Review: Nokia N76 - Thin and Smart

Nokia N76

Nokia N76

Nokia N76

Phone Functions

The N76 is a quad-band phone, supporting all GSM/EDGE on 850/900/1800/1900MHz as well as the 2100MHz UMTS frequency. Reception is good and the audio quality is clear and loud enough, which also holds true when the speakerphone is in use. We did not experience any problems with 3G tower hand over during calls or streaming videos - even in Hong Kong's underground metro system.

Ring profiles can be changed by pressing the power button when the phone is open or closed. On top of the 6 preset profiles, you can create your own as well. Timed profiles are not supported.

There is nothing new about the contact list. It is the usual layout with a search box at the bottom. Just like Windows Mobile devices, when you type a string of letters, all names containing that combination will be listed. Typing AN will give you both Dan and Andy for example. You can organize your contacts into groups as well as assign individual pictures and ringtones. Speed dial and voice dial are both supported. Voice dial comes under the Advanced Voice command system, which saves the trouble of having to pre-recording the voice tag. The N76 performed reasonably well at this.

Due to its small size, Nokia could only squeeze in a 700mAh battery into the N76. As you might have expected, for a smartphone with 2.4" screen size, we are not impressed with the power performance. The N76 can only last for one and a half days in what we consider as average call and data usage.

Connectivity

The N76 is a WCDMA phone itself, but when outside 3G coverage it can still run on EDGE and GPRS. Bluetooth 2.0 is supported, but the A2DP stereo profile is nowhere to be found. Users will be forced to use their lined headphones and suffer from the hinge that cannot open properly as long as the earphones are in. Infrared and WiFi are not supported by the N76.

When the N76 is connected to a computer through the miniUSB port, the screen will prompt the user for which of the 4 available modes should be used for the connection. One option is for synchronizing music with Windows Media Player or other compatible software, another is for using the N76 with the include Nokia PC Suite, and another will simply have the device recognized as a USB mass storage device. The 4th option allows the user to connect the N76 to a printer with Direct Print mode, so that prints can be made without the need for a computer.

Messaging

The Nokia N76 supports SMS and MMS as well as email (POP3/IMAP4) messaging. Users can create their own folders and sort their messages in a number of ways. The composition screen is clean, font size tends to be a bit small, but if you adjust it to maximal size it is just about right. Depending on your network operator, you might be able to run a Symbian version of the Mobile MSN instant messenger application.

The Hong Kong version of the Nokia N76 supports English as well as Traditional and Simplified Chinese predictive text input systems. Users can add new words to the dictionary as they wish. The predictive text system works well: it is fast enough and you can always go back to a word, highlight it, and pick a replacement from the word list again. The only problem here is the lack of learning mode that would learn from the user's word usage and move more commonly used words higher up on the list.

Nokia N76

Nokia N76

Nokia N76

Nokia N76

 

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