Button replica vs old flagship. We look at Nokia N72 and find out who is better

If you go to a communication salon now and start choosing a button for yourself, you can find a huge number of different devices for every pocket: phones for 500 rubles, phones from HMD Global under the Nokia brand, and modern 4G push-button smartphones. But in the secondary market, used flagships of past years continue to be in demand. So who is better – a modern phone for 1,000 rubles, or a 17-year-old flagship? That’s what you’ll find out in today’s article!

Foreword

Let’s just say that the format of this article is somewhat different from my previous articles on push-button devices. In articles about Sonerics, Chinese and Nokias, I told a considerable part of the color from using all these phones at one time: I also talked about how the phone was part of the image and style of its owner, as well as about the themes and customization of phones with patches. And about the multimedia component with transferring music and games through the infrared port, and then Bluetooth, for example “student’s day.3gp”. I did not forget about the Chinese and their incredibly screaming speakers. Here are some of those articles:

I decided to prepare today’s article in a rather rare, special format for my blog: comparison. We will not compare the newfangled xiaomi with the honor, but the old Nokia flagship and its modern copy. Moreover, this copy has much more than it seems with modern Nokia phones. We will compare devices on several fronts and exclusively in modern use, for example, I will not mention ICQ or any other messengers from the past. Our criteria for comparison will be: use as a phone, multimedia capabilities, camera and entertainment. All these criteria are important in one way or another in the modern world, because such devices are very relevant in our time: for sensitive objects, military service, for a child or just fans of push-button phones who would like to have an inexpensive device as a reliable backup dialer.

Applicants

Two nishtyaks will participate in the comparison. It is worth noting that I am equally good with any mobile phones, so I will not pour negativity without a reason. Sometimes it’s even a pity for me to drink something from outright donors;)

The first nishtyak will be the legendary folk device Nokia N72. Released in 2006, the N72 ran on classic Nokia smartphone hardware and ran on Symbian 8.1. The device was slightly less popular than the N70 and N73, which were truly popular and continued to go from hand to hand for many years to come. The entire N7x line was up to date until 2012-2013. 6 years is not khukhry-muhry!

N72 I got in the lot for 300 rubles. One of the goodies in this lot was the dual-core Android console, which I restored in the New Year’s issue, prepared with the timeweb!

N72 turned on without any problems after replacing the battery with a fresher one. However, two buttons – 2 and the left soft-key – hardly worked for him. Having disassembled the nishtyak (it is very easy to disassemble) and unscrewing the front panel, I saw oxides on the contacts.

After cleaning with a triple cologne, I noticed unpleasant dust and dirt on the case, which I decided to clean. After all, nishtyak is not just sent to the collection, I found a special use for it, which I will talk about at the end of the article! Taking a washcloth and soap in my hands, I washed the front case of the nishtyak and now the phone looked clean and tidy. Otherwise, the device was working, although traces of repair are clearly visible. Most likely, before me, someone changed the display filter (a common sore in those years).

The second device will be the Chinese Nokia 226. This is a relatively fresh phone, ~2016, with which my grandmother drove 😉 It was bought for ~1,000 rubles and successfully served for several years. The devices from HMD have much more in common with these Chinese phones as they run on the same platform. There are some changes (for example in the XpressMusic line), but in fact, these phones are almost the same.

The phone did not require maintenance and was fully functional. So let’s move on to comparing nishtyakov!

Appearance and price

Both devices are made in the style of a monoblock, with a plastic case.

The N72 looks a bit more premium thanks to its ‘chrome’ look. The phone is quite thick and bulky in the hand, although it is not at all heavy. The buttons have a pronounced relief, and in general it is clear that the device was intended for the high segment.

Behind the camera is closed by a special curtain with a limit switch, which activates the camera when shifted. It looks spectacular and unusual, it is still unclear why vendors did not think of small windows that can be moved. Camera modules would be less scratched! Thanks to this, the camera has kept in perfect condition to this day!

The lid is opened by pressing the “button”. Under it, we are met by a very common BL-5C. which is quietly replaced by both BL-4C and BL-6C. On average, a similar device at flea markets now costs from 500 to 1,500 rubles. If you wish, you can take a working, but shabby device for 500 rubles, an aliexpress case for ~ 300 rubles and assemble a visually new device! Very, very inexpensive.

226 looks like a phone in a modern “Flat” design. Well, or Material, whoever is more familiar. In general, it is not deprived of style, but it looks less premium than the N72, but it has a noticeably larger display, both diagonally and in resolution (240×320 vs. 176×208). Due to the characteristics of the N72 matrix, when it is turned off, it is slightly green, while the 226 matrix is ​​\u200b\u200bblack.

Behind, apart from the cover and the camera, there is nothing, but there is a unified MicroUSB and a “thin” connector, and microusb can also be used for charging. The equally popular BL-6J is used, which can be found without any problems. If desired, both 5J and 4J will fit there

It costs 226 rubles 300 on Avito, although I did not find any active ads. But the original reincarnation of a Nokia flashlight costs up to 1,000 rubles.

