Hi there, im looking to get a new nokia 8500 phone off ebay…
I know the phone has WLAN (or WiFi?) basically what i understand of this is that you can access the internet from anywhere that has a WiFi set up.
E.g. my homes broadband, McDonalds and other Wifi hotspots for free. Is this true that it’s free? Also, how do you actually connect to the network, dont you need a code or something?

Also, regarding GPS, does anyone know how this works and is it free?

Sorry to sound so dumb but any advice would be much appreciated!

Some wifi hotspots you’ll have to register and pay for use, obviously using your own network at home doesn’t incur an extra charge. If the phone is 3G enabled, then you can browse the internet anywhere (within 3G signal area) over the air (best to have an unlimited web data plan with your phone network if you do this though so as to not rack up expensive bills).

GPS – some phones have inbuilt GPS. To use it you need to be in view of the sky (indoors near the window will work depending on how good the inbuilt gps is). It’s free, but any maps that require to be downloaded with whatever program you’re using the gps with will count towards previously mentioned data usage.

Hope that makes some kind of sense?

Presumably you mean a 5800?

Basically what Jolsa said – some wifi you pay for, some you don’t. When I was in Portugal at easter about half the places were free, the rest were cheap hourly rates (in the hotel, for example). If you need to stick a password in the phone pops up a screen for you to do so. Once registered you don’t need to introduce the password again.

The GPS is free to use, but as Jolsa said the maps aren’t. And if you’re driving in a foreign country the price would be pretty horrendous… While we’re at it, the 5800 takes ages to lock on to a signal, it’s pretty much useless if you want to drive across town to a friend’s new house, by the time it’s locked on you’ll have got there! It’s fine over longer distances, though.

> While we’re at it, the 5800 takes ages to lock on to a signal

Not the case on my 5800. Have you tried changing the A-GPS server setting? Mine was originally http://supl.nokia.com but after changing it to just supl.nokia.com it improved performance.

Just checked mine again and for some reason it now reads h-slp.mnc010.mcc234.pub.3gppnetwork.org (!) Could be something to do with the gps apps that I’ve updated/installed (Sports Tracker, Nokia Maps, Google maps etc) but I get a gps lock in 5-10 seconds with Google maps, and it worked great using Sports Tracker on my run yesterday.
http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=947303

To change A-GPS server setting on the Nokia 5800, go to Settings | Phone | Application Settings | Positioning | Positioning Server

I take it back – positioning is nearly immediate if you connect via 3G – if you don’t connect it’s slow as…