Up close with the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition

While Nokia's just now starting an up-market push in the States with its older 8801, it looks like the freshened model (pictured right) is starting to filter through Europe in earnest after making some cameos last month. Newly dubbed the "Sirocco Edition" but wearing the same 8800 badge, the Vertu wannabe shares most of its predecessor's characteristics: unusually excellent build quality, hardened sapphire display, and lots of hypnotically shiny metal. Unfortunately, as phoneArena found out, it carries over a number of the original's faults as well, namely uneven keypad backlighting and a crappy d-pad. Oh, and still no expansion slot, though the re-upped internal storage (now 128MB) may hold you over -- but with prices pushing an honest grand US, the real question is whether you want to fork over some serious cash for the privilege of a circa-2005 spec sheet.