I won the N79 Active Edition Grand Prize through Nokia’s “Track a Heart” contest!  It arrived about a week ago and, now that I’ve had tome time with it, I’m going to share my experiences here.

This review will mostly cover the experiences unique to the N79 Active Edition, including the Polar for Nokia Bluetooth heart rate belt.

First, I have to thank Nokia Innovations and the NST Dudes (as they affectionately refer to themselves) for providing me with the N79 Active Edition (hereafter N79AE).

Regarding the N79 handset itself, detailed reviews have been around for quite a while, so I’ll make this brief. The N79AE only differs from the standard N79 by adding an arm pouch and the Polar for Nokia heart rate belt (hereafter Polar4Nokia). My first impressions of the handset are very favorable and its S60 3rd ed fp2 is a nice upgrade from my former E61. The phone is gorgeous, lightweight and packed with all the Nseries features, making it one of the best valued Nokia handsets when considering features to the price. At present, only “Seal grey” color is offered for the N79AE. Regardless, at 97 grams, it’s easy to see why the feature-laden N79 was chosen for the AE bundle. Very good choice, guys!

The arm pouch.

pros- Well-constructed, attractive, lightweight, breathable backing with a wide, soft and easy to put on velcro strap feels comfortable against my skin. I hardly noticed the arm pouch during a recent four hour long run. When the handset is in place, navigating the menus through the neoprene face works quite nicely, albeit for the major keys only (forget the numeric keypad).

cons- Snug compartment makes it difficult to pop the phone out for on-the-run captured media. Putting the phone back into the snug compartment often causes buttons to be pushed on the face and top of the handset, activating things/menus you didn’t want and worse, turning the phone off. The phone compartment isn’t merely snug, the clear plastic window sticks to a clean handset face like glue and handset sounds are muffled too much.

Polar4Nokia.

This accessory comes in two components; 1) Fabric HR belt and 2) Bluetooth heart rate monitor.

The first component is a Polar-standard, soft fabric HR belt. You can find these anywhere Polar products are sold and, for the ladies, can be found in special Polar sports bras. The belts are fitted with two snaps which hold the receiver/transmitter in place and double as electronic leads.

The second component is the recent Holy Grail for NST users, the Polar Bluetooth transmitter. When worn, the belt is comfortable and is no different than any other fabric Polar belts. The electrode snap interface from the BT module to the fabric belt is a Polar standard. The Polar4Nokia transmitter activates when it is worn and detects your heart rate. The unit requires a small battery which is supposed to be good for 150 hours of use. I wish it was rechargeable, especially in light of Nokia’s hope for a green reputation. My old Polar belts saw up to 1500 hours of use before replacement.

GPS

GPS chipset performance is very good. So good, in fact, that I want to confirm whether or not the N79AE contains an upgrade. I cannot find any specs on the specific chipset used, although Nokia has always used chipsets from Texas Instruments in the past. I’m able to observe 32 channels of reception, with relatively fast TTFF (time to first fix). I recommend waiting a couple minutes AFTER the familiar NST green “GPS ok” light to lock in the max number of satellites for better workout data accuracy. GPS performance so far without using A-GPS has provided me with better data than I’ve seen with three different external BT GPS receivers I used in the past with my former E61.

Accessing rolling data.

This is going to take some getting used to. I have used Polar wristwatch HR monitors continuously since 1992. The whole point of a heart rate monitor is to make accessible current HR data for the purposes of your activity. So, for 17 years I have been used to looking at my watch for instant HR figures and preset alarms for necessary HR ranges. Presently, this is the only real design flaw of the N79AE as easy screen access takes some adjustments and the phone has NO alarms for HR range values. User suggestions for the current setup are as follows:

1) You must wear the arm pouch on you forearm or wrist. You simply cannot see the data if the pouch is on your upper arm.

2) You should switch the screen orientation to landscape only, disabling auto-rotate. Otherwise, the constant motion of running makes the auto-rotation feature go crazy.

3) You have to wear the earbuds if you want to hear the faint lap tones. The snug arm pouch muffles away even most ringtones in urban environments. I may not have the best hearing anymore but I couldn’t hear lap tones, nor ring tones while running next to traffic. Earbuds in with no music playing, problem solved. Still the faint lap tones need to be addressed in future builds.

4) Disable auto-keypad locks. If you want to see your progress with a single tap, you need to disable auto-lock. The N79AE has a nifty unlock slider at the top of the handset, but accessing it gets a little tricky in the arm pouch.

Summary

On a scale of 1-5, I’m giving the N79AE a “4″ , citing the following minor obstacles in the way of a perfect rating: Difficult to remove phone on run, Access to data on run and No HR range alarms. Otherwise, I couldn’t be more happy than I am with this setup. Overall, the N79 on its own is a fantastic representation of why I love Nokia. But the N79AE bundle is a real treat and an excellent addition to one’s workout arsenal. When I first heard of the N79AE, I knew I had to have it. Now that I do, it doesn’t disappoint.

Absolutely recommended!

I’ll post more about this innovative fitness bundle after a bit more use, including a Sports Tracker introduction and details on product availability. So check back in a couple weeks!

-David