| Review of the Nokia N85 |
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The Nokia N85 is a phone that can be best described as an updated N95. It has all the same features as the N95 in essentially the same package. However, the N85 is physically smaller and has a more rounded and polished look. It also sports the Feature Pack 2 edition of the S60 3rd Edition operating system, which adds a few nice touches to an otherwise excellent phone. Last Updated: 29-Mar-2009 |
Before reading this review, please read Some Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
Because of the great similarity to the N95 8GB, and
because I own an N95 8GB, I felt that I’d take a different approach to this
review and cover each of the elements by comparing it to the N95, rather than
rehashing much of the same things I’d said about that phone. If you haven’t
already read my review of the N95 8GB, I
suggest that you do so first so that you’ll know what I’m comparing to in this
review.
No provider in North America carries the N85, but you can certainly buy one
through an unaffiliated retailer and run on it most of the North American GSM
networks.
RF Performance
Click on this link for a full description of
RF Performance, and how to interpret it.
RF Sensitivity: In this respect, there is nothing
to compare. Like almost all of the recent Nokia phones I’ve tested the N85 has
virtually identical performance to the N95. This isn’t a bad thing, because
Nokia makes some of the best RF performers out there and they’ve wisely decided
not to mess with a good thing.
Over-the-road Performance: I had a problem with
this aspect of the review, because there appeared to be a flaw in the N85 I
tested. At the beginning of calls the audio seemed to cut out as if there was a
bad electrical connection in the phone, especially if the phone was squeezed.
However, once the call had been active for a minute or so, the problem went away
(only to return immediately in the next call). I’ve never heard anything like
this in any other Nokias I’ve tested, and so we can most likely chalk it up to a
problem in this one specific phone.
Audio Performance
Click on this link for a full description of
Audio Performance, and how to interpret it.
I won’t bother giving separate comments on Tonal Balance, Sound
Reproduction, Earpiece Volume, and Outgoing Audio, because
there was no detectable difference between the N85 and N95 in any of these
categories. The N85 has same excellent performance in all of these important
aspects as my N95 8GB.
Speakerphone: The N85 has stereo speakers, just
like the N95, but they are mounted on one side of the phone, thus encouraging
landscape usage. Unfortunately the N85 speakers are vastly inferior to the ones
found in the N95. Not only can’t they produce anywhere near as much raw volume,
but the sound is also a bit tinnier. The poor relative quality of these speakers
affects numerous aspects of the phone’s performance beyond just phone calls.
Support Features
Ringer Volume: As noted above, the lower quality
(and lower output) of the speakers in the N85 affects the maximum ringtone
volume. The N85 has fairly decent ringers compared to many other models out
there, but compared to the N95 it just doesn’t compete.
Keypad Design: I never thought that the N95 had a
particularly great keypad, but it feels like a quality piece of work after using
the N85 for a week. The problem starts with the flush design of the keypad.
While this makes for a slick look, it results in extremely poor keypad
ergonomics. I could never manage to type in a phone number without mis-keying a
digit or two. But it wasn’t just the numeric keys that were problematic. The
main function keys that are always exposed (the softkeys, the menu button, etc)
were really stiff.
The phone does offer a feature (which is thankfully user-selectable) in which
you can work your way through the icons on the screen by just running your
finger around the 4-way cursor pad without actually pressing the keys. A
proximity sensor beneath the keypad senses your fingers and moves the icon
selector on the screen accordingly. It worked fairly well when called upon, but
it also had a nasty tendency to work when you didn’t want it to. It drove me
nuts and I eventually turned it off. Even the relatively stiff cursor keys were
more comfortable to use.
After a full week of playing with the N85 I’d become thoroughly disgusted with
the keypad. While it wasn’t as bad as some of Nokia’s rather whimsical designs
of the past, it was nevertheless a pain to use and a perfect example of form
taking priority over function.
Display: The N85 includes a 240x320 OLED display.
OLED stands for Organic Light Emitting Diode, which means that each pixel is
actually a tiny little light. This is starkly different from the LCD (Liquid
Crystal Display) technology on the N95. An LCD panel contains tiny squares
(representing the pixels) that can be varied between completely opaque and
completely transparent, but to see this effect you must provide a backlight.
There is no question that the OLED display of the N85 is more vibrant, but it
also seems to have a red cast that might be the result of an improperly balanced
output of the three primary colors (red, green, and blue). Nokia can (and
should) fix this imbalance in the firmware, because they provide no
color-balance settings that the user can play with.
