Nokia 7390 Review

 

The L'Amour Collection includes the Nokia 7373, Nokia 7360, Nokia 7370 & the Nokia 7380. The new device Nokia 7390 is the new flagship of the L'Amour Collection 2006. Now the L'Amour range is topped now not by a rotator model, but a familiar folder instead, that is very popular. This is the first time that Nokia regard a fashion solution not only as a handset with stunning looks, but a pretty good functionality as well. That is why the 7390 has the most powerful camera available for the S40 (3 Mpix) and runs on S40 Feature pack 1 software kit. Also we must remind you that this device is the first Nokia fashion 3G device.

When you buy a Nokia 7390 you will receive a package that is composed of : Nokia 7390 phone ,a BP-5M Battery , Standard Charger AC-3, Headset HS-60 , Connectivity Cable DKE-2 and the User Guide.
Most of Nokia-branded fashion devices have been regarded as devices only for women that's why Nokia has made an attempt to overcome this cliché with its latest collection and get a part of the male audience. To achieve their goal, the model comes in two trims - Bronze Black and Powder Pink (light pink). The SAR value for the 7390 is 0.41 W/kg.

Let's describe the target audience for Nokia 7390, which is mostly women at the age of 25-40 years with "higher-than-average" income that favor the latest trends in fashion. As for UMTS, we can rightfully observe that the audience has reached the level when it can seamlessly accept it. The percentage of men of the Nokia 7390 users is not likely to exceed 20 percent. Apart from color schemes, fashion solutions start getting ornamental pattern onto casings. Nokia pioneered in use of these design elements, but in the end of 2006 this way of decoration is being picked up by various manufacturers. In Nokia 7390 the metal plate rounding the external screen boasts unique patterns for each trim.

One of the best things form the previous L'Amour collection is the nameplate found in every L'Amour device which boosts its looks and status. Those who buy fashion handsets prefer purchasing items in various boutiques (clothing as well), where nameplates are extremely wide-spread. On the whole, it's a well-known element of design that makes people subconsciously recognize an item's status. Another design element that appeared on the market is the leather covered framings. The handset's rear houses framings made of durable scratch-resistant leather. On pink-colored 7390 they are patterned, while the brown phone features only leather texture. These framings are not only for show, they prevent the device from slipping on slippery surfaces.

Nokia 7390 makes use of almost every last thing created by Nokia for fashion devices to date: nameplates, patterned casing, leather framings and trims picked in accordance with the hottest trends in fashion. Talking of colors, we cannot turn to the fact that the pink trim is not as practical as the brown one, since it's a magnet for dirt and dust ivory surface readily gets soiled. The Bronze Black is likely to generate more profit out of two available trims. The phone weights 115 g, and measures 90x47x19 mm in size. The handset is slightly bigger than most handsets in this form.The 7390 fits easily into a bag or a pocket - both variants are convenient enough. The handset is fitted with special holes for a carrying strap that can be mounted on the upper rim.

Like all other S40 FP1-powered device, this handset comes equipped with a miniUSB (USB 2.0) socket that replaces Pop Port. Right here you will find a 2.5 mm audio jack as well, which is compatible with 3.5 mm adapter, allowing for plugging in custom earphones. On the left side you can find the charger's socket, as well as the power button and Infrared window, while volume key and dedicated camera key are located on the right side.A layout in this form originates from landscape-orientated camera mode at closed handset, which means shooting becomes that much easier.
Nokia 7390 is the first device to have external dedicated keys placed beneath the external screen ; while in standby mode, using these keys you can scroll applications and pick the desired one. This bar is not customizable - only radio, music player and camera are available for shortcut start up. For each of these applications you are at the liberty to change settings, switch between tracks, radio stations, enable camera modes and change them. On top of all that key lock is available. The camera interface can be called up via the dedicated key, but if you have a Java-application running, there is no way you can start the camera. The user can tune into music shows, news channels & gain information on travel & traffic reports using the built in FM radio feature. The user can store voice recording on their handset & use the voice dialling feature to create voice activated dialling which will make calling their friends & colleagues a fast experience with a quick voice dial command.
Nokia has made some improvements regarding the functionality of the external display but some problems still persist - the external display still cannot show SMS messages, even though, judging by its specs it's more than capable of doing this, the 7390 doesn't provide telephone numbers, when notifying you on missed calls.One of the phone's most annoying shortcomings we can't turn blind to the insufficient brightness of the external display,in the dark everything is ok you won't have any problems with it but if you are in a room or outside in the sun it fades away making impossible to view the display. The external display has a resolution of 128x160 pixels and measures 1.36 inches; it can display up to 262k and has TFT technology . On incoming calls the image assigned to a contact takes up the entire screen.We can also set a wallpapers and change all of the major settings of the display.

