Nokia N73 in UseThe circumstances were such that 5 of my 6 phones for 6 years were Nokia’s devices. So my heart happened to belong to UNIX, notably to Mac OS X.And when time came to choose a smartphone, the choice wasn’t very wide. In the shops I tried not to look at logos, though Nokia’ handsets burst upon my eyes, and I was sure that I didn’t want to use Windows Mobile based phones, as I fixed my choice upon Symbian. Thus, in one beautiful February day I became the owner of the Nokia N73 – one of the newest Nokia’s smartphones based on Symbian OS 9.1. Already for 4 month the phone has been responsible for the connection with me, wherever I go, and in this article I would like to share my impressions of the phone. Design The first thing that amazed me, when I took the N73 for the first time, was the display.  In comparison with my previous handsets, it looked much bigger (it measures 2,4 inches, 240x320 pixels). Purchasing the device, before stuck it the pocket of my jeans, I wanted to put it in a case, in order not to scratch the beautiful enormous display. As the phone ships without any case, at home I straightway borrowed an iPod player’s sock of my boy-friend.  At first I called at mobile shops in search of a case to my smartphone, but I failed to find anything acceptable. After some time the thought to abandon my wonderful “sock” vanished. They matched each other as if they were designed special to be together. And one day I got as a present the set of t Apple iPod’s “socks”. Now I can choose what colour of the handset’s case I’d like to see today.  As I always carry the phone in the case and treat it carefully, the casing and the display haven’t got damages, as they say, they are without a scratch. The only minor niggle, that both the screen (in a larger measure) and the casing (in a less measure) encourage finger prints. But they can be easily removed just wiping the phone with a special rag that is included in the sale package. Now it is always in my handbag. On the whole everything is very good with the phone ergonomic. It is very palm-friendly device. Though the buttons are small, they are still handy to press. At least they fit my fingers. The keyboard might be tricky to some men, but those who held my phone in hands, didn’t complain. However you have to get used to the distinctive sound of buttons. It doesn’t remind the usual sound, it is probably like a squeak. And though you know, that isn’t a squeak, the association still comes up. At first I had some problems with the flap of the memory card slot. When it is closed everything goes well, it isn’t stand out, it is almost unnoticeable. But to open it is not an easy task. You need knack for it, as well as long nails.  Also at first there were some difficulties with the back cover of the phone. But I wasn’t surprised, as it was with all my Nokia’s devices. You should just to fit into it. Moreover the handset is equipped with a skillful SIM-card slot, a card can be easily put under the metal plate and protected from the falling by the inserted battery. You have to push the plate holding the card no longer, as it used to be, for example, in Nokia 6103. But the rear plate of the phone is another story. It houses the moving cover protecting the 3.2megapixels camera with Carl Zeiss optics.  I don’t know why, but I do like this cover. Firstly, it surely protects the camera from damages. Secondly, it moves very smoothly and gracefully. Thirdly, it activates the camera. To use it is a sheer joy. That is all for the design. Let’s move on to the abovementioned 3.2megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens. Camera Beforehand I’d like to make an excuse for my excessive ardour in this part. Initially the N73 is positioned by Nokia as the multimedia device. In a large measure it refers to the camera capabilities. That’s way there is a strong temptation to write a big review of the built-in camera (to be more exact there are two cameras) in this part of article. But I try to be brief and write on business only. At first I’d like to say briefly about the second camera located on the front panel to the right of the display. As the N73 is dedicated not only to GSM, but also to WCDMA, this camera is used in the two-way video exchange. Correspondingly, the camera has low resolution (640x480poxels) and useless to the photography. I didn’t have an opportunity to test the video conferencing, as we didn’t have an access to WCDMA. So there is no reason to continue our talk about this camera, we’d better move on to the main one. You have no doubt that this camera is dedicated to the photography. It has maximal resolution 3.2megapixel (2048x1536 pixels), the objective lens Tessar of Carl Zeiss with autofocus. The latter is slow – a second or even more. There are several shooting modes in the camera: auto, portrait, landscape, macro and so on. In some modes, for example, sport for the fast shooting, there is no autofocus. The camera is equipped with 20x digital zoom. In my view, the function is useless, as the same effect can be got maximizing a picture on PC and without loss of a part of the picture. The shutter release button has two positions: with half-pressing the camera indicates an autofocus, with full press you take pictures. There is a built-in flash with the function of a red-eye removal. The flash is also rather useless, as its work distance is one metre only and because of the small size the lighting is uneven. The camera has the function of serial shoots with the approx one shoot per second. There are different settings to the white balance. The auto balance works well in the daylight, but the electric light makes a picture yellow. The sensitivity is adjusted automatically and manually. With higher sensitivity the noises of the picture don’t grow, but fewer details are visible. Beneath you see several photos recently made with this camera. Though there are several shooting modes available in the camera, I tested it in the auto mode.  