poor reception but feature packed
344577
There is a reason they sell an external antenna for this radio--you need it.  I live in the heart of San Antonio, Texas and the strongest radio stations come in weak and with static.  This radio would be a nice little radio if it included an external antenna and was priced more in the $25 range.  .  I have had good luck with the solar panel to run the radio...only in bright full sun--  but the charge last only about ten minutes.  Like I said if you are willing to pay another $12-15 for the external antenna....you might get good reception...I revised my rating up to a 4.  I actually tested the NOAA alert and it worked.  I also charged (partially) my blackberry.  Understand that it would take a long time to charge you cell phone this way (dynamo).  Its hard to get passed the spotty reception.
4647359
There is an HD-radio station in Sacramento, California, that I absolutely love.  I like the music so much I even bought an HD-Radio tuner for home.  I wanted to be able to listen to the same station at work, so I bought one of these.  I wound up returning it, and here's why:

1. Receiver sensitivity - If you are really close to stations, I am sure it's fine, but it lacked enough sensitivity to reliably receive my station, even when outside.  By contrast, my car HD Radio consistently receives the station in the same area.

2. Design - Not intuitive to use.  Programming favorites is somewhat cumbersome.  In addition, I think the days of single-purpose devices like this are pretty much over.  I noticed that there is another HD-Radio product that attaches to iPods and iPhones.  This seems like a better model to pursue when everyone has a smartphone and Pandora, etc.

In summary, I returned it because it did not work at all at my desk at work and its utility as an outdoor receiver was too limited.
3311317
Amazing features and performance for the price.  1 star deducted for frustrating bluetooth connection for iPhone (Siri does not work through unit) and poor FM reception.
2113731
Pro's
-Good size
-Nice vivid screen
-Great media playback
-Good wifi signal
-Decent speaker
-Very responsive. No lag
-Decent battery life

-Con's

Poor cellular/data signal strenth. Have to be outside or near a tower to get good signal. I even have to lean the phone againt my window to make calls.
It has also has a longer than usual delay in actually making phone call. Even at full bars

For the price? I guess you can't have it all.
 have a cheap Samsung SCH phone from metro pcs and it gets great indoor signal
2544118
A friend compared signal strength to other devices and it was so-so. Will likely try to resell the unit soon.
1832621
I really wanted to like the N78 - filled to the brim with all sorts of features in a very attractive case - but it was just too buggy to live with. Being able to set the phone up as a wireless access point using the brilliant JoikuSpot download was incredible, and certainly one of the things I'll miss most as I repackaged this and ship it back to Amazon.

I feel (or at least hope) that my unit was just defective, so take some of the issues I had with a grain of salt - it may not happen on all devices, but here are some of the things I experienced:

1. Camera zoom stopped working after the first picture taken. It's a digital zoom, so not the most critical thing in the world, but still annoying when you want to frame a shot and can't. This was fixed when performing a factory reset using the *#7370# combination, however once I tried re-importing contacts, the camera zoom would break again.
2. I kept getting the phone's welcome message - about twice a day - no damnit, I don't want to see an introductory video on how to use the phone, leave me alone already!
3. Browser would crash and freeze constantly.
4. Phone would randomly restart - like right after going into Contacts to make a call.

What I liked
 * JoikuSpot. One of the primary reasons I bought a Nokia - the ability to have a 3G based wireless access point on me at all times is really powerful and useful.
 * Screen. Bright, crisp, very nicely done
 * Design. Obviously very subjective, but I enjoyed looking at it in my hand - not something you can say about most Nokias
 * Predictive text. Coming from an old Motorola, I hadn't realized how horrible I had it.
 * Internet radio. I don't use my phone too much for music, but having all those internet radio stations has come in handy a few times and it's a pretty handy feature.

What I didn't like:
 * Sluggish interface. This is my first Nokia smartphone, so I was expecting to see it fly based on all the reviews comparing this to previous Nokia models. There was a noticeable lag in everything I did. With fewer than 20 contacts on my phone, it took 1-2 seconds to load my list of contacts - meaning I couldn't just press "Contacts + first letter" to start filtering names right away - I had to pause for a second or two.
 * Menu-laden UI. I know there are plenty of shortcuts for this, but really, somebody needs to be taken out back and put out of their misery for the ridiculous number of menu options put in this phone. How often do people really make video calls - does that really have to be a default option when d-padding a contact's phone number?
 * Slow default browser. Opera Mini was orders of magnitude faster, but links from emails still open in the default browser, so having that suck still makes things frustratingly slow
 * Lack of camera lens cover. Not having it makes me nervous about ever putting the phone down on a hard surface

Overall, I gave it 3 stars because I really liked the form factor, the screen, and just the sheer power of what it could do. If I could be assured that a new N78 wouldn't have the obvious issues mine had, I'd probably give it another go as there's really nothing else out on the market that has all this has for those in US 3G territory until the Xperia X1 comes out.
3439342
OK  for local signals, but no so good for traveling distances. Also works well for 700-800 systems weakens for VHF hi and terrible for low band
708649
Installation was easy. The display is completely invisible off axis, but I could have lived with it. Bluetooth works well... range was about 20ft line of sight - plenty. But radio reception is terrible. No matter how the antenna was positioned, the reception compared unfavorably to a ten dollar clock radio with internal antenna. Deal breaker.
4893302
cons - radio reception bad, batteries not rechargeable, display is unreadable outside (too dim), random for usb does not remember where it left off.

pro's - has random for usb
2574431
This phone does not deliver on the most basic, and most important, feature of a cordless phone. SIGNAL QUALITY. Signal quality is extremely poor on the handset. There is a constant background noise that is truly annoying during a conversation. It sounds like a 'Shhhhhh' noise that could vary in intensity from time to time but is always present. The rest of the features are great and the handset speakerphone works well. Saddly I have to take it back for a refund. I can't accept sound quality that is inferior to my 10 year old 49MHz, analog Panasonic phone.
3106222
This radio works as advertised. However, my experience has been that the reception is poor. I am comparing this to a Dual radio that was removed and returned because the station pre-sets were lost when the radio was powered off. This radio holds the pre-sets fine but, in the same locations it has noticeable reception differences on weaker or marginal stations. The sound quality seems good and it performs well in other areas. I have not used the USB or SD card slot as yet.
2530160
It was difficult to operate, reception wasn't good.
987984
1. Not simultaneous dual band..you pick 5ghz or 2.4 but not both..a sixty dollar home router will do both. Wireless performance wasn't great but not awful either. I turned off the wifi and use a $60 "extra" router to do both

2. Terrible management interface. Hard to find things. Some of the windows are drawn so poorly you have to drag the box in their interface to expand it to show all the options. This is not intuitive and took a long time to figure out.

3. Actually slowed down connections. Throughput is much less than using 4g modem directly in device

4. No support without payment. Not even e-mail. Ugh

5. Advanced features blocked behind a pay wall.

6. No firmware updates without payment. This changed at the end of 2014.

7. Mixed documentation. Does a good job telling you where to find options but not a good job telling you what the difference is.

This was an expensive regret. #3, 5, and 6 together are a deal breaker.
4897718
The reception on the radio is horrible.  The rest of the features seem to work well.  I wouldn't buy this again unless that radio function was not important to you.
4750155
I live in a large metropolitan area. Its reception is poor and distorted at best. Even local stations crackle and fade!
2311519
Reception is terrible!! I would have returned, but ran out of time by the time my wife used it in her car.
2973840
Best price/performance specs.  Receiver is slightly less sensitive than Motorola version