7 reasons why the Nokia E72 could be a BlackBerry killer

December 3rd, 2009 by Mr. Spock

We got our mitts on the latest addition to Nokia’s enterprise-oriented E series. And what we saw convinced us that for the first time in years, Nokia might – might, mind you – finally have got the key to unlocking BlackBerry’s dominance of the enterprise phone segment. We can hear the cynics’ eyebrows rise up (yes, they go THAT high) at this claim. After all, the E series has had its share of winners – most notably the Communicator and last year’s E71 – and neither really dented the RIM stronghold. Why should the E72 be any different? Ah, read on:

Terrific e-mail:

Think “BlackBerry” and the first thing that comes to mind is “great e-mail on the move.” Well, difficult though it may be to believe, Nokia seems to have cracked that with the e-mail services on the E72. There is near seamless support for Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes and Nokia’s own Nokia Messaging, with the user needing to do little more than enter a username and password to get started in most cases. Nokia Messaging is handling HTML brilliantly now and still remains free, although Nokia is talking to a few operators. Heck, we need no more reasons to make this our mobile e-mail device of choice.

Zippy software:

Nokia has finally brought Symbian Series 60 (3rd edition) Feature Pack 2 to the E series and the result is an interface that fairly flies along. Yes, the icons may look similar, but things work a whole lot faster now. And that is welcome.

Great keypad and Navi key:

Those of us spoilt by the spacious keypads of the BlackBerry Bold and the Nokia E61i were pretty upset by the cramped keypad on the E71. The E72’s keypad seems the same size as the E71’s, but the keys are just a bit prouder, making them easier to use and ruling out mis-typing. And we love the D-pad that doubles up as a Navi key, letting us browse menus and scroll up and down by just running our fingers over it. A better solution than BlackBerry’s attempts in the same direction, we think – mainly because the scrolling space is restricted to the D-pad rather than being spread across a larger area. Oh, and the Navi key doubles as a one-touch auto focus  key for the shooter!

Super battery life:

Our proto unit required charging only once every two days in spite of our using it for browsing the net for a couple of hours every day, taking calls and letting push mail run on three different accounts. Honestly, we have not seen stuff like this since the days of the E90. We do not think RIM has any device with similar specs with this kind of battery life. Speaking of specs, the E72 has everything in terms of connectivity and processor speed, although we would have liked more onboard memory – 250 MB is so 2007!

Multimedia edge:

The purple haze of the E71 camera is nowhere in sight and the result is that the E72’s 5.0 megapixel camera is among the a best we have seen on an enterprise device. The video quality could have been better, and we would have liked a bigger display to see our results, but just having a good 5.0-megapixel shooter makes a huge difference, especially when it comes to snapping pics of pages and visiting cards. Sound is not on the same level as BlackBerry devices, but heck, when was the last time you bought an enterprise phone to listen to Lynyrd Skynyrd?!

App support:

For all of BlackBerry’s efforts, Symbian S60 has more third party apps. So if you are looking for something that has not come installed on the phone – mind you, it comes with a complete office suite and a visiting card scanner – scout around and it is a fair chance that you will find it on a web site. Mind you, Ovi Store still sucks!

It’s got the looks and the price:

The E72 sticks to the semi-metallic, slim look of the E71, making it one of the best-looking QWERTY devices we have ever seen. And its price is a killer – it retails for about US$ 485 approx in India (without any operator contracts), which is significantly lower than any of the high-end BlackBerry devices.

All said and done, we cannot see a better enterprise phone than this in the market at the time. Your play, RIM!

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Categories: Reviews, nokia, smartphones | Tags: blackberry, blackberry vs nokia, e72, e72 review india, nokia, nokia e72, nokia vs rim