Nokia's N86 8MP camera phone review

The Nokia N86 8MP is Nokia's latest N-series cameraphone, featuring an 8 megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss wide angle lens and a twin LED flash. The N86 8MP also features 8GB of built-in storage, WiFi, a GPS receiver, and a vibrant AMOLED^(INFO) display. Read on to find out what we think of Nokia's latest cameraphone king.

Physical Aspects

The Nokia N86 8MP follows in the footsteps of many recent Nokia Nseries devices, sporting a slider form factor that can slide in both directions to reveal either the keypad or some multimedia buttons. The slider feels much tighter than previous Nokia sliders, which gives a feeling of superior quality. This is mirrored in the choice of materials and slick feel of other moving parts on the handset, such as the camera lens cover. Nokia have also cleverly increased the tension on the slider in the downwards direction, so it's more difficult to expose the multimedia keys by accident, as I often do with my N95 8GB when putting it in my pocket. Sliding the front of the phone upwards reveals the N86's keypad, which has good spacing and decent tactile feedback.

The N86 8MP measures a pocketable 103.4mm x 51.4mm x 16.5 mm (4.1in x 2.0in x .6in), and weighs in at a fairly substantial 149g (5.3oz). The corners of the device are rounded, and the front panel is covered in glass and surrounded with a metal strip. The 2.6in AMOLED display offers QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) resolution and is capable of displaying 16 million colors. Bright sunlight legibility isn't great, as the front panel is quite shiny and seems to attract fingerprints quite easily, too.

Above the display you'll find the earpiece, flanked by an ambient light sensor and videocall camera. Beneath the display is a 5-way d-pad, the Nseries menu button, and a handful of very narrow transparent keys. Two of these keys are positioned horizontally below the display and take on softkey duties, whilst two vertically positioned keys perform call send and call end duties. The last narrow key is the 'cancel' key, as designated by a small 'C' printed above it. The Nseries menu button sits at an angle in the bottom left corner and contains a light that can be set to 'breathe', as well as flashing intermittently to notify of a missed call, SMS, or email.

The rear of our black Nokia N86 8MP is clad in soft touch paint and features a wide-angle lens for the 8 megapixel autofocus camera, as well as its accompanying twin LED flash and sliding lens cover. Surrounding this is a chrome bezel that scratches far too easily, and a fold-out stand for propping the phone up when watching a movie or slideshow. Opening this 'active' stand automatically brings up the gallery screen by default, but this can be changed, if required. On the left edge of the handset is a lone keypad lock switch, and on the right edge is the volume rocker and 2-stage camera shutter button, plus a stereo speaker at either end. Atop the device is the power button, 3.5mm headphone/video-out jack, and micro-USB port for charging and data. Next to the micro-USB port is a tiny white LED to confirm that the handset is charging, as seen on the N97. The bottom of the phone is home to a lanyard fixing point and a small slot to enable users to remove the back cover with a fingernail. Removal of the rear cover may be a regular occurrence for some, as the microSDHC^(INFO) card slot is housed beneath it.