The Nokia N78 is a 3G

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

made by

Nokia Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications industry, telecommunications, technology company, information technology, and consumer electronics corporation, originally established as a pulp mill in 1 ...

. It was first introduced at the Mobile World Congress on 11 February 2008, and was launched on 26 May 2008 for €350 before taxes and subsidies. It runs on

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system (OS) and computing platform designed for smartphones. It was originally developed as a proprietary software OS for personal digital assistants in 1998 by the Symbian Ltd. consortium. Symbian OS ...

9.3 ( S60 3rd Edition, FP2) and was marketed as a more cheaper

Nseries The Nokia Nseries was a high-end lineup of feature phones, smartphones, and tablets marketed by Nokia Corporation from 2005 to 2011. The Nseries devices commonly supported multiple high-speed wireless technologies at the time, such as 3G, or Wi ...

device inside a compact, light body. The phone is compatible with the

N-Gage 2.0 N-Gage, also referred to as N-Gage 2.0, was a mobile game, mobile gaming digital distribution platform from Nokia that was available for several Nokia smartphones running on S60 platform, S60 (Symbian). The successor to the original N-Gage (devi ...

mobile gaming A mobile game is a video game that is typically played on a mobile phone. The term also refers to all games that are played on any portable device, including from mobile phone (feature phone or smartphone), tablet, PDA to handheld game conso ...

service. It is the successor of the N73 and its design shares similarities with the N81, N82 and N96. Despite its relatively low price, the Nokia N78 does still pack numerous standard Nseries features such as

A-GPS Assisted GNSS (A-GNSS) is a GNSS augmentation system that often significantly improves the startup performance—i.e., time-to-first-fix (TTFF)—of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS). A-GNSS works by providing the necessary data to the ...

HSDPA High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunic ...

and

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for Wireless LAN, local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by ...

. It has a touch-sensitive Navi wheel like on the N81, and was the first Nokia (and among the first overall, along with Sony Ericsson W980) to feature an FM transmitter. Its keypad is hidden in idle mode and lights up when a key is pressed. Later in 2008, the Nokia N79 was introduced. The Nokia N78 was also the first Nokia phone with the rearranged guitar-based version of the

Nokia Tune The Nokia tune is a phrase (music), phrase from a composition for solo guitar, ''Gran Vals'', composed in 1902 by the Spanish people, Spanish classical guitarist and composer Francisco Tárrega. It has been associated with Finnish corporation ...

, which appeared in every subsequent Nokia phones until 2012.

Firmware history

Firmware version 20.149 (dated 8 December 2008) became available for the generic (non-branded) N78 via its over-the-air update facility in January 2009. The latest firmware version 21.002 released 18 February 2009 is the lightest update with a 214 KB downloaded file using FOTA. Many improvements were made to the overall performance of the device after the upgrade. There is also firmware version 30.011 available through Nokia Software Updater. This update was released 8 May 2009 but was not available through FOTA.

References

{{Nokia phones N-Gage (service) compatible devices Nokia Nseries