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Nokia has been on a roll since about a couple of months riding on the strong sales of its smartphones. Last month it launched two new smartphones - the new N79 and N85 as part of its N Series expansion plans. Both of them sport a 5 MP camera and are aimed at those who don’t like the N82’s plain design and supposedly wacky keypad, and those who can’t afford the rather pricey flagship Nokia N96. Both the N85 and N79 sport superb specs and features that threaten to push other phones in their category to extinction. The N79 also sports a nice stylish design and is slim and light. On the first look, it seems like there are very few phones currently on the market that can compete with the N79 except Nokia’s own N82. It is the new N73 - the very successful Nokia smartphone which redefined the N Series. In this review we check out the Nokia N79 and see if it can continue the success that its predecessors have set. 
Design The design of Nokia N79 is but a breath of fresh air to the Nseries. No, it has nothing to do with the N81-esque cheap gloss we'd been bombarded with recently. The N79 is simple and looks more like a phone, so we happen to like it. Well, it sure isn't Eseries-elegant but Nseries phones hardly get any prettier. 
The whole front of the phone is finished in opaque plastic and is quite resistant to finger smudges. The display is the only bit that's vulnerable to fingerprints but why would you need to touch it anyway? 
The earpiece of the Nokia N79 is traditionally placed in the middle of the topmost part of the front. Right next to it are the secondary video-call camera and the ambient light sensor. The rest of the front is taken by the 2.4" display and the keypad. As you might know those key elements have a reserved spot in our reviews, so we won't look at them in detail now. 
The left side of Nokia N79 features the microUSB slot, the microSD card slot and the charger plug. Due to an interesting design solution the USB slot and the memory card slot share a plastic lid. This certainly benefits the design as there is one less aperture on the surface of the phone and since we can hardly think of a scenario where you will need to use both slots simultaneously we find this a very good idea. 
The power key is topside, right next to the 3.5mm standard audio jack. The other element here is the keylock switch, which seems to be gradually becoming a standard piece of gear on Nseries phones. Nokia N79's right side hosts the stereo speakers, the volume rocker and the dedicated camera key. Both controls are reasonably large and comfortable enough to use - no complaints here. 
The bottom of the handset is where a lanyard gets attached. The only other thing of interest here is the mouthpiece. The back panel of Nokia N79 has a neat and simple styling although the plastic is a little too glossy for our taste. The 5 megapixel camera lens is here under a small active cover. It is also complimented by a dual-LED flash. If you remove the back panel you will notice the four tiny connectors the phone uses to change the theme accordingly. Removing the Xpress-on cover reveals the 1200 mAh BL-6F Li-Ion battery, which gives the N79 its juice. It is quoted at the sweet sounding 5 hours and 30 minutes of talk time and 370 hours of stand-by. 
The build quality of Nokia N79 is excellent. High quality materials have been used and that should be enough to make the phone quite resistant to the everyday wear and tear. What's more, the phone does look better than what Nseries have been offering lately and is absolutely a pleasure to handle. Display and keypad Nokia N79 QVGA display totals 16M colors on a 2.4" diagonal. We have seen quite a few of those screens on them Finnish handsets and never have they let us down. Brightness and contrast levels are fine ,with commendable performance in the sun. Our only reason to frown at the N79 display is the OLED screen on Nokia N85 got us really spoiled. We do hope OLEDs gain more ground as the contrast they offer is unmatched by any TFT unit. Leaving that aside, the display of Nokia N79 is a winner all over.  The keypad and controls on Nokia N79 make all the difference from N78 and most of the latest Nseries releases. The most important navigation element, the D-pad is amply sized and really comfortable. The wide sides provide one of the best Navi-wheel experiences we've had. Even if the confirm center may look somewhat small, elevation makes it pleasantly tactile. 
The keys around the D-pad are slightly smaller than we like them but the actual layout makes them perfectly usable. We should note that the Symbian and Clear key are the only flatbed controls around the D-pad. The soft keys and the Call and End buttons are actual knobs, which offer good enough tactility and solid press. 
The Multimedia key is the biggest button of them all and is this time shifted all the way to the left side. Right where the ample multimedia key is, the line of the metallic front frame bends to form a bracket. It's a nice asymmetrical pattern replicated further up on the opposite side where the Nokia logo is enclosed. 
Finally we come to the alphanumeric keypad, which is worlds apart from the N78 approach. The keys are huge compared to the tiny knobs in N78, which we were the very negation of friendly typing. This time around you can count on adequate tactility and enjoyably solid press. The only gripe is the lack of borders between keys within the same row. But that doesn't make it any less of a gift compared to N78. User interface Nokia N79 runs on Symbian 9.3 with Series60 3rd Edition user interface and feature Pack 2 preinstalled. In fact it is the very same interface we saw on Nokia N85 with just a touch of extra eye-candy. The layout is quite familiar with status icons appearing on the top of the screen and soft key labels at the bottom. Quite naturally, Nokia N79 also supports Active standby with two optional layouts. 
The active standby screen is a nice and convenient way of bringing shortcuts to all favorite applications to your home screen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access. The screen can be organized in either vertical or horizontal tabs, which can then be scrolled with the D-pad. If active standby is disabled the direction keys of the D-pad can also be assigned a shortcut of your choice. 
