Posted by Vince Wadhwani on Aug 31, 2006

Dec 04 update Also check here for instructions on connecting to the Internet using your N73's data package with Mac OS 10.4 and Bluetooth.

Nov 15 update: Be sure to read my experiences with the November firmware update too.

After spending a few months with T-mobile's crippled Samsung T-809, I went out and bought a Nokia N73 from Hi-mobile. I scoured the net and took counsel from wise friends before plunking down close to 5 franklins for this particular model.

First things first. I love Nokia phones. Maybe it's because I owned a Nokia back in the dot com days, but every phone I've owned since then (A Motorola, Ericsson, and Samsung) just could not compete. The closest I got to being satisfied was the Siemens SX1 which I used until it died. But this review isn't about any of those phones. It's about the Nokia N73 and, more specifically, how it does with Mac OS X 10.4.7.

Mobile phones are great. They do all sorts of things in conjunction with your computer as long as you use their proprietary suite of software that conveniently runs across multiple operating systems with names that all begin with Microsoft. I wanted to see just how well the Nokia held up when out of its comfortable bounds of Windows integration. But more on that later.

First, the summary for those too lazy to read further:

  1. It's a great size phone. Not too big, not too small. Buttons are solid to push but keep your nails trimmed.
  2. Call quality is great, battery life phenomenal, and I didn't have any failures due to bad firmware. Perhaps it's been upgraded since the first ones shipped to all of them pesky 'early adopter' folks.
  3. The headphone suck suck suck. Nokia, you really let me down with the shipped headphones. It's not too late to fix this!
  4. The picture quality is orgasmic. Plenty of pics to prove that all over the net so no need to suck up my bandwidth for proof, m'kay?

So that's it in a nutshell. But don't give up on this article just yet. The best is yet ahead. Promise!

The presentation and packing of the phone is great. But who cares. You get the box, you open it, pull out the phone, stick in your sim and battery and curse everything that is Physics while you wait for it to charge up. You wonder if battery life will take a hit if you use it while it's soaking up juice, but eventually find the patience to wait it out. Then, it's time to play!

The thing that annoyed me most about first getting started was the miniSD card. You get this serviceable 128MB card (4 times bigger than the crap 32MB transflash I got with my Samsung T-809) but there are no instructions on how to release the slot cover to put it in. Come on guys! I'm an idiot, I know that, so please put some info in the freaking manual for me. I already know how to make a call so perhaps you could have spared some text from that section? The last thing I want to do is rip open the slot only to find that you've upgraded it from a plastic pull and stick into some fancy schmancy auto eject thing. I was scared that I was going to mangle my new phone before even making a call! Thanks for the stress, dorks.

So battery charged, sim card in, and mini-SD loaded it's time to turn the phone on. Ok. Turning the phone on. Um.. ok, turn the ph.. there it is. Thirty some seconds later we have lift-off. Good thing the phone's battery lasts so long. Mine's only been charged once in the 10 days I've been using it.

The N73 comes with a host of applications but there are a few I want to mention specifically:

  • Two different web browsers. Both are very good quality though one is clearly superior. Even better than the old version of Opera I had on my SX1. I'm still undecided on whether to keep it or buy Opera though.. that was a great browser. Kudos to Nokia for also pre-configuring the N73 to work on T-mobile's network. You saved me a two hour call to T-mob's "tech support" and I really love you for that! 4/5
  • Flickr Support. Yes, you'll have to use a password specifically given to you by Flickr for the Nokia integration. It does take a while to upload those pictures but that's mostly because T-mobile's data service is slow and the pics are such high quality. Still, the interface is simple enough and works as expected. Could be better though: 4/5
  • Sudoku: Finally, a free version of Sudoku! Yeah, I know this will be the reason you decide to buy this phone. 5/5
  • MP3 Player: The SX1 had an MP3 player that was so bad that I converted my entire library to OGG and used Oggplay instead. I think that Oggplay is one of the best music apps I've ever used on handphone and this included Nokia MP3 player does not change my mind. Still, after using this one for a while I'm not running off to convert Oggs and upload them manually to the phone. Why? Because I'm a lazy lazy lazy person who wants everything to sync as easily as possible. 4/5

Which brings me to syncing. Really, the phone works, takes good pictures, has nice apps, etc. but how is it in the long run? If you've used a Nokia phone in the past, you'll appreciate how easy it is to move around and do the little things: add a contact to the address book, use numbers, send text messages etc. A lot of data can be entered right there on the phone but sometimes you need a back up. Without the Nokia suite at hand (this is OS X remember?) you'll have to rely on Apple's iSync.

