Nokia E75
Nokia releases a lot of mobiles. And many times, if you aren’t really paying attention, this company will slide under your nose something like the Nokia E75 — the kind of device that grabs and keeps your attention.
This is a good thing, except that you won’t find this device in a carrier store. Which is a shame, because in build and performance the E75 touches the bar a bit higher than even the highly-regarded Nokia E71 released last year.
DESIGN & BUILD
Any good feeling about the E75 has to begin and end with the design. Those familiar to Nokia’s E-series lineup will see a bit of the E52/E55 models in the front profile view. The QVGA (320×240px) looks great despite the scant 2.4-inch size.
Below the screen is a cluster of buttons — probably the low-point with this model in terms of design. The application and call buttons are simply set too close to one another. Granted, I found very few instances of mis-pressing, the perception caused by the closeness of the buttons probably caused me to move a bit slower.
Also, the camera and buttons on the side feel a bit out of place. The side buttons and mini-USB/microSDHC covers feel like cheap add-ons and don’t convey the same feel as the rest of the device.
The camera while solid at 3.2 MPx, seems more added on than a part of the lines in the body.
Still, the body of the E75 is a nice mix of plastics and metal. It feels solid — like something chiseled, rather than assembled.
Outside of the niggles I really like the E75’s build and design. It just feels well put together. And its small size gives no indication towards the healthy performance of this Symbian S60 device.
QWERTY Keyboard
Beyond the buttons and front face surrounded by a chrome accent, there’s the sliding QWERTY keyboard (shown here).
It took a few days, but eventually I began to like the feel and spacing of the keys. Best part though was the “click” of sliding it open and closed. It just feels… classy.
Compared to some other devices that I own and have reviewed, the QWERTY keyboard used on the E75 is easy to get used to. While the buttons don’t have much definition, they do offer excellent feedback and you can easily get up to a pretty good speed typing.
The only knock that I can levy against the keyboard was that, in some lighting conditions, the blue lettering on the secondary functions is hard to make out. Even with the backlight on it is sometimes hard to see. This is not a deal-breaker, though, as the device can be easily tilted and adjusted.
PERFORMANCE
The E75 continues Nokia’s trend towards being very refined Symbian S60 devices. As one of the first E-series devices to use S60 Feature Pack 2 (v3.2), I was surprised at just how well the E75 performed for day-to-day operations.
For example, the same Active Standby (homescreen) that was found on the E71 and other recent E-series devices is found here, and works very well for getting you right to the contact that you want and the type of communication you need — voice, SMS, or e-mail.
Predictive text is also here, making the task of typing — whether names to contact or just a SMS with the number pad — fairly easy. I find myself more often than not flipping the E75 to use the keyboard – partly because I like the way it clicked when opening, but also because the QWERTY offers better feel for longer messages than the numberpad.
I was quite surprised — and plaesed –Â with performance running software. Whether a default or a third-party application, the E75 just moves along nicely… nearly no lag whatsoever. And this was most true with the web browser. As with other Nokia devices, this uses the WebKit-based S60 web browser, and as with every new model release, it has been further tweaked. Rendering speeds of webpages whether on 3G or Wi-Fi were astounding (full webpages, with Flash showing). My 5800XM and N95 don’t move nearly as fast over Wi-Fi for this browser, and definitely not over 3G.
Same with other heavier applications such as Mail for Exchange, Nokia Maps 2.0, and QuickOffice. Applications just loaded fast and in some respects just got out of that way to let you stay productive.
Email
The E75 is the first Symbian S60 device from Nokia to come with Ovi Mail pre-installed as the default email solution. Usually, S60 devices have email built into the Messaging application. In addition, adding Mail for Exchange functionality has to be done through a separate download. The E75 gets rid of this complexity, and offers the best built-in Symbian S60 email solution.
Email setup is a breeze for all but the most complex of accounts. And when setting up a connection to an Exchange Server, you just need to know the domain, in addition to any other credentials that your IT department has set up.
Much like the other S60 email application, attachments, CC/BCC, and signatures are supported. HTML email is also supported in a bit of a two-step manner: once you open the email, you are presented a text version and the HTML version is attached. Clicking on that “Open HTML Version” link takes you to the enhanced version (essentially the email shown using the browser). It’s a bit clunky, but does work when you need to see these types of emails.
