Nokia E75 Review – Beyond Business

April 22nd, 2009 by Kunal

Nokia’s first E-series side slider would make you fall in love with it at the very first site (actually at the first slide). Talking about the Nokia e-series, the first thing that comes to our minds is business series phones. Of course with every new handset of E-Series, Nokia has taken care of the business users with better and advanced connectivity and communication options. Here, E75 is an exception. This time Nokia had the enterprise and entertainment both on their mind while designing the E75. Here we have the detailed review of the latest in the e-series.

Nokia E75 Unboxed

Unboxing the E75 is hardly an experience. The E75 comes with a charger, the handsfree, USB cable and the manuals and other paperwork. Not to forget, it comes with a 4GB microSD card. One thing that is really felt missing is the leather carrying case like the one that ships with the Nokia E71 / E90 (specially when it is priced so steeply).

Design

The Nokia E75 looks just like another bar phone from the outside (an E51 with a QWERTY?). The same applies to the front keypad. But once you slide out the QWERTY keyboard, you see the real business hidden inside. The E75 turns itself into a new avatar every time you slide open it. The back of the E75 looks very royal with the steel finish and the perfect curves.

The Nokia E75 weighs 139 grams with 111.8 x 50 x 14.4 mm while closed. The QWERTY keyboard adds another 30 mm to the width when slid out.

The microSD and the USB cable slots are on the left of E75. On the right are the volume control keys with the camera and the voice command key. The charging point enjoys its space at the bottom.

The Keypad

Talking about the keypad we have to talk about two pads, the front keypad and the slideout QWERTY keyboard. And honestly we will be talking here about the good and the bad. Let’s start with the bad or the front keypad.

The plastic keys are really not a match with the costly phone. The keypad looks way too dull for the successor of E71. The keys are placed evenly though and is comfortable. Another problem is the keys sharing their space with the D-pad just below the screen. There are 8 such keys in all including the regular foursome call, end and two soft keys. The end and the profile (or shutdown) keys have been combined together like most of the traditional Nokia handsets. I personally find it comfortable to have separate shutdown and the end key so that i don’t end up shutting down my phone each time I press the end button a bit longer.

The other four keys are the home, edit or backspace and the messaging and calendar short-keys. The two short-keys can be personalised to any other functions (two each, one responding to a short press and the other to a long press). The real problem here is that the eight keys around the D-pad are mounted on only four plastic keys, each two sharing one key. So, it would take some practice to end up pressing the key instead of pressing its partner key. The D-pad is quite comfortable and has a LED at the center to indicate missed call or new message/mail.

Now about the good part, the QWERTY keyboard. The slide is pretty smooth and the QWERTY keyboard of E75 says that i mean business. The keys are well organised in the compact space in a rectangular fashion. The small keyboard is quite comfortable to use even after its small size. The white alphabets and the blue special characters contrast well with the black keys which contrast with the silver base. The vertical chrome strip at the center adds up to the looks of the QWERTY keyboard. Overall, the keyboard is awesome.

Display

The display screen quality is unmatched. Nokia has always been a leader with the best displays and with E75 it just gets better. The screen is bright enough to sooth your eyes in dark as well as in the bright sunlight. The screen doesn’t  fade-off on a sunny afternoon.
2.4” may be a bit small for a few people out there. We too feel that a larger screen would have been better. But E75’s interface would never let you miss a larger screen. 2.4” display is the price for the compactness of E75.

Phonebook

The phone book has all the features that are expected in the e-series. No new features have been added though.
Every contact can have variety of entries like mobile number, home number, office number, e-mail, website, the list is endless. These entries can be repeated as many number of times as required by the user. You can also add some new entries if required. Ringtones, photo or video can also be linked to a contact. And of course, the contacts can be grouped together and assigned group logos and ringtones. Overall, the phonebook says business, business and more business. And the contact search is easy, search by the number or by the name.

Calling and Messaging

The sound quality is satisfactory and there is no issue in the calling feature. The phone also features the E71 contact display while calling. Just type the corresponding keys and the phone displays the contacts with that name (first and last). There is no need to go to the phonebook every time you need to call someone.

Calling someone or messaging, you would always want to slide out the QWERTY keyboard. SMSing with the keyboard is like a smooth ride on the expressway. The messaging is divided into three parts SMS and MMS; audio and e-mail. SMSing is very user friendly like the one in E71. The phone indicates the number of SMSs your message would be divided into while typing. MMS is integrated with the SMS mode. Audio messaging is simple record and send via MMS.

The e-mail is the key feature of E75. E75 has nokia’s new e-mail client featured in the MWC ’09. The mail folders can now be searched and grouped by whatever criteria the user wants to. IBM Lotus Notes Traveller Microsoft Exchange, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail and other e-mail standards are integrated with the new e-mail client. And linking your mail with the E75 is as easy as it can get. Just give the phone your username and password and it takes care of downloading all the supports required to run the e-mail service on your phone.

Music and Video

The music is best amongst all the e-series. Nokia has tried to bring some music in the business life. The playlist can be arranged according to artist, album, genre, composer etc. You can upgrade your music via Bluetooth, USB, card reader or direct download. The supported formats are MP3, AAC, eAAC+ and WMA and others. And it has support for A2DP Bluetooth profile.

E75 uses the real player for video which can be viewed in portrait or landscape mode. Real player supports MP4 and full screen video play. But, you would need to download another player for DivX and XviD videos.

Camera

E75 has a 3.2 megapixel camera, the output is OK. The quality is not par with the Carl Zeiss lens available in  the N series phones. But at least its better than the one in E71. The image gallery is fairly decent. (here are some sample shots taken from E75 @ daily mobile)

Web browsing and Connectivity

Talking about the Nokia e-series, the connectivity and web browser has to be good. Bluetooth 2.0 , USB 2.0, WiFi and 3G with HSDPA support for excellent speeds of data transfer. Connectivity options in E75 are the best in the mobile industry.

The web browser also performs more than satisfactory. The web pages look more or less the same on the small screen as on the computer screen. The zoom option and virtual mouse pointer are user friendly. A larger screen would have made the browser more attractive.

Other Features / Highlights

The E75 also features an FM radio. The audio quality is better than its earlier version the E71. The search option has been improved with the option to search your e-mail inboxes apart from searching files on your phone or the internet.

The accelerometer is a definite improvement from E71. You can now flip your mobile or tap on the screen to silent incoming calls and snooze your alarms. The accelerometer is off by default, you need to turn it on to use it. Timed profiles is the feature people were missing in the E series that has been added to E 75.  The business applications include calendar, a PDF reader, QuickOffice, unit converter, voice recorder, calculator, ActiveNotes and the alarm clock. Plus lots of other S60 applications that can be easily downloaded from the internet.

The GPS navigation is very good with a 3 month free voice-guided navigation subscription.

Conclusion

Before we come to the final words, let’s check out the prize first. The mobile looks quite heavily priced for now. It costs approx $590 in US; £399 in UK and Rs.29,000 in India.

The Nokia E75 is the best amongst all the handsets in the E-series. If anyone is looking for a business smartphone with S60 platform then E75 is the best choice available in the mobile market. Blackberry / Palm users would still prefer to stick to something like E71 instead of the E75, the sideways slideout in G1 Android and E75 isn’t something that would appeal to all, for handling becomes difficult. If you are ok with the pricing and the QWERTY – Go for it!

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Categories: Reviews, nokia | Tags: e 75 reviews, e75, e75 review, nokia, Nokia E75, nokia e75 review, nokia india e75 review, price of nokia e75 in india