Nokia N75

Call Quality

Calls and speakerphone: Call quality on the Nokia N75 is clear, and callers never had a hard time hearing what we said. We’re also happy to report we never had to adjust the volume on this cell phone. The speakerphone also works well, never cutting off when two people speak simultaneously. However, activating the feature is a different story. Additionally, we appreciate that the cell phone had a Mute function.

Audio playback: The Nokia N75 sports an MP3 player. We found playback of MP3s over the N75’s speakers to be loud and clear, if a little tinny.

Ease of Use

Menu/phone book: Since the Nokia N75 is essentially a mini computer with a cell phone included, you’ll likely need a little time to get acquainted with how the system works. If you’re willing to make that commitment, you shouldn’t have a lot of issues with this Nokia. Also, since it is more of a multifunction pocketable device than a basic cell phone, the Nokia N75 will freeze if you try to launch multiple applications simultaneously or speed through the menu options; you’ll be forced to restart it by powering the N75 off/on. This doesn’t happen often, but it occurred enough to mention.

Overall, the menu interface is similar to that of a PC. The main screen has a taskbar across the top, which launches the most frequently used applications. You should also become uniquely acquainted with the diamond-shaped button, the one that has arrows pointing north, east, south, and west. This is essentially a quick-launch menu. We recommend immediately programming the 4 applications you will use most. For example, we found it imperative to dedicate one of the keys to launch the voicemail application; it’s too hard to locate otherwise. If you’re not a fan of the quick-launch keys and are more of a purist, we suggest becoming acquainted with the key that has an elliptical icon. Think of it as the equivalent of your Program folder on the computer; all the applications are located there.

As for making calls, you can dial right away if you remember the numbers and are in the main screen. However, if you want to place a call to a phone number stored in Contacts, it can take a few steps. For each contact, you can store the first name, the last name (a nice organizational touch), the company, a job title, six numbers (including one for Internet telephone and video call), and an e-mail address. There’s also an e-mail application, so you can send and receive e-mails and even send attachments (mostly multimedia). Since the cell phone supports POP3 and IMAP4 accounts, you can set it up to receive work e-mail.

Camera: The Nokia N75 sports a 2-megapixel camera and a plethora of camera-centric features that we haven’t seen on many cell phones. When you first fire up the camera, press the side application launch key. (Incidentally, you'll use the same button to capture a picture.) You can also launch the application while the cell phone is closed, and the external display will pull double duty as a viewfinder. If you’re trying to capture a picture in the moment, you might need a bit of ESP to know when that event is going to happen, since it takes a little while to actually capture the image once you press the button.

Although the N75 doesn’t have a plethora of high-end camera features, it does have a few that we like. First, when you activate the camera, the screen automatically flips from vertical to horizontal viewing mode, making it feel a little more camera-like. It also has a nifty slide-show feature. Additionally, the N75 has a flash, which we found actually aids in taking better pictures in low light. We found video quality to be acceptable for both viewing and shooting.

Overall, we found this camera to be pretty good. As expected, color accuracy was stunning when viewed on the cell phone; the colors were true and the images sharp. When we transferred pics from the N75 to the computer, we had a bit of a schizophrenic experience: for indoor shots, colors shifted dramatically, sporting a magenta cast, while outdoor photos impressively maintained color accuracy. The pictures also contained a lot of noise, making it difficult to focus on the photo’s subject matter. However, we were pleased to find shadows held details surprisingly well.

Music: The Nokia N75 has 40MB of memory, so you’ll probably want to purchase an optional MicroSD storage card (the phone supports cards up to 2GB) if you plan on keeping a lot of music on the cell phone. At 40MB, you can store about 8 songs on the cell phone. It also includes headphones, which is good because you won’t be able to add your own unless they are Bluetooth enabled. The cell phone supports MP3, AAC (Apple iTunes format), and WMA (Microsoft’s format) music files. There’s also an FM radio; if you want to listen to it, you’ll need to attach a headset since the wire doubles as an antenna.

Getting music onto the cell phone via the included PC Suite software is fairly straightforward, and accessing it is equally easy. You can activate the music player when the cell phone is shut by pressing any of the three buttons under the external display. If you press the Play or Fast-Forward button, it will launch the music player and play the last song. If you press the Rewind button, it launches the main Music menu. As for music player features, it has shuffle (Random Play), repeat (Loop), and an equalizer with predefined settings. Additionally, you can set any song as a ring tone. We should note also that the music player supports album covers; while a cool feature, it can eat up memory.

Connectivity/Bluetooth//IR: Talk about connectivity -- the Nokia N75 has a few ways to make a connection. For starters, this cell phone has IR, so you can use it to exchange info with other IR-enabled devices such as Palms or older notebooks. So, again, have patience. Additionally, you can use Bluetooth to sync up contacts, photos, and even music stored on your computer. This is our preferred method, as it went pretty fast (it took about 5 minutes to transfer 7 songs).

Design

Look and feel: The first things you’ll notice about the Nokia N75 are its gorgeous displays both inside and out. They are seriously beautiful. Images are crisp, colors are bright, and they're easy to view in just about any lighting situation. The next obvious thing you’ll notice is that the N75 is a flip phone – not a design you typically find from Nokia. While we really can’t call this cell phone compact or even slim, we can say it’s quite comfortable to hold in the hand or cradle between neck and shoulder during longer calls.

You can definitely call the N75, with its black and silver casing, stylish. Although the black casing looks like it should be rubberized, it’s not. However, the black casing on the back attracts neither fingerprints (though the external display covering does) nor scratches. We’re happy to report this cell phone has held up quite admirably after heavy day-to-day use. Finally, the camera lens on the back of the N75 makes it look more like a digital camera than a cell phone from the back. Unfortunately, the lens is placed in the exact place where you might rest your forefinger while on a call, which made us sorely miss a lens cover.

Keypad: Although the Nokia N75 might be a little too big if you have smaller hands, we have to say that whatever size your hands, you’ll find that using the cell phone’s flat silver keypad is a comfortable experience. We particularly like that each numeric key has an oval indentation, which serves as the perfect resting place for the tip of your finger. We rarely misdialed, and all the keys are spaced well enough apart.

Battery Life

Unfortunately, battery life on the Nokia N75 is just fair. Heavy texters, Web surfers, message addicts, and constant callers will likely need to charge the cell phone every two to three days. But if you use the cell phone to send/receive a few text messages and e-mails or make a couple of calls, you’ll need to charge it every three days. But when we used the cell phone to check messages in a pinch or listen to a few songs, the Nokia N75 managed to last four days before needing more juice.