Nokia N79 (2)

Nseries keep on throwing heavy-spec’d phones at us and there’s no question they’re hitting their best form in quite a while. About time we got less of a curve ball lookswise, Nokia N79 embodies a new approach to Nseries styling. As to the insides, the N79 sides with N85 to make quite a number of Nseries veterans fear retirement. A true all-in-one, and less N-gage, Nokia N79 is big enough on personality and inspiration. No wonder we’re eager to see it in action.

Nokia N79 official photos
Key features
2.4″ 16M-color LCD TFT display of QVGA resolution
5 megapixel autofocus camera with dual-LED flash and AF assist light
VGA video recording at 30fps
Symbian OS 9.3 with S60 3.2 UI
ARM 11 369 MHz CPU
3G with HSDPA support
Quad-band GSM support
Wi-Fi with UPnP technology
Built-in GPS with A-GPS functionality and 3 months of free voice-guided navigation
microSD card slot with microSDHC support
4GB memory card included in the retail package
Built-in accelerometer for UI auto-rotation
Swappable Xpress-on smart covers (two of them in the box)
3.5 mm audio jack
TV out
Stereo FM Radio with RDS
FM transmitter
Stereo speakers
Navi wheel navigation
USB and Bluetooth v2.0
One free N-gage game
Keylock switch
Main disadvantages
No smart dialing
Doesn’t charge off USB
No office document editing out of the box
Not the best camera performance
Zooming in on a photo takes ages
No dedicated 3D graphics accelerator
The GPS performance is not the best among Nseries

Nokia N79 is certainly one of the best equipped bars on the market. In fact there is very little (and certainly not too important) features that the phone lacks. The best part is it excuses itself from the company of most recent Nseries devices and makes an impact with its own distinct appearance.

Nokia N79

If you are eying this attractive package, it currently goes at about 320 euro (400 US dollars). Let’s now have a brief look around for what else that kind of cash can get you.

We’ve been there already with Nokia N85. A complete multimedia gadget with full-ranging connectivity, Nokia N85 comes out as a potential upgrade for a number of Nseries phones – from the classic N73 to the imaging headliner N82.

N79 is of course the direct successor of N78 – it doesn’t look it and that’s a downright improvement, on top of the boosted camera.

Nokia N78

Nokia N82 is another handset that should feel threatened. While it packs a better camera and xenon flash, the reduced weight advantage, looks and the new UI version count in favor of the N79. The FM transmitter might also play a part here though with the N82 costing 30 euro less, we may as well act it square.

Nokia N82

We should also count the experienced fighter Nokia N95 and its upgrade – the Nokia N95 8GB. Once an industry leading device, the N95 is now comfortably settled in the upper mid-range, luring potential buyers with a competitive price tag and what’s still one of the best displays in the business.

Nokia N95 • Nokia N95 8GB

It will hardly pass as the latest software package available but it still can handle most of the workload you give it. And the number of available third-party applications is maybe infinite.

As to the real competition, Samsung i7110 comes to mind straight away. Having the same form factor and virtually identical set of features the only difference between it and the Nokia N79 is the slightly larger display with OLED technology. However we are yet to see how they stack up in terms of pricing.

Samsung i7110

Now that we know the N79 is not totally without alternatives, let’s get to work and see what makes it tick. Join us at the next page for unboxing and in-and-out check up.
Unboxing – well rounded retail package

Under the lid of the N79 retail box we found some nice surprises. For one, there is a 4GB microSD to grant generous storage space straight out of the box. A nice two-piece handsfree set is also supplied and this time it comes in white color. The keys on the remote are large and tactile enough, so you can quickly get used to operating it without even looking.

Plenty to cheer in the box

A microUSB cable is also in place, along with the DC charger. The best thing in the box however is the two bonus smart covers for the rear. In our case the extra options were in white and red. Once fitted they automatically change the active theme of your Nokia N79 but there’ll be more about that in a short while.