Too bad. Because as of this writing iSync does not support the N73. But don't fret, the community to the rescue! A German guy named Tom has written a plugin that solves the syncing issue. The plugin is currently at version 2.6 (this guy works fast!). Basically, download it, open the Folder Contents of iSync and drop the folder in Contents/Plugins/ApplePhoneConduit.syncdevice/Contents/Plugin. Helpfully, he gives you an alias that says "Datei hier drauf ziehen!" which means "Drag the plugin here" or something along those lines. I don't speak German and the site is painfully slow so here is direct link to the file. You can thank me later.

Ok, so now iSync works and I'm a happy guy. Well, mostly happy. You see I'm still living this Drag and Drop existence where I grab files from my iTunes library and dump them into the Sounds/Digital folder on my mini-SD card. Ug. What. A. (no pun intended) Drag. "Would somebody PLEASE write some software to handle this?", I thought.

And, although the date of the software predates my purchase of the phone, somebody did. The application is called iTuneMyWalkman. This puppy will take any playlists in your iTunes that start with ITMW and sync them to your phone. Even better, it will sync your podcasts if you want it to as well. It takes into account how much space you have on your memory card and will even re-encode your song files on the fly to a lower bitrate to save you space. That, my friends, is totally kick-ass. It means that you can keep your 9MB Portishead file on your iTunes system hooked up to your stereo and yet squeeze the sucker down to 3MB for your commute on your N73. All without retaining two different versions on your Mac.

But wait, there's more! Not only will it handle all your music, but you remember that awesome 3.2 megapixel camera on the N73? Yes, you can upload those directly to Flickr, but iTuneMyWalkman can also copy them directly into your iPhoto. All this functionality can be yours for $0.00. That's right, this app is free. Get it here and then go donate here. If this thing could sync via Bluetooth I'd probably wet my pants.

So in essence I've got iTunes syncing, iPhoto syncing, and my addresses too. It looks like the iPhone is already here thanks to some great help from Apple and the community and I'm happy as a dog for it. The only snafu I found is that the phone does not want recognize being properly unmounted from Mac OSX, so even after you eject the drive Nokia will warn you about possible loss of data.

Everything sounds rosy and great, but the one sour spot in the entire experience is the headphones. In a word: sux0r. These headphones must have been specifically designed by Nokia engineers to let in as much environmental noise as possible (I'm talking about car traffic not greenpeace, Sherlock) and to tangle as quickly and often as possible. Now, I could deal with a tangle or two, but this is ridiculous! In fact, I've found that, even while wearing them, they will spontaneously start to tangle like a live organism, possibly putting you, your family, and the entire country in danger.

It would be one thing if the sound quality was decent but it's not. Nokia must be trying to sell you that adapter that lets you use your own 3.5mm headphones. I just paid over $500 and you want me to buy an accessory to listen to music through my own headphones? Shame on you Nokia! Your competitors include this functionality for free. Save those shoddy tactics for the cheap phones you sell through Cingular and T-mobile! What's worse is that, while the adapter that they do sell, has a "remote control for answering and ending phone calls" it does not contain a mic. So while you can listen to music and answer when you get a phone call, you can't damn well say anything without fumbling around and talking into the phone itself. Great design work, boys. Were you thinking of flight-safe mode when you designed that adapter? Because, oh wait, there is no flight safe mode. Correction: There is an 'Offline Mode' which does this'.

But other than that one mis-step (and it is a rather annoying one) I am very much enjoying my N73. The next steps for me will be to load up on some software and maybe redesign my site to make it more mobile friendly.

Overall score: 8.5/10

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