Table of Contents
Introduction
Physical Features
Screen
Control
Operational Features
Telephony
3 X-Series
Operating System
Multimedia
3D Tones
Battery Life
Camera/Video
Conclusion
Pros & Cons
Manufacturer's Specifications  

Introduction/First Impressions

The quad-band 3G Nokia N73 is part of Nokia’s "N Series" hi-end range of phones. At 110 x 49 x 19 mm, it is reminiscent of the Nokia E65 business slider (which measures 105 x 49 x 15.5 mm), if not quite as sleek. It is quite a different phone when judged by its features, and Nokia has definitely aimed at a different market. It may not have the E65’s Wi-Fi, but it has a 3.2 Megapixel, Carl Zeiss lens auto focus camera with LED flash, and twin (stereo) speakers. Of course the N73 runs on Symbian 60 3^rd Edition like the rest of the N series, and has a nice big portrait orientated QVGA screen. Something of an overcompensation for the lack of Wi-Fi exists in the review phone, which is accompanied by access to the New 3 X-Series, allowing over-network Skype VoIP, Orb file sharing, and a number of other features that bring to the phone a Wi-Fi like experience that isn't confined to a certain WLAN but rather travels anywhere (so long as you can access the 3 network).

N73 as camera

A unique feature of this phone is the shape. It is a curved candybar, but the sides of the unit taper off towards the rear. Put it down on a bench, and it appears thinner than it is. A clever, slimming tweak on conventional body design. Located at the rear of the device is an oval shaped sliding door, which conceals and protects the Carl Zeiss lens camera and LED flash. The slide feels very nice in quality, and feels like it has the same kind of solid spring mechanism as found in the E65 slider phone. Others have stated that it’s loose, but maybe they were referring to a pre-release unit. This review unit’s slide is very smooth and tight.

The strong twin speaker arrangement ports out at the side top and side base of the device. This is one of the most sensible positions I have seen for a phone speaker, and one rarely used. It means that holding the phone in either hand will not lead to the inadvertent obscuring of the speaker. The design also utilises the full length of the phone for stereo separation. So just lie back, lay the phone across your forehead, and get a nice stereo effect from the N73. (If you do this on a public street, just make sure to put your hat on the ground, as you might well supplement your income.) In truth, you don't need such a close proximity to get some stereo effect, and you can notice some stereo separation at a distance of a few feet-- as long as you face the unit directly. The speakers are orientated at 180 degrees to each other, which also assists hearing stereo. The speakers port to the world via a fake perforated metallic plate, and although it's just plastic it looks very spiffy indeed.

The mini-SD memory expansion slot is also well placed at the base of the unit. The cover for the card port is so well blended with the rest of the device that it is at first difficult to discern whether it is actually meant to open up for a card to insert. If it wasn’t for the small pressed icon of an SD card adjacent to the port cover, you would think it was just a section of decorative, embossed plastic. After witnessing many partial phones and disgruntled owners, I remain steadfastly sceptical about the durability of any such small capping covers for the ports of phones. (Then again, my wife's LGU880 clamshell has been bouncing around for a year in one of the most extreme environments on the planet—yes, a woman's handbag—and yet there has been no departure of the many small port cappings from the body of that phone. So the longevity of such items is perhaps a pure chance thing, and anybody's guess.)

There is a second camera situated just above the large screen for video calls (or make up application, if you are so inclined), and alongside that is a small diode that flashes when the phone is in a hibernation-like power saving mode.

The finish of the review unit is a very appealing metallic red, and the front is white with chrome surrounds to the numeric keypad. The white plastic fascia is unusual, and it’s almost as if Nokia was going for a porcelain look here. It is different, and it is probably going to draw criticism from some. I could live with it, as the white surface does not seem to attract scratches easily. The phone also comes in a tasty combination of silver and deep metallic aubergine, as well as a white / brown combination.

To cap off the good physical package is a general feeling of quality and robustness that Nokia has been putting into all of its high end phones, and although the N73 is a small, light candybar, it shares the same quality feel.

Screen

The TFT LCD screen is 240 x 320 pixels, portrait orientated with 256K colours, and measuring a rather large 36 x 48 mm (considering the phone is a compact candybar format). The screen is auto-adjustable via a light sensor. One slight drawback is that the plastic screen cover seems rather thin, and depressing on the screen easily (momentarily) distorts the TFT. Any owner should seriously consider using a protective plastic film over the screen, and preferably a case that also protects the screen. Fortunately the screen is slightly recessed into the phone body.

Control

The numeric keypad is a pretty standard though useable one, and the white buttons that match the fascia are surrounded by nice chrome function keys. The white numeric buttons are a little on the vertically small side and so they might not be great for large fingers. Compensating for this are raised ridges that run horizontally between the four rows of numbers, and this provides good feedback of where you are. A blue backlight illuminates not only the keypad but also the mini-SD slot at the base of the phone. All of the buttons on the right hand side of the phone (or the "top of the camera") are also illuminated with a blue backlight when the phone is in camera mode, which is another nice touch.

I am out of the closet right now, to declare to the world that I am a smartphone joystick fan. I loved it on the E61, and I love it on the N73 even more. The E61 had a bit of resistance that made it just a little difficult to operate for some, and it caused a modicum of whinging on the user forums—perhaps that was the reason for the regrettable departure of the joystick on the E61i. The N70 has fixed any trace of this: the joystick is light and generally a joy to operate. I personally believe that the joystick is the most intuitive way to get around a phone’s operating system, and it is superior to the thumbwheel plus back key combination, as well as a touchscreen.