The last items in the box are the usual suspects – a bunch of leaflets and guides plus the DVD with the required PC sync software.
Nokia N79 360-degree spin

Nokia N79 measures 110 x 49 x 15 mm, totaling a volume of 74 cc. This is a tiny bit more compact than the Nokia N78 but in everyday usage you are unlikely to feel the difference. In bar-shaped phone terms this isn’t the most compact there is but considering the feature-set not too much to fuss over.

The weight of 97g is quite a good achievement too. After all, there isn’t a single handset with that kind of specs to weigh less than the N79. You might want to check out our Nokia N79 spin to get a better idea of its size.

Design and construction

The design of Nokia N79 is but a breath of fresh air to the Nseries. No, it has nothing to do with the N81-esque cheap gloss we’d been bombarded with recently. The N79 is simple and looks more like a phone, so we happen to like it. Well, it sure isn’t Eseries-elegant but Nseries phones hardly get any prettier.

The whole front of the phone is finished in opaque plastic and is quite resistant to finger smudges. The display is the only bit that’s vulnerable to fingerprints but why would you need to touch it anyway?

The earpiece of the Nokia N79 is traditionally placed in the middle of the topmost part of the front. Right next to it are the secondary video-call camera and the ambient light sensor. The rest of the front is taken by the 2.4″ display and the keypad. As you might know those key elements have a reserved spot in our reviews, so we won’t look at them in detail now.

The top of the front panel: earpiece, video-call camera and ambient light sensor

The left side of Nokia N79 features the microUSB slot, the microSD card slot and the charger plug. Due to an interesting design solution the USB slot and the memory card slot share a plastic lid. This certainly benefits the design as there is one less aperture on the surface of the phone and since we can hardly think of a scenario where you will need to use both slots simultaneously we find this a very good idea.

The microSD card slot and the USB port share a seat on the left side

The power key is topside, right next to the 3.5mm standard audio jack. The other element here is the keylock switch, which seems to be gradually becoming a standard piece of gear on Nseries phones.

At the top you get a 3.5mm standard audio jack, power key and keypad lock

Nokia N79’s right side hosts the stereo speakers, the volume rocker and the dedicated camera key. Both controls are reasonably large and comfortable enough to use – no complaints here.

Both keys on the right are comfortable enough

The bottom of the handset is where a lanyard gets attached. The only other thing of interest here is the mouthpiece.

The mouthpiece and lanyard eyelet all the way down

The back panel of Nokia N79 has a neat and simple styling although the plastic is a little too glossy for our taste. The 5 megapixel camera lens is here under a small active cover. It is also complimented by a dual-LED flash.

The camera lens is at the back, under an active cover

If you remove the back panel you will notice the four tiny connectors the phone uses to change the theme accordingly.

Tiny connectors on the back panels allow the phone to switch themes to match the cover color

Removing the Xpress-on cover reveals the 1200 mAh BL-6F Li-Ion battery, which gives the N79 its juice. It is quoted at the sweet sounding 5 hours and 30 minutes of talk time and 370 hours of stand-by.

The BL-6F battery has promising capacity

The build quality of Nokia N79 is excellent. High quality materials have been used and that should be enough to make the phone quite resistant to the everyday wear and tear. What’s more, the phone does look better than what Nseries have been offering lately and is absolutely a pleasure to handle.

Nokia N79 held in hand
Display: time-proven quality

Nokia N79 QVGA display totals 16M colors on a 2.4″ diagonal. We have seen quite a few of those screens on them Finnish handsets and never have they let us down. Brightness and contrast levels are fine ,with commendable performance in the sun.

The display is offers very good picture quality

Our only reason to frown at the N79 display is the OLED screen on Nokia N85 got us really spoiled. We do hope OLEDs gain more ground as the contrast they offer is unmatched by any TFT unit. Leaving that aside, the display of Nokia N79 is a winner all over.
Keypad is good enough

The keypad and controls on Nokia N79 make all the difference from N78 and most of the latest Nseries releases.

