I've been evaluating the Nokia N-series phones the last few weeks - N73, N93 and N80i.

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Disclaimer - With a sensitive eye to the recent brouhaha over Acer and Microsoft in providing laptops preloaded with Vista (why doesn everyone overlook Acer's role) to bloggers, I'm going to explain how I'm working with the Nokia Blogger Relations program. Yes, Nokia provided the phones. I was asked beforehand if I'd like to participate. The phones didn't arrive unexpected. It was never implied that they were a gift. The package contains return information for when the evaluation is completed. I'll keep them as long as that's an option, but when they say they want them back, the phones will be returned, or dealt with however Nokia deems appropriate.

Nokia is not providing telephone services. To evaluate these phones, out of my own pocket I have purchased:

• 2 T-Mobile SIMS with 1000 minutes of prepaid calling - Cost $300
• 1 Cingular SIM with contract for monthly calling plan and full data access. Cost roughly $75/month for two years ($1800). I could terminate early for some penalty I'm sure.
  

Yes, while Nokia has provided phones, I'm paying that much out of pocket to perform a reasonable evaluation. I'm a Verizon customer historically, and their network isn't GSM and doesn't support the N-series phones. I am personally, financially invested in the evaluation. It wasn't like I could just pop the SIM out of my existing phone and test with services I alread had in place.

I make no effort to disguise any of this. On to the phones.

On the flip side of that equation, the Nokia Blogger Relations program essentially provided phones with the implication that it would be nice if you'd write your honest opinions. We hoe you like it, but we'd love honest feedback. Because I am personally, financially invested in this evaluation, I will continue to post notes about findings, photos, comparisons of capabilities, photo comparisons, and anything else I learn along the way. We're going to collectively get my money's worth out of this opportunity.

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The N73



Pro
Camera, with 3.2 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens (2.8/5.6) is the best I've seen in any mobile handset. It's crisp in performance and use and produces crisp, excellent pictures in a variety of lighting conditions. While I've shot a few videos with it, I've yet to do any video comparision directly. That will follow. [Sample photos]

The camera controls on this device are placed intuitively and very easy to use. Hold it like a pocket digital camera and you'll easily find where all the controls are an how they work. The sliding lens cover adds to the overal impression of solid quality.

Built-in Flickr and Nokia Lifeblog make sharing pictures and other information a breeze.

It looks nice. This phone is eye candy and just plain looks classy. It's trim, shiny and an eye-catcher. People ask about it.

Con
For me, the dialpad feels a bit smallish. It was awkward adjusting, but've adapted. The raised center button in the five-way navigation makes it easy to accidentally manipulate. It wasn't obvious at first how to lock the keypad. I quickly learned that if I didn't lock the keypad, my butt would make random phone calls and fire off applications.

I found putting the wrist strap on this thing somewhat akin to solving a Rubik's cube, something I never accomplised. It took a straight pin and a whole lot of patience to get that thing fished through. My mother would give up in disgust before she got it attached.

No music player or Internet applications (Yahoo Go! in particular). Since these work over a GPRS or 3G connection quite handily, their absence was quite noticeable after using the other phones that included them. The same with the podcast catcher that's only in the N80i. It would make more sense to me to include the same feature set in each physical form factor makes more sense than users having to add on third party solutions.

Overall Reaction
The learning curve with this phone was minimal. I'd recommend it to my mother, business execs who just need a solid phone, and those who will be using their phone as a camera quite a bit.


The N93



Pro
The camera is another 3.2 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens (3.3/4.5). Still Zeiss optics, but different specs. Some argue this one is better. I found the overal photo quality to be truer when compared to Nikon D50 pictures. It's strength is as a digital video camera. That's the "personality" on the N93. It include Muvee software that's quite functional given some time to get acclimated. [Sample photos]

Music player is a nice addtion

The dialpad and function keys are large and well placed. I found that my hand quickly memorized their location and easily navigated through all the features and functions routinely after a few days of use.

This one includes WiFi, which makes it even easier to send photos and video off to Internet destinations. I found the WiFi radio to work very well, even at the fringe of signal reception.

While the radio function exists in all the N-series, this is the phone I initially found it on and used it. I really like it. The headset wires are used for an antenna. It seemed a bit odd plugging in the headset so I could play the radio through the speaker while I work. But it's a feature I've grown fond of.

