At Consumer Electronic Show taking place in Las Vegas Nokia has come up with a number of offerings, specifically updates to two Nseries-branded models and an all-round new tablet for web surfing. Running a few steps forward, I feel obliged to say that this very announcement has more of a predictable rather than revolutionary move in it, but first things first.
Nokia N76. Eventually, Nokia just could not resist and joined the race where the top prize is “slimmest phone ever” – at a glance its new model utilizes many curves and shapes of the this market’s icon - Motorola RAZR, but as you might have already guessed, its pluses are lying in a slightly different field, since the N76 is in fact a smartphone running Symbian OS augmented with S60 3rd edition FP1. Speaking about why we suppose the RAZR was on the head designer’s table at the time when he was sketching out Nokia N76 – a metal keypad is here, along with dents at the bottom and other bits and pieces giving away its origin.
As a matter of fact, the company has managed to squeeze the hardware of the N76 into a casing only 13.7 mm deep, not due to cutting-edge alterations to the chassis; basically they have made it taller. Generally speaking Nokia 6290 is an exact replica of Nokia N76 – there aren’t many differences to dwell upon. While the 6290 measures 94x50x20.8 mm, the N76 presents us with 106.5x52x13.7 mm, meaning that it is a tad wider, almost 1 cm taller and all this for being reasonably thin.
Since we have started comparing these two handsets, then another place where the N76 falls short of Nokia 6290 is battery life. Nokia N76 utilizes a 700 mAh battery (BL-4B); as the manufacturer claims it can keep the phone up and running for up to 200 hours in standby mode and provides about 2 hours 45 minutes of talk time. A curious fact – for Nokia 6290 carrying a 950 mAh BL-5F onboard, the maker says 240 hours of lifetime in standby mode is its utmost limit. Keeping in mind that it would be a hastiness to take for granted what manufacturer claims regarding battery life, let us try to look into the real battery life put up by Nokia N76, or, better to say, how much worse it will be. Examining capacity of two batteries point-blank, then the gap will make up 35 percent, at that in normal conditions on average load Nokia 6290 manages to keep itself alive for about 2 days. Taking account of nonlinearity of charge wearing out, we can rightfully state that Nokia N76 is a handset that will require you to plug in the charge every evening, of course, if you are actually going to use it.
Software-wise these two models are wholly identical, the only difference is possibility to go into landscape mode on the internal display. Support for A2DP profile is currently missing.
Apart from the battery life and absence of stereo-speakers, Nokia 6290 and Nokia N76 are twins. I should mention it that the design of the senior solution is different and one could hardly make a mistake about that – Nokia N76 is positioned as a fashion solution, with vivid trims speaking in favor of this assumption, specifically red and black color schemes. Overall the handset looks pretty stylish and will surely appeal to many; to me this is what the company is betting on – to draw attention of those who have struck Nokia 6290 off their short-lists for some reasons.
