I’ve been rockin’ the Nokia N78 for a good month, and I’m pleased to say that this phone is definitely a winner. Here in the States, the Nokia N78 is actually hard to come by, especially since it’s major retail chains lie in Chicaco and New York.  I’ve got my hands on one though and I’ve been giving it a good run through.  

The N78 runs beautifully although it definitely has its faults.  However, Nokia has definitely stepped it up from its previous N-Series iterations. However, on the quick outlook, the technology and innovation in the Swedish manufacturer’s N-series lineup seems to be bleek and maturing. But enough about Nokia, let’s see what they were able deliver with the N78.

Five Word Review
Life ‘breathed’ through piano black

Aesthetics and Action
The Nokia N78 is one hawt beast. It sports a gorgeous piano black front, with relatively secluded buttons except for the Navi wheel, dedicated media, and numpad buttons. The subtle buttons are flush with the finish of the phone, with the small icons and labels lighting up when needed. They’re quick to press (with the exception of the C button for right handed users), and are generally well thought though. The only complaint lies in the fact that the select buttons and the dedicated talk/end buttons are slightly hard to differentiate. The numpad features a style akin to the N82 buttons, but stuck together to form a slick trio-of-buttons-in-one. The vagueness of the button separation is quite annoying however, and leads to a bit of a slowdown when texting.

The Navi wheel is an improvement over previous iterations and presents a nice way of navigation. In the end however, it ends up posing as more of a novelty and a toy rather than a regularly used form of navigation. The beautiful part about the Navi wheel is that it has a ‘breathing’ function which I thought scary at first (I discovered it while trying to sleep), but now looks increasingly awesome. It literally ‘breathes’ by fading in and out every couple seconds. Sick effect, Nokia.

Aesthetics and Action: 9.0/10 + 0.5 for its ability to breathe.

Fabrication and Flavour
The consistent piano black front is quite a fingerprint magnet, but for the looks this thing has, I’d definitely keep it. The phone is encased in a strong gun-metal sidelining and a dark chocolate brown battery backplate with a relatively interesting texture. With the exception of the backplate, the build quality is exceptional. The backplate is definitely an argument of customization and cost over beautiful finish, the former of which I believe won (and from my point of view, shouldn’t have). The cheap plastic causes the backplate to feel like its going to snap whenever you remove it, and it’s the only part on the phone that has any give to it, which makes it feel much cheaper than it should.

The memory card slot is a pain to open if you have short nails. You have to use enough force to actually pop it open, and the amount of space for the opening barely allows a fingernail through.

One final thing to note about the build quality is that the screen is very slightly recessed inside the clear acrylic overlay. However, it sports a high enough contrast and solid viewing angle to catch up to the exterior beauty of the phone.

Fabrication and Flavour: 8.5/10

Interface and Interaction
The Nokia N78 comes stock with a gorgeous Symbian theme coloured in black, and the typical stack of Symbian’s user interface. Its menus are organized in Symbian fashion, so any complaints here are pretty much geared towards Symbian itself. The icons are straight forward and the text is pleasant to read. The separate multimedia menu (accessible by the dedicated front button) encases a circlet of typical functions such as images, music, videos, contacts, maps, Internet and N-Gage games. There definitely is a lag, partly caused by the animation, and when used with the Navi wheel, poses quite an annoying navigational system. Visually, it looks nice, but the actual purpose of this menu remains a bit questioning, since the functions are accessible through the main menu which is much easier to traverse.

I wish there were more ways in which the home screen can be customized (possibly too used to newer BlackBerry themes as the OS evolves), and though the horizontal/vertical panel can be customized, the extra functions which dictate your connection statuses, cannot.

Finally, the software on the computer, N-Series PC Suite, is actually quite annoying to use. It uses a lot of system resources for something supposedly hidden in the background. Furthermore, the applications depend on the N-series phone you are using and the PC Suite pretty much upsells you on every additional function. I find that vastly disappointing in terms of what comes with the phone versus the additional features that you have to buy. Current BlackBerry’s geared towards the business have more stock functionality in entertainment than what comes with the N78.

Interface and Interaction: 7.5/10

Performance and Pacing
With all the strengths in design of the phone, the performance is definitely one of its most lukewarm/mediocre/mild characteristics. The actions aren’t particularly fast (quicker than other Symbian iterations I’ve seen), and switching from application to application cause quite a bit of lag.

I’m unable to test the HSDPA radio on this puppy due to my current American wireless plans, but the WiFi handles well and is intuitive to setup. Its browsing experience isn’t superior to any smartphone experience, but it definitely enables a good enough experience on its somewhat small screen.  The RSS feed integration and prioritization (right at the top of the browser functional list) is a welcome feature, and the phone devours these feeds quickly, letting you continue with the more important functions of your daily work hours.

The N78 is fitted with a great 3.2MP camera with Carl Zeiss lenses, and they’re great to use.  The N78 with its standard Symbian S60 camera interface, allows for a moderate amount of customization, quick switches to video mode, and a Xenon flash to boot.  Unfortunately, the processor is a bit slower than your traditional point and shoot cameras, but for a carry-on camera, it definitely does the job.  The pictures are a bit grainy in the dark, but it picks up surprisingly well on its high ISO setting. The phone supports geotagging, has a secondary camera, allows sending of your pictures etc. - your typical fleet of modern smartphone technologies.

One aspect I’m unable to stand is that with the amount of media attention this phone gets (along with the rest of the N-series) about the great multimedia playback functionality, why the USB connection is so ridiculously slow. It takes forever to load songs on, and for a regular music junkie (yes, it’s a valid oxymoron), switching songs every so often is annoying. Video files with its own conversion tool from the PC suite is outrageously slow, and defeats the purpose of mobile media. Of course, when given an appropriate preparation time, the phone makes watching media on-the-go a pleasure almost worth it.

Performance and Pacing: 7.0/10

Tracking the Trends
The Nokia N78 hits the consumer market on the spot – of course, this depends on where you can actually buy one, as the North American market doesn’t currently support such HSDPA bands. Its beautiful gloss finish on the front, its subdued buttons, and its well-designed functionalities cause this phone to definitely be in the list of considerations for anyone looking for a new phone.

This brings us to this review’s X-Factor. This phone has two X-Factors, both which are rare and well implemented among modern cellphones, but none of which are market disruptors. These X-Factors are the button engineering (yeah, lame title, but still) and the Navi wheel breathing. As you can tell from the unimportance of this list, this phone does everything well, but nothing that MAKES people hit the jump.

Collative Conclusions
In conclusion, the market this phone hits is the contract-buyer looking for a new phone, and not the phone that people would jump carriers for. There’s nothing wrong with that, but for such a gorgeous phone, I feel a little sympathy for what it could’ve achieved. People make jumps for touchscreen phones, for new Windows Mobile interface iterations, for rare technology, and for insane screen pixel resolutions. This phone represents the maturity of technologies of the previous next-gen technologies (oxymoron intended). So with a phone this well built, I want it to disrupt, and I want people to jump ship. I’m just doubtful it will.

This iteration of the N-Series is a quality build from Nokia, where various aspects align and some don’t. In the end, it’s a gorgeous phone – one engrained with a very cool (cold-type of cool – as opposed to teenager cool) style, and it breathes to let you know, you’ve picked a beautiful phone.

Nokia N78 Design Obsession: 8.5/10 + 0.5 for its ability to breathe

Please feel free to comment, question, or anecdotally frame your words in the section below!

Tags: Design Review, N-series, N78, Nokia

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 1st, 2008 at 12:00 am and is filed under Nokia, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.