N73 Update

[ad]

Well, it’s been about two weeks since I wrote gushingly about the Nokia N73 on this page. Has the bloom come off the rose? Well – in some small ways, yes, and I will detail those here, but in the main I am still very impressed with this device.

My biggest pet peeve is picture quality. For a device that prominently displays the fact that it sports a “Carl Zeiss” lens and a 3.2 megapixel sensor, I would expect higher quality images. The problem seems to be in the software. Even at its highest image quality setting, the JPEG compression is jacked way up. A typical highest-quality image out of the phone comes in at around 500k. My old 2-megapixel Powershot S100 used to produce images around the same size, for comparison. Considering you can now buy 1GB cards for this thing, I think it ought to be possible to squeeze some higher quality photos out of it. The auto white balance is also pretty wonky. My sense is that the sharpening algorithm is also jacked way up but it’s kind of difficult to tell with all the compression artifacts in every picture. It also takes a while for the camera to get ready to take pictures and there is too long a delay between the time you depress the button and when the picture is actually taken – resulting in many missed shots, especially when your subjects are fast-moving children. Don’t get me wrong: for a camera phone, it is pushing the envelope. But Nokia really markets this phone as a digital camera as well as a phone and in my view it needs some tweaking in order to make good on this promise.

My second area of frustration is with the Bluetooth support. I had expected some improvement over the N70, but unfortunately I find it still craps out quite often. The only remedy is to go in to the control panel and turn Bluetooth off and on again. This usually fixes the problem, but when you’re trying to make or receive a call on the go, or connect to the Internet to quickly send/receive email, this can be very frustrating.

Both of these are software issues so they could potentially be addressed by firmware updates.

[ad]

Liked this post? Follow this blog to get more. 

15 Comments on “N73 Update

  1. I agree with you it’s a great phone, but could/should be better. The shutter lag is pretty significant (at least one full second, often more).

    The camera seems to take a long time to ‘write’ the image to memory, so taking photos in sequence takes ages.

    Also, taking photos with NO flash at low light has a major drawback – the focusing method depends on beaming white light towards the subject (many cameras instead use IR that is invisible to the naked eye)… therefore, it is impossible to be inconspicuous when taking shots in low light.

  2. Hi Dan,

    This might be a stupidly simple question, but have you figured out how to lock the keypad on your n73???

    I’ve tried the booklet, the website, everything, but no cigar. My friend says his is top left key followed by hash, but my top left key is set to contacts, so takes me straight there. I’m not sure if I have to change this key’s setting- if so, what do I change it to???

    Hope you can help dude- my friends are getting sick of receiving ‘fake’ calls from my pocket…

    Cheers,
    Frustrated

  3. There seems to be no way to turn off the light when taking photo or video with N73? I want to take photo and video of my new born.

  4. Hi Dan,
    The link you provided is no longer available. Could you please re-post the link.
    BTW The phone is great but leaving out the JPEG compression option on this kind of mobile phone is totally idiotic. Also, the thing I miss the most is automatic keypad lock. I still can’t believe my 6020 has it and my new N73 doesn’t.

  5. Hi there,

    I am equally frustrated at the ridiculous JPG compression which completely ruins what would otherwise be a good photo. The most irritating thing about this is that the N80 photo’s show hardly any visible compression- annoying, but also shows that it’s possible for the version of S60 to take better quality shots – so perhaps we can get this in future firmware updates.

    Let me know if you ever get anywhere with this!

  6. The Nokia N73 link that Dan posted is good but there’s a rogue fullstop/period at the end of the url which is confusing Nokia. Try removing the fullstop/period:

    http://www.nokia.co.uk/A4226014

    I’m trying to upload my own mp3s using iTuneMyWalkman. Anyone had any success? I can’t work out where to upload the files…

  7. If any Mac users are interested, iTuneMyWalkman is pretty darn cool. It’s free as well. http://ilari.scheinin.fidisk.fi/itunemywalkman/

    I’ve worked out what I was doing wrong. Once your new files are synched you need to update your Music Library.

    A question of RTFM:

    “After you add or remove music files in the device, update your music library. Select Options> Music library> Options > Update Music library.”

  8. i have a nokia n73 from 2 month but have a oroblem , this is i cant make any install any software may be have a problem at the software the customer servive in egypt tell me that is a techknical problem but i think the problem in the mobile , but just to need to aske about how can i make a upgradefor this mobile ,

    it will be great from you if answer me

    THANKS AND BEST REGARDS
    SHADY ADEL

  9. I hav N73 ver 4.0727.2.2.1. RM 133. I hav an erorr f expired certification when i load & instal any application. Wt shuld i do.plz reply.

  10. @Gurprit,

    just change ur phone date to some earlier date, some 6-7 months old and try. i have installed many apps this way. u can change ur phone date to current after installation . app. will still work.

    hope this helps.

  11. Hi Dan,
    got a problem with my N73…while browsing it does not load website once d connection reaches 40.00kb
    all i do is disconnect and reconnect but its irritating

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.