Is this what computers have become? The N-Series by Nokia poses this question to the new-generation customer, signifying that technology (more so, Nokia) has come of age, and how! If global warming doesn’t get the better of us, it won’t be too long before the humble cell phone in our palms replaces the computer entirely.
I was gifted the N73 for my birthday, on October 29, 2007. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift. After using a very simple phone—one with a black and white display and pixelated images to pass for graphics—the Nokia N73 was an entire new experience for me. The first feature that gripped my attention was the large display screen. The Nokia N73 has one of the biggest screens in its league – 2.4 inches of screen space (240x320 pixels to be precise). Once I had managed to look past the width of the screen, the sleek design of the phone came into my view. The 116 gm model may seem bigger than most phones in size, but is actually light to hold and fits comfortably into my palm or pocket. The shiny black surface, accentuated with the neo-blue light of the keypad, only intensified my growing affection for this model. And, I had yet to explore the plethora of features embedded in this phone. Such is the magic of the Nokia N73. Its exterior design so captivates you that you can’t help but spend a minimum of fifteen minutes to simply gawk at the phone in sheer admiration.
I then sat myself down to browse through the many features of this phone. Good old Nokia, never too confusing to navigate through, no matter how complex the model. Although the N73 is a complete upgrade for me as compared to the nature of phones I used earlier, the Nokia N73 posed no difficulty in understanding its user interface. The first feature that I sampled upon was the sound functionality of the phone. My phone is a music edition, specially built to produce the finest quality of sound possible in a mobile phone. I was exhilarated with the supreme quality of sound of the N73; crystal clear, crisp, bass-based music, with a complete blocking off of all other sounds in the background. Somehow, the radio sounds better on the N73 than it does on other phones. The set of Bose headphones that comes with the phone, is as sleek as the phone itself, and performs even better in terms of sound quality. Another plus point of this phone is that it supports most of the file formats such as MP3, AAC and WMA to name a few. In short, the music edition of the N73 provides a musical extravaganza that is nothing short of sheer bliss for a self-confessed music fanatic like me.
The third feature that I may never stop raving about is the camera. The model has a 3.2 mega pixel Carl Zeiss lens camera, producing a picture quality that is so fine, it almost could pass for a photo taken from a regular camera. The lens is protected by a sturdy cover, which when flipped back, will get the phone into the camera mode. The camera will produce good images even in poor light conditions. A little button next to the shutter button allows you to directly access the photo gallery, and get back to clicking mode. So, I can click a picture, go to the gallery without getting out of the camera mode, view any image, and get right back to clicking pictures. Saves so much time and is so much more convenient. The model also has a VGA camera, which pales in comparison to the main camera. But it’s the main camera that allows no disappointment to set in the modest picture quality of the VGA camera. In addition to this, the phone allows you to organise your pictures as you please, with a host of intuitive and creative options to choose from, akin to an online album. The most appealing feature in this arena is the slide show option of images. It is like viewing a PPT! Very neat transitions of slides, with a song of your choice playing in the background.
An inbuilt memory of 42 MB with an extendable memory of 2 GB is just about enough to store at least 200 images and 100 songs as well, not to mention every message that you may have received from day one! On board are Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Adobe Reader softwares as well as the PC suite enabled Outlook synchronisation. The usual features such as Bluetooth and Infra red are present as also are the SMS and MMS functions, voice recorder, unit converter, GPRS and games.
The Nokia N73 is worth every penny it costs. A wonderful phone that encapsulates a multitude of features, which, after almost two years of owning the phone, I still have to explore! I am still in the stages of enjoying the music and the photography. More is yet to come!
