The first question asked was from a N70 user when he first learnt I have a set of N72: what's the difference? Besides the expansion in color options (both black and pink are available now compared to a standard silver for N70 previously), it just seems to be a tad slimmer when viewed sideways.

If you are looking for a handset to rival those of what PDA phones offer, the lack of Wi-Fi and outlook capabilities will set the Nokia N72 back by a fair bit, both of which I have come to relied on greatly from my iPaq even while reading emails downloaded on the fly. The ability to view word documents, spreadsheets, PDF files and presentation does however put it not too far behind the other competitors.

While the availability of aesthetic fulfillments will address those of the fairer sex who wish to have a powerful gadgets, the gloss black handset we tested shows does not stand up as much as its counterpart. We also find the chrome strips does little except to fit iconic symbols for access to menus and may run to the risk of fading off with intense usage of the quick access buttons to the menu or music application. The keypad was not a pleasant experience as expected due to the close layout and the dimensions of each key and that often cause mistakes when composing SMS, even while it comes with predictive text.

Using the features extensively threatens to put the claim of 3.5hrs talk time to serious test. Being a Smartphone, Nokia N72 gives you more freedom when it comes to personalizing your handset from the basics ringtone, photo-ID to themes and of course, your budding videographer's experiments.

As part of the Nokia Nseries range which represents the fastest growing product category in converged devices, Nokia 72 is on the Symbian OS v.8.1 and S60 software which would be the same kind of operating environment you will encounter in N70 & N90.

The more frustrating experience however was that it seems to lag like a Pentium 3 at times when multi-tasking or switching from the music player function to normal messaging. With a dedicated music button though and the quality it delivers with an expandable memory of 128MB RS-MMC, it still gives one the feeling of a fair package with the accessories that it comes equipped with, despite some of the response time one gets with the attempt to explore N72 that is packed with full multimedia features. 

Touted as a multi-media computer instead of a phone as we called it, Nokia N72's features does "brings you a step closer to eliminating the barriers from the things you value most and closer to the people you need, the entertainment you love and the information you can't live without." Nokia N72 points us to this: the evolution of smartphones has become more organic, compared to the introduction of ground breaking innovations. The widening range of S60 smartphones to choose from in a variety of form factors (monoblocks, sliders, clamshells), imaging and music multimedia features, business capabilities and in a wide range of prices would be what Nokia's latest N72 serves to fulfill and complete in the Nseries range.