Nokia N79 Active

The other extra in the N79 Active box is the padded armband phone holder, which attaches to your arm using a Velcro strap. There's a clear neoprene window for the phone screen and a little keypad mark-up so you can see where the relevant buttons are on the handset. It's comfortable enough, but the pocket for the phone is extremely snug, and we're not sure the thin plastic cover will survive too many insertions. Another slight niggle is that the strap's really too long to attach snugly to your lower arm so you'll need to fasten to your upper arm where it's not so easy to read.

Track your activity

The phone comes with the latest version, 2.05, of Nokia's Sports Tracker app preloaded. It's a powerful little tool that uses the phone's AGPS, motion sensor and the heart monitor to provide maps, graphs and readouts of your training route, pace, distance covered, altitude, calories burned and, of course, heart rate.

The Sports Tracker display shows all your primary stats while you're working out, with time elapsed in large figures and both distance travelled and heart rate prominently displayed, as well as a map of where you're going. You can scroll down to view screens with additional on-the-go info, including your speed and step rate.

Sports Tracker doesn't just display your stats as you go along, it also collates them and builds them into a training diary so you can track your progress. There are graphs showing your speed against time and distance, heart rate against time, a bar graph of your exertions based on heart rate, and even a map of the route you've walked/run/cycled/skied etc. All useful stuff, though we weren't so sure about the altitude vs distance chart, which didn't seem to accurately reflect our route.

You can also store and share your training info online at the Nokia Sports Tracker Beta site, which is steadily building a community of like-minded workout fans – handy if you need that extra push to get yourself out there.

The strap's easy to forget when it's on

Even the camera gets in on the act. If you take pictures or film video during your workout they can be automatically geotagged and included in your submission to the website, offering a breakdown of your workout that's visual, as well statistical and cartographical.