Before I start the review, I thought my usage pattern might be useful for you to make your decision. Also trying to be most concise while touching all features, knowing that you have more reviews to read. so here goes:
Using cell phones for: 9 years(This is my 10th phone, and 3rd Nokia phone)
Months of usage of this phone: 3m
Hours of talk-time: ~2 per day
Hours of music playback: ~1 per day
Now about the features(categorized into Phone, Music Player & Camera):
*1. Phone:
A quad-band(world phone) was what I was looking for, and this made up for it
Good, bright and adequately large screen providing really good resolution. Voice quality(though largely operator dependant) is nice.(Used Airtel on multiple GSM phones, and this one scores as second overall, after the Sony Ericsson K508i which I’d used before). However, the N73 seems to capture signals better than most other phones I’ved used - clear vaoice even on 1-bar of signal strength!
The organiser is excellent, I use the sync option with Outlook 2007, and it works perfectly. Bluetooth and Infra-red transmission is flawless and quick too. However, the camera came loaded with just 1 game(sudoku!) - would have liked at least one "non-brainer" game to pass time at the airports!
The QuickOffice option also serves it’s purpose, to view files transmissted from a laptop etc., as is the Adobe reader. However, I was not too impressed with the S60 platform in terms of speed(sometimes you feel the phone is really slow). The PTT(push-to-talk) feature looks really interesting, have not used it till date.
2. Music Player:
Though the 2MB card comes loaded with some songs, it was a pain to "unlock" or activate them, so I got rid of them before listening to even one! The external speaker quality is good( though not as good as the Sony Ericssons!), and so’s the headset. The dual external speakers give a nice touch to provide a "pseudo-stereo" effect!
The extra controls provided on the headset are a smart option. Navigation, though not as easy as the Sandisk or iPod, is reasonably fair-to-use and lets you browse the albums / lists while the previous song is playing. A few equalizer options are available, but not much distinguished.
The FM radio is better than on most phones I’ve used so far in terms of reception and channel search(and storage)
3. Camera:
Though the n73 boasts of a "music edition", the camera is what I liked most. nice picture holding, adequate flash(for the purpose of 1m), good hue & contrast correction(the image that you see after the picture has been taken looks a bit different than the moving image you view prior to clicking). The 3.2MPix does generate adequate picture quality to get normal-size prints.
The focus, expectedly is not as good as the 5MPix cameras on the N95 and the Sony Ericsson k850i. I was impressed by the video quality as compared to other camera phones, though a high-quality grab does take huge memory space, and transferring that video through infra-red / bluetooth is a pain, leaving no alternative to a cable-transfer!:) The photo-editing options are not too useful, though you could try a few tricks with the Adobe Photoshop starter edition that comes as a free-pack.
Hope the review was useful. will try to share some more in the next few months!