Nokia N73 car kit
I have a fully fitted Nokia car kit (CARK-126) which I originally used with a Nokia 6230, and later a 6230i. It has a pop-port connection, as does my new N73, so in theory I should be able to convert it for an N73 with a straightforward cradle swap. Nokia don’t make it quite that simple.
Nokia don’t make a cradle specifically for the N73. I have no idea why, one of the selling points of Nokia was always their strong car kit support.
After a quick google I found this post on the Nokia forums, where one of the posters states that the CR-28 holder fits the N73 perfectly. I’m not sure that following the advice of a single unknown poster on a forum is a good idea but I ordered one anyway. It’s arrived now (damn postal strikes!) and the phone fits perfectly.
On the same Nokia forum post, “dannyboy” the car kit specialist says that the N73 doesn’t work with the CARK-126. I’ve tried it and for the most part it works fine. The radio mute function doesn’t mute the radio at all any more, but for me this is a minor annoyance (and certainly not worth replacing the entire car kit for). I think “dannyboy” was trying to sell someone a replacement car kit…
So in summary I can confirm that my Nokia N73 works fine with a CARK-126 car kit and a CR-28 cradle.
Update 16/10/2007: The CR-28 holder is available to buy from Amazon here:
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Tags: mobile phone, N73, Nokia
February 29th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Hi,
How did you get power into that cradle? (I can only see the pop port lead). I have a CK-7W, a CR-28 cradle and an N93 phone, but the CK-7W came with a 2mm power connector and the socket on the base or CR-28 is 3.5mm.
Thanks
February 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Hi Jason,
The pop-port lead connects the cradle to the CARK-126 (or CK-7W), and power comes over this cable. You can test this by plugging the car kit’s pop-port cable directly into your phone. The cragle passes the connection straight through.
The CR-28 also has an aerial lead coming out of it, which I taped to the pop-port lead with black electrical tape. I didn’t bother connecting it to an external antenna as my signal is good without it.
Cheers,
Steve
March 30th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Steve
when you say the cr-28 cradle fits perfectly to the n73 do you mean perfectly.
i was looking around and everywhere i came across pointed towards the nokia cr-27 cradle,to which i purchased and the only nag points i have with it is there is left & right movement in the cradle,when the phone is installed. but apart from that it works fine with a nokia cark-55 upgrade cable on a nokia cark91 car kit. (only bad point is it doesnt charge and you have to use as seperate car charger)
Kind Regards
Matt Davies
March 31st, 2008 at 9:34 am
Hi Matt,
Yes I mean perfectly, there is no movement in my CR-28 cradle (you can see in the right hand picture above it’s a snug fit). How loose is the CK-27? does it stay connected while driving?
It charges fine connected to the CARK-126, the only feature that doesn’t work for me is radio mute.
Cheers,
Steve
April 4th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Hi Steve,
I got an N73 last year and recently found this entry re a car cradle.
There was a Nokia mobile phone cradle fitted in the car I also bought last year. Don’t know the model #.
I found the N73 worked by plugging the wire into the bottom of the phone and fastening the phone to the old cradle with an elastic band - OK for temporary use, but it sometimes came loose and the wire came out at the “wrong” time!
I have just bought the CR-28 cradle and fitted it this morning - but the sound does not come out of the loudspeaker. When I plug the wire straight into the phone it works, but plugging the wire into the cradle and putting the phone in, the sound is too quiet to use.
Presumably the cradle directly transfers the connection into the phone.
Is there any reason why I can not hear the phone - or is it likely that the cradle is faulty?
Thanks for any help you can give me.
Tim
April 4th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Hi Tim,
I don’t think the cradle does anything “clever”, as far as I can tell it just connects the pins directly through from the cable.
Does the phone light up at all when you connect it? Mine lights up, beeps and displays a little “car” symbol.
Cheers,
Steve
June 30th, 2008 at 12:16 am
re n73 and cr 28 and ck7w how do I get the phone lights to stay on when in phone holder
July 12th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
I went around and around with Nokia about the lack of a wired car kit for the N73. Bottom line is this. Nokia is playing to the teeny-boppers now, and really don’t care about the business user. Not enough of them. The volume is in selling toys, not useful telephones.
As for the light staying, my problem too, I would suggest going into the connection setups and changing the car setup to leave the lights on. Perhaps that will work.
The phone has to sense that it is connected to a wired car kit, and that may or may not happen.
In the end I bought the CR-82, which is what Nokia is pushing.
Nokia has turned support in the US over to a really brain-dead company that has minimum wage screen readers providing customer support.
That’s the way the industry is going. Nokia was the last to go there, but they are going there.