MANILA, Philippines - Numerically speaking, the successor of the heavily featured N95 and N96 dual-slide multimedia handsets from Nokia would be the N97. But the almighty N97 has not only gone touch screen on us traditional keypad fans, it also sprouted a full-QWERTY slide-out keyboard! This pretty much leaves the new N86 to carry the torch for N95/N96 devotees.
Like the latter handsets, the N86 possesses a spring-loaded, dual-slide form factor. Slide it up and a traditional numeric keypad reveals itself; slide it the other way and dedicated music/video buttons show themselves.
Shutter and volume/zoom buttons are on the side. A five-way D-pad and six small and thin buttons adorn the cover, making the front of the phone look a bit like a touch-screen unit. Size-wise, it’s a tad smaller in every dimension compared to an N95 or N96. It’s sleeker, more rounded, and even if it’s a bit heavy at 149 grams, it feels better in your hand, too.
Specs-wise, the quad-band N86 also runs on an S60 platform and has dual cameras for 3G video calling.
It even has a similar-sized onboard flash memory of 8GB. It also has GPRS, EDGE, WCDMA, HSDPA, WLAN 802.11b/g, TCP/IP support, Bluetooth 2.0, TV Out, capability to serve as data modem, 3GPP support, integrated GPS and A-GPS, Nokia Maps application, as well as support for MS Outlook synchronization of contacts, calendar and notes.
It even has a kickstand for watching videos, just like the N96. The plastic kickstand feels a bit flimsy, though.
The difference? The N86 boasts a stunning eight-megapixel autofocus camera with that superb Carl Zeiss lens. I’ve been extremely happy with the N95’s 5-MP photo-taking capabilities. And now I’m even happier with photos and videos taken by the N86.
Shots taken by an 8-MP camera (especially at its highest resolution setting) will eat up a lot of memory. Thankfully, the N86 has a memory card slot that can accommodate up to a 16GB microSD card which, when added to the 8GB of onboard memory, gives you up to an iPhone-like 24GB of storage space.
Other imaging smarts include a dual-LED flash, 20x digital zoom, a CMOS sensor, a mechanical shutter, an on-device photo editor, and more advanced photographic effects than you can shake a memory stick at. The N86 can shoot videos at 30fps and can zoom up to 8x while taking them.
High-resolution screens are an Nseries strength — and the N86 does not disappoint. The 2.6-inch display is slightly smaller than those on the N95/N96, but the N86 makes up for it with a truly wonderful 16.7-million-color, 320 x 240-pixel resolution active-matrix OLED screen with brightness control and an ambient light sensor.
It also boasts an accelerometer that automatically adjusts the screen display from portrait to landscape and back depending on how you orient the handset. There is also now a text-to-speech app that reads out text messages to you.
Too bad the playback is a bit hard to understand, no thanks to the very heavy British accent of the female voice. It also works well only if the SMS is in straight English. Add Filipino words like “bayan ko” and the voice will pronounce “bayan” with a long “a” sound and “ko” as “K-O.”
Another downside I might as well mention here are the smallish keys. While the numeric keypad buttons are on the small side (for my largish digits), the cover and shortcut buttons are downright slivers.
Multimedia is the core strength of the Nseries — and the N86 delivers in the all-important area of music. It has a sophisticated digital music player and all the features that it requires: 3.5-mm headphone jack, 3D sound effect stereo speakers, the aforementioned dedicated music keys, Nokia Music Player and Music Manager, as well as support for Nokia Music Store and Nokia Podcasting.
Battery life is good for up to 36 hours with minimal multimedia usage. Watch or shoot videos, keep the screen on for extended periods due to non-stop texting or take long voice calls, and you’ll have to charge it every day.
All things considered, Nokia’s N86 is one literally heavyweight, full-featured multimedia handset that delivers all the big numbers. And with a suggested retail price of P24,220, it’s one heck of a bargain.