The Nokia 8800 looks a million dollars and costs nearly that much! But that's the point - exclusivity and style is what the 8800 is all about. The looks of the 8800 are unique. The phone's sliding keypad cover is made from stainless steel and is laser-cut for precision. The cover is engineered to be strong and to protect the phone. The screen is also built to last, being made from reinforced scratch-resistant glass, so your investment will be well protected. The keypad isn't the easiest to use, but it's OK. The phone is quite heavy, but feels good to hold. The overall impression of the phone is first class.

There's no doubt the Nokia 8800 makes a striking first impression, with its eye-catching silver chassis and complementary black and carbon gray accents. It's also thin and compact at 4.2 by 1.7 by 0.6 inches, which is enough to slip into a pocket, but its stainless-steel body puts it on the heavier side at 4.8 ounces. With its sleek look, we wouldn't be surprised to find the 8800 making cameos in TV's Alias or a James Bond movie (it actually appears in Michael Bay's The Island); in fact, if it weren't for the Nokia branding above the screen, one couldn't be sure it was a phone at all, since there isn't a visible keypad or typical phone features. The 1.7-inch-diagonal display is bright and gorgeous, displaying 262,000 vibrant colors and a 208x208-pixel resolution. We had an easier time reading the 8800's display in sunlight compared with other phones we've tested, but it tends to hold a lot of smudges and fingerprints, as does the phone as a whole.

The display is virtually similar to the one of 6230i. It has the same size - 30 × 30 mm and the same resolution of 208 × 208 pixels. Higher is the number of colors, which has grown to 262K.

Anyway, the picture is very smooth, fine and rather contrast. It's a pleasure to the eye. It's a pity that the font color may be changed only for the main stand-by display, but not for the whole menu. We don't have a chance to go trough the menu comfortable in case of dark wall-papers. You just couldn't see some descriptions. The display is protected by a hardened glass, which you can't scratch just like that.

The Nokia 8800's SVGA (0.5 megapixel) camera is disappointing for such a high-end phone, but it takes pictures in two image sizes (800x600 and 120x144) and three quality settings (High, Normal, and Basic). There is a 10-second self-timer, zoom, and a night mode available, but as far as customization options, the only choice you get is turning the camera sound on or off--no fun frames, color tones, and so forth. Once you snap your photos, you can save them to the phone's 64MB of internal memory, send them to others via multimedia message or Bluetooth, set an image as wallpaper or a screensaver, or upload them to your computer. Photo quality was decent, but nighttime shots were subpar even with the night mode on.

The 8800 has average photo quality.

You can also use the Nokia 8800's camera to shoot 30-second video clips with sound or up to 74 minutes if you set the video-clip length to maximum. There's a convenient countdown timer at the top of the screen, and you also get the same options for image size and quality settings as you do in still camera mode, as well as a mute option. While the quality of photos was passable, videos were blurry and pixelated

Thanks god we didn't borrow this sample of Nokia 8800 like the first one. Someone else before us obviously had confused the back cover of the battery with a yoghurt lid and tried to "unstick" it. He didn't only make some scratches on the metal back of the phone, but had twisted the back cover and couldn't manage the classic release by the two side long buttons.

Behind the cover you'll find a battery, especially made for 8800. It has a BL-5X sign and is very small. However we face a lower capacity in comparison with the ones we have used to. According to the manufacturer 600 mAh is enough for approximately 8 days of stand-by and up to 180 minutes talk time. In practice the steel phone usually endures short time. Not much of a problem, because in the package you'll find a second battery of the same type.

The Nokia 8800 features a sophisticated media player that can play AAC and MP3 file formats, as well as streaming video, but perhaps most impressive is the fact that it's one of the first mobiles to support the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile Bluetooth specification, so you can stream music to a Bluetooth headset or a Bluetooth headphone. To top it all off, the 8800 also features an FM tuner, which does require you to use the included wired headset, since it acts as an antenna and allows you to store up to 20 station presets. We plugged it in and tuned in to our favorite radio station but didn't quite get the full effect with only one earbud.

The phone has memory for 1000 contacts. You can use the entries stored in the SIM card memory and on the phone's memory at the same time. You may add five types of phone numbers to every contact - the first one may be set like default, additionally you may change the indication of the primary number. After this come the email and web addresses, mailing address, user's ID, picture and notice.

GSM 900 / 1800 / 1900.
the tri band GSM does the job of making calls ok with a good RF performance but you hit problems as soon as you venture to text messaging. The buttons are far too close together for our fingers to text at any speed T9 or no T9, this also impairs using the phonebook and many of the phones additional features, heaven forbid you'd try and use the web browsing GPRS capability