Nokia N79 can automatically rotate the user interface thanks to the built-in accelerometer. There are nice transition effects when switching from one mode to another: the current screen smoothly zooms out, flips and then zooms back in. Nokia N79 also features the new and improved task manager courtesy of the new FP. It is also now somewhat better looking and is appearing on top of every pop-up menu. The shortcut used in previous versions of the OS by pressing and holding the menu key still works. 
Finally, the S60 UI Feature Pack 2 brings quite a lot of nice transition effects. Symbian OS has been well known for offering little eye-candy but now it seems to be trying to catch up. The multimedia menu is another of the Nseries phones trademark features. It is launched via the dedicated key and provides quick access to the multimedia features of the handset with thematically sorted shortcuts. They appear as drop-down lists when the respective tab is selected. Those can also be freely reordered if the layout isn't your cup of tea. 
Being one of the most important things to performance, let's have a look at the CPU of the N79. The handset uses a single ARM 11 369 MHz CPU with no dedicated graphic accelerator. While this certainly doesn't make it the sharpest knife in the Nokia drawer it still does OK in Symbian terms, as far as UI responsiveness is concerned. The phone reacts quickly to most commands across menus. 
The gallery however is an entirely different story. Much like the N85, Nokia N79 takes almost a minute to zoom in on a photo taken with the N79 very camera to 100% and that's nothing short of outrageous. The video playback issues are also somewhat more frequent than we would've liked. Having dealt with other Nokia phones with similar CPUs, we've seen those tasks handled much better. We are therefore wondering whether some software issues are troubling the N79. 
The Nokia N79 user-available memory extends to a little less than 83MB topped with the 4GB card that ships along. That should get you pretty much covered for installing any software you like and still have enough room for your favorite stuff. Multimedia and Camera The N79, being a N Series phone, is obviously expected to do well in the music and video playback department and it manages to live up to its expectations. It has nice sound quality which is much better than most phones in its range. The built in Music player is quite capable and supports a whole range of formats including MP3, M4A, AAC, eAAC+, WMA and has some nice customization features like a customizable EQ with 5 presets, Album Art support, playlist creation etc. It provides for a better overall music experience. 
The video playback is also very nice. It supports all the standard formats and you can also use 3rd party players like Real, Core or Smartmovie for better video playback. The default player supports the portrait, landscape and fullscreen viewing modes. The N79 also sports a FM Radio with RDS and a FM transmitter using which you can transmit your own music locally on a desired frequency. 
The N79 sports a 5 MP camera which can shoot images at a maximum resolution of 2592 x 1944 pixels. It comes with autofocus and a dual LED flash and the image quality is quite decent. It is one of the average 5 MP cameras, but not as good as the Nokia N82 or the Sony Ericsson C902. The camera interface offers a range of advanced customization options. It also has geotagging which allows you to link your images with geographical coordinates. The camera can capture video at a VGA resolution at 30 FPS. The video quality is decent too. 
GPS Nokia N79 has a built-in GPS receiver and comes with three months of free voice guided navigation. Sounds like a serious premise for reasonable use as a dedicated navigation unit. The chip sensitivity might be an issue here as it isn't the best we have seen from the Nokia Nseries. We were far more pleased with the N78 or even N96 performance in that aspect. It took the phone about two and a half minutes to get satellite lock upon cold start and that is some way off the best times we have seen. However, on most occasions, this kind of speed might seem perfectly adequate to use. In addition A-GPS might take down this time to a more acceptable level. After all, if a couple of minutes are so important you might as well spend a few extra cents on data. 
The built-in GPS receiver works with Nokia Maps, which is one of the navigation applications to offer the most detailed maps. Furthermore, it is free and relatively easy to use. You will have to buy the voice-guided navigation license once your three-month free trial expires. At least the actual purchase itself is quite simple directly via the phone interface. The Nokia Maps application itself is doing pretty well in terms of features too. It has four different view modes including satellite and hybrid maps. Those however do need an internet connection to be available. The more regular 2D and 3D view modes are also at hand. 
The route planning algorithm is also rather easy to customize to best suit your preferences. Toll roads and motorways can be avoided and so can tunnels and ferries. Route selection can be set to either fastest or shortest. The app is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and use the phone as a hand-held map. Finally, in case you are still unhappy with Nokia Maps you can go for a third-party application and there are quite a lot of those available. User reports indicate the internal GPS has no problem working with any of the more popular third-party navigation apps. 
The overall impression with GPS navigation on Nokia N79 is rather positive but not as good as most other recent Nokia GPS-enabled models. The quick initial lock of the Nokia N78 really impressed us but if you can live without it the rest is basically the same. The ample screen is also a benefit but still not up to standalone navigator standards. Conclusion The good news with Nokia N79 is the Nseries haven't completely run out of inspiration. No gaps in the feature set and distinct looks do sound right for a healthy demand. Solid value as a brand-loyal upgrade and little competition let the N79 hope for quite a success. From where we stand, the major obstacles in front of Nokia N79 are the not too impressive camera and the relatively low level of innovation it offers. No, it has nothing to do with the length of the specs sheets, there's just nothing we haven't already seen. We still can't ignore the fact that N79 - and N85 for that matter - are being launched in a time of major transition. As Nokia are readying for S60 5th and touchscreen, N79 and the likes are taking over from the top dogs of the past, repackaging the whole set of goodies with a moderate price tag. At the same time they are clearing the scene for the new flagships to come. From this perspective, there's little we can hold against the N79. A true all-in-one, with less focus on N-gage and with a distinct face, the N79 may as well stick around and do just fine. |
