Fun With the Nokia N73
On Friday, I received my Nokia N73 from Nokia Blogger Relations. It arrived just about the time I was ready to leave. Feeling a bit like a kid on Christmas morning, I unwrapped it, tore the SIM and my MiniSD card from my Nokia E70, slapped it into the N73, and off I went.
I didn’t do much with it on Friday other than use it as a phone and listen to some podcasts I had saved up. The phone function works excellent, as does most of the Nokia phones I’ve had. I eventually loaded up a few applications onto the phone, mostly Nokia’s Podcasting application and the new Gmail application. Over the weekend, though, I used it more as a camera. I took a few pictures of my kids. I posted a few of the pictures on my personal blog. (Gracie at Bedtime, Gracie at Bedtime–Cropped with the N73 itself, Balancing a Juice Cup, Jaden and a Friend, Gracie trying to hide at the gym, and Gracie on the couch at home)
What struck me today as I was letting my kids run around at an indoor play park nearby, was that this Nokia N73 felt more like a camera than it did a mobile phone. Oh sure, it has Nokia written all over it, it’s a quad-band GSM phone (also UMTS in Europe), and sports Series 60 3rd Edition interface. But the phone comes with a wrist strap much like a camera does. It has a very similar form factor. I was carrying it around like other people were carrying around theirs. It even acts like a camera when you expose the 3.2 megapixel lens and flash (yes, it has flash!) by sliding the lens cover down. The interface rotates and magically becomes one very similar to a digital camera. In addition to the shutter button, there is another button that lets you browse and edit photos you have already taken. There’s a zoom slider on “top” of the camera as well, though unfortunately on the Nokia N73, it’s a digital zoom.
Of course my wife saw this phone at some point over the past 48 hours and asked the all important question: how do the pictures look when you print them out? Are they good enough to save in the photo album? That’s a question that will involve a little more investigation on my part. I’ll report back once we’ve seen what the print quality is like.
On the whole, I am liking this phone, though it needs WiFi to complete the experience. Even without WiFi, I have to admit this is a pretty sexy little phone. I have a lot more mucking about with it to do. There’s so much stuff included on the phone that I haven’t even scratched the surface of yet. Of course, some of the features won’t work in the US, but I know there’s more that will work. More comments are forthcoming.
Disclaimer: My day job at Nokia has absolutely nothing to do with mobile phones, except as a normal business user. I wish my job did involve mobile phones a bit more, but it doesn’t change the fact the above thoughts are my thoughts and my thoughts alone.
