Pressing down the camera/shutter button on the right of the phone for two seconds activates the camera function and the display also automatically changes to landscape mode for your picture taking convenience.

There are eight scene modes – Auto, User defined, Close-up, Portrait, Landscape, Sports, Night and Night Portrait – to cater to your picture-taking situation. You can also select what kind of image quality you want too, from 0.3MP to 3MP. Other settings include switching to video mode, Flash, self-timer, sequence mode, colour tone, show viewfinder grid, white balance, exposure compensation, sharpness, brightness, contrast, ISO light sensitivity and switching to secondary camera.

We tested the camera function by taking scenery picture during the day and one at night, and also a macro shot of a 50 cent coin. The images looked sharp, especially the macro one. Colours looked fairly accurate though the coin had a slight red tinge. If you select Night Scene mode when taking pictures at night, do note to keep your hands extremely steady. The recorded images have resolutions of 2048x1536 at the highest image quality setting, which is more than enough for A4 printing. The file size is also about less than 1MB per picture. In Video mode, the N78 only offers Auto and Night scene modes, white balance and colour tones adjustment. The recorded video is in MPEG-4 file format in 640x480 resolution.