Technical Details
The 8800 itself measures in at 107mm x 45mm x 16.5mm, which is about the standard dimensions for the cheaper 6230i upon which the 8800 is based. The depth of the device, at a mere 17mm is where the 8800 really stands out, although, due to the 8800 being constructed from high quality stainless steel it suffers in the weight stakes, tipping the scales at 134 grams.
The phone features 208x208 pixel TFT display capable of displaying 262,144 colours protected by the fine pitch sapphire glass cover. Under the display are two function buttons which are raised above the main keypad of the phone, whilst this maintains the design, its makes use of the phone difficult with one hand, the buttons are just not all within comfortable reach.
A massive omission from this phone is any form of external volume adjustment; basically you are restricted to the volume on each call unless you remove the phone from your ear and go through the menus to adjust the volume for the caller you have on the line at the time.
Of course, this can be avoided if you use a BlueTooth™ headset accessory as long as you have one with its own volume control; the 8800 featuring version 1.2 BlueTooth™.
The battery on the 8800 is half the size of that on the 6230i upon which the 8800 is based. Giving a poor talk time of around 1.5 hours and a quoted standby time of 8 hours, its no wonder that Nokia provide two batteries in the box when you buy an 8800.
As detailed before, the interface and software on the 8800 has been taken from the 6230i, the animated icons and interface do of course look better on the 8800 but this is down to the quality of the screen rather than any changes Nokia made to the software.
Another irritant is the sound output, unlike the 6230i, the output for sound on the 8800 is mono only, therefore, even if you plug in stereo headphones to listen to the radio, the playback will be mono, a big disappointment considering.
Yet more features have been stripped in trying to get the 6230i into the slender shell of the 8800, the java functionality of the device has been slashed from 512kb down to the pitiful amount of 100k, not really enough for the growing mobile gaming market and disappointing considering the 8800 does have a 3D image engine.
