I’ve had some time to play with the latest search feature on the N76 and basically it’s an update to the one found on many 3^rd edition devices like the N95, which also could be downloaded from the Nokia Mobile Search page. At first I thought that this feature ads some kind of text box where you could enter your search term from the standby screen, but it doesn’t. It’s basically just a shortcut to the updated search program. It sure would be handy if they would add a “search box” right on the standby screen, but I guess this is a step in the right direction.

The updated UI is exactly what we will see on the N81 and N95 8GB and has a side sliding animation that looks similar to the one found on the 5^th generation iPod. It’s divided into two main search areas: Internet and My content. The My Content allows you to search specifically in Music, Contacts, Calendar, Messages, E-mail Messages, Bookmarks, Images, Videos, Landmarks, Applications and Notes. You can search in any of these areas or you can just enter a text and it will automatically search for text entered and it will identify the files with the appropriate icon. You can see this by my search for the letter “A”.

What other features have been added? The N76 now sports the same Nokia Maps app from the N95, including the latest enhancements like the built-in world clock and updated look. In device manager there’s also a new Nokia firmware profile that might be new, but maybe I just didn’t notice it before. It’s interesting that the profile is editable and all the info in there is up for grabs. Maybe we can even use the profile settings to add FOTA on other Nokia devices.

So far so good: the phone seems stable and fast. No crashes as of yet. I really like the new search feature as it’s really handy. All I could ask for right now is the addition of a search field in the next release and that other phones get this update, including the classic N95. I’m still looking for the change log, so if you find it let me know.