Nokia 8800 Arte

The Art of Seduction – My affair with the Nokia 8800 Arte

The art of seduction involves temptation and enticement, to attract or influence the behavior of another. Seduction is a synonym for the act of charming someone, by an appeal to the senses. The seducing agent may even be nonhuman, such as music or food, or a Nokia 8800 Arte…

Whilst gently disrobing it from its synthetic covers, a dark, elegant, and sophisticated metal body appears. It’s the new 8800 Arte, Nokia’s latest lifestyle phone, “destined to excite style-conscious consumers”.

This phone’s looks are absolutely eye-catching. Its minimalist design is striking as it exudes style, sex, and classiness. Will its enticing looks however satisfy my needs?

The Body:

The 8800 Arte is a slide-phone, and it is probably the best slide phone I have used. Most slide phones look great, however their weak points lie in the mechanics of the slider. Compared to other sliders, this one feels solid, and lessens the angst of it wearing out.

The 8800 Arte feels heavier than other mobile phones, but it feels solid at the same time. The phone is made of steel and glass, which adds to its weight, but does nevertheless transcend the feeling of a luxurious piece of quality equipment.

Using your fingers:

Nokia has claimed that the 8800 series comes with an anti-fingerprint coating on the metal and the glass. This is a failed concept in my opinion as the first off-putting thing I noticed was that my fingerprints where all over the shiny metal body, and the one thing you don’t want on such a beautiful body are smudgy fingerprints.

Not only does this anti-fingerprint coating not work, but one actually cannot slide the phone open without pressing ones thumbs right against the screen, leaving behind a smeary print…

Display:

The phone features a 2.0″ QVGA 240×320 pixels, OLED display with up to 16 million colors – a little bit on the smallish side, but in fair proportion to the phones size. The image quality is incredibly sharp, but is poorly legible under direct sunlight

Camera:

The 3.2 megapixel, auto-focus camera, with 8x digital zoom is quite good. However the camera only performs in daylight, since it does NOT have a flashlight. This makes the camera ineffective when it is even just a tad dark. Personally I find the camera function an important one and am very disappointed that such a “sophisticated” phone has no flash, is this “sophistication” purely and aesthetic one?

Usability and functionality:

The keyboard is small, yet ergonomically friendly. The phone feels comfortable whilst typing and whilst phoning. The menu functionality is still based on the same old typical Nokia interface. This is a little disappointing as I find it out-dated and unexciting. The phone does not offer many unique functionalities, and cannot do much more than the mid-range Nokia phones.

The battery life on the phone is excellent. It lasted me a week whilst testing it on a daily basis!

Memory space:

The slim, shiny 8800 boasts 1GB of internal memory. The memory can thus NOT be expanded, however 1GB is quite impressive!

“Turn-to-Mute” Feature

I really enjoy this feature, which allows for any incoming calls to be silenced by simply turning over the phone, screen-side down, allowing owners to quiet their phone discreetly.

Accessories:

The 8800 Arte comes with a stylishly designed Nokia Bluetooth headset. Each handset comes with a leather pouch and a separate matching desk stand. The desk stand is very sturdy, and glows subtly when whilst the phone is charging. All these accessories come standard with the phone.

Who is this phone for?

This phone is perfect for those who rate looks over functionality and features. It is a purely style-conscious unit and is definitely not a business phone, as the functionalities are very limited compared to the N or E series. This I found disappointing as the phone looks sophisticated but is not from a technology point of view. It reminds me of the LG Chocolate – looks good, lacks functionality.

However, Nokia have marketed this specific unit as a seductive piece of art, “destined to excite style-conscious consumers”, and not as a good business or multimedia phone. Having said that, the 8800 Arte might not get the best rating based on my expectations, but rather on what Nokia has marketed the phone as: a damn good looking phone!

The consequences of seduction:

This is the part where no one could possibly justify to me why this phone sells for a whopping R14 500.00…that, no matter how sexy, seductive, or exclusive a phone might be, is ludicrous, unless the 8800 Arte would get you into bed with Natalie Portman…

At this time the phone is only available at exactmall.co.za

Rate this review:

(7 votes, average: 3.29 out of 5)

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Filed Under Cellphones, Featured Reviews, Mobile, Nokia