Nokia 8850 Review

Overall Rating

Best looking phone ever made - incredibly cool. Decent battery life. Small and light. Limited features, but good at all that it does. Again, this phone looks amazing.

Screen problems, out-dated software, you really have to take care of it. Rattly case.

I've had this phone one and a half years now. I bought a new 6610 last week, but will continue to use the 8850 as a 2nd phone. Basically it looks amazing, I can't state this enough. Look after it and it'll look amazing for years to come - the brushed aluminium design will never grow old. Mine has 2 or 3 small scratches on it, but generally looks new.

As far as underneath the shell goes, it's an 8210 with white LEDs. Software is pretty old now, but has T9 text input, an irda port, calenendar, etc.

It's pretty resilient against general misuse tho. I've spilt beer over mine NUMEROUS occasions, dropped it, sat on it, etc, etc. Never has this directly caused a problem. Considering this phone is the type of object which shouldn't move from your office desk, I'm quite impressed how it's handled student life.

I had to get a new phone for several reasons. After about a year, the screen started flickering on and off - I guess a contact started going dodgy (beer/dust seeping in through the shell). Anyway, I sent it off to Nokia who replaced something, and the problem was back in a couple of months. I guess I could fix it myself, but I can't be bothered at the moment now that I have a new phone. Also, the back shell of the phone doesn't fit properly and rattles. I fixed this by lining the inside of the case with masking tape so it fits nice and snug - but you really shouldn't have to do this on a premium phone. Finally, the phone is old, it doesn't have WAP/colour screen/etc. which you can't blame it for (especially as it's over 3yrs old), but I thought it was time to get a new phone.

Just a word about it's replacement - the 8910. The 8910 is, yes, made out of titanium as opposed to aluminium which will probably make it a bit more resistant to being thrown around. However, the 8910 is a) bigger, b) heavier (by 20g), c) uglier (I doubt anyone will disagree) than the 8850. The features list really isn't much longer either.

Anyway, it'll probably be the best phone i'll ever own, the sleek aluminium shell, the range of features (for it's time), it's TINY and LIGHT - it's smaller than the 6610 I bought last week, and only 91g, which is less than most phones today (which are 3yrs younger). So yeah, ahead of its time. If you don't need more features than phone calls and txts - both things it does very well, then this phone will last forever if you look after it. There isn't a better looking phone you can buy - it certainly won't be going out of fashion for a long long time.