Con
I'm listing it as a con because I have to list it somewhere. The N73 set the standard with it's 3.2 megapixel Zeiss optics. This camrea is a 3 megapixel 4.7mm 1:3.5 lens. It's certainly better than the norm in cell phones, but it doesn't compare to the other N-series phones. As a result, the camera is noticeably a tad weaker than the others. It's more sensitive to light and more sensitive to shaky hands. It's still a great camera for a phone and takes some really splendid photos. [Sample photos]

Both the charger connector and snap connector are on the left side. For those of us who are frequently charging, that actually made it quite uncomfortable to talk on the phone or use it for anything while charging. That needs to be fixed. It also pretty much assures you won't be listening to the music player feature with the phone in a pocket. If you do, someday you will likely break the connector.

The lens cap is a nice touch, but the string for securing it to the base of the handset is a nuisance. It should be easy enough to engineer some kind of rubberized cap or connector to handle that more gracefully.

I found the shutter release to be in a somwhat awkward postion. Too high on the body for comfort. I found that if I move my hand to put the shutter release in an easy-to-use, comfortable spot, the odds are my index finger is over the flash or showing in the lens. I find that after a few weeks, I still have to be quite conscious of hand placement. And the five way navigation button on the side feels dainty. It's very easy for my large hands to activate the wrong action.

The WiFi vs. GPRS interface on this phone mystified me a bit. It seems to hang up, unable to decide which network to use at times, even when the network is defined.  I haven't dug into this deeply enough to fully articulate my issue, but it sometimes just doesn't feel smooth when both networks are available.

The built-in music player is functional. That's all. An iPod killer it isn't. It's just not likely I'd use the music player much in this phone.

Overall Reaction
If you're not a videographer, this phone will take some getting used to as a camera. Because I'm not, it still feels unstable. If you take pictures the way many of us play golf - grip it and rip it - you're going to see the shakes transmitted through to the final picture. The hefty feel helps with stabilization, but it take some getting used to.

On the other hand, if you take, or want to take, lots of video and pictures, the N93 does a great job.

It's a beefy phone. If size is a factor, you don't want the N93.

The N80i



Pro
VoIP. This topic will spawn a post of its own. User driven, click-to-converge VoIP on a mobile. This is self created fixed mobile convergence. It's the single hottest feature of the N80i. But it will require socialization and marketing to sell it to the masses. The phone sells itself to networking and telecom junkies, but Gizmo VoIP doesn't have the mass market exposure or cachet that Skype has. Nokia and the SIPPhone team at Gizmo are going to have to work to gain mindshare in the mass market that doesn't use VoIP (or even know what it is). It is the first accessible FMC solution that's in people's hands, so it will likely fly high with early adopters worldwide.

Size is a big winner. Because its a slider, it's small. It's roughly the size of a pack of cigarettes. I'm comfortable with it in a shirt pocket. There's something to be said for that.

Pocasting software, podcatcher really, is built in. Coupled with WiFi, this provides an easy way to grab podcasts at my leisure and listen when I wish.

Autoprompt to lock the keys when you slide it closed. It's a nice touch. If you don't respond at all, the keys are left unlocked after a few seonds. It would be nice of that was user configurable.

RSS feed reader. I know this exists in the N93 also. Perhaps the N73. I've only used it in the N80i. I find it quite handy. I don't use it to follow the huge list of blogs I reed via RSS. It provides a great way to read the most important RSS feeds I want, on demand.

Con
The WiFi arrangement is tricky. This will be an issue with all WiFi-enabled phones. If you want to autoscan and autoconnect, you have to leave the WiFi radio on. That sucks the life from the battery. It would be nice if it were user configurable to scan for WiFi on time intervals I could define, like scan once every two hours. Scanning seems to be constant on or off.

The podcatcher isn't automated in a convenient way. If you're always on WiFi, you can automate it, but then you'll have the aforementioned battery life issue.

There are times when the mechanical slide feels like it's a loose fit. I wonder about the lifetime of opening and closing the phone. I'd also like it better if the closed position snapped closed more solidly. It opens quite easily, sometimes accidentally.

A side observation from both Roland Tanglao and I. The power supply apparently needs to be a newer one. He and I both have older Nokia power supplies that charge the N73 and N93 just fine. When plugged in to the N80i, they don't work. That leads me to wonder about power consumption across the three phones, but I don't even know if that's in the specs. Certainly a WiFi radio changes the power consumption characteristics.

Overall Reaction
Between the podcatcher and the VoIP capability, the N80i is my favorite...this week. It's small, provides a wide array of capabilities.

I'd recommend this to anyone who's interested in VoIP or fixed mobile convergence. It's a great entry point in to the future of FMC.

While the media player doesn't compare with a iPod, for those who have simple music and podcasting needs, it's quite functional.

