Nokia N82 is an N-series phone with a five megapixel camera and a chassis full of features that will compete with the big boys. But is it too ugly to love?

Although the five megapixel camera phone club is more crowded than it once was, we still get excited when a sharp shooting new handset joins the party.

The Nokia N82 is the latest member, however, in addition to its bumper resolution, it also comes with some bumper dimensions to boot.

While it's relatively lightweight, when measured against the five megapixel competition, the N82's footprint (length x width) is larger than either the Nokia N95, the Sony Ericsson K850i or Samsung G800.

Look and feel

Aside from being long and wide, the phone is finished with a shiny silver plastic front and a matt plastic back, adorned with a faint herringbone like design. The sharp little keys are meanly proportioned and the function and menu markings are faint. We also had an issue with the joypad, in that the direction control area is too narrow, making it to easy to select an option when you really want to be moving up and down, or right and left through the menu icons.

Ease of use

Despite being crammed with features, the phone is very easy to get around, although we do have an issue with the meanly proportioned keys.

The camera control centre of the Nokia N82 is the joypad, which lets you access scene modes, flash, self timer, sequence, colour, exposure, light sensitivity and access to the video camera.

Other great features on the handset include macro mode for close-ups, auto focus, and on-device photo editing, so you can airbrush out those unwanted pimples and nose hairs.

Features

The Nokia N82 is packed with a roll call of top mobile features, including HSDPA data speeds, a great camera, super video capabilities, console quality games, Wi-fi, stereo Bluetooth and a good music player.

Performance

The camera isn't quite as capable as that on the Samsung G800 or Sony Ericsson K850i, but it's far better than most. However, it's with video, that this phone really shines, letting you record at 30fps and then edit your home movies on your device. Download speeds and web browsing are also an asset thanks to the N82's HSDPA data speeds.

Battery life

N-series phones have so much going on they need stronger batteries than they are given. The N82 is okay, but we'd like a bit more fuel in the tank.