Despite its good looks, this handset suffers from a slew of design flaws. And when you combine them with a very short battery life and the lack of any high-speed data capabilities, the N76 is simply a disappointing device.

Sure, the external music buttons and a huge external screen promise a great multimedia experience. And the speedy 367MHz processor should be terrific for handling audio and video. Unfortunately, music playback is marred by a hissing noise. You can't flip the phone open with the headphones plugged in, and you can’t use wireless headphones, either.

The phone uses Symbian OS, a good choice because so much software is available for it-even peer-to-peer downloads! But there's no Wi-fi support, and EDGE makes Web pages load very slowly compared with EV-DO or FISDPA network speeds.

Neither of the phone's two cameras takes particularly good shots, and after some use, the N76’s big screens and shiny finish take on an ugly sheen of face and finger grease. The final nail in the coffin is battery life: The phone's 8 hours of music playback time is half what I'd expect from a device of this class.

In the end, the N76 simply doesn't have a lot going for it. I’d turn to Nokia’s own N73 or the Apple iPhone instead for a better all-around experience.

Nokia N76: $499.99

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