Nokia 8890, Somewhat Overrated (Nokia 8890)

Member Name: Mnehr

Product:	Nokia 8890
Date:	17/12/02 (556 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Every feature ever created added to this phone

Disadvantages: Most features are not convenient to use. GSM service only

I am one of the few people in this world who feel that Nokia mobile phones are vastly overrated so when I was asked to run some tests and trials on an 8890, for both writing a training manual and in helping determine a marketing program, I was less than thrilled.
The <b>Nokia 8890</b> was Nokia?s GSM flagship packed with more ?bells and whistles? than one would normally find in a phone of its size here in the US. The only other phones I have found that are more feature packed are Kyocera?s SmartPhone, and Motorola?s 270c. With these plethora of features, however, comes a phone that is so disorganized in its function it almost takes the convenience out of having a mobile phone.

<b>Size and Ergonomics</b>
Although I have been spoiled to Motorola?s V60 and Startac models in their size and comfort, I was surprised to find this phone felt almost perfect to talk on for long periods of time (depending on how the call is made). The picture here is almost deceptive in reflecting the size of the 8890 as this is truly a small, light phone. The 8890 is 4 inches tall by about 2 inches wide and a half an inch deep and weighs only 3 ounces. This makes this phone just a hair larger than Motorola?s Startac phones. This phone does not fall into the category of a flip phone nor an open face phone as it has the function of both. The 8890 uses a slide down face to keep the closed size small while still protecting the keypad of the phone. With the slide open, the phone is comfortable to hold and the mouthpiece is perfectly placed, however, the slide does not have to be open to make calls. If you do wish to make a call with out moving the slide down (by using voice or rapid dial commands) the phone almost feels too small in its height. With the slide closed, the mic was actually about mid cheek and at times people were unable to hear me when I was holding the phone between my shoulder and face.

One thing I did not like about th
e
<b>Nokia 8890</b> were the size and shape of the buttons. The alpha-numeric buttons on this phone have a distinctive long, narrow shape that, while it looks interesting, forces one to be more careful that they do not dial to quickly and ?fat finger? the numbers. The one positive concept on the buttons of this phone is that they are raised out further than most other phones I have tried. This is somewhat helpful when you need to dial the phone with out actually looking at the keypad.

The phone as a decent appearance with its faux chrome case and large display. As soon as you pick up the phone, however, you realize that what looks like a solid case of metal is really a light plastic case painted to look like metal. This phone feels as though it will break under excessive use.

<b>Function and Features</b>
I must start with the most unimpressive feature of this phone, the battery life. Nokia claims to have a battery standby time of 150 hours and a talk time of 50 hours. I have found that normally the standby time is closer to about 48 hours and I am only able to get about 5 hours of functional talk time with this phone. These are quite unimpressive numbers that are only lowered further if your phone switches to an analog service or you use the vibrate function instead of the ringer.

The phone book is impressive in the amount of names and numbers that can be stored (up to 250 entries) however, it is the actual usability of the phone book that really is the turn off. While having a large phone book is helpful in keeping numbers you normally cannot remember, I generally like the phone book feature as a way of quickly dialing a number. In an average Motorola phone all one needs to do is hit RCL and the location to pull up a number. On the Nokia however, the process involves hitting the select key, then pressing the left select key for search, then hitting the scroll key as many times a necessary to find the perso <
br>n you are looking for. One can also use the search key by hitting the first few letters of the entry?s name, however, using the alpha numeric select to create letters is quite time consuming. I would not suggest expecting the phone book of the 8890 to be any sort of time saver for anyone unless they store more numbers than they can remember or keep written on a card in their wallet. It is actually faster to pull a card out of my wallet, find the number, and manually dial it, than it is to find an individual in the phone book on the 8890. The phone book also limits your entry to 30 characters so additional information about the entry cannot be added.

