Nokia N73 Review

Nokia does a lot of imaginative design work with handsets involving fancy shapes and sizes, twisty bits and suchlike. How nice, then, to get a Nokia handset that feels like a phone should feel in the hand and pocket (light, comfortable, unashamedly rectangular) and yet still packs in lots of features.

Weighing a mere 116g and measuring just 110 x 49 x 19mm, you could easily think the N73 is a pretty standard handset. But it is in fact brimming with features. It runs on Symbian S30 v3 and sports all that the operating system has to offer.

The star of the N73 show, though, is its camera. This is a 3.2-megapixel job with Carl Zeiss optics which ensure clear, sharp pictures.

Anyone wanting to use a handset for near-serious photography (serious shots need a dedicated digital camera), will find the auto-focus and macro modes a boon, while the easy to use controls, involving using the responsive mini joystick under the screen to move through on-screen icons and clicking to make selections for settings like ISO, scene mode and white balance, are almost frighteningly user-friendly.

We also like the sliding cover which protects the lens from scratches and dirt when not in use and, when slid away, starts the camera's software running. Not a 'first' for this handset by any means, but welcome nonetheless.

There is plenty more. The N73 is a 3G handset with a front-facing camera for video calling. With music playback on board as well as the camera you might want to augment the 42MB of internal memory with a miniSD card. The slot is on the bottom edge of the casing and has a protective cover.

An FM radio with Visual Radio support is present and, for the Web-minded, a browser and Nokia's Lifeblog software are here, the latter enabling you to post a blog from the handset. Add in the usual contact and diary management and supplied PC synchronisation software and the N73 is a nicely rounded handset.

Nokia includes the QuickOffice document readers for Word, PowerPoint and Excel as well as a PDF reader just in case you want to do some serious reading work on the 2.4-inch screen. Frankly, though, if you are interested in that kind of activity to a serious degree you should be looking at a Smartphone with a far bigger screen and maybe data editing capabilities instead of just viewing.

One oddity is the set of stereo speakers on the top and bottom edges. They do simulate stereo sound rather nicely but you have to manipulate the handset around to really hear what is going on. With the phone flat on a desk we couldn't discern stereo effects at all. On the other hand there are some stereo ringtones on board, and some of these do sound rather good through the headset.

Nokia - N73 features - Verdict

The N73 is a standard-looking candybar handset with a good range of features and a decent camera. You can get it for free on some contracts, and these factors mean it should appeal to those who value functions but don't need the bling.

Nokia 8801 Review

Nokia 8801 Review - A very expensive stainless-steel shelled cell phone, the Nokia 8801 packs quite a punch - at least to your wallet. At eight hundred dollars, you will be emptying your pockets on this luxury slider. Can a cell phone really be worth the extreme blow to your budget?




In the United States, this question won’t trouble you buy it online as it isn’t yet available through a U.S. carrier. It is available only on Nokia’s website.

The phone’s small style can hamper some, as it takes a second or two to even figure out how to open it.

The 8801’s display is amazing. It has a 265,000 color TFT LCD screen. With a 208 by 208 pixel 1.75 inch display, you can’t go wrong. The animated menus are fine, but looking a little older as time passes - this phone was released last year.

The Nokia 8801 features a keypad that is black and backlit. The beginning/end keys are about where the soft keys should be though, so beware. The volume keys on the side of the phone are gone.

The charging stand glows blue. It’s as if your phone is put on for a show.

The Nokia 8801 has a good music player with shuffle and repeat options. With FM radio, you can always have music.

Without the option to expand the memory, some missing or under performing features, low battery life, and high prices, you can expect a debate over this one.

Nokia N80 Review

Nokia N80 Review - Nokia N80 is a 3G smartphone, providing benefits to its users from a wide range of advanced software to excellent functionality and wireless connectivity. Testing has shown that the phone is somewhat slow in booting up and also in operation, however.

The N80 is a sliding phone like Nokia 6280 or Nokia 6111. It has been noticed that the phone slides open by itself when carried in a bag or in your pocket, which is highly undesirable. It measures 95 x 50 x 26 mm and weighs 134 g, making it one of the lightest smartphone handsets around It is a quad band plus 3G phone supporting GSM - 850 MHz, 900 MHz, and 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz and 3G WCDMA 1900 or 2100 MHz frequency bands.

Nokia N80 has one of the best LCD displays, with a resolution of 352 x 416 pixels and boasting 262,144 colours. The 3 mega-pixel camera in the phone takes good pictures and has a 20x digital zoom and flash. However, the quality of photographs is no where near to the ones taken by Nokia N90. The phone has an advanced music player, which allows you to pick your favourite music track from a displayed play list. The audio quality of Nokia n80 is considered to be very good and the package includes a stereo headset. The phone comes with a 128 MB memory card, which is enough a storage space for your music files. It plays, MP3, AAC, m4a, eAAC+ and WMA format music tracks.

The battery has a talk time of 3 hours, with 8 days as stand-by. In actual experience it has been found that it is not worth expecting one or two days use from this phone and as such, any extensive use of music and smartphone features will be rather disappointing. The phone has all the basic features as desired in a mobile handset, such as, Voice recording, dialing and voice commands, MP3 ring-tones, Java applications, SMS, MMS, email, etc.