Nokia N78
Discontinued 11th February 2008
Nokia's replacement for the aging N73,
the Nokia N78 is an HSDPA capable 3.5G handset, with
a 3.2 megapixel camera, aGPS and built-in WiFi. It's
a sleek looking smartphone running the Symbian S60 operating
system, in common with most other N-Series devices.
As with all the Nokia handsets announced
at Mobile World Congress 2008, the Nokia N78 has a much
improved GPS system, with several improvements for those
who want to navigate on foot. Photographs taken with
the camera can also be geotagged with the location automatically,
a feature that has been missing for some time.
While we're on the subject of the camera,
the Nokia N78 has a 3.2 megapixel unit with a Carl Zeiss
lens, autofocus and an LED flash. This combination of
features has proven to be very capable in the past.
This is a dual-band HSDPA /WCDMA phone
with quad-band GSM support, plus GPRS and EDGE data.
WiFi connectivity is built-in too, as is stereo Bluetooth
and USB 2.0. In other words, the Nokia N78 has plenty
of fast connections to the outside world.
The
N78 comes with a multimedia player capable of handing
MPEG-4, MP3, WMA and AAC clips. Video capture is VGA
resolution at 15 frames per second, not quite as good
as some other recent Nokias, but still pretty good.
There's also an FM radio and integrated stereo speakers.
The Nokia N78 comes with a useful FM transmitter,
so it is possible to connect it to a car stereo using
just the radio, where this it is legal to do so.
This
looks like a decent phone, but there's a fly in the
ointment. Nokia have gone all trendy with the keypad
- the key legends light up when in use, and the keys
themselves have been replaced with a sort of bar arrangement.
It looks good, but we suspect that it won't be as easy
to use as a traditional arrangement.
The battery life is pretty reasonable
- the Nokia N78 has just over 3 hours talktime on 3G
with up to 13 days standby time. This is helped by a
large 1200 milli amp hour BL-6F power cell. The
N78 features up to 24 hours of audio playback time.
It's a much cheaper phone than the new
N96,
coming in at around €350 (£230 / $460) before
tax and subsidy. It is a very similar price to the Nokia
6220 Classic which has a better camera and more
conventional layout, but lacks WiFi or an FM transmitter.
Nokia say that the N78 will be available
during Q2 2008.
|
Nokia
N78 at a glance
|
Available:
|
Q2
2008
|
Network:
|
GSM
850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900 UMTS
900 / 2100
|
Data:
|
GPRS
+ EDGE + UMTS + HSDPA +
WiFi
|
Screen:
|
240x320
pixels, 16m colours
|
Camera:
|
3.2
megapixels
|
Size:
|
Medium
monoblock 113 x 49 x
15mm / 120 grams
|
Bluetooth:
|
Yes
|
Memory
card:
|
microSD
|
Infra-red:
|
No
|
Polyphonic:
|
Yes
|
Java:
|
Yes
|
GPS:
|
Yes
(aGPS)
|
Battery
life:
|
3 hours talk / 13 days standby
|
|
|