The larger internal screen will display up to 16 million colours on a bright QVGA screen and has a screen resolution of 240 x 320 pixels.The display has a diagonal of 2.2 inches and has a size of 33x46 mm.The display can show up to 8 text (biggest possible font size) and 3 service lines.The screen can display up to 16 million colors similar to the one found it Nokia 6131, but unlike Nokia 6131 the screen fades and looks dim.

A new thing in the 7390 is the location of the microphone it's placed on the right side of the hinge. Nevertheless that doesn't affect sound quality you can be sure you will be heard well on the other end. In fact, the microphone is placed there due to the fact that the bottom rim housing the loudspeaker - you can see it beneath the keypad when the handset is open.

The camera for video calls within 3G networks is located above the display, a LED for highlighting your face in the darkness is placed here as well. The rear of the phone carries a 3 Mpix camera module, as well a LED flash. The 7390 uses the BP-5M, which is a Li-Pol 780 mAh battery. As the manufacturer claims, the handset offers up to 220 hours of lifetime in standby mode and up to 3 hours of talktime. In real conditions the handset lasted for about 2 days at 1,5 hour of calls and up to 2 hours of music playback without Bluetooth. It takes the handset around 2.5 hours to charge from empty to full. The rubber pad above the earpiece prevents the keypad from touching the displayed while the handset is closed. The buttons are quite bulky and have soft stroke, which makes them easy to manage. Handling the keypad brings about only positive emotions, the navigation pad doesn't let me to find anything to be unsatisfied with. All keys are lit in soft white, which is well-visible in the dark.

The slot for microSD cards is hidden under the battery cover - "hot swap" feature is enabled here, as you can change memory cards without detaching the battery. The SIM-card socket is quite unique - it is plugged in a groove and extracted by pushing a tiny lever.

Menu

The 7390 is running on the S40 3rd edition. The volume of user-manageable memory in this handset makes about 24 Mb (while the total amount of onboard memory is 30 Mb). The major differences of the platform are brought by Feature Pack 1, that's why are going to cover them briefly .

USB.

On connection to PC you are at liberty to choose any of these three modes:

• Nokia Mode - formerly known as PC Suite, allows synchronization with Nokia's application of the same name. This very mode also enables you to use the handset as a modem.

• Printing and Media - the handset switches to MTP protocol, which allows uploading from PC new albums with the help of Windows Media Player and default Windows XP's tools.

• Data Storage. Standard USB Mass Storage mode, device is identified by PC without asking you to install extra drivers. Data transfer speed is about 950 Kb/s (USB 2.0), which is quite good for a handset, but at the same time somewhat insufficient for a music-optimized device.

Bluetooth

The handset has EDR-enabled Bluetooth 2.0 with several profiles being supported:

• Headset;

• Dial Up Networking;

• Object Push;

• File Transfer;

• Hands-Free v1.5;

• A2DP;

• SIM Access.

The bluetooth that's found in the 7390 has pretty good performances.

Music player.

The player that equips the 7390 is the same as the one found on Nokia 5300, the only difference beingc in looks. When the phone is in standby,on screen the player displays track's title and artist. The display offers information on current track, album and artist. Progressive rewind feature is missing on the 7390 - you can fast-forward tracks at standard 5 sec. pitch, which is completely out of use with big files.Playback may be random or sequential, Repeat mode works for both all tracks and individual files.

The music library contains the following filter tabs:
• All tracks - all files stored on the handset
• Artists - all tracks of certain artists
• Albums - arranges all tracks by albums.
• Genres - filters files by genres, like classic, rock etc.
• Composers - filters tracks by composers.
• Track lists - Another set of filters, including Favorites,Most Played Tracks, Recent Tracks, Recent additions and My Track lists.

