Nokia N 73

Key Features:

• High-class display
• Very good functional keys
• Symbian S60 3rd edition
• Active stand-by mode
• 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics
• A second VGA camera for video calls
• UMTS support
• Infrared
• Bluetooth
• USB Mass Storage
• Great web browser

Main Disadvantages:

• Loose camera cover
• Uncomfortable and cheap-looking numeric keypad
• No memory card included
• Slippery joystick
• No Wi-Fi
• Web browser does not work in landscape mode
• Alarm clock is not repeated

The time has come

Nokia N73 is a smartphone. It features the latest version of the OS many used to blame for lack of applications, namely, Symbian S60 3rd Edition. Well, there is no need to worry about its compatibility anymore as there are already a sufficient number of new or adjusted programs for the above mentioned Symbian version on the mobile market. If you appreciate constructional extravagances, you'd rather turn your attention to the slider Nokia N80. The new Nokia N73 is rigorously classical: its dimensions are 110 x 49 x 19 mm; weight is 116 g.

Nokia N73 live

Nokia N70 has been on the market for about a year now - a period considered necessary in the mobile world for the replacement of one mobile generation with another. For some people the successor of Nokia N70 is Nokia N80, but according to me it is rather Nokia N73. N73 looks like a standard square, but looked from aside it has the shape of a trapezoid. I like its color variants as well as the design of its body: its front side is thin, while both lateral sides together with the rear cover are always elaborated in a different color. The model we were delivered for the tests has a silver front plate and violet-brown back and sides. Another possible color combination is white & red (emanates young and sport spirit).

All-side view

According to our evaluation Nokia N73 is the best mobile phone on the market; it won the competition with the queen Nokia N80 with a result of 93 %. It is clear that no evaluation could be absolutely objective as one always implies their own preferences, but there is no doubt that Nokia N73 has the best equipment among all 200 mobile models that have been tested in our office. It is simply the new mobile king. What's more, it is by 130 euro cheaper than the former winner Nokia N80. (Please note, that Mobilmania.cz takes different approach in evaluating the mobile devices compared to GSMArena.com, their rates are set by the editorial staff, not by the visitors)

Nokia Company speaks about this phone as of a "multimedia computer" because of its extensive functions: photo camera, simple video calls camera, Web browser, primitive game console, MP3 player etc. I myself prefer to stick to the standard denomination "mobile phone" or possibly "smartphone". Any cons?

The front plastic cover is not made of stunning material. On the other hand, it does not look as cheap as the material used for the numeric part of the keypad (comment still to come). The only elements on the left side of the phone are the Infrared port and the eyelet, in which a wrist or a neck strip can be inserted. The original package includes a wrist strip only.

The phone held in palm • comparison with a credit card

Infrared port • eye-let for strip

On the right side you will see three buttons: a volume control button in the top and a camera release button together with a key for instant access to the image and video gallery beneath. A longer press on the release button activates the camera interface.

Camera release button and access to Gallery • volume control

A smartphone of a conservative look, Nokia N73 has also been given a sport touch thanks to the original color combinations applied on its covers and the perforated plates on its top and bottom, whose material imitates metal. On the top you will find two stereo speakers, between which is located the Switch On/Off button. A fine grid covering the microphone is located on the bottom side of the device.

Nice imitation of perforated metal plates

Above the grid you will find the Pop-Port connector and the charger slot. The type of charger Nokia uses in its recent models is very easy to break due to its small diameter. Along with the handset, in the original package you will also find a USB cable for connection to a PC and a pair of stereo earphones with a remote control, which can also serve as handsfree. An adapter for a standard charger is present, of course. The package also contains a cleaning cloth with a Nokia logo and slogan, and a CD with PC Suite and drivers.

Accessories from the original box of Nokia N73

Nokia phones have rarely been spoken as of devices of ideal body construction or perfect part hold. Yet, Nokia N73 appears to be an exception to this rule; its construction is very good; all parts stick together the way they should but one - the sliding cover of the camera, whose looseness reminds me of Nokia 6681. More details about this problem can be found in the chapter devoted to the camera.