This leads to my one gripe with control, and that is the lack of joystick control over volume when listening to music. The volume control is on the right hand side of the phone (zoom two-way keys), but why remove the joystick control over volume, since horizontal joystick movement does nothing else when in music player?

On the right of the unit you will find the combination volume and camera zoom two-way key, and dedicated camera shutter and image gallery access buttons. The left side of the phone is featureless, aside from the infrared port and a small eyelet at the base of the left side for a strap.

Operational Features

Telephony / Connectivity

The N73 is a quad band 3G phone with GPRS and EDGE, bluetooth, infrared, and conventional pop-port. The call quality is good, and signal strength is amongst the best to be tested in our favourite known marginal area. As mentioned, the phone has a mini SD memory expansion slot that sits neatly alongside the pop-port at the base of the phone. The card is hot swappable. It could be considered a quick access slot, given that many Nokias require the removal of the battery cover in order to change the memory card. The N73, like other Nokia smartphones, doubles as a flash ROM or “mass storage device”. The N73 allows rapid access to the flash memory via USB 2.0.

The Nokia N73 and 3 X-Series

Three X Series Icons

Operating System

N73 Standby Screen

This particular review phone came with a firmware that was on the buggy side, V 3.0638.0.0.1. This is largely due to us inserting a heavily loaded mini-SD with a variety of applications already installed on it via other phones, that could not be started by the N73 (or any other phone except that which the apps were installed upon). This card normally caused huge delays in application loading, but also managed to have the N73 crashing occasionally. Nokia Asia-Pacific has not progressed past this version yet: However, Nokia's PC suite should soon allow the upgrade to firmware Version 3.0649.0.0.1, which will iron out the bugs that we noticed in the review period. One such bug has the phone crashing occasionally in conflict with 3D tones. Another has the phone failing to power off properly when switched off from the “silent” profile. The latest firmware also purportedly improves headset hiss, but there was little we could discern in V 3.0638.0.0.1 anyway. These bugs won’t even be noticed by many users and are par for the course with complex, developing OS'es.

Multimedia/Music

Nokia obviously targets this phone as a multimedia device, and the inclusion of the multimedia key and dedicated camera/gallery buttons is more than a slight hint of this. Everything the N73 does in multimedia is well done by smartphone standards, and the only lacking feature is an industry standard jack for headphones.

 
The multimedia key is a great feature, and it leads to a five way control that is operated by the joystick and is (four-way) customisable. So any four programs within the phone can be set to run from this multimedia menu. The music section of this phone has much in common with other Symbian 60 3rd edition phones, and so details on the music player application of the phone won't be given here. Suffice it to say that like other N series phones, there is some ability to control equalisation via factory presets and user customisable presets, and the music player is pretty basic.

The strong stereo speaker (and the potential for busking with the phone) has already been discussed above, in the design section. What I didn’t mention was how capable these little speakers are: and whilst you won’t get much bass from them, they nevertheless pump out quite a good sound, and there was no distortion experienced with a heavy bass track and the full volume setting. Blur’s “Song No.2” has massive distortion in the guitars at chorus, and yet it still didn’t seem to push the speakers overboard at full volume. The phone could suffice as the ghetto blaster for an impromptu dance party, given an otherwise quite setting and friends that weren't too picky (or a bit "pickled").

Some Kitsch: 3D Tones

3-D Tones is a little program that you can find in the applications folder of the phone menu. It imparts a reverb effect to the tone that you choose, as well as setting a specific “sound trajectory” to the sound. The trajectory can be set for attack speed as well as setting the trajectories to random so that you can get a variation in the ring tone whenever the phone rings. It’s much more obvious using a heaset than via the phones speakers, and it's basically a kitsch feature that most will find a bit banal. Or am I just getting jaded…

Battery Life

The manufacturer’s specification is 360 min talktime, and 350 hours standby. This is one area where the N73 could stand a little improvement, and with medium to heavy use the phone does need a recharge every evening. The highly featured multimedia (and especially the camera/video) would have something to do with this, as would 3G usage... and a lot of it has been done with this X-Series capable review unit.

A quality camera accompanies the N73

The camera is a quality device, and it seems as if they have crammed virtually the same features into the N73 as they have on the N93i: certainly the operational software seems the same (see the N93i review [coming soon] for more discussion on this). Merely sliding the cover from the lens sets the phone into camera mode, and shutting it switches off the mode. The camera and video colour rendering is accurate, as is the auto focus. As with the N93i, there is some shutter lag, and so this camera is less likely to grab action shots like a quality dedicated digital camera will. Nevertheless, it’s still quite a step up from the majority of phone cameras on the market.

The inclusion of a second front camera is useful if you are a fan of video calls, or if it is practical for your business for you to relay video remotely.

Conclusion

Nokia just continues to roll out the surprises. This is not just another candybar smartphone, but a very well thought out and assembled package that has already generated rave reviews and user reports in Europe. The capability in terms of internal speaker sound, big screen and camera/video really packs a punch. It makes this one of the most capable and versatile smartphones on the market.

 Review phone supplied courtesy of 3 Australia