Nokia N78 Cell Phone Review - Hardware

We were actually surprised to see that we could type at almost 40 words per minute on the N78's small and fiddly keypad, which doesn't necessarily make us fans. The controls on the N78 could do with some more tactile feedback. The screen is above average for a cell phone and we like to see the standard 3.5mm headphone jack.

Text Words Per Minute (7.88)
We were able to type 39.4 words per minute (WPM) on the Nokia N78 using two hands and predictive text entry. This is just below average, as you can see below, and amongst our comparison phones only the Nokia N82 performed worse. The N78's keypad has a unique design that we've never seen before. There are four thin raised bars, each of which holds three buttons. There's no differentiation between the three buttons on each bar, but they're long enough that you can go for the left, right or middle without too many errors. In fact while we were typing we were surprised at how few errors we made. The biggest problem with the keypad is its size. The bars are very thin and packed closely together. For those with smaller fingers it shouldn't be a problem, but if you've got large hands or fat fingers you're probably going to find it very difficult to type on the keypad. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Words Per Minute

T9 and Auto Complete (5.0)
The Nokia N78 supports T9 predictive text entry. It does not support word completion, where the phone suggests possible words you are typing before you finish typing them.

One-Handed Typing (6.84)
For those who like to type out messages using only a single hand we do our words per minute (WPM) test using just a single hand. We were able to manage 34.2 WPM using only a single hand on the Nokia N78. This is above average and compares favorably to our other handsets, as you can see below. We did notice, however, that the gap between one and two-handed typing on the N78 is slightly larger than we typically see on phones with keypads. On the N78 this was due to the placement of the keypad near the bottom of the phone. This makes it very difficult to hold it in your hand while typing, in fact our reviewers hand started to ache pretty quickly. This is a problem that you will face with many candy-bar handsets. For more information on how we conduct this test see this article.

Words Per Minute

Keypad Backlighting (3.0)
The Nokia N78's keypad symbols are backlit in a white light that shows up clearly against the black bacgkround of the phone. Unfortunately the lighting isn't very even and we saw some leakage around the edges. The lighting settings are the same as the display and there's no sensor to automatically turn it on/off. There's also no way to adjust the brightness of the backlight.

D-Pad/Joystick (4.0)
The Nokia N78's D-Pad features a raised silver edge with a large center button. The D-Pad as a whole, however, is not very large, and we found that this interacts poorly with the navi-wheel functionality that allows you to scroll up and down by moving your finger along the edges of the D-Pad. Basically it's so small that those with even normal sized fingers will often accidentally caress part of the edge while trying to press any of the directions on the D-Pad or the center select button. This resulted in many mistaken selections, if you encounter this problem as well recommed you just turn off the navi-wheel function in the settings. Nokia does such a good job with the D-Pads on some of their phones that we can't understand why they seem to continouslly drop the ball on other devices.

Touch Screen (0.0)
The Nokia N78 does not have a touch screen.

Jog Dial (1.0)
As we mentioned above the Nokia N78 supports Nokia's navi-wheel technology, which allows you to scroll up and down lists by running your finger along the edge of the D-Pad. Although not as fast or responsive as a true jog dial, we did think it was worth awarding a point here.

Soft Buttons (4.0)
The Nokia N78 two soft buttons sit on the actual plastic of the front of the phone, just beneath the screen. When pressed the whole bit of surrounding plastic moves, rather than a separate button. This means that the soft keys are not well differentiated, although we found that they were big enough and placed well enough that this wasn't too much of a problem. What was more of a problem was the almost complete lack of tactile feedback when they are pressed.

Volume Control (4.0)
The volume keys on the Nokia N78 are found on the right side of the handset near the top and just below one of the two loud speakers. The key is flat and sits just above the surrounding plastic. There is a small indentation in the middle to separate the up and down controls, but this is hard to feel with your fingers. When pressed the key does not provide much key travel or tactile feedback.

Power and Standby (6.0)
The power button on the Nokia N78 is found on the top of the phone. It sits every so slightly above the surrounding plastic, which might make it easier to hit by accident than power buttons that are recessed, but it also makes it easier for you to hit. A single press will bring up a quick menu that allows you to change profiles or shut the phone down. A long press will turn the phone off directly and another long press will turn it back on.

Other Buttons (5.0)
In addition to the buttons discussed above the Nokia N78 has several other controls. To the left of the D-pad is a prominent raised button that allows you to launch the multimedia menu, which gives you quick access to a customizable set of functions like contacts and browser favorites. To the left of the keypad is the typical S60 menu key and to the right is the C button. On the right side of the phone is a dedicated camera key. None of these buttons can be reassigned to other functions.

Primary Screen Gross Resolution (8.0)
The Nokia N78's display resolution is 240 pixels by 320 pixels (QVGA), which is typical for cell phones. It's high enough resolution that everything on screen looks pretty sharp, but we're starting to see phones with much higher resolution displays like the iPhone 3G.

Primary Screen Pixels per Inch (8.34)
Pixels per inch (PPI) is a measure of pixel density. Higher pixel density results in richer colors and a sharper display. Lower pixel density can lead to washed out colors and pixelated images on the screen. The Nokia N78's pixel density is 166.7 PPI, which is just about average and shouldn't cause users any problems.

Pixels Per Inch

Screen Physical Size (6.0)
The Nokia N78 sports a 2.4 inch diagonal display. This is at the upper end of screen size for a regular cell phone, but it's not as large as the displays we're seeing on many touch screen devices like LG Dare or iPhone 3G.

Screen Size Diagonal (inches)

Screen Brightness (6.2)
The Nokia N78's screen measured 59 lux in our test of screen brightness. You can see below that this is slightly below average, but not as bad as the Nokia N82 or LG Dare. One factor that affects all three of the phones is that they adjust screen brightness automatically. This means that despite turning the screen brightness to maximum on the N78 for this test, it's possible that the automatic adjustment turned it back down when we did our test. There are both timing controls for how long the screen stays on and the option to manually set the maximum brightness of the display.

Screen Brightness (lux)

Screen Bright Light Performance (8.0)
The Nokia N78 did very well under bright light conditions. We were easilly able to discern icons and even text on the screen. This phone won't give you any problems on bright sunny days.

Color Depth (10.0)
The Nokia N78's screen is capable of displaying sixteen million colors. This should ensure that images and anything else you view on the screen has accurate and rich colors. You can see below that this is significantly more colors than many of our comparison phones.

Power & Data Ports (4.0)
As we've seen from other modern Nokia phones the N78 uses Micro USB for data connections. We really like to see support for standards like Micro USB. We wish that Nokia had also used this standard interface for power charging as well, but unfortunately they've stuck with their own proprietary charging port instead.

Headphone Compatibility (8.0)
In another welcome trend from Nokia the N78 also has a standard 3.5mm headphone jack, so you can plug in any headphones you desire. If you prefer to go wireless there is also support for stereo Bluetooth headphones on board.

Internal Storage (1.0)
There's 70MB of internal memory on the N78, which should be plenty for PIM information, but if you're going to use the multimedia features at all you'll need to get an expansion card.

Expansion Slot & Format (7.0)
The Nokia N78 supports Micro SDHC cards up to 8GB in capacity. The Micro SD slot on the phone is found on the left side and has a tethered cover. Unfortunately we found that the cover was a bit difficult to push aside, making it fiddly to get cards in and out.

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