hasn't been a huge success in the grand scheme of things, largely down to catalogue limitations and DRM frustrations (in my opinion), but things should pick up as more CwM phones appear and with the store apparently planning on going DRM-free for non-CwM devices by the end of 2009.
Around 10 tracks are pre-installed (varies by market), which is a nice touch as it lets you play around with the Music player before syncing your own music or purchasing from the Music store. The integrated FM transmitter gives an alternative (and more universal) option for playback, in addition to Bluetooth A2DP. With Podcasting, FM radio and Internet radio applications, the audio software suite remains comprehensive and a definite highlight. There's nothing revolutionary going on, but as soon as you switch on the device for the first time it is ready to go.
The most recently launched Ovi service, Ovi Store, is not pre-installed in the current firmware, but is likely to be added very soon in an Over The Air update and also via Download! (or direct from the store.ovi.mobi site).
The review N86 came with v10 firmware, but v11 is apparently just days away and, as with all modern S60 phones, an update can be done without messing with any settings or data and without having to reinstall any application. Nokia seem to have this side of things nailed these days, which is just as well considering the state of each device's launch firmware - on the N86 v10 I was treated to several slowdowns, rogue/runaway OS threads and spontaneous OS restarts. To be fair, I was pushing the phone quite hard and after all this time we rather expect these endearing little oddities in the first release for each phone. (That way, when Nokia fix things we get a nice warm glow and feeling that everything's going to be alright after all....!)
Nokia N86 8MP Pros and Cons
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Conclusion
Nokia's smartphone history is littered both with mass market success stories and geeky niche (more limited) success stories. And with some models that have failed, relatively speaking. The N95 and 5800 are good examples of the first category, while the N76, N96 and (arguably) even the N85 fall into the last category. My guess is that the N86 8MP will fall squarely into the 'geeky, niche' category and will do comparatively well within it.
As something of a camera phone enthusiast, I've tried just about every smartphone with a camera in the world at some point or other and have clocked up over 5000 captured photos and over 1,300 non-trivial captured videos, so hopefully my opinion counts for something. If I were looking for a smartphone with the best camera on the market, I'd head straight for the Nokia N86 8MP. No, it doesn't have Xenon flash, but the sensitivity of the sensor and wide angle, wider aperture optics mean that for many situations it can come very close. And, in other conditions, it has the potential to blow most of the competition away. Yes, the N82 had Xenon on its side, but the N86 wins in most other areas, with far better usability, screen and software.
I've mentioned elsewhere that the N86 is something of a spiritual successor to the N95 'classic', and this is still very apt. But on the imaging front it also owes a silent debt to the N82 and, before that, the N93, both of which had photography and videography right at the centre of their mission statements.
Quoting Rafe, from part 1 of this review:
"The big issue for the Nokia N86 is that it faces the prospect of launching in the shadows of this summer's big touch screen heros - the Apple iPhone 3GS, Nokia N97, HTC Magic, Samsing i8910 HD, and HTC Touch Diamond 2. However, while the hype may be elsewhere, the fact remains that the N86 is a very impressive, even desirable device. As the latest evolution in Nokia's dual slider form factor (and as a true multimedia powerhouse) it has something of a 'classic' feel, but it also benefits greatly from the maturity of a device with ancestry.
At one level, it all comes down to whether you want a touch device or not... However, that's not an easy question to answer. It may be tempting to go with the new technology just for the sake of it, but you may then find yourself wishing you had stayed with non touch devices. If you're looking for a consumer-focussed, non-touchscreen smartphone, then I think the N86 is a very strong contender and is, arguably, the best device that money can buy."
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 5th July 2009 (portions by Rafe Blandford)
Reviewed by Steve Litchfield at