14 DAY TRIAL // Nokia's Nseries lineup is well known for its high-end devices, but also for its expensive prices. Regardless, the company still has its fans, who took it right on top in the handset sales charts. However, not all that's expensive is also good, and phones such as N78 are one of the reasons this saying is true. Since Nokia N81 has been launched on the market, with its unusual look, other Nokia Nseries borrowed its design.
N82 and N78 are such phones that want to impress but slack big time in terms of functionality and ease of use. While the former has some serious advantages over the latter and could be somewhat 'excused' thanks to its powerful camera and Xenon flash, the N78 has none of these good traits. Moreover, it features the same awkward design that makes users almost unable to text and all for even more money than its N82 predecessor.
Announced in February 2008, Nokia fans didn't have to wait too long, as the smartphone was released in May 2008. The multimedia handset is selling for around 300 USD, but can go lower if you opt for a plan. Customers can opt for any of the three colors available on the market: Brown, Blue or White.
Design
Nokia N78 may look exquisite and stylish at first glance, but usability of the device is lower than I might have expected. The smartphone measure 113 x 49 x 15.1 mm and weighs exactly 101.8g (battery included), which doesn't make it a small device at all. Well, at least it feels good in your hand and fits perfectly in a normal-sized pocket. The bar form of the device is very well shaped with no cutting corners, and the front part is covered by a glossy black plastic, which makes the phone look shiny and stylish.
The backside features the same glossy plastic, but this time the color is brown. The device is framed by a cheap compound that looks like metal, but it's not. Half of the phone's front part is seized by the 2.4-inch display. Above the screen there's an in-call speaker (center), a light ambient sensor and a secondary camera for video-calls. Below the screen is what I call the 'user's nightmare', the keypad. In fact, the keypad has been included in the form of four rows of knobs, which aren't divided and are so thin that you won't be able to efficiently push them or even recognize any of the numbers. Above the hard-to-guess and hard-to-push keypad there's a D-pad, a multimedia key and two soft keys. Unfortunately, the Accept/Reject call keys, C (Delete) key and Symbian (Menu) key have been wrongfully placed on the edges of the keypad. They're a nightmare to use and won't be easier even after heavy use. Moreover, these keys are flat and very hard to press. Other external buttons have been placed on the right side of the phone: dual volume key and dedicated camera key. On the left side of the handset there's a microUSB port, the microSD slot card and a small charger port. You'll be able to notice 2 stereo loudspeakers on both sides of the phone. On top of the device Nokia placed the usual Power button and a 3.5mm jack port. The back cover shakes like hell, giving you the impression that it could fall off any second. Don't really know for sure if it's the sample test device that I got or it is simply a manufacture fault. Anyway, the 3.2-megapixel camera is unprotected and features a large LED flash above it. The phone is a fingerprint magnet with all that glossy plastic, so you'll need to wipe it pretty often, which is another drawback. Overall, I guess Nokia pretty much wrought out all that it could from N81's design, but not in a good way. There are some serious faults in the device, starting with the 'unfortunate' keypad and the contextual keys around, and ending with the back cover, which looks like it intends to fly off. If you can get past these flaws and the fact that your device will always get dirty, you might wanna check out N78's features also.Display and Camera
Nokia N78 features a 2.4-inch TFT display (240x320 pixel resolution) that supports 16 million colors. Again, Nokia did a great job and managed to include one of the best mobile screens on the market. Colors, contrast, as well as quality of the image displayed are flawless. Add to that perfect sunlight eligibility and you get an excellent display that can meet any user’s expectations. It would've been really the best if it was a little bit larger. The display doesn't have accelerometer, but some features auto-rotate the screen in landscape mode (gallery, camera).
Unfortunately, there's no protection against scratches for this screen, so you should be careful where you keep it. Overall, the performance during various tests has been more than satisfactory, as you can see for yourselves from the screenshots below. The 3.2 Megapixel camera embedded in this Nseries features Carl Zeiss lenses, auto-focus and LED flash. After my first encounter with the phone I wasn't expecting the camera to perform so well. Thus, I was surprised to find that Nokia N78 takes pretty good pictures that can compete with any Cyber-shot-series device. However, you cannot get good pictures with N78 unless you are in good light condition areas. If you meet these demands then your pictures won't be noisy and will have a high detail level. I also noticed that colors, contrast and sharpness are very well balanced. The camera also features the geotagging function, but lacks any kind of protection for the lens. The user interface boasts extensive settings, but nothing new. The maximum resolution supported is of 2048x1536 pixels, while users can choose to shoot in 6 modes, as seen in the pictures. Autofocus works like a charm and the camera button can be pressed very easily. There are no specially created functions for this camera, but, as you can see from the screenshots, all of them remain very easy to use. The same goes for the video camera, which can capture VGA (15fps) clips in MP4 format or 3GPP, depending on the quality you choose.
Menu and Software
Nokia N78 runs the Symbian 9.2 operating system, with a S60 3rd Edition and Feature Pack 2 interface. In fact, it's one of the first phones to include Feature Pack 2, which brings both visual and performance improvements that otherwise wouldn't be available for devices that only run Feature Pack 1. Besides the amazing Gallery with the geotagging feature, you'll get a new kind of Active standby layout. The latter enables you to bring up on the Home screen a lot more shortcuts than usual, such as game, application and link shortcuts. The new Task manager is also a specific FP2 improvement, and gives you quick access to any application running in the background. The Task manager now appears on top of every menu option that you open. Moreover, some cosmetic changes have been included, such as better menu transition effects (fading) and stylish icons.
