Nokia has taken the wraps off their latest N Series handsets – the N79 and N85. They both run on the Symbian S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 OS. The N79 is a candy bar whilst the N85 is a dual slider. Both handsets share many similar features as expected from any S60 handset – both have a 5 Mega Pixel camera, Dual LED flash, TV-Out, Micro-USB, 3.5mm AV connector, MicroSD support, GPS, Navi-Wheel and integrated FM Transmitter supporting frequencies 88.01 – 107.9Mhz.
The key defining feature of the N79 is the interchangeable Xpress-on smart covers, which change the theme scheme when swapped. There are two sets to choose from:
- Canvas white with light sea blue/espresso brown/olive green.
- Seal grey with espresso brown/coral red/white
The N85 on the other hand has an OLED screen which should help on sustaining battery life, this is the first handset I know of Nokia releasing with such a screen and one I’m glad they’ve done, it’s progress comes from lessons learned with the N95’s poor battery performance as the N85 also ships with a decent 1200 mAh battery.
Both handsets will support Nokia’s N-Gage platform and come with 15 demo games pre-installed and they include:
- Asphalt 3
- Hooked On: Creatures of the deep
- Worlds series of poker
- Block breaker deluxe
- Tetris
- Space impact
- System Rush
- Brain Challenge
- Mile High Pinball
- Snakes Subsonic
- Sims 2: Pets
- FIFA 08
- Midnight pool
- Reset generation
- Bounce.
We know the N85 also has dedicated gaming buttons because it’s a dual slider and lookalike of the N81.
One key thing to note is the N85 will come in a NAM version so the North American customers can be happy about that, whilst the N79 won’t.
