The N82 inherits much of the Nokia N95's features and specifications (including GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA), with the major addition being its xenon flash.

[10] The N86 8MP from 2009 (a slider) is considered to be the N82's spiritual successor due to its high-end camera technology, despite the lack of Xenon flash.

Discussions and head-to-head comparisons of these two models demonstrate the N86 8MP from 2009, which is equipped with dual LED flash, is not consistently capable of outperforming the N82 in variable lighting.

[20] The mainland China market version of the N82 has a different hardware platform which has Wi-Fi and the UMTS radio removed (no 3G support), has a different product code (RM-314 as opposed to RM-313) and its firmware is incompatible with the regular model's.

This version can be readily identified by the lack of "WLAN scanning" display on the idle screen.