Whenever I'm gadget shopping I always go round and round and round, and this is no different. I've gone from considering the N95 to the N78 to the E71 to the N82 to the N85 back to the N82 to, God help me, various WinMo devices back to S60.

This isn't about a bias towards or against S60 as it is that most of the features I'm looking for happen to be branded Nokia. Anyway...

I've thought long and hard about my needs, both direct and edge-cases. First and foremost, most of my "walking around" surfing is to check mass transit arrival times, movie times, and maybe some news while waiting for said mass transit. Suffice it to say, I don't need 3G. What I do want above 3G is a phone with a good camera and reasonably fast GPS-locks and a bigger selection of available apps. The N82 fits that bill.

A few final questions before I pull the trigger:

• Can I configure the N82 to perform this same uPnP magic that the N95 is displaying in this video:
  http://www.thenokiaguide.com/my_web...tation-3-n.html
  
  More to the point, can I also stream video from the phone to the PS3 or is it just limited to music and pictures?
  
• What's the real-world battery life? It's going to be an EDGE-only connection, so I'm expecting something comparable to my SE, minus a few hours here and there for pictures or GPS.
  
• Garmin Mobile XT: Does it work? Google implies yes. Does it read street names? Google shrugged its shoulders and went off to play with a G1.
  
• Photo geotagging: Yes or no?
  
• Stability: I have a Cingular-branded N75 lying around that I use on occasion. It will sometimes blow out to a white screen and I need to yank the battery to get it back to normal. Is this because the phone's always been THAT jacked up, or is this a Nokia thing that I should just always expect? (Not trolling, the N75 was my first Nokia ever. I really don't know.)
  

Thanks for any and all answers. This place is a font - yes, a FONT - of information and opinions. Well...mostly opinions, but I like it anyway.

I can't answer the questions regarding the PS3 and Garmin, as I have neither. The battery life is very good. Not as good as the E71, but unless you've got push email configured or spend hours online, you should be able to squeeze out more than a day's usage out of it. I recharge mine every night, but then again I use GPS, wifi, and 3.5G constantly.

The N82 definitely does geotag.

Unfortunately, my N82 has crashed a few times on me. Not enough so that it's unusable, but every now and then, definitely. Sometimes just turning it off and then on again will fix it, but sometimes taking out the battery is required.

If it's the camera you're after, I DEFINITELY recommend the N82 out of the models you mentioned. It performs superbly on the camera front, and in my opinion it is still unmatched in this area by any other phone on the market today. Xenon flash is just an awesome addition to a phone.

The N82 supports the same UPNP the N95 does.

I have not tried to stream videos from the built in UPNP application, but it will work using SymSMB 4.00.

I have Garmin XT, and it does not read street names.

Phone is stable enough; it has not crashed when it was brand new, but since I have so many weirdo apps on it now, I come to expect a crash every blue moon if I'm doing some odd stuff with it.

Let me start by saying this:

The N82, is one of the greatest phones on the market. IF it had NAM 3G, it would be the absolute ULTIMATE phone on the planet. I owned a silver N82 for months, and i loved it to death, but for me, 3G is not really an option anymore. So i sold it to a hofo member.

But that doesnt mean i cant gush about it when given the opportunity

1) Yes you can do this. I had it hooked up to my PS3 and it happily played together very nicely. I never tried video, only because i never watched video on my N82 unless it was youtube, so i never really had any video files on it. I dont see why it wouldnt work.

2) Battery life is outstanding. put it in GSM only mode so it doesnt look for 3G at all, and you can get GREAT battery life.

3) Garmin XT working exceptionally. GPS locks within a few seconds. Garmin XT doesnt announce street names on any device, however.

4) Yes it does photo geotagging. i believe every Nokia with GPS does.

5) Its rock solid. i never had one problem with it. EVER.

Its a excellent device. Like i said, if it had NAM 3G, its be the ultimate.

If you told me they are making a NAM 3G model even a year from now, i'd form a line at the nokia store instantly.

