Nokia N72 starts shipping

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The recently announced Nokia N72 started shipping today. The Nokia N72 is a variant on the N70 and is intended as a fashion focused smartphone for emerging markets. It is a tri-band GSM (with EDGE) phone with a 2.0 Megapixels camera, FM Radio, Music Player, and 20MB of on board memory (expandable via a RS-MMC slot).

The Nokia N72 has started shipments to key markets worldwide, including the Middle East and Africa, Russia, Eastern Europe, mainland China, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

You can read our initial preview of the Nokia N72 here, and read on for a short hands on impression.

I had a short amount of time with an N72 last week at the S60 Summit. It is immediately apparent that this phone is a modification of the N70. In shape and size they are very similar. The on board software, running S60 2nd Edition, is very similar with only a few extra applications shipping in certain markets.

It does have a cheaper feel it than the N70 mainly due to the plastic casing. The keypad is not as good as on the N70, a different quality of plastic seems to have been used. Overall the plastic is shinier than the brushed metal look of the N70, and the resultant opinions on the finish will vary according to your taste.

Nokia seems to have cut some corners in the design in order to lower the unit price, which makes a lot of sense given its target market. The style etching on the back (on the black model) are actually quite difficult to see. I would assume the etchings are clearer on the pink version of this phone.

Other than that described above the capability of the phone is very much akin to the Nokia N70 with the exception of video calling and WCDMA data.

Nokia N72