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).

The Nokia N81 8GB is a well-equipped music mobile, with 8GB of internal storage, a multi format music player and dedicated music player controls on the front panel.

You can store up to 6,000 tracks on the Nokia N81 8GB, depending on which format and the quality files are saved in. Tracks can be copied easily from a PC to the Nokia N81 8GB using the supplied USB cable or via Bluetooth. You can use synchronise your music with Windows Media Player 11 software on a PC, use Nokia PC Suite software to manage music files, or simply drag and drop files when plugged in via USB.

But as well as "sideloading" tracks from your PC to your Nokia N81 8GB you can download tracks directly to the phone over the air. Many mobile phones allow you to download music over the air, with mobile network operators offering their own music download services.

However, the Nokia N81 8GB is one of the first handsets to come preloaded with software enabling direct to phone downloads from the Nokia Music Store service.

You can access the Nokia Music Store service from a PC by visiting http://music.nokia.com/uk, or directly from your Nokia N81 8GB. Once you've landed on the Nokia Music Store home page, you can browse and search tracks under a variety of categories or by doing a text search.

To buy and download tracks, you have to sign up for the service by providing some standard information, such as username, password, email address and mobile phone number. You must the add credit to your account; there are a variety of ways of adding credits to your account, by using a credit or debit card or by using pre-paid vouchers.

In the UK, Nokia supplies the N81 8GB with a voucher for downloading 1 album or 10 tracks to try out the service. This voucher contains a scratch-off panel which contains a unique 16-character PIN code.

It's quick and easy to register for the Nokia Music Store online on your PC and add credit to your account. Once you have done this you can sign in to your account directly from your Nokia N81 8GB. You can then browse and buy tracks that can be sent straight to the phone.

Signing up to the Nokia Music Store from your N81 8GB
The Nokia Music Store can be accessed from several points within your Nokia N81 8GB's menu system, such as one of the options offered when using the Music Player application. From standby, however, it can be accessed in a few clicks.

Press the Menu button, on the bottom left of the closed phone (Figure 1).

Highlight the Music icon in the menu (Figure 2) and click the centre of the main navigation pad to select.

Highlight the Music store icon In the Music menu and press select (Figure 3).

You will be asked to Select access point (Figure 4). You can choose to access a Wi-Fi (Wireless LAN) connection by clicking on the Search for WLAN option, or alternatively scroll down the list of mobile network access points.

Scroll down to the access point you would usually use for internet browsing and press select (Figure 5).

After a few seconds, the Nokia Music Store home page will appear onscreen (Figure 6).

You can browse through the tracks available under a variety of categories, with the latest new releases, top tracks and albums shown (Figure 7). To buy and download tracks, you are required to join the service.

You can sign up for the Nokia Music Store by using the navigation control pad to move the cursor onscreen to highlight Join now on the top of the page (Figure 8).

You may get a message "This site has sent an untrusted certificate. Continue anyway?" Press select, highlight Continue and press select (Figure 9).

Complete the form (Figure 10) by highlighting each required box, and typing in details for username, password, confirm password, email address and mobile phone number (Figure 11).

Before proceeding you are also required to tick the box at the bottom of the page under Terms and conditions. You can read terms and conditions by highlighting and clicking on the underlined text next to the box, "I agree with Nokia Music's terms & conditions". (Figure 12).

Press Continue and you will be signed into the Nokia Music Store.

Buying credit
To buy credit, highlight My account at the top of the Nokia Music Store homepage and select Buy credit from the drop down menu (Figure 13).

You are presented with a list of options to buy certain amounts of track download credits, plus at the bottom of the page an option to redeem a PIN code from a voucher (Figure 14).

If you want to pay for credit using a credit card or debit card, highlight one of the amounts onscreen and click select. You may get a message "This site has sent an untrusted certificate. Continue anyway?" Press select, highlight Continue and press select (Figure 15).

You will now be presented with a payment form you can fill in (Figure 16).

Once completed, highlight the Continue button at the bottom of the page and press select. Your Nokia Music Store account will be credited with the amount. Your current Nokia Music Store credit balance will appear on the top line of the homepage.

If you have a voucher you want to redeem, instead of choosing one of the payment amounts scroll down to the bottom of the page, highlight the box Redeem PIN and press select (Figure 17).

You will be requested to "Key in your PIN number below:". Highlight the empty boxes and type in the 16-character PIN code from your voucher (Figure 18). Click on the box next to the underlined text "I agree with Nokia Music's terms & conditions". Highlight the Continue box and press select.

Your Nokia Music Store account will be credited with the amount from the voucher and the amount of your balance will be displayed on top of the hompage.

You can now browse the Nokia Music Store catalogue, buy tracks, and choose tracks you want to download later.

Signing in to the Nokia Music Store
Next time you want to browse or buy from the Nokia Music Store from your N81 8GB, follow the procedure described above until you get on to the Nokia Music Store homepage.

Highlight the Sign in option, click select and then type in your username and password (Figure 19). Highlight the Sign in box and click select. You will then be able to browse, buy and bookmark tracks for your "Wishlist" to download later (Figure 20).