The main menu can be accessed by pressing the special Symbian key, placed on the bottom left of the main keypad. In addition to the usual options and applications that we find in almost all Symbian-powered handsets, Nokia N78 features Search and Maps utilities. Maps is used together with the GPS receiver and enables you to use Nokia maps, localization and directions when you're on the go. Lots of maps can be downloaded from Nokia's website and then used to pick the shortest route from one point to another. Under the Office category, we find QuickOffice applications, used for reading Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. Again, you cannot edit any files without upgrading the application, which, of course, costs money. There's also a PDF reader, a Notepad, a Zip archivator, and a currency converter. You can now find the Calculator under the Applications submenu, while the voice recorder has been moved to the Media one. The Video center includes options such as: Add new services, My videos, Internet videos and Nokia Nseries videos. The phone doesn't include any games, not even N-Gage trials, but you can easily find third-party titles. While there's no accelerometer for auto-rotate, the phone's screen turns in landscape mode automatically when you open up Gallery. Unfortunately, this feature doesn't work in the menus, and is limited to Gallery.The phone includes everything a user may need on the road or at the office, pre-installed on the handset: email, web, calendar, organizer, IM, office tools, messaging, application manager, connectivity wizard, synchronization tools, GPS navigator, themes, profiles, and more.
Communications
Nokia N78 is a quad-band GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900) handset, HSDPA compatible, which features GPRS class 32 (107 kbps), EDGE 32 class (296 kbps), High-Speed Circuit-Switched Data (57.6 kbps) and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g UPnP. Tested on the EDGE and 3G networks, the phone has performed pretty good, as you can see from the screenshots.
The WLAN wizard helps you search and define your WLAN network connection settings. Should you want to connect to the Internet, you must first define an Access point (EDGE, WLAN or 3G). You can do that by going to the Main menu / Tools / Settings / Connection / Access points, and define which access point to be used whenever a network connection is required (Main menu / Home network / Settings). The GPS receiver is one of the fastest, as no more than 20 seconds is needed for first-time localization. Moreover, if you activate the A-GPS function, the pin-point will be much faster. Other connectivity tools include Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support, and microUSB for PC synchronization (no charging). The Bluetooth connection has reached an almost 94 KB/s sending speed and a 119 KB/s receiving one. When connecting the USB cable, you'll be able to choose from 4 modes: PC Suite, Mass storage, Image transfer and Media transfer. All of them are intuitive and easy to use, so there's nothing more to add here. In terms of messaging, the phone accepts all available message types, but, given the not-so-friendly keypad, it will be hard to enjoy texting. Anyway, the handset includes no less than four message editors, one for each type: SMS, MMS, audio message and e-mail. The message client works with POP3, SMTP, and IMAP4 protocols, and supports more than one email account. Also, it can download headers and allows for attachments.The quad-band (GSM 850 / GSM 900 / GSM 1800 / GSM 1900) network compatible bar handset has a very good GSM signal reception. I was surprised to find that the UMTS signal reception was excellent also. The sound is outstanding at both ends, but not loud enough. The vibration alert is somewhat below average in intensity.
Processor and Memory
Nokia N78 is powered by a single ARM11 family processor running at speeds of up to 369 Mhz, which was a rather unpleasant surprise. While the CPU is one of the best that have been included in an Nseries device, I noticed big lags when browsing the menus. Even after upgrading to the latest firmware I didn't noticed any improvements.
The handset embeds a 76 MB user free internal memory and 96 MB SDRAM memory. The storage space can be expanded up to another 8GB through the hot-swappable microSD slot card. The device comes with a 2GB microSD memory card included in the sales package.Multimedia
Thanks to the 3.5mm jack port, you'll be able to attach to it any kind of headphones compatible with this kind of port. The integrated music player looks very cool and supports almost any type of music file you can think of: MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+, WMA, M4A, as well as MU3 playlists. Files are automatically sorted by artist, genre, and album, or by using the PC Suite.
The music player can be easily controlled with the D-pad. Even though it features 3.5mm port jack, sound is disappointing no matter what kind of headphones you are going to attach. The Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support enables you to listen to music wirelessly. The music player features all kinds of options and settings: Equalizer, Balance, Loudness, Stereo Widening, or Shuffle. Some of these are also available for the included FM Radio, which can memorize up to 50 base stations and features RDS and Visual radio capabilities. The reception is excellent, and the quality of the sound likewise. Nokia N78 also features FM Transmitter, which means that you'll be able to broadcast the songs you like on a certain frequency. Unfortunately, the transmission is not that good, but it's a nice feature after all. Furthermore, videos can be played with the help of the integrated Real Player application. The video player is fully compatible with both orientations, namely landscape and portrait, and can run movies in full screen.Battery
The 1200 mAh Li-Ion (BL-6F) battery has an officially stated life expectancy of 320 hours in standby and of about 4 hours and 20 minutes in talk-time mode. What we got was 5 days of use: 1 hour of calls and 7MB of overall data transfer. These numbers point out the battery as one of the best included in an Nseries device.
Impressions
At first glance Nokia N78 might not be to the liking of people who are looking for more functionality, as the device features a nightmarish keypad. If you can get past this you'll surely enjoy the other features that this handset includes.
The Good
The Bad
The hard-to-use keypad and slow operating system don’t go too well with the Nseries logo. The resemblance with the N81 device hasn't done any good to N78; on the contrary. Perhaps a much better solution for those looking for a cheap Nseries device remains the N82 candybar smartphone.
Sales package
Nokia N78 handset 2GB microSD Card MU-37 1200 mAh Nokia Battery BL-6F Nokia Travel Charger AC-5 Nokia Music Headset HS-45/AD-54 Nokia Connectivity Cable CA-101 User guide Quick Start guide DVD
