_Warning: Extensive post ahead_
Nokia gave me a set of their new N-series phone, the N73, a few days before I left for India and Bangladesh. Having used it exclusively since early July, I was one of the earliest people to have the phone, even before it hit the market. I reserved my statements about the phone until this time as I didn’t want to do “yet another review”. For technical specifications you can go to the official website, or any of the mobile phone review sites. For your typical reviews, you’d be better off at CNet or similar. I took the phone only because I was interested in seeing _what I could make it do_. I’ve spent a long time with the phone — about two months. It is quite possible that the only people who have used it as long as, or longer than I have, are “Mr Brown”:http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/08/using_the_nokia.html and “Mr Miyagi”:http://miyagi.sg/?p=1229, who received the phones around the same time I did.
I got it two days before I flew to Bangalore, a timeline which caused some initial reservations as I didn’t think I could deliver a review on time, not knowing where I might be or what the state of internet access might be like; I wasn’t sure about the sort of conditions I would be going into, either. I was told to “take it with me and talk about how I used it”. I certainly put this phone through a lot of straining physical conditions, and tried to push it to its limits. As a photojournalist on assignment, I already had a few kilograms of gear to take with me: a portable computer, 10 gigabytes of compactflash cards, a digital SLR camera body with two lenses, and a small rangefinder that I like to shoot black and white film with. Together with the assortment of chargers, I wasn’t prepared to take another point and shoot with me, so I took the jump and decided to let the Nokia N73 do the job my Ixus usually does.
With 3.2 megapixels, together with Carl Zeiss Tessar f2.8/5.6 lens, it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. The integrated upload-to-Flickr feature made it even sweeter. Screen size is not a problem on this phone, coming in at 2.4 inches (side note: a size just 0.1 inches smaller than the LCD on my digital SLR). Colours are vivid and gorgeous. The first thing I noticed about this phone was how snug and tactile it felt in my hands. I’m not a phone connoisseur, but it feels sturdy. It’s not too light or flimsy, it just feels _right_.
I was pleased to find out the phone’s operating system is Symbian 9.1 with the 3rd edition S60 interface. (For nostalgic reasons: my very first PDA was a cool “Psion Revo”:http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/psion_revo_review that ran on Symbian/EPOC, back in 1999. I’m also placing all my eggs on the Symbian basket, as opposed to the Windows Mobile one, obviously.) You can download all sorts of useful software, like OggPlay to play .ogg files, or the “screenshot utility”:http://www.s60tips.com/category/featured-freeware/ that is absolutely essential for me. The N73 makes connectivity a snap. It’s a quad-band 3G phone, has Bluetooth, and supports mini-SD cards of up to 2GB. With the additional mini-SD cards you can easily store and play songs (AAC, mp3, WMA, Real, are fine), images (JPEG, GIF, BMP, whatever I threw at it, they read fine), even videos (Real, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264). The only thing that’s missing, in my opinion, is wifi.
I have absolutely no experience with Nokia’s bundled PC Suite, as I’m on a Mac and the phone, like all other Bluetooth phones, was able to interface swiftly with my computers. Like all other Bluetooth phones, it took no brain activity whatsoever to start using OS X’s built-in Bluetooth utility to send and receive files between the phone and my computers. iSync connectivity could be better. I’m still using it with the “little hack”:http://popagandhi.com/337/making-nokia-n73-work-with-isync/ I found. Based on a recommendation in that post I’ve been using “ZYB”:http://www.zyb.com/ to remotely manage my contacts and calendar, and that’s been working very well.
Let the screenshots tell the story — they’re fair more effective to convey a visual message about the useability experience behind this phone.
