Full Nokia In-Depth Nokia E75 Review

About

The Nokia E75 was released earlier this year and has since become one of the best nokia smart phones ever. The phone is part of Nokia’s E series which is aimed and businessmen/women. The phone is available in a classy black and silver combination which I have here but it also comes in 2 other colours. We were lucky enough to obtain a review unit of the device and today we’re are going to give you our impressions on the device, starting off with an overview of the hardware and a tour of the product…

Hardware overview and product tour

At first sight, the E75 looks like a conventional “candybar” style phone. The weight of the handset is 139g and the thickness is just 14mm which is pretty thin when you consider the phones special feature (more on that, later) . At the top of the device, you have a light sensor, the earpiece speaker which is very clear when making/receiving calls, and you also have a VGA Front-Facing camera for video calls which are pretty good quality and the camera serves its purpose well.

The E75 has a 2.4” 16 million colour, QVGA screen which produces very good clarity (even in direct sunlight). Some may argue the screen is a little on the small side but we disagree and feel it’s just about right for the size of the phone. At the bottom of the screen you have the Dpad, Shortcut keys, selection keys, call keys and alphanumeric keys. On the left of the Dpad you have your Left Selection Key, Menu (Home) key, Green Call Button and Calendar Shortcut key. On the Right, there’s a Right Selection Key, Delete Key, Red Call-End (and power on/off) key, and your Messaging/Email Shortcut key. Each Alphanumeric has its own level as it were, so the chances of pressing another button by mistake are reduced.

At the top of the device, you will find a 3.5mm headphone jack which is welcomed surprise and it means that you don’t have to use the mediocre headset provided and can therefore use your own, headphones or earphones. At the bottom, there is the port for charging the device via mains plug charger. A micro USB port and memory card slot can be found on the left. A 4GIG Micro SDHC card comes as standard with the phone and there is 50mb of internal memory. A chrome bezel covers the outer-edge and gives the handset a touch of sophistication. On the right-hand side, volume up/down buttons can be found as well as a dedicated camera shortcut button. Another nice little feature of the device is voice control which slows you to access features and applications.

The back of the handset consists of a plastic housing and also a metal back panel which is branded with the nokia series logo. In the top right, you will find the 3.2 megapixel camera. The camera has LED flash, Autofocus and 8X digital zoom. Both stills and videos taken by the camera are of decent quality. In the top-left-hand side, is the E75’s Steel Mesh Loudspeaker Grill? The sound quality produced by the speaker is very decent and whether you use it for the loudspeakers feature itself or even for listening to music, you will be more than impressed with it. The metal back panel I mentioned earlier can be removed by using this clasp. After removing the panel, you will be faced with the 1000MAH battery which can last for up to 3 days and also the SIM card slot.

So If you’re familiar with the E75 then you’ll know that up until know, I haven’t mentioned the biggest feature, but that’s because I wanted to save the best till last. If you turn the phone to landscape, and slide the screen upwards, a full QWERTY keyboard is revealed. Doing this will allow the phones accelerometer to kick in. The slide-out keyboard gives the phone, the WOW factor. The key’s are very close together and you may find yourself pressing the wrong button from time to time but you’ll soon get used to it. The tactile feedback of the keyboard is good, and there is a reassuring click from every button. Your typing speed will increase the more you use it and this feature is ideal for writing e-mails, texting or even browsing the web. In some ways, I prefer typing on a keyboard like this as opposed to a touch screen on an iPhone/ipod touch…

Software & Internal Features

The E75 is one of the first Eseries to be powered by S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 2, which has been used on Nseries smart phones for a while now. The homepage shows the number of new emails, calendar entries, wifi connections and also a range of shortcuts. When you press menu, you are faced with the classic nokia menu screen. On here you will find the standard applications such as calendar and contacts.

The office folder consists of applications such as adobe PDF and quick office which are ideal if you’re going to use this as your business handset. E-mailing on this device is excellent. Accounts are very easy to set up via the step-by-step wizards and writing out and e-mail is made even easier thanks to the slide-out QWERTY keyboard.

Being a nokia device, the E75 will give you full access to the OVI store which will allow you to download apps, games, music and more! The OVI store itself has some pretty good content but it can be abit difficult to navigate around the store. It has a long way to go before it’s up there with the App Store but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s bad. The france24 app is already on the device and will allow you to keep up to date with news from all over the world.

The Symbian S60 is certainly not the best phone OS around but it’s certainly not the worst…

Conclusion

The Nokia E75 is definitely one of the best smart phones out there. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard gives it a sense of individuality. The built in GPS system, excellent e-mail/web access and the versatility of the OVI store definitely make this phone a must buy. If you’re not a big fan of the iPhone, blackberry or palm pre and want to stick with Nokia user interface that you know and love, then I highly recommend taking a look and this great device…