Nokia N72 review: Controversy all around

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.

Connectivity menu

An 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.

Bookmarks of the Internet browser

The other browser we found on the phone was the Opera browser which handles web pages slightly better then 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. We cannot be sure that the browser will come with the phone as our device was a test version.

Opera browser

In desperate need of order

The Office menu of the phone contains the following applications: Recorder, Converter, To-do, Calculator, Notes, Security, Quicksheet, Quickword, Quickpoint, 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.

Office menu • Voice recorder • Converter

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.

To-do • Calculator • Notes

The Quicksheet, Quickword and Quickpoint 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.

Quicksheet two possible views • Quicksheet properties • Quickword • options

Adobe Reader • hp front screen • Info Print

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.

Month view • Week view • Day view of the Calendar

Other useful stuff

One application that was not mentioned before is the Nokia Lifeblog 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.

My own submenu • Imaging submenu

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.

Card Deck • Snakes & Snowboard 3D

What's the point?

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.