Nokia 8800 Gold Arte

How many phones can you name that would have made sense centuries back? Here's one: the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte. No, we're not talking medieval calling and texting, we're talking gold and leather.

Okay, it may not be solid gold, but it's the next best thing - the Arte is gold plated alright, but it sure looks - better yet, glitters - the part. Gold does not react with air and moisture so even after thousands of years gold artifacts do not loose their luster. Well, that's one thing you get for your dime - everlasting shine.

It's like choosing the interior of a ridiculously expensive car - creme leather, mahogany, you get the picture. Same with Nokia's Arte series - Sapphire, Carbon fiber and now leather and gold.

The color of gold depends on relativistic effects acting on the electrons… nah, no matter how you twist it an 8800 phone will not interest geeks. It is all about exclusive materials, high build quality and most importantly - making you look good.

In terms of technology, it's forged in the same crucible as the Nokia Carbon Arte - OLED screen, 3G, 3 megapixel autofocus camera, 4GB of inbuilt memory and Series 40.

Key features 18 carat gold-plated body Genuine white leather padding 2" 16M-color OLED display of QVGA resolution 3G support 3 megapixel autofocus camera Full-house retail package with a Bluetooth headset and desk stand Decent battery life Turn-to-mute Tap-for-time 4GB internal memory

Talking value for money with the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte, or any of its siblings, will make as much sense as attaching an enjoy responsibly message to the Vertu Concierge service. Though the Arte Gold doesn't go as far as the Vertu, exuberance is its very name and the materials and looks certainly hold their own against the luxury models.

That is not to say it's cheap - save for the Motorola Aura, the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is the most expensive phone you can buy from a mainstream manufacturer. For the same price, you could buy the Carbon Arte plus a Nokia E71 and still have a little cash left to play with. But then, it is gold-plated and that's very much where your money's going.

Upgrading a phone from the 8-series is obviously not about enhancing the capabilities - it's about using even more exclusive materials and denying common sense. After all, previous 8-series owners are unlikely to suddenly jump to Symbian or E-series unless they start gold-plating those as well.

By the way, the Gold Arte is probably targeting all of those Luna and Sirocco users who decided to… um… save their cash and skip the Sapphire and Carbon generation and jump at the next big thing. The Gold Arte will also most probably be quite popular among the ladies as well.

Now, Carbon Arte owners will probably want to wait for Diamond Arte or Wooden Arte or whatever comes next (they've already done Titanium).

The sole purpose of the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is to send subliminal (though not very subtle) messages to everyone around you, not quite in keeping with the Connecting People spirit.

Now, we're about to take a closer look at another Arte handset. Right after this short jump, we'll ooh and ahh over the hardware - for the lack of a better word.

The retail box is a true treasure chest The retail box looks like something a pirate used to stash its plunder - it's not just the phone that's covered in gold, both the Bluetooth headset and the desktop charger are also painted gold. The other offering you might appreciate is the carrying pouch, which is made of soft white leather.

The desktop cradle doesn't do much since you could plug the charger directly into the phone. However, it does serve a vital function - it shows off the phone. It bears the Nokia logo proudly and when people see it sitting on your desk, there's little doubt what handset you have there in your pocket.

A nice touch on the desktop cradle is the translucent bottom. This lets some light pass through and creates a pleasing visual effect.

Design and construction Nokia 8800 Gold Arte has virtually the same design as every other Arte out there. You could call it repetitive or maybe it's just that Nokia think the design is perfect and there's nothing to improve upon.

There's no alternative color versions of the Gold Arte - it's gold colored with white leather. Some choice in color at least for the leather would have been nice but we guess third-party stores might be happy to offer you alternatives.

The layout of controls on the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte isn't any different from the first three family members. The earpiece is dead center at the top of the front panel. Below it is the 2-inch OLED display, followed by the four main controls (two soft keys, Call and End key) and the D-pad. Those are all on the small side but not unforgivably so.

When the phone is closed the keypad is hidden under a leather-bound cover. Double-tapping it displays a digital or analogue clock on the phone screen, which is quite a convenient way of checking the time without having to unlock the keypad.

There are very few things to note on either side of the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte. The loudspeaker grill is on the right and there is a battery cover release button on either side. Even though the camera has autofocus, there's no dedicated shutter key in sight.

The power key, which can also be used for switching ringing profiles, is placed at the top of the phone. It's large size makes it easy to press even without turning the phone around to face you. Perhaps too easy since it's quite prone to accidental presses. This is most apparent when putting the phone in the carrying pouch. We inadvertently powered off the device on a couple of occasions, something that seems an issue with all the Artes.

