Hold a Nokia N86 8MP in your hand and you will amazed at how solid and sturdy it feels , the same way on the software side , the phone is not a wimp . Powered by Series 60 v3 Feature Pack 2 ( the precursor of S60v% as that on N97 ) it’s a Powerhouse of a phone with an Achilles Heel.
On the main standby screen the phone features 6 Shortcuts on it’s active bar , three soft keys in the bottom with then middle open operated by the D-Pad . The screen also Calendars , Email and Share options
Press the Menu Key on the bottom right and the Main menu begins with icons for Calendar , Contacts , Music , Web , Messaging , Photos , Maps , Search , Tools , Games and Applications . With the exception of Calendar , Contacts , Web , Maps , Search and Games , other options are folders with more options inside
The first Folder on the main screen is labeled Music , rightly called as it only feature Music Related shortcuts , Media Player through Real Player is in Apps Menu .
The Music Menu features , FM Radio ( for listening OTA FM Transmission ) alas it still needs a wired headset , Music Store accessable in Pakistan but no use for me , Internet Radio which connects me to the hundreds of Radio Stations through out the world including one from Pakistan 
, Podcasting to download Podcasts , a cumbersome software which needs much refinement , Music Player , same old interface with options for Shuffle Play , Repeat , FM Transmitter , Equalizer with Bass Booster , Classical Jazz , POP and Rock settings and visualizations . On the side note the phone still lacks the Bass Boost even after activating the Bass booster. The last option is the FM Transmit which transfers all the sound to a FM Radio on a fixed frequency . I’ve yet to try if it works as a handsfree to with the car stereo.
The Web Browser has also been revamped and in independent tests has proved to be faster than that of E71 ( I didn’t conducted my own , have no clue how to do them . The current Browser version is NG/7.1.13380
Nokia Messaging has also been upgraded , although it features the same menu set as before , the Email application is same as that of E75 and requires POP3 and IMAP settings for corporate email accounts but works on auto setting detect for mass email accounts like GMAIL , OVI , HOTMAIL and YAHOO
In the Photos Menu , the photos can be viewed all at once , or by Month , or by Album , Tags and also Shared Online on OVI Share ( VOX in my case as OVI Share is still not supported in Pakistan ) . The best thing I like about the Photo Viewer is the Carousal like view panel which takes the photos in a circular menu and the photos are Geo Tagged automatically placing them on the map where they were taken .
What I don’t like about Camera menu is that there is no image editor or Video Editor , if Nokia would have put a builtin Image Editor with the software it would have been better I can simply add a caption on the photos , edit it the way I like and post it on the web .
I’ve upgraded the Maps application to OVI Maps 3.01.09 wk26 , the latest version , the GPS lockup takes a little time , around 30 sec even with A-GPS , it could be due to heavy cloudy weather of Karachi nowadays . The maps feature the usual 3D , Terrain and Satellite view , a plus point with N86 8MP is that it comes with Walking Navigation License for Life and Driving Navigation License for trial to be activated before 3rd Oct 2009.
The Walk Navigation is a premium service which guides along pedestrian area alas no maps for Pakistan are available 
and on searching the places near me I get the details of India some 475 km away from my location.
In the Tools Menu , there is Connectivity option with connection option for Bluetooth , Wlan Wiz , Conn Mgr , Sync , USB Connection settings , and Net Settings which offers options to download GIZMo5 a VOIP Client and VYKE Mobile . Profiles are the usual settings , Phone Setup is a great utility which helps in Personalization the phone , setup email , NEt Settings , Sett Wizard and SW update . The Personalization menu runs on the startup when the phone is first started out of the box to help the user to customize the phone from day One . the SW update is the FOTA update client ( Firmware over the Air ). It also offers software updates like that of OVI Maps if available so for a 3 mb update , I don’t have to download and install a whole 130mb of FW update via NSU.
Other menus are same as in older phones so need to go into details
In the Games menu comes the N-Gage gaming , the Nokia N86 having dedicated gaming keys support playing N-Gage gaming with 17 Trials pre marked and available Coupon to have one of them for free including Prince of Persia , Worms , Spore Origins , Pandemonium , and Need For Speed Undercover which I’ve opted to purchase for Free.
The games can be downloaded directly on the phone or sent to the computer through email.
The Application menu is where the bulk of the applications reside from bloatware by Nokia to User Installed Application .
The Applications menu has Office Folder – with File Manager , QuickOffice 4( yes still 4 not 6 which Quick Office giving away free on all E Series devices ) , Converter , Calculator , ZIP , Notes , Adobe PDF ( still older version ) and Msg Reader.
The Application folder also has , Clock , Log , Share Online , Email , Camera , Video Center , Gallery , Help , App Mgr , Recorder , Speech , GPS Data , Landmarks , licenses , My Nokia , Home Media , Real player , About , Dictionary , PTT , YouTube Client , SW update ( again ) , SIM Card , Face book all pre installed on the phone.
I think Nokia thought to throw everything under one menu and name it Application, in my E71 everything is neatly divided in sub menus which are relevant .
The best way to organize is to make your own Folders and shift the application to them accordingly
The Application menu also has several hidden gems like the Home Media which shares the Media stored on the phone to a compatible device like another phone or the PC through Wireless network. I’m still not able to connect the both will try it again in a few days .
Other enhancements include customizable Slide Handling i.e. what you want the phone to do when Slide is pushed down or up , you can also customize the Kick Stand which when opened can activate any installed application already predefined in the settings.
In the Camera Menu , the Phone offers Panorama mode , and Scene mode including Auto , User Defined , Close Up , Portrait , Landscape , Sport , Night and Night Portrait. Even the toolbar on the Camera menu can also be customized to add any much used shortcut.
Coming to the Achilles Heel , same like that in Nokia N97 , the user available memory in the Phone is drastically low at 50 mb , I’m not talking about the 8GB flash memory but the base memory where all the emails and contacts are saved . Just what I did with N97 I uninstalled all the bloat ware installed by Nokia and reinstalled the applications I wanted on the 8GB memory , it takes time but it frees up valuable memory on the phone .
Overall I found Nokia N86 8MP to be a powerful device , working as advertised i.e a great entertainment device and a great Camera . I will not use it as my Business Phone for now nothing can beat my E71 but for a side phone , vacation phone and phone for my wife I’ll always recommend it .
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