It’s always the little things that tickle our fancy. Unlike the 5 megapixel Carl Zeiss lens camera, the quad-band, Wi-Fi, and fast 3.5G HSDPA connectivity, or the touch-sensitive Navi Wheel that bludgeons you over the head with their sheer high-tech flavor, the first thing that the editors here at HWM remarked upon with the N79 was the “smart” Xpress-On back covers that carries microchips to tell the phone to change to the corresponding color/theme when a new backplate is snapped on.

Not really a practical feature, but it’s always these funny little tweaks to Nokia’s lineup that catch the attention of a potential customer. Best indication of this is how little else was remarked upon during its first 10 minutes within the HWM offices. After that, it was easy to take note of other typical N-series fare – the aforementioned camera features combines with a dual-LED flash and standard VGA video recording at 30 FPS, a nearly full-complement of connectivity options including GSM and Bluetooth, and the Navi wheel that made its debut with the N81.

                                             The horizontal text used for Nokia's logo hints at the accelerometer and screen orientation functions.

Other notable features include typical N-series goodies like the Symbian interface, now at Symbian S60 9.2 with the latest Feature Pack 2, GPS with Nokia Maps application, 10 pre-loaded N-Gage games, and the very popularly-received (at least with us) 3.5mm headset connector. Rounding out the N79’s more unique feature set are the FM receiver and transceiver – the transceiver is designed to “throw” your music to an FM tuner – basically your phone turns into a transmitter which then sends your music to your car radio or anything else with an FM tuner. A complete list of features for the phone follows.

                                             Tiny main buttons intersped with the clear and menu buttons can confuse the thumbs.

                                             The combination micro-USB and micro-SD compartment resides under the same protective flap.

Hands-on experience with the N79’s design and ergonomics is more of a mixed bag, with the hard-to-actuate main select, call and receive buttons the main minus that drags down the whole ergonomic outlook of the phone. Oriented as these buttons are, they are hard to press with a fingernail, and a casual thumb-press usually hits the clear or the menu button instead of these tiny buttons. Other niggles include the design of the keypad with its smoothed-down surface and emphasis on good looks rather than total usability – it takes some time to get used too, and can’t be used for very fast touch-texting. The Navi 5-way key works well though, reacting quickly both when used as a 5-way pad or as a “scroll” device.

                                             Dual speaker vents produce really loud, if somewhat tinny music.

                                             The top portion hosts power, 3.5mm output, and a keypad-lock slider.

                                             The 5MP camera performs as well as expected for an N-series 5MP camera. Dual LEDs make for better performance in low light.

More positives include the smartly placed 3.5mm socket, a large-ish 2.4”, 320x240 LCD screen that can display 16 million colors, its slim form factor (the slimmest and most compact N-series phone) and the exceptional Wi-Fi performance – fast scanning, detection of hidden networks, and fast throughput makes for a good internet experience (as opposed to merely bearable on some Wi-Fi capable phones). The speakers gets quite loud as well – using the N79 loaded with a couple of select songs as an alarm clock proved to be much more effective than the feeble beeping of other devices. Another feature that bears mentioning - the ambient light sensor works very well, since I barely noticed this feature’s presence but always enjoyed a very legible screen all the way from sunlight to darkened rooms.

                                             Espresso Brown XpressOn cover has character lines and a deep luster that sets it apart.

                                             The BL-6F is a 1200 mAh battery with up to 400 hours of standby time.

Camera performance is on par with the N95, which is a good thing – while the N79 still suffers from the typical cellphone camera weakness in low-light situations, it is somewhat alleviated by the dual LED flash and the relatively fast response of the Carl Zeiss lens when focusing. Images and video can be stored on the included 4GB micro SD card, a large jump in capacity from older N-series phones and supplementing the 50MBs of internal memory on the N79.

                                             The contact points for the XpressOn cover can be seen both on the cover and the phone in this shot.

                                             The touch-sensitive Navi wheels comes in handy when scrolling through multiple pictures.

Sweetening the user experience is the inclusion of some neat extras: the Ovi sharing facility for video and pictures is included with the N79 package to take full advantage of the phones many connectivity options, while geotagging of photos combines the functions of GPS, camera, and quick upload to internet for a most complete multimedia experience. The package also includes 3 additional XpressOn covers, an addition that became quite popular for both the reviewer and anyone else who encountered the phone during its travels while on review.

                                             Symbian 60, 3rd edition has many improvements under the hood.

                                             GPS capability is a very nice addition.

XpressOn covers may sound gimmicky, so it’s a good thing Nokia did not stop there – as the successor of the well-received N78, all of the tweaks in design and usability, plus all of the added features make the N79 a logical purchase for anyone who’s looking for the N-series experience. The N-series phones are already such stellar performers; Nokia has combined the features of its bigger brothers the N95 and the new N85 with the performance of the N78, removing other, niggling things like the poor keyboard design and the weaker camera to come up with a collection of small improvements that result in a hugely satisfying phone and multimedia experience. I’m glad to say that the backplate-and-theme feature merely caught my attention, but the rest of the features of this lightest yet most heavily-feature-packed phone had me stay and appreciate using the N79 way past its return date.