The most important navigation element, the D-pad is amply sized and really comfortable. The wide sides provide one of the best Navi-wheel experiences we’ve had. Even if the confirm center may look somewhat small, elevation makes it pleasantly tactile.

There is little to complain about this part of the phone controls

The keys around the D-pad are slightly smaller than we like them but the actual layout makes them perfectly usable. We should note that the Symbian and Clear key are the only flatbed controls around the D-pad. The soft keys and the Call and End buttons are actual knobs, which offer good enough tactility and solid press.

The Multimedia key is the biggest button of them all and is this time shifted all the way to the left side. Right where the ample multimedia key is, the line of the metallic front frame bends to form a bracket. It’s a nice asymmetrical pattern replicated further up on the opposite side where the Nokia logo is enclosed.

The keypad could use some more distinguishable borders but is otherwise OK

Finally we come to the alphanumeric keypad, which is worlds apart from the N78 approach. The keys are huge compared to the tiny knobs in N78, which we were the very negation of friendly typing.

This time around you can count on adequate tactility and enjoyably solid press. The only gripe is the lack of borders between keys within the same row. But that doesn’t make it any less of a gift compared to N78.
Symbian user interface looks nice

Nokia N79 runs on Symbian 9.3 with Series60 3rd Edition user interface and feature Pack 2 preinstalled. In fact it is the very same interface we saw on Nokia N85 with just a touch of extra eye-candy.

The layout is quite familiar with status icons appearing on the top of the screen and soft key labels at the bottom. Quite naturally, Nokia N79 also supports Active standby with two optional layouts.

The UI layout is quite familiar

The active standby screen is a nice and convenient way of bringing shortcuts to all favorite applications to your home screen. You can even assign shortcuts to websites of your choice for quicker access.

The screen can be organized in either vertical or horizontal tabs, which can then be scrolled with the D-pad. If active standby is disabled the direction keys of the D-pad can also be assigned a shortcut of your choice.

The two active standby modes allow you to bring numerous shortcuts to your home screen

Active standby or not, you can always change the shortcuts assigned to the two soft keys to best suit your needs.

Nokia N79 can automatically rotate the user interface thanks to the built-in accelerometer. There are nice transition effects when switching from one mode to another: the current screen smoothly zooms out, flips and then zooms back in.

Almost every screen of the UI can also be switched to landscape mode

Nokia N79 also features the new and improved task manager courtesy of the new FP. It is also now somewhat better looking and is appearing on top of every pop-up menu. The shortcut used in previous versions of the OS by pressing and holding the menu key still works.

The task manager has also been improved in this version of the OS

Finally, the S60 UI Feature Pack 2 brings quite a lot of nice transition effects. Symbian OS has been well known for offering little eye-candy but now it seems to be trying to catch up.

The multimedia menu is another of the Nseries phones trademark features. It is launched via the dedicated key and provides quick access to the multimedia features of the handset with thematically sorted shortcuts. They appear as drop-down lists when the respective tab is selected. Those can also be freely reordered if the layout isn’t your cup of tea.

The multimedia menu

Being one of the most important things to performance, let’s have a look at the CPU of the N79. The handset uses a single ARM 11 369 MHz CPU with no dedicated graphic accelerator. While this certainly doesn’t make it the sharpest knife in the Nokia drawer it still does OK in Symbian terms, as far as UI responsiveness is concerned. The phone reacts quickly to most commands across menus.

The gallery however is an entirely different story. Much like the N85, Nokia N79 takes almost a minute to zoom in on a photo taken with the N79 very camera to 100% and that’s nothing short of outrageous. The video playback issues are also somewhat more frequent than we would’ve liked. Having dealt with other Nokia phones with similar CPUs, we’ve seen those tasks handled much better. We are therefore wondering whether some software issues are troubling the N79.