Battery and SIM card bed. Common use requires charging every second day; during the tests I had to charge the phone every night

The original package of Nokia N73 does not contain a memory card. As a matter of fact, Nokia is not the only important mobile manufacturer to take such a decision recently. On one hand it is explained with the fact that most users who buy "multimedia computers" hardly ever make do with enclosed memory cards of 64 or 128 MB and usually get themselves an additional, bigger card. On the other hand, however, Nokia could have equipped the phone with a 512 MB memory card, just like Sony Ericsson does with the Walkman series.

Step by step Nokia is abandoning the so-favorite RS-MMC format; instead it begins to use miniSD. Please note that both mentioned formats are absolutely incompatible. Already in the review commenting Nokia N80 we mentioned the looseness of the cover of its memory card slot. In Nokia N73 the situation is pretty much the same: the oblong cover hangs on a very thin plastic part as a result of which it may be lost anytime. Just like in Nokia N80 the N73 model features an option (user-configurable) called "Extract memory card".

Memory card slot • cap is fragile • miniSD card • slot is illuminated

The memory card can be extracted while the phone is running, but its removal requires closing all active applications. Its cover is not easy to open, so longer fingernails are a sure advantage. The memory card slot gets attractively illuminated thanks to the side-effect created by the keypad backlighting. It looks cool. Statements concerning internal memory are contradictory. The manufacturer announces 42 MB, while other websites publish different numbers. The indicator in Nokia N73 shows 47 MB available.

No need to wait for VGA

Nokia has been long stuck to the resolution of 176 x 208 pixels in all its smartphones. In fact, so long that in the end the rest of the popular manufacturers began to score better. A decisive change came last year with the launching of Nokia N90, whose resolution was 352 x 416 pixels, that is, four times more pixels than before. Anyway, most current smart models feature a QVGA resolution (240 x 320), which is also the case of Nokia N73. The display size is overwhelming; due to its 37 x 49 mm it looks like a pretty large screen. The design of the display is so brilliant that it creates the feeling that it simply could not have been made any bigger.

Resolution is fine; its pixels are only visible through the macro eye of a standard camera. The human eye is not so perfect... Besides, while observing the display of Nokia N73 I kind of stop waiting for VGA resolution; it will not be necessary except on bigger displays or should you need to fit onto the display a huge amount of information.

Since Nokia launched its 6681 model the brightness of its smartphone displays has been constantly deteriorating. For example, neither Nokia N70, nor Nokia N80 could compete with Nokia 6681. It has not been till this last model, Nokia N73, that brightness - in highest resolution - it can be again considered comparable to the brightness levels shown by the above mentioned model. Bear in mind however, that legibility of N73's display remains rather poor under direct sunlight, even though it is far better than in models like Sony Ericsson P990 or Sony Ericsson M600, where direct light makes reading virtually impossible.

Display is large • its screen in the dark

Located above the display are the manufacturer's logo and the name of the model, both present in most recent Nokia models. Next to the earphone with a tiny silver cover there is a sensor detecting the intensity of the surrounding light. In accordance with the level of this intensity it activates the keypad backlighting. Situated nearby is a new state diode identical to the one used in Nokia N80.

Speaker, sensor of surrounding light, diode, and tiny VGA camera

The time, during which the display remains illuminated (from 5 seconds to one minute) as well as the interval, in which the screensaver gets activated, is user-configurable. The screen saver represents a bar with a clock and updated date; of course, missed calls and incoming messages including their number appear here too. The screen saver can be set to activate in 1 to 30 minutes. In addition, you can activate a power-save mode, in which the display goes out completely and the only indicator of the activity of the phone remains the tiny diode illuminated in blue. No new events get alerted in this mode. The diode winks in unchangeable intervals, which converts it into a mere decorative element.