vB Easy Archive - My brief N75 review

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My brief N75 review
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Posted by: ALCingularUser

Here is my N75 mini-review.

I got to play with the N75 for a couple of days, as a friend had just received it from Amazon. The first thing that I noticed was that it was Cingular-branded, not AT&T. This seemed especially odd because Amazon had just been restocked after having been out of the phones. I would have assumed that the ones they got would have been branded to AT&T, not Cingular.

The phone is pretty thin, similar to the SYNC. Certainly thin enough to slip into a jeans pocket, which many phones won't easily do. Build quality is pretty good, although I could detect a few creaks if I squeezed the phone enough. The flip seems of good quality, but it doesn't have a hard stop as it opens up, so I can see where some people could worry that it might break if it were forced too far back. Naturally, I didn't test it.

As for the screens, the outer screen isn't bad. The image is quite legible, even in bright light, and the clock that appears when the flip is open is easily viewed in full sunlight. The one thing I wanted to know is how to get that clock to show up all the time, as it's as clear as the old mono LCD screens were, and that's quite a feat. As for the internal screen, all I can say is that it's absolutely gorgeous. I've never seen a phone display look so good.

Next, I looked at the phonebook. Someone at Nokia really took some time with this. You can enter first and last name, company name, e-mail addresses, and, naturally, phone numbers. And the categories you can assign to numbers are more numerous than I've ever seen on a phone. Sure, you can choose home, work, mobile, etc., but there are also variations, like home mobile, work mobile, SIP, and many more. I didn't see a place to enter a postal address in there, but I didn't look that hard, so I'm willing to bet that there is. Perhaps someone can confirm or deny this.

Calls on the phone are crisp and clear, and the volume seems adequate, although I didn't test it in a loud environment. The speakerphone also worked quite well.

The reason I got to play with the phone was so that I could load it up with images and ringtones. The phone comes with a data cable, but since I had a Bluetooth dongle, I used that instead. Phone-to-phone and computer-to-phone transfers went fine, with new items arriving as messages in the inbox. This, to me, was a nice touch, since incoming Bluetooth transmissions are treated like any other message entering the phone.

Now, let's briefly touch on the handset's smartphone capabilities. Obviously, it has a music player, which worked fine on the MP3 files I imported to use as ringtones. Some other notable apps are Adobe Reader, Flash Player, and Quickoffice. This one is basically a mini office suite that can view various kinds of files, such as word processing docs, spreadsheets, etc. Unfortunately, I didn't know it was there in time to load any files, but maybe I can try it later. If you want to be able to edit these files, you can activate that feature, for a price, of course. Another interesting app is called Lifeblog, which presumably allows you to create a blog using text and pictures. Again, I didn't have a chance to try it out.

As for ringtones, the phone has a decent, if not spectacular, selection. But since you can assign any audio file as a ringtone, this isn't a problem. Also, unlike older Nokias, you can assign unique ringers to individuals in your phonebook, as well as groups. You may recall that, in the past, Nokia would only allow you to assign them to groups. The phone will also vibrate when it rings, but I found it to be a bit on the weak side. Still, it's not terrible.

One of the first things you'll notice about the phone is the number of buttons around the center navigation keys. That space is quite busy, much more so than I've seen on any other phone. And, in Cingular's infinite wisdom, they assigned the center navigation button, which is assigned to the main menu on something like 99% of the phones sold across the galaxy, including the outer rim, to MEdia Net. I can see them racking up a nice chunk of revenue from accidental key presses. Luckily, reassigning it is easy, and you can be sure that I did that to this handset. Not being content to assign only that key, they also assigned the upper right softkey to it. Again, easily changed. I'll cut them some slack here since, unlike some older phones, the MEdia Net key isn't hard-coded.

A few more points. Some have complained about the UI's sluggish performance. I'll agree that there is some sluggishness there, but it's mainly when you open a new app. Once you're in it, performance isn't that bad. As for battery life, my friend said that it isn't spectacular, as others have pointed out. I'm guessing that this is a phone that you'll want to recharge every night. And this isn't a 3G area, so I can't say how it will perform where 3G is available. Maybe someone else can share their experience there.

