14 DAY TRIAL // I was wondering when Nokia would start copying other successful brand designs and? here it is, in the form of a new clamshell ? Nokia N76. This is probably the first Nokia handset which strongly resembles a unique design specific to another well-known brand, Motorola. Maybe you'll think that these days everyone copies everyone (in a good way), some making some adjustments or improving the copy, others simply "plagiarizing" the original model. And maybe this is how the evolution of the technology is made today, but still what we have here is a 100% Motorola design with Nokia tech features. There's nothing bad in "borrowing" a successful design which is not even owned or patented by another company, but this is a very dangerous aspect especially if your newly-launched product is no better than the original. So, is Nokia N76 better than the latest Motorola handsets available on the market or is it a fiasco? Perhaps some part of the question has already been answered, indirectly by the surprising decision of one of the most important UK's mobile network operators, Vodafone. It seems that the company agreed to withdraw most of the handsets already sold because of the large number of customer complaints. Furthermore, Vodafone UK will also remove Nokia N76 from their offer as the company is facing a huge number of returns of Nokia's handset.
Announced in January 2007, Nokia N76 has been made available on the market in April at an estimated, pre-tax, unsubsidized sales price of approximately 400 euros. At the moment, the mobile phone can be acquired for about 630 USD without any plan.
Design
Nokia N76 is definitely a stylish clamshell, but only in pictures. This is just my opinion, but I see no reason for Nokia to use such a cheap plastic for this handset. Moreover, the paint used is definitely peeling off on sides and even if this is not a general fact, it still determined Nokia to announce that the warranty covers this problem, too.
The trimmer fold model has serious design problems, which limit its functionality. One of these problems regards the 3.5 mm jack port which has been placed on top of the phone and stops you from unfolding the clamshell when you're using the headphones. The same goes for the miniUSB port situated right near the 3.5 mm audio jack which prevents any attempt of opening the clamshell while you're synchronizing the phone with the PC through the USB cable. The silver plated parts of the phone, if not peeling off yet, will definitely be full of fingerprints in no time, no matter how ?carefully? you?d handle it (unless you're wearing gloves, of course).
The phone is big, perhaps one of the biggest clamshells on the market, measuring 106.5 x 52 x 13.7 mm (folded) and weighing 115 grams (battery included). Perhaps this is not a big deal, but the real problem is that there's no way that you can open it with only one hand. Oh well, maybe there are people that trained especially for that, but a common user will not be able to unfold the phone single-handedly. On the right side of the handset, you'll notice the volume controls as well as a Gallery dedicated key and the Camera button. The latter is the only key that can be used for taking pictures or recording clips, and that?s damn hard to push. On the left side of the phone, there's the AC4 charger port and the microSD slot card which is covered by a metallic flap.
The secondary 2.4'' display is covered by a mirror-like surface which can be very helpful for ladies, but you'll need a cloth to clean it frequently as it catches fingerprints in no time. Right under the smaller display, there are 3 music control keys which also help the user navigate the menu if s/he doesn't want to open the big clamshell, together with the volume keys. The keys are excellent, lighted in blue whenever the phone is in darker areas. Perhaps some touch-sensitive keys would've been more appropriate for this N-series mobile phone. On the back of the phone, Nokia embedded the 2 Megapixel camera with flash. Oh, well when you unfold the clamshell you'll notice the RAZR-like keys which are in-plated and hard to push. As a matter of fact, if you don't pay attention to Nokia's logo imprinted and take away the Symbian dedicated keys you'll think that this is a Motorola handset.
Anyway, there's a secondary camera on the top right of the main display which can be used for video calls. To the left of the front camera there's a light sensor which triggers the bluish backlighting of the keys whenever it lacks light. Actually, if you cover the sensor with your fingers, the backlighting should light up your keys no matter the environment you're in. The loudspeaker of the phone has been strangely placed on the bottom of the handset. Overall, Nokia N76 is a good fashionistas phone, but sadly, it has too many drawbacks which strongly limit its functionality. Also I would've expected more originality from Nokia instead of just copying (even if successful) a design pattern.
Fortunately, the sales package comes with some "goodies" such as a 256 MB microSD card and HS-43 stereo wired headsets.
Display and Camera
Nokia N76 features one of the best displays on the market and I'm especially referring to the small secondary screen. The external display supports resolutions of 160 x 12 pixels and more than 262k colors. With the help of the three music control keys together with the volume keys, the user can read the messages, access the voice calls, set brightness display, wallpaper or screensaver. You can also use the small screen for previewing images, thus you won't need to unfold the phone to take pictures. The 2.4'' TFT main display supports 16 Million colors and 240 x 320 pixels resolution.