I love my N82 and i dont need to point out the good stuff so ill point out some bad to put it out there given i have 3G:

1.Battery life sucks i get get roughly 1.5days out of it and thats given:
-3G all the time
-roughly an hour of call time
-12 hours a days of MS push mail every 15mins
-16 hours push gmail as it comes
-an hours worth of 3G browsing

on some days with some of the following and the above i can get well under a full day
-a few xenon flash snaps
-tomtom/googlemaps (using internal GPS)
-video recording
-joikuspot wifi sharing

so its largely dependant on what you do that decides the battery life, i can understand why it suffers bad battery life with the goodies i have going. I sometimes wish there was a second battery that only allows me to call and text at GSM level.

2.Keypad buttons are tiny, have to get used to it too me ages but im fine with it now.

3.The camera cover keeps flicking open in my pocket

cant think of anymore.

Battery Life: I user Nokia Mail for Push Gmail so i am always using edge. I get a solid day of battery life. When i wasn't using push email i would get about 2 days. A fair trade if you ask me.
Photo Geotagging works very well. I love the feture.
I tried to get the uPnP to work with the xbox but it didn't work so well. I couldn't get it to work.

I can only say good things about this phone...i've had it since April of this year and had absolutely no technical problems that weren't solved in less then an hour if and when they have come up...the only problem i could recall is the phone becoming somewhat sluggish after i have bombarded it with pictures and videos and tons of useless apps...a quick 3 finger salute and the phone is as fast as ever...

top of the line camera with exceptional quality video recording and picture taking... just make sure to get a fast memory card...and oh yea...it supports those new 16 gig sdhc mem cards...so memory should not be a problem...

Garmin locks on in most cases in less then a minute...however the closer you get into "downtown" areas the longer it would take to get a lock...weather conditions have never been an issue...get the detailed north america maps for 2009 and Garmin mobile xt works just as good as a stand alone garmin nuvi device...it doesn't announce street names but you can easily find any needed location if you have an address...

battery life depends on usage...i recharge my phone daily...but then again show me a phone enthusiast that doesn't...regardless on battery capacity and/or phone model...and if the reports are correct, with the new firmware upgrade, the battery life has been somewhat improved...i did not upgrade my fw yet...so i cannot vouch on this little tidbit of information...

another thing of note...its a brick...i've dropped it countless times...the device still performs just as good as the day i first unpacked it...and replacement oem housings are cheap and readily available on ebay...and are a snap to install...

get it...its the only one with xenon flash...and i must say that the prices have dropped significantly lately...and in my honest opinion, this phone will stay relevant for at least till the second half of 09...

n82 is a brilliant phone, but just like any hi tech device is not perfect and it does crash on ocassion, tho i have not had those problems with mine, with the latest firmware i actually have increased battery life and it works like a charm, n82 can do everything n95 can but in a candy bar package which some people prefer. i happen to love my current phone n85 but it is buggy, its still no its first firmware, it has its quirks, over all its a wild beast, fast, fast, fast, even faster than n82 which surprised me. if you are into hi end gadgets and have tolerance for few bugs that get corrected with firware upgrades i would go for either n82 or n85 in this case its a matter of candy bar vs. slider. still in all domains expect for camera n85 totally outperforms my n82

How do you push Gmail??


Thanks.

Set up gmail with imap.

yeh its imap but set it to 30mins but instead of every 30mins it somehow gets pulled/pushed? to the phone as it comes, hope they don't fix the "bug" im not sure if this means its constantly checking? but it hasn't dampened my battery as far as i can tell. When i set the Microsoft exchange to constant that was very noticeably killing the battery.

I think, if I didn't own an iPod Touch and my media so married to management via iTunes, the N85 would've been the one for me; although I would've wanted to wait for the NAM version. But, yeah, pragmatically there was just too much overlap in terms of functionality. It's a lot easier to carry my iPod + phone around than it is my phone + digital camera.

I'll admit, though, Nokia's made me really want an iPod with an OLED screen.

IMAP supports instant real-time email if it supports idle function. Gmail does support imap idle, so you will receive emails instantly as they arrive as long as you keep the email app open and connected. So really there is no need to set up a 30 interval if you use gmail imap. oh and this isnt a "bug" so nokia wont be removing it.

Also to the OP, the n75 is NOTHING like the n82, so you wont get those type of crashes with the n82. And the n82 is also totally faster and more stable. It has demand paging which is awesome, and it has ample amount of ram and faster cpu means that it totally outperforms the n75. It will be like night and day difference.