N81 8GB Review: III-Web Surfing, Connectivity and Everything Else!
Kirollos Fares | February 2, 2008
Moving on to the third part of the ongoing N81 8GB review, I’ll be showing you more of the phone’s entertainment abilities like Web Surfing, Gallery Navigation. I’ll also be showing Connectivity Options, Judging speed and Keypad of the device.
Web Surfing:
The N81 connects to the internet Via Wi-Fi, 3G, Edge and GPRS, At first it kinda bugged me that the device lacked 3.5G/HSDPA support, but after I compared the speed of 3.5G to 3G in the previous review of the N76, and the speed gap turned out to be few seconds, it didn’t seem to be a letdown of the device at all.
I really enjoyed web surfing with the N81, it completely replaced my N95, and I used it daily to browse the web, its keypad is perfect, the screen is very bright, though not big enough, and with my neighbor’s unsecured Wi-Fi network, Web surfing couldn’t be better, or could it??!
I always seem to complain about S60 Browser, I like how it processes pages, and it’s functionalities, but it’s very slow, in fact, I call it IE Mobile, Takes lots of time to process one page, though other browsers like iPhone’s Safari takes no time in loading pages.
I Really think S60 Developers should work on the browser, even if they don’t release it for the current S60 V3 FP1 devices, and they should work on the S60 browser for another good reason, to preserve their share in the mobile browsing market as it seems that Firefox is now heading towards a mobile version of it’s famous killer Browser, and current reports say that the browser will have tabbed browsing as well as the full web experience, so it might be a hit and it might slash Nokia’s Mobile share.
Connectivity:
I’m really satisfied with the connectivity options of the N81, it doesn’t seem very extravagant.
They didn’t include the useless Infrared port, they’ve included Bluetooth which is highly usable for sharing data, Wi-Fi with Media Sharing, Internet telephony which I am a big fan of.
The USB port was changed to MicroUSB, and sincerely I don’t see a good reason for that, it doesn’t make any difference when it comes to the speed of copying data, and MiniUSB seems more reasonable as it’s kinda universal, I only carry one cable for the Camera/MP3 Player/Nokia N95.
But still it’s not a big problem for me, I’m wining because I’m too lazy to carry a 15gm cable 
The Keypad:
The N81’s keypad is one of the best Nokia keypads I ever saw, it is very convenient, the keys are flat and not slightly elevated as the N95, and each key is BIGG!! , The chances of writing something wrong has been slashed to half thanks to this innovative relieving keypad.
One thing I don’t like about the keypad is that they squeezed 16 keys in a small place in the front of the device! , but other
than that the keypad is very easy to use.
Speed:
The device is pretty fast!!!
It got plenty of RAM for everything, Multitasking, Playing RAM Hungry games, using it as a mobile server!, anything!
During My trial, the device didn’t lose it’s mind except once only when I synced my music, other than that, the device didn’t let me down when it comes to speed.
Gallery Navigation:
Gallery Navigation couldn’t be more faster with the RAM boost, It takes no time to load photos,.
The Naviwheel is usable during Gallery “Images & Videos” Navigation and The Gaming keys are usable for Zooming in/out making Navigating the library a fun thing to do.
The only thing that bugs me is the lack of the option of Rotating screen during Gallery Navigation, it is always set to landscape mode, though the N76 had the option to rotate the screen during Gallery Navigation.
Is it a good way of sharing your memories?! Yupp, with no doubt, it is very easy to navigate.
That’s it for now folks, Stay tuned for the Conclusion of the N81 8GB Review and a comparison between N76 & N81.
