Five Minutes with the Nokia N86

At the Nokia N-Tourage Event last week, I had a brief play with the such-loved very-under-hyped Nokia N86.

Now everyone who follows me on Twitter, knows how Badly I’ve wanted to check this device out. As an N82 Owner, I was inquisitive to find out how well Nokia’s new “Imaging Flagship” could handle situations with that new 8 Megapixel Camera, and the Dual LED Flash instead of a Xenon Flash. As a phone enthusiast, I wanted to check out the underdog of Nokia’s Nseries fleet.

Well, I finally got to check it out. And the White Edition too, at that !

I only had a couple minutes with the device but here’s what I noticed. A very very brief account :

• The Dual Slider Mechanism has been greatly improved since the N95 and N96. The N86 Slides open in both modes, very spring-ingly and closes with a very satisfying “snap”.
• The 2.6″ OLED screen is gorgeous at night. There was no sunlight around for me to test it under direct sunlight though (which the N85′s OLED suffered in).
• The keys have a pretty good tactile feedback to it, the same for the Dpad.
• The S60v3 UI is basically the same that you’re used to. No suprises here. It is however a LOT more stable and faster since the N96-on-initial-firmware days.
• I’ve heard some people complain about N86 build quality problems, but the unit we saw looked fine to me. Granted it might have been brand new though.
• The 8 Megapixel Camera is fantastic ! In lit situations atleast. I tried a couple shots using the Dual LED flash, and I wasnt totally convinced on it. It looked better than any Dual LED Flash camera shot I’ve taken before, but still not as clear or properly colored as the N82. Hopefully we’ll eventually (Someday) get a unit to review to really put it up against the ol’N82 and its Xenon Flash.

So there you go. Have you got an N86 yourself ? Or tried one ? Let us know what you think !

(Btw: Honestly, Nokia, gimme an N86 to check out ! I take a gazillion pictures every day. My Flickr is a testimonial to that ;-) Gimme !)