Its been quite sometime since my last review here on Mouthshut. That was the Ngage
QD back then. This time, its the turn of the N73 music edition which
I laid my hands on just last week.
I will try to be as
descriptive as I was earlier. However do note that I have been using
this handset only for the past week or so and there could be
something that I might miss out on.
*The Package:
*As
always, lets begin with the package itself. This is the Music Edition
and it came in a nice little package, glossy and flashy. Inside was
the usual stuff - some promotional materials, the CD-ROM, headset,
remote, control, the USB cable and of course the documentation
(manuals et all).
The package also included the 2GB mini SD
card that comes bundled with the Music Edtion. The "original"
N73 unfortunately does not come with a memory card (in some markets)
One of the reasons why I chose the Music Edition. May I also add that
apart from a few firmware tweaks there is not much of a difference
between the original N73 and the the N73 M (Also called the
N73-1).
Insert the memory card (The card slot is backlit as
well!) and you are almost done. Power on the phone for the first time
and it will ask you to choose the time zone and other nittie
gritties. Pretty much like setting up Windows - albeit much
shorter in duraion.
The first thing the phone does after the
card is inserted is to look for music files. May I also add that the
card comes preloaded with some 100 odd songs in the .AAC format.
These are protected files and you need a license key to listen to
them which can be obtained for free from Nokia by smsing them.
*Looks
and Screen:
*The N73 has a conservative approach as far as the
design is concerned. The good ol’ candy bar design looks unassuming
and unimpressive from a distance but I guess it grows on you as you
get used to the phone. The main aspect of the front side is the
massive screen. With a resolution of 240*320 and a screen size of
about 2.4 inches the screen dominates the front side - almost to the
extent that the keypad seems to have been "sidelined". The
display is one of the best currently available. Even betters that of
the Nokia N80 which may look better as it is smaller in size but has
higher resolution.
As with most colour screens, readablity is low
in direct sunlight but certainly not unreadable. The phone has a
small light sensor that adjusts the brightness according to the
ambient light. Although this can be controlled to some extent, it can
never be turned of or manually overridden.
*Camera:
*Lets
focus on the imaging capabilities of this phone now. Hit with the
onslaught of the cybershot phones from Sony Ericsson, the N73 it
seems is a very good effort on part of Nokia to check competition and
keep them at bay.
With the launch of the mammoth 5 megapixel N95,
The N73 might have lost the performance crown to its power packed
sibling, but it still packs a punch nevertheless. Also, note that the
N95 costs almost twice!
The image quality is very good (not
exceptional!). Cellphones still have some way to go before they catch
up with dedicated digicams. But this takes nothing away from the N73s
excellent imaging abilities. The 3.2 megapixel CMOS sensor with Carl
Zeiss optics is more than enough for casual photography and more. The
phone has 20x digital zoom as well and not to mention - auto-focus
which makes lots of difference to the image quality. Overall, the
camera is comparable to the K790s and is better than that of the N80
which sans the auto focus. There are multitudes of modes for various
kinds of photography. The xenon flash too comes in handy during low
light conditions. There is a front VGA camera as well which takes
images at 640*480. This front camera doubles up as the camera during
Video calls. Overall a very impessive effort on the camera front by
Nokia.
*Music &Sound Quality:
*I almost forget that
this is the "Music Edition" of the N73! The phone has a
dedicated "Music" button. This provides easy, one touch
access to the music menu. Although I initially felt this was a
gimmick, I now found that this is really useful.
One thing I have
noticed is that the "Music" application seems to be
perpetually running. I am unaware as of now whether this is by
default or a firmware glitch. I would certainly like to close this
application because I am as of now, unable to run more than four
applications in the background. What use is a smarphone if it can’t
multitask? The point is that this application consumes too much of
memory at times resulting in sluggishness and reminds us again of the
dreaded "Memory Full" message while you try to run more
than one resource hungry application.
As for the sound quality, I
would give it a 4 star rating. The walkman series from Sony Ericsson
score slightly better on this front however the N73 is not very far
behind. The sound seems a tad "bright" at times but this
can be controlled by the graphic equaliser that the phone sports. I
was also unhappy with the earpieces supplied as I would have liked
superior ones as this is supposed to be a phone dedicated to music.
Anyways this leaves the road wide open for using 3.5 mm headsets of
your own.
The sound quality is certainly not audiophile grade
but will put most dedicated MP3 players to shame. Getting the right
earphone is important if you are the fussy kind when it comes to
music. The earphones supplied might be too big for people with small
ears as it simply wont fit in and falls of regularly. Irritating to
say the least.
The phone also sports a Radio application. The
much hyped Visual Radio works only with select radio stations and
that too in some metros. This also needs an active GPRS account. FM
reception is poor from what I have noticed. Note that the FM receiver
is in the remote control and not the phone so it is essential that
you have the receiver plugged in.
*Operating System:
*This
phone as most of you all know, is a smartphone based on the series 60
platform. Nokia N73 runs the latest version of Symbian 9.1 and uses
the Series 60 third edition UI (User Interface)
Previous S60
phones were popular for one single reason. The variety of third party
applications available to enhance the functionality of the phones.
This has however changed as almost all applications designed for
previous S60 editions will no longer be compatible with the N73.
Thankfully, developers have already laaunched versions of some of the
more popular applications tha work with the N73 and other S60 third
edition phones. So this shold not be a big cause for concern.
Overall
the slowness of the good ol S60 seems to have been reduced, but the
ocassional lag and the sluggishness still remains. Memory leaks are
common and you may not even notice when one application has shut down
in the background as you open another one. In the previous S60
version, you atleast got a message saying "App closed". The
integrated web browser is awesome and nullifies the requirement of
any third party browser.
To sum it up, the N73 is one if the best series 60 handsets ever and It is worth every penny you pay!
Thank you for reading this.