Nokia N75 Review - Multimedia
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Alfredo Padilla Published on June 14, 2007 Comment on this |
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Accessing Music Software (4.95)
Dedicated Music Controls (4.0)
Music Software Functionality and Organization (8.8)
Online Song Downloading (0.0)
The Nokia N75 does not support any direct download music services.
Streaming (0.0)
We were disappointed that the Nokia N75 was unable to handle any of our test streaming audio files. This includes Mp3, Windows media and Real media streaming. Windows Mobile devices are able to play back Windows media streaming and it is unfortunate that the N75 falls short of this type of functionality. It should be noted that the N75 ships with a trial version of Mobiradio, however because this is only a trial version we did not award points for it. If you wish to use Mobiradio you will need to pay $9.99 a month for the privilege.
Podcast Support (0.0)
The Nokia N75 does not ship with any software to download and organize podcasts. This is an unfortunate oversight as Nokia offers an excellent podcast client that is available for free, and we are not sure why it would not be installed by default on their devices. To download and use this client click here.
Music Sync with PC (7.0)
The Nokia N75 can synchronize music with your PC either using Nokia's PC suite software or by using mass storage mode directly with Windows Media Player. For Mac users we should also mention that Nokia recentlly released a client that allows you to synchronize your music with iTunes, available here. Because this client is in beta we are not yet awarding points for it, however we did test it briefly and it worked as advertised. Too bad you can't do the same with iTunes on a PC.
Music Formats and DRM (4.0)
The Nokia N75 supports AAC, MP3 and WMA music files. It also supports Microsft's Playsforsure DRM, which means you can use it with online stores like Yahoo Music and Napster. It does not support Apple's Fairplay, so you won't be able to play music you download from the iTunes music store.
Music Interruption (10.0)
We test how phones handle interruptions by calls while playing back music. We found that the N75 did very well in this test, pausing the music when a call came in and then restarting from the exact point it paused when the call ended. We were very pleased with the N75's performance.
Video
Video Software Access (1.52)
Video Controls (4.0)
When playing back video in Realplayer the center key of the D-Pad acts as play/pause. The left soft key is also assigned to pause, a pointless redundancy, and the left soft key is assigned to stop, almost as pointless. Up and down on the D-Pad will fast forward and rewind clips respectively and the volume keys will of course control volume. There is no way to move between videos, not surprising given that Realplayer lacks any library management features, nor are there any keys for things like full screen view. We found the controls to be oddly organized and limited.
Video Software Score (1.0)
Realplayer on the Nokia N75 is not a good video playback solution. The complete lack of any library management features means that you will need to go and find each video file individually before you can start playing them back. You will need to manually create folders either on the device/card or in the gallery, but neither of these solutions is very satisfactory. It certainly isn't a patch compared to the video playback features offered by Windows Media Player on Windows Mobile devices. Realplayer on the N75 does not provide you with any library management features. This is a serious flaw for an advanced smart device that Nokia markets as a "multimedia computer".
Video Sync with PC (7.0)
As with music you can synchronize videos using either Nokia's PC suite or directly with Windows Media Player on a PC when the device is in mass storage mode. Unfortunately due to the lack of library management features in Realplayer you cannot synchronize video playlists and certainly can't do things like rate videos and synchronize the ratings.
Video Formats (3.0)
As with other Series 60 devices the N75 had some problems with various codecs. It was able to play back the two 3GP video files encoded in H263, but was unable to play back the Mpeg-4 encoded 3GP file. It also wasn't able to play back the H264 encoded .Mp4 file that we tested, although it was thankfully able to handle the realmedia file we tested. Other formats like flash and quicktime were not supported. We were very disappointed with the inability of the N75 to play back video files with the same extension but without the particular codec they support.
Video DRM (0.0)
The Nokia N75 does not support any video DRM formats.
Video Playback Smoothness (10.0)
Online Video Downloading (0.0)
The Nokia N75 does not support any video download services.
Video Streaming unscored
Because standards for streaming video are not yet standardized we do not award points for this section. We do however test a couple of streaming video sites to see how the device performs. We were pleased to see the N75 supported streaming 3GP video from www.zoovision.com, however it did not support streaming Windows Media video from www.windowsmedia.com. The N75 also supports AT&T's streaming video service, for those with plans that support it.
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