The Nokia N79 user-available memory extends to a little less than 83MB topped with the 4GB card that ships along. That should get you pretty much covered for installing any software you like and still have enough room for your favorite stuff.
Customization options: Xpress yourself

With Nokia N79 users have a choice between four different menu view modes. The first two are the well known 4 x 3 grid and a simple list. There is little to surprise you here but we still find those two the most comfortable to work with.

Nokia N79 offers grid and list main menu view modes for the traditionalists…

The other two available modes are the 3D V-shape and Horseshoe layouts. They do look a lot better but working with them does take time getting used to. Font size is also configurable throughout the menus.

…and Horseshoe and V-shape for the ones that look for more eye-candy

Another option for customizing the UI is changing the currently active theme. There are eight preinstalled themes on Nokia N79, but you are by no means limited to them only. Downloading additional ones from the internet and installing them on your N79 is quick and easy and the choices offered are endless.

Nokia N79 preinstalled themes

The best part about the smart Xpress-on covers is that you can set the phone to automatically change your theme to match the color of the currently installed rear panel.

You can also adjust the standby background to show a slide show of your photos instead of a single static image.

Finally, the screensaver can display the current date, custom text, the currently playing track, an animation or even a slide show depending on the user’s preferences.
Telephony: just as expected

We didn’t experience any problems with the in-call performance of Nokia N79. Reception levels are good and there were no interferences whatsoever.

The main disadvantage here is that there is no preinstalled smart-dialing feature on the Nokia N79.

This is partially compensated by the built-in voice recognition system, which is doing quite a good job recognizing most of the commands. It is also fully speaker-independent and doesn’t require prerecording of the commands.

Bear in mind though, that if you have multiple numbers assigned to a name, you should set one as default or otherwise the first entry will be dialed.

We also ran our traditional loudspeaker test on Nokia N79. The handset fell short of impressive, managing only an average score. So consider missing a few calls in noisier environments somewhat likely with this phone.

Here is the table comparing the N79 to some of the its Nseries siblings we’ve put to the same test. In case you want to find out more about the test itself or a complete list of tested devices, hit the link.Speakerphone test Voice, dB Pink noise/ Music, dB Ringing phone, dB Overall score
Nokia N82 70.2 61.2 65.9 Below average
Nokia N79 66.6 65.8 71.7 Average
Nokia N85 67.0 65.5 71.8 Average
Nokia N95 8GB 75.7 66.2 70.2 Good
Nokia N95 77.3 66.6 78.0 Very Good
Nokia N96 73.7 76.0 78.1 Excellent

Phonebook: Symbian treat

Nokia N79 surely has an impressive phonebook with massive functionality and generous storage space. Theoretically the whole internal memory can be filled with your contacts and their details but we cannot even imagine anyone needing to do that.

The phonebook of Nokia N79 has quite extensive functionality

Contacts can be freely ordered by first or last name and can naturally be searched by gradual typing of any of the names. You can also set whether the contacts from the SIM card, the phone memory and the service numbers will get displayed.

The contacts can be ordered by first or last name and can be searched by gradual typing of any of them

Editing a contact offers a great variety of preset fields and you can replicate each of them as many times as you like. You can also create new fields if you happen to be able to think of one. Personal ringtones and videos are also available for assigning. If you prefer, you may group your contacts and give each group a specific ringtone.

There are limitless choices of fields to add when editing a contact

The Call log keeps track of your recent communications. The application itself comes in two flavors – accessed by pressing the Call key on the stand-by screen or from the main menu. The first one brings 20 call records in each of its tabs for outgoing, received and missed calls.

If you access the Log application from the main menu, you’ll see a detailed list of all your network communications for the past 30 days. These include messages, calls and data transfers (even WLAN connections are included).
Message-friendly

Nokia N79 supports all common message types – SMS, MMS and email. The first two share the all too familiar intuitive editor. It has a counter of characters left to the limit of 160. An indicator in brackets is showing the number of separate parts the message will be divided into for sending.