The first example is a view from the balcony. June. 5 p.m. As you see, the image contrast is acceptable, all details are distinctive. There are now considerable shortcomings.  The picture has the same view and conditions, but in the high saturation mode. It is not necessary to speak about the impact of this mode, as everything is clear from the picture.  Ibid. 9 p.m. The contrast range is lower. Some details are not so clearly visible. Red sports appeared in the low corners of the snap.  A castle in Viborg.7 p.m. It is another shoot with distinctive details and good contrast.  This is a part of the previous snap with zooming. The example allows to appraise how clear the details are of the picture.  In the centre of St. Petersburg. 11 p.m. The sun has already set behind the buildings. The exposure was fixed automatically, but incorrectly. As a result of the error the sky is exposed.  The test picture. There is a bright red part in the top right corner. Consequently, there is a clear-cut red sport in the opposite corner.  The test picture 2 (the part of the snap). In back lightning the back image artifacts are clearly visible. Conclusion. The camera works well in the daylight. The detail distinctiveness satisfies the positioned quality level, pictures can be shown in the Internet or printed in 10x15 size or even bigger. As you see from the examples, the camera is suitable for landscape stills or group portraits. The device automatically copes with snaps with medium contrast, but spoils high-contrast pictures. To avoid the spoiled snaps you should manually set the exposure. The camera also doesn’t work well indoors, especially in the electric light. The faces grow green on these stills. I think, that is all for the cameras, let’s move on to the essence of any smartphone – the software. Software As we know, the N73 is based on Symbian OS 9.1. In principle this may be enough for the software. It is clear, that the software is available in enormous quantity. I have never failed to find an application performing the necessary function. But the variety of the additional software is not an advantage only. If I don’t have to look for the software and I could do everything with built-in applications, it would be an obvious advantage. Though there is everything in the phone, that may be necessary to the modest user.  The smartphone ships with a set of the most necessary built-in applications. But the matter is in their capability and usability. If another application, that works faster and handier, is available, I’ll surely find and use it. For example, I don’t use the built-in player (as I got used to listen tracks without pause between them), I use another File Manager, I found another Alarm Clock application, where you don’t have to fix the signal time each evening and so on. But it doesn’t mean, that the built-in software is useless, it is just less functional and convenient. A fly in the ointment I can’t but mention some drawbacks. While working with the N73, most of all I was disappointed with its speed. My idea about smartphones as about small modern computers was destroyed, when I realized that the speed of the N73 left much to be desired. In general the speed is comparable with the middle results of Nokia’s phones, but I’d like something more. When we press a button, we wish to see the result immediately. But in case of the N73 you have to wait, sometimes even up to several seconds. Especially this noticeable when you work with multimedia functions. The camera activates several seconds after the cover is opened, one more second the camera needs to switch off, after the cover is closed. To open the gallery with stills and video clips after pressing Review button you have to wait even longer. Conclusion Time has unique feature to smooth over shortcomings and make them less noticeable – we get used to them. The same can be observed with mobile phones. If they strongly don’t suit us, we change them. But if the drawbacks are not so obvious, we leave the phone and with time we get used to our handsets’ peculiarities. The N73 speed upset me very much at the first moment. But after 4 month I got used to its tempo and now I don’t notice its slowness when it performs some functions. And this is the only feature that I have to put up with. In other respects it works perfect – stably, without failures. I thing Bill Gates’ fans will forgive me, if I say that Symbian OS can make a merit of it. The battery life also impresses me. If you make about 10 calls a day, send 10 SMS-messages and for a couple of our listen to music, the battery lasts 3-4 days. The Nokia N73 is a right thing both to the fans of all kinds of multimedia content and to the businessmen. The smartphone combines everything they need. And great amount of software to the smartphones based on S60 easily helps to solve almost any task. © Written by Anastasia Petrova, Mobiset.ru Translated by Arina Urban. Published — 2 August 2007 |
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