Mobile Phones
Nokia N76
Design:
Sporting ONE-TOUCH MUSIC Controls on it exterior, an eye-catching design featuring chrome and glass, a 2MP cam and 3G connectivity, Nokia's clamshell N76 seems Like an ideal multimedia phone, but some faults in design prevent it from being great.
The N76 is a quad brand GSM and 3G handset, but doesn't support HSDPA. Being 3G, and therefore capable of video calls, the N76 has a front mounted VGA Camera just above the display, and it can also used for taking portrait photos.
Features:
The N76 may not have the extensive feature set of its much-lauded N-series companion, the N95, but there's more than enough to keep you connected and entertained.
First up is a 2-megapixel LED flash camera -- a surprisingly low resolution when you consider the number of phones sporting 3-megapixel versions. Photos can be taken in two ways -- with the phone opened, or with the phone closed and held horizontally, where the external display acts as a viewfinder. We found the closed method was the best way to capture snaps, as finding the teeny shutter button when the phone is open is very awkward indeed.
Space-wise you've got 26MB of internal memory, with a microSD slot that will give you up to 2GB extra space. Our review model came with a 512MB card.
Like other models in the N series, the phone has a focus on multimedia, with its music player capable of handling MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+ and WMA files. There is also an FM radio, but the lack of A2DP Bluetooth support means you can't bust out those snazzy wireless headphones to hear your music.
Performance:
A thin phone means a small battery, but we were satisfied with the staying power of the Nokia N76. Our battery kicked on for three days between charges with moderate use of phone calls, texts and 3G features.
The expansive, dazzling display is well suited to Web perusal, but switching to landscape mode makes entering data difficult, as you'll need to either rotate the handset or press keys sideways.
We had mixed results with the camera. Photos taken in low light conditions looked fine on the phone's display, but when transferred to a PC and viewed at full size, graininess and feathery clumps of noise littered the images. Daylight snaps fared better.