Finally, to reception. This is a tough one, as AT&T has such a strong network here. That makes it pretty hard to find a weak area. They exist, and I know where some dead spots are, but I didn't have a chance to visit them.

One other thing. The phone's applications can be updated, and I managed to successfully install updates for Quickoffice. There also seems to be an update feature for the OS, or possibly the firmware, but it failed, giving me an error message, which I believe said something about not being able to find the needed server. This capability is certainly something I like to see, since doing updates OTA is easier than having to send the phone off to have them applied.

So that's about all I have. There are many other things I'd like to test out, but, alas, there was no time to do so. I really do like this phone. The UI, although a bit sluggish at times, is beautiful and well thought out. There are features galore, and, since it's a smartphone, you can install new apps as needed. I know the V3xx is supposed to have better RF and a faster UI, but, unless Motorola has done some major improvements to its UI since the V551, it can't compare to the N75's. Believe me, this ain't your old-school boring Nokia phone. Far from it.

Now that I'm done, I'd like to hear what others have to say. A user review of the V3xx would be much appreciated, especially by someone who can compare it to the N75.

Posted by: andreasthomson

Thanks for the comprehensive review. I am considering the N75, the 3vxx, and waiting for the Razr 2. At this point, I'm awaiting the Razr2 before making any decision, but this strong review of the N75 is nice to read.

Posted by: zadosha

Comparing the N75 with the V3xx isn't really a apples to apples comparision. The N75 is a smartphone whereas the V3xx isn't. I have had a V3xx before and current have a N75. If you are getting a phone to make calls and maybe stream a few videos, get the V3xx by all means. I am a Nokia fan, but for a fair number of users out there, the V3xx would make a much better phone. But for those of us that like their phones to be mobile computers, the N75 is a better choice. Battery life isn't as bad as I expected it to be, but you can't go on a 2 day road trip without a charger! In my experience, call quality on the 2 is pretty close although I would give the nod to the moto based on volume (this could just be because the "sweet spot" was easier to find). If you plan on using it as an MP3 player, then the N75 wins hands down. There's more, but I need to get back to work! Let me know if you have any other specific comparison questions.

Posted by: Game0nraider54

I'm sorry if this isn't the appropriate place for this question, but you seem really knowledgeable on this subject. I read on an at&t forum that with the N75 you can only use the mp3s you download from your computer on your playlists. That they would not appear as choices for your ringtones. They were talking about how at&t/cingular was trying to make you buy their ringtones, instead of using your own. The solution they proposed was to just trim the file to around thirty seconds (to get it under 600kbs), and use that as your ringtone. I was wondering if that is true or not? I was hoping that you could just download the whole song from your computer to your playlist on the N75, and then have the option of using it as a ringtone. I am planning on buying this phone in the next few days and would really appreciate any feedback.

Posted by: zadosha

Unfortunately, that is true. I don't know of anyway around it, short of buying one directly from Nokia that is unbranded. There are free services that you can use to create your own tones though. phonezoo is one of them. The only thing that it costs is your data charges. And if I'm not mistaken, you can actually have it sent to your email address, then you can just transfer it by PC Suite.

Posted by: Game0nraider54

Would restoring it to factory settings have any effect on the situation?

Posted by: ALCingularUser

Quote:

Originally Posted by Game0nraider54

Would restoring it to factory settings have any effect on the situation?

Doubtful, since it would still have the AT&T firmware on it. You'd need to find a way to flash it to the unbranded Nokia firmware.

As for editing songs to be ringtones, if you're using a computer running Windows or Linux, Audacity is a great choice for this. There's a bit of a learning curve, but it's not too bad. http://audacity.sourceforge.net Make sure you also download the MP3 encoder so you can save the file to MP3.

I'm not crazy about this limit on ringtone file size one bit, but look at it this way. Your phone isn't going to ring for more than 30 seconds or so anyway, and just about any MP3 that's this short is easy to get down to 600K. Yeah, you can go to an extremely high bitrate and exceed that, but you'd find it hard to tell the difference on a phone speaker.

Also, I'd highly recommend a Bluetooth adapter to transfer files back and forth from your computer to your phone. www.newegg.com has a nice selection of cheap adapters to choose from. I've used the MSI StarKey with zero problems.