Nokia N72 Review
An Introduction
Nokia N72 bar-shaped phone is another
Nokia Smartphone but differs from the latest Editions on the shelves of the
Nokia smart phones as it runs on Symbian 8.1 OS with 2.8 edition user interface.
This transitional system has to offer features from both previous Nokia Symbian
smart phones and some of the characteristics of the 3rd edition UI.
Attractive and shiny
Nokia N72 fascinates
with its truly genuine design and construction conception. This first
impression, however, is not always positive; many people find the phone rather
repulsive and not at all attractive. May be this is the phone that has earned
the most controversial user opinions. The black bar with silver linings shines
with glamour but can be hardly considered a classy phone when looked at first
sight. Basically, it shines "cheaply". One very interesting moment in
its design is the camera lens' cover on its back as it reminds the cover of
Sony Ericsson K800. This one is much bigger, of course, and its construction is
much worse than the one in the 3.2 megapixel phone.
Nokia N72 definitely
isn't a small phone. It is big and heavy, but quite ok for a Smartphone. As a
matter of fact, it is one of the smallest in the N-series. It feels solid and
stable. The small buttons of the keypad add a delicate touch in the design that
surely enriches the style factor of N72. A bad thing about the looks of the
phone is that it attracts fingerprints as hell. There is hardly any part of it
that can remain clear of those. But even the "cheap" shine and the
fingerprint magnet are not enough to make the phone a bad choice. Well, it took
some time to get used to its weirdness but in the end it becomes a regular part
of your every day equipment. You will get fond of it sooner than you expect.
Body Structure
Nokia N72 has a
pretty solid construction, even more considering the plastic that the phone is
made of. The camera lens' cover is not that stable, however. It is much too
loose, in our opinion. It slides downwards, uncovering the lens of the 2
megapixel camera. This cover is pretty attractive at first sight but when you
use the phone for some time it may become the only thing you hate about it.
Nokia N72 front
panel is very interesting as it is made of black plastic with silver lines
striking through it. The silver lines are forming interesting ornaments and in
their bottom, keypad zone, it shelters four buttons; the Menu, Pencil (on the
left side), Music and correction C button (on the right side). The front panel
also houses the 176 x 208 pixels resolution TFT display, which is capable of
displaying up to 256K colors. Its quality is not among the best ones even more
after we've tested Nokia phones from the 3rd edition of S60 user interface,
which are supplied with great displays.
The back of the
phone is pretty bare but cannot be consider in any case boring. The camera
lens' cover makes up for the simplicity of the phone's back. On the top there
is a Nokia sign in white color, just above the camera lens' cover. This
controversial part of the phone is made of shiny black plastic with grey
ornaments on it. It really does look interesting. Beneath it is the camera lens
and a flash diode next to it. In the very bottom is the battery cover loose
button.
When you remove the
battery cover (which by the way is pretty easy) you will see the BL-5C Li-Ion
970 mAh battery which should last up to 260 hours in stand-by mode and up to 3
hours and 35 minutes of talk time, Under the battery is the SIM card bed. The
SIM card can be removed quite easily and this is not an issue in this phone.
The left side
of the phone is completely empty. It contains nothing. The right side, however,
shelters the camera release button and the memory card slot. An unusual
solution is the positioning of the camera release button as the phone cannot be
used horizontally to take pictures. The low position of the button makes it
perfect for such shooting mode. The memory card slot can take cards of the reduced
size Dual Voltage Multimedia Card (RS-DV-MMC) type. During our testing period
we had a 128 MB one which should be included in the retail package. Nokia
Stereo Headset HS-31, Connectivity Cable CA-53, wrist strap and cleaning cloth
can also be found in the box. This, however, is market dependant.
The top side of
Nokia N72 has only the Switch On/Off/Profiles button. It is rather small but
still functional. You can press it easily with the soft part of your thumb. On
the bottom side of N72 are located the Nokia Pop-port and the charger port. The
charger type used is the new, slim one.
Reality???
The keypad of the
phone looks quite frustrating at first sight. The silver lines that contain
four of the functional keys create the impression of a button chaos. This,
however, is just a momentary impression. When you get used to the phone you
will even find out that this positioning of the keys is very useful and
comfortable. The two soft keys and the green and red receiver buttons
surrounding the navigation D-pad are a common idea. The numeric keys below them
are positioned well and the spacing between them is enough for you to
distinguish them easily. The buttons are almost flat but this is not a problem
when trying to reach the desired button in the dark or in your pocket. The
backlighting of the keypad is perfect; it glows in soft light evenly under every
button.
