Nokia N79

[@NickyColman]

Hello readers of Talk3G, i have decided to write a very very quick little bit on my new Nokia N79!

I bought it sim-free from the Nokia Shop and its totally amazing. The phone is sturdy, very very light, attractive and has the best battery life ive yet to see from a phone.

I have literally put the phone to its limits ie browsing the internet whilst playing music, sending texts, keeping the IM app open, installing other apps from Download! with WiFi and Bluetooth on and the battery doesnt even budge. It suffers very little slow down when a number of apps are open.

Overall its a very very very good handset that does the lot with style!

I may do a full review if anyone wants!

[Ben]

Sounds great, I'd love to hear more! I haven't paid the N79 much attention, but it does look like quite a neat and accomplished phone considering Nokia's recent tirade of somewhat unusual devices. They'd deviated a bit far from the Nokia formula, it looks like they've headed back to the pack with this.

I hope the OS stays fast. That remains my single biggest gripe with Nokia's and S60 - they don't put in enough processing power for the bloated OS.

I used to love my Nokia's, I really and truly did. Anyone who read my 6680 review will know just how much I gushed over that phone, how long I kept it for and how much I adored it. The N80 was a disappointment and the N73 was basically saying "Ha! Look at me, I'm totally broken! Nokia doesn't love me!". As great as the N95 8GB is, it's a jack of all trades and master of none.

I know you've had an iPhone and that ultimately you weren't keen. It'd be great if you could highlight where the N79 stands up and falls down against it - I'm guessing that MMS is important to you, and possibly running IM apps in the background, more so than mobile browsing.

Congrats on the purchase! I did love buying my N73 from the Nokia Shop. I felt a bit like I was being ripped off, but to have an unblemished Nokia retail package is great. Always nice to have something "as the manufacturer intended", rather than something off the grey market as I'm sure is what most sim-only websites retail.

[@NickyColman]

Where to begin, Ben?!

I suppose the packaging is a good place to start. Whilst its not the deal breaker in deciding on a handset, but its a nice touch i find. The packing that N79 came in is very "green" - not as in colour, but in the way that includes very little plastic shells, ties, tassels, cords, packets and so on. The box itself is about 60% thinner than any other phone ive had (except iPhone, of course). So thats a good start for me.

When i initially picked the handset out of its box, like lifting a golden brick, i noticed how god damn light it was. Now i know they always feel light before putting the battery in but by Christ, this baby is light. Once the battery was in, i was still exceptionally pleased by how light on the pocket it was.

Looks wise - its gorgeous. Its white and glossy and the silver trims set it off just nicely. It looks like it could be from the Apple school of design when you see it for real. One of the main things i like about the phone is its sturdy. And i mean very sturdy. There are no creeks, cracks, rattles or slides at all. It just feels expensive.


Now the OS. This is Symbian S60 with frills lol. When you move through menus etc, you get a blurry transition affects. Now its not a massive deal, but it does make the experience a bit slicker. S60 features all the usual bells and whistles along with all the 3rd party bumf. Im quite amazed at how it deals with my punishing expectations. Ive had 2-3 internet pages open, an IM client open, music player pumping out tunes, reading emails, sending texts and still managing to change the theme and give someone a call. Genius. There is very very little slowdown. I have quite high standards with phones/technology so any little glitch tends to boil my p*ss but i find hardly anything to complain about.

Battery life is amazing. Now this could be faulty reporting on the OS' behalf yet i am still astounded by how it lasts so long. The other day for example. I got up at 5.30am to get ready for work. I took it off charge, with Bluetooth and WiFi on, the screen & timeout features all on 100% and took it to the shower with me whilst i listened to some music for around 20 mins. I left for work and connected it to my Bluetooth car kit. Made a 10 minute call on the way. Got to work, sent a text or two. Then it sat in my pocket till 6pm when i decided to finish work. Id sent about 5 texts during the day and checked my Facebook and emails once or twice. On leaving work, i sent another 3 or 4 texts and made a 10 minute phonecall on the way home whilst rigged up to Bluetooth. Then when i got in the house, i abused the hell out of it. I changed themes, installed apps, browsed the web, listened to music, checked more emails, took pics vids etc. Made three more phone calls via my Bluetooth car kit, connected to my pc to transfer pics and music etc. I finally went to bed at around 11pm and it had lost . . . .

. . . . . ONE BAR! One bar!!! I honestly thought, ****! Its broke. So i turned it off and back on to see if it suddenly dropped. Nope. It held steady. So i called its bluff and left it off charge. I virtually repeated the above the next day and it only dropped a further 2 bars. To say im pleased is an understatement.

Further to the battery life, the software includes an option (by pressing the power button) to put the phone into Power Saving Mode. When this is activated, the phone then powers down to a lower power usage mode. The screen dims, timeout of the screen drops to a few seconds and locks the phone sooner than normal. Anything wasting power is stopped. This feature automatically cuts in once your battery gets down to a certain level which i think is pure genius. lol. So many phones ive had would sound alarms, flash the screen, vibrate and virtually do everything and anything to consume more power than actually trying to conserve power.

The phone has a slider across the top that locks/unlocks the phone quickly and easily - a nice addition.

The one negative feature of the phone is its Gallery. Its ridiculously slow. The OS stutters and splutters its way through browsing pictures and can take a while to load initially. Hopefully Nokia can fix this via Software updates. Speaking of which, you can do a Nokia Software Update over the air on the N79 without needing a pc near you. I like.

The camera is average for a 5 megapixel. Ive had better but it could be worse. Maybe Nokia could also tweek this in a software update perhaps?

Other neat little touches are the "breathing" d-pad which pulsates a white glow every few seconds so you know its alive. The d-pad also functions as the handsets "NaviWheel" - Nokia's answer to Apples ClickWheel meaning you can scroll through music lists and contacts with a whiiiiirrrrrll of the finger.

Now this next feature is one of the best features ive yet to have on a handset - an FM Transmitter. It basically allows you to set your N79 and your car/home/work stereo on the same frequency so that you can to listen to your music wirelessly!! Now ive used these contraptions before with my iPod and they were rubbish. Im happy to report that the N79 broadcasts music tremendously. There is little or no interference and the quality is top notch. The FM transmitter automatically powers down when you stop listening to music to conserve battery power. Again, genius.

For the first time in a long, long while I have found a phone that has the whole Kit & Kaboodle (no, not Three's first ever tarrif) but features and looks combined. Its smart without looking nerdy and sexy without feeling crippled. I couldnt see how they could better this phone for the range of features and technology that is available.

I hope this marks a trend for Nokia to start producing truly quality handsets.

[Hands0n]

A great review :) thanks for that. I'm particularly interested in the FM transmitter. Is it built in or an attachment?

Also, Nokia's media player is usually not too good for organising the media into Albums, Artists and Playlists. Has it improved in the latest incarnation?

[@NickyColman]

Yo!

The FM Transmitter is built into the handset. I only discovered it upon playing in the Music Player so that was a nice surprise.

Nokia's music player is actually quite good. It managed to take all my music from iTunes (unprotected music that is) and arrange it perfectly with album art and song details much like an iPod.

Just a little note from what i said yesterday regarding the Gallery of the phone. I have taken several more pictures today and it seems to behaving much smoother than before. For example, when you first open the Gallery it actually divided into separate categories. The first is "Captured" with the number of taken photos beneath it. Each category has 3 thumbnails of the pictures taken which gently flash their way across the screen. Very flashy! :D If you have a Flickr and/or use Ovi, it will also flash your account photos across as though they were actually stored on the handset. Like i said, the Gallery seems to improved now it has more photos to play with- maybe its me, the apps i have open, i dont know - but im impressed once more! :D

Also, I tested the camera out in the open today. Here's the result too.

[Hands0n]

Wow! Thats a pretty darned good picture from a camera-phone!

[@NickyColman]

Its not that bad is it?? Perhaps ive misjudged it having originally tested it in low light conditions!

[Hands0n]

Hell no! Its very good for a camera-phone. I do not expect such quality. Although it may not stack up with a dedicated camera, it is very close indeed, and more than sufficient for general use.

It is good :)