It’s no secret that I really like the Nokia N82 and while it has a few shortcomings, it is currently what I believe the closest thing to perfection available on the market today, beating even the mighty N95 and N95 8GB. Not bad neither that it is one of the best, if not the best mobile imaging device, all in a unpretentious compact package in the traditional “can’t-go-wrong” silver.
Giving the N82 a jet-black look just seemed logical and well they did, joining the current white and “warm titanium” (silver for the rest of us) colors. Worth noting however is that with both of these colors, it’s only the back that changes, while the front is exactly the same silver, whereas on the black version the phone is finally completely black. There’s something about the black color on mobile device: so elegant and mysterious at the same time, that makes people that just to go crazy about them and the N82 is no exception. It’s no coincidence that when Nokia set out to create an updated N95 in the form of the N95 8GB they made it completely black. Remember what color they released the music editons of the N70, N73 and the N91 8GB? Or how about N81? For this reason I think Nokia should make it a habit of releasing a black version of their device at launch. They can get as creative as they want with the colors (remember the purple back on the N95?) but not releasing a full black version should almost be made illegal.
When it comes to changes to the software there’s absolutley nothing new except for the fact that it comes right out of the box with firmware v20.0.062.
On the hardware side, it was obvioulsy given the black color, but overall the same shade of black is not used: the front and back use the darkest shade of black, while the sides, call and end buttons use a lighter, almost dark grey color, but this difference can only be spotted in day light. The material with the lighter shade of black has this matte grippy feel to, something similar to the back of the N95 8GB. This makes the black N82 a lot less slippery when compared to the other colors and adds a suprising amount of extra grip. The front uses a piano-like finish, whereas the back has a different looking anf feeling glossy effect that seems to have been created by putting a clear coating on top.
A noticeable imprvement comes from the keypad buttons and the D-pad itself. The silver N82 had a very wobbly D-pad, now it seems that it has been improved on the black version as it feels a lot more solid. The keys themselves feel positively different: they seem a lot more solid and have much improved audible and tactile feel to them.
The black N82 is not all perfect: One dissapointment comes from the back-lit keypad that has the same strange light-yellowish color to it that doesn’t do jutice to the black the look. Comparing it to the N95 8GB, it shows that the latter uses more of pure-white back-lit keys that looks a lot better. Another missed opportunity comes from the fact that they could have added a light to the D-pad like on the N81. And lastly comparing the black N82 to the N95 8GB reveals that screen auto-rotation reacts way too slow on the N82, while it on the N95 8GB it works just fine. And why doesn’t the black N82’s screen auto-rotation work on the stand-by screen? It does it on the N95 8GB, so the same should be done with the black N82.
UPnP was introduced to the Nseries on the N80 and since than has been used on numerous flagship devices, including the N81, N81 8GB, N82, N93, N93i, N95, N95 8GB and upcoming N96. Simply put, UpnP allow you to: copy media files from your PC to your phone or the other way around and display images and video stored on your phone using your PC, all done wirelessly over WiFi. Ewan from Allaboutsymbian has written a must-read on how to get it up and running using the built-in Windows Media Player.
