Nokia N82

Photos: TBD

The Nokia N82 was arguably the most powerful non-touchscreen candy bar phone on the Series 60 3rd Edition platform. In essence, it was the equivalent of the legendary N95 slider but in a more restrained body. It ran not only the standard S60 applications but also N-Gage 2.0 games, turning the device into a portable multimedia center. Five megapixels with Carl Zeiss optics and a xenon flash in 2007 were enough to confidently compete with any other phone camera, while GPS, Wi-Fi, and stereo speakers made it a flagship in every sense.

Its technical specs were impressive: a 332 MHz processor with a hardware 3D graphics accelerator, full microSDHC support, powerful multimedia capabilities including TV-out, and video playback with quality that was quite decent for the time. It was designed for those who wanted the maximum from their phone but weren’t in a hurry to switch to touchscreens. The N82 looked like a serious tool, yet it could entertain — whether by launching a new N-Gage game or showing photos on a TV.

My only encounter with this smartphone was through a friend who owned an N82 at the time. Back then, it seemed huge, hefty, and absolutely packed with features I’d only read about in reviews. I remember turning it over in my hands, trying out some games, and feeling like I was holding the pinnacle of mobile technology of that era — the very peak most other phones were still striving to reach.

All photos from Vintage Cellphone and PDA Museum by TiredSysadmin are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.