Nokia N78 review – Multimedia

It's not only the hardware components – 3.5mm audiovisual jack, FM Transmitter, 2GB included microSD memory card, stereo speakers, navi-wheel – that make up the N78's multimedia features, it's also the software that plays a large role in ensuring that the N78 is one of the best multimedia smartphones out in the market.

In this section of the review, we'll cover the Music Player, Podcasting application, Visual and Internet Radio, Photos application, Video Centre, and Share Online.
The 3.5mm audiovisual jack now included in most NSeries phones works with stereo audio output and input, control, and TV-output, although in this case, the TV-out cable was not included, so I doubt that it works.

The FM transmitter was an interesting and useful addition to the NSeries portfolio, as it adds better car-compatibility, eliminating the need for a car kit. This might result in a loss for Nokia, but it's a matter of who would come up with the idea first, and Nokia didn't want anyone else to do so.

The 2GB microSD memory card might seem little when compared to the N96, which has 16GB internal memory, but it should be enough at this stage. Upcoming NSeries should include atleast a 4GB memory card.

Stereo speakers are pretty common on mobile phones nowadays, as they all have MP3 players, but the N78's speakers are badly placed as we said in our Design review.

Finally, the navi-wheel hopefully is something that will come with all upcoming NSeries phones as it is a nice way to browser long lists, but it's mostly just for the fun of it.

Moving on to the software bit: the music folder contains the Music Player, Podcasting Application, Visual Radio, Internet Radio, Nokia Music Store link, and FM Transmitter options.

First up is the Music Player, which hasn't had much of an update. The categories are divided between artists, albums, playlist, podcasts, genres, and composers. You can find your specific song by browsing these, or just search in All Songs. It's quite fun scrolling down your huge music list thanks to the navi-wheel.

The “All Songs” menu shows the songs that are saved on the phone, which memory they are saved to, the total amount of tracks, and total music time available.

The Music Player has a shortcut to the Music Store, which isn't available yet in most countries, such as South Africa. You can however download tracks from the Nokia Music Store UK, if it isn't available yet in your country.

The Podcasting application allows to search between directories that include diverse genres, languages, and a video folder. You can also subscribe to a specific podcast, or import OPML file, or just listen to the podcast. Unfortunately there is no option of download.

On the podcast settings menu, you can choose update intervals, the podcast directory URL, and memory that you want the podcasts temporarily saved to.

Podcasts aren't very common to mobile phones, but Nokia believes they will be. The only option really missing is download.

Internet Radio is similar to the Podcasting application. There are divisions between countries, genres, and languages. If you cannot find a specific station, you can always add it manually. In order to save your money or to adapt to the connection speed, you can impose speed limits for different types of connections. We seriously do not advise listening to internet radio without having an unlimited data plan.

The FM Radio receiver isn't built-in the device unfortunately, so you will have to connect the included HS-45/AD-54 headset to tune in to your favourite radio station. The FM receiver can decode RDS, and the application provides Internet Radio as well, which shows the track played by the radio station you have tuned it to, although most radio stations in South Africa do not support this. Instead of searching manually for a radio station, a catalogue download lists all of them in the station directory of the application.

The FM Transmitter application is very simple and the only modifiable setting is the frequency that you are broadcasting at.

Outside the Music Folder we find the Photos application, which also fits in the multimedia section of the review. Its purpose is obvious: show the photos, but the functionality is useful and interactive.

As it is becoming usual on S60 applications, the first screen is the division in categories: Captured, Months, Albums, Tags, Downloads.

The Photo carousel seems to be unchanged, but there are added icons below each main picture which besides showing the image title, show the time taken at, size of image, tags, and if it is geo-tagged or not.

Slideshow is a feature that Sony Ericsson aces at, and Nokia should follow their lead. At the moment, you can set-up the slideshow to start from the last image backwards, or as normal. A music can be added to bring emotion in the slideshow, but there are only two transitions, unlike Sony Ericsson phones, which have some ten emotional transitions.

Additional options are seeing a geo-tagged image on Nokia Maps, printing it via PictBridge or DPOF, assigning it to a contact, or setting as wallpaper.

Tags was a necessary addition to the phone itself, not only Photos. Adding keywords to images and other items makes it easy to search for them, just like it is easier to search for websites on Google.

Moving on to Video Centre, which for those that do not know, it is similar to podcasting, but works with videos. Select where to stream for, and even enable Parental Control (sorry kids).

Share Online was built mainly for Ovi, but it does work with services such as Flickr, and you can add your own multimedia sharing service, or blogs. As Share on Ovi is made by Nokia, the application will interact with more functionality with the service, and the following uses are possible:

• Upload to a specific channel
• View latest content
• View top rated content
• View contacts' content
• Set auto-update intervals

We're not going to upload the entire screenshot database here, but please do check our software review for the entire collection. Final word in terms of multimedia capabilites: excellent features, ease-of-use, no complaints whatsoever.

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