Nokia N73 Cell Phone Review

Summary: The N73 does most of what it set out to do very well, with only a few hiccups along the way.



Working for one of the major cell phone service providers has it's advantages. The biggest one being that we get to try out all kinds of cool stuff before the rest of the public does. However, I would much rather live in Europe or Japan where they seem to get everything before "we" do, and cell phones are no exception. The phones overseas are so much more advanced than ours that you hardly ever see them importing our US only phones. I'll bet they laugh at the specs of our stuff when compared to theirs. I've always been a gadget freak which was what drew me to the Nokia phones. The company touts them as "computers" and they are pretty close.


The N73 is one of Nokia's latest offerings. Sporting the "candy bar" form factor it fits nicely into they're already full line up of "do everything handsets". With a 3.2 mega pixel camera, Carl Zeiss optics, a built in flash, auto focus, and zoom lens the camera alone may be worth the price! The pictures are absolutely stunning, offering nice color saturation and crisp images. At 3.2 mega pixels the images are large enough to print, but I wouldn't suggest blowing them up beyond 5x7 inches. There are a few drawbacks to the camera functions. First of all the processor isn't very fast, so don't expect to be shooting pictures of Susie or Johnny taking ballet class or playing football, as these images are likely to turn out blurry and distorted. Secondly you have to hold the camera very still for about 3 seconds after depressing the shutter or these pictures will also be out of focus. Again this comes from the processor not being fast enough to record the images. However, even with these drawbacks the N73 takes the best photos of any camera phone I've every owned and I've owned quite a few of em'. The video feature didn't fair quite as well as the single shot mode. You have to be in a very well lit area or the picture will appear grainy during playback. While the "flash" or lamp does turn on, it has to be fairly close to the subject to be of any use at all. Outdoor video appeard much more true to life because of the available light. Overall quality during playback was still acceptable.


The phone portion performs flawlessly. The call quality is crystal clear (T-mobile Network) and the reception is on par with other Nokia handsets. If you have used Nokia's in the past then you already know what I'm talking about when it comes to reception. You will appreciate the stereo speakers when using the speaker phone feature, or when playing back your mp3's and movies. Navigating the phone book can be accomplished by using the joystick or the voice activation feature which works suprisingly well. No longer do you have to "train" it for each specific name in your phone book. Simply press your bluetooth talk button, say the name and boom! It finds it. From there you can press the green send button to make the call. Very nice! As far as outgoing audio quality I haven't had any complaints so I assume all is well.


Computer? Yeah, you could say that. The handset runs on the Symbian 60 3rd Edition OS. It can run office software such as word and excel, has an awesome calandar feature, can send and receive email, and can run a myriad of other software titles much like a Pocket PC or Palm OS device could. Creating documents on the small keypad might not be the ideal choice, but if you're in a pinch it will suffice. Speaking of the keypad it feels a little cheap and out of place on such a classy phone. They feel "plasticky" and too soft for my taste, but this is just my preference. I liked the feeling of the N80 and and N91 keypads much better.

You have not browsed the web on a phone until you've browsed the web on this one! This is by far the best web browsing software that I've ever seen on any phone period! It is so much better than Internet Explorer for the Pocket PC you'll wonder why this wasn't done before. Blackberry Web Browser? Forget about it. This one does it all. When you're browsing a web page you have the option to zoom out to get a full view of the page. From there you can move a small square around the screen until you get to just the section you're looking for, press the joystick in and voila! You are at precisely the spot you wanted. No more scrolling aimlessly around the page hoping you land on the spot you wanted. Try out this browser and you will never go back to another. I dare you.

Overall build quality seems very solid, if not a little too light. The camera is protected by a sliding rear door, which is something the N80 sorely lacked. I could have easily scratched the lens on the N80 because it was always exposed so I'm glad they decided to include the door on this one. If you're going to spend all that money on Carl Zeiss optics then you'd better find a way to protect that glass, and they did. Kudos to Nokia! Overall navigation is carried out by the use of a 4 way joystick that sits just above the number "2" key and in the center of the "4" softkeys. I would have designed the joystick to sit a little higher because it's too easy to press it in and make a selection when all you wanted to do was go up, down, left, or right. Still after a few days you do get used to it and all is well. The key is to "tap" the stick instead of trying to push it. Batter life is just about what you'd expect from a phone with so many multimedia features. I've charged it every two days with liberal use of the camera, webrowsing, bluetooth headset, and phone calls. I would rate battery life as "good".

I've had the phone for just over a week now, and I haven't had one lock up, freeze up or any other malfunction. The same couldn't be said for the N91 and N80. Performance has been fairly quick and smooth. I do wish Nokia would have added an "auto lock" feature to prevent the accidental button mashing that inevitably takes place while the phone is in your case or pocket. You can manually lock it, but that is such a hassle. Luckily there's a third party software title that you can download for free that solves this problem. Now this phone isn't going to be as fast as a laptop or dedicated PDA for that matter, but it is much faster than the MDA, SDA or older Pocket PC phone devices that I've used in the past. Some other cool features are the "speak name" feature during ring tones, the 2.4" 265k color screen, blue tooth, and stereo speakers.

If you're looking for a phone that "does it all" then the Nokia N73 may just be for you. The candy bar design may turn some people off, but it's classy looks, excellent camera, and huge screen will draw most people in. Check it out!


Pros -
3.2 mega pixel camera with Carl Zeiss Optics
Camera protected by sliding door
2.4" 265k color screen
Stereo Speakers
Small form factor
Excellent Web Browser
Symbian 60 3rd Edition OS

Cons-
Keypad feels a little on the cheap side
Sub par video quality in low light situations
Joystick takes some getting used to
No auto lock feature out of the box

DT