You can see some of tests I've done regarding the main display which scored much better than Nokia Luna 8600. I suppose the superiority comes from the obviously better ARM processor embedded in Nokia N76 model, as both handsets lack a separate graphical card.
The 2 Megapixel CMOS camera included features digital zoom and flash, but fails to shoot pictures of above average quality. Users can take pictures in 4 different resolutions: 1600 x 1200 pixels, 1152 x 764 pixels, 640 x 480 pixels and 320 x 240 pixels.
The usual settings are available for the camera in still mode and video mode. I don't recommend using the camera at night as the pictures are full of noise and the flash won't do you any good. On the contrary, I suggest you simply use the Night Mode and disable the LED flash if you absolutely need to shoot pictures at night. Even daylight pictures are looking mediocre with nose and lack of contrast.
As seen in the pictures, colors are rather dull and not even the special settings available will help correct that aspect. The 2 Megapixel camera shoots in QVGA mode while the small front camera shoots in QCIF mode which is much better.
Users can also record clips in MP4 and 3GP formats with resolutions up to 320 x 240 pixels which is a good thing, but would've been better if the quality was above average. The best thing is the fact that you can shoot pictures with the back camera without unfolding the big clamshell.
Menu and Software
The phone runs Symbian operating system version 9.2 and is based on S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1. This is one of the latest Nokia developed operating system and the most stable for the moment. However, not with this phone which has experienced many ?dangerous? bugs that ultimately led to a mass return of the device.
Still, I believe that Nokia will correct these bugs, as the Finnish giant is one of the fewest companies that updates its firmware pretty frequently. The interface of the phone is intuitive and very generous in help texts that will tell users what they can do with the various functions of the phone. The Feature Pack 1 provides 3D graphics hardware support, over-the-air (OTA) firmware support, Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR support, Flash Lite 2.0, screen turning feature that permits the user to turn the screen to landscape or portrait mode (very useful for browsing the Internet), as well as a better organization of the file cache. The Alarm clock function has been modified, thus you are being able to use multiple repeating alarms, while the time limit for voice recording has been improved from 1 minute to 1 hour.
Nevertheless, many users have experienced system breakdowns while running clips that were just recorded or interruptions during calls. The latter happened to me too pretty often, regardless of the duration of the call. I have also experienced big time lags when using the external music controls on the front of the phone, as well as when opening the camera to take pictures.
On the positive side there?s the updated web site browser which is fast and can open all pages without any noticeable errors, the "turn screen" option which offers a better experience when surfing the Web, as well as the updated vCalendar application. Unfortunately, the phone lacks any document reading or editing capabilities, but this can easily be fixed by downloading a .doc QuickViewer. Nokia launched the phone as a multimedia computer and thus only included the latest versions of .PDF reader and Flash Lite.
Communication
Nokia N76 is UMTS compatible and offers maximum downloading speeds of up to 384 Kbps which rises an obvious question: why not HSDPA, which has superior data transfer speeds? Lately, the HSDPA technology is frequently used in Samsung, Sony Ericsson or Motorola handsets, but Nokia fails to update technologically its newly launched phones. Anyway, N76 integrates good connectivity features beside 3G, such as: GPRS Class 32, 107 / 64.2 kbps, EDGE Class 32, 296 / 177.6 kbits, HSCSD 57.6 kbit/s, Bluetooth 2.0 and miniUSB 2.0.
As seen in the screenshots, communication tests revealed above average data transfer speeds when using EDGE (183 Kbps download / 83 Kbps upload) and 3G (301 Kbps download / 300 Kbps upload) connections. Bluetooth transfers attained around 104 KB/s which is pretty fast compared with other "multimedia computers". The phone can be easily synchronized with the PC through the USB cable, but obviously, the phone won't recharge while it?s synched. Beware that you won't be able to totally unfold the clamshell while the USB cable is inserted.
Messaging capabilities include IMAP4, POP3 and SMTP email account compatibility, as well as "Push to Talk" and Instant Messaging. The phone lacks push email, but this is a multimedia handset, so there so need for that. There are also GPS applications preinstalled on the handset, but no GPS chipset included. The quad-band (GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) clamshell has problems with the signal reception which varies on the 3G network, so I advise you to simply change it to GSM if you don't use video calls. Besides the interruptions during calls, which is the most annoying thing, I haven't experienced other communication related problems. The sound is pretty clear when talking on the phone and good enough even in crowded areas.