Sending a message is no problem at all with the Nokia N79

Switching from SMS to MMS is as simple as inserting some multimedia content. The phone prompts scaling down photos that are too large for sending via MMS.

Inserting multimedia content automatically converts your SMS into an MMS

Nokia N79 also features a dedicated editor for instant recording of audio messages. You can either record the message on the spot or use a sound clip from the phone memory.

Delivery reports pop up on the standby screen and are then saved in a separate folder in the messaging sub-menu. When you are exiting the message editor without having sent the message, the editor prompts saving it to the Drafts folder or discarding it.

The email client is really nice, able to meet almost any emailing needs. The best part is that Nokia N79 is yet another handset that sports the ultra easy email setup we came to know in recent Nokia phones.

If you are using any public email service (it has to be among the over 1000 supported providers), all you have to do is enter your username and password to start enjoying email on the go. The phone downloads all the needed settings to get you going in no time.

Nokia N79 easily meets most of your emailing needs

Multiple email accounts and various security protocols are supported, so you can bet almost any mail service (be it POP or IMAP) is set to run on the N79.

The client can download headers only or entire messages, and can be set to automatically check mail at a given interval. A nice feature allows you to schedule sending email next time an internet connection is available.

There is also support for attachments, signatures and generally, you can hardly think of something important that the Nokia N79 is missing.
Music player does it all

Barely surprising for a multimedia device, the music player of Nokia N79 is quite capable. With the huge number of supported formats you will hardly ever come across an audio file that the phone won’t handle. Album art is also supported. The only thing missing is alternative visualizations for the music player.

Your music library is automatically sorted by artist, album, genre and composer and searching tracks by gradual typing is available. You can also create your own playlists in no time. The process of adding tracks to the library is as simple as choosing the refresh option. You won’t need to do that if you upload the music via the proprietary PC Suite application.

The music player automatically sorts your tracks so you can access them easier

The player comes with five equalizer presets and if they seem insufficient you can create new ones in a matter of seconds. Quite naturally, the player can also be minimized to play in background. In this case a tab appears on the stand-by screen indicating the currently running track.

You can easily create a new equalizer preset is the ones available aren’t enough
Audio quality keeps moving in the right direction

The audio quality of recent Nokia handsets has quite notably improved over the previous generation. Nokia N79 makes no exception boasting the best noise and dynamic range levels among the Finns so far. The frequency response also shows improvement drawing near the best in business. The commendable stereo crosstalk reading is also worth noting.

The problem with audio quality of Nokia N79 is the rather high intermodulation distortion levels. We’ve seen a few worse performers than that but most of the competition blows the N79 away on this one. There go the results so you get an idea of what Nokia N79 is all about.Test Frequency response Noise level Dynamic range THD IMD + Noise Stereo crosstalk
Nokia N79 +0.30, -1.57 -91.8 91.8 0.014 0.482 -73.5
Nokia N85 +0.28, -1.19 -94.4 95.4 0.305 0.701 -88.1
Nokia N96 +0.52, -2.14 -90.6 90.7 0.016 0.364 -73.5
Nokia N95 8GB +1.14, -1.68 -77.1 76.9 0.0066 0.148 -68.5
Nokia N81 +0.39, -1.13 -86.6 85.8 0.041 0.040 -69.9
Apple iPhone 3G +0.52, -1.05 -89.9 90.1 0.0033 0.016 -93.1

Nokia N85 frequency response graph

You can find more info about the test itself as well as the results of more tested devices here.
Video player

The Nokia N79 video player can work in both portrait and landscape mode and can be switched to fullscreen. When in full screen, the soft key labels are hidden so that they don’t spoil the viewing and only pop up when a key is pressed. The ample size screen is also more than welcome for truly enjoying your videos.

The video player offers fullscreen in both portrait and landscape modes
FM radio and transmitter

The FM radio on Nokia N79 has a neat and simple interface and can automatically scan and save the available stations in your area. It also has RDS support and Visual radio. The latter requires an internet connection and WLAN won’t do.

