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Two months ago, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) gave its seal of approval to Nokia's N93 video camera. Now a second new smartphone from the Finnish phone-maker's newest batch Nseries models, the N73, has just received the government’s okay for U.S. release. The N93 and the N73, along with another handset, the N72, were introduced to great fanfare back in April at an event in Berlin, Germany.

The candy-bar style N73 is the follow up to the N70, which was Nokia's highest revenue generator and the best-selling 3G handset period since its introduction; accounting for 10 percent of all broadband phones sold around the world.

Nokia's replacement runs on Symbian OS 9.1 along with the S60 interface, 3rd edition. It has a 2.4 inch, 240 x 320 pixel (QVGA) resolution and 262k color display, Bluetooth 2.0, 42 MB of memory, a miniSD card slot, stereo speakers with 3D sound, a digital music player (supporting MP3, AAC, AAC+ and WMA audio formats) with playlists and equalizer, and an FM radio with Visual Radio.

For still images and video, the N73 packs a Carl Zeiss-powered 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus, an integrated flash, and a mechanical shutter. The camera can take images up to 2048 x 1536 pixels in size, which translates into 10 x 8 inch (25 x 20 centimeter) prints.

To enhance the camera phone capabilities of all three new Nseries models, Nokia is partnering with Yahoo! to offer users access to their Flickr accounts. They'll be able to upload and add comments to photos directly from their smartphones to the online photo sharing community.

When it ships, the N73, which is a quad-band GSM/EDGE/UTMS 3G phone, will be available in several color schemes, including frost white/mocha brown, silver grey/deep plum, and frost white/metallic red.

Although Nokia has sold more than 5 million of multimedia-centric Nseries smartphones since introducing them last year, it doesn't appear the N93 or the N73 will be available through traditional channels like carriers in this country—seems to be the theme for high-end Symbian phones, as the same holds true for Sony Ericsson's P990i and M600.

The company did open up its first U.S. flagship store in Chicago late last month—with plans for a second one in New York this fall and eighteen more worldwide over the couple of years—however. At these places, Nokia wants to raise the American profile for its high-end devices, like the Nseries, so don't be surprised if you find the N93 or N73 in them at some point.