Elegence Comes To Town Riding on S60 Wheels!

The Nokia N75 is an understated bit of high tech. It looks like a somewhat overgrown 6131 with buttons. But it is so much more inside and outside.

What it shares with the 6131 et. al. is a charging port and Pop-port so your headphones, USB cable and charger will carry over if you are upgrading. Everything else is oh so new, and oh so much better than you'll believe!

Screens - Inner LCD is the same resolution as the 6131 at 240 x 320 but it is gigantic by mobile phone standards at 2.4 in. and bright. Images appear to leap off the screen. The outer LCD is also bright.

Keypad - Large, dimpled, easy to use numeric keys for dialing and texting set the stage. At the top are some new keys such as a dedicated back space key and a menu key. A music key is up there as well as the traditional five way navigation key. All are tastily backlit in a rich blue. The upper end takes some getting used to. You'll find yourself in the music applications unexpectedly until you learn to get around properly up at that end.

Outer Keys - Where to start? Dedicated camera key, volume keys, Music player keys? All are back lit and some are on the front of the flip, like the music player keys, some are on the sides. All function like you'd expect with good feedback and no surprises. You can about run the phone with the flip closed.

Operating system - Nokia S60 3rd Edition User Interface, Symbian 9.1 allows you to multi-task on the phone. QuickOffice, Games, Internet and Music can all run at once. You will take a hit in menu speed if you flog it this way but if you like to multi-task this is your device. Really useful apps such as Mobile Speak for Symbian Phones allows the vision impaired to use the phone. This is a real boon, not just a toy.

Memory - The real memory on the phone, about 60 megabytes, of which you can get to about 35 - 40 megabytes after everything is loaded up is huge. The 6131, for example has 11 megabytes total memory. You'll have to work at it to get the "out of memory" message. You will get it after a while but it takes a while, usually while browsing.

Camera - The sensor is a CMOS 2 Megapixel (1600x1200) fixed focus with LED Flash for still images. The digital zoom prior to exposure is nice. Lots of adjustments available. Videography has QCIF and CIF resolutions at 15 frames per second. The images are okay. It won't replace dedicated imaging equipment. It will allow you to take okay images on the fly when you weren't expecting to need your imaging equipment or didn't want to lug it along.

What's Not to Like?

The SIM slot is gimmicky. Nokia usually has a straight-forward SIM slot. This one is springloaded and will, from time to time spit out your SIM when you don't want it to. Take off the back, remove the battery, re-insert SIM, replace the battery, re-boot. I hope this does not show up in any more Nokia devices.

Most units are locked to AT&T but many have now been unlocked and some are factory unlocked (FU). These are FU units are unusual and really ROCK!

No lens cap. Even the venerable Sony-Ericsson S710a had an integral lens cap. This phone should have had one as well. My finger rests on the lens when I am using the phone.

The locked phone will not update using Nokia Update Software.

If not for the SIM issue this phone would get a 5/5. Having to restart your phone over a design flaw is dumb. In many other respects the N75 is superior to anything else out there.

N75 Is Where It's At!!

My Phone arrived today. To my surprise it was gorgeous... looking @ the reviews on youtube didnt do it justice. It was bigger than the average Razr, but BIGGER is BETTER in my opinion... I like a phone I can feel in my hands and it felt so good. The outside had the connections for USB, Charger, Memory Card Slot, Camera button, a customizeable button, and a little keychain part. There were 3 external MP3 music controls and a pretty clear outside screen. When I turned the phone on it was switched to offline mode which was good.

I opened the flip and the screen was HUGE!! It was so clear and bright and I really appreciated how the fonts were refined and classy and not gaudy and big. The first thing you noticed when you turned it on was the Nokia emblem followed by this very entertaining AT&T flash show (about 3.5 seconds).

The main screen came up and it was a pretty purple brushed color. The keypad buttons were big and had a good feel. The chrome embellished the phone even more and it gave it a very sophisticated appearance. The UI was very simple and fast... it was responsive to everything. The camera was awesome... the 2MP looked like N95's 3.5 MP. It was sick and the camcorder was clear and vibrant and it played in full screen!

The music player was simple but nice and the dual speaker surround system with bass was amazing!! It was so loud.. voulume goes up to 10 and had to keep it on 6. You can bluetooth ringtones and images and even add a microSD card (up to 4GB supported) The phone also has an Infrared port.

I particularly love the text message interface, its very easy and the text is small enough to compose over 300 characters... you can add advanced SMS such as little animations and pictures to text and not get charged for an MMS message.

The new Symbian OS for N-series phones is very fast and responsive. In my honest opinion I would recommend this phone for a person looking for a gorgeous elegant phone with packed features. If you are worried about a bulky phone then this phone is not for you... but it's your loss because this phone works too well to miss out.

