Yesterday I shared 5 things that I really love about the Nokia N79 NAM. Things such as the form factor and customization options really stand out, and I think many of you would have to agree. However, it’s clearly not the perfect phone, so what is it about the Nokia N79 that I just can’t stand? Here’s 5 things:
1. The d-pad. Ok, seriously, this thing is awful, and for a single reason – it’s not raised. This is arguably the most important feature of the phone, and also the most used, so why is it positioned completely flat, while the other buttons around it are raised? The center button, however, is nice, but I’m constantly pushing the wrong button when trying to use the 4 d-pad directions. Every other phone on my desk (E71, N95-3, N82, N96) have a raised outer edge on their d-pads. Why would you stray, Nokia?
2. Naviwheel. Seriously, this is incredibly frustrating. It’s frustrating because it’s not active in all applications (shouldn’t it just map to d-pad up and d-pad down?). It’s frustrating because it’s overly sensitive, causing me to mis-click enough to eventually disable it. Such potential, and yet, even from the original N81, Nokia has *yet* to perfect this feature into something I don’t disable.
3. The active lens cover. Yes, I know, we love having these, but the design of this particular one bothers me. There is a ridge on this little door, to help me grip it with my finger/thumb, but the ridge is indented, instead of sticking out, so it offers zero grip.
4. The display. Specifically compared to the N95-3 and worse, the N85, the display on the N79 is too dim overall. It’s also extremely hard to read outdoors, even set to the maximum brightness. Nokia has enhanced display brightness with a firmware update before, let’s hope they do the same for the N79 soon.
5. To be quite honest, I can’t come up with a 5th thing that I hate, aside from features that I wish it had (which I don’t really count here, cause that’s not quite fair). I mean, I could say something like, ‘I hate that it doesn’t brew me coffee in the morning’ or ‘I hate that it only has a 5 megapixel camera’, but that’s not something *about* the phone that I dislike, that’s something I wish the phone had.
So there you have it. I’m sure you can get an idea of how the rest of this review will go based on this list. Tomorrow, I’ll be covering the hardware aspects of the Nokia N79 NAM, including the build quality and other important factors.
