Here are more of my thoughts on the Nokia N78. This time I'm covering audio and build quality. Some points are good, others are big letdowns. Sometimes I am really amazed as to why Nokia lets such simple problems slip through the testing phase and into the real world.

Nokia N78 Audio Quality

One great feature of the Nokia N78 is the audio quality, specifically geared towards music playback. Through headphones this is one of the best phones I've ever heard. I am not audiophile but I have to say it's really hard to notice any difference between the N78 music audio quality and my iPod's. The bass really comes through loud and strong so you can actually feel it through headphones and external speakers. The clarity through my $15 Sony ear buds was pretty shocking compared to what I'm used to with the Nokia N82. The N82 has decent music sound, but the N78 really takes it to the next level.

Keep in mind the above statements don't apply to the built in stereo speakers of the N78. I'm not really impressed by them mainly because at loud volumes the sound begins to lose clarity. This is a huge let down obviously considering how good the sound is through headphones. Perhaps the worse thing about the speakers is the poor handling of bass. It sounds really hollow like the speakers are ready to blow. Not to mention the bad placement of the speakers themselves. One is on the top right side of the phone and the other is on the bottom left. It's interesting to me that most of the recent Nseries devices all have different speaker placement. Is Nokia just trying to experiment or are they doing this aimlessly?

Check out what I mean below...



Call quality is great which is standard for Nokia products. The earpiece is loud and clear, and I haven't any callers complain about hearing me. A lot of this has to do with the phone reception being nearly perfect.

Nokia N78 Build Quality

Overall the build quality of the N78 is decent - borderline good. It's a very thin phone when compared to other Nseries devices. I talked about in my first article that the back cover sucked. It really does. It feels like cheap plastic and if you push down on the middle it bends and pushes against the battery. There should be zero space between the cover and the battery, however on the N78 there is definitely a gap. Then I'm taken to the front. The front faceplate is made out of a cheap plastic that is extremely prone to fingerprints. It feels cheap, but it may not be. So far there are no knicks and scratches after two weeks, which is completely opposite of my experience with the N82. The N82 is easily scratched, not huge scratches but small ones that you can see in certain light. So far the N78 isn't having this problem.



One thing that has bothered me is the where the side of the phone meets the front, all the way around. It's not really rounded off or smoothed out. Pressing the call and end, menu and C buttons really isn't comfortable. When you hold those buttons down (especially the red and green) you'll notice that the buttons go below or pretty much meets the side of the phone which, like I said before, isn't rounded off. The rest of the keys aren't bad at all. Coming from the N82 it wasn't really hard to get used to the odd N78 numeric keypad. Instead of having the typical 12 buttons, you only have 3. Each line of the numeric keypad shares one button which actually works out pretty good. The only gripe I have is it's hard to find distinction when typing without looking. The N82 is perfect for that since each button is spread out.

Overall the audio quality gets an A in audio quality and a C in build quality.

Check back soon for my thoughts on the new S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 which is the platform that powers the Nokia N78.

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