Nokia N79 - Nseries with style and features

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The Nokia N79, a new monoblock (candybar) Nseries handset, was announced today. It features a 5 megapixel camera (with LED flash and protective lens cover), automatic screen rotation via an accelerometer, touch sensitive NaviWheel, Xpress-on smart covers, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, TV-out, FM transmitter and integrated GPS. The N79 has out of the box support for the full range of Ovi services: Photos, Music, Maps, Video and Games (N-Gage). It will be available from October at a cost of €350 (£280) before taxes and subsidies. Read on for more.

N79The N79 continues the Nseries candybar form factor family (N70, N73, N78) and will sit alongside the N78 as a replacement for the N73. As such it can be considered an entry level Nseries device. It manages to fit a comprehensive hardware specification into a relatively low price point and should attract more style conscious consumers thanks to its personalisation features, the most notable of which are the Xpress-on smart covers.

The N85 will be one of the first Nseries handset to ship with the full range of current Ovi services and software on the handset. These include Photos / Share online, Music store, and N-Gage.

See Also (updated)

Feature: Nokia N79 - hands-on preview

Gallery: Nokia N79

Key hardware features of Nokia N79:

  • Xpress-on smart covers which automatically change the phone's theme when they are applied. 3 Xpress-on smart covers will be included in the retail box from a selection of five colours: Light Sea Blue, Espresso Brown, Olive Green, White and Coral Red.
      
  • Touch sensitive NaviWheel for scrolling in the user interface and automatic screen rotation via accelerometer sensor.

  • 5 megapixel camera (2582 x 1938) with Carl Zeiss optics (aperture: F2.8, focal length: 5.2mm) and support for geo-tagging. The camera is accompanied by a LED flash/camera light and is protected by a small sliding shutter. Video capture is at VGA (640 x 480) at up to 30 frame per second.
     
  • Integrated FM transmitter (for sending music to another FM radio) and FM receiver (including RDS support).
     
  • 4GB microSD memory card included in the retail box (some markets may vary) and 70MB of internal memory.
     
  • Dimensions of 110 x 49 x 15mm and weight of 97g (similar to N78 which is 113 x 49 x 15.1 mm). This makes it the smallest and lightest Nseries device so far.
     
  • BL-6F battery (1200 mAh) with quoted standby time of 406 hours. In the real world this should translate to a heavy day of use.
     
  • 2.4" QVGA screen with up to 16 million colours.
     
  • 3.5 mm stereo headphone jack (on the top of the device), which is also used for TV-out. Twin stereo speakers on the right hand side of the device (top and bottom).
      
  • Integrated GPS with support for A-GPS.
     
  • microUSB connector (Hi-Speed USB 2.0) for PC connectivity, media sync, USB mass storage and printing.
     
  • Bluetooth connectivity, including support for A2DP and AVRCP profiles (Bluetooth stereo headphones). WiFi (802.11b/g), including support for UPnP. Dual band WCDMA (900/2100) and quad band GSM cellular connectivity.
     

Key software features

  • Runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 on Symbian OS 9.3.
     
  • Photos application on phone for viewing photos, organizing into albums, printing locally, and adding meta-data / tags. Share online application for uploading photos and video to Flickr, Share on Ovi and other web services, plus XpressPrint application for printing photos via the web. Bi-directional media sync between the Photos application on the handset and Nokia Photos for PC.
     
  • Music player (MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA), with bi-directional sync with Nokia Music for PC. Nokia Music Store accessible via PC client of Music store application on the handset. Video playback via RealPlayer (H.264, H.263, WMV).
     
  • Nokia Maps 2.0 (3 months free navigation in selected markets) for drive or walk navigation.

  • N-Gage client application for direct download of games.

N79

Video demo, courtesy of Nokia Conversations


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