While a screen that emits its own light is great for indoor use, it suffers
greatly outdoors. In direct sunlight the N85 screen looks virtually jet black,
while the N95 is completely readable owing to the fact that the backlight is
also somewhat reflective. The reflected sunlight from the N95’s backlight allows
high-contrast lettering to remain quite visible even in the brightest of
sunlight.
Use of the OLED screen also means that screensavers are totally useless. The
screensaver function is part of the S60 3rd Edition O/S, and so it’s included in
the N85 by default. However, once the OLED screen goes off, there is literally
nothing to see. On my N95 I run a screensaver called cClock, which allows me to
display the time and date in monster large fonts. I can easily read the time
under just about any conditions when the backlight is off (from a dimly lit room
right up to brilliant direct sunlight). The only way to read anything from the
N85’s OLED screen is to power it up, which in turn causes the screensaver to
disappear.
So the N85’s OLED display is both a blessing and curse at the same time. A lot
depends upon where you need to use your phone most often. If you are always
indoors you’ll really appreciate the more vibrant colors. If you have to use
your phone outdoors however, then the N85 is pretty much useless unless you cup
your hand over the display to see it. OLED displays are relatively new, and so
the first examples of such screens won’t properly address the issues created by
a shift to this technology.
Icing on the
Cake
Physical Design: The N85 is smaller than the N95 in most ways. It’s
decidedly thinner, a bit skinnier, but it’s a few millimeters taller. Oddly
however, despite the difference in size, it weighs the same. Because of the
phone is essentially denser, it actually feels heavier, because you expect a
smaller phone to weigh proportionately less.
Instead of the matt finish used on the N95 body, the N85 is shiny all over and
it’s colored brown rather than gray/black. It has rounded corners (suggestive of
the iPhone) and the speakers are both mounted on the right side. This latter
arrangement encourages landscape use of the phone when listening to music, which
seems rather odd, but arguable it’s a better approach for watching videos, which
are all landscape oriented.
The phone slides in both directions just like the N95, revealing the same sets
of keys in the process. The slider has a solid feel that suggests a
better-quality mechanism than on the N95, but after 8 months of ownership my N95
slider works just as well it did when I bought it.
Camera: Both the N85 and the N95 have a 5 megapixel camera with
auto-focus and a Carl Zeiss lens. The N85 comes with a sliding lens cover, which
is a major improvement over the N95 (that doesn’t protect the lens at all). I
personally made a cover for my N95’s lens, but it’s a bit of a pain-in-the-neck
to use.
However, the performance of the N85 camera is quite surprisingly inferior to
that of the N95. First off it has much higher digital noise in low light
conditions (even when night mode is selected). In low-light photographs this
noise not only translates to grainer images, but sharp edges also have a decided
fuzziness to them that just isn’t present on the same photograph taken with the
N95.
The biggest issue seems to be the new auto-focus firmware, which attempts to
speed up picture-taking by pre-focusing the camera as you point it.
Unfortunately this auto-focus system does a terrible job of getting the focus
right. At least 1 out of 3 of the pictures I took were out-of-focus. Others have
complained of this aspect of the N85’s camera. By comparison I’ve rarely ever
had a focus problem with the N95.
To its credit the N85 has a dual LED flash, which isn’t as good as a Xenon
flash, but certainly better than the single flash LED on the N95. However, with
the poor low-light noise levels on the N85, it needs the two flashes to ensure a
reasonable-quality image.
Operating System: The N85 comes with Symbian S60
3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, whereas the N95 has Feature Pack 1. There aren’t any
major differences between the two versions of the O/S, but FP2 does make
numerous minor improvements and it provides a few more stock applications.
Memory: The N95 8GB,
as its name implies, comes with 8 GB of memory built in. The N85, like earlier
editions of the N95, as a MicroSD memory slot that is accessible without
removing the battery cover. You can swap out memory and the phone will accept 16
GB cards.
Conclusions
I really don’t know what to think of the N85 personally. On one hand it offers a number of incremental updates to the N95 that I can really appreciate (such as the smaller size, addition of a lens cover, removable memory, and a more vibrant color display). However, it also asks me to sacrifice quite a bit and in the end I find the sacrifices far outweigh the benefits. Subsequently the N85 is a design that needs more work. Perhaps future phones such as the N86 will prove to be a much better choice. For the time being the N85 is, in my mind, a slightly inferior phone to the N95 8GB.