_Primary screen of the N73, with shortcut bar across the screen._
_Here is the main menu of the S60 interface._
_A feature I found utterly indispensable: world clock. You can add a list of cities to your ‘favourite cities’, and everytime you move to another place you can switch cities, thus switching time zones, without making changes to the phone date and time settings, then quickly switching back when you’re home. Came in very useful for me._
_Once you’ve taken a photo, you can automagically send it to Flickr in one easy step._
_It takes you to a Flickr login screen. After this screen you merely enter the title, description, and tags of photos. Photos appear on your Flickr account upon upload. Couldn’t be easier._
_View of Gallery containing photos and videos._
_There is a basic editor, built-in. It allows you to crop, adjust brightness and contrast, make black and white or sepia, add text. There is also a built-in video editor by muvee but it’s quite stupid._
_View of Adobe Reader reading a .pdf map._
_View of QuickWord reading a Word document transferred from the computer._
_Web “browser”:http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/S60browser/index.html, which is based on Apple’s Safari Web Kit._
_Web-based RSS_
Going from phone to camera takes only one swipe of the back panel, and about 2.5 seconds. The layout of camera controls is very easy to understand and intuitive — they give you more control over the picture taking process, by letting you make exposure compensation (in stops of +/- 0.5EV), change white balance (auto, cloudy, sunny, incandescent/tungsten, fluorescent), change ISO (auto, low, mid, high). The moment the photo is taken you can send by Bluetooth or upload to a Flickr account, or perform basic editing (cropping, brightness adjustment). Image quality is excellent, with negligible noise and grain. Colours were vivid and accurate. Overall, this phone could be a serious contender for those of you looking to leave out an additional digital camera from your ‘daily gadgets’. I’ll let the images speak for themselves (“look here for all pictures taken with the phone”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnylatte/tags/N73, mostly uploaded through the send-to-Flickr function, which means you can shoot and upload immediately).
_I was traipsing around a limestone furnace in Cherrapunjee, Northeast India. The CMOS sensor on the N73 doesn’t fail me._
_An evening drive through rural Bangladesh._
_Great for after-dinner sights._
_In pitch black conditions, such as in this bar in Bangkok, the flash manages to bridge the gulf between being too harsh and being ineffective. Colour temperature is accurate, without being too warm._
I can think of many uses for a tool such as the N73, mostly from how handy it is, and how excellent its image and video quality is. As a photojournalist used to hefty equipment, and used to arousing fear and suspicion amongst her subjects with said hefty equipment, with the phone within reach and easy operation I was able to quickly whip it out to record images and footage that would’ve otherwise been impossible to. Midway through my trip I became seized with the idea of making some quick footage of what I saw, for archival. The product of that was a small 6 minute video clip about _travelling_ and _being on the road._ “View it here”:http://popagandhi.com/381/stillness-is-overrated/.
possibly related
Some N73 Tips /
How To Get Online in India for 20 Rupees a Day /
The Toy /
More on iSync and the N73 /
Right Click Upload to Flickr /
Nokia N73: A Review
_Warning: Extensive post ahead_
Nokia gave me a set of their new N-series phone, the N73, a few days before I left for India and Bangladesh. Having used it exclusively since early July, I was one of the earliest people to have the phone, even before it hit the market. I reserved my statements about the phone until this time as I didn’t want to do “yet another review”. For technical specifications you can go to the official website, or any of the mobile phone review sites. For your typical reviews, you’d be better off at CNet or similar. I took the phone only because I was interested in seeing _what I could make it do_. I’ve spent a long time with the phone — about two months. It is quite possible that the only people who have used it as long as, or longer than I have, are “Mr Brown”:http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/08/using_the_nokia.html and “Mr Miyagi”:http://miyagi.sg/?p=1229, who received the phones around the same time I did.
I got it two days before I flew to Bangalore, a timeline which caused some initial reservations as I didn’t think I could deliver a review on time, not knowing where I might be or what the state of internet access might be like; I wasn’t sure about the sort of conditions I would be going into, either. I was told to “take it with me and talk about how I used it”. I certainly put this phone through a lot of straining physical conditions, and tried to push it to its limits. As a photojournalist on assignment, I already had a few kilograms of gear to take with me: a portable computer, 10 gigabytes of compactflash cards, a digital SLR camera body with two lenses, and a small rangefinder that I like to shoot black and white film with. Together with the assortment of chargers, I wasn’t prepared to take another point and shoot with me, so I took the jump and decided to let the Nokia N73 do the job my Ixus usually does.
With 3.2 megapixels, together with Carl Zeiss Tessar f2.8/5.6 lens, it wasn’t a difficult decision to make. The integrated upload-to-Flickr feature made it even sweeter. Screen size is not a problem on this phone, coming in at 2.4 inches (side note: a size just 0.1 inches smaller than the LCD on my digital SLR). Colours are vivid and gorgeous. The first thing I noticed about this phone was how snug and tactile it felt in my hands. I’m not a phone connoisseur, but it feels sturdy. It’s not too light or flimsy, it just feels _right_.