The N-series across the board



These phones all come with an onboard application suite that's pretty impressive. There's PIM functionality, Radio, Lifeblog, Real Player, an IMPS IM client (see Con section) a Flash Player, voice recorder, etc.. The Quick Office suite included allows reading Word and Excel documents. I still haven't tried Powerpoint, but I think that's supported too. There's an Adobe PDF reader built in. All three support POP3 email for one address.

As phones, they all meet Nokia's reputation for quality. Good sound, good speakerphones, high on the usability and functionality scale.

These are not entry level phones. You won't see carriers bundling them free with a two year contract.

The primary camera in each is more than acceptable for a phone camera in my view. Each plays a slight niche role. [Comparison photos]

All three have both a primary and secondary camera. I haven't fully evaluated the front/back cameras across the units. In all cases, the secondary camera is lower quality than the primary. I question the usefulness of a secondary camera in North America. Without UMTS/3G video calling capability, it's relegated to the random obligatory self pic for MySpace, but serves little other practical purpose. On the other hand, if you travel to Europe a lot and use a network there, video calling appears to be a no brainer. I'm quite envious of my colleagues who are able to make video calls with the N-series.

Pro
Broad common feature set. The PIM functionality, messaging capability, Flickr convenience make these very versatile handhelds.

These phones are among those that ring the bell sounding the death toll of the PC. They aren't alone in that space. Nokia isn't alone in that space. These are among the phones that demonstrate what a handheld device is capable of and give pause to think about new ways of working with information, whether it be in web/email form, audio or video. Data is simply content. This is another way of working with content.

Appearance. Lustrous, polished cases that look professional. They aren't pink. They aren't chocolate. They're polished professional instruments of business.

Con
I've identifed a few things I really dislike across the set.

Voice recording actually works very nicely. You can even record a phone call for podcasting an interview. I do a lot of that. But record time is limited to one minute. Why the heck do you think I put a 2 gig MiniSD in the slot? Allowing record time to maximum card capacity or some user-definable preset limit is something Nokia has to address.

The music player is difficult for me to assess fairly. I've never owned an iPod or dedicated MP3 player of any kind. That said, I have music and podcasts on my Treo, on my Palm LifeDrive and on the N80i. Of those three, the LifeDrive is by far the most feature rich and easiest to use. The N-series music player capabilities, for me personally are adequate. But I'm a baby boomer in my fifties. For the younger generation, iPod centric, tunes oriented user, I'd say the music player sucks by comparison. I haven't seen any other music player oriented phones, so I can't even adequately compare. If I were a music fiend, this could never replace an iPod.

Overall Reaction
I'm impressed with the N-series so far. I haven't used a Nokia phone in several years. When I did, it was a phone and nothing more. These are multipurpose devices. Pocket workstations. As such, they're generally well done.

I'm using Cingular as my leading example of network connectivity. The GPRS smartphone plan provides everything you need or can use. Paying for a 3G high-speed wireless broadband connection on any of these phones would be a waste of money. The only exception I could see to that would be someone using the N93 to shoot and upload lots and lots of large video files.

Each serves what seems to be a core purpose; something to which it's better suited than the others:

• The N73 leans heavily on its strength as a pocket camera. If your first need beyond a phone is taking pictures, this one is a great fit. Couple it with a GPRS plan for uploading and you're in great shape.
• The N93 provides the best digital video photography you'll find in a phone. For the up and coming videographer, YouTube addict, college film student and such, this could be the best choice in the market.
• The N80i provides still camera and video, but at a slightly lesser capability. It adds podcatching and music player that meet the needs of the general interest audience. VoIP capability provides an extension that's truly impressive.

Thanks to Stefan, I've been forced to do a lot of thinking about my own telephone usage. If I were to choose one among these for myself, I'd unquestionably pick the N80i. It comes the closest to meeting my overall needs.

That said, I'll say something that sounds like reversing myself. If I were to be in a position to go buy a new phone today, I doubt I'd buy any of these. I say I'll shift to the N80i because with the addtion of a bluetooth keyboard and some software it provides everything I need. The improvement and advances may not be enough to justify the market price. Personally, I'm like a kid with toys, so the decision to move could be driven by whim and the VoIP factor. I'm not a typical user, and not a good barometer. But if I were to use my colleagues and coworkers as a guide, Blackberry and Treo users for the most part, none would make the shift to any of the N-series. The lack of a QWERTY keyboard and full utilization of wireless broadband technology is a greater driver than pictures, video or VoIP.


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