Nokia N82 Cell Phone Review - Making/Receiving Calls
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Alfredo Padilla Published on February 05, 2008 Comment on this |
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Dialing Speed (6.90)
Despite the rather unorthodox keypad on the Nokia N82 we were able to dial a number in a fairly speed 2.9 seconds. This was the average time after we tested five standard phone numbers. As you can see below only the BlackBerry Pearl 8130 performed better in this test. We found that the learning curve for the keypad was less than we would have expected, we were able to achieve this time after only a few repetitions. The buttons are a little weird, however, and we found that we had trouble trying to dial by feel alone compared to more comfortable keypads like on the Razr2 V8, whose worst performance on this test is due to the fact that it's a flip phone so you have to open it up.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Nokia N82 | 2.9 | 6.90 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 3.04 | 6.58 |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 2.71 | 7.38 |
| Palm Centro | 3.62 | 5.52 |
| Razr2 V8 | 3.45 | 5.80 |
| Apple iPhone | 3.96 | 5.05 |
Talk and End Buttons (3.0)
Like the Nokia N81 the send and end buttons on the N82 are trapezoidal affairs that sit on the right and left edge of the phone flanking the other control keys. Although they are large, they are not well differentiated from surrounding buttons and we found tactile feedback when pressed to be very slight. We also found that we had to reach a little to get to them when using the keypad, which is an annoyance when dialing phone numbers. Nokia could have done better on the N81 and the same holds true for the N82.
Call Management (8.0)
The call history on the Nokia N82 is typical Series 60 fare. You can view your calls by dialed, missed or received, but there's no option to view all of your calls in one place if you access the call history from the home screen using the send button. There's also a limited amount of data available for each call in this view. You see the time and date of each, but there's no timer for individual calls, or all calls for that matter. You can easily add numbers from your call history to either an existing contact or a new one. To see more detailed call information you'll have to jump into the application menu and open the log, which provides more advanced features like call timers and details about each call.
During a call the right soft key is assigned to the loud speaker function. Under the left soft key you will find all the other options, including hold, mute and switch to video call (where supported). We did find it a bit annoying that the first option in this menu was loudspeaker, which seems redundant. As a smart phone that supports multi-tasking the Nokia N82 will also allow you to access just about any other phone function you need while on a call. You can make a new call and then conference them by simply dialing the new number and hitting the call key. What you can't do is record a phone call.
Startup to Call (4.90)
We were quite impressed by how quickly the Nokia N82 started up and allowed us to make a call, only 20.4 seconds on average. This is significantly faster than the Nokia N81 and even faster than a regular phone like the Razr2 V8, which typically take less time to start up then smart phones like the N82. We believe what we're seeing here is the effect of Nokia's new on-demand paging technology, which only loads up the necessary parts of applications into memory, making the device faster overall. If this is the case you should start seeing performance like this from all Nokia smart phones as they roll updates out to their current lineup. We believe that the N95 (in all its incarnations) has already seen such an update. Having a smart phone that starts up as quickly as a regular phone is very impressive, previously we've only seen this from BlackBerry devices, while Windows Mobile devices continue to lag behind with startup times that often approach or exceed one minute.
| Cell Phone | Time (sec) | Score |
| Nokia N82 | 20.4 | 4.90 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 33.8 | 2.96 |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 6.21 | 16.10 |
| Palm Centro | 42.66 | 2.34 |
| Razr2 V8 | 27.72 | 3.61 |
| Apple iPhone | 26.12 | 3.83 |
Ring Volume (9.37)
We measured the Nokia N82's ring volume at 93.7 decibels. This was with the volume turned up to maximum using a sound pressure meter from a couple of inches away to take the measurement. 93.7 decibels is pretty loud, but as you can see below we've seen significantly louder from other handsets. Of course we've also seen significantly worse, as you can see from the iPhone's score.
| Cell Phone | Volume (decibels) | Score |
| Nokia N82 | 93.7 | 9.37 |
| Nokia N81 8GB | 96.1 | 9.61 |
| BlackBerry Pearl 8130 | 97.9 | 9.79 |
| Palm Centro | 109.4 | 10.94 |
| Razr2 V8 | 103.4 | 10.34 |
| Apple iPhone | 84.9 | 8.49 |
Ringtone Customizability (8.0)
Just like other Series 60 devices we've reviewed the Nokia N82 provides users with great flexibility in terms of ringtones. Basically any music and many video files that are loaded anywhere on the device are available to be used. This is significantly better than most phones that lock you into ringtones you buy from your carrier and is even better than Windows Mobile devices where you have to place the ringtones in a specific folder. You can also assign any of your voice notes as a ring tone, but there is no way to edit a music or sound file on the device.
Non Audio Alerts (4.0)
The vibrate alert on the Nokia N82 is one of the weakest we've seen. We could barely feel it when the phone sat in our hand, much less in a pants or jacket pocket. If you're expecting an important call you should not depend on the vibrate alert. On screen alerts are typical Series 60, with the screen lighting up and showing you the incoming number in a small banner at the bottom of the screen. If you happen to be glancing at your screen you'll notice it, although we would have preferred to see the whole screen used for the alert rather than a small portion of it.
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