I was pleased to find out the phone’s operating system is Symbian 9.1 with the 3rd edition S60 interface. (For nostalgic reasons: my very first PDA was a cool “Psion Revo”:http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/psion_revo_review that ran on Symbian/EPOC, back in 1999. I’m also placing all my eggs on the Symbian basket, as opposed to the Windows Mobile one, obviously.) You can download all sorts of useful software, like OggPlay to play .ogg files, or the “screenshot utility”:http://www.s60tips.com/category/featured-freeware/ that is absolutely essential for me. The N73 makes connectivity a snap. It’s a quad-band 3G phone, has Bluetooth, and supports mini-SD cards of up to 2GB. With the additional mini-SD cards you can easily store and play songs (AAC, mp3, WMA, Real, are fine), images (JPEG, GIF, BMP, whatever I threw at it, they read fine), even videos (Real, MPEG-4, H.263, H.264). The only thing that’s missing, in my opinion, is wifi.
I have absolutely no experience with Nokia’s bundled PC Suite, as I’m on a Mac and the phone, like all other Bluetooth phones, was able to interface swiftly with my computers. Like all other Bluetooth phones, it took no brain activity whatsoever to start using OS X’s built-in Bluetooth utility to send and receive files between the phone and my computers. iSync connectivity could be better. I’m still using it with the “little hack”:http://popagandhi.com/337/making-nokia-n73-work-with-isync/ I found. Based on a recommendation in that post I’ve been using “ZYB”:http://www.zyb.com/ to remotely manage my contacts and calendar, and that’s been working very well.
Let the screenshots tell the story — they’re fair more effective to convey a visual message about the useability experience behind this phone.
_Primary screen of the N73, with shortcut bar across the screen._
_Here is the main menu of the S60 interface._
_A feature I found utterly indispensable: world clock. You can add a list of cities to your ‘favourite cities’, and everytime you move to another place you can switch cities, thus switching time zones, without making changes to the phone date and time settings, then quickly switching back when you’re home. Came in very useful for me._
_Once you’ve taken a photo, you can automagically send it to Flickr in one easy step._
_It takes you to a Flickr login screen. After this screen you merely enter the title, description, and tags of photos. Photos appear on your Flickr account upon upload. Couldn’t be easier._
_View of Gallery containing photos and videos._
_There is a basic editor, built-in. It allows you to crop, adjust brightness and contrast, make black and white or sepia, add text. There is also a built-in video editor by muvee but it’s quite stupid._
_View of Adobe Reader reading a .pdf map._
_View of QuickWord reading a Word document transferred from the computer._
_Web “browser”:http://opensource.nokia.com/projects/S60browser/index.html, which is based on Apple’s Safari Web Kit._
_Web-based RSS_
Going from phone to camera takes only one swipe of the back panel, and about 2.5 seconds. The layout of camera controls is very easy to understand and intuitive — they give you more control over the picture taking process, by letting you make exposure compensation (in stops of +/- 0.5EV), change white balance (auto, cloudy, sunny, incandescent/tungsten, fluorescent), change ISO (auto, low, mid, high). The moment the photo is taken you can send by Bluetooth or upload to a Flickr account, or perform basic editing (cropping, brightness adjustment). Image quality is excellent, with negligible noise and grain. Colours were vivid and accurate. Overall, this phone could be a serious contender for those of you looking to leave out an additional digital camera from your ‘daily gadgets’. I’ll let the images speak for themselves (“look here for all pictures taken with the phone”:http://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnylatte/tags/N73, mostly uploaded through the send-to-Flickr function, which means you can shoot and upload immediately).
_I was traipsing around a limestone furnace in Cherrapunjee, Northeast India. The CMOS sensor on the N73 doesn’t fail me._
_An evening drive through rural Bangladesh._
_Great for after-dinner sights._
_In pitch black conditions, such as in this bar in Bangkok, the flash manages to bridge the gulf between being too harsh and being ineffective. Colour temperature is accurate, without being too warm._
I can think of many uses for a tool such as the N73, mostly from how handy it is, and how excellent its image and video quality is. As a photojournalist used to hefty equipment, and used to arousing fear and suspicion amongst her subjects with said hefty equipment, with the phone within reach and easy operation I was able to quickly whip it out to record images and footage that would’ve otherwise been impossible to. Midway through my trip I became seized with the idea of making some quick footage of what I saw, for archival. The product of that was a small 6 minute video clip about _travelling_ and _being on the road._ “View it here”:http://popagandhi.com/381/stillness-is-overrated/.
possibly related
Some N73 Tips / How To Get Online in India for 20 Rupees a Day / The Toy / More on iSync and the N73 / Right Click Upload to Flickr /