Both devices look good for their price segments.

Multimedia features

In terms of multimedia capabilities, the devices are equal: even the cheapest modern dialers usually have a microSD slot and the ability to work as an mp3 player. But it’s one thing to be able to play mp3, and another thing to do it well.

The N72 has an RS-MMC slot for memory expansion, closed with a flap, which supports hot-swapping of cards, and the phone itself has built-in 20 MB of memory. On the one hand, an RS-MMC card is a little harder to find than a MicroSD card, and their volume is small, but the hot-swap feature itself is very nice. The connector is covered with a rubber plug. I don’t have RS-MMC, so I had to upload an MP3 track compressed to 192kbp/s.

We will not evaluate the video player: it is unlikely that anyone will watch videos on such small displays now, so the assessment will be in terms of musical capabilities. Both the convenience of the player and the sound.

The music player in the N72 is called on special. button on the right. The player is very convenient: it can search for music in all folders, has a lot of sorting and is very convenient in itself. However, it works a little slowly, but this is not a problem. The sound quality is good, the speaker is very loud.

The player does not have an equalizer, it appeared in the 9th version of Symbian and there is no jack. This is a minus only if you do not have a kit from the device: in the Nokia kit they put an adapter with a remote control for the jack.

In 226, the music must be uploaded to My Music in a fixed way. Otherwise, he won’t see her, you can’t just throw her anywhere and listen.

The player is stylish and works well, but not particularly comfortable. For example, when launched, it does not show a list of tracks, but the player window itself. It is possible to define your playlists and sort them. In general, everything is standard. The speaker is quieter, slightly flatter in quality than the N72, but overall it’s almost the same. There is an equalizer with fixed presets.

The 226 has a minijack, and 3.5, which is a big plus of this device. It is not necessary to expect any cool sound capabilities from him, but you can listen to music from the speaker. Plus, there is support for Bluetooth headphones.

In general, the devices sound about the same, but only on the speaker. The N72 has a sound in headphones, most likely many times better than the 226.

Camera

It is not worth expecting from the button cameras of the level of modern flagships. However, sometimes you want to capture a moment, and the main smartphone has sat down. How do pushbuttons deal with this?

N72 pleased me very pleasantly. Not only is the lens protected from fogging with a cover, but it also shoots perfectly. The 2MP camera here is wonderful for its age. At the level of SE K of those years! But with autofocus in poor light there are small problems. Since the shooting was carried out at night under the light of lamps, this result is not bad.

: You can even take a picture of yourself. The result in poor lighting in some places is even better than modern budget smartphones up to 5 thousand rubles.

226 has a camera. Resolution 240×320, each photo ~ 10kb jpeg;) It shoots, well … just so-so:

Conclusion: Capture the moment you will get on both phones. But then consider it later rather only on the N72. The top camera phones of those years were able to shoot even better!

Entertainment

But sometimes you want to play, right? It’s not always possible to run all sorts of pubs and genshins, and it’s inconvenient to poke your fingers on the touchscreen – they get tired! Dachshunds, let’s uncover the collection of SIS and Java games!

There are just a huge number of games on the N72: you can replay half of the J2ME library, and thanks to the S60 – in their improved versions, with better graphics. Plus, here you can play 3D titles with j2me without problems and with acceptable FPS. Better only on N95 with GPU!

But there are still a lot of Symbian games and N-Gage! There is a completely different level of graphics and gameplay. It’s really interesting to play. In general, everything is quite convenient and pleasant!

And in 226, despite the name of the menu item “Java”, there are only built-in games. However, the phone apparently supports MRP, but there is an incident with this: for some mobile phones, it seemed to work and react to specials. code, but they wrote something in hieroglyphs and fell into an error. But in general, it has its own Chinese platform with various games and interesting arcades. True, many are paid, but they easily quack.

Results

So, let’s take stock of both devices. Both nishtyaks have the right to life and can benefit their owners. Both are better than their opponent in some aspects. For example, 226 has two sims, and N72 has one. But the N72 is a full multitasking smartphone, while the 226 is just a phone. So let’s summarize!

pros Nokia 226

+ The display is larger, noticeably better (thanks to a brighter backlight) and made using more modern TN technology. Color rendition is good.

+ Dvuhsimochnost. True, if you get a call on one SIM card, the other will be inactive

+ Standard MicroUSB interfaces + Slim

pros Nokia N72

+ This is still a smartphone with much wider functionality, including watching videos and installing various software. If desired, you can connect to the terminal via SSH

+ Better sound quality. Here, objectively, it’s not in vain that Nokia sometimes put good, high-quality headphones in the box

+ Excellent synchronization. Nokia PC Suite is a very handy software for synchronizing various data.

But what is better … of course, you decide!

I regularly write articles about various retro gadgets: laptops, tablets, phones, smartphones, game consoles. Liked the article? Click a subscription. Is there something that you want to throw away, but your hand does not rise, even if it is not working? Send me – let’s see what can be done with nishtyak, and delivery from me! 😉

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *