With T-Mobile boasting the largest Android collection around, the HTC HD2 and the ever-present collection of Blackberry’s a lot of people might ask where does the Nokia E73 fit in. Nokia’s last outing on T-Mobile was the Nuron, which released just a few months back and hasn’t made any headlines since. Thanks to the boys at Engadget and Phonescoop however, who managed to go hands on and report back their findings. Engadget has a video up along with their own review but we’ve decided to run with one of our own handy sources who managed to go hands on with the device as well and the video appears above!
Some highlights from the Engadget review:
- The E73 also shares what might be its single most important trait with the E71: rock-solid construction.
- If there was a complaint to be levied against the E71’s design, it’d have to be the keyboard;
- It seems Nokia got a little too ambitious here with the spec sheet; they should’ve picked a rocker or an optical pad, not both, because we found the pad uncomfortable to “swipe” when it’s surrounded by a raised ring.
- On the bright side, T-Mobile has done a marvelous job of staying hands-off with the E73’s software build, leaving it nearly bone stock
- Nokia isn’t really playing up the E73’s front-facing camera, and it turns out there’s a good reason for that.
- Speaking of the camera, the E73’s primary shooter — a 5 megapixel unit with LED flash — wasn’t half bad,
- What ultimately makes the Mode a potential winner, though, is the price — we’re talking about $69.99 for a legitimate 5 megapixel smartphone that looks (and feels) like it’s been wrought from a single ingot of steel.
From Phonescoop:
- It’s an elegant messaging device with hardware that works as well as it looks and feels.
- While the software is powerful and lets users do pretty much anything, its bogged down user interface is beyond old and frustrating to use.
- Nokia has placed a nice D-pad in the middle of all these buttons. It’s the perfect-sized squircle, with just the right amount of edge so that it is easy to find and use.
- The E73 excelled at collecting T-Mobile’s signal.
- Call clarity with the E73 was outstanding. Nokia knows how to make phones that are superior as phones, and the E73 is no different.