Nokia N79 FM radio application

With RDS and automatic scanning however you’re less likely to resort to network data transfers with Visual Radio. In addition Nokia N79 offers a direct shortcut to the online radio directory where hundreds of stations are available.

A notable feature of Nokia N79 is the built-in FM transmitter. It allows you to broadcast your favorite tracks over a predefined radio frequency. Those can then be picked up by any device with an FM radio receiver in the vicinity.

The FM transmitter is as simple to use as it gets

The signal strength of the N79 is decent, making it quite usable in a car for example. The FM transmitter application itself has a really nice and simple user interface so the handset has every chance of replacing a CD changer in your car for example.
Image gallery – Nseries at their best

The gallery of Nokia N79 looks simply great in 3D rotating view. The speed of photo browsing increases if you press and hold the direction buttons on the D-pad. This allows quick skipping of tons of files if you’re not in the habit of cleaning up your memory every now and then.

The gallery is quite convenient to work with

Otherwise, the Nseries gallery brings no changes in terms of features – pictures can be viewed in both portrait and landscape mode and zoomed in up to 8x. The zooming however as we mentioned is a real disaster. This is where we really hoped that things will be different from Nokia N85 but we had no luck.

Due to the slow speed zooming in is hardly a useful option

We have never seen a phone take so long to zoom in on a photo as this one. And you have our word, we have seen some pretty bad cases. At a speed like that, you are highly unlikely to use zoom too often. Panning is okay though.

The gallery offers a nice slide show with customizable effects and delay between slides. You can also choose the direction of the slideshow – forward or backward from the currently selected photo and the track to go with it. Music can also be switched off if you prefer.

The gallery also has a very good picture tagging system. In addition to geotagging, which is automatically handled by the camera, you can add as many tags as you like to each photo and then use them as filters.

You can also tag your photos with Nokia N79
File manager has no limits

If the gallery file-management options (which even includes sending multiple files at a time) is insufficient you can use the file manager. It allows you to do almost anything you can think of with your files. Copying, moving, creating new folders – you name it and it’s a safe bet that Nokia N79 can do it.

A new version of the useful “Search” application is also aboard Nokia N79. It has a reserved line in the active standby menu, which is hardly a surprise given how useful it is. The application itself finds almost every item in your handset containing a given keyword. From messages to settings, every bit of data is checked and then all results are displayed on the screen.
Not the best 5MP we’ve seen

Nokia N79 is equipped with a 5 megapixel camera with a maximum image resolution of 2592×1944 pixels. It sports autofocus and a dual-LED flash, as well as an active lens cover. It automatically activates the camera application once you slide it open.

The camera key is quite comfortable to work with, which is another boost to imaging.

Another nice camera feature is geotagging, which by the way, works with videos too. GPS locks are comparatively fast, so you might as well take about a minute before your first shot.

The camera UI of Nokia N79 is rather nice. Using our favorite tab layout, it offers extensive settings – from manual white balance and ISO to exposure compensation, sharpness and contrast settings. Various effects are also at hand, labeled color tones. This time around it gets even better, letting you choose which settings get displayed on the toolbar.

We are really pleased with the camera UI

The picture quality of Nokia N79 is decent but clearly not the best among them 5 mp shooters. The image processing algorithm has some issues, which obviously affect picture quality. Noise is certainly excessive and there are slight traces of oversharpening.

The general level of resolved detail is decent but far from the best in the class. Quite surprisingly (and disturbingly), the noise reduction algorithm seems to be more aggressive on the fine detail than on noise itself.

Still the general results aren’t as bad as the above chapter suggests. The photos do have some issues but they are quite usable. Well, not all of them, but the largest portion is just slightly below average. Here go the sample photos so you can see for yourselves.