The microUSB port is at the bottom of Nokia 8800 Gold Arte, right next to the mouthpiece. The microUSB is also used for connecting the charger, so there is one less aperture to spoil the fine gold-plated lines.

The back panel of the phone hosts the 3 megapixel autofocus camera lens, which doesn't have a flash of any kind. The Gold Arte was meant to be photographed not to take photos.

The battery cover gets removed by pressing the two release buttons on the sides of the phone and pulling it down. Under it you will find the 1000 mAh battery, which is supposed to last 300 hours in stand-by or 3 hours of talk time. Battery life is adequate for the class with performance identical to the previous Arte models.

There's not much to say about the design. It's a top-of-the-class handset and if something had to be said about the build quality - that would be worrying.

The high quality casing is a delight to look at and the gold certainly catches the eye. That is if you happen to like golden accessories as some would say it's over the top. The leather on the back and front earns high marks - it's warm to the touch making the phone very pleasant to hold. The handset is naturally quite heavy given the materials it's made of, but this simply adds to the overall air of quality it gives off.

It takes a little while to learn to slide the phone open without pressing any keys or getting too many fingerprints on the screen but once you get it right the sliding mechanism with its spot on spring-assisted action makes sliding smooth and natural. The display also manages to hide the fingerprints quite well.

The OLED display has excellent picture quality but smallish size Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is equipped with a 2" 16M-color OLED display with QVGA resolution, like the one on its predecessors. OLED has significantly better contrast and brightness and the black is truly black. There are two things that we didn't like about the display. The first is the sunlight legibility - it is very poor, making the phone hard to use outside.

And the second bit that disappointed us - Nokia have put a 2.6" OLED screen on the N85, so why is the Gold Arte limited to a miserly 2"? Cost can't be the problem, nor technical limitations.

Keypad is rather good The keypad of Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is much to our liking, with decently-sized keys and terraced layout. Typing would've been perfect save for the inadequate room for the top row of buttons - it's just too cramped up against the ridge below the softkeys. If you bear in mind that this isn't really designed as a texter's phone, then the keyboard is quite good.

The backlighting of the phone is also top notch: strong and even, it makes the phone look as good in the dark as in bright daylight. The light sweeps smoothly from top to bottom, putting on a nice little show.

There's one little problem with the keyboard - from certain angles the key symbols are hard to read but its nothing to trouble you too much.

User interface: nothing we haven't seen If you expected miracles from Nokia 8800 Gold Arte's software department you will probably end up disappointed. It is absolutely identical to the original Arte and that's why this software part of the review might be familiar to you if you have been keeping track.

The standby screen displays the pre-selected wallpaper plus signal strength, battery status and time in the top bar. Beneath the top bar are the operator logo and the date. The bottom bar is reserved for the labels of the functions assigned to the center of the navigation key and the two context keys. The center of the navigation key opens the main menu, while the context keys can be assigned a function of your choice. The font on the main display can be of any color.

You can also turn active standby on. It consists of several parts that can be edited or relocated to suit the user's preferences. In the most common case, the top area is reserved for instant access to favorite functions indicated by their respective icons. The central area provides instant access to the music player.

At the very bottom events from the calendar are displayed for the current day. A cool feature here, that even Nokia smartphones do not have, is the possibility to add a note to the active stand-by. The two soft keys' functionality can also be altered if necessary.

The main menu in Nokia 8800 Gold Arte can be visualized in four different ways: a grid of icons with or without captions, a list of items, and tabs. While each of them has its pros and cons our personal choice remains the typical grid view with icons. If you prefer to have more icons appear on screen, you can go for the grid view without text.

The icons of the main menu can be freely reordered to suit the user's taste. An interesting thing to note here is that the Opera Mini browser, the calculator and the WidSets application can be found directly in the main menu. They are also featured in the applications folder so, basically, you can access them from wherever you want. Probably these three were considered important enough to place in the main menu for quicker access.

The submenus follow no consistent pattern. Some items have captions, others do not. In certain cases, you will even be able to see the selected item described in small font, so you will not need to go down any further in the menu. As usual, the menu items are intuitively accessible through keypad shortcuts.

The color background of the entire menu, as well as the wallpaper on the display, can be easily modified by applying one of the pre-installed themes.

The menu responds quickly, without lag or holdups. This is the case with basically any S40 device nowadays and we wouldn't expect any less from the Gold Arte. Also, there were no halts or unexpected restarts during the time of our review.

Wide variety of themes Heavy on looks throughout, the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte comes with seven preinstalled themes. All of them fit the ethos of the handset with their conservative styling. There are of course many additional themes available for download online. There are even some that produce sounds on certain events, such as opening or closing the slider.

