When the Nokia E71 launched a while back, it was popular and it was hailed as the thinnest full QWERTY smartphone on the market. It made it’s way to AT&T as the E71x, and the successor, the E72 is here.
Hardware:
The hardware on the E72 is exceptionally good. It packs a full QWERTY keyboard, a 2.4” screen, and a 5MP camera in a body that’s 10.1mm thin. My main complaint about the hardware is the screen. It’s a 2.4 inch screen with the resolution of 320 x 240, which is kind of disappointing since smartphones these days have screens that are larger and higher resolution. You can navigate the E72 with the d-pad, and the center select button doubles as an optical trackpad. The QWERTY keyboard is quite good, the keys are raised and domed, and they have a nice click to them.Nokia FINALLY moved away from their proprietary port, in favor for a standard microUSB slot, and they also added a 3.5mm headphone jack. The microSD card slot is externally accessible, which is awesome and it comes with a 4GB card pre-installed. It has a 1500mAH battery and the battery life on the E72 is really good, it could get me through a day or two.
Software:
Instead of going into the S60 OS in-depth, I thought I would give you my overall impressions and thoughts about S60. The E72 is loaded with S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 2. It has some great features like Modes, which means that you can set up two different home screens with different application shortcuts, and with one click, you can switch between the two modes.The email experience is good, although when you scroll through emails, you get a kinetic scrolling effect, which is annoying at times when using the trackpad. I had some problems setting up Gmail at first, but overall setup is fast and easy. The browser is just average, there is support for inline YouTube playing, although the screen isn’t large enough to view a video without being it slightly cut off.
Camera:
The 5MP sensor on the E72 isn’t bad at all. The autofocus takes a while to focus, and it’s hard to make it “focus” on an object, and I noticed a 3-4 second lag when taking a picture. When it’s focused correctly, photos looked really good. There is a secondary camera on the front of the E72 since the Europeans have video calling capabilities, quality isn’t as good as the 5MP sensor on the back, but that’s expected since it’s just used for video calls and the occasional picture of yourself. Flash was bright, no complaints there.
Call quality:
Call quality on the E72 was amazing. Caller sounded crisp and clear, and the caller said I sounded really good. Similar to the earpiece, the Speaker was loud and clear, could make conference calls with ease. In Philadelphia where I tested the E72, AT&T 3G wasn’t too bad, signal was strong and data speeds were pretty zippy.
Conclusion:
In a couple of words, the hardware is great, and the software needs work. I really like the candybar form factor, but it would have been much better if it had a larger and higher resolution display. S60 needs to be revamped with a newer and more modern UI. If you don’t mind a slightly lower-res display, and if you don’t mind S60, the E72 is really a great smartphone.
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