Nokia E73

Nokia E73 Modes design is quite similar to the E72, not that we have any complaints, since we loved the E72s form factor. Nokia E73 is incredibly sleek at 4.5 inches tall by 2.3 inches wide by 0.4 inch thick, making it easy to slip into a pants pocket and comfortable to hold as a phone and messaging device. Its relatively light at 4.5 ounces but it has a very solid construction and feels like a device worth more than $70. The smartphones display measures 2.4 inches diagonally and supports 16 million colors with a 320x240 resolution.

The size is on par with the one on BlackBerry Bold 9700, but its not quite as sharp (the Bolds screen is 480x360) so images and text dont look quite as smooth on Nokia E73 as the Bold. Still, its clear and vibrant, but tends to wash out slightly in bright sunlight. Like a number of Nokias latest smartphones, Nokia E73 Mode lets you switch your home screen between two modes: personal and work. You can customize each mode with which apps you want accessible from the home screen, with the idea that youll have work apps front and center in work mode, and more fun apps, such as the music player and photo gallery, in personal mode, so you can better balance your life.

Whether one can really "turn off" work mode is probably up to the individual, but nice a sentiment by Nokia. As for the general user interface, the Symbian based Nokia E73 runs on the S60 platform so the experience is much like the E72. The UI isnt particularly pretty, looking rather old actually, and requires some extra steps when navigating within an app, but its fairly intuitive. Below the screen, you get a number of navigation controls, including Talk and End keys, two soft buttons, four shortcuts (home, contacts, calendar, and messages), and a combination optical trackpad or D-pad that Nokia calls the Optical Navi key.

To close an app, you much choose Options and then Exit. Nokia E73 Modes QWERTY keyboard is, in a word, excellent. The rectangular buttons are a good size and have a nice domed shape, making them easy to press. The numbers share space with the letter keys in the middle of the keyboard. Though Nokia chose to highlight them in black against a dark gray background, theyre actually not that hard to see. Its really one of the best physical keyboards weve used in recent memory, as we were able to type messages quickly and with little error. On the left spine, theres a Micro-USB port and a microSD expansion slot, both protected by an attached cover.

Meanwhile, you will find a volume rocker and a voice command button on the right side, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack and power button on top. The camera and flash are, as usual, found on back. Nokia E73 also has a front facing camera, but dont think this is in response to the HTC Evo 4G and iPhone 4. Most Nokia smartphones have had front facing cameras and video conferencing capabilities long before these two phones put it on peoples radars. Though the interest hasnt necessarily been there in the past, you can, in fact, make video calls with Nokia E73 with an app, such as Fring, which is available through the Nokia Ovi Store.

Nokia bills the E73 Mode as a mobile to balance work and life, and the smartphone has a pretty well rounded feature set, though wed say it skews a little more to mobile professionals than consumers, particularly with the messaging capabilities. The smartphone offers Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync support (e-mail, contacts, calendar, and tasks) as well as IBM Lotus Notes and comes with a mobile VPN client if you need to tap into your companys intranet. The Nokia Messaging app can also handle as many as 10 personal accounts, including POP3, IMAP4, and SMTP, and comes with push deliver, an attachment viewer, search, filters, and HTML support. In addition to e-mail, T-Mobile bundles the E73 with a handful of instant messaging clients and social networking apps, such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

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