We’ve been reviewing the Nokia N79 NAM here at Symbian-Guru, and are now up to the internal software. As you know, this candybar cell phone is using Nokia’s S60 3rd Edition, Feature Pack 2 platform. You may remember that I did not really care for this update on the Nokia 6220 Classic, but I’m enjoying it more, as there are several enhancements over Feature Pack 1 that I think are good.The Nokia N79 NAM specifically has several extra software features that I want to highlight.
The N79 NAM, out of the box, has around 50MB of internal storage, and around 60MB of RAM after boot, which is quite nice. There is plenty of room to install all of your applications to the phone’s internal storage, leaving the microSD available for videos, photos, and other files. The phone also features the new Software Checker application, which allows you to schedule your phone to automatically check for firmware updates and alert you when one is available. However, the Software Checker is only able to check at certain intervals, the shortest being once a week, so you’ll want to keep an eye on Symbian-Guru for faster notifications.
With the latest v11.049 firmware, my Nokia N79 NAM has been extremely solid. I have not (knock on wood) experienced any freezes or random reboots, and I have been using this phone as my primary for several weeks. I’ve ran at least 10 applications at one time, often resource-intensive, such as Mobbler streaming in the background, with Jaiku Mobile updating, Nokia Email checking, and browsing the web, without so much as a cough from the operating system – and that’s precisely how a smartphone should work, in my opinion. Multitasking is everything.
You’ll find the usual handful of multimedia applications on the Nokia N79, along with some new ones, such as Nokia Photos, the FM Transmitter, and Home Media. Nokia Photos sort of supplements the default Gallery (which is still there, for some silly reason), and allows you to view photos by the month they were taken, or by tags (if you’ve added them). It’s a slightly better organization than the Gallery, though not by much.
One thing that I’m pleased to see on the N79 is the Audio Themes, which we’ve written about before. Very cool, and something I hope to see more of in the future. The phone does slow down significantly when you enable the transition effects through the themes menu, but once you’ve turned those off, it’s quite peppy.
Two of the more annoying features are the Naviwheel and the accelerometer, the latter of which is used to automatically rotate the phone’s display (it can be disabled, don’t worry). They’re both far too sensitive, which results in too many false positives, with the screen rotating back and forth constantly, and the Naviwheel being activated accidentally. I turned them both off, which is sad, because they have potential to actually be useful.
As expected, the Nokia N79 features the standard set of PIM features, all of which desperately need to be replaced. This includes Contacts, Calendar, Email, Notes, etc. We really need to see stuff like GPS integration, IM presence integration, etc, though that’s another topic for another day.
I have to give this one a 4 out of 5 stars, with potential to be bumped to 5 stars with new firmware. It doesn’t crash, and has yet to freeze on me, despite being in constant use for weeks now. The three biggest issues (auto-rotate, naviwheel, slow transitions) can be disabled easily, and the overall experience is rock solid.
