Does size really matter? (Nokia 8890)

Member Name: tonybone

Product:	Nokia 8890
Date:	18/01/02 (480 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Small Size, Chrome finish

Disadvantages: Buttons Hard to Press, Breaks easy

Well here it is the Nokia 8890 I finally got round to trying one, Nokia make it sound wonderful they say works on five continents, Voice Dialling, Predictive Text, Good Sound, Infra red Link and Picture Messaging wow. But I was not so sure it would be so wow after using a Nokia 8850.

When first viewing the phone you realise the design is exactly the same as the Nokia 8850 it still has the very stylish design in chrome. The buttons are finished in silver and it has the chrome slide. The screen is also still the same with the nice blue tint. I always found however the slide and the buttons to be annoying, for the following reasons the buttons are hard to press and your finger slips off them and when you are rushing the slide can be hard to operate. Another problem I used to have as well was trying to answer the phone while driving (yes I no you shouldn’t but we all do) trying to slide down the front could cause a pile up on the M25 one day.

The Nokia 8890 like all the new Nokia’s has predictive text messaging you all must likely know what that is but for those of u who don’t it allows you to enter text messages very quickly. Once you have got used to it that is and it can take a while to get the hang of.

They have also put their new voice-dialling feature on this handset I feel this facility at the minute is very poor, as it very often does not dial the name you are wanting. I think that it the coming months handsets will be designed where this facility will work much well. It is easy to use but very rarely works which is a great shame.

Picture messaging has also been included allowing you to send a picture to your friends and loved ones very easy to use but very pointless I must say how many time’s can you end a picture of a cake and dancing. I suppose some will find this a plus point. While on the point of pointless things it has the normal Nokia games on to amuse your self with on the train.


The momory on this phone is large which is useful full all the contacts the jet setters who buy this will have up to 250 on the phone and it also has the note pad on the calendar for up to 50 day notes.


One great feature of this phone it has the infra red port to allow you to connect to your lap top so no wire’s or software are needed making your luggage much lighter on those business trips.

For the world travellers of you out there this phone will work just about every where it will operate on GSM 900 in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. Then it will also work in North and South America on the GSM 1900 frequency. But when I recently took it with me to the Netherlands I found it worked but when I wanted to swap onto the network I normally use it would not as my network of choice was 1800 frequency. So it does have pitfalls with not being tri band like the fact you can not use One 2 One or Orange in it in this country. I did however find signal was very good when in this country and battery performance is acceptable for such a small phone as well it will do at least two days.

The last thing I would point out about this phone is that although it is a beautiful thing to look at it breaks very easy so beware many of my friends have had problems with microphone breaking, slides breaking and batteries under performing. But a side from all its problems the Nokia 8890 is a wonderful phone for looking cool and if that’s your main objective run to the shop and buy one now.

Summary: