You can do a lot on this screen. Read text messages. Check your call lists. Take pictures. Listen to music. It's great! The outside screen on most phones is so useless.
It's not often that we get a feature-packed Nokia phone in the U.S. that's cheaper than, say, $800 or so. Indeed, my chief criticism of Nokia's N95 two-way slider phone—the handset that has virtually everything, including GPS, a music player and Wi-Fi—was that it costs a jaw-dropping $850. Now comes another high-end Nokia handset: the N75 music phone, which also comes with an arsenal of features but minus the sky-high price tag (just $200 with service). Is it worth the cash?
Let's talk looks first. One reason I was looking forward to the N75 was that it looked a smidge smaller than Nokia's other high-end phones (yes, Nokia handsets have been getting smaller over the years, but they're still bricks compared to the slender phones that competitors like Samsung are cranking out). At 3.7 by 2 by 0.8 inches and more than 4.2 ounces, however, the N75 is still pretty big—in fact, it's just a hair smaller (and just as heavy as) the pricey N95. While I could fit the N75 in a jeans pocket, it wasn't exactly a comfortable fit. (Unfortunately for us, the svelte N76—a slimmed-down version of the N75—has yet to arrive in the States.) Still, all that bulk doesn't come for nothing; the internal 2.4-inch, 16-million color display is glorious, and the roomy, easy-to-use silver keypad looks great.
The N75 lacks a couple of the key features that made the N95 such a standout: namely, there's neither GPS navigation nor Wi-Fi support. However, the N75 has an ace up its sleeve—3G data through AT&T's high-speed UMTS network, which means you can stream video clips via Cingular Video, indulge in some speedy Web browsing, and download large e-mail attachments. In my tests here in Manhattan, videos loaded up reasonably quickly (within about 20 seconds or so), and my clips looked smooth, if a bit fuzzy and blocky (which is par for the course).
Nokia is pushing the N75 as a music phone, and indeed, it handled my tunes with impressive finesse. The N75 supports a galaxy of music file formats (including MP3, protected and unprotected WMA, AAC, and AAC+) and you can transfer tunes via the included USB cable. You can also sync your PC music collection using Windows Media Player (including any purchased WM DRM files), and if you're a Napster or Yahoo! Music subscriber, the N75 will play all those songs, too. The phone's music player comes with shuffle and repeat modes, and you can tweak the sound with the five-band equalizer or add surround and bass effects. Playlists are no problem, and you can play your music in the background while composing text messages or using other apps on the handset. Finally, you can close the N75 and keep playing your music with help from the music controls on the outside flip.
Pretty cool, and the twin stereo speakers do a decent (if tinny) job of cranking out your tunes. Unfortunately, you can't listen to your music with your own set of earbuds. The phone doesn't have a standard 3.5mm headset jack, or even a 2.5mm jack for cell headsets; instead, you're stuck with Nokia's proprietary data port, and adding insult to injury, you'll have to buy the stereo headset separately ($32) . Oh, and the N75 doesn't support stereo Bluetooth headsets, either. Very disappointing, especially for a music-oriented phone like this.
Back on the plus side, the N75 ships with Nokia's top-notch Web browser, which does a fantastic job of rendering full HTML pages—for my money, it's still the best mobile Web browser out there. Messaging fiends will also find a lot to like; both POP and IMAP e-mail accounts are supported, and there's also a built-in app that collects Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail and AOL Mail. Meanwhile, text chatters can log onto their AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and Windows Live accounts, while shutterbugs can go nuts with the two-megapixel camera (my test snapshots looked reasonably sharp for a camera phone, if a bit washed out).
Finally, call quality was excellent; I could hear my buddies loud and clear, and they reported hearing me just fine. Conference calls, voice commands and a speakerphone are all present and accounted for—and they're thankfully quite easy to access. Also, the N75 is a quad-band GSM phone, which means it'll play nice with worldwide GSM networks.
Overall, the N75 delivers an impressive array of features (if not quite as extensive as the GPS- and Wi-Fi-ready N95) and I'm constantly impressed with how Nokia phones—including the N75—are so easy to use. If you don't mind the bulk and you don't mind coughing up another $32 for Nokia's so-so stereo headset, I'd give the N75 ($200 with a two-year contract) a serious look.
