Phones.com » Cell Phones » Review of the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte

Don't be fooled by its looks, the Gold Arte doesn't feel so light. While the phone is simple art and appears weightless, it will surprise you in your hands, weighing no less than 150 grams! While good as a paperweight, the 8800 Gold Arte is solid in the hands too. Adding to the experience is the white leather, reminding us this is a luxury phone. The phone is made of stainless steel and finished with an 18 carat Gold coating. The keypad is all covered by a slide-down lid, while the screen itself can slide upwards. Nokia has designed the slider mechanism with precision ball-bearings, taking extreme precaution for the "feel" of the slider. The stunning looks are without doubt supplemented by the 2" OLED display, which sadly performs poorly under sunlight. Looks of this expensive phone are prevented from fading away with time; the 8800 Gold Arte has a scratch resistant surface.

The Gold Arte is identical to the 8800 Carbon Arte, in terms of features. As we've seen with the previous models of Nokia's "Arte", features are given a backseat, atleast in terms of software. The Carbon Arte and Gold Arte share the same UI and feature-set in common. The S40 5th Edition neither offers much in software appeal nor satisfies power-hungry mobile users. However this is no concern to Nokia considering the class of Individuals interested in the Gold Arte. No doubt we enjoyed the exclusive features on this phone such as the exclusive living wallpapers and Arte soundtracks, but Nokia could've beefed up the phone for more user appeal. The previous Arte features were there, such as the "turn-down-to-silence" and "tap-for-time", which amuse us nevertheless. There was 4 GB of onboard memory, lessening your pocket expense for another Flash card. Multimedia features were pleasing, with the 3 Megapixel Autofocus camera and support for MP3/AAC/eAAC. VGA video recording capability was a surprise, albeit at 15 fps.

We know the Arte offers not much serious connectivity. However Nokia was generous to include the usual Triband GSM (900/1800/1900 MHz) and UMTS 2100 MHz bands. There's no trace of High-Speed data, the 8800 Arte lacks both HSDPA and Wi-Fi connectivity. Bluetooth 2.0 was there, for your occasional fie transfers and music streaming. Support for Email, IM, SMS and MMS was included regardless.

The battery life wasn't impressive. Nokia included a 1000 mAh Li-ion, providing about 3.5 hours of 3G talk time and 300 hours of standby. Not bad, considering the uses of a piece of art, but people in business demand more.

The street price of the 8800 Gold Arte is well over a grand; however this is no surprise to us. Nokia targets the expensive slider toward people that demand flaunt value, no doubt the Gold Arte helps them. Apart from that the 8800 Arte doesn't deliver much in terms of a mobile phone, we have no comments on the true value of the jewelry item. You must afford it if you want to flaunt it!