Nokia 8800 Gold Arte review: Born with a silver spoon

Organizer: the one we know and love

The organizer of the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte has undergone very little changes compared to the other S40 models. Not that it needs many, as it handles time-management almost perfectly. Month, week, and day views are available for the calendar. The week can start on Monday, Sunday, or Saturday. There are also five types of events available that can be set up: reminder, meeting, call, birthday and memo. Furthermore, each type of event has its own unique fields like start and end time, type of alert with various advance intervals, daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly repetition.

The different calendar view modes and the events available for setting up

There is also a handy to-do manager that enables you to categorize your tasks into three priority levels. Tasks can be assigned an alert, as well as marked off once accomplished. They are easily synced with the calendar application. Text notes with a limit of 3000 characters are available as well.

The to-do manager helps you organize your tasks better

The alarm clock is repeatable; it can be set to go off on any weekday and works even when the phone is switched off. A nice added touch is the possibility to set the snooze alarm to any interval you like.

Setting up an alarm on the Gold Arte

Furthermore, there is a cool feature utilizing the built-in sensor that shows the clock when you shake the phone twice. It also works upon tapping the keypad cover twice if you prefer it this way.

The other organizing functions available include a voice recorder with a 60-minute length limit, stopwatch, countdown timer and a calculator. They are all easily operable and decent looking. This time however, the calculator offers two different versions - a basic application and a scientific version with more functions available. An elaborate loan calculator is also at the user's disposal.

Some more organizer applications from Nokia 8800 Gold Arte - voice recorder, countdown timer and a stopwatch

The calculator offers simple and scientific modes, as well as loan calculation

Many applications

Nokia 8800 Gold Arte has a decent set of preinstalled applications outside the organizer.

First in line is the size converter that provides quick conversions across various size standards. From shoes to shirts, everything is covered.

Size converter

Then there's the unit converter. It offers all kinds of converting options, including currencies.

Almost any type of unit conversion is available with the Nokia 8800 Gold Arte

The search application helps you find the piece of data you are looking for on your handset, while the download application takes you to the Nokia download center. There you can find a lot of useful stuff for your handset. The Gold Arte also includes the Widsets application, which is a group of web based applications that can be accessed at the cost of only a few clicks.

Search and WidSets applications

There is also a dictionary, which offers quick multilingual translations. Unfortunately, the word database is not that big, so don't expect too much of it. The world clock application that can tell you the current time in every spot of the world completes the list.

Unluckily the dictionary has a relatively small word database • The World clock application

A single game only

Gaming lovers will probably feel disappointed with the Gold Arte's preloaded content. It features a single game - Golf Tour. Although it has acceptable graphics and decent gameplay, we aren't that impressed. Besides, we have seen it on dozens of handsets already.

Golf Tour game

Anyway, it is hard to imagine a Nokia 8800 Gold Arte owner fooling around playing games on their mobile. If they do however, even this fashion-conscious device can be turned into a portable gaming console with the dozens of compatible games available for download.

Final words

It's the Arte series and you're more likely to want one than own one. We do. And we don't. End of story.

There's no point going on and on about the market and pricing or the aesthetic value of the Arte handsets. There's no denying their seductive power or their inherent technical handicap. What you have is so hard - and so easy - to resist. So, suit yourself.

Mobile phones have long become a commodity and we guess there's no reason to be bitter with the Arte series for being among the last strongholds of luxury. And by the way, we believe the Nokia approach does more for the brand in the long run than the co-branding projects of the competition.

Now, having cheered every new addition to the Arte series, we can go ahead and say white leather on gold is hardly our favorite styling. But to some it may as well be the next best thing since a cruise in their own pleasure boat. And if it doesn't - there's always an option of getting something that has a more distinctive aura, if you get what we mean.