Nokia N79 camera sample photos

We are also borrowing the impromptu shootout form Nokia N85’s review including the N79, N85 and the experienced fighter – N95 8GB. The N95 8GB is a clear winner here outclassing both the N85 and N79. Color accuracy and contrast are obviously better in N95 and so is – though not to the same extent – resolved detail. In the close contest for the second place Nokia N79 takes an edge with somewhat more reliable colors and less saturation.

Nokia N85 • Nokia N95 8GB • Nokia N79

Nokia N85 • Nokia N95 8GB • Nokia N79

Nokia N85 • Nokia N95 8GB • Nokia N79

So, generally the camera is hardly the Nokia N79 element. However its performance is by no means bad enough to break the whole deal. After all if camera is your only priority, there are enough cheaper options out there you should be checking out before this one.
VGA videos sound sweet

As for video recording, the N79 camera shoots in VGA resolution at 30fps. Sounds like really good quality and it very well is. The good frame rate makes things all the sweeter. Yep, we know Samsung M8800 Pixon already records D1 videos but VGA still is a good enough achievement.

This is what the camcorder UI looks like

Videos are captured in MPEG-4 format and can have automatic or manual white balance. The other available settings are night mode, exposure and color effects. You can also choose whether the dual-led flash should be turned on to act as a video light.

Here is a sample video(5.5MB) for you to check out.
Connectivity duly covered

Connectivity is one of the key features of Nokia N79. The phone supports all contemporary data transfer means, wired and wireless alike.

The versions of both the USB and the Bluetooth are 2.0 and the latter naturally also sports A2DP. Wi-Fi with UPnP support is also at hand. A nice improvement coming with the FP 2 now allows for adding hidden wireless networks with the nice WLAN scanner right on the stand-by screen. This was also available in previous Nokia handsets but took a lot more time, as the WLAN wizard had to be used.

All kinds of network connectivity are also on board – GPRS, EDGE and 3G with HSDPA.

By the way if you are interested where you can find UMTS 2100Mhz or you are not sure whether it’s supported in your country, you should definitely check out our Worldwide Network Bands distribution database.

Finally, the Nokia N79 has a memory card slot, which can at times provide the fastest data transfer rates.
Symbian web browser rocks

Nokia N79 comes complete with an elaborate browser to make use of the great connectivity set. The browser has excellent page rendering and works in both portrait and landscape mode. Zoom levels are easily controlled and font size can be modified to fit as much content as possible on a single page.

The page rendering of the web browser is really good

The virtual mouse cursor earns the browser another point. It is easy to control and generally works great. A mini-map can be activated to help finding your way around large sites where lots of scrolling is required.

While the optical joystick in Samsung i7110 and i8510 INNOV8 is the highest we have seen a Symbian browser go, the Nokia N79 is close to that standard.
Time-management supreme

Smartphones can hardly be accused of lacking time-management skills. Even if you do happen to miss an application you need on your Nokia N79 – there is plenty of third party software out there. However for most everyday use you will hardly need anything more than the package you get straight out of the box.

The calendar has the typical three different view modes – monthly, weekly and daily, and four types of events available for setting up – Meeting, Memo, Anniversary and To-do. Each event has unique fields of its own, and some of them allow an alarm to be activated at a preset time to act as a reminder.

The calendar view modes and the events available for setting up

Mobile office is also very well geared, with preinstalled applications able to open Word and Excel, PDF and PowerPoint files seamlessly. Unluckily, editing documents is not supported by the included Quickoffice version. If you would like editing enabled you will have to get the complete application from the Nokia Download center for a fee.

The mobile office is pretty well geared, but unfortunately it has no support for document editing out of the box

The other office application is ZIP manager, which allows extracting archived files straight on your phone.

Some of the other included organizing and time-management applications are a great unit converter, calculator and voice recorder, as well as the Notes application.