Playlists may be composed both on PC and on handset.Support for A2DP profile on Nokia-branded phones is uncommon at present, which only doubles our please to discover it on the 7390. Sound quality turns out to be worse than that provided by corded headsets - basically, this is the result of specialties of A2DP implementation on Nokia-branded handsets.

Music Manager application, included into Nokia PC Suite offers only two option when it comes to uploading files on a handset: convert into AAC or eAAC+. The best way to share music with a handset is using MTP protocol or copying files to the device directly. But what is more frustrating, is the fact that the first version Nokia Music Manager fails in recognizing ID3-tages correctly.

Pre-installed applications

The handset has three pre-installed games - Snake III (3D), Pro Snowboard (3D), and Music Guess(the program picks random tracks out of the general list and during playback andyou need to guess what song is playing)

As usual, L'Amour Collection offers a lot of themes and skins - all of them feature geometrical patterns and look extremely good.

The device comes with the following applications: World Time, Nokia Sensor (excellent offering for the youth, which is not so popular at the moment in light of the fact only a few devices have this function, yet it has great potential) and Size Converter.

Camera

The camera feature comes complete with a built in flash, auto focus & with supplicated camera setting modes.Nokia 7390 is the first handset running on S40 platform to have a 3 Megapixel CMOS- camera onboard. Nokia's imaging flagships are smartphones, while the S40 delivers a moderate camera, even though they have a pretty good quality and resolutions.

Another nice thing about the 7390's camera is the possibility to take pictures with the device closed , but the external screen isn't helping very much due to the poor quality. The auto-focus works really well - the focusing area occupies about three-quarters of a shot on the screen. The camera supports the following resolutions:

• 1536x2048;
• 1200x1600;
• 960x1280;
• 480x640;
• 240x320;
• 120x160.

The last two small resolutions were added for making photos that you could set as wallpapers for the external display. Three JPEG compression types are supported: basic, normal and high.

Shutter sound can be disabled, there is 8x digital zoom, but there is no reason to use it. You can save photos on both memory card and internal memory.Some effects can be applied to already made photos.Such effects as Greyscale, Sepia, Negative are available.

The camera also has a mode for taking up to 3 shots at a time, all settings remain similar to ones selected for single shot, including resolution.Also you can find an auto-timer for self-shots.

Below you can judge for yourself the quality of the camera :

(click on a picture to enlarge)

Video

The phone can record videos in 3GP format, and the available resolutions are128x96 pixels, or 176x144, 352x288, 640x480 pixels. Recording quality is divided into three types. You can limit recording's length, but it also can be limitless, until memory runs out (of memory card or internal memory). Effects can be applied for video just as they can be applied for photos, they are one and the same. Videos have an acceptable quality when you look at it on handset, including maximal resolution. However when you view the same video on your PC it looses some of it's details and quality but it will still look okay and that's a big step forward.

Conclusion

The Nokia 7390 has a WAP browser which is accessible from the phones main menu & allows the user to browse the Web from their mobile phone. The phone comes with wireless Bluetooth™ technology & infra red connectivity which allows the user to connect to compatible devices to exchanging files & transfer data. The 7390 comes with EDGE which will provide a high speed transfer between devices which is 3 times faster that GPRS. The phone comes with tri band technology with WCDMA which will switch between network bands automatically to provide a quality service.

In Europe Nokia 7390 costs at least 420 Euro.Taking account of the fashion aspect and materials used, the 7390 is destined for being a bestseller.All in all the 7390 is a typical women-aimed model, which means very few men will be running it - if you have some concerns about size, worry not, as the sales of Nokia 7270 clearly demonstrated that they don't make all the difference.The receiving part also does fine, as it equals all other phones of the current generation

As for the functionality the 7390 performs well, but if you want to use the handset to its fullest, you will need to buy up extra accessories like memory card, 3.5 mm audio adapter and data cable. However the target audience frequently doesn't bother about functionality much (at least a half of the audience for sure).We are pretty confident that the L'Amour Collection and s it's flagship Nokia 7390 will be a huge success