US$ 391 US$ 289.00

Nokia’s N-Series has really been very productive these days. N96 and N85 have landed not long ago and now we have N79! It seems that Nokia is really aiming at scooping up every fish in the pool! Will she be successful this time around with N79?

Drums rolling please! Here it is the spanking new Nokia N79 escorted by two interchangeable smart covers. Well, the opening is pretty grand.

Dig deep into the box we find the Nokia N79 phone, 2 Two extra Nokia N79 Xpress-on smart covers, a battery, a charger, a USB cable, a music headset and a user’s guide.

The phone is of the classic chocolate-bar design. I would actually love to see a more creative design from Nokia though. The phone only weighs 97g, pretty light and compact for a phone like this.

I am glad that the pretend-to-be-sophisticated keypad of N78 is replaced here with a more classic (classic again!) and practical keypad. My only complain with the keypad is its rather dim backlight. It’s not really a big deal anyway.

This is the back of the phone. It’s plastic with wood-texture look-alike print. But there is something tricky about the back cover and I’ll tell you later.

Nokia 79’s camera is now upgraded to 5 megapixels, with the Carl Zeiss lens, dual LED flash and auto focus. It is on par with that of N96 and N85. I like the sliding lens cover idea. It helps protect the top-quality lens when not in use.

Not only does Nokia N79 come with two more interchangeable covers, the cover is called Xpress-on smart cover. How smart is it? The phone can intuitively change its color theme according to the back cover you put on. This is the sensor you see in the photo. Yeah, it is gimmicky, but I am glad they tried.

We’ve got a 3.5mm jack on the top of the phone. (It’s a sin not to have it!!)

The phone storage can be upgraded to 4GB with microSD card. I wish it could have a bigger storage as we have 8GB for N85 and 16GB for N96.

Stereo speakers on both ends of the phone.

Nokia N79 has a 2.4”, 320 x 240-pixel (QVGA) display. The image quality is excellent.

There is a built-in accelerometer which enables automatic screen rotation.

Nokia N79 is still a technological powerhouse like it claims. 3.5 HSDPA and Wi-Fi, A-GPS, connections to on-line communities like Friendster, Flickr and Youtube. It’s a one stop platform for sharing information, entertainment and photo-taking. The operation is triumphantly smooth like what Nokia has guaranteed. However, Nokia seems to have lost its edge on its design. To compete with its burgeoning counterparts, Nokia has to squeeze its creative juice.

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