There are as many as five predefined ringing profiles on Nokia 8800 Gold Arte, plus a Flight mode that turns off all transceivers on the device. That number should be enough to have you covered in practically any circumstances. The flight mode can turn out very convenient if you decide to use your phone as an MP3 player and it can be used without a SIM card inserted.

Great phonebook The phonebook on Nokia 8800 Gold Arte offers space for up to 2000 contacts and extensive configuration options. Each contact can be assigned a variety of fields but the phone numbers are limited to 5. Also, first names are separated from last names eliminating problems which may occur with synchronization.

Different ringtones can be assigned to each contact. Naturally, you can also assign personal pictures or videos that will run on an incoming call. The picture displayed is different for incoming and outgoing calls, as it fills the screen when you are on the receiving end of a call, and only take a small part of it when you are calling one of your contacts.

There are three available view modes for your contacts: List-of-Names, Name-and-Number and Name-and-Picture. It can display the SIM card contacts, the phone memory contacts or both at the same time. The phonebook font size can also vary.

Searching is done by gradual typing. Contacts can also be organized in groups and these can consequently be used as call filters. Another praiseworthy application is the voice dial, which requires no pre-recording of the commands and phonebook names. It is even equipped with a training application that helps for better results when using voice commands and/or dialing.

The Call Log in Nokia 8800 Gold Arte won't surprise anyone who has ever held a Series 40 device in their hands. It can display Dialed, Received and Missed calls separately, as well as all of them together. Every submenu can hold up to 20 call records with their date, time and duration.

Telephony is fine Signal reception and call quality are in line with the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte's high standards. Calls are loud and clear on both ends eliminating any possible obstacles to communication. After all a handset like the Gold Arte is mainly intended to be used for making calls so any compromise in this area would be a deal-breaker.

Messaging is well oragnized The Message menu of Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is almost perfectly organized. The handset is capable of handling practically any type of message - SMS, EMS, MMS and e-mail.

The first three types share an editor and all you need to convert an SMS to an EMS or MMS is to apply text formatting or insert any multimedia content. As soon as you activate the editor, it displays a field for entering the number of the recipient, which you can insert through standard typing, select it from the phonebook, from the caller groups, or from the list with the most recent addressees in the call register. There is even the very handy option to set a contact as a messaging favorite in case you frequently write to one particular person.

Everything in the editor is intuitive and is organized in a practical time-saving manner. Once you have inserted the relevant number, a single click will shift to the message body where you can start typing. Naturally, the phone also offers a rich T9 dictionary to make texting even less of a chore.

Message length is limited to 1000 characters with both the count of typed characters and the number of parts the message will be divided into constantly visible. All messages use the shared memory, regardless of their type.

The email client is ok. It automatically adjusts its settings once you enter your email address and then all you need to do is enter your username and password. No more time wasted on trying to get a long list of settings right for the client to work.

It works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols and supports multiple email boxes. When a message is to be sent, it finds the email address of the corresponding recipient in the phonebook. Outgoing attachments are not limited in size.

The client downloads the headers and then offers to download the entire body of the messages you need. You can also set the messages to be automatically downloaded in full if data traffic is no problem.

Music player does the job The music player in Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is identical to those found in the other Series 40 devices (like Nokia 6600 slide for example). Looks have improved but all remains unchanged featurewise. The music player sorts songs by artist, album and genre. The great advantage over the other Arte siblings is that the inbuilt storage has been boosted to 4 GB.

The player works with MP3, MIDI, AAC, AAC+, and WMA formats. The supported A2DP profile allows you to listen through Bluetooth wireless earphones. The player looks can be changed to the classic skin if that suits the user better.

The handset uses the microUSB jack for connecting a headset, so finding a set of headphones for listening to music may turn out to be tricky.

The sonic experience of the player is enhanced by an equalizer and a stereo expansion function. Nokia 8800 Gold Arte has only one loudspeaker located on the side, right next to the camera. We already mentioned that we weren't terribly impressed by its performance.

On the positive side, we have to mention that it does not get muffled at all when the phone body is placed on its back.

Unfortunately, there is no FM radio on Nokia 8800 Gold Arte, something the Luna used to have. So if you get bored with the music player all you can do is turn the video on. The video player is compatible with the 3GP and MP4 formats and videos can be played in fullscreen mode, as well as fast-forwarded or rewound. The possibility to remove the soft key captions to make better use of the full screen view mode is nice and generally improves video watching.

Camera: 3 megapixels that leave much to be desired The Nokia 8800 Gold Arte is equipped with a 3 megapixel camera with autofocus. Typical for Series 40, the camera settings are limited, but that makes them simpler and easier to use. The settings include white balance, three photo quality options going form basic to high, and various effects. Sequence shots and shooting in both portrait and landscape mode are also among the available extras.