You could be forgiven for thinking that Nokia's N-Series range of
phones are all very similar and that you need the N9Series to get
full multimedia controls. However you'd be wrong as the latest N7*
series phones are quite capable of playing your MP3 files and
even viewing documents. Sat with us for review this week is the
Nokia N72 which is a clean looking if not stunning mobile. Measuring
108.8mm x 53.3mm x 21.8mm and weighing 124 grams it is not the
smallest of fashion mobiles and feels like holding a fat wallet
to your ear.
The Nokia N72 is a fixed keypad phone and is all the better for it,
making for a large well spaced keypad and a huge 2.1 inch (176 x 208
pixels) TFT colour screen.
The screen is aided by an ambient light detector which balances
providing a bight and colourful screen with preserving the battery
life of the N72. Based on the Symbian S60 operating system you can
be sure to get a stable mobile that is packed with features you've
come to expect of Nokia . This provides all the usual PIM
features like a calendar, email and notes plus the series 60 has
also been enabled to read PDF documents which pushes the screen to
its limit and requires a fair bit of scrolling and zooming.
You'd have thought that a multimedia mobile would be fairly well
endowed in the memory department, sadly there is only 20mb free on
the phone. But Nokia have equipped the N72 with a reduced size (rs)
MMC card slot, one that enables the card to be swapped without
having to take the battery off or power the phone down.
Back to the basics and the N72 is a triband mobile which also boasts EGPRS making it pretty good as a business mobile that
doesn't look like a brick. In our tests the RF performance was about
average with it holding onto at least 2 bars of signal in most
locations. Data speeds are limited and not of the 3G level but the
applications on the N72 are hardly data intensive. Web browsing is
well catered for and the familiar Nokia browser features here making
for quick and easy mobile web surfing although you'll find it best
to stick to WAP / mobile sites for the easiest read on the phones
screen.
Multimedia is the extra that Nokia think will make you choose the
N72 over its competition and the music player pre loaded onto the
phone is very good indeed. Should you equip the phone with a decent
sized MMC card then it's quite possible to use the N72 as an MP3
player replacement, plus the player also handles ACC files meaning
it can play your iPod tracks. Should you run out of MP3 racks then
there is the customary FM radio which uses the supplied cabled
earphone kit as an aerial and it is equipped with Visual radio (not
that it is much use in the UK).
Connectivity is taken care of with both Nokias USB pop port cabled
solution and Bluetooth which can be used for both hands free kits
and for file transfer of sync with your nominated PC.
The camera mounted in the rear of the Nokia N72 may only be a 2 mega
pixel offering but the slider mechanism which covers it acts as a
neat way to switch it on and off. Plus it does take remarkably good
pictures given that it is now below the 3 mega pixel standard for
camera phones. Software wise the N series all ship with a gallery
manager which enables basic on phone editing and viewing. The camera
optics are also used for video recording either in MPEG-4 for high
resolution or 3GP for lower quality recordings, there is even a
basic (and we mean basic) video editor on the S60 platform.
Both of the imaging systems (picture and video) are very good for a
phone of this price range but we fear they will only see service for
happy slapping as it falls below the higher spec N90 series video
and camera phones.
Battery life is a bit of an overstated area as during our review
period we had to charge the battery several times despite only
average use (around 30 minutes of calls per day). Nokia claim a
whopping 350 hours of standby which we found reduced dramatically
should you make any serious use of the MP3 playback or smartphone
features. A fair assumption would be 3 days on standby with moderate
use.
After a week of us our thoughts started to solidify on who would buy
and use the N72. If you take a the gloss black version we could see
it being used by almost anyone who wanted a fairly richly featured
mobile but for whom 3G data and WiFi are not a worry. If you opt for
one of the more girly cases we can see it being pitched as a fashion
phone whereby the MP3 / ACC ringtones, wallpapers and multimedia
features being a real winner.
The Nokia N72 may only be a small evolution from the N70 but the
tweaks and extras plus a splash of girly styling are sure to see it
selling well.
You could be forgiven for thinking that Nokia's N-Series range of
phones are all very similar and that you need the N9Series to get
full multimedia controls. However you'd be wrong as the latest N7*
series phones are quite capable of playing your MP3 files and
even viewing documents. Sat with us for review this week is the
Nokia N72 which is a clean looking if not stunning mobile. Measuring
108.8mm x 53.3mm x 21.8mm and weighing 124 grams it is not the
smallest of fashion mobiles and feels like holding a fat wallet
to your ear.
The Nokia N72 is a fixed keypad phone and is all the better for it,
making for a large well spaced keypad and a huge 2.1 inch (176 x 208
pixels) TFT colour screen. 
Both of the imaging systems (picture and video) are very good for a
phone of this price range but we fear they will only see service for
happy slapping as it falls below the higher spec N90 series video
and camera phones.
