Nokia E72 smartphone
BlackBerry liquidiser?
Review The E72 is the latest in Nokia’s line of Qwerty handsets, beefing up the popular E71 with a slightly sleeker look, improved software and some interface tweaks. It’s very slim – only just over 1cm thick, 58.3mm wide, and 114 tall, weighing 128g. The 2.36in screen is only QVGA, though arguably on a unit this size, a higher resolution wouldn’t make much difference.
Fast talker: Nokia's E72
Below the screen are two soft keys, call and end buttons, plus four dedicated buttons. The home/menu key can’t be reassigned, but the others can, with one function for a short push, and one for a long one. By default, for example, pressing the calendar button briefly shows the calendar, while a long press creates a new entry.
Between these is the Navikey, a standard looking four-way navpad. However, it’s not entirely standard, as it has an optical sensor as well. So, you can scroll through menus and lists by wiping a finger or thumb over it, which makes for much faster navigation – although some third party apps did seem to be a little confused by it at times. On the whole, it works well, and is a good improvement.
In applications like the web browser – which supports Flash, and had no problems with our various test pages – it makes navigating much simpler; a small mouse pointer appears and you can scoot round quite quickly. On the home screen, missed call, email or text notifications appear at the bottom; hover over the icon, and you see a pop-up with more information, and you can go directly to a specific SMS, for example.
The main keypad itself is quite small, but the keys are domed and feel responsive. It’s simple to get up to a reasonable speed, and key punctuation can be entered without having to mess around using modifier keys. One of those doubles up with a long press to toggle Bluetooth on and off, and another for silent mode.
Besides Nokia’s mains adapter, USB charging is an option
Call quality is clear, and we had no problems with signal, nor with setting up VoIP – though as with other recent Nokia phones, you need to download the SIP Settings application. Once that’s done, you can select ‘Internet call’ from an address book entry, or just dial a number and press the right soft key. It works well, and it’s good to see it integrated with contacts, though configuring SIP can be a bit tricky for novices.
COMMENTS
Awesome looking phone...
I've been seriously considering the E71, and now I have to wait a year or so before this beauty wanders over to my side of the pond. Looks quite slick.
Mail for Exchange
Mail for Exchange is built in to the Messaging client on the E72, so you don't need to install it separately. Just choose the 'Setup email' option on the main menu, or add a new account in Messaging, and it's one of the options for the account type, alongside Lotus Notes Traveller.
VoIP is nice, but VoWLAN better
More and more handset come with Wireless VoIP functionality, but the promise doesn't materialize unless the WLAN Service Level is properly guaranteed. To be effective, Wireless Quality Assurance requires more than just user complaint-driven reactive maintenance. Luckily some companies are thinking along these lines, some like Aruba adding WLAN QA into the Access Point, others like 7signal developing vendor-independent solutions for both continuous quality monitoring and WLAN commissioning and troubleshooting purposes.
Headphone jack
Yes, it's 3.5mm and it sits on the top left of the device - so you can have your headphones plugged in and still have the phone tucked inside the cutesy side loading leather look cover.
I mentioned Podcasting before with an app called Escapod - my apologies, the actual app is called Escarpod and can be downloaded from: code.google.com/p/bergamot/wiki/Escarpod
It only seems to be able to download full Podcasts over wireless though (but this makes sense as data costs would be high via 3G for those on limited data accounts).
Headphone jack
Yes, it is 3.5mm; I was a little short on words (well, actually over what I was asked to write), so concentrated on other aspects, as we were linking to the full specs on the product page.
