Another Nseries announced. The N79 is here!

The Nokia N79, a new monoblock (candybar) Nseries handset, was announced today. It features a 5 megapixel camera (with LED flash and protective lens cover), automatic screen rotation via an accelerometer, touch sensitive NaviWheel, Xpress-on smart covers, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity, TV-out, FM transmitter and integrated GPS. The N79 has out of the box support for the full range of Ovi services: Photos, Music, Maps, Video and Games (N-Gage). It will be available from October at a cost of €350 (£280) before taxes and subsidies. Read on for more.
The N79 continues the Nseries candybar form factor family (N70, N73, N78) and will sit alongside the N78 as a replacement for the N73. As such it can be considered an entry level Nseries device. It manages to fit a comprehensive hardware specification into a relatively low price point and should attract more style conscious consumers thanks to its personalisation features, the most notable of which are the Xpress-on smart covers.

The N85 will be one of the first Nseries handset to ship with the full range of current Ovi services and software on the handset. These include Photos / Share online, Music store, and N-Gage.Key hardware features of Nokia N79:
Xpress-on smart covers which automatically change the phone’s theme when they are applied. 3 Xpress-on smart covers will be included in the retail box from a selection of five colours: Light Sea Blue, Espresso Brown, Olive Green, White and Coral Red.

Touch sensitive NaviWheel for scrolling in the user interface and automatic screen rotation via accelerometer sensor.

5 megapixel camera (2582 x 1938) with Carl Zeiss optics (aperture: F2.8, focal length: 5.2mm) and support for geo-tagging. The camera is accompanied by a LED flash/camera light and is protected by a small sliding shutter. Video capture is at VGA (640 x 480) at up to 30 frame per second.

Integrated FM transmitter (for sending music to another FM radio) and FM receiver (including RDS support).

4GB microSD memory card included in the retail box (some markets may vary) and 70MB of internal memory.

Dimensions of 110 x 49 x 15mm and weight of 97g (similar to N78 which is 113 x 49 x 15.1 mm). This makes it the smallest and lightest Nseries device so far.

BL-6F battery (1200 mAh) with quoted standby time of 406 hours. In the real world this should translate to a heavy day of use.

2.4″ QVGA screen with up to 16 million colours.

3.5 mm stereo headphone jack (on the top of the device), which is also used for TV-out. Twin stereo speakers on the right hand side of the device (top and bottom).

Integrated GPS with support for A-GPS.

microUSB connector (Hi-Speed USB 2.0) for PC connectivity, media sync, USB mass storage and printing.

Bluetooth connectivity, including support for A2DP and AVRCP profiles (Bluetooth stereo headphones). WiFi (802.11b/g), including support for UPnP. Dual band WCDMA (900/2100) and quad band GSM cellular connectivity.

Key software features
Runs S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2 on Symbian OS 9.3.

Photos application on phone for viewing photos, organizing into albums, printing locally, and adding meta-data / tags. Share online application for uploading photos and video to Flickr, Share on Ovi and other web services, plus XpressPrint application for printing photos via the web. Bi-directional media sync between the Photos application on the handset and Nokia Photos for PC.

Music player (MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA), with bi-directional sync with Nokia Music for PC. Nokia Music Store accessible via PC client of Music store application on the handset. Video playback via RealPlayer (H.264, H.263, WMV).

Nokia Maps 2.0 (3 months free navigation in selected markets) for drive or walk navigation.

N-Gage client application for direct download of games.

Thanks to AAS for the detailed roundup