Nokia N85

Design

Nokia N85 is a classic Nseries device which means that it is a brick-shaped device packed with features. This candybar shaped design is not that much dull though. It has curved edges and a glossy black surface which gives it a glamorous look.
Display

The display is impressive with 240X320 pixels QVGA resolution. The 2.4 inch OLED screen is noticeably brighter than other LCD screens maintaining deeper black for a more vibrant look.

Calling

Call quality is very good as with all Nokia Phones. Sound is clean and clear. The 3G data reception is also good.

Battery

Nokia N85 is coming with a new generation BL-5K 1200 mAh battery. It gives the service as promised in the catalog. Talktime of 4.5 hours and a standby time of two weeks is what was reported and what we got.

Camera

The phone is equipped with a 5 mega pixel camera to take pictures at a resolution of 2584X1938 pixels. Other features of the CMOS Sensor camera is 20x digital zoom, Carl Zeiss Optics, Tessar Lens and Auto Focus with assisted light and also a dedicated camera key. The flash of the camera is fantastic with Dual LED Flash, On/Off, automatic and red eye reduction flash modes. The flash light has a range of 3 meters which enough for indoor shooting.

There is a slide cover to protect the camera lens from dust and opening the cover also activates the camera. There is also some interesting features such as direct printing of pictures to compatible printers, Nokia Xpress Share, Nokia Xpress Transfer, Rotating gallery, slideshow from gallery with automatic zoom and pan etc.
The main camera can record video at DVD quality resolution of 640X480 pixels. Video zoom of 8x digital at 30 fps is really nice. The front camera can record at up to 352X288 pixels at up to 15 fps with 2X digital zoom feature. There are other features like image stabilizing, video streaming, video editor on device, Real player etc. There some modes such as Scene Mode, Automatic and night, color tone modes, Sepia, Black & White, negative and vivid of which you can select one to make the most of you video footage. Maximum video length can be 1 hour 30 minutes with recoding formats of MP4 or 3GP.

Music Player

The music player looks handsome with decent feature set. It can play all popular music formats such as MP3, WMA, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+ formats. You can create playlist, select songs by artist, genre or albums. There is built-in FM stereo radio with RDS support and visual radio support. There are also Nokia Music manager, Nokia Music Store support and Nokia podcasting.

You can select any MP3, AAC, AMR or WMA as ringtone or you may choose from any one of the 64 polyphonic ringtones provided. They will all sound amazing with built-in 3D sound effect stereo speakers. Users can also synchronize their music with Windows Media Player along with the Navi Wheel Support.

Memory

N85 has 74 MB of internal dynamic memory and 78 MB of internal NAND flash memory and it comes bundled with a 8GB Micro SD Memory Card.
Internet & Connectivity

Browising the net is a pleasure with HTML, XHTML, MP, WML, WAP & CSS web browsing technologies over TCP and IP all supported. Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map and Nokia Mobile Search makes surfing easy. HSDPA, GPRS, EDGE, CSD, HSCSD all are supported to provide you with fast network capabilities. It has Quad Band EGSM 850/900/1800/1900 to support every available network. Bluetooth 2.0, Micro USB, High Speed USB and 3.5mm AV connector is available to connect it to any compatible device.

Messaging

It supports SMS, MMS, Email, Text-to-speech and Windows Live support. The Email service supports IMAP, POP3 and SMTP protocols as well as email attachments support, email with filtering and support for Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email.

Application Tools

It comes with a vast array of applications like Adobe Flash Lite 3.0, QuickOffice, Windows Live Support, Zip Manager, Nokia Maps, Nokia Web Browser, Nokia Download to name a few.

GPS

N85 has a built in GPS receiver with clear voice guided navigation. It works with Nokia Maps which is one of the navigation applications to offer the most detailed maps. The voice guided navigation is free for first three months and you have to buy it after the free trial expires. There are also 2D and 3D view modes and you can customize it using the route planning algorithm. Routes can be selected as the fastest or shortest. Overall impression of the GPS device is good though far to compete with standalone navigator standards.

Gaming

Games embedded with Java is supported by Nokia N85. N-Gage applications will make gaming experience even more amazing.
Cons
Unconvincing camera performance
Not the best sunlight legibility
Poor Navi wheel performance
No office document editing out of the box
Zooming in on a picture takes blurred ages

Price

You can get the phone at less than $400 which is much affordable than the high priced Nokia N96. In India N85 is priced at around Rs. 22,000 and N96 at around Rs. 35,000.

Verdict

We expect that this mobile phone is going to be a massive hit this year. We have already placed N85 in second spot in our list of Top 10 Nokia Phones Till Date. It will definitely keep its owner amused with its endless feature sets and all round capabilities.