Processor and Memory
Surprisingly, Nokia N76 features a more powerful processor than the latest Nokia E90 Communicator (330 Mhz ARM processor) ? ARM 11 CPU running at speeds up to 369 MHz. This explains why display tests scored much better than Nokia handsets which feature the same kind of screens. At this speed, the phone should work faster than almost any other Nokia handset on the market does, and it really manages to do just that. The lags that you'll probably experience (if any) are mostly because of the bad organization of the software or simply "software related".
Even more surprisingly is the fact that a multimedia computer, and one that is supposed to be used mostly as an MP3 player, includes only 26 MB of internal memory. How many MP3 files can be stored on that small amount of space? No more than 6-7 songs and that's darn low. Anyway, Nokia included a 256 MB microSD card in the sales package, so you will obviously benefit from that from the start.
The capacity of the memory card in the sales package may vary depending on the market and/or buyers network operator/service provider. Still, this is small and "heavy users" will probably throw away the card and buy a bigger one (1 or 2 GB) for more storage space.
Multimedia
This is where the phone excels because the simple reason of its existence is to musically entertain owners. The musical player integrated is by far one of the most advanced and can read MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, and WMA file formats. The player features visualization animations and a standard Equalizer (Bass booster, Classical, Jazz, Pop, Rock and Default). Audio settings include Balance (available only for headphones as the phone lack stereo speakers), Stereo widening and Loudness.
The Music menu has standard features, such as All songs, Playlists, Artists, Albums, Genres and Composers. Besides the three dedicated external music keys you'll find a fully customizable Multimedia key which will give you rapid access to Radio, Music player and any other application you desire. The music player works in the background even if it's not used, that may be a major drawback. The HS-43 stereo wired headsets are rather mediocre, but the big "boost" is the 3.5 mm jack port which gives you the opportunity of using any compatible headphones.
However, you cannot unfold the clamshell while listening to music with headphones because of the wrongly-placed 3.5 mm jack port. I wasn't amazed by the sound of the phone's headsets, but the HD 200 Sennheiser headphones that I have used sounded pretty good. Still, there's one more "bug" that I have discovered, which was also mentioned by numerous owners, namely that there's a strange annoying hissing in the background of any song played.
The phone includes an FM Radio that can store up to 50 stations, but lacks RDS. Raido station reception is pretty ok, and the sound likewise. Nothing much to say about it, just that the "hissing" thing is also present when you're listening to any radio station.
The external speaker sounds very well and loud enough without distortions. Pity that the handset doesn't feature dual stereo speakers and that the only speaker has been placed at the bottom of the phone.
Battery
The clamshell features a small Li-Ion 700 mAh battery that has a lousy standby time mode of 200 hours and 2 hours and 45 minutes of talk time. This is almost outrageous if we think that the phone uses a powerful CPU and has been designated as a multimedia computer. Even the official numbers are relative and users will only benefit of mostly 2 hours of talk time. If you are a dedicated music phone lover then prepare for a frequent recharge of the phone as the battery lasts for about 4 hours of music playback. Maybe the 1-hour recharge time is the only best thing about it, beyond that, it's the crappiest choice for Nokia.
Impressions
I had a strange experience with Nokia N76 in terms of design and functionality. The phone is clearly too big and bulky for my tastes and most certainly for a fashionistas handset fan. The faulty design doesn't permits owners to do simple things like opening the clam while listening music with the headphones or unfolding the device with only one hand. Also the plastic used makes a bad impression on the buyers the first time they touch it. The bad material is soiled after only 5 minutes of handling the device, not to mention the peeling off paint from the silver plated sides of the phone. First time I held it in my hand I thought that it hadn't been finished and that a big chunk of it has to be cut out. Difficult to handle the phone is most likely a fiasco in terms of design.
The Good
One of the most powerful CPUs included in a Nokia handset will run any application with ease. The question is: why would a fashionistas phone need S60 platform? Perhaps the answer stays in Nokia's desire to enlarge the phone's target and meet the expectations of different buyer categories. Besides the good processor, the phone offers a good-quality sound for music fans, provided that they use better headphones than those included in the sales package.
The Bad
Nokia indirectly recognized that the N76 model has many major faults in its construction and software integration by accepting covering warranties that include things which are not standard for a handset. The faulty design, the cheap material, as well as the low life battery are among the negative points of the clamshell. There are also serious bugs with the phone such as: lag control of the external music dedicated keys, call interruptions, as well as restarts of the operating system when running clips recorded. Even if these bugs are not present in all phones, it still denotes a bad implementation of the S60 platform.
Sales package
Nokia N76 Handset Nokia 700 mAh Li-Ion battery (BL-4B) Charger (AC-4) Nokia wired stereo headsets (HS-43) miniUSB data cable microSD card (256 MB) Software CD User's guide
Photo: Tudor Raiciu for Softpedia.com