The <b>Nokia 8890</b> uses a feature with the phone book called ?Voice tags?. This feature supposedly allows one to dial their phone via a voice command. In concept, this would be a useful feature. In practice, however, even with years of experience using all different types of cell phones, I was unable to make this feature work properly.
This feature seems to be quite picky about your saying the name <I>exactly</I> the same each time or it will not place the call. Because various inflections of the human voice continually change, this is almost an impossible feature to make work efficiently, especially when one considers the amount of time it takes to program the ?tags?.

The <b>Nokia 8890</b> has four games; Memory, Snake, Logic, and Rotation, however I never have used the game functions on any of my phones. Glancing down at the games now while I write this, I am attempting to see how Snake works. It seems as though with the small size of the screen and the simplicity of the games, it would not keep even the most simple-minded person entertained for long.

Another item that people seem to desire these days is the availability of custom ring tones to be downloaded on your phone. If you have an SMS or IR card on your computer you can download these ring
ton
es off of many websites, or there are a few web sites that will facilitate downloading of ring tones via a WAP connection. This is one more item that I find not only useless but quite annoying.

Very few carriers in the US have the capability of SMS functionality (Short Message Service), however this is, as I see it, a feature that will become more and more popular over the next few years. What SMS is, is almost like an instant messaging service on the phone. Initially this is not an efficient system to use as, like with phone book entries, to enter letters requires a lot of time with the numeric keypad. Nokia does have a built-in dictionary list of commonly used words and expressions (and even pictures similar to emotionacons.) that, with practice, can be entered with just the press of a couple of buttons. Be forewarned the carriers in the US that do use SMS (Verizon, Cingular, and Alltel) give you only a limited amount of messages and charge a per-message rate when ever you go over your messages. This is in addition to the airtime charges you may incur, depending on your carrier?s package.

In addition to the aforementioned features, the <b>Nokia 8890</b> also has a calendar, calculator, alarm clock, and business card feature. Most of these features I did not use too often, but like many of the other features, the time and complexity it takes to access and utilize these features completely defeats the purpose of having them in the first place. Out of all these features, I only use the alarm clock on a regular basis.

<b>Service and Quality</b>
The <b>Nokia 8890</b> works on GSM systems and is also made to pick up 800mhz analog frequencies when there is not GSM digital available (I believe the dual function analog mode is only available in American models of this phone.) Although GSM service is the most widely used digital service through out the world, it is the least used here in the US. Voices
tream is
the only carrier left in the US to specialize in GSM service, and considering their lack of capital to expand and their lack of roaming agreements, the efficient coverage range of GSM is limited to just a few large cities in the US. A couple of the larger carriers, Verizon and Alltel, do have some areas that use GSM service, these are very limited offerings they acquired in the purchase of many of the Cellular-One markets. Many people are buying the GSM phones because they feel that the US will go the way of the rest of the world in adopting this technology, but do not be tricked into this. A lot of Europe is slowly replacing their GSM systems with a 3rd generation system and parts of Asia have already replaced most of their GSM networks. The entire selling point of this being a ?global phone? is truly nothing more than a sales pitch that, over the next few years, will mutate into a completely false statement. Sadly, however, smooth sales personnel trick many people in the US simply because of this. I would only look at purchasing this phone IF you are planning a trip to Europe with in the next year where using your own phone is vital. Even if this is the case, it is important to weigh the cost of the limited service in the US and the fact that most countries in Europe have companies that will lease GSM wireless phones to tourists.

<b>Overall</b>
There is very little question that I would not recommend this phone over many counterparts in the same price range ($200US). For a similar price one can purchase two Kyocera 3035s, a Motorola 270c, or even some better functioning Nokia models. Many people fall for the stylish looks and the feature lists on a piece of equipment with out actually taking into consideration if it is something they can or will use. In my personal opinion, this phone is simply too feature packed in a disorganized way, making any convenience of having these features a mute point. This, along with the l
imited GSM se
rvice in the US has this phone on my ?not recommended? list.

Summary: