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N78: The True N73 Successor

Written by PseudoFinn

Monday, 18 February 2008 12:43

The true replacement for the N73 is definitely on the way. The N78 is a great leap forward from the N73 in several areas- starting with the battery life. Up from the N73's 1050mAh battery is the 1200 mAh capacity of the N78. This allows for nearly another 10 hours of audio playback on the N78 with a quoted 24 hours of continuous audio playback over the N73's 14-15 hours. Even with the FM transmitter in constant use, you'll be seeing 19 hours of playback time. These are impressive figures.

As far as imaging goes- the N78 is not in the pixel race, instead Nokia wanted to improve the ability for users to actually do something with the images. This is where the one-click sharing comes in, allowing a user to instantly upload any image to Ovi Share, Flickr, Vox, etc. Geotagging is now available out of the box with the use of an integrated AGPS module in the device, which does well to add more to the experience. One thing that would be nice to see would be auto uploading, but there's no word on that- at least it's not currently planned to be a feature.

Read on for more early impressions...

FM Transmitter on the N78 The FM transmitter further enhancing this theme of sharing. I'm quite pleased to see this feature and think it will be rather welcomed. Obviously there are better ways to play music from your phone to a set of speakers- but it's that concept of simple, logical and easy sharing. It's dead simple to activate the FM transmitter- simply beging playing a track, then select FM Tranmitter from the Options menu. You can select the full range of FM broadcasting all the way up and down the dial, so even in the most congested airwaves, there shouldn't be much trouble grabing a good signal quickly. The idea of just jumping in a friend's car and playing a new track through the stereo without any wires or other equipment really appeals to me. Though- if you're more interested in the quality of the sound, you're going to want to rely on another method of getting the music to your ears- especially with the N78... We're told to expect N91 quality sound- which is funny because they are also both nearly as good looking.

And so here it is- my main complaint with this device. I can't figure out why the keypad is the situation that it is on the N78. I know I should have asked the product manager about this- obviously there was some reasonable explanation for something like that to occur- I was just too awestruck by the design. I can say, I didn't really care for the feel of it either- but I never warmed up the kinda/sorta similar little N82 keys either after three months. With all that vacant real estate surrounding the keypad, I don't know why that unpleasant design happened. I will say that the naviwheel on the N78 makes me glad it's back. It's in use everywhere you would expect it to be- lists, gallery, browser, etc, and it's much improved over the N81. It's a very nice thing. There have been some improvements to the gallery as well to better facilitate the naviwheel. The thumbnails render much faster so that you can fly through the gallery with the ultra-smooth naviwheel, and when you really start zipping around in there, the gallery ring will kind of close in on itself rendering a couple less thumbnails at a time instead of slowing down or flaking out. This and the transition effects of feature pack 2 should lend a bit towards a better UI experience- though the big news in UI updates will no doubt be happening a bit down the road this year.

The 1200mAh battery, 70 megs of free user memory at boot along with the addition of GPS, WiFi, HSDPA, and FM transmitter from the N73- this might be one to watch out for, especially if music devices are your thing. It's definitely not a do-it-all device, but I think that's what Nokia is gearing us towards- a 'range' of Nseries devices geared at tackling one task better than another. I think this is apparent in the styling of all these new devices that look like a mutation of the N81.

A couple of size comparison pictures with the N95 and N82-

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Re: Buttons
written by whatleydude, February 18, 2008

Dude, I have to agree. The FM transmitter is a killer functionality for me - one that that made me think about choosing the N78 over the N96 for my choice of handset (another poor interface) but for those damn buttons!

Yuk.

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written by Steve_R, February 19, 2008

Yep, I agree with you James. This is a definate potential replacement for my N95, but I can just tell by looking at it, that those buttons aren't just aesthetically awful, but they look horrible to use too! Does the FM Transmtter outweigh this though?

I know I shouldn't be so shallow, but looks do matter.

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written by PseudoFinn, February 19, 2008

Well... it's not just the looks, it's also the functionality of such a silly keypad. Anyway- you're absolutely right, looks DO matter- and the keypad looks ridiculous. smilies/sad.gif

FM transmitter and the battery life do come close to outweighing this- but still, why should we have to compromise on a keypad- does ANYONE like the thing??

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written by Amir A., February 20, 2008

I keep telling myself that if I can get used to the N82 keypad, I can certainly get used to the N78 keypad. This phone is a worthy phone in its own right.

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