Small nit-pick: selecting multiple items to attach to an email isn’t a fun procedure, especially when you have to dig through multiple folders. It doesn’t save where you last picked up an attachment, and there’s no way to multi-select items.
You also get email notification on the Active Standby screen, with a separate indicator for your Exchange emails. Overall, its a very simple and powerful addition to the E75.
Other Nokia devices can get a similar — though not as refined or integrated — application by downloading the Nokia Messaging application to a compatible device.
Wireless and Battery Life
Continuing the tradition of Nokia’s E-series devices, the E75 offers multiple wireless connectivity options. The one I’m testing is the E75 NAM (North American Model) and therefore had AT&T-friendly UMTS/HSDPA to go along with the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0, and GPS.
Despite having all of these, and a 1000 mAh battery, and Wi-Fi scanning on all day, and Mail for Exchange set to push for 12Â hours a day, the E75 lasted easily for a day and a half. This is way better than anything I’ve reviewed before that was a 3G-enabled device. Usually, I would need to constrict the connection speed to EDGE to get that kind of performance. I’m very pleased.
The E75 uses an application called Destinations to manage wireless connections. Basically, you set up all of your access points — Wi-Fi and cellular –Â in a group by priority. Then, when you need Internet access, you just connect and the priority connection will be used. Similar to other devices that use Destinations, the E75 has trouble going back to Wi-Fi from a cellular connection, but I was able to solve this by turning on the Wi-Fi scan (scanning every 10 min.) and that would handle most applications I came across.
GPS locks were also pretty fast (indoors, outdoors, while driving); though I would suggest either upgrading to Google Maps or Nokia Maps 3.0 Beta instead of the default software for an easier-to-use user interface.
Camera and Multimedia
Multimedia is an area where E-series devices have gotten better in recent years, and the E75 continues that trend. A 3.2 MPx camera w/flash and auto-focus, music player, podcasting application, and the ability to share content immediately either via MMS or social networking sites (Nokia’s Ovi Share, Flickr, etc.) makes this work-oriented device ready to play anytime as well.
Compared to the 3.2 MPx camera in my Nokia 5800XM, the E75 is miles better. While they both display the same quick shutter-speed action, the E75 gives better color, sharper focus at all zoom levels, none of the artifacts, and a much faster saving to the microSDHC card for more picture taking. It’s not quite at that point-and-shoot ability, but Nokia has got this one close.
- Sample Picture — Indoors, in the dark, with flash
- Sample Picture — Outdoors
Video is still an iffy area, best suited for smaller moments that will be viewed over a mobile device.
Sound is great though. The single exposed speaker does a great job of giving volume and tone without distorting sounds. And this is good too, because the included headset isn’t so nice — compared to the ones Nokia’s N-series and XpressMusic devices get.
The Music player supports side-loading from a PC using either Nokia’s PC Suite or just drag-and-drop. Everything except .ogg and protected .acc files play with no problem as well.
Overall, the multimedia aspects are nothing to write home about, but you won’t complain on the commute or business trip either.
Conclusion
So what do I think? Well, honestly I have to say that the E75 improves enough on the E71 released last year that it just might be Nokia’s best, currently available E-series device.
From the application performance to the build quality, it’s really a well done mobile. I’ve put it in the hands of some staunch BlackBerry and iPhone fans and they were impressed enough to consider it… until I mentioned the price.
At $450, the E75 isn’t a cheap option. And you will not find it subsidized by a carrier in the U.S. That being said, it’s the kind of mobile device that would probably be best to not be subsidized, it feels good enough to be off the beaten path and something that you’d enjoy owning and finding different ways to use.
It’s not overly aggressive in its design, but after you hear that slider click, you notice that the E75 just isn’t your normal mobile. And maybe that’s a good thing. Because this is the kind of phone that if the word got out, it would definitely find its way into a lot of pockets.
Pros
- Slider QWERTY great on feel and use
- Speedy application performance
- Easily confifured email application
- Above-average battery life
Cons
- High Price
- Not good screen fonts
- Too many places where settings/options can be configured