Unit converter, calculator and voice recorder also come preinstalled

The alarm application allows you to set up as many alarms as you want, each with its own name, trigger day and repeat pattern. If this seems too complicated, there is a quick alarm setup where all you do is set the time and you’re good to go. This is quite convenient for, say, setting up your wake-up alarm. In addition, the number of alarms is not limited.
N-gage: fun costs

We still look at Nseries handsets as smartphones but they are at least equally as important to Nokia as N-gage phones. It’s all about mobile content sales and trial-to-purchase-conversion counts big time. No wonder our N79 unit was quite loaded.

Unfortunately you only get one full-featured game with the rest being only trials. By the way, the N79 does keep a low profile here for the lack of dedicated gaming keys.

The N-gage platform offers great gaming experience but only one of the games comes for free

You can of course download some free games at the Nokia download center but those aren’t as good as the N-gage titles. There are also plenty of third-party games out there, so Nokia N79 users can easily download both native and java titles.
GPS does OK

Nokia N79 has a built-in GPS receiver and comes with three months of free voice guided navigation. Sounds like a serious premise for reasonable use as a dedicated navigation unit. The chip sensitivity might be an issue here as it isn’t the best we have seen from the Nokia Nseries. We were far more pleased with the N78 or even N96 performance in that aspect.

It took the phone about two and a half minutes to get satellite lock upon cold start and that is some way off the best times we have seen. However, on most occasions, this kind of speed might seem perfectly adequate to use. In addition A-GPS might take down this time to a more acceptable level. After all, if a couple of minutes are so important you might as well spend a few extra cents on data.

Nokia N79 is having some trouble getting initial satellite lock

The built-in GPS receiver works with Nokia Maps, which is one of the navigation applications to offer the most detailed maps. Furthermore, it is free and relatively easy to use. You will have to buy the voice-guided navigation license once your three-month free trial expires. At least the actual purchase itself is quite simple directly via the phone interface.

Nokia Maps is in charge of the navigation with Nokia N79

The Nokia Maps application itself is doing pretty well in terms of features too. It has four different view modes including satellite and hybrid maps. Those however do need an internet connection to be available. The more regular 2D and 3D view modes are also at hand.

Nokia Maps offers four different view modes

The route planning algorithm is also rather easy to customize to best suit your preferences. Toll roads and motorways can be avoided and so can tunnels and ferries. Route selection can be set to either fastest or shortest. The app is also usable for pedestrian navigation or you can switch the GPS receiver off and use the phone as a hand-held map.

The route planning algorithm can be easily adjusted according to your taste

Additional features like traffic information and city guides can also be activated but they come for a fee.

Finally, in case you are still unhappy with Nokia Maps you can go for a third-party application and there are quite a lot of those available. User reports indicate the internal GPS has no problem working with any of the more popular third-party navigation apps.

The overall impression with GPS navigation on Nokia N79 is rather positive but not as good as most other recent Nokia GPS-enabled models. The quick initial lock of the Nokia N78 really impressed us but if you can live without it the rest is basically the same. The ample screen is also a benefit but still not up to standalone navigator standards.
Final words

The good news with Nokia N79 is the Nseries haven’t completely run out of inspiration. No gaps in the feature set and distinct looks do sound right for a healthy demand. Solid value as a brand-loyal upgrade and little competition let the N79 hope for quite a success.

From where we stand, the major obstacles in front of Nokia N79 are the not too impressive camera and the relatively low level of innovation it offers. No, it has nothing to do with the length of the specs sheets, there’s just nothing we haven’t already seen.

We still can’t ignore the fact that N79 – and N85 for that matter – are being launched in a time of major transition. As Nokia are readying for S60 5th and touchscreen, N79 and the likes are taking over from the top dogs of the past, repackaging the whole set of goodies with a moderate price tag. At the same time they are clearing the scene for the new flagships to come. From this perspective, there’s little we can hold against the N79. A true all-in-one, with less focus on N-gage and with a distinct face, the N79 may as well stick around and do just fine.

Source : http://www.gsmarena.com/nokia_n79-review-299p9.php