Review: Nokia N78

Nokia N78 Review

Phone rating:

In a nutshell: A very powerful smartphone with a 3.2 megapixel camera and assisted GPS, but seriously let down by a dysfunctional keypad. Choose the Nokia N95 8GB instead.
Best buy: *Free* with half-price line rental from Mobiles.co.uk.

The Nokia N78. A highly anticipated smartphone with many powerful features. The feature list is finger-lickin good: Series 60 smartphone with 3.6 Mbps HSDPA, WiFi, assisted GPS navigation with preloaded maps, a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Tessar lens, autofocus & flash, a video camera with stereo audio recording, a secondary camera for video calling, a superb MP3 player with a Navi wheel for easy access to your music, an FM radio. And all this in a compact classic design that weighs just 102g and looks great. There are even bonus features such as FM transmitter that lets you play your music on your car stereo.

On paper it's a fabulous phone. Only the lack of a 5 megapixel camera stops it from being Nokia's best smartphone ever. Yet we hate it.

Why do we hate it? Because of its keypad. Actually to say that it has a keypad is overstating things. The Nokia N78 has some numbers painted on its front and some floppy pieces of plastic that wiggle up and down if you push them hard. Maybe the number that you pushed will come up, maybe another, who knows? Maybe after a couple of frustrated minutes struggling to write a text or dial a number, you'll take a hammer to the keys and give this phone what it deserves. What on earth have Nokia done?

We had really been looking forward to this phone, but we're disappointed. It's not a phone that we can recommend. Brave souls will persevere with the keypad and may learn to tolerate it, but we would recommend the Nokia N95 8GB instead.

Initially we awarded the phone 1 star. A couple of people sent us rude email as a result. We've calmed ourselves done now and rustled up a couple more stars, but we're still angry with Nokia for messing up such a good product.

By the way, plenty of people agree with us. gsmarena says, "The knobs are way too tiny and there are no borders of any kind between keys within the same row. So far we are having quite a rough time typing on the N78." hardwarezone.com says "we found ourselves frustrated as we fumbled and encountered numerous double tapping." igadgetlife says it all: "what were you thinking Nokia?"

Features of the Nokia N78 include:

• 3G Symbian phone with S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2
• Assisted GPS navigation with preloaded regional maps
• 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics & Tessar Lens with autofocus, 20x digital zoom, LED flash and photo editor
• Video: MPEG4/3GP VGA video capture at 15 fps, AAC stereo audio with 8x digital zoom and video editor
• Secondary CIF camera (352 x 288 pixels)
• Display: TFT, 16 million colours, 240 x 320 pixels (2.4 inches)
• Music player (MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ & WMA formats) with playlists, equaliser and album art
• FM radio
• Stereo speakers plus Nokia Stereo Headset HS-45/AD-54 included in sales package
• FM transmitter
• Messaging: SMS, MMS, email (SMTP, IMAP4, POP3) with attachment support for images, videos, music and documents
• Java & Symbian applications
• Advanced S60 PIM features including contacts, calendar, to-do list, notes, recorder, calculator, clock, converter
• Memory: 70 Mbytes plus microSD memory card slot (2GB card included)
• Connectivity: WLAN, Bluetooth 2.0, USB 2.0, 3.5mm audio connector
• Internet: EGPRS class B, EDGE, HSDPA (up to 3.6 Mbps download), Nokia Web Browser with Mini Map, RSS feeds
• Dual mode WCDMA 900/2100 (HSDPA) plus quadband GSM (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)
• Size: 113 x 49 x 15.1 mm
• Weight: 102g
• Talktime: 190 minutes (3G) - 260 minutes (2G)
• Battery standby: up to 320 hours

Nokia N78 Consumer Reviews

Love your mobile? Hate it? Please share your experiences to help other people choose the phone that's best for them. Please do not review this phone if you have not used it. This is a review site, not a forum, so please don't just ask questions. Please do not use swear words or offensive language, and please, no advertising!

Average rating from 11 reviews:

Reviewed by Phil from Australia on 19th Jun 2008
this was a very disappointing buy!!!!!!!!
Rating:

Reviewed by andrew from uk on 18th Jun 2008
i had to take back my third nokia n78 to carphone warehouse that was in the space of a week, the phones kept on crashing on me when i tried to connect to my car bluetooth device and i could not make any calls from my contacts list on the phone sales poeple agreed with me that there must be a software issue that needs addressed if nokia sort that problem out and fix the navagation button and keypad issues it might be worth another look
Rating:

Reviewed by p a lloyd-jones from england on 17th Jun 2008
Purchased this phone a week ago, have long been a member of the Nokia appreciation society..this phone, however, really disappoints. For such a feature rich phone i am surprised it is cased in such a cheap plastic coating. Have been using Nokia E65 for the last year which to all intents & purposes is pretty well bulletpoof. The N78 feels so flimsy i know it wont see me through an 18 month contract intact..18 days is stretching it!! Yet its featues like the navi wheel pictures, internet radio, GPS, music features et al are fabulous..Why couldnt Nokia have wrapped all these goodies in an E casing, incidently the reason it is being returned to sender is that the sound quality on incoming calls is terrible, I thought it must have been a faulty phone & went back to the shop to test another...same result..even the sales crew were surprised at its lack of tone & volume...Its time to finally switch my allegiance to a Samsung Soul
Rating:

Reviewed by Tony from England on 12th Jun 2008
Purchased phone on Monday and as pleased as punch just glad I didn't read review first.It looks great and feels great and I have had no trouble with the keys
Rating:

Reviewed by SteveH from Northern Ireland on 11th Jun 2008
If I had of read this review first I would never have purchased the N78. Glad I didn't read it! The mobile is outstanding with brilliant battery life and an abundance of features. Yes the keyboard is not the best in the world, but why would this stop reviewing the rest of it? The FM transmitter is cool, the GPS first class, the screen is excellent and sound quality is very good. The back cover is a bit flimsy but this helps keep the weight down. Overall - keypad not great, everything else excellent.
Rating:

Reviewed by Ankit from India on 11th Jun 2008
one of the waste & worst phone of Nokia
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Reviewed by tina from singapore on 9th Jun 2008
I am currently using this phone. I must say the keypad looks awkward at first, but after using it, it is pretty much like any other phone. It has a good battery life, and has practically every function that can be equipped in a phone. Camera 3.2mp is sharp with autofocus. You can also view youtube with it as it is equipped with the latest flash lite 3. Naviwheel is good for scrolling long list of songs or contacts. FM transimitter is cool as it can transmit songs that the phone is playing to a radio. It is pretty stable after using for a week. To sum up it is a phone version of a swiss army knife.
Rating:

Reviewed by Rory from Ireland on 8th Jun 2008
I think it's a very good phone but the numbers are a wee bit hard to use but battery life makes up for it and features are actually very good
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Reviewed by Bob the builder from UK on 5th Apr 2008
phone is amazing camera is 3.2 mp and is excellent quality similar to sony ericson k810i but better never froze on me also the touch sensitive scroll wheel thing works very well on long lists such as phonebook
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Reviewed by waqas azam from uk on 3rd Mar 2008
the fone is good apart from the size. freat features
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Reviewed by Andrew from Australia on 24th Feb 2008
rgis fone great but the buttons r weird and yer thats all i have to say bad about this fone
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You can read more Nokia N78 reviews at RecommendedBuys UK.

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