The forgotten phone: Nokia N72

June 20, 2022 Luisa Rey

The Nokia N72 is a phone that was part of the third generation N-series devices. After the great success of the Nokia N70, this device was seen as an alternative, but it was not a successor. We discuss the Nokia N72 in this edition of ‘The Forgotten Phone’.

Nokia N72

The Nokia N72 was released by the Finnish manufacturer in the year 2006. The smartphones as we know them today were still quite far away, but the Nokia N72 went a bit in that direction. It was actually not a real smartphone. Although the device was equipped with Symbian Series 60, things like WiFi and a fast data connection were not present on the Nokia N72.

With the N72, Nokia had a successor to the incredibly popular Nokia N70, or so it was seen. Yet the N72 was less well equipped than the N70. The device was equipped with a 2.1 inch display with a resolution of 208 x 176 pixels. There was a TI OMAP 1710 single-core processor with a processing power of 220MHz. The available storage space was 20MB. You could expand this by means of a special kind of memory card, the RS-DV-MMC. For the photos, the Nokia N72 offered a 2.0 megapixel camera with LED flash. The device was able to film, but the quality was not high. This was in CIF, which equates to a resolution of 352 x 288 pixels.

It is clear that for an N-series device the possibilities were somewhat limited. However, the phone still offered Bluetooth and there was an FM radio. The Nokia N72 was also criticized. For example, the weight and size were criticized, as was the lack of 3G and the display was not always good. The phone appeared in our country in 2006 for a price of between 350 and 400 euros.