The package does not include a case, so it is a good idea to get one, mainly to protect the display. Although a rubber case is available, it does not protect the two most sensitive parts of the phone - the lens and the display. It is meant more as additional protection against damage to the phone if it falls on a hard surface.
The biggest enemy of all phones is dust. There is no simple protection against it. The Lumia 800 has the necessary minimum of inputs - a speaker, microphone, mini USB, SIM and headphone jack. The speaker will not be easy to clean. The slot is quite narrow, so it will only be possible to do this carefully with a needle. The circular holes to the microphone tend to get clogged with dust that sticks to the grease on the walls. It’s nothing major, but again, it is necessary to remove the dirt with a needle once in a while. It seems that the headphone jack is in a separate partition, so dust cannot penetrate further into the inside of the phone through it.
There is a microphone and a second speaker on the bottom edge. I already welcomed two speakers in my previous Nokia 6230i. The speaker, which is not used for calls, is stronger. For example, you can watch Týden Live on it even without headphones, unless you are in a very noisy environment, such as high school or the subway. The episode I watched was about 40 minutes long and the phone streamed it via Wi-Fi. During that time, the battery dropped from 100% charge to 95%.
One piece of polycarbonate is a very handy solution that is very elegant and guarantees the overall rigidity of the structure. Nothing squeaks, nothing bends, nothing can come off, because it doesn't even have anything. There is a hole with a diameter of 0.8 mm under the two LEDs, apparently for manufacturing reasons. It doesn't look dangerous, it’s just close to the camera lens. The polycarbonate does not adhere directly to the tempered glass of the display, but there is a gap 0.3 mm wide. Due to the presence of glass, careful cleaning with a needle is out of the question, but rather with the corner of the paper. The buttons are precise, the gap between them and the polycarbonate is 0.2 mm at most, but typically 0.1 mm. So they don't have too much play and don't tip out.
The display is safely hidden and sealed, and no dust should ever get to it. This is a much better solution than in the case of the Nokia 6230i, which had a replaceable case, but its design creaked and dust appeared immediately behind the display cover. In addition, the cover was made of only plastic. If plastic had better optical properties than glass, camera lenses would be plastic – which they are not. Grease on the display is not visible at all after it is lit thanks to the polarizing filter.
The top edge is designed very ingeniously. The cover of the USB connector has one degree of freedom – rotation around a metal axis mounted in polycarbonate. The click is magnetic, so there is nothing to peel off. Shortly after I got acquainted with this design, I was horrified at what idiot could come up with something like that. However, after quite intensive use, when I was uploading a new build of my application every now and then, I found out that the plastic used is quite flexible and could last for a few years. I would rather welcome a titanium one. You need to think about it and handle the cover carefully. It’s a pity that the power supply is not designed similarly to MacBooks. The SIM chip is inserted into the drawer similarly to the HDD in a PC case (unless you have the cheapest one). Contact wires will leave grooves on the contact surfaces, which is obvious. However, it is not a design suitable for frequent SIM chip replacement. Systems where the chip is just placed on the connectors is better for frequent replacement. Thanks to the universal jack connector, even regular headphones can be connected to the phone (tested on Air Canada headphones).
The camera has a fixed focus. I haven't figured out yet how to focus manually, or if it’s even possible. The focus mode has a special mode for macro, which is translated as zoom mode. However, the target group is not DSLR users, so it can be tolerated. When you press the shutter button, the focus is signaled acoustically, which is nice. The metering mode (again, only the metering mode is listed, so you don't know if it measures exposure, white balance, or something else) has three modes – center balance, frame average, and center point. I always have to think for a few minutes before I realize what the UI designer actually meant (the question is whether he even knew what it was about). The lowest ISO value is 100. Very useful is the flicker reduction function of 50 Hz and 60 Hz, so you can take great pictures with LCDs. The LED backlight can be set to automatic, turned off, or forced. If you shoot in RAW on your DSLR, then keep in mind that this only takes pictures in JPEG. It is therefore necessary to set the parameters of the software image processing before the shutter is triggered. The lack of light due to the small lens and the inability to use a tripod cannot be solved in any other way than by increasing the ISO. The photos also look like this. On the other hand, if you display those photos on a 3.7-inch display, it is more than enough and there is nothing to worry about.
The battery life is very decent for a smartphone. With data transfers turned off over the mobile network, it lasts over 2 days. It’s hard to say where the 1.45 Ah battery capacity will drop per year. However, the firmware does a lot and some updates are still in the pipeline. Nokia has a good reputation in this area. After two years, I had to charge my old Nokia 6230i every other day. After buying it, it was enough to charge it once every two weeks. I already thought that I would have to buy a new battery. But when I was dealing with the fact that the new 512MB SSD card instead of the standard 32MB was not working, I was told that I needed a new firmware. After loading it, I charged it again once every two weeks. After seven years of use, it dropped to one week. Whether the Nokia Lumia 800 will last 24 hours of normal use after seven years of charging remains to be seen.