Nokia N72
display looks really poor when compared to the latest displays of the 3rd
edition S60 user interface Symbian Nokia phones. The TFT technology with 256K
colors and 176 x 208 pixels resolution is not so bad but is far from the best.
The size of the display deserves a compliment as it is 2.1" in diagonal.
The picture is vivid and sharp but most of the graphics lack precision in the
small details. The backlighting of the display works pretty well. However, the
display is almost illegible in direct sunlight. There is still much to be done
in this matter.
Operating System
Nokia N72 runs on
Symbian 8.1 with 2.8th edition of the Series 60 user interface. This
transitional edition is between the 2.5th and 3rd editions of the UI. It has
features from both of them and can be considered as the last rehearsal before
the 3rd edition. The greatest thing about the phone using an older version of
the OS is that there are tons of available applications whereas the latest
Symbian 9.1 S60 UI 3rd edition smart phones lack wide third-party software
availability. The active stand-by display features five icons of the most used
applications on the top row and other information such as calendar entries,
current played music, messages, missed calls, etc.
Above all
this are the network signal bar, the clock (digital or analog), carrier name,
date and battery strength bar. The wallpaper is user configurable, of course,
as well as the two functions assigned to the two soft keys. The main menu can
be organized as a grid of 3 x 3 items or as a list. Some of the submenus are in
list view with icons, some without icons and there even some in grid view. The
phone has three preinstalled themes which change the wallpapers and the color
scheme.
Nokia N72 displays
the date and time and the current missed calls and received messages when
inactive. The Switch On/Off/Profiles button brings up a menu in which you can
change the current ringing profile, switch off the phone, remove the memory
card or switch off the phone features of N72 (flight mode).
Memory
The internal memory
of the phone is 20 MB and is shared between the different applications. There
is also a 128 MB RS-DV-MMC card included in the package. The phone doesn't seem
to have any difficulties in reading the memory card and the overall speed is
great. The menu speed is very good and the only lags are when trying to access
the camera application and when switching on another application when having
some opened already.
There is a Go To
menu in the phone which operates as a second main menu. It can be fully
customized and can be assigned to one of the soft keys. The Go To wallpaper and
contents can be changed according to the user's preference. Also, it can be
organized as a matrix grid of 4 x 5 items and as a list with icons.
Different
ringing profiles can be accessed by the button on the top of the phone or by
the menu. If you wish to personalize them you must go through the menu. There
are various personalization options such as ringing tone, volume, vibration,
etc.
Another Symbian phonebook
Nokia N72 phonebook
is a regular Symbian one. It has tons of field to assign to a contact and can
be organized by First or Last name. It can be searched by gradually writing the
initial letters of the desired contact's name. The phonebook supports groups
but they cannot be used as a call filter. N72 also supports Speaker Independent
Voice dialing which means that you can pronounce the name of the contact you
wish to call and the phone will try and search it for you without you having to
record your voice beforehand.
Calls
Network reception
and signal strength are great. The sound during calls is very good too. This,
of course, is natural these days as most of the phones offer perfect call
capabilities. There is no place for such mistakes as bad network reception or
poor microphone and speaker.
The calls log in
Nokia N72 strongly resembles the logs in other Nokia Symbian phones. As a
matter of fact, it is the same. It can contain up to 10 records in every one of
the categories, which are Missed, Received and Dialed numbers. There is also a recent
calls tab which shows the last call events, including missed, dialed and
received calls. Every record contains information about the call duration and
there is a counter which tells you of the overall calls duration.
There is also
a Package data counter which records the data transfers. When you have a missed
call, there is a pop-up window on the main screen which reminds you. If you
ignore it, there will be a small sign in top right corner which indicates that
you still haven't checked out whose call you have missed.There is a great
feature in the phone which allows you to send a predefined text message to a
caller if you wish not just to reject his call but explain to him why you
cannot talk right now. It is well known from the Series 40 models but not many
people are using it. it allows you to inform the other party of your current
unavailability without rudely rejecting it.
SMS and email’s
Nokia N72 messaging
menu sure looks a lot similar to every other Symbian messaging menu. It contain
the Inbox of all messages except emails, the Drafts, the email inboxes (if
any), Reports folder, My Folders, Outbox and Sent. The message editor is the
usual one. It can fit up to six lines en bloc and show the character count and
the amount of messages that will be sent in the top left corner. Of course,
there is T9 dictionary to assist you in the writing process. When reading a
message there are six lines too. The email client is the standard Symbian one
too. It works with SMTP and POP protocols and can handle attachments
seamlessly.