Bottom Line; N75 is where it's at.

Overlooked UberPhone

The Nokia N75 is one of the few (perhaps only) series 60 revision 3 phones to be carried by a phone carrier in the US. This is a shame, for the series 60 phones have a very rich development community. Unlike many carrier's phones, it is quite easy to install 3rd party software on the phone, significantly enhancing it's functionality. Nokia has developed interesting software for the phone, such as integrated blogging. They have desktop management software for Windows that allows you to sync your contacts and date book, as well as do other housekeeping. The phone works with iSync on the Mac as well (http://europe.nokia.com/mac), plus there is a media manager application for the Mac that works with iPhoto.

The phone is oriented as a media/web device, with dedicated controls on the outside of the phone for controlling the really nice music player. The phone supports miniSD cards so you can have a couple of gigabytes for music, images and video. Video playback works quite well. Finally, it has a built in FM radio, which will play through the built in stereo speakers, or headphones. It can capture video and still images.

Many of nokia's phones have quite good cameras, but this is a notch below; certainly good enough for outdoor shots, but too noisy for decent indoor shots -- roughly equivalent to the so-so phone built into the iPhone. However, the screen is the best I have ever seen on a cell phone -- clear, bright and sharp -- even in daylight.

The included browser is based on the same core code as Safari and iPhone's web browser, which means many iPhone optimized pages work great on the phone. It is indeed a nice browser, doing a good job of rendering pages on it's small screen.

The biggest glaring error with this phone is that it does not have a built in 3.5 mm jack for a pair of standard headphones. Users have to buy either a dedicated handsfree kit, or a adapter to be able to use their headphones. They should have at least included the adapter with the phone.

If you have a Cingular branded phone, try to get it unlocked (Cingular will do this if you have been a customer for a while -- think it is 6 months). You will want to ask for a "subsidy unlock code". This will not only let you use the phone with any GSM carrier, but will also allow you to install newer Nokia supplied firmware on the phone. The Nokia supplied user interface is much cleaner and more powerful. It does not have the junkware that the Cingular phone has, and functions are a little bit simpler. Understand, though, you will want to spend some time with the manual to uncover all the things this phone can do.

Oh, and by the way -- this phone is a world phone -- capable of working anywhere in the world that has GSM coverage, which means most of europe, and a big chunk of Asia -- plus of course, the USA, central and south america.

It is not a giant PDA phone that screams that you are a Geek. It is not a blackberry or iPhone. It is larger than a Razor, but packs in much more functionality and flexibility. If you consider yourself an advanced user, but wants something that looks slick and will fit in a shirt or pants pocket, here you go.

Great

Pros:
1. Start up is much faster! Also no more Cingular or AT&T start up. Just the good old fashioned Nokia hands touching.
2. When I close the fold, any application I was currently using does not end. Yeah!
3. The music key when pressed can be customized and used for anything which is great and useful.
4. The gallery application is much quicker and not a memory hog.
5. The fact you have an abundance of 3rd party application is incredible. Handy Taskman, Handy Clock, DiVX Player, Google Maps, Gmail, Yahoo to Go, Sailing Clicker
6. I can use isync with my apple laptop
7. I can use all types of music
8. The camera is ok but video is excellent.
9. I can upload to VOX or Flickr in no time
10. Nokia Beta labs
11. Conversation is a great application, which can be used for threaded sms messages.
12. Nokia Web Browser is great! Plus the mini map is great.
13. Nokia Search
14. Also the download application for the unlocked phone is great! I can download current Nokia apps for free.
15. You must go to Mosh! Just google Mosh nokia and you will see what I mean.
16. On the outside of my now unlocked phone the radio is the forward button option.
17. Very Customizable!
18. Voice recorder!
19. Loud stereo speakers! Very loud!
20. 1-touch dialing
21. Independent Voice commands
22. Message Reader for text messages!
23. And I almost forgot that I have great reception and voice quality.
24. I use the phone as my MP3 in the car.
25. The screen is amazing!
Cons
1. Battery life could be better!
2. Not enough RAM!
This phone is excellent for the price. Plus it is covered by insurance. Great device for cell phone enthusiast!

n75 a nice music camera phone

First the cons, battery life isn't great, a long phone call might kill it in one use. Second the external buttons can be activated(I cant find a way to lock them), so your music might start blasting at any time if you carry it in a pocket.
Okay now the pros, nice phone, great stereo speakers(considering the size), decent camera and video, good call quality, expandable by 2gig with micro sd, video player.
I can not think of a better phone for the price( and I have had many types), unless you need a pda phone, this is very good.