Camera Phones Plaza

Nokia N73 was a revolutionary device when it first appeared on the market and even after a few years, it remains one of the most wanted phones. It is powerful and very rich in functions. It looks good and has an excellent camera with Carl Zeiss Lens.

It was a very successful phone. Nokia has continued on the same idea with Nokia N95, which was also a success. Moreover, Nokia N73 has shown how powerful the Symbian is, and has shown that people want smartphones, so now their list has many Symbian S60 phones. As a smartphone, Nokia N73 has many accessories in its box. Besides the charger, the manual and the software CD, we find a USB cable, the headphones, a branded cloth for cleaning and a cord which can hold the phone. With its 116 grams, Nokia N73 is somewhere in the middle of the weight top. At how many functions it has, the 116 grams does not seem too much. It fits in the jeans pocket too, even if it will not go unnoticed. However, there are no smartphones under 100 grams.

Nokia N73 is made out of high quality materials. The plastic looks good and it is solid. The front is occupied mostly by the 2.4 inch screen. The keypad occupies less than half. Above the display we have the camera used in video calls, the light sensor and the loudspeaker.

On the left side, the phone has only the infrared port. We must appreciate the fact that Nokia has an infrared port; many other phones have only Bluetooth. On the right side, we have the volume control keys, the camera button and a key for direct access to photo and video gallery. At the top side, we find the on/off button, which starts or stops the device, and the speakers. At the bottom, we find the microphone, the charger plug, the Pop-Port for the PC connections and a slot for the memory card.

Nokia always installs Symbian OS on its smartphones. Nokia N73 has Symbian version 9.1 operating system, and a 3rd edition graphical interface. The phone is acting very well, and there are no blocking problems. It is true that in some menus there is a little delay, but nothing annoying. The 42 MB of internal memory fully contributes to the phone's performance. The menu is intuitive, although it is complex and offers many features and applications. It is a well organized menu.

The screen is one of the best screens I have ever seen on a phone. It has 2.4 inch and a resolution of 240 x 320 pixels. The colors are vivid, the contrast is very good, the text and the images are very clear.

The address book is pretty sophisticated and you can add as many contacts as you want. For each one you can add details, phone numbers, email address, the company name, the job, etc. The calendar can be synchronized with the Outlook using the Nokia PC Suite software provided by Nokia. Synchronization can be done with a SyncML server. Searching the address book is very easy and it can be done by typing the first letters of a contact's name.

Sending and receiving SMS and MMS messages is quick and intuitive. Although the messaging application has not improved in any way since Nokia N70, I do not see what you could add to it. Not much to say here, just that the keyboard is very good for writing messages. Keys are easily pressed and they provide a good answer, so SMS lovers will beat new records for number of characters per minute.

The images are very good and clear on the big screen. The image gallery is excellent; pictures load quickly, and switching from one picture to another can be done without any delay.

The audio player is good and offers the user enough settings. Songs can be grouped by artist, album and genre. The 5-band equalizer lets the user raise the bass volume a little. Unfortunately, the headphones that come in the package box are not too good, but it will not be too easy to change them. The phone does not have a 3.5 mm jack so you cannot put any headphones, so you should seek for an adapter from their Pop-port to a 3.5 mm jack. It is good though that the audio volume is high enough, my main problem with all the phones was the sound volume being too low. Nokia N73 does not have that problem, so you can listen to music in a noisy environment. Also on the music chapter, it is good to remember that Nokia N73 has an FM radio, but without RDS.

The video player does its job well and it knows how to run 3GP or MP4 videos. Nokia N73 is not the phone on which you can watch a two hours movie, but the screen is big enough for that. The problem is that you cannot copy AVI movies from your PC directly to the phone. If you want your movies to work well, than you have to convert any movie to 3GP or MP4 and to decrease the resolution, so the movies will occupy less memory. There are lots of programs that can do this and some will even let you include subtitles. The easiest way, unless you want subtitles, is to use the Nokia Video Manager, which is part of the Nokia PC Suite.

The camera is 3.15 megapixels. You know already that megapixels are not everything, so I will mention the Carl Zeiss lens, the autofocus and the flash. It was one of the best mobile cameras that ever appeared. Meanwhile, a lot of competitors have emerged with 5 or 8 megapixels, but if you go back in time to the moment when Nokia N73 appeared, we can say without any mistakes that Nokia has done a great job.

When you will surf on the Internet you will use the 3G technology, or maybe the EDGE technology. It depends on what kind of technology your operator handles. HSDPA would have been great on a smartphone such as Nokia N73, but at the time, I do not think that many phones had HSDPA. Unfortunately, N73 does not have WiFi. Nokia N73 has a very good browser. It loads the internet pages very fast, especially if you have 3G. The arrow type cursor is also very useful because it helps you reach the link pages in which you are interested faster. You can install Opera Mobile, which is a good browser too.

In addition to USB, the data transfer can be done via Bluetooth or infrared. Infrared is a little old, so you got no use for it. You can use the infrared for transforming your phone into a remote control for home electronics. Some applications let you do that. The Bluetooth, instead, became about standard for all phones. And besides the handsfree used while driving, you can connect to your Nokia N73 a pair of stereo Bluetooth headphones so you can listen to music without the wires representing any inconvenience.

At the organizer chapter, Nokia N73 is one of the best. Both schedule and task lists are excellent. These lists can synchronize with your Outlook using Nokia PC Suite software.

For Mobile Office, there is a software package called QuickOffice, which lets you work with Word, Excel or PowerPoint. In addition, you can install and Adobe Reader LE, which reads PDF files. Besides the preinstalled applications and games, you can install a lot of new interesting things.

Nokia N73 is a good phone for anyone. Whether you are looking for a good business phone or you want to take pictures, listen to music and watch movies, Nokia N73 is the phone for you.