The N81 is a sleek and stylish entry to the popular N-series range of Symbian-powered phones. It's full of up-to-date entertainment features too, like N-Gage.

However, on top of the staggering array of multimedia gadgetry packed inside, the Nokia N81 is geared up to meet all your mobile messaging needs - including email. The device enables you to receive and send emails from your normal email account(s) in a similarly easy way as you would with a desktop PC.

It's simple to set up too. With just a few button presses, you can be accessing your emails, viewing and downloading attachments and firing off emails from the phone.

All you need is a few details of your email account - address, user name and password - and you can get connected to web-based email or email provided by your Internet Service Provider. You can receive and read emails, send emails and forward messages, and tweak settings to suit exactly how you want to use and view your messages - just like with your desktop email.

You can add one email account, or use a number of separate email accounts and switch between them in the phone's settings menus.

The Nokia N81 has an email wizard onboard that can be used to automatically retrieve settings for POP3 email for most web and ISP email accounts. It's simple to use, but if you do have any problems, you can find help and settings details from Nokia's UK support site. From here you can set up your phone via a received text message. If you want to use your Nokia N81 with corporate email, you should talk to your company's IT department to get it set up.

Setting up email

1. From the standby screen, press the Messaging softkey (Figure 1). Altenatively, press the Menu button, and highlight Messaging (Figure 2). Press Open.
2. Scroll down to highlight New mailbox (Figure 3). Press Open.
3. A message appears: No mailbox defined. Define now? (Figure 4). Press Yes.
4. Instructions appear for the email wizard (Figure 5). To start the email set-up wizard, press Start.
5. In the email address box, type in your full email address (Figure 6). Press OK.
6. You can now type in the name you want to call your email mailbox, or leave it as the default name of your email service (Figure 7). Press OK.
7. You are asked to define the user name and password for your account (Figure 8). Press Yes to continue.
8. In the User name panel, edit the email address until you have your user name - this is usually the bit of your email address before the '@' sign, (though if you're unsure, check with on your email service provider's website) (Figure 9).
9. When completed, scroll down using the navigation pad to highlight the Password panel. Type in your email account password (Figure 10). Press OK.
10. After a few moments a message appears onscreen informing you that the email mailbox has been defined (Figure 11). Press OK.
11. The first time you set up, you will be taken into your mailbox and asked: Connect to mailbox? (Figure 12). Press Yes.
12. After a few seconds while the phone connects, you will get a list of email message subject headers onscreen (Figure 13). Scroll through the list to highlight ones you want to view.
13. Press Open to download and view the full email. Scroll down to read the message (Figure 14).
14. If the message has an attachment, scroll to highlight it and press Attachments (Figure 15). Highlight the attachment and press Open (Figure 16). You'll be able to see the attachment in full (Figure 17). Press Close and Back to return to the original email.

To get back to your mailbox, press Back. Alternatively, if you want to reply, forward or see other options, press Options. A list appears onscreen (Figure 18).

Replying to emails

1. To reply, highlight Reply. Press Select. Highlight To sender (Figure 19). Press Select.
2. Type in the text of your message. You can also edit or delete the original message if you want to, add new recipients or alter the subject header (Figure 20).
3. When you're ready to send, press Options, highlight Send and press Select (Figure 21).
4. Alternatively, before you send the message you can add an image or other files by selecting Insert from the Options list and pressing Select (Figure 22).
5. A row of icons appears at the bottom of the display, representing different elements you can insert - images, others, video clips, sound clips or text (Figure 23). Highlight and select one of these, and you can search through files to add a suitable attachment. Press Select to add it to your email.
6. When ready to send, as before press Options, highlight Send and press Select (Figure 21).

Checking for new emails

1. To check for new emails go to the Messaging menu as before (Figure 2).
2. Scroll down to the name you gave your email mailbox (Figure 24). Press Open.
3. If you're not currently connected, you will be asked if you want to connect to your mailbox (Figure 25). Press Yes. New messages will now be retrieved.
4. If you are already in your mailbox and want to check for new messages, press Options, scroll down to Retrieve email (Figure 26). Press Select.
5. Highlight New (Figure 27). Press Select. New messages subjects will be delivered to your mailbox.

Sending new emails

You can send messages as emails as quickly and easily as text or MMS messages.

1. In the Messaging menu, highlight New message (Figure 28). Press Select.
2. Scroll down to highlight E-mail (Figure 29). Press OK.
3. Add the email address, subject and message (Figure 30).
4. If you want to, add any attachments in the way outlined above.
5. As before, when your email is ready to send, press Options, highlight Send and press Select (Figure 21).