Things I've found out about the N73 on Three

[Steve]

As the title sublimely hints I recently received an N73 on Three... student deal, worth it, so I thought.

The phone is great. I say this having used an N70 for 12 months. I knew what I was letting myself in for. Again... so I thought.

Turns out that Three (as with most network providers) like to have their own branded (and locked) version of the OS, which is fair enough. The only problem with this is, it seems Three's firmware is complete and utter crap.

It's not crap because of the custom menus. It's not crap because of the Three lock-in. It's crap because it won't let the phone turn off in any profile other than "General" and it crashes all the time. I'm not the only one with this problem, either.

Sorry, I meant to say I wasn't the only one with this problem. Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, I found a list of product IDs for the N73, including IDs for Vanilla variants of the phone.

Using a tool called Nemesis Service Suite I wrote a new PID to the phone (vanilla N73 Music Edition, Euro 1 as it happens). Then, I ran the Nokia Software Updater, which updated the firmware to the latest vanilla N73 Music Edition Euro 1 version.

Long story short, now the phone actually works properly and it has a proper mp3 player. Oh, and no dodgy Three animiations either.

This procedure's supposed to be a bit on the risky side, so I tried it first on my old Vodafone branded N70 to prove it worked, then did it on my N73.

Not something I'd recommend to others... I'd say the N73 is great, but stay away from Three!

[autopilot]

From visiting other forums, it would seem flashing the firmware is almost compulsory with the N73. All the networks mess with them too much now, its one of my pet hates and they all do it. O2 crippled the original XDA Mini and SE K750i. I know they will lock them and 'tweak' them for the slight differences between each network. But why cant they just leave it be and do what they are meant to do - provide a solid comunication network, leave the phones alone FFS.

Holding out for an N95 here, hold they don't fluff that up too.

[Steve]

I wouldn't have minded if they had actually written a functional firmware. I won't risk bricking something like a phone unless I'm forced to, and Three forced me to by writing abysmal firmware to it.

[Howard]

Steve has an N73? awesome


Mine came from o2 and I haven't noticed any o2-buggering of the firmware, it seems normal to me