Music
The music player in
Nokia N72 is called Music. It has some good features as it supports playlists
but lacks even the most primitive equalizer. It can play in background and the
current song is displayed on the active stand-by display. Nokia N72 has a FM
radio but it can be accessed only if you have the headset plugged in as it
serves as an antenna. There is the Visual Radio application which can display
broadcasted picture or video from the radio station (if supported).
2.0-Mega Pixel at the Back
Nokia N72 has a 2
megapixel camera of a good quality. The lens protecting cover on the back of
the phone automatically activates the camera application when slid open. This,
however, is not the best solution as it opens unintendedly pretty often. The
capture button is situated for horizontal shooting mode but the camera has
vertical mode only. This is a bit confusing and the soft key assigned for
taking a picture is much better way to capture the picture. Since the camera in
Nokia N72 is identical to the camera in Nokia N70 these is no point in
describing the camera in details again.
No 3G or IrDA
Nokia N72 has GPRS
and EDGE connectivity features, both Class 10. It is also a tri-band GSM phone
but has no 3G networks support. For the short distance transfers, the phone
supports Bluetooth but lacks Infrared port and thus cannot communicate with
older devices, which lack Bluetooth. The phone also has USB 2.0 support, with a
Nokia data cable, of course.
Old browser
There are two
Internet browsers in Nokia N72. One of them is the old browser, used in
previous Symbian Nokia phones. It opens HTML pages but lacks sophisticated
features included in the new browser in 3rd edition S60 phones. Smaller and
simpler pages are opened easily but complex pages are chaotically reordered and
are mostly difficult to read. The other
browser we found on the phone was the Opera browser which handles web pages
slightly better than the one mentioned above. This is the full scale Opera for
Symban, not the Opera mini Java browser. It has some nice features too, but
cannot be compared to the new Symbian browser in terms of functionality.
Other Functionality
The Office menu of
the phone contains the following applications: Recorder, Converter, To-do,
Calculator, Notes, Security, Quick sheet, Quick word, Quick point, Adobe
Reader, HP Info Print. The Recorder application is the common voice recorder
with 1 minute recording limit, which is quite strange but is usual for the
Nokia Symbian phones. The Converter can convert different units.
The To-do application is for
creating short notes with assignment which have to be done in short period. The
Calculator is a simple one and lacks complicated features. The Notes
application is for creating text notes and can be easily synchronized with PC
which is very useful for transferring large text files to your phone. The
Security application is a Mobile version of the famous F-Secure anti-virus
program. The Quick sheet, Quick word and Quick point
applications allow the user to open Office documents as Excel, Word and PowerPoint
files. All applications have few features and lack essential ones, the main of
which is that they cannot edit the documents. The Adobe reader opens PDF files
and is very useful. The HP Info Print application is very handy if you wish to
print a part of your phone's data. The Calendar application is outside the
Office menu. It has its own separate place in the Main Menu. The Calendar has
three views: Monthly, Weekly and Daily. Different notes can be assigned in it.
Other useful stuff
One application that was not mentioned before is the Nokia Life blog application. It is used for publishing to your blog directly from your phone. It works with most of the major blog service sites in the world. There are also some printing applications such as the Image print application for printing images from the camera.Entertainment
There are three
preinstalled games in Nokia N72. As it is a Symbian 2nd Edition phone, it
wouldn't be very hard to find tons of games to install on it. The three games
are Card Deck, Snakes & Snowboard 3D. The Card Deck game is an album of
popular card games. Snake is a 3D version of the popular Nokia Snake game. Its
rather difficult controls make it a real annoyance. The Snowboard 3D game is
the best of the games as it has great graphics and is not very easy which
motivates you to try again and again.
Main features
- 2 megapixel camera
- Video recording in CIF (352x288 pixel) resolution at 15fps
- FM radio
- GPRS & EDGE Class 10
- RS-DV-MMC card slot
- 128 MB memory card included
Main disadvantages
- Big size & weight
- No dedicated camera macro mode
- Poor display
- No 3G support
- Controversial design
- Loose camera lens cover
Final Words
Nokia N72 is a very controversial phone. It lacks essential features like 3G and Infrared, it has less memory than other phones, the display is rather poor but still it is a pretty good phone. It comes in almost the same price as the N70 model but lacks some features. The main advantage is the tons of software and games for it as it is not a 3rd edition UI. Most probably people who fall in love with its design from first sight will be the main customers. Otherwise, it is hardly possible for Nokia N72 to become a market success..
 Specifications |
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Basic Specifications |
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Manufacturer
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Nokia
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Announced
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2006,Q2
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Status
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available
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Network
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GSM 900/1800/1900 MHz
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Size
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109x53.5x17.5 mm
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Form Factor
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bar
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Antenna
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internal
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Weight
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124 g
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Battery
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Display
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