Nokia N73 ME

The N73 Music Edition is a candy bar mobile measuring 110 x 49 x 19 mm and weighing 116 grams, it is the latest in the Nseries building upon a solid base of middle range function while adding small layers of either business smartphone like technology or multimedia capabilities. This N73 opts for the multimedia buyer and differs from the standard N73 in only a few ways. The first is obvious with the previously silver design now clad in stealth black a move mirrored from the Sony Ericsson

range.

The N73 ME is a 3G phone with twin camera for video calling and it is a rugged little performer running the Symbian OS 9.1 S60 3rd edition. The screen is the same stunning 2.4" 262k colour 240 x 320 pixel unit which is chosen for its clarity as part of the standard N73 camera phone model, here it has all those features plus makes for a great interface for the media player functions.

Call quality proved excellent and it handled poor signal strength well hanging on for all but the last bar. Battery life is also excellent with the N73’s 1100 mAh (BP-6M) battery managing 4 day standby with a good 4 hour talk time even when using the loud and clear built in handsfree speakerphone. When using the Nokias media player I managed a full 10 hours playback before I’d run down the battery and started to get the recharge beep. All in all a good all round mobile, but that is also true to the standard N73.

First up one of the big changes is a lifting of the 1Gb limit on the mini SD card storage to 2gb on the Music edition which puts it on a level playing filed with a small MP3 player. The media player supports MP3, AAC, eAAC, eAAC+ and WMA audio files although it struggles with DRM on almost all formats. There is a nifty bit of integration with Windows media player in which the PC can see the phone as a media player and you can choose which tracks to sync with it using Microsoft’s Media Transfer Protocol (MTP).

It has one of the loudest sets of stereo speakers I’ve heard on a mobile (the same as the standard N73) and although it’ll never win prizes at an audiophile convention they are worth using. Staying with hardware for a moment, the main changes for the N73 Music Edition is the superior AD-41 adapter/stereo headset. This has a standard 3.5mm stereo connector embedded in its control unit, meaning that you can plug in your own in-ear headset rather than having to stick with the slightly cheaper Nokia earbuds.

Then there is Bluetooth and the new A2DP standard which would allow for a good quality stereo signal to be sent to a set of A2DP equipped earphones. That would be if Nokia had opted to equip the ME with this standard, which they have not. It doesn’t include Wi-Fi. Email is also included with SMTP, IMAP4 and POP3 clients supported. Email attachments can be downloaded and saved to the N73 Music Edition’s mini-SD card or to the 42MB of internal memory. The mini-SD card slot is cleverly located at the bottom of the handset. There is also regular MMS and SMS messaging with T9 predictive text input, but the poorly designed keyboard will affect messaging speeds.

A massive 3.2 mega pixel camera with auto focus and Carl Zeiss optics which hides behind a protective shutter in the rear of the phone is present. Images taken with the camera were very clear and crisp without the blurring, there is a 20 X digital zoom and the whole thing is simple to use with a dedicated shutter switch and a LED flash which is ok for very close shots. It hasn’t replaced my point and shoot digital camera just yet as the time to take a photo is still too long. I think this more due to the OS than the actual camera. It’s usually a good 7 – 8 seconds between the time it takes for me to get my phone out my pocket and actually snap a photo. In my opinion this is still too slow. Video recording is also available; up to 1.5 hours of video in MP4 and 3GP formats can be stored. Videos are captured in 352 x 288 resolution at up to 15fps and feature automatic white balance control and up to 8x digital zoom. There is a second, integrated VGA camera on the front with 2x digital zoom. This second camera can be used for both video calling over a 3G network or for taking portrait photos.

The extras and applications available for download on the series 60 platform are plentiful and you can load them via Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Pop port (USB), IR or on the SD card. Nokia have thrown in one new feature, 3D tones. This little application allows you to add some 3D effects to ringtones and music using a delay system on the stereo speakers. You can choose between (living room, cave, railway station, etc) a bit like some of the EQ systems on the cheaper MP3 players! It is a gimmick but fun to play with and something you won’t find on your friends phones.

In truth the Music edition is little more than a standard N73 with whatever tweaks could be bestowed on it via a firmware upgrade using Nokia Software Updater. I’d say got for it, the colour scheme and higher SD card limit are worth having. Though the N95 may be better in terms of features but you get a lot more from the N73ME when you consider that its less than half the price. Maybe we can think of the N95 after a while (a few months maybe) when prices come down to more sane levels.